Conscripting Civilians

Drawing on archival research, this book explores communist travel administration systems as a foreign policy tool, arguing that travellers became the regime’s eyes, ears and voice in the West.

Why did communist states build elaborate procedures to control who could travel to the West? This open access book argues that travel administration was designed not merely for surveillance, but as an instrument of political warfare, broadly conceived.
Under classified travel regulations, even routine travel by state-sector employees served broader foreign-policy goals. All travelers were to be covertly vetted for political reliability, individually instructed to represent the state, and debriefed upon their return.
Conscripting Civilians argues that travel administration effectively conscripted academics, doctors, engineers, and other professionals into the Cold War struggle over narratives, sympathies, and political identities. Examples from East German university contacts with Sweden illustrate how this broader system operated in practice.
Drawing on state and Stasi records, the book maps the architecture of state-sector travel administration, showing that the system constituted a distinct and largely hidden form of state capacity. Designed not only to defend the socialist state but also to influence the West, it shaped the conditions for transnational dialogue and enlisted travelers to advance state objectives within international organizations, professional associations, and Western societies.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.