VOKS

VOKS was frequently criticized by Western government officials, public intellectuals, and the press for functioning as a de facto communist propaganda organization.

Planning for the organization seems to have begun in May 1925, with a formal constitution for the society approved by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars dated 8 August.

[2] VOKS also maintained a Press Department, which published an organ called the Weekly News Bulletin in Russian, English, French, and German.

[6] A key aspect of VOKS was its ability to put forward articulate intellectuals to defend the Russian revolution and the Soviet system in an international setting.

VOKS sponsored artistic exhibitions, cultural exchanges, concerts, tours, lectures, and sporting events which helped to cast the USSR in a positive and humane light.

[5] The successes and prestige of VOKS abroad seem to have additionally had a positive impact on shaping the attitudes of the Soviet intelligentsia during the 1920s, building support among the sometimes feisty artistic community for the new regime.

[7]The leading figure in VOKS from the time of its establishment until 1930 was Olga Kameneva, the sister of prominent Bolshevik Leon Trotsky and wife of Soviet leader Lev Kamenev.

[4] In 1934 Petrov was replaced as head of VOKS by Alekander Arosev, a writer and former Ambassador to Czechoslovakia who was a longtime acquaintance of Joseph Stalin's right-hand man, V.M.

Viktor Smirnov would be followed by just three other chairs of VOKS and its successor organization during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, and the first half of the 1970s — Vladimir Kemenov (1940 to 1948), Andrei Denisov (1948 to 1957), and Nina Popova (1957 to 1975).

"[7] Known as the SCR, the Society for Cultural Relations between the Peoples of the British Commonwealth and the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics was founded in London in 1924 by leading intellectuals of the time.

To collect and diffuse information in both countries on developments in Science, Education, Philosophy, Art, Literature, and Social and Economic Life.

A. Ivanov, J. M. Keynes, Prof. A. N. Kriloff, Dr. V. P. Lebedeff, Dr. Albert Mansbridge, N. M. Minsky, Prof. M. N. Pokrovsky, Prof. W. A. Stekloff, H. G. Wells, Mrs. Virginia Woolf, Prof. O. J. Schmidt EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: Chairman: Miss Llewelyn Davies.

The website is: http://www.scrss.org.uk/index.htm The American Society for Cultural Relations with Russia was established 1926 and organized in 1927, with offices at 49 East 25th Street, New York, NY.

Logo of the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, prominently featuring the acronym VOKS in both Cyrillic and Latin characters.
Olga Davidovna Kameneva , sister of Leon Trotsky , was the first chief of VOKS, holding the post of chair ( predsedatel) from 1925 until 1930.
As part of its propaganda efforts, VOKS published a Weekly News Bulletin in Russian, English, German, and French which featured stories about the positive achievements of Soviet medicine, literature, art, and science.