The Image of the American Big Business in the Soviet Union: A Study of the Periodical Press (1920s–1930s)

The American tycoons traditionally had a bad reputation in the USSR as the enemies of Soviet communist system. Unsurprisingly they were regularly portrayed as greedy, hypocritical and self-serving in the studies of Marxist historians while modern researchers’ conclusions about the role that big business played in the world history remain uncertain. This paper demonstrates how the Soviet press described American big business during the first half of 20th century. Analysis centres on the situations when entrepreneurs instead of being called the embodiment of evil abruptly turned out to be “allies of science and progress” in journalistic articles. It is suggested that the image of tycoons has been changed in line with the current political situation, thus there is an evident gap between big business of propaganda myth and the image of big business in historical sources.