Within the framework of the II International St. Petersburg Historical Forum, on October 11-12, 2022, the All-Russian Scientific Conference with international participation “USSR in the 1970s: results of development and prospects (on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the Constitution of the USSR of 1977)” was held, organized by St. Petersburg Institute history of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg and the scientific seminar “History of the Soviet era” (SPbIH RAS).
The conference aimed to discuss the following subjects:
– The social system of the USSR: politics, economics, social development and culture
– Foreign policy of the USSR
– State and personality: rights and obligations. Justice in the USSR
– The national-state structure of the Soviet Union
– Higher and local authorities and administrations
– The role of the CPSU in the Soviet Union in the 1970s.
– Soviet symbols and rituals.
24 participants spoke at the conference, including historians from Belarus (Minsk) and different cities of Russia (Arkhangelsk, Moscow, Petrozavodsk, St. Petersburg, Simferopol, Tyumen, Chelyabinsk).
In the reports and in the course of their discussion, the problems of the political and economic life of the Soviet state in the 1970s, the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, interethnic relations and social policy in the context of the USSR in the 1970s were raised.
Close attention was paid to the urgent reasons for changing the Constitution of the USSR of 1936, various aspects of foreign policy and the economic realities of the 1970s, which caused changes in the behavior of political elites and the rhetoric of public speeches. Numerous questions were raised by reports on the budgetary policy of the Soviet Union, the foreign trade of the USSR, and campaigns to streamline the use of official cars. A lively discussion unfolded around the concepts of “Soviet people”, “Soviet people”, “Soviet people”.