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Пагуошская конференция 1960 года в Москве в контексте культурной дипломатии Советского Союза
This article examines the Sixth Pugwash Conference as an instrument of Soviet cultural diplomacy. In this study, the author explores the processes of preparation and representation of the Pugwash Conference in the USSR, referring to office documents and materials of the Soviet press. In 1960, the Conference of the International Scientific Association of Supporters of the Ideas of Disarmament and Peace Consolidation was held for the first time on the territory of the USSR. The host country regarded it as a means of exerting influence on the global community through the efforts of “big science”. Foreign scientists who attended the conference and many of whom were regarded as opinion leaders in their respective countries, had the opportunity to personally observe the Soviet Union’s peaceful intentions. They could subsequently convey this observation to the international community. Soviet scientists were actively involved in the Pugwash movement from its inception in the mid‑1950s. They were responsible for representing the USSR’s position during Continuing Committee meetings and international conferences. Concurrently, those scientists were subject to oversight from the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Communist Party. Moscow was not an exception: at the conference itself, the Soviet delegation promoted theses that fully corresponded to the previously received party guidelines, such as general and complete disarmament and the cessation of nuclear tests. The work of the Sixth Pugwash Conference received modest coverage in the central Soviet press. It mainly covered the arrival in the Soviet Union of the American industrialist C. Eaton and Pugwash’s approval of Soviet space victories. In conclusion, the 1960 Pugwash Conference in Moscow became an important event within the framework of Soviet cultural diplomacy. The fact that an international scientific symposium was held in the Soviet Union testified to the recognition by the country’s political leadership of the concept of “big science” and the promotion of its achievements abroad. The organisation and holding of the conference became a vivid example of how the Soviet government tried to use scientists as agents to improve the country’s image in the international arena.