Not all battles are fought in the traditional sense. The invention and usage of atomic warfare fundamentally changed the landscape of how wars were thought about, especially during the Cold War. Moreover, in order for the United States to win over the rest of the world against the U.S.S.R., the American cultural front, including new commercial splendors and innovations were put out on display as a bi-polar war strategy. Greg Castillo, author of Cold War on the Home Front: The Soft Power of Midcentury Design argues that the influence of American-made goods stood for the ideology of capitalism. Capitalism, within this argument was the dynamic way in opposing the Soviet Union and promoting consumerism as well as the exciting possibilities of public markets. Castillo’s argument is effective in showcasing the vastly different social structures of the United States and the Soviet Union via propaganda, even down to the home, the appliances in the home, and the architectural foundations for which the ideologies stood. All of these products, consequently, played an integral role in shaping the Cold War.
For the State Department, it was imperative that the public be made aware of the possibilities of consumerism. Postwar, the opening of the American markets to stimulate the economy became a prominent facet of the Eisenhower administration. Thus, this initial push towards protecting the domestic sphere was performed by American citizens for the preservation of American ideals and the American ‘way of life.’ Castillo describes the approaches in bringing the American cultural front to various parts of the world, especially to Europe, where West Germany played such an important role, as the perceived location for the potential World War Three would be played out here. However, modernism was favored by the Americans, as “the main attraction at We’re Building a Better Life, which opened in September 1952, was a single-family dwelling—two bedrooms, a living-dining room, bath, kitchen, laundry/home workshop, nursery, garden—realized down to its kitchen gadgets and garden tools but build without a roof. All six thousand products in and around the house were modern in design and manufactured in a Marshall Plan member nation.” (67) Products like the refrigerator, at these conventions and conferences were successfully propagandized to the West German audiences and beyond.
Castillo additionally offers an in-depth look at the cultural front from various perspectives, including from the opposing Soviet dimension, as well as the intertwined issue of gender. While the American woman was portrayed as a housewife, the Soviet woman was portrayed additionally as a worker. Social realism encompassed Soviet life, from art, music, literature, and to the home: “The triumph of socialist realism in East Germany was of more than just local interest. Jut as in Marshall Plan Europe, adoption of a new postwar style was to be a catalyst for international trade.” (105) Castillo’s chapter titled, “The Trojan Horse Goes East,” addresses the undeniable fascination and interest in western consumer goods. For instance, the supermarket, as described by Castillo, was “a soft-power success story, advancing American prestige in ways that could be leveraged by local elites to benefit themselves…Supermarket USA continued the project…first throughout Western Europe, and finally to the socialist world…” (143-4) Castillo reiterates the efforts made by the United States in sponsoring the cultural front as an agenda that produced a physical space for combating communism and from the 1950s until the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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