Authors

Discussion

After years of disinformation in which Soviet media painted AIDS as a disease that thrived in conditions “alien to socialism”, by the late 1980s, narratives had started to shift. Though many organs continued to advance homophobic and xenophobic narratives, an increasing openness to international cooperation, coupled with grudging acceptance that AIDS was a threat to Soviet health, subtly changed media coverage. The fight against AIDS now became an international project in which Soviet scientists and doctors had an important role to play. This paper examines the attempts of Meditsinskaia gazeta [Medical Gazette], the official organ of the Soviet Ministry of Health, to recast AIDS as an international threat and to position Soviet medical personnel as internationalists at the cutting edge of the fight against the disease. In doing so, the paper will broaden scholarly understanding of the transnational connections created by campaigns against HIV-AIDS, while offering a clearer picture of the changing face of Soviet internationalism during Perestroika.