This article is devoted to the emergence, development and liquidation of organizations and units of social hygiene in Soviet Russia in 1918–1934, as well as the analysis of this process in the international context. The first social-hygienic institution in the country was the State Museum of Social Hygiene of the People's Commissariat of Health of the Soviet Russia. The first department of social hygiene was organized only in 1922 in the 1st Moscow State University. By the end of the 1920s

more »

... were already 18 such departments. In 1929, the country entered a new period of collectivization of agriculture and industrialization of industry. In the early 1930s all social hygiene institutes in the Soviet Russia were gradually liquidated. The institutionalization of social hygiene in Russia began a decade later than in Europe. In our opinion, social hygiene in Russia in the early years of Soviet power was primarily a tool for legitimizing the power of the Bolsheviks and the communist ideology. Identifying of and combating with the social causes of diseases, on the one hand, was in line with the spirit of communism, and on the other, it had a significant share of populism. Thus, the institutionalization of social hygiene was initiated from above not only for the academic medical community, but also for the People's Commissariat of Health. The political situation in this project prevailed over the scientific and educational agenda.