The ‘black spot’ on the Crimea: venereal diseases in the Black Sea fleet in the 1920s
Journal: Social History
Year: 2017

This article examines how high command in the Soviet Red Navy responded to reportedly high levels of venereal diseases in the Black Sea fleet in the mid-1920s. Illness in the fleet posed a threat to national security, especially during the first unstable decade of the Soviet Union’s existence. Naval command and the municipal authorities of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Crimean ASSR) targeted three main points for reform: the source of infection, those who became infected, and