Anti-cosmopolitan campaign

The anti-cosmopolitan campaign (Russian: Борьба с космополитизмом, lit. 'The fight against cosmopolitanism', Bor'ba s kosmopolitizmom) was an anti-Western campaign in the Soviet Union which began in late 1946.

The campaign was a part of the Soviet government's implementation of the Zhdanov doctrine, particularly against cosmopolitan ideas in artistic and intellectual media. Part of Zhdanovism was a campaign against cosmopolitanism, which meant that foreign models were not to be unthinkingly emulated, and Soviet accomplishments were emphasized. Increased government censorship resulted in the persecution of creatives (including poets, writers, composers, theater critics) and the intelligentsia. Famous 'cosmopolitans' included poet Anna Akhmatova, satirist Mikhail Zoshchenko, composer Dimitri Shostakovich.

It has been widely described as a thinly disguised antisemitic purge. A large number of Jews were persecuted as Zionists or rootless cosmopolitans.