Art and culture in the soviet union

Aims of Soviet regime in art

To use propaganda to move away from the art of the bourgeoise

Commissariat of enlightenment created

Lenin years change. Headed by Anatoly Lunacharsky it controlled art and culture in the early years that allowed a degree of expression and avant garde that never seen before or since.

Fellow travellers

The term coined for artists that were allowed to work uncensored under the early Lenin years government as long as they complied with being pro-government

Lenin’s view on art and culture

Lenin years change. He said good culture was universal and resented much of the new art that was labelled revolutionary. He planned to focus on culture but the civil war was too much of a drain on resources.

Effectiveness of Lenin’s changes

The artists enjoyed the freedom and it encouraged them to work with the new regime. However, a large portion of Bolsheviks disliked his view and preferred the view of everything should reflect the revolution.

Proletkult

A revolutionary culture of artistic rejuvenation and reenactments of key events in the revolution. This was a much more political artistic culture. Lenin hated it and later shut it down.

ALexander Bogdanov

A key thinker in the early avant garde movement who produced posters in this style. He argued that new technology at the time like film should be used to promote proletkult.

Futurism and constructivism

Another early revolutionary art form based on advancing this new nation into the future. The Tambov tower proposal and Moscow radio tower examples of this.

Agitprop

Lenin years change. The commissariat for agitation and propaganda used posters and art to get the people onside with their new plans for the revolution.

Examples of new art in Lenin years

Painter- El Lissitzky Architecture - Tatlin Poster art - Mayakosky and Rodchenko Film - Eisenstein

Art under NEP

Greater controls of art appeared. Artists were arrested by OGPU for criticizing the government and a crackdown on American culture led to flappers and jazz bands also being arrested.

Stalin’s cultural revolution 1928-32

To sweep away bourgeois artists of old and introduce socialist ideas. The Russian Association of Writers (RAPP) was started to control publications and Komsomol members attacked artists.

Stalin’s view of art

‘Artists are engineers of the human soul’

Socialist Realism

The Stalinist art style he forced artists to comply with. It projected utopian images of what society would look like following the completion of the socialist revolution.

Stalin’s approach to art and culture

Most forms of art became methods or propaganda such as the film Alexander Nevsky by Eisenstein. Artistic experimentation ended and architectural change was halted with all buildings being designed in the preferred style of Stalin. Literature was heavily censored and the saxophone was banned.

Culture during second world war

These strict controls were relaxed to boost morale and forward thinking poets were allowed to give public readings again. However, the majority of art continued to be used as a mechanism of propaganda.

Zhandovschina

Leningrad party boss carried out a campaign to tackle all elements of ‘Bourgeoise’ culture leading to further crack downs on expression and many arrests.

Union of Soviet writers

Replaced the RAPP in 1932 and marked the end of the cultural revolution in the Soviet union.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Russian intellectual and author who’s work had been banned under Stalin. His works were allowed to be published by Khrushchev which acts as evidence of the thaw only as far as it fitting K’s Destalinization narrative perfectly.

Khrushchev’s cultural thaws

These government planned relaxations of cultural restrictions were to act as evidence of destalinization. Various forms of expression previously extinct reappeared such as jazz and impressionism, but all of them required government action to end as criticism went too far.

World of youth festival 1957

In the utopian mind of the government the westerners would be overjoyed by Soviet culture. Instead soviets loved western culture and Komsomol members were sent in to disrupt the cultural exchange and attack Soviets sleeping with foreigners.

Stilyagi

Name given to women judged to be too western and promiscuous. Khrushchev tasked Komsomol members with attacking them by cutting their hair or burning their clothes.

Dr Zhivago

A book that was censored under K as it was critical of Lenin which still was not allowed. This made clear just how selfish the motivations for the thaws were and the risk of letting people criticize the foundation of the state.

Samizdat

Self-published works produced by anti-Soviet writers. Also included the circulation of imported copies of banned books like Dr Zhivago. This extended into Brezhnev’s time and beyond only getting stronger as time went on.

Writer released under Brezhnev

In and around the years of the Helsinki accords pressure mounted to release artists and writers that had been imprisoned under previous regimes. The new preferred initiative was to harass them until they emigrated.

Western films entered the union

As trade increased with the west films began to enter legally, but restrictions remained in place on some. However, the growing black market subverted these regulations.

Underground art movements

Through the Brezhnev years a huge number of artistic dissidence against repression and control appeared. It became impossible to shut all of these shows down and these movements continued despite Brezhnev’s personal conservatism.

‘Fashion hunters’ won in the face of control

Between 1964 and 1970 consumer spending on clothing tripled and by 1985 450 western magazines were available on the black market. The black market was out of control and lack of control was widespread. Consumerism had taken over only undermining ideological socialism further.

Internet and digital media begins to appear

The government was populated by geriatrics making it impossible to keep up with reality in the modern times. They were inept to control new technology and a new avenue of unfiltered dissidence sprung up.

10,000 dissidents in the Union

In spite all of the tactics employed by the KGB including psychological terror and deportation, numbers only grew and the era of killing at will that had protected the horrendous government was over.