History A-level Edexcel - Russia 1917-1991: from Lenin to Yeltsin - Theme 3:3c

Arts and Popular Culture (Lenin)

- bolshevik party divided over importance and direction of cultural policy

- Lenin liked classical Russian culture

- created Commissariat of Enlightenment (1917)

Commissariat of Enlightenment (1917)

- ministry of culture to support and encourage artists

- welcomed by artists as replaced restrictions and censorship

- Lenin accommodated artists who were communist sympathisers

- Anatoly Lunacharsky head

Proletkult (1917-20)

- promoted by Alexander Bogdanov and Anatoly Lunacharsky

- 'proletarian culture' - art made by working people reflecting experiences of working people

- emphasised collective of workers

- Smithy magazine established - machine and factory poems

- festivals to develop new culture

- parades through Red Square

- proletkult direct challenge to high culture

- independent organisation so free of party control

Dissolution of Proletkult

- Lenin suspicious as believed Proletkult dominated by opposition socialists and believed working people needed basic education rather than artistic opportunities

- Lenin sent representatives to National Congress of Proletkult(Oct 1920)

- Congress voted and voluntarily merged with Commissariat of Education

- independent dissenting artists criticised by press.

- government funds diverted to traditional arts

Lenin's beliefs on culture

- critical of proletkult

- argued best culture was universal not proleterian

- thought people should learn from best of bourgeois culture

- against futurism

Agitprop

- along with Glavpolitprosvet, organised propaganda to support government

- often avant garde

- Example: - 'Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge' (1918)

Avant-garde

- result of WW1, sweeping old world away

- traditional assumptions challenged

- influenced by modernism and futurism

- Bolshevik regime acquired V. Mayakovsky who produced slogans+posters for gov

- literacy rates low so visual art focused on

- theatre affected by movement as V. Meyerhold produced 'Mystery Bouffe'(1918) but confusing

- cinema impacted by Sergei Einstein but sometimes too sophisticated

- 'Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge' (1918)

- Alexander Rodchenko famous photographer

Art under NEP

- creative freedom but party asserted more artistic control as 1920s went on

- 1918-20, senior officials preoccupied with Civil War so loose artistic control (Proletkult and avant-guard artists flourished)

- as Civil War ended, artistic control tightened

- by the end of the 1920s, party controlled art

- workers+peasants couldn't understand avant-garde art

- artists forced to change style and artistic institutions attacked/ closed

- gov critical of American fashion+music influence on youth

- new group of traditional artists emerged

Cultural Revolution

- part of attempt to sweep away old bourgeois elements within society

- assault on traditional writers and artists

- 'Fellow travellers' tolerated under Lenin removed and replaced by socialist artists

- suspected theatre productions disrupted

- RAPP attacked Fellow Travellers and condemned writers individualism

- RAPP preferred works stressing workers' achievement - cult of the 'little man'

- 'boy meets girl meets tractor' theme used in FYP e.g. Worker and Kolkholz woman statue - 1932, party announced RAPP would be closed and replaced by new Union of Soviet Writers to end cultural revolution

Socialist Realism movement (1930-53)

- art presenting idealised images of socialist life to inspire population towards achievement and socialism

- used to convince population that 'life has become more joyous' (1935) was true

- union of soviet writers policed movement

- some quality of work declined e.g. Mikhail Zoshchenko

- some refused to work under restrictions and emigrated

Socialist realism - art

- no experimentation with form, avant-garde rejected

- projected ideal images of life under FYP

- celebrated collectivisation

- Stalin told artists to make it clear who was responsible for achievements of socialism --> cult of personality

- artists set targets for no. of paintings/sculptures

Socialist realism - literature

- change of emphasis away from cult of 'little man' to party heroes

- 1930s plot of novels was a hero who is guided by party to greater things

- cheap and available 'lowbrow' literature concerned with heroes from Russian history, war stories, detective novels

- party controlled what was published and by whom

Socialist realism - music

- 1953, Stalin walked out of opera performance(politically correct adultery story) due to discordant notes

- military songs favoured over jazz

- nationalistic music

- saxophones banned in 1940s

Socialist realism - architecture

- promoted 'Stalinist baroque' ('wedding cake') architecture, making use of classical lines e.g. Moscow university rebuilt after 1945 in this style

Socialist realism - film

- revolution achievements conveyed through films e.g. Einstein October (1927) which presented revolution as a mass movement but more died in making of the film in the actual events themselves

- during WW2, cinema used to promote patriotism in defence of Mother Russia and socialism e.g. Alexander Nevsky

Culture during Stalin's final years

- after WW2, gov allowed artists and writers greater freedom, unorthodox poetry readings in Moscow in 1946

- but freedom dispelled as western culture condemned in Zhdanovschina

- 1946 - campaign to remove bourgeois culture from west

Clashes with artists under Stalin

- some celebrated Lenin's achievements over Stalin e.g. Dziga Vertov film

Culture under Khrushchev

- went through 'thaws' and 'freezes

- wanted to form alliance between party and creative intellectuals

Culture under Khrushchev - the 'thaws'

- artists and writers given greater hope of free expression

- banned works under Stalin allowed to be published e.g. Isaac Babel depicted war and jewish life

- younger poets allowed to publish experimental poetry collections

- book by Solzhenitsyn published recounting gulag experience

- new themes explored (spirituality, adultery, divorce)

- 'low brow' literature used to criticise Stalin

- World Youth Festival in Moscow (1957)

- soviet youth became influenced by West music

- western fashion influences

- 1955 - western music broadcast into USSR from Voice of America

- guitar-poet addressed individual feelings, tape recorder spread their work

Culture under Khrushchev - challenging non-conformity

- propaganda changed to make fun of soviet people e.g. the alcoholic(1959), the lazy bureacrat (1961) - encouraged popular oversight

- posters recognised farm and factory inefficiencies

Culture under Khrushchev - challenging womens' non-conformity

-stilyaga campaign launched against women who adopted western fashion/consumerism

- government worried about sexual promiscuity, soviet womens' relations with foreign men

- party members sent to World Youth Festival to shave women's heads who were found having relations with foreign men

- rising teen pregnancies, abortion rates

- consumer goods production planned to constrain womens' choice

- gov tried to restrict access to American National Exhibition (1959) showing beauty salon and fashion show

Clashes with artists under Khrushchev

- Boris Pasternak over his novel Dr Zhivago containing criticisms of revolution so Khrushchev banned book from being published but smuggled abroad and published in 1957 in Italy and received Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 (Khrushchev refused to let him travel to Sweden)

- abstract art - Khrushchev angered in visit to Kremlin to view art collection in 1962 and so he denounced abstract art

- Komosol groups employed to patrol streets and report misbehaviour

- 1961 - gov held conference to decide on permissible dance moves

Culture under Brezhnev (nonconformity continued)

- narrowed boundaries of what was acceptable after Khrushchev's cultural thaw

- nostalgic art

- more certainty over what was permissible

- official culture focused on propaganda and socialist achievement

- by 1970s, culture had become conservative

- derevenshchiki school of village prose highlight simple rural life values

- Russian nationalism encouraged but often writers became alienated

- soviet youth still drawn to western culture e.g. Vladimir Vysotsky popular guitar-poet

Clashes with artists under Brezhnev - Joseph Brodsky (1964) trial

- poet whose works read aloud at secret gatherings so arrested

- not licensed under Writers' Union

- case used to send message to artists who wished to work independently of state

- sentenced to 5 years of hard labour in prison

- fellow writers at home and abroad campaigned for his release and it was granted after 2 years and expelled from SU

Clashes with artists under Brezhnev - Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel (1966) trial

- these writers arrested in 1965

- had written short novels depicting SU life as harsh under pseudonyms but uncovered

- arrested and allegations against them based on actual content of work

- 200 students demonstrated, 63 intellectuals issued open letter of support, 200 letters sent to 23rd party congress asking for case to be reviewed

- 10 Feb 1966 - Sinyavsky sentenced to 7 years in labour camp and Daniel sentenced to 5

Clashes with artists under Brezhnev - control and further clampdowns

- state subsidies and radio+venue access ensured

- awards+privileges to artists+writers who served state interests

- employment withdrawn from troublemakers

- officials spoke to artists/writers who had strayed

- Solzhenitsyn expelled from Writers' Union in 1969 and from SU in 1974

- 1970 - art director sentenced to 8 years in prison for displaying dissidents' art

- Sep 1974 - unofficial artists put on open-air exhibition of own work - propaganda campaign launched, bulldozers brought in to destroy exhibition

- restricted radio time for foreign songs

Art and culture under Andropov

- harassed dissident artists

- vetted rock groups and restricted output of non-soviet songs

- partially tolerated underground art

Comparing cultural restrictions

- culture under Lenin expected to serve political/social/economic objectives of regime, under Stalin, art expected to conform to socialist realism, Khrushchev expected artists to toe-the-line, Brezhnev persecuted cultural non-conformity

- Lenin permitted some level of freedom (proletkult, avant-garde)

- Stalin's final years saw some relaxation

- Khrushchev's thaws during destalinisation

- Brezhnev and Andropov unable to prevent western music influences