Chapter 15: The development of the Stalin cult

1933-39, WW2

the Stalin cult was fully established in ____-__, but it did not reach its height until after ___.

portrayed Stalin as heir to Lenin

How did Stalin’s cult of personality portray his relationships with Lenin?

paintings, poems, posters, and sculptures that glorified Stalin as “Mighty Leader,” “Father of the nation,” “Universal Genius” and the “shining sun of humanity”

What did the propaganda of Stalin’s cult include?

The History of the All-Union Communist Party (1938)

• Falsification of history

• Stalin assumed major role in Oct revolution and Civil war, while the Old Bolsheviks, i.e. Trotsky, portrayed as “enemies of the people” or given minor roles

• Sold 34 million copies in Soviet Union by 1948

• History became the History of Communist success, with all paths leading to the glories of Stalinism

Nikita Khrushchev, 1956, Short Biography, praise

_______ ____________ revealed in ____ that when Stalin read a pre-publication version of the official _____ __________ of his life, he insisted it be revise to _____ him even more

ambiguous, did not encourage and not of his own making, but did little to stop it

What was Stalin’s role in the cult of personality

some praised him in hope of patronage, but others felt real sense of emotional attachment, reflecting the tradition of loyalty to the leader

What was the result of the cult of personality?

Peasantry once shown unwavering loyalty to Tsar(who was infallible) = Stalin seen as father of the people

Tsarist symbolism of Stalin’s cult of personality

military illusions, glorified collectivisation, romanticised economic hardship, praised heroes and denounced enemies, media and art

What did Stalinist propaganda include?

termed as “full-scale socialist offensive on all fronts”, pictures of happy productive workers in collectives

How did Stalinist propaganda glorify collectivisation?

emphasised glories of new socialist society where all workers dreams came true, and suggested USSR 1st state to attempt to create new type of humanity by transmitting social and political values in the hope of affecting  people’s thinking, emotions, and behaviour

How did Stalinist propaganda romanticise economic hardship?

denounced class enemies as agents of foreign imperialist powers, “worker hero”, Stakhanovites, young men who accomplished heroic feats put on front page of Pravda more often than Stalin himself(1937-38), Soviet aviators and arctic explorers hailed as heroes with wide publicity in the press, Pavlik Morozov

How did Stalinist propaganda praise heroes and denounce enemies?

Vera Mukhina made 24.5m high stainless steel sculpture(“Worker and Kolkhoz Woman”) for the 1937 World Trade Fair in Paris, films and radios played in receivers in communal locations

How did Stalinist propaganda use media and art?

Pavlik Morozov

Favourite children’s story and example of sacrifice for socialism, where in a boy denounces his father as a kulak and was killed by angry relatives

glorified as ‘Mother-heroines’ and 25% of them were described as ‘norm-breaking’

How were female Stakhanovites praised?

1920s, Stalinist conformity, 1930s, pure propaganda, constrained, individual, socialism, space, engineers of the human soul

Lenin permitted creativity in the ____, which gave way to _______ _______ in the ____. For Stalin, cultural pursuits equaled ___ ___________. New artistic endeavour was __________ by politics and _________ expressions were deemed politically suspect. Art was only valuable and legitimate if it supported ________. Art had no ______ in Soviet society, where writers were the  “__________ __ ___ _________ ____.”

Union of Soviet Writers and Union of Artists, where non-membership = artistic isolation with no opportunity for commissions or the sale of work

1932: Artists had to belong to gov. bodies that controlled what was created and who was allowed to create

To the writers’ union this meant “the truthful, historically concrete representation of reality in its revolutionary development” and artists were to represent what Soviet life may become in the future instead of what it honestly was

Under Stalin, new norms demanded adherence to “socialist realism” from artists

socialist realism

• People led to appreciate “socialist reality” and see a foreshadowing of the future in the present

• Art/Literature taught citizens that “march to Communism” was inevitable

glorify working man and particularly communities collaborating and embracing new tech, convey messages that were positive/optimistic/uplifting, one popular novel was How the Steel Was Tempered by Nikolai Ostrovsky

In April 1934 the 1st Congress of the Union of Soviet Writers created a frame of reference for writers which was laid out by Andrei Zhdanov(old Bolshevik and Politburo member). It was expected to:

Soviet culture designed for the proletariat, great works of the 1800s encouraged(Glinka and Tchaikovsky in Music, Pushkin and Tolstoy in Literature), landscape art revived as favourable medium, promoted folk culture

How did Stalin foster Russia’s great heritage and promote culture

culture designed for the proletariat, but no attempt to create new ‘proletarian culture’ distinct from the ‘bourgeois’ culture

How did Stalin foster proletarian culture?

Scenes of nature being tamed by Soviet industrialism

What did the Landscape art of Stalinism include?

represent Russian ‘national culture’ tying into Stalin’s commitment to ‘national’ values(much of this was pure Stalinist invention)

What was the aim of promoting Folk culture under Stalinism?