Arts and Culture

Question 1

Lenin

Answer 1

Proletkult
Started after Oct revolution
400,000 members by 1920
3,000 studios built
Encouraged working class to engage in the arts
Lenin became suspicious and banned late 1920
Agitpop/ avant garde movements promote socialist realism

Question 2

Stalin

Answer 2

Supported traditional art (unlike Lenin)
Feared avant garde and expressionism
Targets for number of paintings
Novels easy to comprehend e.g Cement which detailed events of Oct revolution.
Supported myth of 2 leaders
Ballet popular such as Romeo and Juliet (1940)

Question 3

Khruschev

Answer 3

Weakened control
World youth Festival 1957
Danced to jazz and African drums
Not all artists allowed to publish works
Doctor Zhivago
Criticised K
Banned
Western music added to school curriculum
Focus on women as believed they’d be first to fall to consumerism
Used magazines to control
Advised against bright lipstick

Question 4

Brezhnev

Answer 4

Criticised K lax policies
Tightened control
Wanted a nostalgic approach to arts
Sinyavsky- daniel trial in 1966 acused of anti soviet agitation initially 2 novelist found guilty eventually 7000-8000 sent to stalinesque prison camps
Crack down in 1968
30,000 red army troops sent to deal with liberals
Bolshoi Ballet in high demand all around the world