The State and Cultural Change

Question 1

Commissariat of Enlightenment in 1917

Answer 1

Promote ‘Proletarian Culture’ and artists: prolekult

Constructiists: Artists aiming to create a new Socialist culture which emphasised the collective over individuals

Question 2

4 Prolekult characteristics

Answer 2

Smithy (Mags about machines)
Festivals
Anniversary of the Revolution (In 1920 re-enacted storming of the Winter Palace with 8,000 people)
Parades (red square)

Question 3

Failure of Prolekult

Answer 3

Workers creating culture led to dangerous freedom of expression
Replaced by avant-garde culture

Question 4

avant-garde culture

Answer 4

Post-WW1 experiment of modern and futuristic art

Question 5

Why may avant-garde have been less successful as a tool of control?

Answer 5

Uneducated public too confused by abstract art to understand message
Western influence – bourgeoisie art and culture

Question 6

Cult of the little man

Answer 6

Stalin’s Cultural Revolution :
Komsomol: Youth Organisation of the CP
Vandalised antiques, shut down operas, harassed writers
Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP)
Promoted writing that glorified workers and industry

Question 7

Culture as Propaganda under Stalin

Answer 7

Needed army of propagandists to back up his statement in 1935 that ‘Life has become more joyous’ under his rule
Idealised depictions of life under Socialism and the promotion of CP and Stalin’s achievements
In 1932 replaced RAPP with Union of Soviet Writers

Question 8

Socialist Realism

Answer 8

Art (All art produced had to promote achievements on 5YPs or Collectivisation)
Literature (focus on popular Communist heroes mass manufactured)
Architecture (demonstrate Stalin’s prestige UNI METRO
Film (October

Question 9

Culture under Khrushchev

Answer 9

Ban on cultural forms and expressions under Stalin lifted:
Writings of Isaac Babel – shot during the purges
Poems of Anna Akhmatova – silenced in Cultural Revolution
‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ – censored
Destalinised and criticised stalin

Question 10

Impact of De-Stalinisation

Answer 10

Made it acceptable to use culture to critique Communism
Writers began to explore bleakness of peasant-life, harsh reality of factory work, and even religion
Russian youth – susceptible to Western influences
(music fashion)

Question 11

Why was freedom of Khrushchev period challenged under Brezhnev

Answer 11

Andropov’s suppression of dissidents and Western influences

Question 12

The Challenge of Nonconformity

Answer 12

Spread of ‘guitar-poets’ – Western influence
Funeral of Vladimir Vysotsky in 1980 witnessed widespread grief
CP limited who could record music and what was played on the radio
But spread of cassette recorders undermined such control