THEME 5: HOW EFFECTIVE WAS THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT’S USE OF CULTURE AND THE ARTS?

Question 1

What was the ‘New Soviet Man’?

Answer 1

An ideal socialist who thinks and acts according to socialist values.

Question 2

How did the regime aim to create the ‘New Soviet Man’?

Answer 2

Using artists and writers to construct a whole new culture that would sweep away the old bourgeois culture associated with the Tsarist regime.

Question 3

Summarise each of the following periods in their control of the arts: a.Lenin b.Stalin c.By the 1970s.

Answer 3

Lenin: Although slow to see the potential of moulding culture to serve the ideology of communism, after civil war the Communists started to harness culture for their own purposes.
Stalin: Made a concerted effort to create a new culture based on promoting idealised images of life under socialism. However many artists opposed the demands placed upon them and weren’t prepared to work within these restrictions.
By 1970s: Soviet culture had developed its own distinct ethos, but those to whom the regime looked in order to propagate this culture were often those most likely to clash with its desire for conformity.

Question 4

What was Lenin’s opinion of culture?

Answer 4

He thought culture was vital but subordinate to class conflict and the retention of power. Lenin’s cultural tastes were conservative, with a liking for classical Russian culture. He wanted the Party to keep high-calibre writers and artists on side as much as possible.

Question 5

What was the Commissariat of Enlightenment and why did it please artists?

Answer 5

A ministry of culture to support and encourage artists. This was a development welcomed by artists as it replaced the heavy restrictions and censorship of the old regime.

Question 6

What was the conditions in which artists were allowed to work under the Bolsheviks?

Answer 6

Lenin seemed prepared to accommodate those artists who were not communists but who were sympathetic to the ideals of the Revolution and who found plenty of material for their work in the events of the period. These artists were labelled by Trotsky as Fellow Travellers.

Question 7

Who were the key figures within the prolekult movement?

Answer 7

Alexander Bogdanov, a leading figure in the Party, and Anatoly Lunacharsky, the head of the Commissariat of Enlightenment. Bogdanov argued that the state needed to use new technology to create its own ‘Proletarian Culture’ or prolekult. He felt a new group of proletarian artists should be assembled, for whom art was to serve a social and political purpose.

Question 8

What were the Constructivists and what did they contribute?

Answer 8

Those who wished to create a new proletarian culture based on the worker and industrial technology. The emphasis was to be on the collective of the workers as a class, rather than individualism. Workers and peasants were encouraged to produce their own culture, from writing their own stories to putting on theatre productions. The magazine Smithy was established, which contained poems about machines and factories.

Question 9

What other examples of prolekult were there?

Answer 9

Government made use of festivals to develop a new culture based on socialist values, and extra food rations were sometimes used as an incentive for crowds to turn up. The anniversary of the Revolution in 1920 was celebrated by a re-enactment of the storming of the Winter Palace using over 8,000 people. Parades through Red Square in Moscow were organised and directed by the Party to the extent that they were examples of street theatre. Thus, the achievements of the workers, and the Party that ruled in their name, were reinforced through the arts.

Question 10

What was high culture and how was it treated?

Answer 10

Used to refer to those art forms, such as ballet, opera and fine art, that are geared towards a restricted and exclusive audience. Prolekult was a direct challenge to high culture and it became popular for a time, but by the early 1920s the government was concerned at the variety of viewpoints expressed through this culture from the people and started to impose restrictions on it.

Question 11

What was avant-garde art?

Answer 11

In many branches of cultural activity, traditional assumptions and practices related to the purpose, subjects and style of art were challenged. This was as much a result of the First World War sweeping away the old world as it was of the new government, and it led to a wave of experimentation that has been termed avant-garde.

Question 12

What are the key examples of avant-garde art and how were they used?

Answer 12

Poster art - Bolshevik regime was to acquire the services of the talented poet and playwright, V. Mayakovsky, who set to work producing slogans and posters for the government. His work may have been propaganda, but it was genuinely innovative.
Painting and sculpture - K. Malevich and V. Kandinsky represent examples of ‘Fellow Travellers’ who produced a large output of experimental work in the early 1920s.
The influence of the Futurists on science fiction had an impact on popular reading and new trends in popular music saw the first appearance of jazz in Russia, to mixed reviews.

Question 13

How was avant-garde used in the theatre?

Answer 13

In theatre, the avant-garde movement was led by Vyacheslav Meyerhold, who produced the pageant Mystery Bouffe (1918). It was a fantasy based on the workers defeating the exploiters, but was so confusing to audiences that it was cancelled after one performance.

Question 14

Who were Sergei Eisenstein and how did he contribute towards the avant-garde movement?

Answer 14

As a relatively new development, the cinema was especially open to experimentation and, in Sergei Eisenstein, the regime found one of the foremost innovators in the new medium. Eisenstein had already made Strike by 1924 and Battleship Potemkin was in production, to be released in 1925. The experimental use of imagery made his work truly innovative. Lenin had stated the importance of cinema as a tool for promoting political messages, but it was sometimes too sophisticated for the audience.

Question 15

Why did some people criticise the avant-garde movement?

Answer 15

It was sometimes too sophisticated and experimental to successfully mould people’s beliefs and values through culture.

Question 16

What was the context that the Cultural Revolution took place in?

Answer 16

Caught up in the pressures that led to the Five-Year Plan and collectivisation, the Cultural Revolution became part of an attempt to sweep away the old ‘bourgeois’ elements within society.

Question 17

What was the aim of the Cultural Revolution?

Answer 17

This entailed a full-scale assault on traditional writers and artists. Those Fellow Travellers tolerated under Lenin were to be removed and replaced by artists whose loyalty to socialism was not in question.

Question 18

What involvement did the Komsomol have in the Cultural Revolution?

Answer 18

Young enthusiastic communists from Komsomol were encouraged to root out and attack ‘bourgeois’ elements. Theatre productions of suspect plays were disrupted by booing and whistling.

Question 19

What changes were made to literature during the Cultural Revolution?

Answer 19

The Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) made increasingly bitter attacks on the Fellow Travellers and condemned the decadent individualism of writers who adopted new experimental techniques. Influenced by the ideas of the prolekult movement, RAPP preferred works that stressed the achievements of the workers, in what became termed the cult of the ‘little man’.

Question 20

What was ‘Time Forward’ and why is it a typical example of output during the Cultural Revolution?

Answer 20

A novel by Kataev (1932) that recounted the story of a record-breaking shift at Magnitogorsk steelworks. This sort of theme, often described as ‘boy meets girl meets tractor’, tied in with the Five-Year Plans, but it soon lost its popularity as similar themes were endlessly repeated. Yet RAPP did its best to encourage cultural activities in factories, such as reading and drama groups, with some success.

Question 21

What is Socialist Realism?

Answer 21

The term used to describe art that presented idealised images of life under socialism to inspire the population towards its achievement.

Question 22

Why was Socialist Realism used in the 1930s?

Answer 22

Used to convince the Soviet population that Stalin’s statement of 1935, ‘Life has become more joyous’, was true. The Union of Soviet Writers was to police the movement, rewarding those who compiled and restricting those who did not.

Question 23

How did artists react to the way Socialist Realism was used in the 1930s?

Answer 23

Some writers, such as Mikhail Zoshchenko, conformed to the rules but the quality of their work suffered; others refused to work under such restrictions and emigrated. The novelist Boris Pasternak, and the poet, Anna Akhamatova, gave up writing, opting for what the writer, Isaac Babel called the ‘genre of silence’. However, Pasternak’s novels were smuggled abroad and published. Mayakovsky, who had become disillusioned with the Party, committed suicide; others met their deaths in the labour camps.

Question 24

What were the implications for ART under Socialist Realism?

Answer 24

There was to be no experimentation with form: avant-garde styles, such as abstract art, were rejected. Art was harnessed by the regime to project ideal images of life under the Five-Year Plans, often represented through images of the worker and peasant working for socialism. Stalin had told artists that they should make it clear who was responsible for the achievements of socialism. This often resulted in a fusion of Socialist Realism with the cult of personality, as vast statues of Stalin started to appear.

Question 25

What were the implications for LITERATURE under Socialist Realism?

Answer 25

A change of emphasis away from the cult of the ‘little man’ to heroes connected to the Party. The standard plot of novels in the 1930s was of a hero from the people who is guided by the Party to greater things. This theme was developed in much of the ‘high’ literature through works by Mikhail Sholokhov (such as And Quiet Flows the Don) and Maxim Gorky, and had much in common with traditional Russian folk stories. ‘Lowbrow’ literature was usually concerned with heroes from Russian history, war stories or detective novels where a police agent thwarts the evil capitalists. The low price of these books and the tenfold growth in in library acquisitions ensured the population had easy access to this material. Through government agencies, the Party controlled what was published and by whom.

Question 26

What were the implications for MUSIC under Socialist Realism?

Answer 26

In popular music, the government favoured military songs more than jazz. Government concern over the perceived decadent associations of jazz led to the banning of the saxophone in the 1940s. As in literature, it was better to stick to well-worn themes than experiment if you wished to carry on working.

Question 27

What were the implications for ARCHITECTURE under Socialist Realism?

Answer 27

Socialist Realism promoted the style known as ‘Stalinist baroque’, better known as ‘wedding cake’ architecture, which made use of classical lines. Many public buildings were built in this style, the best example being Moscow University, which was rebuilt after 1945. The Moscow metro system was another fine example of Stalinist baroque, with stations decorated with chandeliers and elaborate murals, showing the endeavours of the workers.

Question 28

What were the implications for FILM under Socialist Realism?

Answer 28

The achievements of the Revolution were conveyed through films, such as Eisenstein’s October (1927), which presented the heroic version of the storming of the Winter Palace in 1917. This served the interests of the government in presenting the Revolution as a mass movement. Unfortunately, due to Eisenstein’s excessive use of extras and live ammunition , more people died in the making of the film than in the actual events themselves. During the Second World War, the cinema was used to promote patriotism in defence of both Mother Russia and socialism: the film Alexander Nevsky was one of the most popular.

Question 29

What points are made in defence of Socialist Realism?

Answer 29

Socialist Realism, rooted in ‘the people’, resulted in formalised but accessible styles in art and writing. It is easy to criticise Socialist Realism for being so out of touch with reality, but the work of social historians such as R. Stites has drawn attention to the range of purposes the arts and culture could have.

Question 30

What was the immediate impression given regarding culture after World War Two?

Answer 30

There were signs that the government were prepared to allow artists and writers greater freedom. Both Pasternak and Akhmatova were allowed to give public readings of their unorthodox poetry in Moscow in 1946 to enthusiastic applause.

Question 31

What evidence is there that this was particularly short lived?

Answer 31

The signs of greater freedom were quickly dispelled as elements of Western culture were condemned in a campaign referred to as the Zhdanovschina. Zhdanov was the Party boss in Leningrad and he had a particular interest in culture. In 1946, a campaign was launched to remove all aspects of ‘bourgeois’ culture from the West. It was heavily influenced by xenophobic attitudes that had been enhanced by the development of the Cold War.

Question 32

What did Khrushchev initially do to regarding censorship of culture?

Answer 32

In line with the criticism of Stalin and his ‘error’, Khrushchev allowed works to be published that had been previously banned.

Question 33

What examples are there of previously unpublished works being released?

Answer 33

Works by Isaac Babel, a writer who had been shot during the purges, were published. Younger poets, such as Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Andrei Voznesenski, were allowed to publish collections of more experimental poetry, and jazz music made a reappearance. K’s personal intervention led to the publication of the previously banned book by Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which recounted the appalling experiences of life in the Gulag. Further novels by Solzhenitsyn followed that attacked suspects of Stalin’s terror and fitted in with the new political emphasis of de-Stalinisation. Where works did not fall into the political context, however, writers could still come up against restrictions.

Question 34

What themes did artists begin to explore under Khrushchev?

Answer 34

Spiritual concerns, the bleakness of rural life and the problems of adultery, divorce and alcohol abuse. The ‘literature of conscience’ did not focus on the idealised life portrayed by Socialist Realism. Even ‘low-brow’ literature was used to criticise the Soviet system. Science-fiction novels often contained messages that acted as critiques of society.

Question 35

What evidence is there to suggest that, by the late 1950s, new culture was impacting the youth of the USSR?

Answer 35

Tired with the repetitive and unexciting themes of official cultural output, Soviet youth became influenced by music tastes from the West. Urban groups developed that listened to the pop and rock’n’roll music emerging in the West, the records having being smuggled into the country. These groups, wearing Western fashions of tight suits and short skirts, were labelled stilyagi by the authorities, who described them as rude and ignorant freaks. From 1955, this music was broadcast into the USSR by the radio station Voice of America.

Question 36

Who was the ‘guitar-poet’ and why might this show a relaxation of censorship?

Answer 36

Its leading figure was Alexander Galich, who composed and performed his own work rather than performing officially sanctioned pieces produced by the government. The guitar-poet typically addressed the feelings of the individual and often spoke to the socially alienated. Audiences at underground venues were small, but through the use of the tape recorder their work could be spread to a wider audience. Magnitzdat, or tape recorder self-publishing, was a constant headache for the authorities.

Question 37

What impact did Brezhnev have on cultural censorship?

Answer 37

B didn’t revert to the strict application of Socialist Realism under Stalin, but it did narrow the boundaries of what was acceptable after the cultural thaw of the Khrushchev years. Many artists and writers found the new cultural climate easier to work in as there was more certainty over what was permissible but, nontheless, continued to push the boundaries of what was acceptable.

Question 38

What did official culture remain focused on and how did the population react?

Answer 38

It continued to focus on propaganda and the acievements of socialism and the Soviet state, providing stirring themes for the population. The majority of the population preferred this style even if many artists and writers found it undemanding. To those wishing to stretch themselves creatively, this was, in the wods of historian Richard Stites ‘the graveyard of ideas, openness and free expression’.

Question 39

What evidence is there of non-conformity during the Brezhnev years?

Answer 39

By the 1970s, Soviet culture had become conservative, and artists and writers were more likely to get into trouble by touching on sexual themes thsn political ones.
The deevenshchiki school of village prose highlighted the values of simple rural life. These accounts were often romanticised and featured a longing for a lost world of the past. It caused the government unease because it could be read as a critique of urban life of the Soviet Union.
Russian nationalism received some encouragement of the government, but writers who took up the theme, the so-called ‘Russites’, alienated non-Russians and often came close to criticising the Soviet Union.
Soviet youth continue to be drawn to cultural trends in the West and the popularity of Vladimir Vysotsky (influential guitar poet who wrote songs about sex and deliquency) seemed to indicate the growing alienation of young people from Soviet society. Control was exercised over record production and radio airtime, but undermined by the development of the cassette recorder, which was, by the early 1980s, widely available for personal recording and distribution.

Question 40

What was Doctor Zhivago and what does it suggest about Khrushchev’s thaw?

Answer 40

Novel by Boris Pasternak. The book, which was an epic story set during the Russian Civil War, contained criticisms of the Revolution. Soviet publishers were undecided over whether or not it should be published until Khrushchev intervened and, without reading the full text, decided the book should be banned. However, the novel was smuggled abroad and an edition first appeared in Italy in 1957. The reception it gained was extremeley positive and, to K’s embarassment, Pasternak was awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature. K refused to allow Pasternak to travel to Sweden to recieve his prize. The whole affair was a cause of International embarassment for the Soviet government and K later regretted his actions.

Question 41

What was Khrushchev’s opinion of abstract art and jazz music?

Answer 41

A pet hate of K’s, as demonstrated in 1962 when he visited the exhibition hall in the Kremlin to view a collection of work by young artists. On seeing the pieces of art the art, K fumed with rage, proclaiming that ‘a donkey could smear better art with its tail’. The artists were harangued in full view of the cameras and left the exhibition in fear of arrest and imprisonment. But change had occurred and, despite K’s fury, no action was taken.

Question 42

How were Komsomol groups used to control art under Khrushchev?

Answer 42

They were employed to patrol the streets and dance halls to report on young people whose behaviour was deemed unacceptable. In 1961, the government had gone as far as to hold a conference that decided on which dance moves were permissible. Enforcing the decision was a complete failure.

Question 43

Who was Joseph Brodsky?

Answer 43

He dropped out of school at 15 and decided to start writing poetry. Encouraged by Anna Akhmatova, his poems were read aloud at secret gatherings.

Question 44

How was Brodsky treated?

Answer 44

The secret police soon became aware of Brodsky’s actions and he was arrested. Brodsky was not licensed as a poet under the Writers’ Union. He was accused of ‘parasitism’ and condemned for the ‘depravity’ of his poetry. It soon became clear at his trial that the case was being used to send a firm message to all those artists who wished to work independently of the state. Brodsky was dealt with severely and sentenced to five years of hard labour in prison, on the grounds that he had produced nothing of material value to the Soviet state. Yet times had changed and the government had used the legal apparatus of the state against Brodsky. This meant that detailed court records were kept, a copy of which was smuggled abroad. Fellow writers at home and abroad campaigned for Brodsky’s release, which was granted after two years. He was then expelled from the Soviet Union.

Question 45

What does the trial of Brodsky suggest about censorship and control of culture?

Answer 45

The treatment of Brodsky indicated that, despite the cultural thaw of the Khrushchev years, there were limits to what Brezhnev’s government was prepared to tolerate.

Question 46

What were Sinyavsky and Daniel arrested for in 1965?

Answer 46

They had written short novels that depicted life in the Soviet Union as harsh and surreal. Although written under pseudonyms, the writers soon came to the attention of the KGB. They arrested and accused of anti-Soviet propaganda under Article 70 of the criminal code. The significance of this case was the fact that the allegations against them were based on the actual content of their literary work.

Question 47

What did their arrest trigger?

Answer 47

Their arrest resulted in a demonstration of over 200 students from Sinyavsky’s institute and an open letter of support for the accused signed by 63 leading intellectuals. Over 200 letters were sent to the Twenty-Third Party Congress asking for the case to be reviewed.

Question 48

What punishment was handed down to Sinyavsky and Daniel?

Answer 48

The trial was a tricky moment for the regime as it combined the threat of nonconformity with that of the dissidents. On 10 February 1966, the court sentenced Sinyavsky to seven years in a strict-regime labour camp. Yuli Daniel was sentenced to five years. They were harsh sentences, designed to send a warning to others.

Question 49

What punishments were regularly dished out to dissident writers/artists?

Answer 49

Employment could be withdrawn from troublemakers. Any artists or writers who had strayed too far from what was acceptable were given a talk from a government official to point out their errors and warn them of the consequences.

Question 50

What happened should those artists/writers continue to step out of line?

Answer 50

For those writers and artists who continued to push the boundaries, the government resorted to more punitive measures. Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Writers’ Union in 1969 and then expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974. He continued to write in exile about the harshness of Soviet life and, although the Soviet government could no longer stop him, his book The Gulag Archipelago was condemned for being filthy. anti-Soviet propaganda.

Question 51

What evidence is there from the 1970s that there was still a high level of censorship and control within the
USSR?

Answer 51

In 1970, the local art gallery director at Novosibirsk was sentenced to eight years in prison for displaying art by dissident painters. In 1975, a group of unofficial artists (not licensed by the government) put on an open-air exhibition of their own work. B’s government launched a propaganda campaign against the artists and an ‘enraged public’ (officially recruited hooligans) attacked the work. The authorities eventually brought in bulldozers to destroy the exhibition. The government had second thoughts after the incident was filmed and reported by the foreign press, and allowed the art to be put back on display providing it could be patched up.

Question 52

How did Andropov attempt to clampdown on popular culture?

Answer 52

Recognising that some accomodation with popular music was necessary, the government restricted output of songs not composed by official Soviet composers to 20% of radio airtime. A commision was set up to vet all rock groups before they were given permission to perform and Komsomol groups were once again employed to patrol streets and report on unacceptable activity.

Question 53

How did the population often react to this control of culture?

Answer 53

Clashes between nonconformist artists and the government were the cause of much bad publicity for the Soviet Union in the West, but these high-profile cases were of less significance within the USSR itself. Most artists and writers preferred to keep their heads down, conform and avoid trouble with the authorities. More often than not, the general public were happy with the traditional cultural output provided by the government; undemanding art and entertainment was preferred to more intellectually stimulating work. Nonconformist artists were often viewed by the general public as self-indulgent and out of touch with the harsh realities of daily life.

Question 54

Summarise the methods of control across the period of 1917-85.

Answer 54

The heavy use of terror during the Stalin years gave way to a more complex range of methods. Propaganda and control over culture had been used since the establishment of the communist regime of 1917, but became more important as the use of terror lessened. By the 1950s, the government was aware that public consent for the continued rule of the Communist Party depended on the government’s ability to deliver better economic conditions and material benefits for the population. Without these, the boasts of Soviet achievement as presented through propaganda would be seen as empty. It was no coincidence that, by the 1970s, the main threat to order and stability was economic hardship rather than calls for political change.