USSR: Culture and the Arts

Question 1

What did the government aim to create with arts and culture?

Answer 1

The “new Soviet man”- an ideal socialist who thinks and acts according to socialist values.

Question 2

What was the status of culture, according to Lenin?

Answer 2

According to Lenin, culture was vital but subordinate to class conflict and the retention of power.

Question 3

What were Lenin’s own cultural tastes?

Answer 3

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 4

What was one important development Lenin implemented early on?

Answer 4

One important development Lenin implemented early after the seizure of power was to create a Commissariat of Enlightenment, 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. (1917)
This encouraged many artists to collaborate with the regime.

Question 5

Who were “Fellow Travelers”?

Answer 5

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 Travelers”. Not all Bolsheviks were happy with this approach.

Question 6

Who was the head of the Commissariat of Enlightenment?

Answer 6

Anatoly Lunacharsky

Question 7

Who were Constructivists?

Answer 7

Those who wished to create a new proletarian culture based on the worker ad industrial technology.

Question 8

How were the workers and peasants encouraged to produce their own culture?

Answer 8

The magazine “Smithy” was established, which contained poems about machines and factories. The government also 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.

Question 9

How were the achievements of the workers, and the Party, reinforced through the arts?

Answer 9

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.

Question 10

What is high culture and how did the Prolekult compare?

Answer 10

High Culture: This is used to refer to those art forms, such as ballet, opera and fine art, that are geared towards a restricted and exclusive audience. The Bolsheviks disliked “high” culture, as opposed to “low” culture, seeing it as “bourgeois art”.
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.

Question 11

Why did the Bolsheviks put so much stress on visual arts?

Answer 11

Due to low literacy rates and the hope to convey the Communist message through copious amounts of propaganda.

Question 12

How was a new futuristic world presented in art?

Answer 12

The influence of Modernism, with its emphasis on abstract art, was coupled with that of Futurism as artists attempted to convey visions of a futuristic world.

Question 13

How was Cinema used to benefit the regime?

Answer 13

As it was relatively new, the cinema was open to vast experimentation. Sergei Eisenstein was particularly innovative and he had already made Strike by 1924 and Battleship Potemkin was in production, to be released in 1925.
Lenin had stated the importance of cinema as a tool for promoting political messages, but it was sometimes too sophisticated for the audience. Therefore, if culture was to mould people’s beliefs and values, the avant-garde movement was not the answer.

Question 14

What was the Cultural Revolution?

Answer 14

The movement by Communist Party activists to purge all “bourgeois” elements from Soviet culture. It was caught up in the pressures that led to the Five-Year Plan and collectivisation and was part of an overall shift away from the middle classes.

Question 15

What happened to Fellow Travellers under Stalin?

Answer 15

They were removed and replaced by artists whose loyalty to socialism was not in question.

Question 16

How were bourgeois elements disrupted during the Cultural Revolution?

Answer 16

• 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
• In literature, 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.

Question 17

What types of works did RAPP prefer?

Answer 17

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 18

What was the cult of the “little man”?

Answer 18

The writing of novels that glorified the achievements of the industrial worker and collective peasant. It was encouraged by the government and was a criticism of “bourgeois” writing, which often focused on wealthy people of high status.

Question 19

What did the RAPP announce in 1932? What did this signify?

Answer 19

In 1932, the Party leadership announced that RAPP would be closed down and replaced by a new Union of Soviet Writers. This more or less bought the cultural revolution to an end.

Question 20

What did Stalin call writers and artists?

Answer 20

Stalin recognised the importance of writers and artists, calling them “engineers of human souls.”

Question 21

What was Socialist Realism and how was it used?

Answer 21

This term was used to describe art that presented idealised images of life under socialism to inspire the population towards its achievement.
Socialist Realism was used to convince the Soviet population that Stalin’s statement of 1935, “Life has become more joyous”, was true. The movement was to be policed by the Union of Soviet Writers.

Question 22

How was Art portrayed during Socialist Realism?

Answer 22

• Under Socialist Realism 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 presented 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 23

What happened to Literature under Socialist Realism?

Answer 23

• There was a change in emphasis away from the cult of the “little man” to heroes connected to the Party
• Continued through both “highbrow” and “lowbrow” literature.
• The low price of these “lowbrow” books and the tenfold growth 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 24

What happened to Music under Socialist Realism?

Answer 24

• Suffered from pressure to toe the line
• 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 25

What style of architecture did Socialist Realism promote?

Answer 25

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

Question 26

How was Cinema used during the period of Socialist Realism?

Answer 26

- The achievements of the Revolution were conveyed trough 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. - During WWII, the cinema was used to promote patriotism in defense of both Mother Russia and socialism: the film Alexander Nevsky was one of the most popular.

Question 27

Why was Socialist Realism a useful tool for government propaganda?

Answer 27

Because it focused on accessible art and popular culture

Question 28

Why were the many functions of Socialist Realism good for the government?

Answer 28

The range of functions gave the government many opportunities to use the arts and popular culture to mobilise support at a range of levels for the regime.

Question 29

What happened to Soviet policy following WWII?

Answer 29

After WWII, there were signs that the government was prepared to allow artists and writers greater freedom. Both Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova were allowed to give public readings of their unorthodox poetry in Moscow in 1946 to enthusiastic applause.

Question 30

How were greater signs of freedom dispelled after the war?

Answer 30

Elements of Western culture were condemned in a campaign referred to as 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 31

How did de-Stalinisation impact culture?

Answer 31

- Khrushchev allowed works to be published that had been previously banned such as the works of Isaac Babel. - Younger poets, such as Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Andrei Voznesenki, were allowed to publish collections of more experimental poetry. - Jazz music made a reappearance - Khrushchev's personal interventions lead to the publication of the previously banned book by Solzhenitsyn, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", which recounted an experience in the Gulag. Solzhenitsyn then went on to criticise Stalin further. - But some restrictions remained in place and novels that strayed too far from the political context were contained.

Question 32

What happened to youth culture in the late 1950s?

Answer 32

- By the late 1950s, nonconformity was starting to have an impact on youth culture in the USSR. - Tired with the repetitive and unexciting themes of official cultural output, Soviet youth became influence by Western culture.

Question 33

What developed as a result of dissatisfaction among youths in the 50s?

Answer 33

Urban groups developed that listened to the pop and rock'n'roll music emerging in the West, the records having been smuggled into the country. These groups, labelled stilyagi by the authorities, wore Western fashions and were described in propaganda as rude and ignorant freaks.

Question 34

How did youths access Western culture in the 50s?

Answer 34

Western music was broadcast by the radio stations Voice of America from 1955.

Question 35

What was a notable development in popular music during the 50s?

Answer 35

The development of the guitar poet who typically addressed the feelings of the individual and spoke to the socially alienated. Its leading figure was Alexander Galich, who composed and performed his own work rather than performing officially sanctioned pieces produced by the government.

Question 36

What was a constant headache for the authorities under Khrushchev?

Answer 36

Magnitizdat, or tape recorder self-publishing because it allowed nonconforming works to be spread to a wider audience.

Question 37

The replacement of Khrushchev with Brezhnev in 1964 saw what?

Answer 37

The replacement of Khrushchev with Brezhnev did not see a full-blown return to the strict rules of the Stalinist period/ Socialist Realism, but it did narrow down the boundaries of what was acceptable after the thaw of the Khrushchev years.

Question 38

How did artists feel about the stricter rules under Brezhnev?

Answer 38

Many artists and writers found the new cultural climate easier to work in as there was more certainty over what was permissible but, nonetheless, continued to push the boundaries of what was acceptable.

Question 39

What did official culture focus on under Brezhnev?

Answer 39

Official culture continued to focus on propaganda and the achievements of Socialism and the socialist state, providing stirring themes for the population. The majority of the population preferred this style even if the writers and artists found it undemanding.

Question 40

What had Soviet culture become by the 70s?

Answer 40

Soviet culture had become conservative, and artists and writers were more likely to get into trouble by touching on sexual themes than political ones.

Question 41

What school of village prose cause the government unease?

Answer 41

The derevenshchiki 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 in the Soviet Union.

Question 42

Who were "Russites"?

Answer 42

Russian nationalism received some encouragement from the government, but writers who took up the theme, the so-called "Russites", alienated non-Russians and often came close to criticizing the Soviet Union.

Question 43

How did the government perceive the increasing influence of popular music in the 1970s?

Answer 43

- Soviet youth continued to be drawn towards cultural trends in the West. - The elderly men in the Politburo struggled to understand the appeal of rock and disco music, but realized they could not suppress it. - Control was exercised over record production and radio airtime, but it was undermined by the development of the cassette recorder, which was, by the early 1980s, widely available for personal recording and distribution.

Question 44

How did the Brezhnev years make it easier to undermine the system?

Answer 44

The Brezhnev years made it easier to undermine the system by using subtexts in their work. Readers and audiences became skillful at grasping the messages behind the work.

Question 45

How were Komsomol groups used to control the people?

Answer 45

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

Question 46

How did Khrushchev's policies towards the arts reflect himself?

Answer 46

Khrushchev's cultural policy reflected his personality in that it was subject to mood swings. He became less tolerant of nonconformity in the last months as leader and this attitude was entrenched by his successors.