Art in the USSR, 1917–1953 (Edexcel A Level History): Revision Note

Summary

• This note will examine the importance of the arts to the development of the Soviet state

• The Bolsheviks saw art as a tool to build socialism, educate the masses, and attack 'bourgeois' culture

• Early experiment, such as Proletkult and avant-garde, gave way to tight control under Stalin

• From 1932, Socialist Realism became the compulsory style across literature, film, music, and the visual arts

• Control of art helped society and glorify leaders, but it also narrowed creativity and created fear

• Historians debate whether cultural control was an essential pillar of Soviet power or a costly task that dulled innovation

Bolshevik attitudes to the arts

• The new regime treated culture as political work

  • Art should serve the Revolution, raise literacy, and demonstrate socialist values

• However, Bolsheviks disagreed amongst themselves on what proletarian art should be:

Proletkult

• Proletkult stood for “Proletarian culture”

  • It was a movement to make art by and for workers

• Proletkult aimed to create a distinct working-class culture independent of 'bourgeois' traditions

  • The organisation was independent of the Communist Party

• From 1918 to 1920, Proletkult allowed workers to access art studios in order to:

  • Paint

  • Sculpt

  • Write and perform plays

  • Create exhibitions for their art

Impact of Proletkult

• By 1920, Proletkult had around 84,000 members

• Proletkult had the support of key Party members, such as Bukharin and Lunacharsky

  • Members promoted its work even during the Civil War

What caused the end of Proletkult?

• Lenin was highly suspicious of Proletkult. He believed it:

  • Had associations with Futurism, which Lenin hated

  • Was dominated by 'enemies of the state', such as anarchists

  • Threatened the success of the Revolution with it being independent from the government

• In October 1920, Lenin forced Proletkult to merge with the Commissariat of Education

Avant-garde & agitprop

What was the avant-garde?

• The avant-garde were artists who wanted to revolutionise art

  • They were experimental with shapes and colours

• The government supported avant-garde artists as long as their art helped spread revolutionary ideas

Key avant-garde movements

Constructivism

• Founded by Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko

• Focused on art with a purpose

  • Posters, buildings, furniture, and designs that were functional and modern

Suprematism

• Led by Kazimir Malevich

• Used abstract shapes and bold colours to show energy and emotion

• Tried to express the spirit of revolution, not everyday life

Film

• Sergei Eisenstein used montage to create emotion in films like Battleship Potemkin (1925)

• Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929) used documentary style to show modern, urban life

Agitprop and its importance

• Agitprop was short for “agitation and propaganda”

  • It was simple, emotional art used to spread political messages

• It helped the Bolsheviks educate and inspire the masses, many of whom were illiterate

Features of agitprop

• Bright colours

  • These were often red, black, and white

• Simple, bold images and text

• Clear, emotional slogans

• ROSTA windows

  • Painted posters shown in shop or factory windows

  • Used cartoons and short captions to explain revolutionary news

• Agit-trains and agit-boats

  • Travelled across Russia showing posters, films, and short plays

    • This brought revolutionary ideas to remote villages and factories

Decline of avant-garde

• By the late 1920s, critics said avant-garde art was too abstract for workers to understand

• The Party began to demand clearer, realistic art showing happy workers and socialism’s progress

• This shift led to the rise of Socialist Realism under Stalin in the 1930s

The Cultural Revolution under Stalin

• With the First Five-Year Plan, the Party launched a cultural 'offensive' against “bourgeois specialists”

• Militant groups (such as RAPP) attacked 'elitist' artists

  • They demanded 'proletarian content'

• Komsomol activists policed theatres and studios

  • Many professionals were denounced or exiled from the USSR

Socialist Realism

• Socialist Realism began to appear in 1930

  • Stalin pushed for the change in approach to art

Government actions towards Socialist Realism

• A decree in April 1932 abolished independent artistic groups

  • It also created state unions for writers, artists, composers, filmmakers

• In 1934, the First Congress of Soviet Writers defined Socialist Realism

  • It stated that art must be:

    • Truthful

    • Historically concrete

    • Show life as it is and as it should be under socialism: optimistic, heroic, and Party-led

Themes of Socialist Realism

• The noble worker

• The economic triumphs of collective farm and industrialisation

• Victories over class enemies

• The cult of personality of Lenin and Stalin

Development of Socialist Realism

Late 1930s

• Art became a tool for propaganda, celebrating Stalin and Soviet progress

• Paintings showed huge factories and heroic workers

  • This was called industrial gigantism

• Films like Alexander Nevsky (1938, Sergei Eisenstein) mixed patriotism with warnings about foreign enemies

1946–48 – The Zhdanovshchina

• After the Second World War, Stalin’s adviser Andrei Zhdanov led a cultural crackdown

• Writers like Anna Akhmatova and Mikhail Zoshchenko were banned or publicly criticised

• Composers like Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev were attacked for being too experimental

  • This was called formalism

Stalinist Classicism

• A new style called Stalinist classicism took over architecture and public art

• Huge, monumental buildings like the Seven Sisters skyscrapers in Moscow symbolised Soviet power

• Statues and parades glorified Stalin as a great leader

  • He became known as the Generalissimo

How important was the control of art to the Soviet government?

• Historians debate whether Soviet control of the arts was an important pillar of power or a costly constraint on people's personal and artistic freedom

Art as a pillar of rule

• Control created a unified picture of the USSR

• Film, posters and literature reached millions with clear, repeated messages

  • The Party did not constrain creativity

Key historians

"Bolshevism cannot claim credit for the almost mysterious convergence of so many first-rate artists in such a short time; on the other hand, the Bolshevik regime, by setting political goals, did at least partially free some of the directors from commercial considerations. It is unlikely that a capitalist studio would have financed Eisenstein’s first artistic experiments because his work could not possibly have appealed to a large audience. Further, the regime and the artists tacitly cooperated: The regime provided the myths and the artists the iconography. Each benefited... Artists dealt with the pressures differently. Some convinced Bolsheviks naturally made the type of film that was expected of them. Others cared little about ideologies and were perfectly happy to serve any master that allowed them to make films" - Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State (1985)

"The Party controlled Culture and Stalin controlled the Party. Involved in this interpretation are some specific propositions and assumptions... Yet in all periods, the relationship between the party and culture was far more complex than a we-they image suggests... If final authority was vested in the party, the party nevertheless delegated, bestowed, or countenanced other types of cultural authority that resided in individuals or cultural institutions. Indeed, the legitimisation of cultural policy was often developed not by reference to party doctrine or the pronouncement of party leaders, but by their reference to non-communist authority figures with status in their own profession, such as Gorky, Stanislavsky, and Pavlov... Certainly, the political leadership was determined to prevent the arts from posing a political or philosophical challenge, or from depicting reality so starkly that a challenge might be provoked. Yet at the same time, leadership's attitude towards many established cultural values was more often deferential than destructive." - Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia (1992)

Art as constraint

• Tight control repressed talent, forced conformity and reduced credibility when art clashed with lived reality

• Over time, audiences learned to read between the lines

• People also expressed themselves creatively in private or in underground organisations

Key historians

"The approved form of art was Socialist Realism. This meant representational art which was realistic only up to a point. It had to be imbued with optimism and to present an idealised view of workers and peasants. The key word was Socialist in the sense of whatever was currently meant by that term at the top of the Soviet hierarchy. Irreverent Soviet citizens asked: 'What is the difference between impressionist, expressionist and socialist realist art?' The answer: impressionists paint what they see, expressionists paint what they feel, and socialist realists paint what they hear. To listen to the guidance of party and state officials and the guardians of orthodoxy in the state-sponsored artistic unions was the path to a comfortable existence for the artist." - Archie Brown, The Rise & Fall of Communism (2009)

"By the beginning of the 1930s, any writer with an individual voice was deemed politically suspicious. The Five Year Plan was not just a programme of industrialization. It was a cultural revolution in which all the arts were called up by the state to build a new society. According to the plan, the duty of the Soviet artist was to raise the workers’ consciousness, to enlist them in the ‘battle’ for ‘socialist construction’ by producing art with a social content which they could understand and relate to as positive ideals...But in Stalin's version of the doctrine, as pleased by the regime's cultural institutions after 1934, it imposed a deadening conformity on artists and writers, who were now expected to be uniformly optimistic about Soviet life and easily accessible to the masses. They were meant to be the chronicles of a milestone narrative - the progress of humanity towards the Communist Utopia - defined for them by the state." - Orlando Figes, Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991 (2014)