6. FROM AVANT-GARDE TO SOCIALIST REALISM

KEY QUESTIONS What is socialist realism? How do we get from the avant-garde to socialist realism? To what extent was the socialist realist doctrine bound up with plans for social transformation?

Is it a doctrine? SOCIALIST REALISM “Comrade Stalin has called our writers engineers of human souls. What does this mean? … In the first place, it means knowing life so as to be able to depict it truthfully in works of art, not to depict it in a dead, scholastic way, not simply as “objective reality,” but to depict reality in its revolutionary development.” A.Zhdanov, Speech at First Congress of Soviet Writers, 1934

A reaction to formalism? SOCIALIST REALISM A reaction to formalism?

SOCIALIST REALISM Is it a state of mind? “

Is it a historical movement? SOCIALIST REALISM Is it a historical movement?

Is it a historical movement? SOCIALIST REALISM Is it a historical movement?

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

QUESTIONS What does Groys characterise as the main aim of the avant-garde aesthetic project? Give examples. How was the avant-garde project defeated, according to Groys? Give both historical and conceptual reasons. "Under Stalin the dream of the avant garde was in fact fulfilled" (9) On what grounds does Groys argue this? How do the socialist realist and avant-garde relationship to artistic tradition differ?

QUESTIONS How are politicians and artists connected in Groys' view? What is the 'typical' in socialist realism? Explain Groys' use of the 'hagiographic' and 'demonological' in socialist realism? Who, for Groys, is the socialist realist 'demiurge' and why? Based on your reading, how was politics aestheticised and aesthetics politicised in the Soviet Union's first two decades?

DEBATE Does Groys’ argument convince you? One side of the room will argue in favour of Groys’s argument; the other side of the room against. Discuss amongst yourselves for 10 minutes, then we will begin the debate …