1. Art and Culture: Social Realism and the Cult of Personality
Starter: Spot the difference between the examples of art below:
Before Stalin
During Stalin

2. Russian Art and Culture before Stalin
In the early 1920s, the authorities tolerated diversity and revolutionary creativity in art and culture
It was deliberately different from traditional art forms
Eg. Malevich’s ‘Black Square’ painting and new filming techniques such as slow motion, freeze frame and running film backwards
It celebrated modern industrial technology eg. Mosolov wrote ‘The Iron Foundry’
It promoted the revolutionary government eg . Eisenstein’s film about the Tsar
- Iron Foundry
– Eisenstein (October 1927)

3. Stalin’s Russia
1930 – in an article in The Bolshevik, Stalin argued that revolutionary art should express government opinion, NOT individual creativity.
He argues that peasants don’t understand or are unaffected by abstract art

4. Stalin’s Reconstruction of the Arts
Stalin argued that art should express government opinion rather than individual creativity
Stalin argued that abstract shapes and films with no plot made no sense to the masses.
Stalin made a number of changes:
Reorganised Soviet Literature
Introduced Socialist Realism
3. Encouraged art to inspire people to work for socialism
4. Encouraged art that created a certain version of history
5. Created a Cult of Personality

5. 1. Reorganising Soviet Literature
Officially Reorganised in April 1932: ‘Decree of the Reformation of Literary-Artistic Organisations’
Established the Union of Soviet Writers which attempted to define an appropriate style for Soviet writing
All writers were supposed to adopt a style known as ‘Socialist Realism’
Examples of Socialist Realism include Gladkov’s ‘Cement’ – a novel that told the story of a cement factory worker
“And now he was here, once more a factory worker and, besides, the leader of the Party Group. The works! What strength had been put into it, and what a struggle! But here is was – a giant, a beauty!”
- Iron Foundry
– Eisenstein (October 1927)

6. 2. Socialism Realism Socialist Realism was difficult to define
The Soviet Party believed it had to be:
Party Spirit
National Spirit
Reflective of new thinking
The Congress of Soviet Writers argued that it should ‘educate the workers in the spirit of Communism’
Abstract art came under heavy criticism and new art was meant o be realistic and look like photographs
Essentially it developed into a way that government sold economic and social policy to the people
- Iron Foundry
– Eisenstein (October 1927)

7. 3. Encouraged art to inspire people to work for socialism
Control of Artists
Artists were set targets for the number of pieces of art they should produce and which subjects they should be about.
Two hundred artists were sent to work on collective farms and Five Year Plans and asked to record the heroic work they saw
The Committee for Art Affairs tightened its control on these artists and a purge of Soviet artists began as many were sent to gulags
Celebration of workers
Artists created sculptures celebrating the ball-bearing factory and to celebrate the Dneiper Dam
Many pieces of art were commissioned to celebrate the Five Year Plans, showing the heroic work of miners and honouring the production of steel.
Celebrate the success of rural policies
Russian art also set out to glorify collectivisation, depicting joyful peasants and plentiful food. They often showed technology available on Soviet farms despite the fact that collectivisation had actually caused famine and hardship
Stalin decided to redesign Russia’s cities into cities ‘fit for heroes’. Stalin commissioned architects to transform Moscow in For example the gave the underground stations a make over to feature grand pillars and crystal chandeliers so that the stations resembled palaces
New Architecture

8. - ‘Forward, Oh Time’ by Valentine Kataev
To make life happy, it was not good enough to say good words. One needed steel, steel, steel! With steel there will be a new, happy life…
- ‘Forward, Oh Time’ by Valentine Kataev
‘They’re talking about us in Pravda’ – by Vasilev
‘Voting to Expel a Kulak’ – by Adlivankin

9. Use page 90 to take notes on: The ‘myth of two leaders’
4. Encouraged art that created a certain version of history
Use page 90 to take notes on:
The ‘myth of two leaders’
‘Remaking the Past’
5. Created a Cult of Personality
Use pages to take notes on:
‘The Cult of Personality’
‘The Cult of Impersonality’

10. Conclusion Stalin’s regime was not built solely on terror.
Throughout the hardship, the Soviet people were offered a vision to inspire them to continue the struggle to build socialism
The Cult of Personality gave the regime a human face
Art and culture gave the people a way to escape from the difficulties of life but also tied them to the regime
In this sense it was an important sense of control