Culture: 1950-1985

Culture 1950-1985

• Cultural shifts occurred, including a move away from the heavy terror tactics of the Stalin years to subtler methods of control.

Nonconformity from the 1950s

• Cultural policy experienced changes during Stalin's last years, with initial signs of greater freedom for artists and writers.
• Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova were permitted to give public readings of their unorthodox poetry in Moscow in 1946.
• A campaign known as the Zhdanovschina condemned Western culture, influenced by xenophobia intensified by the Cold War, quickly dispelled initial signs of freedom.
• Dmitri Shostakovich, a classical composer, faced humiliation when Zhdanov made him play tunes on the piano, stating there was little point in composing music you could not hum.
• Shostakovich then restricted himself to writing film scores.

The Impact of De-Stalinisation on Culture

• Artists and writers were given greater opportunity to freely express themselves under Khrushchev's policy of de-Stalinisation after 1957.
• Works by Isaac Babel, a writer who had been shot during the purges, were published.
• Younger poets, like Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Andrei Voznesenki, had permission to release collections of experimental poetry, and jazz music had a reappearance.
• After Khrushchev's personal intervention, Solzhenitsyn's previously banned book, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which recounted the horrors of the Gulag, was published.
• Solzhenitsyn's future novels attacked aspects of Stalin's terror and aligned with de-Stalinisation's new political emphasis.

Voices Against Official Culture

• Sholokhov critiqued the official Soviet culture, labeling it 'grey trash'.
• Writers explored themes, including spiritual concerns, problems in rural life, adultery, divorce, and alcohol abuse.
• This 'literature of conscience' did not emphasize the idealized life of Socialist Realism.
• 'Low-brow' literature and science-fiction novels were used to critique the Soviet system.

Youth Culture and Western Influence

• Nonconformity began greatly impacting youth culture in the USSR during the late 1950s.
• Soviet youth, tired of the repetitive themes of official cultural output, became influenced by Western music.
• Urban youth groups that were listening to Western pop and rock n roll were labelled stilyagi, and were seen as rude and ignorant freaks.
• The radio station Voice of America started broadcasting this music into the USSR in 1955.
• Alexander Galich became a prominent figure with the rise of the guitar-poet, composing and performing his own works which addressed the feelings of the individual and socially alienated.
• Magnitizdat, or tape recorder self-publishing, which allowed the spread of music to a wider audience, was a headache for authorities.

Non-conformity During the Brezhnev Years

• The replacement of Khrushchev by Brezhnev in 1964 narrowed the boundaries of what was acceptable after the cultural thaw, although it did not reinstate the strict application of Socialist Realism of Stalin's years.
• Many artists and writers found the new environment easier to work in due to having some certainty over what was permissible, and continued to push the boundaries of what was acceptable.
• Official culture still focused on propaganda and socialism's and the Soviet state's achievements.
• To those wishing to stretch themselves creatively under Breshnev, it was the graveyard of ideas, openness, and free expression.

Aspects of Nonconformity

• By the 1970s, Soviet culture became increasingly conservative, making artists and writers more likely to experience repercussions for exploring romantic themes over political ones.
• The derevenshchiki school of village prose emphasized the value of simple rural life and caused unease because it was viewed as a critique of urban life.
• The government provided some encouragement to Russian nationalism, but writers focusing on the theme alienated non-Russians and often criticized the Soviet Union.
• Soviet youth continued to be drawn towards cultural trends in the West, including Vladmir Vysotsky, whose songs of romance and delinquency worried the government due to an outpouring of grief at his funeral in 1980.
• The elderly men in the Politburo struggled to understand rock and disco music but realized control over music was undermined by the development of cassette recorders, which were widely available for personal recording and distribution by the early 1980s.

Clashes Between Artists and the Government to 1985

• Cultural restrictions eased after 1953, and nonconformity no longer resulted in prison sentences, however clampdowns still produced clashes with the government.
• Artists and writers continued to test the limits of what was permissible.

Clashes with Khrushchev

• The treatment of Boris Pasternak and his novel Doctor Zhivago demonstrated the limits of Khrushchev’s cultural thaw.
• Soviet publishers hesitated, but Khrushchev banned the book upon intervening.
• Doctor Zhivago, a book that contained criticisms of the Revolution set during the Russian Civil War, was smuggled abroad and was first published in Italy in 1957.
• To Khrushchev's embarrassment, Pasternak received positive reception from the book and was awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature.
• Khrushchev refused to let Pasternak go to Sweden to receive his prize, causing international embarrassment for the Soviet government, with Khrushchev regretting his actions later.
• The government did not encourage abstract art, as Khrushchev demonstrated during his 1962 visit to an exhibition in the Kremlin, where he was enraged, proclaiming that ‘a donkey could smear better art with its tail'.
• Although the artists were harangued in front of cameras and were in fear of arrest and imprisonment, no action was taken against the artists.

Khrushchev's Anger

• Khrushchev expressed his distaste for jazz music, calling it indecent at the 1962 Manege exhibition of art in Moscow.
• Komsomol groups patrolled streets and dance halls to record unacceptable activity, and in 1961, the government held a conference to decide on which dance moves were permissible.
• Khrushchev's cultural policy was based upon his own opinions, demonstrated by his increasing intolerance of nonconformity.

The Trial of Joseph Brodsky, 1964

• Brezhnev's government demonstrated its patience with nonconformist writers through the treatment of Joseph Brodsky.
• Brodsky did not have a license as a poet under the Writers’ Union, and was charged with ‘parasitism’ and condemned for the ‘depravity’ of his poetry.
• Brodsky was sentenced to five years of hard labor in prison for his poetry, with the trial aiming to send a message to those who wished to work independently of the state.
• Detailed court records smuggled abroad and support from writers led to his release after two years, before being expelled from the Soviet Union.

The Trial of Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, 1966

• The arrest of the writers Sinyavsky and Daniel in 1965, who wrote novels depicting life in the Soviet Union as harsh and surreal, signaled a further clampdown on cultural nonconformity.
• The writers, writing under pseudonyms, were arrested and accused of anti-Soviet propaganda under Article 70 of the criminal code.
• Their arrest resulted in over 200 students demonstrating, an open letter of support signed by 63 intellectuals, and over 200 letters requesting for the case to be reviewed.
• The court sentenced Sinyavsky to seven years and Daniel to five years in a strict-regime labour camp on 10 February 1966.

Control and Further Clampdowns

• The government controlled cultural output through state subsidies, access to media, and venues.
• The government granted awards and privileges to artists and writers who served the state’s interests.
• Writers who went too far from what was acceptable were given a warning from a government official, and artists who continued to push boundaries faced harsh punishment, including Solzhenitsyn, who was expelled from the Writers’ Union in 1969 and the Soviet Union in 1974.
• The local art gallery director at Novosibirsk was sentenced to eight years in prison in 1970 for displaying dissident painters' art.
• Brezhnev's government launched a propaganda campaign and used bulldozers during a 1975 open-air exhibition, eventually allowing the art to be put back on display.
• Andropov's government clamped down on popular culture and limited the output of songs not composed by official Soviet composers to 20% of radio airtime in 1982-84.
• A commission was set up to vet rock groups before they could perform, with Komsomol groups employed to patrol streets.

Conclusion

• The Soviet government attempted to control the Soviet people through terror, as well as control over culture since the establishment of the communist regime in 1917.
• Public consent relied on the government's ability to better economic conditions and material benefits for the population.
• Economic hardship became the main threat to order and stability by the 1970s.

Jan 2018 - How accurate is it to say that, in the years 1953–64, Khrushchev reduced state control over the arts and artists in the Soviet Union?

• Communism should liberate artists, and, in the years 1953-54, 1956-57 and 1961-62, Khrushchev permitted the publication of novels that criticised aspects of Stalin’s regime.
• Access to foreign literature and films was granted to Soviet citizens, as well as permissions to listen to some foreign radio stations.
• Khrushchev relaxed controls over music education and allowed classical music from Western Europe and American jazz on the curriculum in 1957, as well as allowing young people to dance to African drumming.
• The development of poster art that recognised the inefficiencies in the Soviet factories and on the farms and used a cartoon style more common in the USA was permitted by Khrushchev.
• Khrushchev did not believe in complete freedom for artists and believed that society could be destabilised if there was complete freedom.
• Restrictions were revived in between the 'thaws', in 1954-55; 1958-60 and 1962-64.
• Controls on literature was restored in 1957, in reaction to Boris Pasternak’s Dr Zhivago, which criticised Lenin’s regime.
• Official government-owned publishing houses only published approved books and artists, with those who work that did not gain approval able to circulate their work on the black market.
• Artists who did not submit to the government were sent to psychiatric institutions and forcibly medicated.

October 2019 - How significant were the clashes between artists and the government in the years 1964–85?

• The state sent a message that it considered dissent to be significant by the arrest, trial and imprisonment of writers Sinyavsky and Daniel in 1965–66.
• The treatment of artists whose ideas challenged the state suggests the clashes were regarded as significant, like the exile and imprisonment of Solzhenitsyn for demanding an end to censorship.
• The government regarded even implicit criticisms significant, adding a clause to the criminal code making it a criminal act to distribute 'false information harmful to the soviet state'.
• Lesser known artists, whose work criticised or deviated from the party line, were sent to institutions for ‘repressive psychiatric treatment', with 7000–8000 artists held in such institutions by the early 1970s.
• The government took criticism by underground artists seriously, bulldozing an unofficial open-air exhibition in 1974.
• The majority of artists belonged to groups that adhered to the official line unquestioningly or who only expressed criticism through official channels.
• International disapproval of attacks on artists meant that some artists who were imprisoned under Khrushchev were released, and show trials and imprisonment were rare after the Sinyavsky and Daniel affair.
• The government needed to use very little pressure to bring most artists into line through a warning from a government official.
• A deal was made with artists during the 1980s, e.g. 20 per cent radio airtime granted to songs that were not composed by official soviet composers by Andropov.