The Soviet Union under Stalin 1039Who is that man who appears to the toilers,
Spreading happiness and joy all around?
It is Stalin, I shout, so the whole world will hear,
It is Stalin, our Leader and Friend.Soviet Culture
Many artists and writers were originally enthusiastic about the Russian
Revolution, and a spirit of utopianism survived into the early 1920s. The
Communists wanted to build a unique culture based upon mass mobiliza
tion and commitment that would both reflect and accentuate the collec
tivization of life in the Soviet Union, helping forge consensus. The culture
of utopianism would be defiantly proletarian and egalitarian.
In view of Stalin’s determination that the Soviet Union rapidly industri
alize, the machine was a common motif in Soviet imagery in the inter-war
period. Soviet artists and writers believed that mechanization in the service
of capitalists had further enslaved the masses but that technology could be
potentially liberating. The state created art schools and provided assistance
to struggling artists, hoping to enroll them in the service of the Revolution.
In its first years, the Soviet state patronized futurists (see Chapter 20) as
revolutionary artists who had embraced technological change and who would
provide a new aesthetic for socialism in the construction of an ideal soci
ety. Soviet futurists issued a manifesto in which they promised to “re-examine
the theory and practice of Leftist art, to free it from individualist distor
tions, and develop its Communist aspects.” Artists collaborated with design
ers in producing models for standardized clothing and household items.
As the Soviet state subsumed most aspects of public life, the initial
mini-explosion of cultural forms that had occurred during the first years of
the Soviet state gave way to repressive orthodoxy. Rejecting traditional and
avant-garde art as bourgeois escapism, Stalin believed that art and litera
ture should assume a social function, depicting what he called “socialist
realism.” Stalin preferred monumental murals that presented smiling work
ers toiling for the state. Artists who did not conform stood accused of pan
dering to “bourgeois values,” an increasingly dangerous denunciation. The
Union of Communist Youth (Komsomol) sent out members to preach cul
tural uniformity, disrupting plays considered “bourgeois.”
Stalin charmed and deceived many foreign statesmen and visitors,
impressing them with the fact that millions of working-class children were
now entering school for the first time. Some workers attended night classes,
or even university. Women obtained training and positions in fields from
which they previously had been excluded, such as medicine. Soviet guides
whisked foreign visitors around on Moscow’s new subway to see the Soviet
capital’s improved housing, water supply, and sewage facilities. “Potemkin
village” was a series of gleaming facades that impressed visitors who did
not realize that virtually nothing stood behind them. Although church and