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Topic 3: the Rise and Rule of Single-‐Party States (USSR and Lenin/Stalin)

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Topic 3: the Rise and Rule of Single-‐Party States (USSR and Lenin/Stalin) Topic 3: The Rise and Rule of Single-Party States (USSR and Lenin/Stalin) Soviet Culture Under Lenin and Stalin, 1917-1953 Chart Major Theme: Domestic Policies and Impact Structure and Organization of Government and Administration • Lunacharskii was made People’s Commissar of Education Political Policies • War communism (culture and politics became one) • Party mindedness (partiinost) became paramount; individual views were not tolerated Economic Policies • War communism (1917-1921) • New Economic Policy (1921-1928) Social Policies Religious Policies Role of Education • Lunacharskii was made People’s Commissar of Education and he guided the Soviet regime’s efforts to improve education and develop a socialist culture • He recruited “bourgeois specialists” needed to train future “socialist specialists” • Bolshevik regime placed high priority on eliminating illiteracy; implemented the likbez, or the liquidation of illiteracy, in 1919 • In 1921, workers’ schools (rabfaki) were established in factories to teach basic readin, writing, and arithmetic • Saw education as a way to foster Soviet thought in the younger generation and eradicate bourgeois influence • Scientists experienced a growing intolerance at the hands of the party on issues of central scientific and philosophical importance during the 1920s (genetics were an especially touchy topic) Role of the Arts (Culture) • Many intellectuals and artists fled under War Communism (Lenin), some came back under the NEP (Stalin) • After the Nov. Revolution, culture wasn’t greatly affected; artists became less in demand • Lunacharskii was responsible for making Lenin’s views on culture and art a reality; he was an intellectual among Bolsheviks; he had to persuade the Bolsheviks of the value of arts • He wanted to preserve the best of Russsia’s culture, even if it was from the bourgeois era • He founded the Assos. Of Proletarian Cultural and Education Organizations (Proletkult); it eventually became too “radical” and was merged with Lunacharskii’s Commissariat • Art showed struggles between “left” and “right” factions • Poets of the Revolution: Alexander Blok (saw the Revolution as a painful birth of a new era) and Vladimir Mayakovskii (a “cultural radical”) • Novelists of Dissent: Evgeni Zamiatin (joined and left the Bolshevik party; had a frightening view of the future Soviet society) and Boris Pilniak (sympathized with all those seeking freedom and shared the concern of Zamiatin about the dangers to human freedom and individuality from efforts to organize all life by a preconceived plan) • Lenin saw cinema as the most important of all the arts; Soviet cinema had no “bourgeois specialists” to worry about; film became an instrument that interprets and educates • Effort to create a “workers’ culture” • Tightened control on Soviet intellectual life began when Stalin consolidated his power; membership of the Academy of Sciences was held primarily by aggressive party-minded members who transformed the Academy into a tool of Stalinist cultural policy • The Academy of Sciences worked tightly in conjunction with the Five Year Plan and interfered with Soviet intellectual life (in genetics, for example); science also became a discussion of politics • Stalinist technique of extending party controls to literature was to settle on scapegoats and force an entire group into obedience • Writers became scapegoats, especially during the Great Purges • Anticosmopolitanism within the arts • Music was the only aspect of the arts to come survive party directives relatively unscathed Role of Media, Propaganda • Scarce paper was used to print Bolshevik propaganda • Pereval (The Mountain Pass) was the first important Soviet “thick” journal (one with serious intellectual content, with essays on politics, economics, literature, and the arts) • Lenin saw cinema as the most important of all the arts, likely because he was able to use it as very effective propaganda; film became an instrument that interprets and educates; Dziga Vertov created virtual filmed newspapers from Soviet life, calling them “film truth” (kino-pravda) Status of Women Treatment of Religious Groups and Minorities Historiography • MacKenzie: Under the Soviet regime, culture and politics could not be viewed in isolation from each other • Zhores Medvedev:all scientific discussion became a discussion of politics as well; nearly every discussion ended badly for the side represented by those who were backed by science rather than backed by politics .
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