Manege Affair

The Manege Affair was an episode when Nikita Khrushchev together with other Party leadership visited an anniversary art exhibition "30 Years of the Moscow Artists' Union" at Moscow Manege on December 1, 1962. It resulted in Khruschev's angry rant against "filth, decadence and sexual deviations" he saw along with the traditional works of Socialist Realism. After the visit, he arranged a campaign to tighten the grip of the Party over culture. This has been described as the beginning of the end of the Cultural Thaw in the Soviet Union. The episode is covered in detail in the book Unofficial Art in the Soviet Union by Paul Sjeklocha and Igor Mead and in other publications.

Individual encounters

Speaking to Ely Bielutin, the exhibition host, Khrushchev said:

Don't you know how to paint? My grandson will paint it better! What is this? Are you men or damned pederasts!? How can you paint like that? Do you have a conscience?
That's it, Belyutin, I'm telling you as the Chairman of the Council of Ministers: The Soviet people don't need all this. I'm telling you! Forbid! Prohibit everything! Stop this mess! I order! I say! And check everything! On the radio, on television, and in print, uproot all sympathizers of this!

Ülo Sooster's widow narrated:
From many memoirs there is an impression that Khrushchev genuinely believed that it was an exhibition of homosexualists. A well-known example from the recollections of Ernst Neizvestny: Khrushchev asked Ernst: "Are you a pidaras ?" Ernst retorted, no, just give me a girl and I will show you. It looked like Khrushchev liked this answer.