Socialist realism


Socialist realism, also known as socrealism, is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official cultural doctrine in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. The doctrine was first proclaimed by the First Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934 as approved as the only acceptable method for Soviet cultural production in all media.
The primary official objective of socialist realism was "to depict reality in its revolutionary development" although no formal guidelines concerning style or subject matter were provided. Works of socialist realism were usually characterized by unambiguous narratives or iconography relating to the Marxist–Leninist ideology, such as the emancipation of the proletariat. In visual arts, socialist realism often relied on the conventions of academic art and classical sculpture. Socialist realism was usually devoid of complex artistic meaning or interpretation yet counter sources may provide different interpretations.
In the aftermath of World War II, socialist realism was adopted as official policy by the communist states that were politically aligned with the Soviet Union. Socialist realism was the predominant form of approved art in the Soviet Union from its development in the early 1920s to its eventual fall from official status beginning in the late 1960s until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. While other countries have employed a prescribed canon of art, socialist realism in the Soviet Union persisted longer and was more restrictive than elsewhere in Europe. The doctrine of socialist realism should not be confused with social realism, a type of art that realistically depicts subjects of social concern and was popularized in the United States during the 1930s, or any other forms of artistic "realism".

History

Development

Socialist realism was developed by many thousands of artists, across a diverse society, over several decades. Early examples of realism in Russian art include the work of the Peredvizhnikis and Ilya Yefimovich Repin. While these works do not have the same political connotation, they exhibit the techniques exercised by their successors. After the Bolsheviks took control of Russia on October 25, 1917, there was a marked shift in artistic styles. There had been a short period of artistic exploration in the time between the fall of the Tsar and the rise of the Bolsheviks.
Shortly after the Bolsheviks took control, Anatoly Lunacharsky was appointed as head of Narkompros, the People's Commissariat for Enlightenment. This put Lunacharsky in the position of deciding the direction of art in the newly created Soviet state. Although Lunacharsky did not dictate a single aesthetic model for Soviet artists to follow, he developed a system of aesthetics based on the human body that would later help to influence socialist realism. He believed that "the sight of a healthy body, intelligent face or friendly smile was essentially life-enhancing." He concluded that art had a direct effect on the human organism and under the right circumstances that effect could be positive. By depicting "the perfect person", Lunacharsky believed art could educate citizens on how to be the perfect Soviets.

Debate within Soviet art

There were two main groups debating the fate of Soviet art: futurists and traditionalists. Russian Futurists, many of whom had been creating abstract or leftist art before the Bolsheviks, believed communism required a complete rupture from the past and, therefore, so did Soviet art. Traditionalists believed in the importance of realistic representations of everyday life. Under Lenin's rule and the New Economic Policy, there was a certain amount of private commercial enterprise, allowing both the futurists and the traditionalists to produce their art for individuals with capital. By 1928, the Soviet government had enough strength and authority to end private enterprises, thus ending support for fringe groups such as the futurists. At this point, although the term "socialist realism" was not being used, its defining characteristics became the norm.
According to the Great Russian Encyclopedia, the term was first used in press by chairman of the organizing committee of the Union of Soviet Writers, Ivan Gronsky in Literaturnaya Gazeta on May 23, 1932. The term was approved in meetings that included politicians of the highest level, including Joseph Stalin. Maxim Gorky, a proponent of literary socialist realism, published a famous article titled "Socialist Realism" in 1933. During the Congress of 1934, four guidelines were laid out for socialist realism. The work must be:
  1. Proletarian: art relevant to the workers and understandable to them.
  2. Typical: scenes of everyday life of the people.
  3. Realistic: in the representational sense.
  4. Partisan: supportive of the aims of the State and the Party.

    Characteristics

The purpose of socialist realism was to limit popular culture to a specific, highly regulated faction of emotional expression that promoted Soviet ideals. The party was of the utmost importance and was always to be favorably featured. The key concepts that developed assured loyalty to the party were partiinost', ideinost, klassovost, pravdivost. Ideinost was an important concept: not only was the work to embody an approved idea, but its content was more important than its form. This allowed the identification of formalism, a work in which the formal aspects of a work of art commanded more importance than the subject matter, or content.
There was a prevailing sense of optimism, as socialist realism's function was to show the ideal Soviet society. Not only was the present glorified, but the future was also supposed to be depicted in an agreeable fashion. Because the present and the future were constantly idealized, socialist realism had a sense of forced optimism. Tragedy and negativity were not permitted, unless they were shown in a different time or place. This sentiment created what would later be dubbed "revolutionary romanticism".
Revolutionary romanticism elevated the common worker, whether factory or agricultural, by presenting his life, work, and recreation as admirable. Its purpose was to show how much the standard of living had improved thanks to the revolution, as educational information, to teach Soviet citizens how they should be acting and to improve morale. The ultimate aim was to create what Lenin called "an entirely new type of human being": The New Soviet Man. Art was a way to instill party values on a massive scale. Stalin described the socialist realist artists as "engineers of souls".
Common images used in socialist realism were flowers, sunlight, the body, youth, flight, industry, and new technology. These poetic images were used to show the utopianism of communism and the Soviet state. Art became more than an aesthetic pleasure; instead it served a very specific function. Soviet ideals placed functionality and work above all else; therefore, for art to be admired, it must serve a purpose. Georgi Plekhanov, a Marxist theoretician, states that art is useful if it serves society: "There can be no doubt that art acquired a social significance only in so far as it depicts, evokes, or conveys actions, emotions and events that are of significance to society."
The themes depicted would feature the beauty of work, the achievements of the collective and the individual for the good of the whole. The artwork would often feature an easily discernible educational message.
The artist could not, however, portray life just as they saw it because anything that reflected poorly on Communism had to be omitted as it did not reflect material reality of the work of the artist. People who could not be shown as either wholly good or wholly evil could not be used as characters as the concept of pure good and evil did not exist. Art was filled with health and happiness: paintings showed busy industrial and agricultural scenes; sculptures depicted workers, sentries, and schoolchildren.
Creativity was an important part of socialist realism. The styles used in creating art during this period were those that would produce the most realistic results based on material realism. Painters would depict happy, muscular peasants and workers in factories and collective farms. During the Stalin period, they produced numerous heroic portraits of Stalin to serve his cult of personalityall in the most realistic fashion possible. The most important thing for a socialist realist artist was not artistic integrity as it was political in nature, thus creating a singular materialistic realism aesthetic.

Important groups

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines socialist realism as "a Marxist aesthetic theory calling for the didactic use of literature, art, and music to develop social consciousness in an evolving socialist state". Socialist realism compelled artists of all forms to create positive or uplifting reflections of socialist utopian life by utilizing any visual media, such as posters, movies, newspapers, theater and radio, beginning during the Communist Revolution of 1917 and escalating during the reign of Stalin until the early 1980s.
Vladimir Lenin, head of the Russian government 1917–1924, laid the foundation for this new wave of art, suggesting that art is for the people and the people should love and understand it, while uniting the masses. Artists Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner attempted to define the lines of art under Lenin by writing "The Realist Manifesto" in 1920, suggesting that artists should be given free rein to create as their muse desired. Lenin, however, had a different purpose for art: wanting it functional, and Stalin built on that belief that art should be agitation.
The term Socialist Realism was proclaimed in 1934 at the Soviet Writer's congress, although it was left not precisely defined. This turned individual artists and their works into state-controlled propaganda.
After the death of Stalin in 1953, he was succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev who allowed for less draconian state controls and openly condemned Stalin's artistic demands in 1956 with his "Secret Speech", and thus began a reversal in policy known as "Khrushchev's Thaw". In 1964, Khrushchev was removed and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev, who reintroduced Stalin's ideas and reversed the artistic decisions made by Khrushchev. However, by the early 1980s, the Socialist Realist movement had begun to fade. Artists to date remark that the Russian Social Realist movement as the most oppressive and shunned period of Soviet Art.