socialist realism

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Socialist Realism. The name of the officially approved type of art in Soviet Russia and other Communist countries, involving in theory a faithful and objective reflection of real life to educate and inspire the masses, and in practice the compulsory and uncritical glorification of the State. Socialist Realism was an aspect of the dictatorship of Stalin, who was leader of the Soviet Union from the death of Lenin in 1924 until his own death in 1953. Alan Bird (A History of Russian Painting, 1987) writes that ‘He saw all aspects of avant-garde culture, including painting, as subversive infiltrations of the purity of Soviet life’ and that his minister Andrey Zhdanov (1896–1948) ‘made himself responsible for imposing an iron control on artistic expression'. The principles of Socialist Realism began to take shape in the late 1920s and were proclaimed in the 1932 decree ‘On the Reconstruction of Literary and Art Organizations’ (before this, the term ‘Heroic Realism’ had often been used, but ‘Socialist Realism’ now became the official label). Socialist Realism was never defined specifically in terms of style, but increasingly it became associated with stereotyped images painted in a conventional academic manner.

In the 1930s there were four main types of Socialist Realist paintings: domestic scenes, portraits (see GERASIMOV), industrial and urban landscapes, and scenes on collective farms (see PLASTOV). During the Second World War, patriotic scenes from Russian history were added to the list, following the success of Sergei Eisenstein's famous film Alexander Nevsky (released 1938, withdrawn at the time of the German-Soviet pact in 1939, and shown again after the German invasion of Russia in 1941). In sculpture, the most typical products of Socialist Realism were heroic statues, the leading artists in this field including Sergei Merkurov and Vera Mukhina. After the death of Stalin there was some relaxation of strictures, but the system still remained stifling to creativity, and any form of experiment remained extremely difficult (see UNOFFICIAL ART). In the West, Socialist Realism remained synonymous with repression, and its products were generally regarded as morally tragic and aesthetically comic (although the merits of many of the artists are now being recognized). The titles alone of some pictures are crushingly dispiriting, for example Comrade Stalin together with the Leading Workers of the Party and Government Inspect the Work of a Soviet Tractor of the New Type.

Socialist Realism spread to the remotest parts of the Soviet Union, one of the most praised painters of the Stalin era being Semyon Chuikov (1902–80), who worked in Kirgizia in the extreme south of the country, near the Chinese border. His most famous work is A Daughter of Soviet Kirgizia (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, 1948, and other versions), showing a schoolgirl, book in hand, walking proudly through a vast landscape: ‘She embodies in her resolute progress across the expanse of her native land, the future hopes of a small, once backward nation, now offered—under Soviet power—the benefits of a modern educational programme’ ( Mathew Cullerne Bown, Art Under Stalin, 1991).

Socialist Realism had an equally powerful grip on Russian literature and even music. In 1934 the constitution of the Union of Writers stated that Socialist Realism ‘demands from the artist a true and historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development … combined with the task of educating workers in the spirit of Communism', and in 1948 several leading Soviet composers (including the two greatest, Prokofiev and Shostakovich) were censured for formalism and had to make a grovelling public apology. They wrote a joint letter to ‘Dear Comrade Stalin’ in which they said: ‘We are tremendously grateful … for the severe but profoundly just criticism of the present state of Soviet music … We shall bend every effort to apply our knowledge and our artistic mastery to produce vivid realistic music reflecting the life and struggles of the Soviet people.’ See also SOTS ART and TOTALITARIAN ART.

Socialist Realism. The name of the officially approved type of art in Soviet Russia and other Communist countries, involving in theory a faithful and objective reflection of real life to educate and inspire the masses, and in practice the compulsory and uncritical glorification of the state. Socialist Realism was an aspect of the dictatorship of Stalin, who was leader of the Soviet Union from the death of Lenin in 1924 until his own death in 1953. Alan Bird (A History of Russian Painting, 1987) writes that ‘He saw all aspects of avant-garde culture, including painting, as subversive infiltrations of the purity of Soviet life’ and that his minister Andrei Zhdanov ‘made himself responsible for imposing an iron control on artistic expression’.

The principles of Socialist Realism began to take shape in the late 1920s and were proclaimed in the 1932 decree ‘On the Reconstruction of Literary and Art Organizations’ (before this, the term ‘Heroic Realism’ had often been used, but ‘Socialist Realism’ now became the official label). It was never defined specifically in terms of style and in its early days it saw expression in some outstanding works, notably the paintings of Alexander Deineka (1899–1969), which are remarkable for their formal vigour as well as their humanity (The Defence of Petrograd, 1927, Tretyakov Gal., Moscow). However, Socialist Realism became increasingly associated with stereotyped images painted in a conventional academic manner. In the 1930s these paintings were of four main types: domestic scenes, portraits, industrial and urban landscapes, and scenes on collective farms. During the Second World War, patriotic scenes from Russian history were added to the list. After the death of Stalin there was some relaxation of strictures, but the system still remained stifling to creativity, and any form of experiment remained extremely difficult. In the West, Socialist Realism remained synonymous with repression, and its products were generally regarded as morally tragic and aesthetically comic, although the merits of painters such as Arkady Plastov (1893–1972), a specialist in farm scenes, are now being recognized.

Socialist Realism had an equally powerful grip on Russian literature and even music. In 1934 the constitution of the Union of Writers stated that Socialist Realism ‘demands from the artist a true and historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development…combined with the task of educating workers in the spirit of Communism’, and in 1948 several leading Soviet composers (including the two greatest, Prokofiev and Shostakovich) were censured for formalism and had to make a grovelling public apology. They wrote a joint letter to ‘Dear Comrade Stalin’ in which they said: ‘We are tremendously grateful…for the severe but profoundly just criticism of the present state of Soviet music…We shall bend every effort to apply our knowledge and our artistic mastery to produce vivid realistic music reflecting the life and struggles of the Soviet people.’ For Socialist Realism in China, see Xu Beihong.

Socialist Realism The name of the officially approved type of art in Soviet Russia and other Communist countries, involving in theory a faithful and objective reflection of real life to educate and inspire the masses, and in practice the compulsory and uncritical glorification of the State. Socialist Realism was an aspect of the dictatorship of Stalin, who was leader of the Soviet Union from the death of Lenin in 1924 until his own death in 1953. Alan Bird (A History of Russian Painting, 1987) writes that ‘He saw all aspects of avant-garde culture, including painting, as subversive infiltrations of the purity of Soviet life’ and that his minister Andrei Zhdanov ‘made himself responsible for imposing an iron control on artistic expression’. The principles of Socialist Realism began to take shape in the late 1920s and were proclaimed in the 1932 decree ‘On the Reconstruction of Literary and Art Organizations’ (before this, the term ‘Heroic Realism’ had often been used, but ‘Socialist Realism’ now became the official label). It was never defined specifically in terms of style and in its early days it saw expression in some outstanding works, notably the paintings of Alexander Deineka (1899–1969); however, it became increasingly associated with stereotyped images painted in a conventional academic manner. In the 1930s there were four main types of Socialist Realist paintings: domestic scenes, portraits, industrial and urban landscapes, and scenes on collective farms. During the Second World War, patriotic scenes from Russian history were added to the list. After the death of Stalin there was some relaxation of strictures, but the system still remained stifling to creativity, and any form of experiment remained extremely difficult. In the West, Socialist Realism remained synonymous with repression, and its products were generally regarded as morally tragic and aesthetically comic, although the merits of painters such as Arkady Plastov (1893–1972), a specialist in farm scenes, are now being recognized.

Socialist Realism, term applied, in all artistic fields, to the sober style that succeeded the wave of experiment following the Russian Revolution. As expounded by Lunacharsky, it was intended to make the theatre an instrument for the education of the masses in Communism. Apparently the term was first used in 1932, during a period of protest against the Formalism of such directors as Meyerhold and Taïrov, whose work at the time was considered too abstract for the new audiences, and useless as social propaganda. While admitting that a production must not be untrue, either to present-day facts or to knowledge of the past, it nevertheless entailed the depiction of the truth in terms that a worker-audience could understand, and the interpretation of the classics in the light of present-day trends. Everything in the theatre, even the writing of new plays, was therefore bound up with the approach to, or the exposition of, the upheavals which led to the Revolution of 1917. Although the criteria of Socialist Realism, of which Gorky (with The Mother and Enemies) is considered the founder and Mayakovsky the first brilliant exponent, have shifted with changing conditions over the years its basic policy on the problems of theatrical creation and interpretation apparently remains the same.

socialist realism Soviet artistic and literary doctrine. The role of literature and art in Soviet society was redefined in 1932 when the newly created Union of Soviet Writers proclaimed socialist realism as compulsory literary practice. As conceived by Stalin, Zhdanov, and Gorky, socialist realism prescribed a generally optimistic picture of socialist reality and of the development of the Communist revolution. Its purpose was education in the spirit of socialism. Its practice is marked by strict adherence to party doctrine and to conventional techniques of realism. Socialist realism has been widely condemned as stifling to artistic values. After the death of Stalin in 1953 some relaxation of strictures was evident, although socialist realism continued as the official doctrine. A similar approach to the creation of art and literature was also enforced for a time in the People's Republic of China.

Bibliography: See studies by A. Tertz (tr. 1961) and C. V. James (1973); M. Slonim, Soviet Russian Literature (rev. ed. 1967).

Socialist Realism was the official artistic and literary doctrine of the Soviet Union, promulgated in 1934 at the First Congress of Soviet Writers with the encouragement of the dictator Stalin and of Gorky, whose early novel The Mother (1906–7) was held up as a model. The doctrine condemned Modernist works such as those of Joyce or Kafka as symptoms of decadent bourgeois pessimism, and required writers to affirm the struggle for socialism by portraying positive, heroic actions. These principles were condemned by major Marxist critics and writers (Brecht, Lukács, Trotsky) for propagandist optimism and aesthetic conservatism, and many writers sympathetic to communism found them an embarrassment. Under Stalin's tyranny, the doctrine was employed as a pretext for the persecution and silencing of non-conformist writers ( Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Pasternak). Hardly any work of significant value conformed to the official line, except by retrospective adoption, as with Sholokov's Virgin Soil Upturned (1932).

socialist realism State policy on the arts, promoted by the Soviet Union from the 1930s to the 1980s. It asserted that all the arts should appeal to ordinary workers, and should be inspiring and optimistic in spirit. Art that did not fulfill these precepts was effectively banned, and most serious writers, artists and composers were forced underground or into exile.

Socialist Realism. Offically approved styles of art, architecture, literature, etc., in the former Soviet Union and some other Communist countries. In architecture it usually involved a type of coarse stripped Classicism.

Bibliography

CoE (1995);
Jane Turner (1996)

socialist realism the theory of art, literature, and music officially sanctioned by the state in some Communist countries (especially in the Soviet Union under Stalin), by which artistic work was supposed to reflect and promote the ideals of a socialist society.