Editing Socialist realism (section)

== Soviet Union ==
{{more citations needed section|date=February 2023}}

[[File:Russia-Moscow-VDNH-3.jpg|thumb|300px|The [[All-Russia Exhibition Centre|VDNH]] in Moscow]]

In conjunction with the [[Stalinist architecture|Socialist Classical]] style of architecture, socialist realism was the officially approved type of art in the [[Soviet Union]] for more than fifty years.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Socialist Realisms: Soviet Painting 1920–1970|last=Ellis|first=Andrew|publisher=Skira Editore S.p.A.|year=2012|page=20}}</ref>

In the early years of the Soviet Union, Russian and Soviet artists embraced a wide variety of art forms under the auspices of [[Proletkult]]. Revolutionary politics and radical non-traditional art forms were seen as complementary.<ref>Werner Haftmann, ''Painting in the 20th century'', London 1965, vol. 1, p. 196.</ref> In art, [[Constructivism (art)|Constructivism]] flourished. In poetry, the non-traditional and the [[avant-garde]] were often praised.

These styles of art were later rejected by members of the Communist Party who did not appreciate modern styles such as [[Impressionism]] and [[Cubism]]. Socialist realism was, to some extent, a reaction against the adoption of these "decadent" styles. It was thought by Lenin that the non-representative forms of art were not understood by the proletariat and could therefore not be used by the state for propaganda.<ref>Haftman, p. 196</ref>

[[Alexander Bogdanov]] argued that the radical reformation of society to communist principles meant little if any bourgeois art would prove useful; some of his more radical followers advocated the destruction of libraries and museums.<ref>[[Richard Pipes]], ''Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime'', p. 288, {{ISBN|978-0-394-50242-7}}</ref> Lenin rejected this philosophy,<ref>Richard Pipes, ''Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime'', p. 289, {{ISBN|978-0-394-50242-7}}</ref> deplored the rejection of the beautiful because it was old, and explicitly described art as needing to call on its heritage: "[[Proletarian culture]] must be the logical development of the store of knowledge mankind has accumulated under the yoke of capitalist, landowner, and bureaucratic society."<ref>Oleg Sopontsinsky, ''Art in the Soviet Union: Painting, Sculpture, Graphic Arts'', p. 6 Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad, 1978</ref>

Modern art styles appeared to refuse to draw upon this heritage, thus clashing with the long realist tradition in Russia and rendering the art scene complex.<ref>Oleg Sopontsinsky, ''Art in the Soviet Union: Painting, Sculpture, Graphic Arts'', p. 21 Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad, 1978</ref> Even in Lenin's time, a cultural bureaucracy began to restrain art to fit [[Propaganda in the Soviet Union|propaganda purposes]].<ref>Richard Pipes, ''Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime'', p. 283, {{ISBN|978-0-394-50242-7}}</ref> [[Leon Trotsky]]'s arguments that a "[[proletarian literature]]" was un-Marxist because the proletariat would lose its class characteristics in the transition to a classless society, however, did not prevail.<ref>R. H. Stacy, Russian Literary Criticism p. 191 {{ISBN|0-8156-0108-5}}</ref>
[[File:Lénine mosaïque.jpg|thumb|left|A mosaic of [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] inside the [[Moscow Metro]]]]
Socialist realism became state policy in 1934 when the First Congress of Soviet Writers met and Stalin's representative [[Andrei Zhdanov]] gave a speech strongly endorsing it as "the official style of Soviet culture".<ref>{{cite web|title=1934: Writers' Congress|url=http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1934writers&Year=1934|work=Seventeen Moments in Soviet History|access-date=11 December 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131208100515/http://soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1934writers&Year=1934|archive-date=8 December 2013}}</ref> It was enforced ruthlessly in all spheres of artistic endeavour. Form and content were often limited, with erotic, religious, abstract, surrealist, and expressionist art being forbidden. Formal experiments, including internal dialogue, stream of consciousness, nonsense, free-form association, and cut-up were also disallowed. This was either because they were "decadent", unintelligible to the proletariat, or [[counter-revolutionary]].

Art exhibitions of 1935–1940 serve as counterpoint to claims that the artistic life of the period was suppressed by the ideology and artists submitted entirely to what was then called "social order". A great number of [[landscape painting|landscapes]], [[portrait painting|portraits]], and [[genre painting]]s exhibited at the time pursued purely technical purposes and were thus ostensibly free from any ideology. Genre painting was also approached in a similar way.<ref>Sergei V. Ivanov, ''Unknown Socialist Realism. The Leningrad School'', {{Full citation needed|date=September 2015}}<!--Place and publisher needed.-->: pp. 29, 32–340. {{ISBN|978-5-901724-21-7}}.</ref>

Their time and contemporaries, with all its images, ideas, and dispositions found it full expression in portraits by [[Vladimir Gorb]], [[Boris Korneev (painter)|Boris Korneev]], [[Engels Kozlov]], [[Felix Lembersky]], [[Oleg Lomakin]], [[Samuil Nevelshtein]], [[Victor Oreshnikov]], Semion Rotnitsky, [[Lev Russov]], and [[Leonid Steele]]; in landscapes by [[Nikolai Galakhov]], [[Vasily Golubev (painter)|Vasily Golubev]], [[Dmitry Maevsky]], [[Sergei Ivanovich Osipov|Sergei Osipov]], [[Vladimir Ovchinnikov (painter)|Vladimir Ovchinnikov]], [[Alexander Mikhailovich Semionov|Alexander Semionov]], [[Arseny Semionov]], and [[Nikolai Timkov]]; and in genre paintings by Andrey Milnikov, Yevsey Moiseenko, [[Mikhail Natarevich]], [[Yuri Neprintsev]], [[Nikolai Pozdneev]], [[Mikhail Trufanov]], [[Yuri Tulin]], [[Nina Veselova]], and others.{{citation needed|date=September 2014}}

In 1974, for instance, a show of unofficial art in a field near Moscow was broken up and the artwork destroyed with a water cannon and bulldozers (see [[Bulldozer Exhibition]]). [[Mikhail Gorbachev]]'s policies of [[glasnost]] and [[perestroika]] facilitated an explosion of interest in alternative art styles in the late 1980s, but socialist realism remained in limited force as the official state art style until as late as 1991. It was not until after the [[fall of the Soviet Union]] that artists were finally freed from state censorship.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/16/archives/russians-disrupt-modern-art-show-with-bulldozers-unofficial-outside.html|title=Russians Disrupt Modern Art Show|last=Wren|first=Christopher S.|date=September 16, 1974|work=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=2019-01-16}}</ref>