Editing Socialist realism

{{Short description|Soviet style of realistic art depicting communist values}}
{{Distinguish|Social realism|Real socialism}}
{{Infobox art movement
|name = Socialist realism
|image = {{photomontage
|photo1a = Isaak Brodsky stalin02.jpg
|photo2a=Propaganda of North Korea (6073884618).jpg
|photo3a=
|photo4a = Kievsk APL 31.jpg
|size = 250
|color_border = #AAAAAA
|color = #F9F9F9}}
|caption = Top to bottom: ''Portrait of J.V. Stalin'' by [[Isaak Brodsky]] (1933); Mural in [[North Korea]]; [[Kiyevskaya (Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line)|Kiyevskaya]] station in the [[Moscow Metro]]
|alt =
|yearsactive = 1932 – present
|influences = [[Marxism]], [[Realism (arts)|Realism]]
|country = [[List of socialist states|Socialist countries]]}}

'''Socialist realism''' was the official [[Culture|cultural]] doctrine of the [[Soviet Union]] that mandated an idealized representation of life under [[socialism]] in [[literature]] and the [[visual arts]]. The doctrine was first proclaimed by the [[First Congress of Soviet Writers]] in 1934 as approved method for [[Culture of the Soviet Union|Soviet cultural]] production in all [[Media (communication)|media]].<ref name=":10">{{cite book |author1-last=Elliott |author1-first=David |author2-last=Juszkiewicz |author2-first=Piotr |chapter=Socialist Realism |year=2003 |chapter-url=https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/documentID/oao-9781884446054-e-7000079464 |title=Oxford Art Online |access-date=2023-11-26 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |doi=10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.t079464 |isbn=978-1-884446-05-4}}</ref> In the [[aftermath of World War II]], socialist realism was adopted by the [[communist state]]s that were [[Eastern Bloc|politically aligned with the Soviet Union]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/art/Socialist-Realism|title=Socialist Realism &#124; art|website=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref> 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.<ref name=":10" />

It was usually characterized by unambiguous [[narrative]]s or [[iconography]] relating to the [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist–Leninist ideology]], such as the emancipation of the [[proletariat]].<ref>Korin, Pavel, "Thoughts on Art", ''Socialist Realism in Literature and Art''. Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1971, p. 95.</ref> Despite its name, the figures in the style are very often highly idealized, especially in sculpture, where it often leans heavily on the conventions of [[classical sculpture]]. Although related, it 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,<ref>Todd, James G. "Social Realism". Art Terms. Museum of Modern Art, 2009.</ref> or other forms of [[Realism (art movement)|"realism" in the visual arts]]. Socialist realism was made with an extremely literal and obvious meaning, usually showing an [[Propaganda in the Soviet Union|idealized Soviet society]]. Socialist realism was usually devoid of complex artistic meaning or interpretation.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/430715.pdf|jstor=430715|title=Socialist Realism and Literary Theory|last1=Morson|first1=Gary Saul|journal=The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism|year=1979|volume=38|issue=2|pages=121–133|doi=10.1111/1540_6245.jaac38.2.0121}}</ref><ref>{{citation|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327633949|title=Translating Novels in Romania: The Age of Socialist Realism. From an Ideological Center to Geographical Margins |date=January 2016|author=Stefan Baghiu}}</ref>

Socialist realism was the predominant form of [[Censorship in the Soviet Union|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 [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|collapse of the Soviet Union]] in 1991.<ref>Encyclopedia Britannica on-line definition of Socialist Realism</ref><ref>Ellis, Andrew. ''Socialist Realisms: Soviet Painting 1920–1970''. Skira Editore S.p.A., 2012, p. 20</ref> 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.<ref>Valkenier, Elizabeth. ''Russian Realist Art''. Ardis, 1977, p. 3.</ref>

== History ==

=== Development ===
[[File:Kulturpalast Dresden Wandbild, Ausschnitt.jpg|thumb|Detail, ''Der Weg der Roten Fahne'', [[Kulturpalast (Dresden)|Kulturpalast]] [[Dresden]], Germany]]
Socialist realism was developed by many thousands of artists, across a diverse society, over several decades.<ref name="Ellis, Andrew 2012, p. 17">Ellis, Andrew. ''Socialist Realisms: Soviet Painting 1920–1970''. Skira Editore S.p.A., 2012, p. 17</ref> Early examples of realism in [[Russian art]] include the work of the [[Peredvizhniki]]s 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.<ref name="Ellis, Andrew 2012, p. 17" /> 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."<ref name="Ellis, Andrew 2012, p. 21">Ellis, Andrew. ''Socialist Realisms: Soviet Painting 1920–1970''. Skira Editore S.p.A., 2012, p. 21</ref> 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" ([[New Soviet man]]), Lunacharsky believed art could educate citizens on how to be the perfect Soviets.<ref name="Ellis, Andrew 2012, p. 21" />

==== Debate within Soviet art ====
[[File:First Lenin statue in USSR 1924.jpg|thumb|First Lenin statue built by the workers in [[Noginsk]]]]
There were two main groups debating the fate of Soviet art: futurists and traditionalists. [[Russian Futurism|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.<ref name="Ellis, Andrew 2012, p. 21" /> 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.<ref name="Ellis, Andrew 2012, p. 22">Ellis, Andrew. ''Socialist Realisms: Soviet Painting 1920–1970''. Skira Editore S.p.A., 2012, p. 22</ref> 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.<ref>Ellis, Andrew. ''Socialist Realisms: Soviet Painting 1920–1970''. Skira Editore S.p.A., 2012, p. 23</ref>

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.<ref>Социалистический реализм. In: Большая российская энциклопедия, 2015, pp. 75–753</ref> The term was approved in meetings that included politicians of the highest level, including [[Joseph Stalin]].<ref name="Ellis, Andrew 2012, p. 37">Ellis, Andrew. ''Socialist Realisms: Soviet Painting 1920–1970''. Skira Editore S.p.A., 2012, p. 37</ref> [[Maxim Gorky]], a proponent of literary socialist realism, published a famous article titled "Socialist Realism" in 1933.<ref name="Ellis, Andrew 2012, p. 37" /> During the Congress of 1934, four guidelines were laid out for socialist realism.<ref>Juraga, Dubravka and Booker, Keith M. ''Socialist Cultures East and West''. Praeger, 2002, p. 68</ref> The work must be:
# [[Proletariat|Proletarian]]: art relevant to the workers and understandable to them.
# Typical: scenes of everyday life of the people.
# Realistic: in the representational sense.
# Partisan: supportive of the aims of the State and the Party.

=== Characteristics ===
[[File:Fotothek df roe-neg 0006428 004 Blick in die Halle mit einer Statue von Stalin u.jpg|thumb|Workers inspect architectural model under a statue of Stalin, [[Leipzig]], [[East Germany]], 1953.]]
The purpose of socialist realism was to limit popular culture to a specific, highly regulated faction of emotional expression that promoted Soviet ideals.<ref name="Nelson 1988, p. 5">Nelson, Cary and Lawrence, Grossberg. ''Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture''.  University of Illinois Press, 1988, p. 5</ref> 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']]'' (party-mindedness), ''ideinost'' (idea and ideological content), ''klassovost'' (class content), ''pravdivost'' (truthfulness).<ref name="Ellis, Andrew 2012, p. 38">Ellis, Andrew. ''Socialist Realisms: Soviet Painting 1920–1970''. Skira Editore S.p.A., 2012, p. 38</ref> ''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 (art)|formalism]], a work in which the formal aspects of a work of art commanded more importance than the subject matter, or content.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tompkins |first=David G. |title=Composing the Party Line |publisher=Purdue University Press |year=2013 |isbn= |pages=17–18 |language=EN}}</ref>

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".<ref name="Ellis, Andrew 2012, p. 38" />

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.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Socialist Realism Movement Overview |url=https://www.theartstory.org/movement/socialist-realism/ |access-date=2024-06-20 |website=The Art Story}}</ref> The ultimate aim was to create what Lenin called "an entirely new type of human being": The ''[[New Soviet Man]]''. Art (especially posters and murals) was a way to instill party values on a massive scale. Stalin described the socialist realist artists as "engineers of souls".<ref name="Overy, Richard 2004, p. 354">Overy, Richard. ''The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia''. W.W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 354</ref>

Common images used in socialist realism were flowers, sunlight, the body, youth, flight, industry, and new technology.<ref name="Ellis, Andrew 2012, p. 38" /> 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''."<ref>Schwartz, Lawrence H. ''Marxism and Culture''. Kennikat Press, 1980, p. 110</ref>

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. People who could not be shown as either wholly good or wholly evil could not be used as characters.<ref>Frankel, Tobia. ''The Russian Artist''. Macmillan Company, 1972, p. 125</ref> Art was filled with health and happiness: paintings showed busy industrial and agricultural scenes; sculptures depicted workers, sentries, and schoolchildren.<ref>Stegelbaum, Lewis and Sokolov, Andrei. ''Stalinism As A Way Of Life''. Yale University Press, 2004, p. 220</ref>

Creativity was not an important part of socialist realism. The styles used in creating art during this period were those that would produce the most realistic results. 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 [[Stalin's cult of personality|his cult of personality]]{{snd}}all in the most realistic fashion possible.<ref>Juraga, Dubravka and Booker, Keith M. ''Socialist Cultures East and West''. Praeger, 2002, p. 45</ref> The most important thing for a socialist realist artist was not artistic integrity but adherence to party doctrine,<ref name="Nelson 1988, p. 5" /> thus creating a singular utopian aesthetic.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Artist-Dictator: Stalin as Auteur in the Battle of Utopian Aesthetics {{!}} Jake Zawlacki {{!}} IJORS International Journal of Russian Studies |url=https://www.ijors.net/issue10_1_2021/articles/zawlacki.html |access-date=2023-10-30 |website=www.ijors.net}}</ref>

=== Important groups ===
[[File:Mitrophan Grekov 02.jpg|thumb|[[Mitrofan Grekov]]. Tachanka. 1924]]
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".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialist+realism|title=Definition of Socialist Realism |website=www.merriam-webster.com|language=en|access-date=2019-02-18}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theartstory.org/movement-socialist-realism.htm|title=Socialist Realism Movement Overview|website=The Art Story|access-date=2019-02-18}}</ref>

[[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.<ref name="theartstory.org">{{Cite web|url=https://www.theartstory.org/movement-socialist-realism.htm|title=Socialist Realism – Concepts & Styles|website=The Art Story|access-date=2019-02-18}}</ref>

The term ''Socialist Realism'' was proclaimed in 1934 at the Soviet Writer's congress, although it was left not precisely defined.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/socialist-realism|title=Socialist realism – Art Term|last=Tate|website=Tate|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-02-18}}</ref> 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 "[[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences|Secret Speech]]", and thus began a reversal in policy known as "[[Khrushchev Thaw|Khrushchev's Thaw]]". He believed that artists should not be constrained and should be allowed to live by their creative talents. 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{{When|date=April 2021}} remark that the Russian Social Realist movement as the most oppressive and shunned period of Soviet Art.<ref name="theartstory.org" />

==== Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AKhRR) ====
The Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia ([[AKhRR]]) was established in 1922 and was one of the most influential artist groups in the USSR. The AKhRR worked to truthfully document contemporary life in Russia by utilizing "heroic realism".<ref name="Ellis, Andrew 2012, p. 22" /> The term "heroic realism" was the beginning of the socialist realism archetype. AKhRR was sponsored by influential government officials such as [[Leon Trotsky]] and carried favor with the [[Red Army]].<ref name="Ellis, Andrew 2012, p. 22" />

In 1928, the AKhRR was renamed to Association of Artists of the Revolution (AKhR) in order to include the rest of the Soviet states. At this point the group had begun participating in state promoted mass forms of art like murals, jointly-made paintings, advertisement production and textile design.<ref name="Ellis, Andrew 2012, p. 35">Ellis, Andrew. ''Socialist Realisms: Soviet Painting 1920–1970''. Skira Editore S.p.A., 2012, p. 35</ref> The group was disbanded April 23, 1932 by the decree "On the Reorganization of Literary and Artistic Organizations"<ref name="Ellis, Andrew 2012, p. 35" /> serving as the nucleus for the Stalinist [[USSR Union of Artists]].

==== Studio of military artists named after M. B. Grekov ====
{{Expand section|date=April 2021}}
Studio of military artists was created in 1934.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://burneft.ru/archive/issues/2015-04/67|title=От основания до современности К 80-летию Студии военных художников имени М.Б. Грекова – Бурение и Нефть – журнал про газ и нефть|website=burneft.ru}}</ref>

==== The Union of Soviet Writers (USW) ====
The creation of [[Union of Soviet Writers]] was partially initiated by [[Maxim Gorky]] to unite the Soviet writers of different methods, such as the "proletarian" writers (such as [[Fyodor Panfyorov]]), praised by the Communist Party, and the ''poputchicks'' (such as [[Boris Pasternak]] and [[Andrei Bely]]).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://voplit.ru/article/nado-prekoslovit-m-gorkij-i-sozdanie-soyuza-pisatelej/|title = 'Надо прекословить!' М. Горький и создание Союза писателей}}</ref> In August 1934, the union held its first congress where Gorky said:
{{blockquote|The Writers' Union is not being created merely for the purpose of bodily uniting all artists of the pen, but so that professional unification may enable them to comprehend their corporate strength, to define with all possible clarity their varied tendencies, creative activity, guiding principles, and harmoniously to merge all aims in that unity which is guiding all the creative working energies of the country.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1934-2/writers-congress/writers-congress-texts/gorky-on-soviet-literature/|title=Gorky on Soviet Literature|date=August 15, 2015|website=Seventeen Moments in Soviet History}}</ref>}}

One of the most famous authors during this time was [[Alexander Fadeyev (writer)|Alexander Fadeyev]]. Fadeyev was a close personal friend of Stalin and called Stalin "one of the greatest humanists the world has ever seen."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bennett |first1=James |title=Subsidizing Culture: Taxpayer Enrichment of the Creative Class |date=2017 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |location=New York |isbn=9781351487726 |page=98 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pSwrDwAAQBAJ |access-date=14 August 2021}}</ref> His most famous works include ''The Rout'' and ''[[The Young Guard (novel)|The Young Guard]]''.

== Reception and impact ==
[[File:Warszawa-mauzoleum monument.jpg|thumb|250px|A monumental [[obelisk]] surrounded by sculptures of soldiers at the [[Soviet Military Cemetery, Warsaw]]]]

Stalin's adversary, [[Leon Trotsky]], was highly critical of this rigid approach towards the arts.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date=5 January 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-721-5 |pages=1283, 1360–1361|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky+the+prophet |language=en}}</ref> He viewed cultural conformity as an expression of [[Stalinism]] in which "the literary schools were strangled one after the other" and the method of command extended across various areas from scientific agriculture to music.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date= 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-721-5 |pages=1283, 1360–13661|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky+the+prophet |language=en}}</ref> Overall, he regarded socialist realism to be an arbitrary construct of the Stalinist bureaucracy.

{{blockquote|"In that victorious revolution, there is not only the revolution, but also a new privileged stratum...[which] has strangled artistic creation with a [[totalitarian]] hand...Even under absolute monarchy art was based on idealization, but not on [[The Stalin School of Falsification|falsification]], whereas in the Soviet Union official art{{snd}}and none other exists there{{snd}}is sharing in the fate of official justice; its purpose is to [[Joseph Stalin's cult of personality|glorify the "Leader"]] and to manufacture officially a heroic myth...The style of official Soviet painting is being described as "socialist realism"{{snd}}the label could have been invented only by a [[Nomenklatura|bureaucrat]] at the head of an Arts Department."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date=2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-721-5 |pages=1476|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky+the+prophet |language=en}}</ref>}}

The impact of socialist realist art can still be seen decades after it ceased being the only state-supported style. Even before the end of the [[USSR]] in 1991, the government had been reducing its practices of censorship. After [[Stalin]]'s death in 1953, [[Nikita Khrushchev]] began to condemn the previous regime's practice of excessive restrictions. This freedom allowed artists to begin experimenting with new techniques, but the shift was not immediate. It was not until the ultimate fall of Soviet rule that artists were no longer restricted by the deposed Communist Party. Many socialist realist tendencies prevailed until the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2000s.<ref name="Evangeli, Aleksandr 2012, p. 218">Evangeli, Aleksandr. "Echoes of Socialist Realism in Post-Soviet Art", ''Socialist Realisms: Soviet Painting 1920–1970''. Skira Editore S.p.A., 2012, p. 218</ref> 

In the 1990s, many Russian artists used the characteristics of socialist realism in an ironic fashion.<ref name="Evangeli, Aleksandr 2012, p. 218" /> This was completely different from what existed only a couple of decades before. Once artists broke from the socialist realist mould, there was a significant power shift. Artists began including subjects that could not exist according to Soviet ideals. Now that the power over appearances was taken away from the government, artists achieved a level of authority that had not existed since the early 20th century.<ref>Evangeli, Aleksandr. "Echoes of Socialist Realism in Post-Soviet Art", ''Socialist Realisms: Soviet Painting 1920–1970''. Skira Editore S.p.A., 2012, p. 221</ref> In the decade immediately after the fall of the USSR, artists represented socialist realism and the Soviet legacy as a traumatic event. By the next decade, there was a unique sense of detachment.<ref>Evangeli, Aleksandr. "Echoes of Socialist Realism in Post-Soviet Art", ''Socialist Realisms: Soviet Painting 1920–1970''. Skira Editore S.p.A., 2012, p. 223</ref>

Western cultures often do not look at socialist realism positively. Democratic countries view the art produced during this period of repression as a lie.<ref>Juraga, Dubravka and Booker, Keith M. ''Socialist Cultures East and West''. Praeger, 2002, p. 12</ref> Non-Marxist art historians tend to view communism as a form of [[totalitarianism]] that smothers artistic expression and therefore retards the progress of culture.<ref>Schwartz, Lawrence H. ''Marxism and Culture''. Kennikat Press, 1980, p. 4</ref> In recent years there has been a reclamation of the movement in Moscow with the addition of the Institute of Russian Realist Art (IRRA), a three-story museum dedicated to preserving 20th-century Russian realist paintings.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Solomon |first=Tessa |date=2019-11-11 |title=Art Acquired by Fugitive Russian Banker Discovered Outside Moscow |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/alexei-ananyev-artworks-irra-moscow-13548/ |access-date=2022-04-01 |website=ARTnews.com |language=en-US}}</ref>

== Notable works and artists ==
{{more citations needed section|date=February 2023}}

[[File:«Во́ин-освободи́тель» — монумент в берлинском Трептов-парке 4 - Kopie.jpg|thumb|"Soldier-Liberator" by [[Yevgeny Vuchetich]]. [[Soviet War Memorial (Treptower Park)|Treptower Park Memorial]], [[Berlin]] (1948–1949)|left]]

=== Music ===
[[File:Brodski lenin.jpg|thumb|[[Isaak Brodsky]], ''Lenin in [[Smolny Institute|Smolny]]'' (1930), living up to the title of "realism" more than most works of the style]]

[[Hanns Eisler]] composed many workers' songs, marches, and ballads on current political topics such as ''Song of Solidarity'', ''Song of the United Front'', and ''Song of the Comintern''. He was a founder of a new style of revolutionary song for the masses. He also composed works in larger forms such as ''Requiem for Lenin''. Eisler's most important works include the cantatas ''German Symphony'', ''Serenade of the Age'' and ''Song of Peace''. Eisler combines features of revolutionary songs with varied expression. His symphonic music is known for its complex and subtle orchestration.{{Citation needed|date=May 2016}}

Closely associated with the rise of the [[labor movement]] was the development of the [[revolutionary song]], which was performed at demonstrations and meetings. Among the most famous of the revolutionary songs are ''[[The Internationale]]'' and ''[[Whirlwinds of Danger]]''. Notable songs from Russia include ''Boldly, Comrades, in Step'', ''Workers' Marseillaise'', and ''Rage, Tyrants''. Folk and revolutionary songs influenced the Soviet [[mass song]]s. The mass song was a leading genre in Soviet music, especially during the 1930s and the war. The mass song influenced other genres, including the art song, opera, and film music. The most popular mass songs include [[Isaak Dunayevsky|Dunaevsky]]'s ''Song of the Homeland'', [[Mikhail Isakovsky|Isaakovsky]]'s ''[[Katyusha (song)|Katiusha]]'', Novikov's ''Hymn of Democratic Youth of the World'', and [[Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov|Aleksandrov's]] ''[[Svyaschennaya Voyna|Sacred War]]''.

=== Film ===
Discussions of film as a tool of the Soviet state began in the early twentieth century. [[Leon Trotsky]] argued that cinema is a valuable means for propaganda and education and that it could be used to supplant the influence of the [[Russian Orthodox Church|Orthodox Church in Russia]].<ref>{{Citation |title=Lev Trotsky: Vodka, the Church and the Cinema |date=2012-10-12 |work=The Film Factory |pages=116–118 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203059920-29 |access-date=2024-09-20 |publisher=Routledge |doi=10.4324/9780203059920-29 |isbn=978-0-203-05992-0}}</ref>

In the early 1930s, [[Soviet cinema|Soviet filmmakers]] applied socialist realism in their work. Notable films include ''[[Chapaev (film)|Chapaev]]'', which shows the role of the people in the history-making process. The theme of revolutionary history was developed in films such as ''[[The Youth of Maxim]]'' by [[Grigori Kozintsev]] and [[Leonid Trauberg]], ''[[Shchors (film)|Shchors]]'' by Dovzhenko, and ''We are from Kronstadt'' by E. Dzigan. The shaping of the new man under socialism was a theme of films such as ''A Start Life'' by N. Ekk, ''Ivan'' by Dovzhenko, ''Valerii Chkalov'' by M. Kalatozov and the film version of ''Tanker "Derbent"'' (1941). Some films depicted the part of peoples of the Soviet Union against foreign invaders: ''[[Alexander Nevsky (film)|Alexander Nevsky]]'' by [[Sergei Eisenstein|Eisenstein]], ''Minin and Pozharsky'' by [[Pudovkin]], and ''Bogdan Khmelnitsky'' by Savchenko. Soviet politicians were the subjects in films such as [[Sergei Yutkevich|Yutkevich]]'s trilogy of movies about Lenin.

Socialist realism was also applied to [[Bollywood|Hindi films]] of the 1940s and 1950s.{{citation needed|date=October 2012}} These include [[Chetan Anand (producer & director)|Chetan Anand]]'s ''[[Neecha Nagar]]'' (1946), which won the [[Palme d'Or|Grand Prize]] at the [[1946 Cannes Film Festival|1st Cannes Film Festival]], and [[Bimal Roy]]'s ''[[Two Acres of Land]]'' (1953), which won the International Prize at the [[1954 Cannes Film Festival|7th Cannes Film Festival]].

=== Paintings ===
The painter [[Aleksandr Deineka]] provides a notable example for his expressionist and patriotic scenes of the Second World War, collective farms, and sports. Yuriy Ivanovich Pimenov, [[Boris Ioganson]] and [[Geli Korzev]] have also been described as "unappreciated masters of twentieth-century realism".<ref>{{cite journal|last=Bartelik|first=Marek|year=1999|title=Concerning Socialist Realism: Recent Publications on Russian Art (book review)|journal=Art Journal|volume=58|issue=4|pages=90–95|doi=10.2307/777916|jstor=777916}}</ref> Another well-known practitioner was [[Fyodor Pavlovich Reshetnikov]].

Socialist realist art found acceptance in the [[Baltic region|Baltic]] nations, inspiring many artists. One such artist was [[Czeslaw Znamierowski]] (23 May 1890 – 9 August 1977), a [[Soviet]] [[Lithuania]]n painter, known for his large panoramic landscapes and love of nature. Znamierowski combined these two passions to create very notable paintings in the Soviet Union, earning the prestigious title of [[Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic|Honorable Artist of LSSR]] in 1965.<ref>Alekna, Romas (24 May 1975). "Česlovui Znamierovskiui – 85" [Česlovas Znamierovskis Celebrates his 85th Birthday]. Literatūra ir menas [Literature and Art] (in Lithuanian) (Vilnius: Lithuanian Creative Unions Weekly)</ref> Born in [[Latvia]], which formed part of the [[Russian Empire]] at the time, Znamierowski was of [[Poland|Polish]] descent and Lithuanian citizenship, a country where he lived for most of his life and died. He excelled in landscapes and social realism, and held many exhibitions. Znamierowski was also widely published in national newspapers, magazines and books.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.czeslawznamierowski.com/research|title=Czeslaw Znamierowski|publisher=CzeslawZnamierowski|date=27 October 2013}}</ref> His more notable paintings include ''Before Rain'' (1930), ''Panorama of Vilnius City'' (1950), ''The Green Lake'' (1955), and ''In Klaipeda Fishing Port'' (1959). A large collection of his art is located in the [[Lithuanian Art Museum]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ldm.lt/dailininkai/Tapyba_19401990_Z.htm |title=Lietuvos dailės muziejus. "Lietuvos tapyba 1940–1990" LDM rinkiniuose saugomų kūrinių katalogas (Elektroninė versija). Z_Ž |access-date=2013-11-20 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150316192211/http://www.ldm.lt/Dailininkai/Tapyba_19401990_Z.htm |archive-date=2015-03-16 }}</ref>

=== Literature ===
[[Martin Andersen Nexø]] developed socialist realism in his own way. His creative method featured a combination of publicistic passion, a critical view of capitalist society, and a steadfast striving to bring reality into accord with socialist ideals. The novel ''Pelle, the Conqueror'' is considered to be a classic of socialist realism.{{citation needed|date=November 2012}} The novel ''Ditte, Daughter of Man'' had a working-class woman as its heroine. He battled against the enemies of socialism in the books ''Two Worlds'', and ''Hands Off!''.

[[Bruno Apitz]]'s novel ''[[Naked Among Wolves (novel)|Nackt unter Wölfen]]'', a story that culminates in the vivid description of the self-liberation of the detainees,<ref>{{Cite web |last=mdr.de |title=Bruno Apitz und sein Roman 'Nackt unter Wölfen' {{!}} MDR.DE |url=https://www.mdr.de/zeitreise/bruno-apitz-nackt-unter-woelfen100.html |access-date=2021-01-09 |website=www.mdr.de |language=de}}</ref> was deliberately chosen to take place on the same day as the formal opening of the Buchenwald Monument in September 1958.<ref name=":9" />

The novels of [[Louis Aragon]], such as ''The Real World'', depict the working class as a rising force of the nation. He published two books of documentary prose, ''The Communist Man''. In the collection of poems ''A Knife in the Heart Again'', Aragon criticizes the penetration of [[American imperialism]] into Europe. The novel ''The Holy Week'' depicts the artist's path toward the people against a broad social and historical background.{{Citation needed|date=May 2016}}

[[Maxim Gorky]]'s novel ''[[Mother (Gorky novel)|Mother]]'' (1906) is usually considered to have been the first socialist-realist novel.<ref>[[Andrei Sinyavsky]]. Maxim Gorky's ''Mother'' as the first Socrealist novel</ref> Gorky was also a major factor in the school's rapid rise, and his pamphlet, ''On Socialist Realism'', essentially lays out the needs of Soviet art. Other important works of literature include [[Fyodor Gladkov]]'s ''[[Cement (novel)|Cement]]'' (1925), [[Nikolai Ostrovsky]]'s ''[[How the Steel Was Tempered]]'' (1936) and [[Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy|Aleksey Tolstoy]]'s epic trilogy ''[[The Road to Calvary]]'' (1922–1941). [[Yury Krymov]]'s novel ''Tanker "Derbent"'' (1938) portrays Soviet merchant seafarers being transformed by the [[Stakhanovite movement]].

''Thol'', a novel by [[Daniel Selvaraj|D. Selvaraj]] in Tamil is a standing example of Marxist Realism in India. It won a literary award ([[List of Sahitya Akademi Award winners for Tamil|Sahithya Akademi]]) for the year 2012.<ref>{{cite web |title=Akademi Awards (1955-2020) |url=http://sahitya-akademi.gov.in/awards/akademi%20samman_suchi.jsp |website=Sahitya Akademi: National Academy of Letters |access-date=June 25, 2021}}</ref>

=== Sculptures ===
Sculptor [[Fritz Cremer]] created a series of monuments commemorating the victims of the [[Nazism|Nazi]] regime in the former concentration camps [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]], [[Buchenwald concentration camp|Buchenwald]], [[Mauthausen concentration camp|Mauthausen]] and [[Ravensbrück concentration camp|Ravensbrück]]. His bronze monument in Buchenwald, depicting the liberation of this concentration camp by detainees in April 1945, is considered one of the most striking examples of socialist realism in GDR sculpture for its representation of communist liberation.{{Citation needed|date=May 2023}} Each figure in the monument, erected outside the campsite, has symbolic significance according to the orthodox communist interpretation of the event. Thus communists were portrayed as the driving force behind self-liberation, symbolized by a figure in the foreground sacrificing himself for his sufferers, followed by the central group of determined comrades through whose courage and fearlessness is encouraged. The German Democratic Republic used these sculptures to reaffirm its claim to the historical and political legacy of the anti-fascist struggle for freedom.<ref name=":9">{{Cite book|last=Rob|first=Burns|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/31934309|title=German cultural studies : an introduction|date=1995|publisher=Oxford University Press|others=Burns, Rob |isbn=0-19-871502-1|location=New York|page=173|oclc=31934309}}</ref>[[File:Stamp of Moldova md048st.jpg|thumb|Cobizev featured on a stamp of Moldova]]
[[Claudia Cobizev]] was a Moldovan sculptor, whose work was known for its sensitive portrayals of women and children.<ref name=":32">Marian, Ana. [https://ibn.idsi.md/sites/default/files/imag_file/150_156_Particularitatile%20portretului%20in%20creatia%20Claudiei%20Cobizev.pdf "Particularităţile portretului în creaţia Claudiei Cobizev."] ''Arta'' 1 (AV) (2015): 150–156.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-01-05 |title=Claudia Cobizev a făcut din schiţe adevărate opere de artă |url=https://trm.md/ro/cultura/claudia-cobizev-sculptorita-care-a-facut-din-schite-adevarate-opere-de-arta |access-date=2023-05-13 |website=TRM |language=ro}}</ref> Her most notable work is ''Cap de moldoveancă'' which was exhibited at the Paris International Exhibition to wide acclaim.<ref name=":22">Malcoci, Vitalie. [https://ibn.idsi.md/sites/default/files/imag_file/175-176_13.pdf "115 ani de la nașterea celebrei sculptoriţe Claudia Cobizev."] ''Arta'' 1 (AV) (2020): 175–176.</ref>

=== Theater ===
Theater is a realm in which socialist realism as a movement took root as a way to reach out and appeal to the masses. This occurred both within the [[Eastern Bloc|Soviet bloc]] as well as outside of it, with [[China]] being another hotbed for socialist realism within theater.

==== Soviet Union ====
[[File:Platon_Keržencev.jpg|left|thumb|Photo of [[Platon Kerzhentsev]]]]
Countries within the [[Soviet Union]] were heavily influenced by socialist realism when it came to theater. Early after the [[Russian Revolution|1917 revolution]], a movement arose to attempt to redefine what theater was, with theorist [[Platon Kerzhentsev]] wanting to break down the barriers between actors and the public, creating unity between the two.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gardiner |first=Jesse |title=Soviet Theatre During the Thaw: Aesthetics, Politics, and Performance |date=2023 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |location=New York |page=23}}</ref> This new way of thinking about what theater should be influenced the beginnings of socialist realism within this space, making it more communal and less hierarchical.

With the revolution, there was the ability to change the existing theatrical institutions to fit the new ideas circulating. The early 1920s saw this explosion of creativity, with organizations such as the TEO [[People's Commissariat for Education|Narkompros]] (the Department of Fine Arts) working to incorporate new types of theater.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gérin |first=Annie |title=Devastation and Laughter: Satire, Power, and Culture in the Early Soviet State (1920s–1930s) |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=2018 |pages=83}}</ref> Thus, these movements were later brought under control and solidified by the Soviet government, as individual theatrical troupes were organized and transformed through governmental support.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mally |first=Lynn |date=1993 |title=Autonomous Theater and the Origins of Socialist Realism: The 1932 Olympiad of Autonomous Art |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/131343 |journal=The Russian Review |volume=52 |issue=2 |page=199 |doi=10.2307/131343 |jstor=131343 }}</ref>

A part of these movements involved the reinvention of classic shows, including those in the Western canon. ''[[Hamlet]]'' particularly had a draw for Russians, and was seen to provide insight into the workings and complexities of Russian life after the 1917 revolution.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Morgan |first=Kim |date=2021 |title=Shakespeare, Formalism, and Socialist Realism: The Censured Hamlets of Michael Chekhov and Nikolay Akimov |url=https://www.academia.edu/71648114 |journal=The Shakespearean International Yearbook |volume=18 |page=61 |via=Acedemia.edu}}</ref> Playwrights attempted to express their feelings about life around them while additionally following the guidelines of socialist realism, a way of reinventing old shows. ''Hamlet'' was re-imagined by [[Nikolay Akimov]], for example, as a show that was more materialist in nature, coming at the end of this era of experimentation.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Morgan |first=Kim |date=2021 |title=Shakespeare, Formalism, and Socialist Realism: The Censured Hamlets of Michael Chekhov and Nikolay Akimov |url=https://www.academia.edu/71648114 |journal=The Shakespearean International Yearbook |volume=18 |page=71 |via=Academia.edu}}</ref>

These movements were not merely localized to Russia, but spread throughout the USSR, with [[Poland]] being a notable location where socialist realism was implemented in theater. In order to make theater more accessible to the average person (for both entertainment and educational purposes), an emphasis was put on creating a network of smaller, independent theaters, including those in rural communities and traveling companies.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wiśniewska-Grabarczyk |first=Anna |date=2016 |title=Theater and Drama of Socialist Realism in the Context of Cryptotexts |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318395841 |journal=Polish Literary Journal of the University of Lodz |volume=37 |issue=7 |page=76 |via=ResearchGate}}</ref>

By making theater available to everyone, not simply those with the time and money to view it, officials hoped to educate the public both on theater itself and the various ideologies they wanted to promote. Beliefs that were more heavily promoted included those seen to be educational (with the idea of “teaching through entertaining” springing up), those upholding the values of nature and the countryside, and those that generally had a positive quality, especially when looking at children’s theater.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wiśniewska-Grabarczyk |first=Anna |date=September 2016 |title=Theatre and Drama of Socialist Realism in the Context of Cryptotexts |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318395841 |journal=Polish Literary Journal of the University of Lodz |volume=37 |issue=7 |pages=79–80 |via=ResearchGate}}</ref>
[[File:Moscow-Bolshoi-Theare-1.jpg|thumb|Photo of the [[Bolshoi Theatre|Bolshoi Theater]] in Moscow]]
Reinvention of old forms took place, along with the creation of new theatrical movements. [[Opera]] as a theatrical form was reinterpreted and reinvented throughout the Soviet Union, moving away from its aristocratic roots and towards the support of the new state.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kotkina |first=Irina |date=2013 |title=Soviet Empire and Operatic Realm: Stalinist Search for the Model Soviet Opera |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24372082 |journal=Revue des études slaves |volume=84 |issue=3 |page=508 |doi=10.4000/res.1163 |jstor=24372082 }}</ref> By the 1930s, the [[Bolshoi Theatre|Bolshoi Theater]] in particular became a symbol of [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] power, and the question became how to best integrate socialist realism into an opera that could be performed there.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kotkina |first=Irina |date=2013 |title=Soviet Empire and Operatic Realm: Stalinist Search for the Model Soviet Opera |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24372082 |journal=Revue des études slaves |volume=84 |issue=3 |page=509 |doi=10.4000/res.1163 |jstor=24372082 }}</ref> The [[Union of Russian Composers|Union of Soviet Composers]], established 1932, played a role towards creating these new operas, and spoke about the importance of socialist realism in opposition to modernistic art.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kotkina |first=Irina |date=2013 |title=Soviet Empire and Operatic Realm: Stalinist Search for the Model Soviet Opera |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24372082 |journal=Revue des études slaves |volume=84 |issue=3 |page=510 |doi=10.4000/res.1163 |jstor=24372082 }}</ref>

==== China ====
Though socialist realism was created by and is thought to mainly apply to countries within the Soviet Bloc, China in the late 18th century can be seen to be influenced by similar ideas, often taking direct inspiration from them.
[[File:田汉.gif|left|thumb|Photo of [[Tian Han]], playwright and president of the [[China Theatre Association|China Theater Association]]]]
Theater in China fell under the state’s purview after the [[Chinese Communist Revolution]], led partly by poet and playwright [[Tian Han]], President of the [[China Theatre Association|China Theater Association]] (among other honors). He pushed for theatrical reform in a socialist manner, primarily focused on transferring ownership from private troupes to state ones, but additionally on the subject matter of the plays themselves.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chen |first=Xiaomei |title=Performing the Socialist State: Modern Chinese Theater and Film Culture |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2023 |location=New York |page=144}}</ref> This focus on private ownership as something to be avoided is similar to concerns seen in the Soviet Union, as is the nationalization of theater.

In the midst of these reforms, ideas around feminism and how it tied into socialism emerged, specifically with regards to theater. [[Bai Wei (writer)|Bai Wei]], inspired by Tian Han, developed a style of theater in the 1920s that focused specifically on women within a patriarchal society, and the struggle to break free of it.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chen |first=Xiaomei |title=Performing the Socialist State: Modern Chinese Theater and Film Culture |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2023 |location=New York |page=174}}</ref> She additionally incorporated ideas of socialist realism within her work, though did break from it in some ways, including the fact that her characters were more individualized and less collective. Strong female characters were, however, idealized and put forward in Chinese socialist realism, with these women often shown making some sort of sacrifice or grand action in service of a greater cause.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chen |first=Xiaomei |title=Performing the Socialist State: Modern Chinese Theater and Film Culture |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2023 |location=New York |page=175}}</ref>

Socialist realism in Chinese theater can be seen to hone in on the ideas that it is more valuable to take action as a group, together, than individually. This is evident from plays put on during the [[Cultural Revolution]], where common themes included a large group standing up to imperialist forces (such as a [[Second Sino-Japanese War|Japanese invasion]], for example), with the individual characters within the play being less important than the overarching power struggle occurring.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Odom |first=Glenn |date=2014 |title=Socialist Realism and New Subjectivities: Modern Acting in Gao Xingjian's Cold Theatre |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43187291 |journal=Asian Theatre Journal |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=164 |doi=10.1353/atj.2014.0023 |jstor=43187291 }}</ref> By abstracting the conflicts to those occurring on a higher level, these plays hoped to educate and influence the people watching them.

== 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>

== Other countries ==
{{more citations needed section|date=February 2023}}

[[File:Mosaik Alexanderstr 9 (Mitte) Unser Leben&Walter Womacka&19642.jpg|thumb|450px|[[Walter Womacka]], ''Our Life'', mosaic (with metal addition) from [[East Berlin]], 1964]]
[[File:Wuhan-Flood-Memorial-0226.jpg|thumb|The people of [[Wuhan]] fighting [[1954 Yangtze River Floods|the flood of 1954]], as depicted on a monument erected in 1969]]
[[File:Press Cafe in East Berlin on Alexanderplatz, 1977.jpg|thumb|right|Murals displaying the Marxist view of the press on this [[East Berlin]] cafe in 1977 were covered over by commercial advertising after Germany was reunited. ]]

{{further |Socialist realism in Poland}}

After the Russian Revolution, socialist realism became an international literary movement. Socialist trends in literature were established in the 1920s in Germany, France, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Writers who helped develop socialist realism in the West included [[Louis Aragon]], [[Johannes Becher]], and [[Pablo Neruda]].<ref name="cultinfo.ru">{{Cite web|url=http://www.cultinfo.ru/fulltext/1/001/008/104/892.htm|archive-url=https://archive.today/20050508193618/http://www.cultinfo.ru/fulltext/1/001/008/104/892.htm|url-status=dead|title=Социалистический реализм|archive-date=2005-05-08|access-date=2009-02-26}}</ref>

During the 1950s, this massive undertaking, a crucial role fell to architects perceived not as merely engineers creating streets and edifices, but rather as "[[engineers of the human soul]]" who, in addition to extending simple aesthetics into urban design, were to express grandiose ideas and arouse feelings of stability, persistence and political power.

In art, from the mid-1960s more relaxed and decorative styles became acceptable even in large public works in the [[Warsaw Pact]] bloc, the style mostly deriving from popular posters, illustrations and other works on paper, with discreet influence from their Western equivalents.

Today,{{When|date=April 2021}} arguably the only countries still focused on these aesthetic principles are [[North Korea]], [[Laos]], and to some extent [[Vietnam]]. Socialist realism had little mainstream impact in the non-Communist world, where it was widely seen as a totalitarian means of imposing state control on artists.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.sinoss.net/qikan/uploadfile/2011/0708/20110708020439197.pdf |title=Lin Jung-hua. Post-Soviet Aestheticians Rethinking Russianization and Chinization of Marxism//Russian Language and Literature Studies. Serial № 33. Beijing, Capital Normal University, 2011, № 3. pp. 46–53. |access-date=2011-10-26 |archive-date=2012-04-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120424115257/http://www.sinoss.net/qikan/uploadfile/2011/0708/20110708020439197.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The former [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]] was an important exception among the communist countries, because after the [[Tito–Stalin split]] in 1948, it abandoned socialist realism along with other elements previously imported from the Soviet system and allowed greater artistic freedom.<ref>[[Library of Congress Country Studies]] – [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+yu0035) Yugoslavia: ''Introduction of Socialist Self-Management'']</ref>

Socialist realism was the main art current in the [[People's Socialist Republic of Albania]]. In 2017, three works by Albanian artists from the socialist era were exhibited at [[documenta 14]].<ref>{{cite news|first=Jeremy|last=Gaunt|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-art-albania-greece/stirring-portraits-of-communist-albanias-women-recall-different-reality-idUSKBN1851KW|title=Stirring portraits of communist Albania's women recall different reality|work=Reuters|date=9 May 2017|access-date=25 April 2020}}</ref>

=== China ===
Academics typically view China's socialist literature as existing within the trend of Stalinist-influenced socialist realism, particularly major works such as [[Mikhail Sholokhov|Mikhail Sholokov]]'s ''[[Virgin Soil Upturned (1939 film)|Virgin Soil Upturned]]'' and [[Galina Nikolaeva]]'s ''Harvest'' which were widely translated and disseminated in China.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Cai |first1=Xiang |url= |title=Revolution and its narratives : China's socialist literary and cultural imaginaries (1949–1966) |last2=蔡翔 |date=2016 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |others=Rebecca E. Karl, Xueping Zhong, 钟雪萍 |isbn=978-0-8223-7461-9 |location=Durham |pages=xvii |oclc=932368688}}</ref> Other academics, including Cai Xiang, Rebecca E. Karl, and Xueping Zhong, place greater weight on the influence of [[Mao Zedong]]'s 1942 lectures, [[Yan'an Forum|Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Art and Literature]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Cai |first1=Xiang |url= |title=Revolution and its narratives : China's socialist literary and cultural imaginaries (1949–1966) |last2=蔡翔 |date=2016 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |others=Rebecca E. Karl, Xueping Zhong, 钟雪萍 |isbn=978-0-8223-7461-9 |location=Durham |pages=xiii–xviii |oclc=932368688}}</ref>

During the years 1952 to 1954, socialist realism architectural style from the Soviet Union influenced [[Chinese architecture]].<ref name=":Zhu">{{Cite book |last=Zhu |first=Tao |title=Red Legacies in China: Cultural Afterlives of the Communist Revolution |date=2016 |publisher=[[Harvard University Asia Center]] |isbn=978-0-674-73718-1 |editor-last=Li |editor-first=Jie |series=Harvard Contemporary China Series |volume= |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |chapter=Building Big With No Regret: From Beijing's "Ten Great Buildings" in the 1950s to China's Megaprojects Today |doi= |jstor= |editor-last2=Zhang |editor-first2=Enhua}}</ref>{{Rp|page=75}}

Socialist realism was introduced into Chinese oil painting through a class held by Konstantin Maksimov in Beijing.<ref name=":23">{{Cite book |last=Wang |first=Xian |title=Gendered Memories: An Imaginary Museum for Ding Ling and Chinese Female Revolutionary Martyrs |date=2025 |publisher=[[University of Michigan Press]] |isbn=978-0-472-05719-1 |series=China Understandings Today series |location=Ann Arbor}}</ref>{{Rp|page=165}} Feng Fasi's ''The Heroic Death of [[Liu Hulan]]'' is regarded as a classic socialist realist painting.<ref name=":23" />{{Rp|page=166}}

=== East Germany ===

==== Overview ====
The earliest ideas of socialist realism in the [[German Democratic Republic]] (East Germany) came about directly after the end of [[World War II]], when the state was formed. While planning to establish a national East German culture, cultural leaders wanted to move away from [[Fascism|fascist]] ideas, including those of [[Nazism|Nazi]] and militaristic doctrines.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hofer |first=Sigrid |date=2012 |title=The Dürer Heritage in the GDR: The Canon of Socialist Realism, Its Areas of Imprecision, and Its Historical Transformations |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41413135 |journal=Getty Research Journal |volume=4 |issue=4 |pages=109–126 |doi=10.1086/grj.4.41413135 |jstor=41413135 |issn=1944-8740}}</ref> Cultural leaders first started clarifying what "realism" entailed. The [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany|SED]] determined that realism was to act as a "fundamental artistic approach that is attuned to contemporary social reality."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hofer |first=Sigrid |date=2012 |title=The Dürer Heritage in the GDR: The Canon of Socialist Realism, Its Areas of Imprecision, and Its Historical Transformations |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41413135 |journal=Getty Research Journal |volume=4 |issue=4 |pages=109–126 |doi=10.1086/grj.4.41413135 |jstor=41413135 |issn=1944-8740}}</ref>

The characteristics of realism became more specified in East German cultural policy as the GDR defined its identity as a state. As the head of the [[Soviet Military Administration in Germany|SMAD's]] cultural division, [[Aleksandr Dymshits]] asserted that the "negation of reality" and "unbridled fantasy" was a "bourgeois and decadent attitude of the mind" that rejects "the truth of life."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hofer |first=Sigrid |date=2012 |title=The Dürer Heritage in the GDR: The Canon of Socialist Realism, Its Areas of Imprecision, and Its Historical Transformations |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41413135 |journal=Getty Research Journal |issue=4 |pages=2–3 |jstor=41413135 |issn=1944-8740}}</ref>

Cultural officials looked back at historical events in Germany that could have acted as the origin points of the eventual creation of the GDR. The works and legacy of [[Albrecht Dürer]] became a point of reference for the early development of socialist realism in East Germany. Dürer created many artworks about the [[German Peasants' War|Great Peasants' War]]. His "support for the 'revolutionary forces'" in his illustrations made him an appealing figure to East German officials, while they searched for a starting point of a new German socialist state.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hofer |first=Sigrid |date=2012 |title=The Dürer Heritage in the GDR: The Canon of Socialist Realism, Its Areas of Imprecision, and Its Historical Transformations |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41413135 |journal=Getty Research Journal |issue=4 |pages=6–8 |jstor=41413135 |issn=1944-8740}}</ref> In Heinz Lüdecke and Susanne Heiland's anthology ''Dürer und die Nachwelt,'' they described Dürer as being "inseparably associated with the two great currents of bourgeois antifeudal progress, namely humanism and the Reformation..."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hofer |first=Sigrid |date=2012 |title=The Dürer Heritage in the GDR: The Canon of Socialist Realism, Its Areas of Imprecision, and Its Historical Transformations |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41413135 |journal=Getty Research Journal |volume=4 |issue=4 |pages=109–126 |doi=10.1086/grj.4.41413135 |jstor=41413135 |issn=1944-8740}}</ref> The authors also stated that Dürer came to mind "both by bourgeois self-awareness and by the then awakening German national sense of identity."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hofer |first=Sigrid |date=2012 |title=The Dürer Heritage in the GDR: The Canon of Socialist Realism, Its Areas of Imprecision, and Its Historical Transformations |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41413135 |journal=Getty Research Journal |volume=4 |issue=4 |pages=109–126 |doi=10.1086/grj.4.41413135 |jstor=41413135 |issn=1944-8740}}</ref> The legacies of Dürer and the Great Peasants' War continued as artists produced their works in the GDR. [[Thomas Müntzer]] was another key figure of historical interest and artistic inspiration for socialist realism in East Germany. [[Friedrich Engels]] revered Müntzer for arousing the peasantry to confront the feudal elite.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Walinski-Kiehl |first=Robert |date=2006 |title=History, Politics, and East German Film: The Thomas Müntzer (1956) Socialist Epic |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20457093 |journal=Central European History |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=31 |doi=10.1017/S0008938906000021 |jstor=20457093 |issn=0008-9389}}</ref>

==== Visual art ====
Socialist realist visual art in East Germany was unique in its various historical influences. It also stood out with how the art style transcended the boundaries of the art doctrine at times, yet still maintained the goals the state had of communicating early forms of German revolutionary history. [[Werner Tübke]] was one of East Germany's most prominent painters, who demonstrated this expansive nature of socialist realist art in his country. Though his paintings did not always conform to the socialist realism doctrine, he was still "able to portray the Socialist utopia, and in particular the understanding of history as held by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany...<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zöllner |first=Frank |date=2018 |title=Werner Tübke's "History of the German Working Class Movement" of 1961 and its Place within his Commissioned Art Works |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44973598 |journal=Artibus et Historiae |volume=39 |issue=77 |pages=345 |jstor=44973598 |issn=0391-9064}}</ref>

Tübke's style drew from the [[Renaissance art|Renaissance art movement]], as the GDR also emphasized this style in the creation of artwork, which they referred to as ''Erbe,'' or "heritage" art.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zöllner |first=Frank |date=2018 |title=Werner Tübke's "History of the German Working Class Movement" of 1961 and its Place within his Commissioned Art Works |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44973598 |journal=Artibus et Historiae |volume=39 |issue=77 |pages=341 |jstor=44973598 |issn=0391-9064}}</ref> He cited various Renaissance-era German painters whom he referenced in developing his art style in his ''Methodisches Handbuch,'' Dürer being one of them.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zöllner |first=Frank |date=2018 |title=Werner Tübke's "History of the German Working Class Movement" of 1961 and its Place within his Commissioned Art Works |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44973598 |journal=Artibus et Historiae |volume=39 |issue=77 |pages=341 |jstor=44973598 |issn=0391-9064}}</ref> He made several paintings depicting the lives of the working class and revolutionary struggle, in styles and compositions that resemble the historical German Renaissance paintings. His series of four triptychs called ''History of the German Working Class Movement'' was an example of this.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zöllner |first=Frank |date=2018 |title=Werner Tübke's "History of the German Working Class Movement" of 1961 and its Place within his Commissioned Art Works |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44973598 |journal=Artibus et Historiae |volume=39 |issue=77 |pages=345–355 |jstor=44973598 |issn=0391-9064}}</ref> Each painting was filled with action taking place on every part of the panel, along with several people in one scene, two common characteristics of German renaissance artwork.

The GDR aimed to use socialist realism to educate the German people about their history, through the lens of working-class struggle, and to evoke a sense of pride for their socialist state. The SED commissioned East German artists "to produce paintings affirming the 'victors of history.'"<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gillen |first=Eckhart |date=2011 |title='One can and should present an artistic vision... of the end of the world': Werner Tübke's Apocalyptic Panorama in Bad Frankenhausen and the End of the German Democratic Republic |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23005390 |journal=Getty Research Journal |issue=3 |pages=99 |doi=10.1086/grj.3.23005390 |jstor=23005390 |issn=1944-8740}}</ref> [[Werner Tübke]] was tasked to create his [[Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gillen |first=Eckhart |date=2011 |title="One can and should present an artistic vision... of the end of the world": Werner Tübke's Apocalyptic Panorama in Bad Frankenhausen and the End of the German Democratic Republic |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23005390 |journal=Getty Research Journal |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=99–116 |doi=10.1086/grj.3.23005390 |jstor=23005390 |issn=1944-8740}}</ref> The state wanted to have a visual reminder of the German Peasants' War and the leadership of Müntzer in the revolt.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gillen |first=Eckhart |date=2011 |title="One can and should present an artistic vision... of the end of the world": Werner Tübke's Apocalyptic Panorama in Bad Frankenhausen and the End of the German Democratic Republic |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23005390 |journal=Getty Research Journal |issue=3 |pages=100 |jstor=23005390 |issn=1944-8740}}</ref> The highly detailed mural includes many different scenes and key figures of the revolution. Dürer is included at the bottom of the painting at the fountain. Edith Brandt, the Secretary for Science, Education, and Culture, believed that the mural "would enhance the historical awareness of the population, especially the young, and serve the cause of patriotic education."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gillen |first=Eckhart |date=2011 |title='One can and should present an artistic vision... of the end of the world': Werner Tübke's Apocalyptic Panorama in Bad Frankenhausen and the End of the German Democratic Republic |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23005390 |journal=Getty Research Journal |issue=3 |pages=100 |jstor=23005390 |issn=1944-8740}}</ref>

East German socialist realism started to shift in later decades, especially after the [[Basic Treaty, 1972]] was signed by both East and West Germany. The treaty allowed East German artists to travel to West Germany and beyond to other European countries.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Eisman |first=April A. |date=2015 |title=East German Art and the Permeability of the Berlin Wall |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24808963 |journal=German Studies Review |volume=38 |issue=3 |pages=605 |jstor=24808963 |issn=0149-7952}}</ref> Artistic exchanges between artists in both states introduced these new practices to the GDR, while socialist realism gained more attention by those outside of East Germany. Two exhibitions featuring artwork from both East and West Germany were curated at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1981.<ref>{{Citation |last=Arnoux |first=Mathilde |title=To Each Their Own Reality: The Art of the FRG and the GDR at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1981 |date=2016 |work=Art beyond Borders |pages=394 |editor-last=Bazin |editor-first=Jérôme |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7829/j.ctt19z397k.34 |access-date=2024-12-06 |series=Artistic Exchange in Communist Europe (1945–1989) |edition=NED – New |publisher=Central European University Press |jstor=10.7829/j.ctt19z397k.34 |isbn=978-963-386-083-0 |editor2-last=Glatigny |editor2-first=Pascal Dubourg |editor3-last=Piotrowski |editor3-first=Piotr}}</ref> The exhibition for East German art presented itself as "the good founded by socialist realism to better embody a possible alternative to the crisis of values experienced by the West."<ref>{{Citation |last=Arnoux |first=Mathilde |title=To Each Their Own Reality: The Art of the FRG and the GDR at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1981 |date=2016 |work=Art beyond Borders |pages=394 |editor-last=Bazin |editor-first=Jérôme |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7829/j.ctt19z397k.34 |access-date=2024-12-06 |series=Artistic Exchange in Communist Europe (1945-1989) |edition=NED – New |publisher=Central European University Press |jstor=10.7829/j.ctt19z397k.34 |isbn=978-963-386-083-0 |editor2-last=Glatigny |editor2-first=Pascal Dubourg |editor3-last=Piotrowski |editor3-first=Piotr}}</ref>

==== Film ====
Film was used as a teaching tool for East German cultural values. [[DEFA]] was the GDR's official film studio, which created such films.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Blessing |first=Benita |date=2010 |title=Happily socialist ever after? East German children's films and the education of a fairy tale land |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25699580 |journal=Oxford Review of Education |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=234 |doi=10.1080/03054981003696747 |jstor=25699580 |issn=0305-4985}}</ref> DEFA's socialist realist films were especially geared towards East German youth, as the next generation of the GDR. Leader of the SMAD's propaganda wing, [[Sergei Tiulpanov]], asserted that the primary goal of DEFA was "the struggle to re-educate the German people–especially the young–to a true understanding of genuine democracy and humanism."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Walinski-Kiehl |first=Robert |date=2006 |title=History, Politics, and East German Film: The Thomas Müntzer (1956) Socialist Epic |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20457093 |journal=Central European History |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=34 |doi=10.1017/S0008938906000021 |jstor=20457093 |issn=0008-9389}}</ref> The studio produced children's films to influence them, as they believed these types of films to be effective in emphasizing good citizenship and how to show children how to emulate this.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Blessing |first=Benita |date=2010 |title=Happily socialist ever after? East German children's films and the education of a fairy tale land |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25699580 |journal=Oxford Review of Education |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=235 |doi=10.1080/03054981003696747 |jstor=25699580 |issn=0305-4985}}</ref>

[[Gerhard Lamprecht|Gerhard Lamprecht's]] [[Somewhere in Berlin]] (German: ''Irgendwo in Berlin'') was one of DEFA's most notable films.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Blessing |first=Benita |date=2010 |title=Happily socialist ever after? East German children's films and the education of a fairy tale land |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25699580 |journal=Oxford Review of Education |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=237 |doi=10.1080/03054981003696747 |jstor=25699580 |issn=0305-4985}}</ref> Though the film was produced in 1946, three years before the GDR was established, it was a foundation point for a broader development of East German socialist realist film. An antifascist film, Lamprecht emphasizes the necessity of "reconstructing the nation" after World War II.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Blessing |first=Benita |date=2010 |title=Happily socialist ever after? East German children's films and the education of a fairy tale land |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25699580 |journal=Oxford Review of Education |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=237 |doi=10.1080/03054981003696747 |jstor=25699580 |issn=0305-4985}}</ref> Preliminary East German films like ''Somewhere in Berlin'' "laid the groundwork for a national film culture based in pedagogical intent."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Blessing |first=Benita |date=2010 |title=Happily socialist ever after? East German children's films and the education of a fairy tale land |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25699580 |journal=Oxford Review of Education |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=237 |doi=10.1080/03054981003696747 |jstor=25699580 |issn=0305-4985}}</ref>

Some DEFA films were also derived from earlier German fairytales that predated the GDR. [[Paul Verhoeven (German director)|Paul Verhoeven's]] [[Heart of Stone (1950 film)|''The Cold Heart'']] (German: ''Das kalte Herz)'' was one of such films, which was based on the [[The Cold Heart|story]] written by [[Wilhelm Hauff]] of the same title.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Blessing |first=Benita |date=2010 |title=Happily socialist ever after? East German children's films and the education of a fairy tale land |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25699580 |journal=Oxford Review of Education |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=237 |doi=10.1080/03054981003696747 |jstor=25699580 |issn=0305-4985}}</ref> The film was produced to serve as a good example of how a person should treat others. The film's main messages centered on the pitfalls of greed and the value of loving personal relationships.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Blessing |first=Benita |date=2010 |title=Happily socialist ever after? East German children's films and the education of a fairy tale land |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25699580 |journal=Oxford Review of Education |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=237–238 |doi=10.1080/03054981003696747 |jstor=25699580 |issn=0305-4985}}</ref>

DEFA also employed films to be used as history lessons for the people of East Germany, namely those about the German Peasants' War. [[Martin Hellberg|Martin Hellberg's]] [[Thomas Muentzer (film)]] told the stories of his leadership and the revolution in a heroic and idealistic portrayal.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Walinski-Kiehl |first=Robert |date=2006 |title=History, Politics, and East German Film: The Thomas Müntzer (1956) Socialist Epic |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20457093 |journal=Central European History |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=30–55 |doi=10.1017/S0008938906000021 |jstor=20457093 |issn=0008-9389}}</ref> DEFA saw Hellberg's film proposal as an opportunity to teach about German revolutionary history, as a means of preventing a descent into fascism again.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Walinski-Kiehl |first=Robert |date=2006 |title=History, Politics, and East German Film: The Thomas Müntzer (1956) Socialist Epic |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20457093 |journal=Central European History |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=35 |doi=10.1017/S0008938906000021 |jstor=20457093 |issn=0008-9389}}</ref> The producers gave the actor portraying Müntzer lines that embrace Marxist thought, to clearly communicate ideals of socialism and the roles of the working class to viewers.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Walinski-Kiehl |first=Robert |date=2006 |title=History, Politics, and East German Film: The Thomas Müntzer (1956) Socialist Epic |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20457093 |journal=Central European History |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=48 |doi=10.1017/S0008938906000021 |jstor=20457093 |issn=0008-9389}}</ref> Ideas about property re-distribution and a proletariat victory over the ruling classes are conveyed in the film's depiction of the revolutionary leader.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Walinski-Kiehl |first=Robert |date=2006 |title=History, Politics, and East German Film: The Thomas Müntzer (1956) Socialist Epic |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20457093 |journal=Central European History |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=48 |doi=10.1017/S0008938906000021 |jstor=20457093 |issn=0008-9389}}</ref>

==== Literature ====
Many of East Germany's renowned writers lived through the Nazi regime, which influenced their craft and works with socialist realism.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Nelson |first=Max |date=2022 |title=Half-Truths Are Lies Too: Brigitte Reimann's personal history of East Germany |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27159033 |journal=The Baffler |issue=63 |pages=104 |jstor=27159033 |issn=1059-9789}}</ref>

[[Anna Seghers|Anna Seghers']] 1949 novel [[The Dead Stay Young]] (German: ''Die Toten Bleiben Jung'') was considered "a foundational literary work for the young GDR."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brockmann |first=Stephen |title=The Writers' State: Constructing East German Literature, 1945-1959 |date=December 21, 2015 |publisher=Camden House |isbn=9781782046813 |edition=1 |location=Rochester, NY |publication-date=December 21, 2015 |pages=139 |language=English}}</ref> Critics commented on the pessimistic plot and message of the novel, as it was centered on the unsuccessful [[Spartacist uprising]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brockmann |first=Stephen |title=The Writers' State: Constructing East German Literature, 1945-1959 |date=December 21, 2015 |publisher=Camden House |isbn=9781782046813 |edition=1 |location=Rochester, NY |publication-date=December 21, 2015 |pages=140 |language=English}}</ref> Though the novel did not depict an ideal or optomistic view on socialism, critic Günther Cwojdrak stated that Seghers still communicated reality by fulfilling "the task of transforming the working people and educating them in the spirit of socialism..."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brockmann |first=Stephen |title=The Writers' State: Constructing East German Literature, 1945-1959 |date=December 21, 2015 |publisher=Camden House |isbn=9781782046813 |edition=1 |location=Rochester, NY |publication-date=December 21, 2015 |pages=143 |language=English}}</ref>

East German literature that followed Seghers' novel focused on including heroes as protagonists to communicate optimistic messages of the prospects of socialism. Journalist Heinrich Goeres suggested that writers should use Soviet literature as an example to write more positive stories.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brockmann |first=Stephen |title=The Writers' State: Constructing East German Literature, 1945-1959 |date=December 21, 2015 |publisher=Camden House |isbn=9781782046813 |edition=1 |location=Rochester, NY |publication-date=December 21, 2015 |pages=171 |language=English}}</ref> 

Early works of socialist literature in the GDR were produced in 1949 "to promote the new socialist man."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Heiduschke |first=Sebastian |date=2014 |title=Inspiring and Educating gdr Women: Iris Gusner, Feminism, and the Film Kaskade Rückwärts |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5250/womgeryearbook.30.2014.0023 |journal=Women in German Yearbook |volume=30 |pages=23–43 |doi=10.5250/womgeryearbook.30.2014.0023 |jstor=10.5250/womgeryearbook.30.2014.0023 |issn=1058-7446}}</ref> In later years, stories about women's lives under socialism were written, and [[Christa Wolf]] and [[Brigitte Reimann]] were some of the authors who were involved in these widening developments.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Heiduschke |first=Sebastian |date=2014 |title=Inspiring and Educating gdr Women: Iris Gusner, Feminism, and the Film Kaskade Rückwärts |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5250/womgeryearbook.30.2014.0023 |journal=Women in German Yearbook |volume=30 |pages=28–29 |doi=10.5250/womgeryearbook.30.2014.0023 |jstor=10.5250/womgeryearbook.30.2014.0023 |issn=1058-7446}}</ref>

In the 1960s, the SED introduced the ''Bitterfelder Weg,'' a part of [[Aufbauliteratur]], which was a plan to send writers to industrial centers to generate "cultural production" between the writers and workers.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Nelson |first=Max |date=2022 |title=Half-Truths Are Lies Too: Brigitte Reimann's personal history of East Germany |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27159033 |journal=The Baffler |issue=63 |pages=103 |jstor=27159033 |issn=1059-9789}}</ref>

== Gender in socialist realism ==

=== USSR ===

==== Early Soviet period ====
[[File:Portrait of Vladimir Lenin, 1949, Czeslaw Znamierowski, private collection.jpg|thumb|Portrait of Vladimir Lenin, 1949, by [[Czeslaw Znamierowski]]]]
In the poster propaganda produced during the [[Russian Civil War]] (1917–1922) men were overrepresented as workers, peasants, and combat heroes, and when women were shown, it was often either to symbolize an abstract concept (e.g., [[Personification of Russia|Mother Russia]], "freedom") or as nurses and victims.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Bonnell|first=Victoria E.|date=1991|title=The Representation of Women in Early Soviet Political Art|journal=The Russian Review|volume=50|issue=3|pages=267–288|doi=10.2307/131074|jstor=131074|issn=0036-0341}}</ref> The symbolic women would be depicted as feminine{{Snd}}wearing long dresses, long hair, and bare breasts. The image of the urban proletariat, the group which brought the Bolsheviks to power was characterized by masculinity, physical strength, and dignity and were usually shown as blacksmiths.<ref name=":0" />

In 1920, Soviet artists began to produce the first images of women proletarians. These women differed from the symbolic women from the 1910s in that they most closely resembled the aspects of the male workers{{Snd}}dignity, masculinity, and even supernatural power in the case of blacksmiths.<ref name=":0" /> In many paintings in the 1920s, the men and women were almost indistinguishable in stature and clothing, but the women would often be depicted taking subservient roles to the men, such as being his assistant ("rabotnitsa").<ref name=":0" /> These women blacksmith figures were less common, but significant, since it was the first time women were represented as proletarians.<ref name=":0" /> The introduction of women workers in propaganda coincided with a series of government policies which allowed for [[divorce]], [[abortion]], and more sexual freedom.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Simpson|first=Pat |date=2004-01-01|title=The Nude in Soviet Socialist Realism: Eugenics and Images of the New Person in the 1920s-1940s|journal=Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art|volume=5|issue=1|pages=113–137|doi=10.1080/14434318.2004.11432735|s2cid=157757526|issn=1443-4318}}</ref>

Peasant women were also rarely depicted in socialist propaganda art in the period before 1920. The typical image of a peasant was a bearded, sandal-shoed man in shoddy clothes and with a [[scythe]], until 1920, when artists began to create peasant women, who were usually buxom, full-bodied, with a scarf tied around their head.<ref name=":0" /> The image of peasant women was not always positive; they often would evoke the derogatory caricature "[[Baba Yaga|baba]]", which was used against peasant women and women in general.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last=Bonnell|first=Victoria E.|date=1993|title=The Peasant Woman in Stalinist Political Art of the 1930s|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=98|issue=1|pages=55–82|doi=10.2307/2166382|jstor=2166382|issn=0002-8762}}</ref>

As is discussed above, the art style during the early period of the Soviet Union (1917–1930) differed from the socialist realist art created during the Stalinist period. Artists were able to experiment more freely with the message of the revolution.<ref name=":3" /> Many Soviet artists during this period were part of the [[Constructivism (art)|constructivist]] movement and used abstract forms for propaganda posters, while some chose to use a [[Realism (arts)|realist]] style.<ref name=":0" /> Women artists were significantly represented in the revolutionary [[Avant-garde|avant garde]] movement, which began before 1917<ref name=":4">Lavery, Rena, Ivan Lindsay, and Katia Kapushesky. 2019. ''Soviet women and their art: the spirit of equality''.</ref> and some of the most famous were [[Aleksandra Ekster|Alexandra Exter]], [[Natalia Goncharova]], [[Lyubov Popova|Liubov Popova]], [[Varvara Stepanova]], [[Olga Rozanova]] and [[Nadezhda Udaltsova]].<ref name=":4" /><ref>{{Cite web|last=Larkin|first=Charlotte|date=17 Nov 2017|title=Women of the Avant-Garde|url=https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/women-of-the-avant-garde|website=Sotheby's}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web|last=Tate|title=The short life of the equal woman: by Christina Kiaer – Tate Etc|url=https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-15-spring-2009/short-life-equal-women|access-date=2020-12-04|website=Tate|language=en-GB}}</ref> These women challenged some of the historical precedents of male dominance in art. Art historian Christina Kiaer has argued that the post-revolutionary shift away from market-based art production was beneficial to female artists' careers, especially before 1930, when the [[Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia|Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AKhRR)]] was still relatively egalitarian.<ref name=":5">Kiaer, C. H. (2012). Fairy Tales of the Proletariat, or, Is Socialist Realism Kitsch? In ''Socialist Realisms: Soviet Painting 1920–1970'' (pp. 183–189). Skira.</ref> Instead of an elite, individualistic group of disproportionately male "geniuses"<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Fredriksson|first=Martin|date=2007-05-01|title=The Avant-Gardist, the Male Genius and the Proprietor|url=https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/article/view/1785|journal=Nordlit<!--|volume=11-->|volume=11 |language=en|issue=21|pages=275–284|doi=10.7557/13.1785|issn=1503-2086|doi-access=free}}</ref> produced by the market, artists shared creation of a common vision.<ref name=":5" />{{clarify|date=November 2023}}

==== Stalin era ====
The style of socialist realism began to dominate the Soviet artistic community starting when Stalin rose to power in 1930, and the government took a more active role in regulating art creation.<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal|last=Reid|first=Susan E.|date=1998|title=All Stalin's Women: Gender and Power in Soviet Art of the 1930s|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2502056|journal=Slavic Review|volume=57|issue=1|pages=133–173|doi=10.2307/2502056|jstor=2502056|s2cid=163795609 |issn=0037-6779}}</ref> The [[Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia|AKhRR]] became more hierarchical and the association privileged realist style [[oil painting]]s, a field dominated by men, over posters and other mediums in which women had primarily worked.<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":6" /> The task of Soviet artists was to create visualisations of the "[[New Soviet man|New Soviet Man]]"{{Snd}}the idealized icon of humanity living under socialism. This heroic figure encapsulated both men and women, per the Russian word "chelovek", a masculine term meaning "person".<ref name=":4" /> While the new Soviet person could be male or female, the figure of man was often used to represent gender neutrality.<ref name=":7">{{Cite journal|last=Simpson|first=Pat|date=2004|title=Parading Myths: Imaging New Soviet Woman on Fizkul'turnik's Day, July 1944|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3664081|journal=The Russian Review|volume=63|issue=2|pages=187–211|doi=10.1111/j.1467-9434.2004.00313.x|jstor=3664081|hdl=2299/616|issn=0036-0341|hdl-access=free}}</ref>

Because the government had declared the "[[The woman question|woman question]]" resolved in 1930, there was little explicit discourse about how women should be uniquely created in art.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Simpson|first=Pat|date=1998|title=On the Margins of Discourse? Visions of New Soviet Woman in Socialist Realistic Painting 1949–50|journal=Art History|language=en|volume=21|issue=2|pages=247–267|doi=10.1111/1467-8365.00105|issn=1467-8365|doi-access=free}}</ref> Discussions of gender difference and sexuality were generally taboo and viewed as a distraction from the duties people had to the creation of socialism.<ref name=":2" /> Accordingly, nudes of both men and women were rare, and some art critics have pointed out that Socialist Realist paintings escaped the problem of women's [[sexual objectification]] commonly seen in capitalist forms of art production.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Quan|first=Hong|date=2019-12-01|title=The representation and/or repression of Chinese women: from a socialist aesthetics to commodity fetish|url=https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-019-00487-0|journal=Neohelicon|language=en|volume=46|issue=2|pages=717–737|doi=10.1007/s11059-019-00487-0|s2cid=189874839|issn=1588-2810}}</ref> But the declaration of women's equality also made it difficult to talk about the gender inequality that did exist; Stalin's government had simultaneously banned abortion and homosexuality, made divorce more difficult, and dismantled the women's associations in government ([[Zhenotdel]]s).<ref name=":2" /> The "New Soviet Woman" was often shown working in traditionally male jobs, such as aviation, engineering, tractor-driving, and politics.<ref name=":7" /> The point of this was to encourage women to join the workforce and show off the strides the USSR had made for women, especially in comparison with the United States.<ref name=":8">{{Cite book|last=Ghodsee|first=Kristen|title=Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism|publisher=Bold Type Books|year=2018|isbn=9781645036364|location=United States|pages=36}}</ref> Indeed, women had expanded opportunities to take up traditionally male jobs in comparison to the US. In 1950, women made up 51.8% of the Soviet labor force, compared to just 28.3% in North America.<ref name=":8" />

However, there were also many patriarchal depictions of women. Historian Susan Reid has argued that the [[cult of personality]] around male Soviet leaders created an entire atmosphere of patriarchy in Socialist Realist art, where both male and female workers often looked up to the "father" icon of Lenin and Stalin.<ref name=":6" /> Furthermore, the policies of the 1930s ended up forcing many women to be solely responsible for childcare, leaving them with the famous "double burden" of childcare and work duties.<ref name=":7" /> The government encouraged women to have children by creating portraits of the "housewife-activist"{{Snd}}wives and mothers who supported their husbands and the socialist state by taking on unpaid housework and childcare.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":7" />

Women were also more often shown as peasants than workers, which some scholars see as evidence of their perceived inferiority.<ref name=":7" /> Art depicting peasant women in the Stalin era was far more positive than in the 1920s, and often explicitly pushed back against the "[[Baba Yaga|baba]]" stereotype.<ref name=":3" /> However, the peasantry, still living in [[Feudalism|feudal]] society, was generally seen as backwards, and did not hold the same status as the heroic status as the revolutionary urban proletariat.<ref name=":7" /> An example of the gender distinction of male proletariat and female peasantry is [[Vera Mukhina|Vera Muhkina]]'s statue ''[[Worker and Kolkhoz Woman]]'' (1937), where the worker is shown as male, while the collective farm worker is female.<ref name=":7" />

== Painting ==
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="5">
File:Pionerka kasatkin.jpg|N. Kasatkin. ''Pioneer-girl with book'' (1926)
File:Lenin attempt.jpg|Vladimir Pchelin, ''Lenin Assassination Attempt'' (1927)
File:Death of a Commissar (Petrov-Vodkin).jpg|[[Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin]], ''The death of the Political Commissar'' (1928)
File:Sergey Malyutin 07.jpg|[[Sergey Malyutin]], ''Partisan''
File:Manifest - Wojciech Weiss.jpg|[[Wojciech Weiss]], ''Manifesto'' (1949/1950)
File:Mitrophan Grekov 01.jpg|Mitrofan Grekov, ''Trumpeter and [[standard-bearer]]'' (1934)
File:"The Green Lake" by Czeslaw Znamierowski, 145 x 250 cm, 1955.jpg|''The Green Lake'' by [[Czeslaw Znamierowski]], 145 x 250&nbsp;cm, 1955
File:Detail of Painting of Female Partisan in Battle - National Historical Museum - Tirana - Albania - 01 (42748115122).jpg|Female Partisan in Battle, National History Museum, Tirana, Albania
File:Soviet Socialist Realism We will fulfill.svg|''"We Will Fulfill the Party's Commission!"'' by [[Igor Berezovsky]], 1957
</gallery>

== Sculpture ==
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="4">
File:Socrealizm.jpeg|Socialist-Realist allegories surrounding the [[Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw]]
File:Stone as a weapon of the proletariat.jpg|''Stone as a Weapon of the Proletariat'' by [[Ivan Shadr]] (1947)
File:Letna stalin sousosi.jpg|[[Stalin Monument (Prague)|Stalin Monument]] in [[Prague]]-Letná (1955–1962)
</gallery>

== Reliefs ==
<gallery widths="170px" heights="170px" perrow="4">
File:Communist relief in Gori, Georgia 2.jpg|Relief in [[Gori, Georgia]], the birthplace of [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]]
Rzeźby plac Konstytucji 1 w Warszawie 2021.jpg|Façade on [[Marszałkowska Street, Warsaw]]
Constitution Square Warsaw 06.jpg|Façade on [[Marszałkowska Street, Warsaw]]
</gallery>

== See also ==
{{Portal|Soviet Union}}
{{cols|colwidth=21em}}
* [[Brutalist architecture]]
* [[Capitalist realism]]
* [[Censorship of images in the Soviet Union]]
* [[Communist symbolism]]
* [[Derussification in Ukraine]]
** [[Demolition of monuments to Alexander Pushkin in Ukraine]]
** [[Demolition of monuments to Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine]]
* [[Fine Art of Leningrad]]
* [[Heroic realism]]
* [[Lenin's Mausoleum]]
* [[Museum of the Chinese Communist Party]]
* [[New Moscow (painting)]]
* [[Propaganda in the Soviet Union]]
* [[Socialist realism in Poland]]
* [[Socialist realism in Romania]]
* [[Soviet-era statues]]
* [[Vanguardism]]
* [[Zhdanov Doctrine]]
{{colend}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* Bek, Mikuláš; Chew, Geoffrey; and Macel, Petr (eds.). ''Socialist Realism and Music''. Musicological Colloquium at the Brno International Music Festival 36. Prague: KLP; Brno: Institute of Musicology, Masaryk University, 2004. {{ISBN|80-86791-18-1}}
* Golomstock, Igor. ''Totalitarian Art in the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, Fascist Italy and the People's Republic of China'', HarperCollins, 1990.
* James, C. Vaughan. ''Soviet Socialist Realism: Origins and Theory''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973.
* Ivanov, Sergei. ''Unknown Socialist Realism. The Leningrad School''. Saint Petersburg, NP-Print, 2007 {{ISBN|978-5-901724-21-7}}
* Lin Jung-hua. ''Post-Soviet Aestheticians Rethinking Russianization and Chinization of Marxism'' (Russian Language and Literature Studies. Serial No. 33) Beijing, Capital Normal University, 2011, No.3. pp. 46–53.
* Prokhorov, Gleb. ''Art under Socialist Realism: Soviet Painting, 1930–1950''. East Roseville, NSW, Australia: Craftsman House; G + B Arts International, 1995. {{ISBN|976-8097-83-3}}
* Rideout, Walter B. ''The Radical Novel in the United States: 1900–1954. Some Interrelations of Literature and Society''. New York: Hill and Wang, 1966.
* Saehrendt, Christian. ''Kunst als Botschafter einer künstlichen Nation'' ("Art from an artificial nation – about modern art as a tool of the GDR's propaganda"), Stuttgart 2009
* [[Andrei Sinyavsky|Sinyavsky, Andrei]] [writing as Abram Tertz]. ''"The Trial Begins" and "On Socialist Realism"'', translated by Max Hayward and George Dennis, with an introduction by [[Czesław Miłosz]]. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960–1982. {{ISBN|0-520-04677-3}}
* ''The Leningrad School of Painting. Essays on the History.'' St Petersburg, ARKA Gallery Publishing, 2019. {{ISBN|978-5-6042574-2-5}}
* [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337431826_THE_ORIGIN_OF_SOCIALIST_REALISM_IN_RUSSIA_AND_CHINA Origin of Socialist Realism in Russia and China]. Translation and revised version of "[http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/nf4/Noches_Rusas.pdf Las noches rusas y el origen del realismo socialista]."

== External links ==
{{Commons category|Socialist realism}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20121022143138/http://www.modernamuseet.se/en/Stockholm/Programme/Conference-Socialist-Realist-Art/ Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden: Socialist Realist Art Conference]
* [http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/visual_arts/painting/exhibits/socialist-realism.htm Marxists.org Socialist Realism page]
* [http://horvath.members.1012.at/soc.htm Virtual Museum of Political Art – Socialist Realism]
* [http://www.library.illinois.edu/spx/webct/SubjectResources/SubSourRus/artsruart2.htm Research Guide to Russian Art]{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
* [http://rbth.com/arts/2014/07/24/socialist_realism_socialist_in_content_capitalist_in_price_38351.html Socialist realism: Socialist in content, capitalist in price]

{{Russian art movements}}
{{Westernart}}
{{Fine Art of Leningrad |state=autocollapse}}
{{Film genres}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Socialist realism| ]]
[[Category:Leninism]]
[[Category:Film styles]]
[[Category:Socialism]]
[[Category:Realism (art movement)]]
[[Category:Art movements]]
[[Category:Propaganda art]]
[[Category:Soviet painters]]
[[Category:Censorship in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Propaganda in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Russian art movements]]