socialist realism

Socialist Realism

What:

A type of realistic art that aims at promoting the goals of socialism and communism. Socialist realism was the officially approved type of art in the Soviet Union for nearly sixty years. Communist doctrine decreed that all material goods and means of production belonged to the community as a whole. This included means of producing art, which were also seen as powerful propaganda tools. During the October Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks established an institution called Proletkult (the Proletarian Cultural and Enlightenment Organizations) which sought to put all arts into the service of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It was against individuality and experimentation of modernist art. It was understandable and didactic, life as it could be. It had political subject matter: workers, peasants, and party members.

Where:

Socialist and Communist countries. The Soviet Union exported socialist realism to virtually all of the other Communist countries, although the degree to which it was enforced there varied somewhat from country to country. It became the predominant art form across the Communist world for nearly fifty years.

When:

Socialist realism became state policy in 1932 whenStalinpromulgated the decree "On the Reconstruction of Literary and Art Organizations". TheUnion of Soviet Writerswas founded to control the output of authors, and the new policy was rubber-stamped at the Congress of Socialist Writers in 1934.

Significance:

the Communist party rejected modern styles such as impressionism and cubism since these movements existed before the revolution and hence were associated with "decadent bourgeois art." Socialist realism was thus to some extent a reaction against the adoption of these "decadent" styles. Also, the non-representative forms of art were not understood by the proletariat and thus could not be used by the state for propaganda. Artists who strayed from the official line were severely punished – many were sent to the Gulag labor camps in Siberia and elsewhere. Roses for Stalin by Vladimirski is an example.