Thecultural revolution was a set of activities carried out inSoviet Russia and theSoviet Union, aimed at a radical restructuring of the cultural and ideological life of society. The goal was to form a new type of culture as part of the building of asocialist society,[1][2] including an increase in the proportion of people from proletarian classes in the social composition of the intelligentsia.[3]
The cultural revolution in the Soviet Union as a focused program for the transformation ofnational culture in practice often stalled and was massively implemented only during thefirst five-year plans.[4] As a result, in modern historiography there is a traditional, but contested, correlation of the cultural revolution in the Soviet Union only with the 1928–1931 period.[5][6] The cultural revolution in the 1930s was understood as part of a major transformation of society and thenational economy, along withindustrialization andcollectivization.[7] Also, in the course of the cultural revolution, the organization of scientific activity in the Soviet Union underwent considerable restructuring and reorganization.[8][9]
Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences writes that the term "cultural revolution" in Russia appeared in the "Anarchism Manifesto" of theGordin brothers in May 1917, and was introduced into the Soviet political language byVladimir Lenin in 1923 in the paper "On Cooperation": "This cultural revolution would now suffice to make our country a completely socialist country; but it presents immense difficulties of a purely cultural (for we are illiterate) and material character (for to be cultured we must achieve a certain development of the material means of production, we must have a certain material base)".[10][11]
However, many scholars attribute the idea toAlexander Bogdanov and consider his cultural movementProletkult to be the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in the Soviet Union.[12][13]
The Cultural Revolution as a change in the ideology of society was launched soon after theOctober Revolution.[2] On January 23, 1918, aDecree on Separation of Church from State and School from Church appeared.[2] Items related to religious education were removed from the education system:theology,ancient Greek, and others. The main task of the cultural revolution was the introduction of the principles of Marxist ideology into the personal convictions of Soviet citizens.[1]
To implement the program in the first months of Soviet power, a network of organs of the party-state administration of the cultural life of society was created:Agitprop (department of theCentral Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)),Glavpolitprosvet,Narcompros,Glavlit and others. The institutions of culture were nationalized: publishing houses, museums, film factories; freedom of the press was abolished. The1918 RSFSR Constitution, for its part, proclaimed that the workers and peasants should have the means to print and publish:
In order to secure for the workers actual freedom of expression of opinion, the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic abolishes the dependence of the press upon capital, and puts into the hands of the working class and the poor peasantry all the technical and material means for the publication of newspapers, pamphlets, books, and all other products of the printing press, and provides for their free distribution throughout the country.[14]
In the field of ideology,atheistic propaganda was widely developed, religion began to be persecuted, clubs, warehouses, production facilities were organized in churches, and strictcensorship was introduced.[1]
Most of the masses were uneducated and illiterate: for example, from the results of thecensus of the 1920 population, it followed that only 41.7% of the population over 8 years old could read inSoviet Russia.[15] The cultural revolution primarily involved thefight against illiteracy, which was necessary for the subsequentscientific and technological development. Cultural work was deliberately limited to elementary forms, because, according to some researchers, the Soviet regime needed a performing culture, but not a creative one.[7] However, the rate ofelimination of illiteracy for a variety of reasons was unsatisfactory[citation needed].Universal primary education in theSoviet Union was de factointroduced in the 1930. Massilliteracy was eliminated afterWorld War II.[2]At this time, nationalalphabets of several nationalities (the Far North,Dagestan, Kyrgyz, Bashkir, Buryat, etc.) were created. A wide network ofworking faculties was developed to prepare working youth for admission to universities, to which the path of youth of proletarian origin was first opened regardless of the availability of primary education. In order to educate the new intellectual elite, theCommunist University,Istpart, theCommunist Academy, and theInstitute of Red Professors were established. To attract the "old" scientific personnel, commissions were created to improve the life of scientists, and relevant decrees were issued.[1]
At the same time, repressive measures were taken to eliminate intellectual political opponents: for example, more than 200 prominent representatives of Russian science and culture were expelled from the country on thePhilosophical Steamship. Since the end of the 1920s, bourgeois specialists were "crowded out": "Academic Trial", "Shakhty Trial", "Industrial Party Trial", etc. Since 1929, "sharashki" began to operate – special technical bureaus of prisoners organized by the internal affairs bodies for carrying out important research and design works.[1]
In the 1920s, discussions took place in Soviet public and party organizations about the methods and direction of the cultural revolution. For example, in the summer of 1923, a campaign to discuss "issues of life" was initiated byLeon Trotsky, who spoke in print with a series of articles published in the eponymous brochure (three editions were published).[16]
Ideological hegemony in carrying out the cultural revolution has always remained with the party. TheKomsomol played a major role in fulfilling the tasks of theparty in carrying out the cultural revolution.[2]
The successes of the cultural revolution include raising the literacy rate to 87.4% of the population (according to the census of 1939), creating an extensive system of secondary schools, and significant development of science and the arts.[3] At the same time, an official culture was formed, based onMarxist-class ideology, "communist education", mass culture and education, which was necessary for the formation of a large number of production personnel and the formation of a new "Sovietintelligentsia" from the working-peasant environment.[2][7][17]
According to one of the points of view, during this period, the means ofBolshevikideologization made a break with the traditions of the centuries-old historical cultural heritage.[3]
On the other hand, a number of authors have challenged this position and come to the conclusion that the traditional values and worldviews of the Russian intelligentsia, petty bourgeoisie and the peasantry were only slightly transformed during the cultural revolution, and the Bolshevik project of creating a new type of person, that is, the "new man", should be considered largely failed.[18][19]
culture revolution ussr.
culture revolution ussr.