Features of cultural processes in totalitarian states. Totalitarian culture and its essence

For almost the entire 20th century culture was subjected to the most tangible losses and deformations as a result of the domination of totalitarian regimes. Totalitarianism, especially in the first half of the century, was inherent not only in individual countries and cultures - it became a component of human psychology and consciousness. In the most perfect forms totalitarianism existed in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s and in the Stalinist Soviet Union. In the USSR, the opposition to the culture of totalitarianism continued until the early 1990s, and although the totalitarian system and power suffered a crushing defeat, its rudiments are quite stable to this day. They are one of the main reasons for the rather slow progress of post-totalitarian states along the path of democracy and progress.
An important problem is the essence, genesis and roots of totalitarianism (from Latin totalis - continuous, comprehensive). This term was introduced into political and scientific circulation by the ideologues of Italian fascism in the 1920s and responded to their desire to create a strong, centralized, authoritarian state in contrast to the "decaying Western democracies" and the "irresponsible practice of Bolshevism." In the second half of the XX century. representatives of Western political science - developed the concept of totalitarianism as a tool for criticizing fascist and communist regimes. According to this concept, it is a totalitarian type of society in which there is a strict control of power over all spheres of society, as well as every individual, dominated by one ideology, politics, morality, culture. This society is intolerant of dissent, one-sided and culturally primitive. So, totalitarianism is the antipode of democracy.
The history of mankind has known many cultures that had features similar to totalitarianism. However, none of them (Sumer-Babylon, Egyptian, Roman Empire, Byzantium, Europe of the period of counter-reformation and absolutism) was completely totalitarian, since it consisted of closed cultural strata, or societies - peasantry, artisans, bourgeoisie, nobility, aristocracy. The paradox is that it was the democracy of the XIX century. contributed to the unprecedented totalitarianism of the XX century. By granting equal rights to citizens, breaking class barriers, releasing the gigantic energy of the masses, it gave rise to illusions for the rapid renewal of society on the principles of social justice and cultural equality.
Immediately after the Bolshevik revolution in Soviet Russia censorship was created, political parties, public and cultural associations that did not stand on communist positions were banned. "Ideologically harmful literature" was confiscated from libraries, and war was declared between religion and the church. The color of the intelligentsia was forced to emigrate from the country. The remnants of spiritual resistance among the intelligentsia was finally eliminated in 1922, p. when, on the orders of V. Lenin and L. Trotsky, from the leading cultural centers- Moscow, Petrograd, Kyiv, Kharkov and others - dozens of scientists, philosophers, writers of world renown were taken abroad.
Among them are philosophers M. Berdyaev, I. Ilyin, S. Frank, sociologist P. Sorokin, historians S. Melgunov, O. Kizevetter, V. Myakotin, and writers of MI. Osorgin, O. Izgoev. So for the first time in the XX century. people were expelled from the country not for counter-revolutionary actions, but for their way of thinking.
During the years of NEP, when ideological pressure and censorship somewhat weakened, talented works appeared in the USSR in which writers tried to comprehend the revolutionary collisions and painful problems of life, strengthening the motives of humanism in them: Yes. Zamyatin ("We"), I. Babel ("Cavalry", "Odessa Tales"), B. Pilnyak ("Mahogany"), A. Platonov ("Chevengur"), G. Zoshchenko ("Story"), G . Bulgakov (" white guard") and others. Numerous newspapers and magazines that became the mouthpieces of party propaganda subjected these works to crushing criticism, ideological persecution, the GPU authorities included them in the lists of socially dangerous. In G. Bulgakov, during the search, manuscripts of diaries and stories were seized" dog's heart", denunciations consisted of B. Pilnyak and Yes. Zamyatin.
It is not surprising that in the 30s, when NEP was done away with, many talented works on long years was banned, and their authors were subjected to repression and wanderings. In the same years, the revolutionary avant-garde in art and architecture was destroyed, because, according to party ideologists, it was too anarchic, alien common people. Artistic innovation was condemned as bourgeois sabotage. The artistic experiments of D. Shostakovich, S. Marshak and K. Chukovsky, B. Pasternak were outlawed.
With the adoption of the resolution "On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizational organizations" (1932), the Bolshevik Party took them under its strict control. Since then, all writers, composers, artists have united in creative unions led by the party committee. Participation in unions was mandatory, since only their members received the right to professional activities and normal material support.
First congress Soviet writers, which took place in Moscow in August 1934, p. proclaimed socialist realism to be the main method of artistic creativity. In his report at the congress, M. Gorky emphasized that socialist realism demands from literature "a truthful, historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development." Art should actively intervene in life, sing the heroism of revolutionary changes and industrial themes, and be only optimistic.
The method of socialist realism was considered the leading one in Soviet art almost until the beginning of Gorbachev's perestroika. Soviet dissidents of the 1970s, mocking this method, said that it was only suitable for praising the leadership in a form that was accessible to it.
Like the USSR, culture in Nazi Germany in the 30s and 40s was also subject to total control by the authorities and the state, the executive bodies of which were the imperial chambers (departments) for literature, music, and fine arts. The highest authority was the Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda, which took care of the eradication of everything that could harm National Socialism and created the cultural image of fascism. But, unlike communism, in the cultural policy of Nazism, priority was given not so much to a social or international issue as to the traditions of the nation, the fatefulness of the Aryan race, which should bring its high culture to the world.
Classical German, including bourgeois, culture was propagated in every possible way, and there was a fairly neutral attitude towards religion. To what belonged to the priority eradication, the Nazis attributed Jewish culture and various left-wing cultural movements (expressionism, cubism, Dadaism). Being racists, the ideologists of fascism also had a negative attitude towards Negro culture (in particular jazz music). The first big "cultural action" after the Nazis came to power was the massive public burning of ideologically harmful literature. People began to emigrate from Germany en masse eminent figures culture.
According to the order of the Nazi leadership in 1937, two art exhibitions. One is "truly German", the other, as cultural experts of the III Reich called it, "degenerate, Judeo-Bolshevik" art. According to the idea of ​​the organizers of this action, the people could compare the realistic and neoclassical works of the artists of the Reich with modernist "frills" and judge them themselves. After the exhibition, most of the 700 German Expressionist paintings on display were destroyed. In 1939, J. Goebbels partially burned and partially sold by auction almost all the paintings of modernists from museums and private collections, including W. van Gogh, P. Gauguin, P. Picasso, W. Kandinsky and her.
From the mid-1930s, the cultures of the Stalinist and Nazi regimes became extremely similar. Enthusiasm reigned in both countries, the strong foundations of which were the mass ideological dizziness of the population, its lack of education. Millions of people lined up in columns at numerous parades, demonstrations, holidays, a new monumental style was introduced in art (the so-called Stalinist Empire style and neoclassicism of the III Reich), which was distinguished by gigantism, the cult of strength, and naturalism. It is known that. Stalin and A. Hitler made considerable efforts to build the world's largest structure. In Moscow, on the foundations of the destroyed Cathedral of Christ the Savior, before the war, they began to build the Palace of Soviets, which even in the drafts looked like a huge monster. A. Hitler, until the very beginning of the war, cherished the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bbuilding Great Hall Reich for 180 thousand people. But the dreams of the dictators about the "Tower of Babel" did not come true.
Second World War put an end to Nazi culture in Germany. In the USSR, the agony of totalitarian power dragged on for many more years, and everything talented that was created in Soviet culture in the post-war period arose not thanks to, but in spite of totalitarianism.

For a long time in Soviet social science, the point of view dominated, according to which the 1930s. of our century were declared years of mass labor heroism in economic development and in the socio-political life of society. The development of public education reached a scale unprecedented in history. Two points became decisive here: the decision of the XVI Congress of the CPSU (b) "On the introduction of universal mandatory primary education for all children in the USSR" (1930); put forward by I.V. Stalin in the thirties, the idea of ​​renewing the “economic cadres” at all levels, which entailed the creation of industrial academies and engineering universities throughout the country, as well as the introduction of conditions that stimulate workers to receive education in the evening and correspondence departments of universities “without out of production."

The first construction of the five-year plan, collectivization Agriculture, the Stakhanov movement, the historical achievements of Soviet science and technology were perceived, experienced and reflected in the public consciousness in the unity of its rational and emotional structures. That's why artistic culture could not but play an exceptionally important role in the spiritual development of socialist society. Never in the past and nowhere in the world have works of art had such a wide, such a massive, truly popular audience as in the USSR. This is eloquently evidenced by the attendance rates of theaters, concert halls, art museums and exhibitions, the development of a cinema network, book publishing and the use of library and funds and.

Official art of the 30-40s. it was uplifting, affirmative, even euphoric. The major type of art that Plato recommended for his ideal "State" was embodied in the real Soviet totalitarian society. Here one should keep in mind the tragic inconsistency that developed in the country in the pre-war period. In the public consciousness of the 1930s, faith in socialist ideals and the enormous prestige of the party began to be combined with "leaderism." The principles of the class struggle are reflected in artistic life countries.

socialist realism- the ideological direction of the official art of the USSR in 1934-1991. The term first appeared after the Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of April 23, 1932 "On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations", which meant the actual liquidation of certain artistic directions, trends, styles, associations, groups. The term was coined either by Gorky or Stalin. Under artistic creativity the ideology of the class struggle, the struggle against dissent was summed up. All artistic groups were banned, in their place single creative unions were created - Soviet writers, Soviet artists and so on, whose activities were regulated and controlled by the Communist Party. The main principles of the method: party spirit, ideology, nationality (compare: autocracy, Orthodoxy, nationality). The main features: primitive thought, stereotyped images, standard compositional solutions, naturalistic form.

Socialist realism is a phenomenon created artificially by state power, and therefore is not artistic style. The monstrous paradox of socialist realism consisted in the fact that the artist ceased to be the author of his work, he spoke not on his own behalf, but on behalf of the majority, a group of "like-minded people" and always had to be responsible for "whose interests he expresses." The "rules of the game" became the disguise of one's own thoughts, social mimicry, a deal with the official ideology. At the other extreme, acceptable compromises, permitted liberties, some concessions to censorship in exchange for favors. Such ambiguities were easily guessed by the viewer and even created some piquancy and sharpness in the activities of individual "free-thinking realists".

This is the period of the socio-political culture of Russia. From the beginning of the 30s. Stalin's cult of personality began to assert itself in the country. IN public consciousness the image of a wise leader, the "father of peoples" was introduced. persecution of political opponents, trials above them have become a peculiar phenomenon of the Russian socio-political culture of modern times. They were not only brilliantly organized theatrical performances, but also a kind of ritual actions, where everyone played the role assigned to him. The main set of roles is as follows: the forces of evil ("enemies of the people", "spies", "saboteurs"); heroes (leaders of the party and government who were not among the first); a crowd deifying its heroes and thirsting for the blood of the forces of evil.

In the first decade of Soviet power, there was relative pluralism in the cultural life of the country, various literary and artistic unions and groupings were active, but the leading one was the installation of a total break with the past, the suppression of the individual and the exaltation of the masses, the collective.

In the 30s. cultural life in Soviet Russia acquired a new dimension. Social utopianism flourishes luxuriantly, a decisive official turnaround is taking place. cultural policy towards confrontation with the "capitalist encirclement" and "building socialism in a single country" based on internal forces. An "iron curtain" is being formed, separating society not only in the territorial and political, but also in the spiritual sense, from the rest of the world. The core of the entire state policy in the field of culture is the formation of a "socialist culture", the precondition for which was ruthless repression against the creative intelligentsia. The proletarian state was extremely suspicious of the intelligentsia. Even science was placed under strict ideological control. The Academy of Sciences, which has always been quite independent in Russia, was merged with the Communist Academy, subordinated to the Council of People's Commissars and turned into a bureaucratic institution. The studies of "unconscious" intellectuals have become a normal practice since the beginning of the revolution. Since the end of the 20s. they were replaced by systematic intimidation and outright destruction of the pre-revolutionary generation of the intelligentsia. Ultimately, this ended in the complete defeat of the old Russian intelligentsia.

In parallel with the displacement and direct destruction of the former intelligentsia, the process of creating a Soviet intelligentsia was going on. And new intelligentsia was conceived as a purely service unit, as a conglomerate of people ready to implement any instructions from the leadership, regardless of purely professional capabilities or their own convictions. Thus, the very basis of the existence of the intelligentsia was cut down - the possibility of independent thinking, free creative manifestation of the individual. In the public mind of the 30s. faith in socialist ideals, the enormous prestige of the party began to be combined with "leadership". Social cowardice and fear of breaking out from the general ranks have spread in broad sections of society.

Thus, the Soviet national culture by the mid-30s. developed into a rigid system with its own socio-cultural values: in philosophy, aesthetics, morality, language, life, science. The main features of this system were the following: approval of normative cultural patterns in various types of creativity; adherence to dogma and manipulation of public consciousness; party-class approach in the evaluation of artistic creativity; orientation to mass perception; mythology; conformism and pseudo-optimism; education of the nomenklatura intelligentsia; creation of state institutions of culture (creative unions); subordination of creative activity to social order.

Selfless loyalty to the cause of the party and government, patriotism, hatred of class enemies, cult love for the leaders of the proletariat, labor discipline, law-abidingness and internationalism dominated among the values ​​of official culture. The backbone elements of official culture were new traditions: a bright future and communist equality, the primacy of ideology in spiritual life, the idea of ​​a strong state and a strong leader. Socialist realism is the only artistic method.

The created creative unions put the activities of the country's creative intelligentsia under strict control. Exclusion from the union led not only to the loss of certain privileges, but also to complete isolation from consumers of art. The bureaucratic hierarchy of such unions had a low degree of independence, it was assigned the role of executor of the will of the top party leadership. The relative pluralism of previous times was over. Acting as the “main creative method” of Soviet culture, socialist realism prescribed both the content and structural principles of the work to artists, suggesting the existence of a “new type of consciousness” that appeared as a result of the establishment of Marxism-Leninism. Socialist realism was recognized once and for all as the only true and most perfect creative method. Thus, artistic culture, art was assigned the role of an instrument for the formation of the "new man".

Literature and art were placed at the service of communist ideology and propaganda. Splendor, pomposity, monumentalism, glorification of leaders became characteristic features of the art of this time, which reflected the regime's desire for self-assertion and self-aggrandizement. IN fine arts The consolidation of socialist realism was facilitated by the union of artists in the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia, whose members, guided by the principles of "party spirit", "truthfulness" and "nationality", traveled to factories and plants, penetrated the leaders' offices and painted their portraits.

Socialist realism is gradually being introduced into theatrical practice, especially in the Moscow Art Theater, the Maly Theater and other groups in the country. This process is more complicated in music, but even here the Central Committee does not sleep, publishing an article in Pravda criticizing the work of D.D. Shostakovich, which draws a line under the art of the avant-garde, branded with the labels of formalism and naturalism. The aesthetic dictatorship of socialist art, of socialist art, is turning into a dominant force that will dominate state culture in the next five decades.

However, the artistic practice of the 30-40s. turned out to be much richer than the recommended party guidelines. In the pre-war period, the role of the historical novel noticeably increased, a deep interest was shown in the history of the fatherland and the most striking historical characters: Y. Tynyanov's "Kukhlya", V. Shishkov's "Emelyan Pugachev", A. Tolstoy's "Peter the Great". Soviet literature in the 30s. achieved other significant successes. The fourth book of “The Life of Klim Samgin” and the play “Egor Bulychev and Others” by M. Gorky, the fourth book of “The Quiet Don” and “Virgin Soil Upturned” by M.A. were created. Sholokhov, novels "Peter the Great" by A.N. Tolstoy, “How the Steel Was Tempered” by N.A. Ostrovsky, "Pedagogical poem" A.S. Makarenko, etc. In the same years, Soviet children's literature flourished.

In the 30s. creates its own base of cinematography. The names of film directors were known throughout the country: S.M. Eizenshtein, M.I. Romma, S.A. Gerasimov, G.N. and S.D. Vasiliev, G.V. Alexandrova. Remarkable ensembles appear (the Beethoven Quartet, the Grand State Symphony Orchestra), the State Jazz is created, and international music competitions are held.

Thus, the second half of the 1930s - this is the stage of the formation of Stalinism, the politicization of culture. The cult of personality, its negative impact on the development of culture reach its apogee, a national model of totalitarianism is taking shape. On the whole, the culture of totalitarianism was characterized by emphasized classism and partisanship, and the rejection of many universal ideals of humanism. Complex cultural phenomena were deliberately simplified, they were given categorical and unambiguous assessments. During the period of Stalinism, such trends in the development of spiritual culture as the manipulation of names and historical facts, the persecution of objectionable people, were especially clearly manifested.

As a result, a certain archaic state of society was restored. A person became totally involved in social structures, and such a non-isolation of a person from the mass is one of the main features of the archaic social system. The instability of a person's position in society, his inorganic involvement in social structures made him value his social status even more, unconditionally support official views on politics, ideology, and culture. But even in such unfavorable conditions, domestic culture continued to develop, creating samples that rightfully entered the treasury of world culture.

The 20th century was the century of global historical upheavals, significant and unparalleled in the past, both in terms of their scale, the nature of their course, and their results.

The 20th century brought numerous totalitarianism to mankind, of which the most cruel were the dictatorial regime of B. Mussolini in Italy (1922-1943), Hitler's fascism in Germany in the 30s and early 40s. and the Stalinist dictatorship of the 30s and early 50s in the USSR.

Intellectual work on understanding the totalitarian past in the most various forms(from large research projects to awareness efforts undertaken in works of art) has been underway for a long time and not without success. A rich and useful experience has been accumulated.

However, this does not mean at all that at the moment there are no gaps in this issue. In this regard, the question naturally arises about the need for an aesthetic understanding of the phenomenon of totalitarianism of the 20th century and the features of the formation of an independent culture of the 20th century, since under totalitarianism in our state, even literature was classified into “corresponding”, and not “corresponding”, but “every classification is suppression method.

The purpose of this work is to consider the main provisions of culture in the period of totalitarianism.

To achieve this goal, we need to solve the following tasks:

1. Consider the concept and essence of totalitarianism;

2. Consider the main provisions of the socio-political culture in the period of totalitarianism.

1. The concept and essence of totalitarianism

In Soviet historiography, the problem of studying totalitarianism was practically not raised. The very terms "totalitarianism" and "totalitarian" before "perestroika" were criticized and practically not used. They began to be used only after “perestroika”, primarily to characterize fascist and pro-fascist regimes.

However, even this use of these terms was very episodic, preference was given to other formulations of "aggressive", "terrorist", "authoritarian", "dictatorial".

So in the "Philosophical encyclopedic dictionary” (1983), “totalitarianism” is presented as one of the forms of authoritarian bourgeois states, characterized by complete state control over the entire life of society.

We can agree with this interpretation, because until now, as rightly noted with reference to F. Furet, the prominent Russian researcher of totalitarianism V.I. Mikhailenko "the concept of totalitarianism is difficult to define."

At the same time, the scientist believes that attempts to explain high level consensus in totalitarian states the regime's violence hardly seem convincing.

And a completely unconvincing, in our opinion, characterization of this phenomenon is contained in the Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary (1986), which states that “the concept of totalitarianism was used by bourgeois-liberal ideologists to critically assess the fascist dictatorship”, and also “is used by anti-communist propaganda with the aim of creating a false critique of socialist democracy.

Reassessment of methodological and ideological principles historical science after the collapse of the USSR and the weakening of the Marxist methodology of socio-political development, it allowed a critically objective approach to the heritage Soviet era and use the tools of other theories.

Totalitarianism is becoming a popular and studied problem. The period of criticism and condemnation of foreign concepts of totalitarianism was replaced by a period of intense interest in them. Behind a short time Russian scientists have written more than a hundred books, articles and dissertations. Modern Russian historiography has achieved significant results in the study of totalitarianism. The most mastered were the Anglo-American, German and Italian concepts and approaches in the study of totalitarianism. To date, special works have been written in Russia on the formation and evolution of the concept of totalitarianism in general, and in American historiography in particular. There are no special works on the chosen topic in Russian philosophy.

The concept of totalitarianism, developed by Western theorists M. Eastman, H. Arendt, R. Aron and others in the 30-50s. was picked up by scientists who had a decisive influence on the formation of real US policy (primarily such as National Security Adviser to the US President Z. Brzezinski and Harvard professor, one of the authors of the German constitution K. Friedrich) and actively used as a fundamental ideological strategy in " Cold War against the USSR: the identification of defeated European fascism with Soviet communism, while completely ignoring the fundamental differences between these regimes, pursued quite obvious political goals.

From the end of the 80s. the concept of totalitarianism is becoming extremely popular in Russian historical and socio-philosophical sciences. The concept of "totalitarianism" is beginning to be used as a key, all-explaining concept in describing the Soviet period Russian history, and in some studies of Russian culture as a whole: the ideological simulacrum became the point of identification, in which the Soviet and post-Soviet society understood its integrity. At the same time, the liberal origin of the term "totalitarianism" was perceived as a kind of transcendent guarantor of meaning and scientific objectivity - only the other owns the genuine non-ideologized truth about ourselves.

A critical analysis of the definition of the essence of such an important category as totalitarianism in the works of foreign and Russian philosophers, sociologists and political scientists shows that its understanding is ambiguous.

Some authors attribute it to a certain type of state, dictatorship, political power, others - to the socio-political system, others - to a social system that covers all areas public life or to a certain ideology. Totalitarianism is often defined as political regime which exercises comprehensive control over the population and relies on the systematic use of violence or its threat. This definition reflects the most important features of totalitarianism.

However, it is clearly not enough, because the concept of a political regime is too narrow in scope to cover the entire variety of manifestations of totalitarianism.

It seems that totalitarianism is a certain socio-political system, which is characterized by the violent political, economic and ideological domination of the bureaucratic party-state apparatus headed by the leader over society and the individual, the subordination of the entire social system to the dominant ideology and culture.

The essence of a totalitarian regime is that under it there is no place for the individual. In this definition, in our opinion, the essential characteristic of a totalitarian regime is given. It covers its entire socio-political system and its main link - the authoritarian-bureaucratic state, which is characterized by despotic features and exercises complete (total) control over all spheres of society.

Thus, totalitarianism, like any other political system, must be considered as a social system and political regime.

In the broad sense of the word, as a social system covering all spheres of public life, totalitarianism is a certain socio-political and socio-economic system, ideology, model of the "new man".

In the narrow sense of the word, as a political regime, it is one of the components of the political system, the way it functions, a set of elements of the ideological, institutional and social order contributing to the formation of political power. Comparative analysis of these two concepts indicates that they are of the same order, but not identical. At the same time, the political regime acts as the core of the social system, reflecting the diversity of manifestations of totalitarianism.

So, totalitarianism is one of the controversial concepts in science. In the spotlight political science is still the question of its comparability historical types. There are different opinions on this issue in our and foreign socio-political literature.

2. Socio-political culture in the period of totalitarianism

From the beginning of the 1930s, the establishment of Stalin's personality cult began in the country. The first "swallow" in this regard was the article by K.E. Voroshilov "Stalin and the Red Army", published in 1929 for the fiftieth anniversary of the Secretary General, in which, contrary to historical truth, his merits were exaggerated. Gradually, Stalin became the only and infallible theoretician of Marxism. The image of a wise leader, the "father of peoples" was introduced into the public consciousness.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Stalin’s personality cult finally took shape in the USSR and all real or imaginary opposition groups to the “general line of the party” were liquidated (in the late 1920s and early 1950s, trials were held: “Shakhty case” (saboteurs in industry), 1928; "Counterrevolutionary Labor Peasant Party" (A.V. Chayanov, N.D. Kondratiev); the trial of the Mensheviks, 1931, the case of "sabotage at power plants of the USSR", 1933; anti-Soviet Trotskyist organization in Krasnaya Army, 1937; Leningrad case, 1950; Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, 1952. The milestone events in the fight against the opposition in the 1930s were the defeat of Trotskyism, the "new opposition", the "Trotskyist-Zinoviev deviation" and the "right deviation".

The concept of ""Totalitarian culture"" is closely related to the concept of ""Totalitarianism"" and ""totalitarian ideology"", since culture always serves the ideology, whatever it may be. Totalitarianism is a universal phenomenon affecting all spheres of life. We can say that totalitarianism is political system, in which the role of the state is so huge that it affects all processes in the country, whether political, social, economic or cultural. In the hands of the state are all the threads of the management of society.

Totalitarian culture is mass culture.

Totalitarian ideologists have always sought to subjugate the masses. And it was precisely the masses, since people were conceived not as individuals, but as elements of a mechanism, elements of a system called a totalitarian state. At the same time, ideology proceeds from some primary system of ideals. October Revolution introduced a substantially new (instead of the autocratic) system of higher ideals: the world socialist revolution, leading to communism - the kingdom of social justice, and the ideal working class. This system of ideals served as the basis for the ideology created in the 1930s, which proclaimed the ideas of the “infallible leader” and the “image of the enemy”. The people were brought up in the spirit of admiration for the name of the leader, in the spirit of boundless faith in the justice of his every word. Under the influence of the “image of the enemy” phenomenon, suspicion spread and denunciation was encouraged, which led to the disunity of people, the growth of mistrust between them and the emergence of a fear syndrome.

Unnatural from the point of view of reason, but really existing in the minds of the people, a combination of hatred for real and imaginary enemies and fear for oneself, the deification of the leader and false propaganda, tolerance for a low standard of living and everyday disorder - all this justified the need to confront the “enemies of the people”. eternal struggle with the “enemies of the people” in society, a constant ideological tension was maintained, directed against the slightest shade of dissent, independence of judgment. The ultimate “super task” of all this monstrous activity was the creation of a system of terror of fear and formal unanimity. This is reflected in the culture. The culture was utilitarian, one might even say primitive. Society, the people were conceived as a mass, where everyone is equal (there is no personality, there are the masses). Accordingly, art should be understandable to everyone. Therefore, all works were created realistically, simply, accessible to the average layman.

The totalitarian ideology is the “Cult of Struggle”, which always fights against the ideology of dissenters, fights for a brighter future, etc. And this, of course, is reflected in the culture. Suffice it to recall the slogans of the USSR: ""Against separation from modernity!"", "Against romantic confusion"", "For communism!", "Down with drunkenness!", etc. These calls and instructions met Soviet man wherever he is: at work, on the street, at a meeting or in public places.

If there is a struggle, then there are enemies. The enemies in the USSR were bourgeois, kulaks, voluntarists, dissidents (dissenters). Enemies were condemned and punished in every possible way. They condemned at meetings, in periodicals, drew posters and hung leaflets. Particularly malicious enemies of the people (the term of that time) were expelled from the party, fired, sent to camps, prisons, forced labor (for logging, for example) and even shot. Naturally, all this almost always happened indicatively.

Enemies could also be scientists or the whole of science. Here is a quote from the Dictionary foreign words 1956: "Genetics is a pseudoscience based on the assertion of the existence of genes, some material carriers of heredity, allegedly ensuring the continuity in the offspring of certain signs of the body, and supposedly located in the chromosomes."

Or, for example, another quote from the same source: “Pacifism is a bourgeois political movement that tries to instill in the working people the false idea of ​​the possibility of providing permanent peace while maintaining capitalist relations. Rejecting the revolutionary actions of the masses, the pacifists deceive the working people and cover up the bourgeoisie’s preparations for an imperialist war with empty chatter about peace.”

And these articles are in a book that millions of people read. This is a huge impact on the masses, especially on young brains. After all, this dictionary was read by both schoolchildren and students.

Totalitarian (from Latin totim, totalis - everything, whole) culture - a system of values ​​and meanings with specific social, philosophical, political and ethnic content, built on a stable mythologeme of the unity of culture, excluding all cultural elements and formations that contradict this unity, attributable to hostile, alien.

The Soviet period of Russian history lasted 74 years. Compared to more than thousand years of history countries are few. But it was a controversial period, full of both dramatic moments and extraordinary upsurge. Russian culture. In the Soviet period of history, a great superpower is created that defeated fascism, science and powerful industry develop, masterpieces are created in the field of literature and art. But in the same period, party censorship was actively operating, repressions were used, the Gulag and other forms of influence on dissidents were functioning.
The culture of the Soviet era has never been a single whole, but has always been a dialectical contradiction, since simultaneously with the officially recognized culture, an oppositional culture of dissent within Soviet Union and the culture of the Russian diaspora (or the culture of the Russian Emigration) beyond its borders. Soviet culture proper also had mutually negating stages of its development, such as the flourishing stage of avant-garde art in the 1920s. and the stage of totalitarian art of the 30-50s.
First post-revolutionary years were a difficult time for Russian culture. But at the same time, these were also years of extraordinary cultural upsurge. The connection between social upheavals and the aesthetic revolution of the 20th century. obvious. The Russian avant-garde, which briefly survived the socialist revolution, was certainly one of its ferments. In turn, the first-born of ideological, totalitarian, art - Soviet socialist realism was a direct product of this revolution; his style, outwardly reminiscent of the art of the first half of the 19th century, is a completely new phenomenon.
Soviet avant-garde of the 20s. was organically included in the industrial-urban process. The ascetic aesthetics of constructivism corresponded to the ethics of early Bolshevism: it was the avant-garde that created the image of a human function, the idea of ​​an impersonal human factor. The transition to the mode of self-preservation of the empire meant setting the power of the state machine. Avant-garde art found no place in this system. Creativity, which set itself the goal of constructing life, had to give way to art that replaces life.
In 1924, the existing tsarist Russia and the permissive procedure for the creation of creative societies and unions, abolished by the revolution. Their activities were supervised by the NKVD. Thus, the first step was taken towards the nationalization of creative public organizations.
In 1934, at the First All-Union Congress of Writers, the party method of “socialist realism” was formulated and approved, which determines the position of the party in matters of literature and art.
Socialist realism - the ideological direction of the official art of the USSR in 1934-91. The term first appeared after the Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of April 23, 1932 "On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations", which meant the actual elimination of individual artistic movements, trends, styles, associations, groups. Artistic creativity was subsumed under the ideology of the class struggle, the struggle against dissent. All artistic groups were banned, in their place single creative unions were created - Soviet writers, Soviet artists, and so on, whose activities were regulated and controlled by the Communist Party.
The main principles of the method: party spirit, ideology, nationality (compare: autocracy, Orthodoxy, nationality).