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Soviet Union [USSR] THE ARTS
Throughout Soviet history, the arts have played an integral
role in influencing the population. In particular, literature has
served as the main political instrument through which the
leadership has regulated cultural currents. As, by Stalin's
definition, the "engineers of human souls," writers were required
to bolster policies sanctioned by the leadership. All writers,
whether or not members of the party-controlled Union of Writers,
submitted their works for party approval. After Stalin's death,
writers experienced a brief literary thaw when some party
constraints lessened. Not until the late 1980s, however, did the
regime loosen its previously confining strictures on literary form
and content.
The regime exercised strict controls over other forms of art as
well. The leadership's political line dictated the content and form
of cinema, theater, music, the plastic arts such as painting and
sculpture, and the graphic arts. The party used the cinema screen
to portray its societal ideals. Directors had to produce films
praising the regime and exhorting moral conduct. On the stage,
playwrights and actors operated within the party's controlled
framework under which themes had to be approved in advance of a
performance. Musicians wrote and played only music sanctioned by
the regime for public performances. Art galleries displayed works
approved by party officials. In the 1980s, however, artists began
to express harsh and painful themes in their works, sometimes
cutting a fine line between permitted and forbidden subjects. In
the post-Brezhnev period, the government vacillated between
imposing more restrictive artistic controls and allowing greater
freedom of expression. After 1985 the Soviet artistic world
experienced a number of contentious debates about the liberties
allowed to artists.
Data as of May 1989
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