If you listened to the last episode of Citations Needed, you heard that the CIA funneled money into into cultural institutions like the Iowa Writers Workshop and the Paris Review to win the cultural war against communism. Much of this led to the emphasis on first-person writing and a focus on individual experience.
I don't know about you comrades, but I got Ds throughout secondary (high school) in English. I fucking hated 20th century lit. Are there any pretentious and overly individualistic writers that you blame on the CIA?
Tbh funding new and weird kinds of art is pretty cool if it wasnt for the propaganda angle, Socialist Realism is neat and all but its kind of a dull style IMO and the political reasoning behind it feels really patronising and dismissive of art aside from as a tool.
Constructivism is badass though and who really cares what art there state sanctions for propaganda? The WPA had a similar style guide, doesn't mean all other forms of art were banned or anything.
I mean yeah its not an all out ban or anything but I just think its inappropriate for a state to make and spread statements of what art should be and what is proper art in accordance with the ideals of the country/people, in terms of shit like art should be realistic or be immediately relevant to the workers and stuff like that.
I mean, the statues and stuff remained in the socialist realist style, but Soviet propaganda artwork was absolutely not limited to that style. Just look at the Cold War era stuff they were putting out, it's more intriguing than anything I've seen coming out of the west.
Stuff like this that looks like it could be a Pink Floyd album cover.
Or this
An incredibly simple anti-nuke one
Constructivist style
Psychedelic style
Socialist realist style
Same message, different style
Thats fair, I'm probably being at least a bit unfair in this. I assume it also wasnt like a 100% constant pressure to do art in that style, and there definitely is really interesting art that came out of the Soviet Union in the later parts.
I shared a bunch of you want some examples