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The Weakening of Ideological Influences upon Soviet Design

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Raymond Hutchings
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Extract

In this Article I shall examine the visual form or appearance (shape, size, and other visible qualities) of Soviet socially produced things (excluding any detailed consideration of trends in the fine arts or of individual craftsmanship) in relation to forces in Soviet ideology which seem to have influenced this form or appearance. (I do not attempt to describe all influences which bear on Soviet design, which would require a much more complex approach and a more extended treatment.) My definition of Soviet “ideology” would be the same as Professor Meyer's: the body of doctrine that is taught by the Communist Party to all Soviet citizens. Whether or not this doctrine is true, or thought to be true, as well as why it is propagated, or whether this would be a complete definition—these questions are considered to be irrelevant in the present context.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , March 1968 , pp. 71 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1968

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References

1 Alfred G., Meyer, “The Functions of Ideology in the Soviet Political System,” Soviet Studies, XVIII, No. 3 (Jan. 1966), 273.Google Scholar

2 See Kareva, M. P., Konstitutsiia SSSR (Moscow, 1948), p. 129.Google Scholar

3 I. L., Matsa, “O strukture estetiki kak nauki,” Voprosy filosofii, No. 12, 1964, p. 74 Google Scholar; see also George, Richard T. de, Patterns of Soviet Thought (Ann Arbor, 1966), p. 242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 M., Ilyin, Russian Decorative Folk Art (Moscow, 1959), p. 118. See also pp. 76-77.Google Scholar

5 See ibid., p. 49.

6 Razumnyi, V. A. in Bor'ba idei v estetike (Moscow, 1966), p. 203.Google Scholar

7 For example, a full-length picture of the Shah with hand upraised greets transit passengers at the airport in Teheran.

8 Ilyin, pp. 72-74.

9 R. Fiilep-Miller, The Mind and Face of Bolshevism (London and New York, 1927), p. 102. The spiral theme reappeared, in less emphatic form, in the stem of the “Victory” cup by P. Chernikovich (Ilyin, p. 68).

10 M. B. Mitin in Bofba idei v estetike, p. 16.

11 Quoted by Meyer, p. 282.

12 The style has been scarcely at all exported, except to other socialist countries. One hears of the immense Palace of Culture in Warsaw which was a gift from the Soviet Union to Poland, and of course of Stalinallee in East Berlin.

13 For instance, the colossal avenging figures of “Mother Russia” erected at Volgograd (see illustration in Time, July 28, 1967, p. 33). Cf. the giant statue of a Red Army soldier in the Soviet military cemetery in East Berlin.

14 Voronkov, A. and Balashov, S., Dvorets nauki (Moscow, 1954), p. 30.Google Scholar

15 D. Vere-Jones, “The Mathematician's Tale,” Survey, No. 52 (July 1964), p. 55.

16 As illustrated by the trivial differences in the designs of the shields and flags of the individual union republics.

17 Fülöp-Miller, p. 100.

18 Selected Works (London, 1936-39), IX, 299.

19 Rice, Tamara Talbot, A Concise History of Russian Art (London, 1963), p. 149.Google Scholar

20 Ekonomicheskaia gazeta, Feb. 2, 1963, p. 38.

21 See John, Maynard, The Russian Peasant, and Other Studies (London, 1942), p. 417.Google Scholar

22 For example, in Soviet fashions displayed in London, as reported in the Sun (London), May 18, 1967.

23 Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia : Soiuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik (1947), col. 1534.

24 The badges themselves are strongly slanted ideologically (covering such subjects as Lenin, the Revolution, cosmic flights, Leningrad, Moscow) or historically (Peter the Great, Pushkin, etc.) or institutionally (the ZIL factory, particular ministries, etc.), but the act of wearing one rather than another expresses some degree of individualism. Soviet badges are somewhat more alike in size and less varied in theme than, for example, Hungarian badges.

25 See, for example, Tekhnicheskaia estetika, No. 11, 1966, p. 1.

26 Paul Reilly in Design (London), Jan. 1963, p. 27.

27 For example, see I. Stalin, Voprosy leninizma (1 ith ed.; Moscow, 1945), p. 320.

28 See L. Krasnianskii in Ekonomicheskaia gazeta, Oct. 27, 1965, p. 44.

29 See Paul Reilly in Design, Oct. 1957.

30 G. Minervin in Tekhnicheskaia estetika, No. 10, 1966, p. 2.

31 See Iu. Solov'ev, ibid., No. 6, 1966, p. 2.

32 There are, of course, some differences in folk art between different regions of the RSFSR (and of the other republics also), but these are usually not fundamental.