The Influence Of Stalin's Cinema

Lastly, the cinema was considered to play a significant role, and Stalin himself liked watching films and had his personal cinema. Cinemas came under the control of the Politburo’s economic department. The objectives of films were to gain understandings by the masses and promote the state. Plots and storyline were prescribed by Stalin. Accordingly, many documentaries supporting the First Five-Year Plan were produced. Moreover, all the films had to be precensored in the State Committee for Cinematography and previewed by Stalin. As a result, the number of production dropped and only about sixty films were made per year. Nonetheless, the cinema was the most popular form of entertainment and had a great influence on people. Plus, the development of the sound technology made films even more influential and beneficial form of propaganda.
Socialist Realism had another purpose; it was to help the development of Stalin’s cult of personality and glorify his role as a great leader. Images of Stalin on posters and paintings, in books and as statues were seen everywhere in the Soviet Union. He is always wearing uniform indicating his discipline and hard work. He is also often surrendered by happy children, appealing his kindness and humanity. Additionally, his active
participation in the lives of ordinary people is seen through paintings and posters which show him marching alongside workers, in the fields with the peasants or inspecting great projects. As the cult developed, operas and films glorified his role in the revolution or as the chief hero of the Civil War. By the end of the 1930s, paintings show him more detached and superior, creating godlike image. Statues show him as more monumental, an all-powerful leader.
As an extension of the cult, even the histories were rewritten, thus writers needed to be careful of contents of their works. Likewise, paintings and photographs needed to correspond with the new history, meaning some figures needed to be removed or shown smaller.
Obviously, the Soviet artistic value of the time was different to that of international standards, causing many great writers and artists struggled to publish their work. Some of them became so frustrated that they could not express themselves and ended up committing suicide or fleeing the country. Others died in the Great Purges. In July 1937, the Politburo passed a resolution widening the target of the purge; anyone who was accused of opposing the Party, or seen as a threat to the Party was purged. People were encouraged to criticize and denounce each other and they did sacrifice the other out of fear. As a result, around 2000 intellectuals were arrested and 1500 writers were killed or died in the labor camps. These included the poet Mandelstam, the theater director Meyerhold and the short story writer Babel.
In conclusion, the 1930s marked a strange period of the culture and the arts for the Soviet Union.
Although the culture and the arts experienced an advance with the Cultural Revolution, there was almost a step back from it in the following period. This denial of new form of culture and arts is referred as a “Great Retreat” and still remains a debate between historians to whether it actually existed or not. For the culture and the arts, even though the return to traditional values was evident, their contents and purpose are considered modern; the culture and the arts were only a method and a type of propaganda used to promote economic activity, the social utopia, national defense and adulation of the
leader.