Soviet Culture in the 1920s—30s:In Search of Methodological Orienting Points

The article proposes methodological tools for describing Soviet culture of the 1920s—30s and its relation to Russian culture at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. The author reveals the heterogeneity of Soviet culture in this period and distinguishes between the following two 'cultural flows' with significantly different worldview and axiological characteristics: 1) radical intelligentsia (intellectuals) and 2) workers and peasants. Basic characteristics of the former flow are: goaloriented rational attitude, love for the people and anti Philistinism, a defiant break with the past, and internationalism that is reflected in its extreme form in the idea of world revolution; the ones of the latter flow are: contextual character of thinking, the absence of an attitude towards rational planning of one's activity, conformist worldviews, dislike for 'old' intelligentsia. This paper shows that many concrete transformations of Soviet culture which took place over the decade between the 1920s 30s (and which gave ground to some researchers to speak of two completely different types of culture) are related with the change of dominant cultural flows, that is, with the transition from the first cultural flow to the second.

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