Socialist realism was the official cultural doctrine of the Soviet Union that mandated an idealized representation of life … See more

Socialist realism was developed by many thousands of artists, across a diverse society, over several decades. Early examples of realism in Russian art include the work of the Peredvizhnikis and Ilya Yefimovich … See more

Stalin's adversary, Leon Trotsky, was highly critical of this rigid approach towards the arts. He viewed cultural conformity as an expression of Stalinism in which "the literary schools were strangled one after the other" and the me… See more