Khrushchev and the Cinema
A brief history of the 1960s Soviet cultural ‘Thaw’
Soviet Cinema
Cinema was utilized under the Soviet regime for extensive propaganda purposes throughout the early to mid-twentieth century, particularly under the rule of Stalin. A medium that could be quickly distributed and didn’t require any literary skills, the use of cinema, as it was throughout the world, was regarded as the most beneficial means of communication, influence, and, importantly, entertainment.
Communist propaganda and ideology were prevalent in Soviet cinema under Stalin, who was himself a great fan of the medium, in order to secure a collective identity and ensure continued support and obedience to both the regime and the god-like stance of the Soviet leader. Similarly, the need to promote the regime and advocate support through cinema was vital during the Second World War for morale and to continue projecting the evils of Nazism following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, despite the German-Soviet pact signed in 1939.
Khrushchev’s Cultural Relaxation
Following Stalin’s death in 1953, Khrushchev was appointed Premier of the Soviet Union, and cinema was given a different purpose during the 1950s and 1960s. The image and place of Stalin in the collective memory of the Soviet Union were immediately challenged under the new leader, who actively sought out to demolish his cult of personality in his policies of de-Stalinisation through economic, cultural, and political means. Cinema was no exception.
This ‘Thaw’, beginning in 1956, started a period where there was a greater element of artistic freedom, encouraging a larger number of young Soviets to experiment on the themes and purposes of the film. This gradually reduced the number of deliberate and obvious propaganda films that were symbolic of the repressive Stalinist era and were instead replaced with more personal and less political or propagandist ones.
Of course, this did not mean that complete freedom of artistic expression was granted, but it was nevertheless significantly increased, where the artistic changes in the Soviet Union coincided with the growth of other film subcultures in Europe, most notably French New Wave and Italian Neo-Realism, further demonstrating the decrease in repression that had kept Stalinist Russia the dictatorial country it had previously been. For the first time, a new Soviet subculture began.
This social reform also saw Soviet cinema gain popularity and acclaim amongst the west for the first time. One of the most prominent films to come from this era was 1957’s The Cranes are Flying. Directed by Kalatozov, who had been making films for almost thirty years, the film was set during the Second World War but was very different from the war films that had been produced previously. Instead of focussing on the heroism and communist politics that dominated Stalinist war films, The Cranes are Flying depicted it in a very personal way, depicting the devastating impact and the emotional effect it had on the Soviet people in a much truer fashion. Importantly, as J. Hoberman wrote in 2000, it was also poignant, resonating with the audience to a degree that Stalinist cinema could not.
As written by Menashe,
‘the development and growing sophistication of Soviet society brought a thematic variety and emotional richness not seen in earlier Soviet cinema’.
This was especially true in the early to mid-1960s following greater relaxations in the late 1950s. Cinema aimed to reflect the sense of liberty occurring in Khrushchev-period Soviet culture and the progression into an era of expression that was impossible under the Stalinist leadership — those who did were either sent to the Gulag, purged, or rounded up and shot.
Instead, Khrushchev was intent on improving the economic and living situations of the Soviet people as well as the development of industry and the country more generally in order to compete with the world, mostly to maintain their stance as a superpower alongside the United States. This is all clearly demonstrated in cinema and culture as the direct result of this momentous change, granting freedom like that seen in the West.
The Demise
In 1964, Khrushchev was forced to resign from power by his party colleagues, which brought about the beginning of the end of Soviet cinema’s ‘Thaw’, although it took a few years for it to be fully eradicated. This brief period of cultural relaxation gradually ended when Khrushchev’s successor Brezhnev brought about greater totalitarian policies that reduced artistic freedom and imposed further constraints, understanding that continuous freedom of expression would manifest into mass challenging of the regime and communist ideology, thus risking Soviet demise.
The 1967 release The Commissar was censored under the new leadership for showing the Russian Revolution in a less positive light, questioning its history and ideological origins, and the effect it had in bringing about an oppressive regime. This would have therefore had the potential to influence questioning of the Soviet identity amongst its people.
However, despite the attempts at cultural repression and censorship, the Thaw had left its mark on the people, and rather than being destroyed or forgotten, it instead continued as part of the Russian underground culture of the 1970s and 1980s. The Thaw never truly went away, and it in fact helped bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, proving the significance of Soviet cinema in the demise of the Soviet regime.
