Cultural Revolution (Soviet)
문화혁명
A transformation that radically restructured cultural and ideological life in Soviet Russia and the USSR along socialist lines. Lenin coined the term in his 1923 article 'On Cooperation,' arguing that eradicating illiteracy and raising cultural development were necessary to complete the political revolution. Under Stalin it expanded alongside industrialization and collectivization, achieving 87.4% literacy (1939 census) while imposing Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy and purging the old intelligentsia.
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Sources
- Wikipedia (RU) comprehensive overview: Lenin's 1923 coinage in 'On Cooperation,' illiteracy eradication (41.7% in 1920 to 87.4% in 1939), creation of national alphabets, workers' faculties, Communist Academy, Institute of Red Professors, and repressive measures including the Philosophers' Ship, Shakhty Trial, and sharashki
- Wikipedia (EN) English overview covering terminology (Gordin brothers 1917, Lenin 1923, Bogdanov's Proletkult prefiguration), institutional apparatus (Agitprop, Glavpolitprosvet, Narkompros, Glavlit), Fitzpatrick's periodization (1928–1931 as the intensive phase), and the debate over whether the 'new man' project succeeded
- Marxists Internet Archive Lenin's 'On Cooperation' (January 1923): primary source where he introduces the term 'cultural revolution,' arguing that universal literacy, civilized cooperators, and a whole historical epoch of cultural development are necessary to make the USSR 'a completely socialist country'
- publish.iupress.indiana.edu Fitzpatrick's introduction to Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928–1931 (1978): notes the ambiguity between the Leninist conception (gradual developmental process) and the Stalin-era proletarian cultural revolution (1928–1932 class war on the cultural front)