Socialist exhibits and Sino-Soviet relations, 1950–60

Abstract

ABSTRACTSocialist bloc exhibits in China in the 1950s communicated ideas about the future prosperity and development to be brought to China in the wake of its alliance with the socialist world, the role of socialism in preserving and maintaining folk and traditional culture, and the role of the bloc in extending the virtues of European high culture to the East. The Soviets proudly displayed Russia’s historic contribution to high culture as well as information about contemporary events at the Bol’shoi Theater and other cultural institutions in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and the East Germans and the Czechoslovaks similarly emphasized the prestige and quality of their past artists and composers as well as their contemporary symphonies and orchestras. The Chinese, however, were increasingly disappointed both with socialist bloc approaches to Chinese development as well as with depictions of Chinese culture that reminded them of the heritage of European imperialism. They complained in the exhibit “comment books” about methods, practices and technology that offered little to unique Chinese “conditions” and “peculiarities.” They were frustrated by the inefficiencies of Soviet-style socialism, and they even complained about the food at the Moscow Restaurant. By the end of the decade, the exhibits served as yet another example of the miscommunication, frustration and dispute over models of development that contributed to the Sino-Soviet split.