Soviet Sounds, Communist Pedagogy: Lessons for Today’s Musicians, Organisers, Educators

Abstract

ABSTRACT Interventions in the field of music by the Soviet All-Union Communist Party have been read variously as personal interference by the ‘deranged despot’ Joseph Stalin, as the individuality of artists subsumed under totalitarian control, and as the mechanism by which socialism itself was constructed. The first two arguments are refuted by examining (1) the subjective roles of the Party and of both Party and non-Party members in the Union of Soviet Composers in these interventions and (2) the objective conditions present during the years of Stalin’s Party leadership that related to the process of the development of music policy. Soviet music policy was formulated through vigorous, sometimes vicious struggle. This contest between a communist social force, and reactionary, anticommunist forces, remained alive as a ‘background hum’. The formulation and implementation of Soviet music policy was a pedagogical process carried out by workers with leadership from the Party. Non-Party workers were involved through participation in their Union, which used its independence and power to interpretively implement Party decrees. The way Soviet musicians fought to create a diverse, equitable, and inclusive society in practice, beyond the realm of slogans, is worth understanding as a pedagogical model for today’s communists.