Before the Great Terror turned on soldiers and engineers, it devoured writers, artists, and intellectuals. In this episode of The Soviet Union: The Rise of a New Empire, we explore the literary purges of the early 1930s that stripped the USSR of its creative soul. We look at how the state co-opted Socialist Realism as a mandatory aesthetic, forcing creators to serve the party line rather than truth. We examine the tragic fate of Nikolai Gumilev, executed in 1921, and the suffocation of the Acmeist movement. Lucas and Luna discuss the role of Maxim Gorky in establishing the Union of Soviet Writers and how the secret police infiltrated literary circles through informants. This episode reveals how censorship was not just about banning books, but about rewriting history and silencing dissent before the political arrests even began.
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