Culture, science, literature and art in the USSR

Posted on 11/10/2025 by Michael

Maxim Gorky

Culture, science, literature and art

Here is presented material that come under the very loose heading of ‘culture’ during the Socialist period of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

Science

Dialectical Materialism and Historical Science, V. P. Volgin, Anglo-Soviet Journal, Winter 1949, 5 pages.

The origin of life on the Earth, A. I. Oparin, 3rd revised and enlarged edition in English translation, Academic Press, New York, 1957, 522 pages.

Soviet Marxism and Natural Science: 1917-1932, David Joravsky, Colombia University, New York, 1961, 446 pages. Includes a heavy focus on Marxist-Leninist philosophical topics.

Proletarian Science? The case of Lysenko, Dominique Lecourt, with an introduction by Louis Althusser, New Left Books, London, 1977, 165 pages.

Heredity and its variability, T.D. Lysenko, November 8th Publishing House, Ottawa 2023, 122 pages.

J.B. Lamarck, a materialist biologist, I.I. Prezent, November 8th Publishing House, Ottawa 2023, 56 pages.

Soviet biology, a report to the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Moscow, 1948, T.D. Lysenko, November 8th Publishing House, Ottawa 2023, 82 pages.

The revisionist theory of the ‘Liberation’ of science from ideology, M.D. Kammari, November 8th Publishing House, Ottawa 2022, 51 pages.

Science for Peace and Socialism, J.D. Bernal and Maurice Cornforth, November 8th Publishing House, Ottawa, 2023, (originally Birch Books, London, 1949), 144 pages.

Psychological warfare in the strategy of Imperialism, V.L. Artemov, November 8th Publishing House, Toronto, 2025, (originally Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, Moscow 1983), 140 pages.

Poetry

Popular poetry in Soviet Russia, George Z. Patrick, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1929, 298 pages.

Vladimir Mayakovsky

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, a poem, in both Russian and English, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1970, 208 pages.

Novels and short stories

Vasili Azhayev

Far From Moscow, Book 1, FLPH, Moscow, 1950, 502 pages.

Far From Moscow, Book 2, FLPH, Moscow, 1950, 462 pages.

Far From Moscow, Book 3, FLPH, Moscow, 1950, 466 pages.

Konstantin Fedin

Early Joys, FLPH, Moscow, 1948, 503 pages.

No Ordinary Summer, Book 2, Progress, Moscow, 1950, 535 pages.

Dmitry Furmanov

Chapayev, FLPH, Moscow, 1955, 384 pages.

Alexei Fyodorov

The Underground R. C. carries on, Book 2, FLPH, Moscow, 1950, 416 pages.

The Underground Committee carries on, Books 1 and 2, FLPH, Moscow, 1952, 518 pages.

Maxim Gorki

Creatures that once were men, Modern Library Publishers, New York, 1918 (originally), digital version 1998, 180 pages.

Fragments from my diary, McBride, New York, 1924, 320 pages.

Days with Lenin, Martin Lawrence, London, n.d., early 1930s?, 64 pages.

Maxim Gorky: writer and revolutionist, Moissaye J. Olgin, International, New York, 1933, 69 pages.

My childhood, Appleton-Century, New York, 1936, 374 pages.

And the others – a play, Unity Theatre Workshop, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1941, 34 pages.

Lenin and Gorky, letters, reminiscences, articles, Progress, Moscow, 1973, 429 pages.

The city of the yellow devil, pamphlets, articles and letters about America (1906), Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977, 151 pages.

The Artamonovs, collected works in ten volumes, Volume 8, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1982, 336 pages.

Literary Portraits, collected works in ten volumes, Volume 9, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1982, 390 pages.

On Literature, collected works in ten volumes, Volume 10, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1982, 455 pages.

The collected short stories of Maxim Gorky, edited by Avrham Yarmolinsky and Baroness Moura Budberg, Citadel Press, Secaucus, 1988, 403 pages.

Autobiography of Maxim Gorky (My Childhood, In the World, My Universities), n.p., n.d., 614 pages.

Maxim Gorky – a political biography, Tovah Yedlin, Praeger, Westport, 1999, 260 pages.

Culture and the people, November 8th Publishing House, Ottawa, 2023, 229 pages.

Twenty six men and a girl, n.p., n.d., 11 pages.

Elmar Green

Wind from the South, FLPH, Moscow, 1950, 292 pages.

Vassili Grossman

The Years of War, 1941-1945, November 8th Publishing House, Toronto, 2025, (originally FLPH, Moscow, 1946), 575 pages.

Nikolai Ostrovsky

How the steel was tempered – Part 1, FLPH, Moscow, 1952, 312 pages.

How the steel was tempered – Part 2, FLPH, Moscow, 1952, 351 pages.

How the steel was tempered, Communist Party of Australia, Sydney, 2002, 312 pages.

How the steel was tempered, Progress, Moscow, n.d., 321 pages.

How the steel was tempered, picture book, Novosti, Moscow, 1983, 52 pages.

Vera Panova

Looking ahead, FLPH, Moscow, 1950, 294 pages.

Konstantin Paustovsky

The Golden Rose – thoughts on the making of literature, FLPH, Moscow, 1950?, 285 pages.

Boris Pelovoi

A story about a real man, Progress, Moscow, 1973, 344 pages.

Alexander Serafimovich

The Iron Flood, International, New York, 1935, 248 pages.

Mikhail Sholokhov

Virgin Soil Upturned, the third volume in the Don Trilogy, Putman, London, 1937, 488 pages.

Mikhailo Stelmakh

Let the blood of man not flow, Progress, Moscow, 1975, 271 pages.

Alexei Tolstoy

Road to Calvary, Stalin Prize Novel, Hutchinson, London, 1941, 680 pages.

Aelita, FLPH, Moscow, nd.,167 pages.

Andrejs Upits

Outside Paradise and other stories, FLPH, Moscow, 1955, 363 pages.

Nikolai Virta

Alone – a novel, FLPH, Moscow, 1950, 452 pages.

Various authors

Soviet Short Stories, FLPH, Moscow, 1947, 471 pages.

30 short stories, 1917-1967, Soviet Literature, No. 4, 1967, 224 pages.

Theatre

And the others – a play, Maxim Gorky, Unity Theatre Workshop, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1941, 34 pages.

Art

VI Lenin badge picture gallery

Russian art of the avant-garde theory and criticism, 1902-1934, ed John E. Bowlt, Viking, New York, 1976, 360 pages. [A lot of scribblings throughout but the text, in the main, remains legible.]

Art of the Avant Garde in Russia, selections from the George Costakis Collection, Margit Rowell and Angelica Zander Rudenstine, Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1981, 320 pages.

The Russian avant-garde book 1910-1934, ed. Margit Rowell and Deborah Wye, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2002, 304 pages.

The Russian avant-garde and radical modernism, an introductory reader, ed. Dennis Ioffe and Frederick White, Boston, 2012, 486 pages.

Museums and Art Galleries

The Central Lenin Museum, Moscow – a guide. (Moscow, Raduga, 1986), 160 pages. A guide to the now destroyed Museum dedicated to the life and work of VI Lenin.

The Stalin Museum in his birthplace of Gori, in the centre of Georgia, is one of the few places in the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) where you will see any reference (let alone a positive reference) to the leader of the world’s first socialist state.

The SM Kirov museum is located in the famous ‘House of Three Benois’ on the second entrance of the house number 26/28 on Kamennoostrovsky Prospect, on the 4th and 5th floors, in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg).

Probably the largest and most extensive art gallery in the world is that which spans the whole of the central area of Moscow. This art gallery doesn’t have just one entrance but dozens and although you have to pay it’s also one of the cheapest in Europe. This art gallery can be crowded, very crowded, at certain times of the day but the arrival of people comes in waves so not a total inconvenience. It’s also the world’s biggest gallery of Soviet Socialist Realist Art – the name of this gallery is the Moscow Metro.

The Park of the Fallen/Muzeon Art Park, in Moscow is the collection of monuments and statues of the Socialist period that used to be found throughout the city.

Park Pobeda – Victory Park – exhibition and museum, Moscow.

Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy (VDNKh) – Moscow. A huge park on the outskirts of the city which originally provided an opportunity for visitors to understand the successes of Socialism throughout the whole of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

Socialist Realist Art in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Art galleries in the Central Asian former Soviet Republics.

Frunze Museum – Bishkek – Kyrgyzstan. The Frunze museum was originally opened in December 1925, centred on the small house where he was born. This house is now a feature on the ground floor of the modern building.

JV Stalin Museum – Mamayev Kurgan – Stalingrad. This is a very strange museum – not to what it is dedicated – but for its location and very existence. Mamyev Kurgan is probably the most revered war memorial in the whole of the Soviet Union/Russia – and that would include those Republics which broke away amidst the chaos of the early 1990s. And yet just a few hundred metres behind the mammoth statue is a private hotel and restaurant which just happens to have a small, three room museum to JV Stalin in the basement.

Tashkent Metro – Uzbekistan. The Tashkent Metro was a relatively late addition to the Soviet Union’s mass transit system being the seventh to be completed in 1977. The system followed many of the conventions established since 1935 in Moscow; the design of the station platforms; the style (if not the content) of the decoration; the use of light to give the impression of not being underground; the use of the finest materials; and the method in moving people through the system as fast as possible

Central Museum of the Armed Forces of the USSR/Central Armed Forces Museum – Moscow. The main reason I wanted to go to the Central Museum of the Armed Forces of the USSR/Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow was because I had learnt that it was there that the Nazi banners that had been thrown into the mud at the base of the Lenin Mausoleum (with Comrade Stalin accepting them on behalf of the Soviet people) on the first Victory Day on May 9th, 1945, were presently on display.

Central Pavilion – Tretyakov Gallery Exhibition – VDNKh. The principal pavilion in the VDNKh park has undergone a major renovation and it has been brought back (almost) to what it was like when it opened in 1954. Some of the original works have been ‘lost’ – perhaps only mislaid as a number of art works considered ‘lost’ have subsequently been found – but a number that had been distributed to other galleries have been returned.

VI Lenin Exhibition at the State History Museum, Moscow. At the moment there’s a special exhibition attached to State History Museum, one which documents some of the life and work of VI Lenin. However, there’s only a fraction on display here of what used to be on show in the now closed Central Lenin Museum (which used to be housed in what is now the War of 1812 Museum).

The Central Lenin Museum, Moscow – a guide. Raduga, Moscow, 1986, 160 pages. A guide to the now destroyed Museum dedicated to the life and work of VI Lenin.

Architecture

Moscow – Architecture and Monuments, M Ilyin, Progress, Moscow, 1968, 253 pages.

Soviet Architectural Avant-Gardes – Architecture and Stalin’s Revolution from Above, 1928-1938, Danilo Udovicki-Selb, Bloomsbury, London, 2020, 360 pages.

Moscow Monumental – Soviet Skyscrapers and Urban Life in Stalin’s Capital, Katherine Zubovich, Princetown University Press, Princetown, 2021, 428 pages.

Art in everyday circumstances

Soviet Advertising Posters 1917-1932, Moscow, 1972, 127 pages.

The debate on Soviet Culture

VOKS Bulletin, No 63, USSR Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, Moscow, 1950, 96 pages.

A few of the articles:

Concerning Marxism in Linguistics, J. Stalin.

Increasing Stability of the Rouble – A Law of the Soviet Economy, I. Konnik

The Twelve Apostles, Sergei Eisenstein

British-Soviet Friendship, Dr. Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury

Soviet Russian Literature: 1917-1950, Gleb Struve, University of Oklahoma Press, 1951, 431 pages. Has some underlining. The author is harshly anti-Communist, but this book discusses the early literature of Soviet Russia quite thoroughly.

Literature under Communism: the literary policy of the CPSU from the end of World War II to the death of Stalin, Avrahm Yarmolinsky, Indiana University: Russian and East European Series, vol. XX, n.d. (c. 1957), 178 pages. Anti-Communist perspective.

Early Soviet writers, Vyacheslav Zavlishin, Research Program in USSR, Praeger, New York, 1958, 472 pages. Another anti-Communist book, but with some hard-to-find information about Soviet writers.

On literature, music and philosophy, AA Zhadanov, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1950, November 8th Publishing House, Toronto, 2022, 112 pages.

‘Mass culture’ in the USA and the problem of the individual, E.N. Kartseva, November 8th Publishing House, Toronto, 2025, (originally Nauka Publishing House, Moscow 1974), 233 pages.

Mayakovsky in Kutaisi, Georgia

Posted on 13/01/2020 by Michael

Mayakovsky – Kakabadze Art Gallery

Mayakovsky in Kutaisi, Georgia

Vladimir Mayakovsky, was born in Baghdati, about 15 kms south of the city of Kutaisi, in western Georgia, on 19th July 1893. Described by Joseph Stalin, in 1935, as

‘the best and the most talented poet of our Soviet epoch’

he also criticised the Soviet intellectual establishment of ignoring Mayakovsky’s achievements after his death on 14th April 1930 adding

‘indifference to his cultural heritage amounts to a crime’.

Mayakovsky and Marxism

Mayakovsky got involved in the growing revolutionary movement in Russia soon after moving to Moscow in 1906 and during that time developed a passion for the works of Marxism.

‘Never cared for fiction. For me it was philosophy, Hegel, natural sciences, but first and foremost, Marxism. There’d be no higher art for me than ‘The Preface’ by Marx,’

he wrote in his autobiography ‘I, Myself’.

And when he is writing about ‘The Preface’ he means that to Marx’s 1859 book ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’. But not all the preface, there’s one section that is almost hidden amongst some dry text which springs out at the reader as a work of poetry, beautifully constructed, with complex ideas but expressed in a clear and concise manner. It’s no wonder that, as an aspiring poet when he first read those words, they made such an impact upon the young Mayakovsky.

Mayakovsky and Russian Futurism

But for a number of years prior to the October Revolution he bounced around and, as he also wrote in his biography;

‘Revolution and poetry got entangled in my head and became one.’

In this period he was very much involved in the Russian Futurist movement, one of the avant-garde movements that developed in the early 20th century, which rejected the past and praised industry, technology, city living and speed.

Mayakovsky as a Socialist Propagandist

Immediately after the end of what became known as World War One 14 imperialist nations (who had been knocking hell out of each other for four years) invaded the young revolutionary Russia to assist the White reactionaries forces. Since the October Revolution they had been inflicting death and destruction in the Red (pro-Soviet) areas murdering anyone who had the temerity to stand up against exploitation and oppression. In this environment Mayakovsky threw his knowledge and skills into producing revolutionary propaganda to instil in Russian workers and peasants the determination to resist the re-establishment of the old order.

Ukrainians and Russians have a Common War Crime – Pan will not be the master of the worker

‘Art must be everywhere – on the streets, in trams, in factories, in workshops, in workers’ apartments’,

he stated and estimated he had created about 3,000 posters during the Civil War.

Mayakovsky and Lenin

Mayakovsky was a life long admirer of VI Lenin, the great Marxist and leader of the revolutionary Bolshevik Party. He showed his respect for the Lenin by producing a 3,000 line epic poem, called ‘Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’ which was published in October 1924, nine months after Lenin had died on 21st January of that year.

The dual language version of the poem published by Progress Publishers, Moscow, in 1970.

Mayakovsky admired Lenin but such respect wasn’t always reciprocated.

On May 6th, 1921 Lenin wrote to AV Lunarcharsky (People’s Commissar for Education from 1917 to 1929);

‘Aren’t you ashamed to vote for printing 5,000 copies of Mayakovsky’s “150,000,000”? It is nonsense, stupidity, double-dyed stupidity and affectation. I believe such things should be published one in ten, and not more than 1,500 copies, for libraries and cranks. As for Lunacharsky, he should be flogged for his futurism.’

VI Lenin Collected Works, Volume 45, p138

However, on March 6th, 1922 Lenin said in a speech to the Communist Group at the All-Russia Congress of Metalworkers:

‘Yesterday I happened to read in Izvestia a political poem by Mayakovsky. I am not an admirer of his poetical talent, although I admit that I am not a competent judge. But I have not for a long time read anything qn politics and administration with so much pleasure as I read this. In his poem [Incessant Meeting Sitters] he derides this meeting habit, and taunts the Communists with incessantly sitting at meetings. I am not sure about the poetry; but as for the politics, I vouch for their absolute correctness. We are indeed in the position, and it must be said that it is a very absurd position, of people sitting endlessly at meetings, setting up commissions and drawing up plans without end.’

VI Lenin Collected Works, Volume 33, p223

Mayakovsky’s Death

Mayakovsky in 1930

On 14th April 1930 Mayakovsky committed suicide. As with any death of a ‘celebrity’ there’s a shed full of conspiracy theories surrounding the circumstance of their demise. I won’t be even going there. There is a somewhat prurient photograph of the dead Mayakovsky showing a blood stain in the region of his heart – an unusual choice of target in a suicide. Perhaps a sign of his vanity and didn’t want to destroy his looks.

Why Mayakovsky in Kutaisi?

During the period of Socialist construction – which effectively ended in 1956 after Khrushchev made his infamous speech at the 20th Congress of the CPSU – Maykovsky was praised and respected for the work he had produced in times of crisis, i.e. the Civil War from 1917-22, as well as the efforts he made in the establishment of a new sort of writers organisation where ‘intellectuals’ would serve the people and not be the lackeys of rich patrons.

Mayakovsky – Kakabadze Art Gallery

In the period that followed the denunciation of Comrade Stalin by Khrushchev at the 1956 Congress the revisionists in the Soviet Union then turned on anything that challenged the direction they wanted to take the Soviet Union – now a post-Socialist state. This meant that Mayakovsky’s involvement in the Russian Futurist movement was played up in an inverse ratio as his role in the construction of Socialism was played down.

Then came the collapse of the Soviet Union into an openly capitalist society – the inevitable consequence of the decisions made in the 1950s. Georgia split from the erstwhile Soviet Union and gradually relationships between the two countries got worse and this exploded in a short 5 day shooting war. Although the firing stopped the animosity didn’t and as a consequence many of the manifestations of the Soviet past were either destroyed or neglected (such as the monument to the Unknown Soldier and the statue of Victory in Vake Park in Tbilisi which has just been left to rot.)

And the same fate has befallen Mayakovsky. Even though he was born in Georgia, in a small village close to Kutaisi (where he went to school until leaving for Moscow in 1906) he was, and still is, obviously too tainted with the Soviet Union to have a statue of him treated with any respect. I can’t imagine that where it is now to be found (in the courtyard of the Kakabadze Fine Art gallery in Kutaisi) was it’s original location.

Mayakovsky – Kakabadze Art Gallery

This courtyard is sometimes called (in the crass British guide books) as a ‘Sculpture Park’ but presently it’s more of a dumping ground for statues that aren’t politically acceptable (for whatever reason) to be on real public display. The courtyard is more correctly described as the designated smoking area for the art gallery staff.

Despite the above reservations it is a place to visit if you head to the art gallery. When I went it was the only place I could visit as although the gallery was nominally open it wasn’t to the public as ‘something was being set up in the gallery space’. (I think this was just an excuse that is given by museum staff when they don’t feel like making an effort. I encountered a similar situation in the Kutaisi Military Museum.) The only place I could visit was the courtyard.

But it was worth it. I’ll talk about the other sculptures in another post but here I want to concentrate on one statue – that of Vladimir Mayakovsky.

Mayakovsky – Kakabadze Art Gallery

It’s not in a good condition – but not as bad a condition as some of the statues who share the space. It seems to be made of stone – but not a particularly hard stone as the environment it has been living in for I don’t know how many years has not been very conducive to its preservation. There’s a fair amount of algae growing on the surface and this seems to be taking its toll. The courtyard doesn’t really get any movement of air and it’s probably quite cold and damp in winter – and even in summer the warmth from the sun is only there fleetingly and it can be quite humid.

This is where Vladimir now lives. For how long I, and I’m sure nobody, knows. As with the other damaged statues in the courtyard it might be the weather that really determines their fate. Once past a certain level of decay the expense of restoration would become prohibitive.

Mayakovsky – Kakabadze Art Gallery

I would like to have know more about the statue; where the statue originally stood, when it was moved – but have only been unable to identify the sculptor who was Irakli Ochiauri, who was born in Tbilisi on 24th November 1924 and died on 4th December 2915 (place unknown).

Location

The courtyard of the Kakabadze Fine Art Gallery on Rustaveli Avenue 8, just across the road and slightly to the centre of town from the Information Centre in the older part of Kutaisi.

GPS

42.2709

42.7008

Opening times

Monday – Friday 10.00 – 18.00

Entrance

GEL 1