In Communism's Public Sphere, Kyrill Kunakhovich explores the under-researched area of relations between politics and culture under communism in eastern Europe. Its focus is on two cities of differing character—both historical and geopolitical—with less attention to other members of the “bloc.” These two cities Kraków and Leipzig joined ranks officially as “sister cities” from 1973, followed by exchange visits of dancers and other actors.
His book divides the forty-five years of communist rule into three contrasting stages. The initial stage is known retrospectively as Stalinism. Under this, all workers must be exposed to the right kind of art. This widened the project to one of cultural enlightenment, making artists prominent in public office and dispatching them on extended visits to mines and factories, while also restricting them to the parameters of a “state cultural matrix” determined from above. The notion of “cultural space” was thus focused on indoctrination and propaganda of the Party line. The theory of “socialist realism”—formulated by a Soviet committee in 1934, which contained no writers—became the obligatory, if often nebulous, requirement.
The stage that followed was “National Communism.” Access to the long-forbidden west became a rebuilding block in Poland, but in East Germany was far more problematical. In the late 50s, Leipzig teenagers began to gather on street corners to blare Radio Luxembourg and Radio in the American Sector from transistors. A quota law from 1958 attempted to restrict “forbidden western songs” to 40% of a performance repertoire. More generally across the “bloc,” “National Communism” was a controlled revolt, “letting people speak” without allowing their demands to spiral out of control. This overcame the circumscribed public sphere of Stalinism. But since any criticism of the socialist past inevitably cast doubt upon the present, reform was thus a slippery slope.
The third stage was “actually-existing Socialism,” a phrase first coined by Pravda on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1917 Revolution. This deemed politics to trump any consideration of artistic values. Thus art, instead of being part of public discourse, became purely entertainment. In response, Czech dramatist Václav Benda called for a “parallel polis” to run alongside state media. Civic action would ignore state institutions and instead build its own culture, outside official structures. An alternative cultural matrix did emerge in Kraków as part of a mass proliferation of unofficial networks in the 1980s, but was more problematical in Leipzig. Rather than attributable to racial stereotypes—rebellious Poles and obedient Germans—the real cause of difference was geo-politics. Leipzig did not need to forge an alternative cultural matrix since one already existed on the other side of the inner German border.
The author contrasts these three stages most admirably. Hopefully, he is now engaged in a much-needed sequel to show how post-communism brought in new restrictions while inherited culture was often sidelined to public regret.
