The Russian Experiment a Century Later: Revolution, State, Culture

The article is devoted to the centenary of the formation of the Soviet Union and, even more precisely, a new cultural policy emerging within the borders of this state, which has never existed in history. The novelty and unprecedented nature of such a policy make it an exceptional experiment in world history. Hence the positive aspects of this unique experiment, and at the same time, its vulnerabilities, which ultimately contributed to its collapse. Until now, little attention has been paid in this history to the fact that in Russia the political revolution of 1917 took place simultaneously with the urban revolution, which represents a special stage in the history of each civilization. The political and urban revolutions turned out to be painful also because Russia entered the era of grandiose rejuvenation as an expression of the spirit of a new society, which is usually referred to as “mass society”, although it is more accurate to call this type of society an industrial type society. The article focuses on the peculiarities of the cultural policy of the new state, which has no precedents in history. One of its signs is utopianism, which determined both the vulnerability of this state and its subsequent collapse. The ideologists of the new state proceeded from an ideal model rather than from reality. This determined the strict selection of artistic and cultural values. The consequence of such a strict selection was the opposition between official and unofficial art, although in the subsequent process of the formation of the state it softened. The experience of the new cultural policy, which can be used in the further development of the science of culture, certainly needs exploring.