Questions on Daniels for Thursday, Week 12
The Zhdanov Movement (Zhdanov's August 1946 report to the writers' union in Leningrad)
According to Zhdanov, what must Soviet artists and writers make their first priority?
Did Zhdanov believe that writers and artists were living up to these duties? Explain.
What did Zhdanov have to say about the "bourgeois" culture of the capitalist countries?
In what way can this report be considered anti-western?
What sort of attitudes did Zhdanov say Soviet art and literature must portray and instill?
Party Control of the Sciences--Genetics (August 1948 Academy of Sciences resolution)
What criticism did the Academy level against the study of genetics?
Why was "Michurinism" supposedly superior to genetics?
What "mistakes" did the Academy admit to?
How does this document represent the dominance of Lysenko over the biological sciences?
The Campaign Against Cosmopolitanism (1949 editorial from Voprosy istorii)
What criticisms does this editorial level against "nationless cosmopolitans"? Who does this term refer to?
How does the editors link the "cosmopolitans" to the American threat?
According to the editorial, why must historians purge the "cosmopolitans"?
Stalin on Language and Society (from Marxism and Linguistics, 1950)
In this essay, Stalin "revised" the Soviet Marxist interpretation of the relationship between language and other aspects of a society's "superstructure" (politics, legal system, cultural norms, etc.). What is Stalin's main point in this essay?
The Limits of Stalinism-Malenkov on Imperfections in the Party (Report to 19th Party Congress, 1952)
Suny says Malenkov was one of Stalin's two chosen successors in 1952. What three main criticisms did Malenkov make of the party's work in 1952?
Did Malenkov suggest any movement away from Cold War policies?
How did Malenkov characterize Stalin's leadership?