Culture of the Soviet Union in the context of "Ded Moroz"

Socialist realism, also known as socrealism (from Russian соцреализм, sotsrealizm), was the official cultural doctrine of the Soviet Union that mandated an idealized representation of life under socialism in literature and the visual arts. The doctrine was first proclaimed by the First Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934 as approved as the only acceptable method for Soviet cultural production in all media.

The primary official objective of socialist realism was "to depict reality in its revolutionary development" although no formal guidelines concerning style or subject matter were provided. Works of socialist realism were usually characterized by unambiguous narratives or iconography relating to the Marxist–Leninist ideology, such as the emancipation of the proletariat. In visual arts, socialist realism often relied on the conventions of academic art and classical sculpture. Socialist realism was usually devoid of complex artistic meaning or interpretation yet counter sources may provide different interpretations.

The cultural revolution was a set of activities carried out in Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union, aimed at a radical restructuring of the cultural and ideological life of society. The goal was to form a new type of culture as part of the building of a socialist society, including an increase in the proportion of people from proletarian classes in the social composition of the intelligentsia.

The cultural revolution in the Soviet Union as a focused program for the transformation of national culture in practice often stalled and was massively implemented only during the first five-year plans. As a result, in modern historiography there is a traditional, but contested, correlation of the cultural revolution in the Soviet Union only with the 1928–1931 period. The cultural revolution in the 1930s was understood as part of a major transformation of society and the national economy, along with industrialization and collectivization. Also, in the course of the cultural revolution, the organization of scientific activity in the Soviet Union underwent considerable restructuring and reorganization.

The history of the Soviet Union between 1927 and 1953, commonly referred to as the Stalin Era or the Stalinist Era, covers the period in Soviet history from the establishment of Stalinism through victory in the Second World War and down to the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. Stalin sought to destroy his enemies while transforming Soviet society with central planning, in particular through the forced collectivization of agriculture and rapid development of heavy industry. Stalin consolidated his power within the party and the state and fostered an extensive cult of personality. Soviet secret-police and the mass-mobilization of the Communist Party served as Stalin's major tools in molding Soviet society. Stalin's methods in achieving his goals, which included party purges, ethnic cleansings, political repression of the general population, and forced collectivization, led to millions of deaths: in Gulag labor camps and during famine.

World War II, known as "the Great Patriotic War" by Soviet historians, devastated much of the USSR, with about one out of every three World War II deaths representing a citizen of the Soviet Union. In the course of World War II, the Soviet Union's armies occupied Eastern Europe, where they established or supported Communist puppet governments. By 1949, the Cold War had started between the Western Bloc and the Eastern (Soviet) Bloc, with the Warsaw Pact (created 1955) pitched against NATO (created 1949) in Europe. After 1945, Stalin did not directly engage in any wars, continuing his totalitarian rule until his death in 1953.

Joseph Stalin's cult of personality became a prominent feature of Soviet popular culture. Historian Archie Brown sets the celebration of Stalin's 50th birthday on 21 December 1929 as the starting point for his cult of personality. For the rest of Stalin's rule, the Soviet propaganda presented Stalin as an all-powerful, all-knowing leader, with Stalin's name and image displayed all over the country.