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Article: In the Party Spirit: socialist Realism and Literary Practice in the Soviet Union, East Germany and China.(Review)
- Article from:
- The Modern Language Review
- Article date:
- October 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Modern Humanities Research Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In the Party Spirit: Socialist Realism and Literary Practice in the Soviet Union, East Germany and China. Ed. by HILARY CHUNG. (Critical Studies, 6) Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. 1996. xviii + 191 pp.
'Socialist realism', observed Czeslaw Milosz in The Captive Mind (1953), 'is much more than a matter of taste, of preference for one style of painting or music rather than another. It is concerned with beliefs which lie at the foundation of human existence'. And so it turned out to be. Like the ideology that spawned it, socialist realism was a crucial element of Soviet-style Gleichschaltung, imposed on the fraternal socialist states created after 1945.
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