ABSTRACT
The early post-revolutionary years were marked by civil war lasting from 1918 to 1921, as the Bolshevik party was struggling to consolidate and maintain state control. During these years, most of the normal supply chains were severely destabilized, resulting in shortages of food, fuel, clothing, and various household staples. At the end of the Civil War, shortly before the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics was formally created in 1922, the Bolshevik party temporarily permitted private enterprise in a desperate attempt to achieve at least some level of economic stability. The era of the so-called New Economic Policy lasted from 1921 to 1928. Following Lenin’s death in 1924 and the ensuing internal struggle over state power, Stalin emerged as the new leader of the USSR. Soviet arts were encouraged to be “realistic,” but this brand of realism had to align with the imagined socialist society of the future.
