1920s marked the formation in Soviet Russia of an extensive system of control over the spiritual life of the intelligentsia. In 1921, the Agitprop of the Central Committee of the RCP (B) appeared, in 1922 the Main Department of Literature and Art was established, in 1923 the Main Repertoire Commission was created.

An example of a censorship policy is the prohibition of five operas from the repertoire of the Bolshoi Theater, including The Snow Maiden, The Tales of Tsar Saltan for promoting monarchical ideas. Fiction was even more censored. Of the 20 art associations, whose affairs were considered at the commission for the approval of charters for the period from November 1922 to April 1923, 4 were approved, approved with the condition of -7, the decision was postponed or rejected - 9, it is forbidden Since the mid 1920s. a ban was imposed on the publications of A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam and other famous poets and writers, while the authors themselves were under the control of the GPU.

As early as 1921, the VChK brought to justice for counterrevolutionary activity a large group of prominent representatives of the Russian intelligentsia in the case of the Petrograd Military Organization. Among the shot were famous scientists and writers, including V.N. Tagantsev and N.S. Guilev. According to the resolution of the Politburo of June 8, 1922 "On the anti-Soviet groups among the intelligentsia," the GPU received the right to mass expulsions and exile of certain groups and leaders of intellectuals abroad and into the country, as well as the right to supervise the press organs, trade unions and congresses of creative organizations, faculty and student staff of universities.

Provided with new powers, the GPU intensified work among the intelligentsia. In August 1922, about 160 oppositionist scholars and cultural figures were expelled from Russia (N. A. Berdyaev, S. N. Bulgakov, N. O. Lossky, S. N. Prokopovich, P. A. Sorokin, S. L. Frank et al.). The GPU in the person of the deputy secret-operative department G. Yagoda, in early 1923, noted with satisfaction that "the experience of the past year has proved the possibility of successful struggle with the elements of the public and regulating the pace and nature of the social movement."

The expulsion of the most opposition-minded intellectuals abroad (mostly philosophers and social scientists) did not ease the pressure of the GPU on those who remained in Russia. At the same time, pressure often bordered on direct repression. At the end of 1924, the well-known poet A. Ganin was arrested, followed by another 12 people who were later in the case of the Order of the Russian Fascists. In March 1925, Ganin and 6 of his associates were shot for appealing to the violent overthrow of Soviet power, which they declared sectarian and anti-national. In 1925, the great Russian poet S. Yesenin committed suicide, disappointed in the ideas of the popular revolution he had sung before.

At the end of 1927, the All-Union Association of Workers of Science and Technology arose in the USSR to co-operate with socialist construction in the USSR (VARNITSO), regarded as "the vanguard of the revolutionary part of the labor intelligentsia". Scientists and representatives of the technical intelligentsia who were part of VARNITSO were contrasted with the old intelligentsia, which was declared to be reactionary and involved in sabotage.

In May-June 1928, the All-Union Conference of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) on agitation, propaganda and cultural construction was held, which stated that the deployment of cultural revolution caused opposition from the bourgeois culture media. The meeting fixed the political course of the struggle against the manifestations of petty-bourgeois views in art.

The brunt of the repressive organs was in the social sciences. The creative unions and organizations ideologically alien to the Soviet power were closed, and their members were subjected to high pressure in remote areas. In 1928, the religious and philosophical societies "Resurrection", "Brotherhood of Seraphim of Sarov" and "Space Academy of Sciences" were closed. Religious and moral searches of members of these societies were stopped. Along with reprisals against representatives of the Russian glorious right-wing church, such measures were aimed at destroying the foundations of religion in Soviet Russia.

The Platonov affair belongs to the same period. The famous Russian historian academician S.F. Platonov in the mid-1920s. occupied a number of major posts in the system of academic institutions, being the director of the Pushkin House and the Library of the Academy of Sciences since 1925, heading simultaneously from 1926 the Permanent Historical and Archaeographic Commission. The juxtaposition of objective historical science in the works of S. F. Platonov to the class schemes of the Marxist historian M. N. Pokrovsky drew criticism from the latter, who accused the academician of class conciliationism. In 1929, Pokrovsky, an academician of the Academy of Sciences, intensified their opposition within the walls of a scientific institution. In the spring of 1929, Pokrovsky appealed to the struggle against "bourgeois" science: "We must go on the offensive on all scientific fronts. The period of peaceful cohabitation will be eliminated to the end." In November 1929, the first arrests of Leningrad historians began, and although D. B. Ryazanov and N. I. Bukharin tried to stop this process, he became increasingly political in nature. On November 9, 1929, Platonov was forced to resign from all posts, and on January 12, 1930, he was arrested. Other prominent scholars, representatives of the historical school of Platonov and various academic and local history organizations were also subjected to are-stu.

The arrested academics were expelled from the capitals in 1931 and were deprived of academic titles. Since 1934, the historical school of M. N. Pokrovsky (died in 1932), which was declared anti-Marxist, was persecuted. The pinnacle of historical science was declared "The History of the CPSU (B.). A short course." At the same time, the processes of representatives of the technical intelligentsia take place. In contrast to the repression of the creative intelligentsia, these processes were caused not so much by ideological as by economic reasons. Hence the tougher approach to the technical intelligentsia and social scientists compared with the attitude of the Soviet government to cultural figures.

The unrestrained criticism of many representatives of the creative intelligentsia by "proletarian writers and artists" in 1925 prompted the Central Committee of the RCP (b) to even take it "under protection" by publishing a decree on the inadmissibility of "self-made and incompetent interference in literary de la." However, this decision more likely quit left creative unions than to protect traditional art from proletarianization.

Gradually here, among the numerous post-revolutionary unions, the ruling party put things in order, subjecting state control to literary and artistic associations of communist orientation: Proletkult, Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP), Left Front of the Arts, editorial board, In the Post. To a certain extent, such an approach defended the so-called “fellow travelers” (writers who sympathized with the Bolshevik plans of reorganizing Russia, but did not refuse the cultural past of the past) from the attacks of Rappers and their close movements and allowed the creative process to develop.

1920s became the heyday of the Soviet culture, which at this time united in itself the revolutionary cultural ideas and traditions of the "silver" century. Such diverse literary works as "Chapaev" by D. Furmanov (1923), "Iron Stream" by A. Serafimovich (1924), "The White Guard" by M. Bulgakov (1925), "The Defeat" by A. Fadeev (1926) appeared. , "Chevengur" by A. Platonov (1926) and "The Quiet Don" by M. Sholokhov (1928 - 1 part).

Artists from different directions worked fruitfully in fine arts — I.E. Gra-barrier, A.A. Deineka, B.M. Kustodiev, P.N. Filonov, P.P. Konchalovsky, M.S. Saryan, K.F. Yuon, KS Malevich and many others. Soviet cinema achieves international success, and S. M. A-zenshtein's film The Battleship Potemkin (1925) conquers world screens in triumph. No less significant were the achievements in the field of theater, architecture, sculpture and other arts. Despite growing ideological pressure, the 1920s. rightly entered the history of Russia as the time of the creation of outstanding works in various areas of culture.