Composers’ Unions and Cultural Policy in State Socialist Countries in the 1950s and 1960s

1. The Role of Culture and Music in State Socialism

Culture was of great importance to state socialist politicians. Even though, according to Marxist-Leninist ideology, it was considered “only” a phenomenon of the superstructure, and a state socialist government, by ideological necessity, was supposed to prioritise the construction of the material base, the leaders of the state socialist countries repeatedly emphasised the decisive influence of attitudes and processes of consciousness on people’s behaviour. Very soon, therefore, the field of culture came to be treated as an area of special state concern – first in the initial state socialist country, the Soviet Union,¹ and later, following the expansion of this social system, also in the newly formed Eastern Bloc countries.²

Cultural policy under state socialism had two main tasks. On the one hand, cultural life was to be organised internally – that is, it involved state supervision over all forms of cultural activity in society. On the other hand, cultural policy was responsible for organising the cultural relations of a state socialist country with foreign countries, both socialist and “capitalist” ones. In this second function, it was a matter both of promoting one’s country’s own cultural products and of repelling influences considered harmful to one’s own society. This latter aspect of cultural policy and soft power played a prominent role in the Cold War. Culture and music were used by the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries as instruments of cultural diplomacy in the systemic competition with the West.³

Music played an important role in state socialist cultural policy in both its national and foreign dimensions. This was due to the specific social impact of music. On the one hand, music is capable – more than perhaps any other art form – of shaping the feelings and emotional behaviour of large crowds, making it a central tool of social control for any cultural policymaker. It could be used to organise the emotions and actions of mass audiences. On the other hand, although music is an incorporeal art, it is embedded in a network of diverse social structures, ranging from large transnational organisations to small entities such as local associations or even individual families. This central significance of music and musical life as a powerful instrument of control in the politics of power is a recurring argument in the writings of state socialist cultural policymakers.⁴ The body through which this control function of music was planned and implemented was the Composers’ Union. Consequently, its members were concerned not only with questions of the aesthetic form of music but also with the organisation of musical life.

2. Composers’ Unions in Late Stalinism

The installation of composers’ unions in the states of the emerging Eastern Bloc at the very beginning of Sovietisation was part of securing Soviet rule from the outset. It was implemented in all the future Eastern Bloc countries according to a uniform scheme, which was adapted to local conditions and pre-war traditions but remained similar in its basic features.⁵ There was a fundamental difference between the Soviet Union itself and its future satellite states. While the latter looked back on a bourgeois statehood with corresponding musical structures before the Second World War, the Soviet Union had experienced a socialist musical life since the October Revolution, including early precursors of the Soviet Composers’ Union.⁶

The establishment of composers’ unions – like that of artists’ unions in other artistic fields – was carried out in an authoritarian, top-down manner; musicians were invited to national conferences at which the main lines of future cultural and music policy were defined.⁷ At these conferences, musicians were aligned with the requirements of state socialist society. The primary focus was the implementation of the artistic doctrine of socialist realism as a binding requirement for all artistic and musical creation under state socialism in the emerging Eastern Bloc.⁸ However, the postulates formulated within this doctrine – such as the intelligibility of music or its support for socialist construction – were not linked to concrete stylistic or compositional elements that could be objectively described in the music itself. Whether a piece of music fulfilled the required categories of the doctrine could therefore not be determined solely by analysing the musical material; it depended essentially on the outcome of the discussion about the piece, its composer, and its effect on the audience.

These discussions took place at the meetings of the Composers’ Union. Whether a musical work was recognised as conforming to the ideals of socialist realism or rejected as “formalistic” depended on the concrete judgements of individual persons. The concept of formalism was just as vague as that of socialist realism. The only clear aspect was its function as a negative label used to condemn a musician for failing to conform to socialist ideas.⁹ The decisive judgements – which could have far-reaching positive or negative consequences for the composer – were made at meetings of the Composers’ Union, following detailed discussion of the musical works.¹⁰

Education and enhancement of the musical education of the population was considered one of the main tasks of socialist society in the field of music. The idea of a contrast between the bourgeois decadence of the West, on the one hand, and the development of the socialist man standing on a higher cultural level, on the other, played a major role in this context.¹¹ The goal was to cultivate a specific type of socially engaged music listener who would use music as a means of developing his socialist personality. Musicians were expected to support the public in this effort by creating appropriate musical works. These goals were pursued through musical lectures, lecture concerts, and similar events. Festivals and public composition competitions – usually organised or co-organised by the Composers’ Union – played a very important role in state socialist cultural life. The Composers’ Union maintained close contacts with organisations such as youth associations and company management in order to supervise local music associations, choirs, and instrumental ensembles.¹²

In the course of the following years and decades, a specific type of socialist composer emerged – one who maintained close contact with the Composers’ Union. As a professional organisation, the Composers’ Union supported aspiring composers in their entry into professional life by providing financial assistance, qualified mentorship, and help in securing composition commissions. Affiliation with the Composers’ Union thus offered the opportunity to work as a composer in a financially secure position or even to earn a living from composition. However, such support was conditional on the requirement that the composer’s output conformed to the image of the socialist artist that was promoted. On the one hand, a socialist artist who worked for the benefit of society was endorsed, supported, and expected. On the other hand, notions of l’art pour l’art, the unrestricted individuality of the artist, and the idea of an independent, freelance creative position were rejected. Being a composer in a state socialist country thus meant facing the necessity of coming to terms with this situation.

In the Stalinist phase of state socialism, opinion leadership clearly lay with the cultural policymakers of the Soviet Union. They set guidelines in terms of content, politics, and musical aesthetics, which were promptly and uncritically adopted by the cultural authorities of the satellite states. This is impressively demonstrated by the most important music-political treatises written by Soviet musicologists and cultural officials of the time, which were translated into the languages of nearly all Eastern Bloc countries shortly thereafter.¹³ These treatises also illustrate another feature of late Stalinist culture – namely, the deliberate distancing from Western culture and the construction of a socialist alterity. The influence of music from countries outside the socialist sphere of influence was to be prevented as far as possible, and alternatives to Western musical forms were to be developed on the basis of a country’s own musical traditions. Overall, cultural policy – as well as politics in general – was characterised by strong authoritarian control: the state’s offers of rewards were counterbalanced by various forms of repression, prohibitions, and restrictions on artistic creation. The functionary within the Composers’ Union was a figure with considerable power, as they were responsible for deciding whether restrictions or rewards would be applied.

The societies of late Stalinism were marked by a strictly top-down structure: the party and state leadership issued laws, guidelines, and rules of conduct, and used the executive apparatus to enforce them. Regimentation and repression were essential tools for achieving these aims. The result was a society in which niches for individual or non-conformist behaviour were reduced as far as possible. Every aspect of life – not only public but also private – was to be organised according to party principles. A vast number of organisations served to channel public life. The Composers’ Union was part of this system, since in the initial phase of its existence its role was to enforce state socialist cultural policy and its central doctrine, socialist realism, as a monopoly ideology, and to eliminate resistance from within the cultural elite.

In the new socialist countries, however, the reorganisation of musical life along socialist lines was by no means met with uniform rejection. The respective national elites were divided – on the one hand, there was support for the liberation of musical life and hope for improvement after the deprivation and repression under Nazi rule; on the other hand, there was resistance to the enforced alignment with the proletarian-Soviet concept of music and the requirement of compulsory membership of state-controlled organisations. A number of well-known writers, artists, and composers participated actively in the socialist construction project and made sincere efforts to help shape the new state socialist institutions. However, it became apparent to many – time and again – that their ideals could not be fully reconciled with reality, or only in a limited and imperfect way.¹⁴

3. De-Stalinisation, Social Change, and New Cultural Politics

While the entry into the Stalinist phase of Soviet cultural policy was very similar across the individual satellite states, the exit from this phase varied considerably. The spectrum ranged from landslide-like upheavals, as in Poland, to a protracted struggle between old and new currents in the Soviet Union.¹⁵ Each country developed its own version of state socialism. The political uniformity of the Eastern Bloc declined. The previously largely identical societies – organised top-down and controlled by the Moscow headquarters – gave way to a variety of distinct forms of state socialism.¹⁶

In cultural policy, central doctrines such as socialist realism formally remained in place, but they no longer functioned as unconditional guidelines for evaluating artistic and musical processes. Society became more diverse, as previously unrecognised or newly emerging social groups began to identify themselves.¹⁷

In this context, it was no longer possible to enforce cultural directives according to the earlier top-down policy directed from Moscow. On the contrary, the cultural and political organisations that continued to exist underwent a significant transformation. Just as post-Stalinist societies evolved into societies of negotiation, so too did the Composers’ Union transform into a space in which the interests of different cultural groups were negotiated – both with and against one another.

4. The Composers’ Union as a Place of Negotiation Between Different Interest Groups

From the 1960s onwards, informal social pacts between the power elite and the population began to develop under state socialism.¹⁸ The ruling elite guaranteed a minimum level of economic well-being and political stability, in return for which the population was willing to refrain from opposition activities, to make no further demands, and to behave in accordance with the expectations of the state.

The best-known of these social pacts is the so-called Hungarian goulash communism.¹⁹ Similar arrangements also existed between cultural policymakers and artists, whereby the authorities granted artists creative opportunities in exchange for assurances that they would act in accordance with the system. Since political power was held exclusively by Party and state organs, the partners in these pacts were not on an equal footing. This imbalance is particularly evident in the case of Czechoslovak normalisation (normalizace), which was not a pact, but a forced acquiescence. The so-called Bitterfeld Path (Bitterfelder Weg) in the GDR came closest to an actual social pact.²⁰

However, pluralistic societies – in which different views could be publicly negotiated – did not emerge, because state socialism, Marxist-Leninist ideology, and the continued dominance of the ruling elite remained non-negotiable. Nevertheless, more or less pronounced countercultures arose that propagated alternative views and cultural forms and were willing, in some cases, to operate conspiratorially.²¹ These ranged from the formation of parallel societies to countercultural movements in a grey zone between the permitted and the forbidden.

This discursive approach also shaped the work of the Composers’ Unions. Although they continued to see themselves as part of official cultural policy, they no longer merely issued directives with which non-compliance would automatically result in repression. Instead, informal discussions increasingly took place in advance. The Composers’ Union evolved into a social space in which negotiation processes involving all the participants in the musical creation process were carried out. These included the Party, the state government (Ministry of Culture), state cultural institutions, radio, television, orchestras, Komsomol houses, domy kultury, and individual artists and musicians. In small group discussions, the scope for action and the constraints faced by all parties involved were explored before a directive was formally adopted. These negotiation processes were not codified in writing and are therefore much harder to trace than the directives and regulations that emerged as their outcome.

One consequence of the post-Stalinist changes was that the former elites had to tolerate – and even articulate – views that, during the Stalinist era, they could still exclude from discourse and repress, such as those of the jazz milieu.²² One of the most important lessons learned by state socialist cultural policymakers from the Stalinist experience was that no matter how strong the repression, social needs could not be entirely suppressed.

Thus, even within the still-authoritarian social structure, it became necessary not only to pass down music-political decisions through the existing top-down channels, but also to respond – at least to some extent – in a bottom-up manner to the needs of, for example, the music audience or radio listeners. This sometimes led to controversial and surprisingly open discussions.

The Composers’ Union was therefore not simply a place where the Party’s directives were passed downwards; rather, it was a forum in which divergent interests collided and had to be negotiated on the spot. Contrary to the image projected to the outside world – as a body of official cultural policy – there was by no means unanimous agreement in its internal proceedings. In the stenographic records of the discussions, we find plain, direct language that stands in sharp contrast to the formulaic and ritualised pronouncements made at the end of the sessions.²³

5. Systemic Autonomy of Composers’ Unions

As institutions, the Composers’ Unions of the Eastern Bloc countries occupied an intermediate position between the functionaries of the Party and state leadership on the one hand and the musicians on the other. On the one hand, they were responsible for transmitting and implementing the directives of cultural policymakers; on the other hand, they had to respond to the interests and needs of their members. This placed them in a position of hierarchical mediation. To fulfil this mediating function, they depended on acceptance from both sides. Their power lay in the fact that discussions held within union meetings could lead to outcomes that were not necessarily in line with the Party line – and that this line could in some cases be revised as a result of such negotiations. In order to avoid being completely co-opted by the Party and state leadership, the Composers’ Union sought to maintain a certain distance from the direct control of cultural policymakers and to preserve a minimum degree of room for manoeuvre, both for itself as an institution and for its members.

In this regard, the Composers’ Union is somewhat comparable to state socialist radio stations, which also occupied a structurally autonomous position because of their dual dependency – on cultural policymakers on the one hand, and on listeners, the radio audience, on the other.

Each national Composers’ Union handled the question of systemic autonomy differently. In the Soviet Union of Composers, it was the strong personality of its chairman, Tikhon Khrennikov, that gave the institution its distinctive character. In contrast, the Polish Composers’ Union translated the demand for systemic autonomy into a relatively marked distance from the Party. Numerically, the Polish union was smaller than other artists’ unions. After de-Stalinisation, it tried to preserve its freedom by distancing itself from the Party and from party politics. Its chairman and all its leading figures were not Party members – although some, like the composer Witold Rudziński, supported aspects of the cultural programme of the 1950s.²⁴

The Party tolerated the Polish Composers’ Union’s independence because it contributed to the international prestige of People’s Poland – for example, by organising the Warsaw Autumn Festival. In the event of conflict, however, the state retained control over matters such as travel permissions and the distribution of Western music. The Polish Composers’ Union always allowed itself as much space as possible for representing oppositional tendencies – without jeopardising its institutional independence.²⁵ A symbolic expression of this independence is the fact that the Polish Composers’ Union managed to keep its archive beyond the reach of both the Ministry of Culture and the Communist Party.²⁶

6. Loss of Control in Late Socialism

In the phase of late socialism, a more or less pronounced gap emerged in all the countries between, on the one hand, the official institutions’ claim to control and organise musical life, and, on the other, the appearance of numerous practices that refused to submit to such control. The bureaucratic system of state cultural policy was, so to speak, undermined from within. From the 1970s onwards, this gap became evident in the Soviet Union: official musicians were members of the Composers’ Union and composed official works about Lenin and Marx; unofficial musicians, by contrast, worked as cemetery gardeners or lift attendants, thus evading the control of the Composers’ Union. The chairman of the Leningrad Composers’ Union even found ways to have “unofficial” compositions performed. Social grey areas emerged in which it became possible to operate beyond the bounds of tightly regulated public life.²⁷

This development was due not only to growing social differentiation, but also to the increasing stylistic diversification of music itself – especially in the field of so-called popular music. Jazz had already shown that the Composers’ Unions struggled with this form of improvised music, which was essentially tied to the moment of performance and could not be understood using the interpretive models of “serious” music and an artistic paradigm still grounded in nineteenth-century traditions (such as the emphasis on the score and the associated concept of the musical work). Jazz – regardless of its evolution since the 1960s – was officially categorised as a form of dance music throughout the entire period of state socialism and was treated as such by the authorities, even though large areas of jazz, such as free jazz or the New Thing, no longer had anything to do with dance music.²⁸ Similar difficulties arose with newer forms of popular music that subsequently emerged, such as rock and punk.

7. Centrifugal Forces

Just as it held political leadership within the Eastern Bloc, the Soviet Union also claimed cultural leadership over its sphere of influence. This ambition was clearly manifested in the process of Sovietisation in East-Central European states. However, the thaw of the 1950s and 1960s gave rise to centrifugal tendencies not only in the political sphere but also in the cultural one. As a result, the Soviet Union lost its postulated cultural leadership in several areas. One notable example is Poland. By the end of the 1950s, two music festivals had been established there, each aspiring to play a leading role not only within Poland but across the entire Eastern Bloc – thus challenging the Soviet Union’s status as a cultural superpower: the Warsaw Autumn Festival²⁹ in the field of contemporary music, and the Jazz Jamboree festival, which developed into a major cultural hub for jazz between East and West.

Numerous events in the history of these two festivals reveal the tensions that arose with Soviet cultural officials. For example, at the 30th edition of the Warsaw Autumn Festival, the chairman of the Soviet Composers’ Union, Tikhon Khrennikov, insisted that the first prize in the composers’ competition be awarded to a Soviet composer, although the jury had selected a different winner. Such open disputes were merely the most visible symptoms of deeper differences between Polish and Soviet cultural policymakers. A comparative analysis of festival coverage in Sovetskaia muzyka and Ruch muzyczny reveals how these tensions were often concealed behind the rhetoric of socialist brotherhood among nations.