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Zhdanov joined the Bolsheviks in 1915 and rose through the party ranks, becoming the party leader in Leningrad after the assassination of Sergei Kirov in 1934. He was a strong supporter of socialist realism in art and has been blamed for stifling the art of the period with the rigid political requirements he imposed, particularly during the late 1940sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s Years: 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 Events and trends Technology First nuclear bomb First cruise missile, the.

In 1947Events January January 1 British mines nationalized January 1 Nigeria gains limited autonomy January 1 The Canadian Citizenship Act went into effect January 3 Proceedings of the United States Congress are televised for the first time. January 10 United Na, he organized the CominformThe Cominform (from Com munist Inform ation Bureau) is the common name for what was officially referred to as the "Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties". The Cominform was a Soviet dominated organisation of Communist parties founded in, designed to coordinate the communist parties of EuropeFor the band of the same name, see Europe (band . Europe is a continent forming the westermost part of the Eurasian supercontinent. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Se. He died in 1948, apparently of natural causes— Nikita Khrushchev1962 Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev ( Russian: ) (nih-KEE-tah khroo-SHCHYOFF) ( April 17, 1894 September 11, 1971) was a Soviet politician. Following a power struggle, he emerged as the leader of Soviet Union after the death of Joseph Stalin: he was First recalled in Khrushchev Remembers that Zhdanov could not control his drinking, and that in his "last days", Stalin would shout at him to stop drinking and insist that he drink only fruit water. In early 19531953 is a common year starting on Thursday (click on link for the calendar). Events January events January 7 President Harry S. Truman announces the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb. January 13 Marshal Josip Broz Tito chosen President of Yugosl, however, it was alleged that Zhdanov had been a victim of the " doctors' plotThe Doctors' plot ( Russian language: or was an alleged conspiracy to eliminate the leadership of the Soviet Union. It was "exposed" in early 1953, shortly before the death of Joseph Stalin. Background In the course of the Cold War and the State of Israel", and a recent 21st century book by Montefiore alleges that Stalin himself was responsible for Zhdanov's death.

He also became an in-law of Stalin when his son Yuri married Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva. Stalin disapproved of Yuri's criticisms of Trofim Lysenko's scientific theories, and his anger is believed by some to have led him to participate in causing Zhdanov's death through the direct actions of other persons.

Until the late 1950s, his strict ideological code, known as Zhdanovism , defined the limits of acceptable cultural production in the Soviet Union. Remarkably, Zhdanov transcended the self-serving aims of ordinary totalitarian censorship—he apparently intended to forge a new philosophy of art-making for the entire world. His method reduced the the whole domain of culture to a straightforward, scientific chart, where a given symbol corresponded to a simple moral value. Roland Barthes summed up the core doctrine of Zhdanovism this way: "Wine is objectively good…[the artist] deals with the goodness of wine, not with the wine itself." Today, Zhdanov is most famous for his petty bullying of the likes of Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Eisenstein, but lesser-known artists, lacking public support, had far worse to fear from his agents.

After Stalin's death in 1953, artists were no longer quite at the mercy of the Zhdanovists, and the most severe controls were loosened. The result was a creative explosion in Soviet art--abstract and formal work, forbidden under the old rules, now provided a welcome refuge from official criticism (a work that the censors couldn't understand was safer from reprisals, and no longer suspect in and of itself). Even a decade later, after Khrushchev's more liberal policies were replaced by a return to heavier scrutiny, those artists who had made their names during the " Thaw" remained protected by their international reputations. A curious double standard existed for those who could exhibit their work and win fame in Western Europe.