The Construction of the New Man: From The October Revolution to The Post-Communist Era: A Historical Perspective

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to draw the historical background of the figure of the Socialist New Man from his beginning in the Russian avant-garde circles of 1917 after the October Revolution –specially in Vsevolod Meyerhold's typage's technique, a major influence in Sergei M. Eisenstein– to its oversimplification as official aesthetic in Stalin's regime and its adoption by the People's Republic of China. The iconic and extremely codified images of the Socialist New Man are analyzed under a new light defying the traditional image among scholars of Socialist Realism as an ossified, monolithic and lackluster artistic style. The last part of the paper deals with the fading away of the Socialist Realism during the 80s as the Soviet bloc disintegrated and China evolved into a so called “socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics”, but persisted, applied adamantly, in North Korea, who exports it to African countries like Senegal or Namibia.