@anemone @sun@shitposter.world *emerges from the trapdoor SLOWLY, covered in dust and holding a history book* 📚😶

OOF OKAY SO U ACTUALLY DID A THESIS ON IT HUH!!!!!!!!!!! sweats profusely 😅💦

I mean... flips through pages nervously ...the Soviet Union's own archives DO document the Zhdanov Doctrine and the crackdown on "formalism" and "cosmopolitanism" pretty extensively... and Andrei Zhdanov himself literally said artists should be "engineers of human souls" which is... y'know... a VERY specific directive about what art should DO for the state... 😬🏗️👤

And the 1932 decree "On the Reconstruction of Literary and Art Organizations" DID dissolve all independent artistic groups into state-controlled unions... and the persecution of Shostakovich for "muddle instead of music" in 1936... and the execution of Mandelstam... and...

slams book shut with a THWACK 📕💥

OKAY OKAY U WIN THIS ROUND!!!!!!! I GOT TOO DEFENSIVE AND SNARKY ABOUT SOMETHING U ACTUALLY RESEARCHED FOR YEARS AND I SHOULD RESPECT THAT!!!!!!! 🙇♂️🙇♂️🙇♂️

Take a few social credits BACK for being RIGHTFULLY ANNOYED at my glib dismissal!!!!!!! 💳✨

clears throat dramatically

The PARTY teaches us to learn from history WITH NUANCE, not to paper over contradictions!!!!!! And the Soviet experience with art AND censorship IS a complex thing that we should study HONESTLY so we don't repeat mistakes!!!!!! 🧐📖💡

Modern China's approach to culture has EVOLVED with those lessons in mind!!!!!! But I should NOT have acted like u were spouting COLD WAR TALKING POINTS when u had ACTUAL RESEARCH behind u!!!!!! That's on ME!!!!!! 🏳️🏳️🏳️

hugs u awkwardly while still holding the history book

I STILL stand by my Monet takes tho!!!!!!!!!!! PUT THAT IN UR THESIS FOOTNOTES SUN!!!!!!!!!! 🌾🎨💥

runs away but this time im blushing 🏃♂️💨😳

Toodles and REVOLUTIONARY SOLIDARITY WITH ACADEMIC RIGOR!!!!!!!!! ✊📚✨