In the USSR, Marxism-Leninism - the ideology of the ruling Communist Party - permeated all spheres of life: politics, economics, the social sphere, science, education and culture. From the official point of view, the only "correct" direction in art was recognized as "socialist realism", which created a mythological picture of Soviet reality.
The ideologization of life reached its climax under I.V. Stalin. The democratic principles of the Soviet Constitution of 1936 came into striking conflict with Soviet realities. Strict ideological control was combined with political repression. The genuine enthusiasm of socialist construction coexisted with the "discipline of fear." Censorship restrictions and prohibitions have become tougher. The authorities made attempts to control not only public relations, but also the personal lives of citizens.
In the 1920s, it began to take shape, and in the 1930s, Stalin's personality cult was finally formed. This term refers to the exorbitant exaltation of the leader's merits, the creation of a halo of infallibility around him. In ideology, the state-patriotic bias is growing, crowding out the ideas of internationalism.
Since the late 1930s, state propaganda has actively introduced the dogma of the “Short Course in the History of the CPSU (B.)” Into the minds of people. Marxism-Leninism was studied without fail in universities and schools. Military parades and holiday demonstrations, sports holidays and community work days - all this was supposed to contribute to communist education and the unity of society and power. Dissent was not allowed, ideological opponents were brutally prosecuted.
A symbol of the confrontation between the communist and capitalist ideology of the policy of isolating the USSR from the rest of the world was the "Iron Curtain" that developed in the 1920s. He was of a mutual nature. The informational, political, and border barrier created under Stalin isolated the USSR from the capitalist world by restricting access to information about life abroad, contacts with foreigners, and preventing “hostile propaganda” from influencing Soviet people.
The population of the USSR was deprived of the opportunity to freely travel abroad, without the sanction of the authorities, to maintain contacts with foreigners and receive information from the outside world. Bureaucratic barriers were built against marriages with foreigners, and in certain periods they were completely banned. In the context of massive political repression, any contact with foreigners and relatives abroad could result in arrest and espionage charges.
On the other hand, the West was no less afraid of the "communist infection" and also tried to isolate itself as much as possible from the CCCP. The existence of the "Iron Curtain" made society "closed", allowed the authorities to more effectively carry out the ideological treatment of the population, and contributed to the mutual formation of the "image of the enemy" in the USSR and the West.
The Iron Curtain opened slightly after Stalin's death and finally broke up in 1991. However, in 2014, in connection with the sanctions imposed by the West against Russia over the events in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine, the actual erection of a new “iron curtain” around Russia began.
