Science, State, and Culture: Decorations for the 1967 October Festival

Abstract

The October Revolution festival, introduced as a public holiday in Soviet Russia in 1919, was always both a reflection of the contemporary political situation and an instrument to impose necessary ideological concepts. This article focuses on the festival designs completed by the experimental group from Moscow, Dvizhenie, for the fiftieth anniversary. It analyses the focus of state propaganda in 1967, which was centred on placing space exploration and technological advancement within the perspective of the entire history of revolutionary commemorations, and explores the state of freedom of expression and the nature of ideological crisis in the period.