The Cultural Policy of Late Stalinism in the Focus of the Concept of Catching-Up Modernization

Aim. To analyze the features of the cultural policy of late Stalinism as a mechanism for achieving the “moral and political unity” of Soviet society and mobilizing public consciousness through the prism of the concept of catching-up modernization. Methodology. The main content of the study is an analysis of the office documentation of the Department of Propaganda and Agitation of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b), deposited in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History. The research methodology was based on the principles of objectivity and historicism, such special research methods as historical-genetic, chronological, comparative and others were used. Results. The analysis of late Stalinism through the prism of the concept of modernization allows for a deeper understanding of the objective and subjective factors that shaped the post-war development of the USSR, complementing modern ideas about the unfolding processes in the social and economic sphere and in the cultural policy of this period. Research implications. The documentary collection on late Stalinism, the final publication project of the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, which has been implemented since 2017, introduces into scientific circulation a set of valuable sources that reveal important aspects of both the paradigm of cultural policy formation and the role assigned to it in the Stalinist social and economic model.