"Soviet aesthetics" in the design of China and North Korea

The study is devoted to the influence of Soviet aesthetics on design in China and North Korea. The relevance of the study is due to the growing interaction between China and Russia, including in the field of design, and the influence of "Soviet aesthetics" is the common design past of our countries. The design of North Korea is also an equally vivid example of the "Soviet aesthetics" in design. The aim is to use the example of the influence of Soviet aesthetics on design in China and North Korea to show how the understanding of design was influenced by the planned economy and the ideology of Marxism. The "Soviet aesthetics" in the article refers to a system of views on design, as well as a set of stylistic techniques determined by these views within two approaches that were originally formed in the USSR – analytical (avant-garde) and socialist realism. The authors of the article rely on the comparative method, analyzing common approaches to design that determine the stylistic features of design products in the USSR, China and North Korea during the period of domination of the planned economy and the influence of Marxist ideologies. Based on the reasoning of VNIITE representatives, the authors formulate the Soviet understanding of design as an activity having a single "invariant" that can be successfully developed in a planned economy "from above", forming a socialist "non-commercial" design model, an alternative to the "commercial" Western model. And although the "Soviet aesthetics" is not without charm, as the experience of the USSR, China during the time of Mao Zedong and North Korea shows, propaganda turns out to be one of the most important promotion mechanisms for the "non-commercial" model, and design functions are sharply narrowed (in graphic design, this is propaganda and labeling). Due to the fact that the customer is the state, a characteristic feature becomes "monostylistic", which limits the creative potential of designers. In addition, due to the fact that under the influence of ideology, the "former basis" was destroyed, and with it the centuries-old culture, art for the masses, although it was based on folk culture (in socialist realism and after it), often acquired the form of "amateur activity".