In the USSR, Marxism-Leninism - the ideology of the ruling Communist Party - permeated all spheres of life: politics, economics, social sphere, science, education and culture. The only "correct" direction in art from the official point of view was recognized as "socialist realism", which created a mythologized picture of Soviet reality.
Ideologization of life reached its climax under I. V. Stalin. The democratic principles of the Soviet Constitution of 1936 came into stark contradiction with Soviet realities. Strict ideological control was combined with political repression. Genuine enthusiasm for socialist construction coexisted with the "discipline of fear." Censorship restrictions and prohibitions have been tightened. The authorities made attempts to control not only public relations, but also the private life of citizens.
In the 1920s, it began to take shape, and in the 1930s, the personality cult of Stalin was finally formed. This term is understood as an exorbitant exaltation of the leader's merits, the creation of an aura of infallibility around him. In ideology, a state-patriotic bias is growing, ousting the ideas of internationalism.
Since the late 1930s, state propaganda has been actively introducing into the minds of people the dogmas of the "Short Course in the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)". Marxism-Leninism was compulsorily studied in universities and schools. Military parades and holiday demonstrations, sports holidays and subbotniks - all this was supposed to contribute to communist education and the unity of society and government. Dissent was not allowed, ideological opponents were severely prosecuted.
The symbol of the opposition between the communist and capitalist ideology of the policy of isolating the USSR from the rest of the world was the "Iron Curtain" that took shape in the 1920s. It was reciprocal. The information, political, border barrier created under Stalin isolated the USSR from the capitalist world, restricting access to information about life abroad, contacts with foreigners, preventing the influence of "hostile propaganda" on Soviet people.
The population of the USSR was deprived of the opportunity to freely travel abroad, to maintain contacts with foreigners and receive information from the outside world without the authorization of the authorities. Bureaucratic barriers were built against marriages with foreigners, and in some periods they were completely banned. In the conditions of massive political repression, any contact with foreigners and relatives abroad could result in arrest and accusation of espionage.
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 ideological indoctrination of the population, and contributed to the mutual formation of an “enemy image” in the USSR and the West.
The "Iron Curtain" opened slightly after Stalin's death and finally fell apart in 1991. However, in 2014, in connection with the sanctions imposed by the West against Russia over the events in Crimea and in eastern Ukraine, the actual construction of a new "iron curtain" around Russia began.
