Regulation and Creativity: How the Rules and Regulations of Early Soviet Russia Led to Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5

Music is the most enigmatic of all the artistic mediums because the majority of the art is aural rather than visual. It is for this reason that music plays such a strong role in times of political or social discord. It is this very role that music plays throughout the unsettling restrains of early communism in Russia. The music of Soviet Russia was molded by the control of the revolution years, the normalcy of the decade to follow, and the strict reign of terror of Stalin that ultimately led to the masterpiece of symbolism that is Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5