Homemaking and the Aesthetic and Moral Perimeters of the Soviet Home during the Khrushchev Era

This article explores the role of design and decoration in the process of de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union during the 1950s and 1960s. Situated within the context of the liberalizing reforms initiated by Nikita Khrushchev in the political and economic realms, it focuses on one key policy program of the era ending the Soviet housing crisis and providing each family its own apartment. Based on the premise that this objective was part of a broader return to the task of building Communism, this exposition argues that the domestic realm was ideologically charged and metaphoric for the moral order of society. Therefore, much more was at stake in homemaking than simply creating a cozy living space, and household objects became saturated with meaning: simple, modern lines in decorative wares as for housing design in general signified a productive society, fundamentally opposed to individualism and materialism.