Authors
Oksana Hela1; 1 The University of Basel, Switzerland Discussion
Satirical magazines, initiated by the Bolsheviks, served the interests of the state, and followed its ideological line. The entertainment orientation of these publications concealed an important role in shaping public opinion on political campaigns, especially those concerning one of the largest and most ambiguous status groups in Soviet society - the intelligentsia, which Stalin called a "stratum" between two main classes - workers and collective peasants. In different periods of the history of Soviet satirical magazines, the intelligentsia was mainly portrayed either as an internal enemy or as a socio-professional group that did not fulfil its professional obligations, thus creating conditions for the slowing down of the development of the Soviet Union. However, at the end of the 1980s, with the reduction of censorship and the expansion of freedom of publication, material began to appear that demonstrated intellectuals' doubts about the effectiveness of the Soviet system.
Using the example of cartoons depicting intellectuals who had a direct influence on the development of culture, education and science, and whose representatives were employees of these satirical magazines, it is shown that the process of rethinking the intellectuals' own place in the Soviet regime began in the subordinate magazines. In addition, the journals began to publish justifications by the intelligentsia for their work in the interests of the regime in the previous years, and criticism of such shortcomings of the Soviet system as could not be discussed before. 
