Page 29 - Studio International - April 1971

Art in Revolution:

Russian art in

the twenties

Peter Wollen

The revolutionary monument: a simplified version
of Tatlin's Monument to the Third International
carried through the streets of Leningrad

An exhibition ' Art in Revolution: Soviet art and museum and gallery exhibition policy was given as well as a new political and economic order. A
design after 19z7', organized by the Arts Council to Rodchenko. new proletarian science and a new proletarian
of Great Britain in co-operation with the Soviet This bias towards the avant garde was art must be produced by worker scientists and
Government, is at the Hayward Gallery, London, inevitable in the circumstances. Academic and worker artists. The creative energy of the
until April 18. In this article Peter Wollen traces even moderately modernistic artists felt they proletariat was boundless once it was released.
the influence and eventual failure of the Russian had nothing in common with the new order Indeed, the Proletcult quickly showed the
avant garde from 1917 to the death of Malevich and, in any case, most of them thought it would dynamism Bogdanov expected of it. By 192o it
in 1934. not last for long and it might be better not to had over half a million members, at a time when
have been compromised by association with it the Bolshevik Party itself had only 620,000.
The number of Russian artists and architects when the White generals rode into the capital. Lenin had longstanding political and
who supported the October Revolution Naturally it was the avant garde, Cubists and ideological differences with Bogdanov. Not
immediately was very small. Indeed, only a Futurists for the most part, impatient with the surprisingly he was suspicious of the Proletcult
handful of intellectuals of any kind rallied to it. past, with tradition, with established values, as a possible rival organization to the Party.
Even a writer like Maxim Gorky, later closely who identified their own destiny with that of Moreover, once he had formed the decision to
identified with the Soviet regime and one of the the revolution. Thus was inaugurated what launch the NEP, which implied an
leading protagonists of 'socialist realism', took came to be thought of as a 'left monopoly' of accommodation with the peasantry and a limited
a hostile attitude at first. Consequently when state patronage which lasted for four years, till return to the free market, it was clear that
Lunacharsky was appointed Commissar for the New Economic Policy (NEP) was introduced ultra-proletarian organizations and tendencies
Education in 1917, in charge of in 1921, accompanied by a re-organization of such as the Proletcult would have to be curbed.
NARKOMPROS, as his commissariat was NARKOMPROS, one of the features of which It was Lenin's belief that the completion of the
known, he had great difficulty in filling most of was a purge of the IZO. For four years, revolution would be a difficult and arduous
the posts with people both qualified and however, there is no doubt that the most process, involving compromises and even
sympathetic. The previous establishment of advanced and avant-garde groups of painters, retreats. The Proletcult, like the Workers'
civil servants simply refused to work with him, poets, theatre directors and musicians were in Opposition which grew up at the same time, took
the academic community was openly hostile, the ascendancy, insofar as it makes sense to a much more optimistic view and could see no
and even left-inclined intellectuals took up a talk about 'ascendancy' in those years of war, overriding reasons why the working class
wait-and-see position, not wanting to plunge in famine and heroism. should not move on straight away toward the
too precipitously. He was even reduced to Besides handing over the IZO to the promised land. Their reckless attitude towards
making public appeals for support, but the avant garde, Lunacharsky made one other the peasantry in particular meant that they had
response was derisory. When eventually he set decision which had an important effect on the to be bridled and consequently, when NEP
up a Department of Fine Arts, the IZO, he history of the arts in Soviet Russia. He decided began, funds were cut off from the Proletcult,
called on a painter whom he had known in to sponsor the Proletcult, an organization it was attacked by Lenin, pressure was brought
Paris, a left Bundist (Jewish socialist) called inspired by ideas developed in exile by his old to bear on Bogdanov, and he left political life.
David Shterenberg, who had fallen under the friend and comrade Bogdanov, and subsidize it He began to work on the problems of blood
influence of French cubism. Shterenberg got out of NARKOMPROS funds. transfusions and died in his clinic later in the
together a staff of artists, almost all of whom Bogdanov believed that the proletariat should twenties after experimenting on himself.
were from the avant garde. Altman was put have its own specifically cultural organization, Patronage of the arts in the first four years
in charge of the Petrograd IZO, Tatlin in as well as political and economic organizations. of the revolution, the period of 'heroic
charge of the Moscow IZO. Responsibility for The proletariat must create a new cultural order communism', thus fell to two principal

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