Page 32 - Studio International - April 1971

artists were vigorously claiming that industrial the movement, evidently much diminished,
and propaganda art were the proper fields for fell under the leadership of Pletnev, who had
the artists. Mayakovsky asserted that his been heavily influenced by the avant garde.
advertising jingles for Mosselprom were as As a result, most of its proletarian support fell
valuable as anything else he had ever written. away and re-organized itself in a number of
There is no particular difference between this militantly 'proletarian' literary and cultural
and the fate of a Bauhaus artist like Bayer, who groups, including On Guard ! and The Forge,
also ended up in typography and advertising, eventually re-grouping in the more general
but under capitalism. In fact, of course, All-Russian Association of Proletarian Writers,
Rodchenko never fully subordinated himself the VAPP, later RAPP. These organizations
to the functionalist ideals of the death of art spontaneously, without now the more elaborate
which he preached. His most important work ideological backing Bogdanov had provided,
of the twenties-his photo-montages and called for a proletarian art and literature and
typography for LEF and Mayakovsky's poem advanced the claims of a number of worker
Pro Eto-are instantly recognizable as poets. As well as these proletarian groups and
Rodchenko by their use of photographs, their their publications, there also existed LEF, the
heavy, bold print and unremitting use of black. magazine of the artistic avant garde, which
Rodchenko created a style for himself, like so published Mayakovsky and other futurist
many other functionalists. writers, Rodchenko and the Constructivists, the
Nevertheless, during the twenties, the OPOIAZ group of literary formalists and
functionalist aspect of Constructivism film-makers and theatre directors such as
gradually became uppermost. This can be seen, Eisenstein, Vertov and Meyerhold. LEF aimed
for instance, in the split in architecture between at a circulation of 5,00o but in fact had difficulty
OSA and ASNOVA, accused of formalism, in getting into four figures, which those concerned
the re-organization of the VKHUTEMAS into blamed on the State Publishing House for not
the VKHUTEIN towards the end of the promoting it properly. Finally, there was
decade and in the more rigid line followed by Krasnaya Nov, the magazine of what were
the magazine Novy Lef in comparison with its called the 'fellow-travellers', who had rallied
forerunner LEF. This connects evidently with to the regime in the calmer, more settled
the introduction of the First Five-Year Plan, climate of the NEP period.
when combat lines were sharply drawn. In During the twenties, a relatively liberal
1929 Lissitzky, recently returned to Russia publishing policy was pursued by the state.
from Western Europe, wrote that 'Once again Nevertheless, the various artistic tendencies
the "Utilitarians" are opposed by the inevitably were drawn into the inner-party
"Formalists". The latter assert that infighting which took place after Lenin's death.
architecture is not covered by the concept of The RAPP, for example, or at least its most
"engineering". To solve the utilitarian task, to prominent spokesmen, Vardin and Lelevich,
construct a volume that functions correctly for supported Zinoviev, who tried to use the
the purpose, is only one part of the problem. Petrograd working-class as a power base and
The second part is to organize the materials was hence naturally drawn to 'proletarian'
correctly, to solve the constructive problem. A anti-peasant, anti-`fellow-traveller' and
work of architecture comes into being only anti-NEPman rhetoric. Bukharin, equally
when the whole thing springs to life as a spatial naturally, supported peasant writing. Trotsky
idea, as a form that exercises a definite effect supported the `fellow-travellers' and Voronsky,
on our psyche. To do this it is not enough to be the editor of Krasnaya Nov, though he also
a modern man; it is necessary for the architect expressed considerable sympathy with the
to possess a complete mastery of the expressive functionalist element in Constructivism and
means of architecture'. Lissitzky had been a came out with moderate praise for Mayakovsky
colleague of Malevich in Vitebsk during the and for LEF. (He criticized the Tatlin tower,
period of 'heroic communism' and never shed however, for being perverse, without a clear
his influence, strengthened and re-defined by functional logic.) Trotsky clearly felt some
his association with the architect Ladovsky, affinity with the production-mania side of
who taught at the VKHUTEMAS. He puts Futurism and Constructivism and he had
clearly the problem of an architect, conscious always been a defender of the need for the
of the appeal of functionalism but still attached Soviet state to tolerate and utilize 'bourgeois'
to the idea of art. intellectuals and specialists -though unlike,
It might have seemed that the functionalist say, Lunacharsky, he was prepared to discipline
current was destined to triumph in the end. (It them if they stepped too far out of line.
was a team of OSA architects, functionalist- In retrospect, it can be seen that contrary
constructivists, who built the Dnieper Dam, to the appearances of the time, accommodation
centrepiece of the Five-Year Plan.) Yet this with the peasantry was a short-term policy.
7 Kasimir Malevich was not so. To understand why not it is Sooner or later, an onslaught on the kulaks was
Suprematist Composition: White on White 1918 necessary to go back and take up the threads of on the agenda and when it came, it was savage,
8 Alexander Rodchenko the history of the Proletcult movement. After determined and decisive. It was during this
Black on Black 1918
the introduction of NEP, after Lenin's reproof period of collectivization that the 'proletarian'
9 Alexander Rodchenko to Lunacharsky had been delivered and funds current was once again revived. As during the
Girl with Leica 1932
photograph for the Proletcult had been severely cut back, period of heroic communism, the working class
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