Page 38 - Studio International - April 1971

6 Constantine Yuon
Parade in the Red Square 193o
Oil on canvas
7 Isaac Brodsky
Lenin at the Smolny 193o
Oil on canvas
8 Serge Gerassimov
Pledge of the Siberian Partisans 1933
Oil on canvas
Coll : Central Museum of the Red Army

used. By 1924, their campaign was effectively gave to the laws of art a certain amount of pride in a small, dedicated party, detached from
successful. In literature the group which was independence. His view of art provided on the incentives to power and imbued with a real
soon to become RAPP, the Russian Association one hand for a 'social' content, i.e. whether the socialist ideology, and also in contrast to Lenin's
of Proletarian Writers, and in the visual arts work is in tune with the most progressive stress on the need for a slow advance into new
AHRR, the Russian Association of Revolutionary movements in society, and on the other for fields — 'Better Less But Better' —Stalin
Artists, gained open support from the party and formal skill, the 'aesthetic' content, defined in inaugurated the 'Lenin enrolment' into the
control in their respective fields. terms of the suitability of form to subject. Since party of skilled men, who 'now entered it not to
To explain why theorists of proletarian the only formally skilled artists in Russia at that overthrow the old order or to demand new rights,
culture, in opposition to proclaimed party time were the fellow-travellers, the proletarians but to conserve an established organization
policy of free competition in the arts, and in found such an idea hard to accept. and to enjoy the privileges of participation in
contradiction to Lenin's views on the Voronsky was the leading representative of it'.42 'The Lenin enrolment opened fresh
development of culture in general, should have Plekhanov's views at this time. He was the inducements of self-interest to wider class ...
been so rapidly successful, we have to look at editor of Red Virgin Soil, the nearest the privileges now for the first time began to
the struggle for political power in the party, publication to an 'official' party magazine, in the assume a predominantly material form.'"
before, and most obviously after, Lenin's death field of literature and art, during the years 1921 Stalin in fact reinforced the bureaucracy,
in 1924. For both Lenin and Trotsky, as we to 1927. An old Bolshevik, he was never an and with it a system of privileged division of
have seen41, talk of a proletarian culture in the adherent of proletarian culture, believing that, labour which, by 1932, applied to the artist as
Fine Arts was absurd: only the global victory of in a transitional period, it was important to act well. At this point there are only the seeds of
the proletariat could lay the foundations of such as an outlet for the best writing of the time, the later situation, but it is noteworthy that
a culture. Stalin, however, was increasingly regardless of the ideology of its creator. He Stalin's language in his eulogy of Lenin is
determined to limit the ambitions of the party believed in art as an independent activity, and already filled with the false heroics of the
to 'socialism in one country', and implicit in outraged the proletarians by his suggestion of socialist realist style. 'The relation of the party
such an idea is the acceptance of a theory of an intuitive 'core' in the artist which perceives to Lenin was depicted as that of humble
proletarian culture. and transmutes reality in a more accurate and disciples honouring and obeying their founder,
The struggle between Trotsky and Stalin useful way than a programmatic art based on their law-giver, the hope of the dispossessed
had other effects on art theory. Increasingly correct ideology. For Voronsky art was a means and despised throughout the world. The
ideas were used purely as slogans in the service of cognition of life, not a means of organizing a hard-headed analysis of Marx had given place
of conflicting groups, and there was a general class. to a devotional appeal.' 44 Stalin used phrases
vulgarization of Marxism which had its parallel With the rejection of the ideas of Trotsky, such as : 'There is nothing higher than the
in art ideas. Secondly, it became a useful tactic Voronsky and Plekhanov, and the first honour of belonging to this army.... Sons of
to accuse Trotsky, and, by implication, all who beginnings of socialism in one country, is it the working class, sons of need and strife, sons
shared his ideas, of 'Menshevik idealism'. perhaps now possible to see why the proletarians of unexampled privations and heroic strivings—
Trotsky in the early years of the century had gained their victory. Artistic detachment, the such as the men who, first and foremost, are
been a Menshevik, and a late adherent to the idea of art as a separate form of knowledge with fitted to be members of such a party'.45
Bolshevik party. The leader of the Mensheviks its own laws and techniques, all this was It is worth noting that although the
had been Plekhanov, whose Art and Social Life rejected, and the idea of art as an ideological implication of a Socialist Realist style existed
was still the longest and most clear-cut Marxist weapon of the proletariat soon to develop into in the political and artistic situation after 1924,
analysis of the relationship of art and society. an ideological weapon of the party—was it did not become official party policy until
Now that Plekhanov was to be rejected, along accepted. 1932. Until then art-theory in the
with Trotsky, his theories also came under Stalin's policy immediately after gaining the party-supported groups of RAPP in literature
attack. The importance of this lies in his power to influence political events was to and AHRR in the visual arts was still attempting
essentially Marxist position. He was sufficiently strengthen and enlarge the party bureaucracy, to create an art genuinely based on the
orthodox to have shared Lenin's ideas about the control of which was the source of his assimilation of dialectical materialism (an idea
proletarian culture, and, more importantly, he political strength. In direct contrast to Lenin's to which much Socialist Realist theory pays
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