Page 39 - Studio International - April 1971

veneer of formal manipulation-pale reflections
of Cézanne and other safe, pre-revolutionary
styles-since it was forced to reject the possibility
of including too much reality. This, in effect, is
what is meant by going beyond nineteenth-
century realism. In fact, Socialist Realism shares
with Constructivism an essentially idealist
approach to culture. It is the style of an
authoritarian bureaucracy which froze the
potential development of art in the Soviet Union
for political ends. In doing so it ensured that art
should lose contact with reality. Where the
Constructivists tried to give material existence
to pure, ideal forms, Socialist Realism is
concerned to idealize reality. The 'theories' of
Socialist Realism which followed the party
decision are merely the rationalization of this
process. q

lip-service), rather than simply on a method of the writer is completely subordinated
revolutionary romanticism. They still retained to his ideological orientation'.50 As late as 193o,
something of the idea of art as a way of Fadeev, a member of Averbakh's group, was
discovering truth, with a formula or method saying that 'We need an art which will assure a 1Bela Utz, Fifteen years of Art in the USSR.
International Literature, 1933, no. 4.
for the portrayal of the underlying laws of maximum cognition of objective reality in its '- "Ibid.
reality, while not abandoning the political movement and development in order to 16A. Lunacharski, 'The Role of the Proletarian State
function of art as a means of strengthening and transform it in the interests of the proletariat' 51, in the Development of Proletarian Culture'.
International Literature, 1934, no. 4.
extending the power of the proletariat. but it was already too late. No theoretical base 17E. Troschenko, 'Marx on Literature'. International
With the decision of the party in 1927 to existed as yet for such an art, and with the Literature, 1934, no. 9.
expand industry at a much faster rate and to rejection of the idea of art as in some way "Ibid.
collectivize agricultural production, the independent of ideology it was unlikely there
proletarian leaders in art proposed a cultural would be one. Secondly the time was coming 21A. Bassekhes in Art in the USSR, a special autumn
number of The Studio, 1935. Ed. C. G. Holme. The
five-year plan as a parallel to Stalin's Five-Year when the party would indicate strongly that it chapter on Painting.
Plan in the economic field. The proposal was for had little use for an art concerned to reveal "- "Ibid.
`a radical re-education of the entire Soviet reality, however Marxist its theories and hOwever "G. K. Loukomski, History of Modern Russian
Painting 1840-194o. Hutchinson and Co., P. 7.
people from top to bottom'46, affecting all proletarian its ideology.
'°Ibid. 41.
human habits, thoughts and emotions, through In 1932 all existing organizations in art and
`the assimilation into the social psyche of literature, and in many other fields, were 32Ibid. P 41.
P 4 1 .
socialist ideas, which then become part of dissolved and reorganized by the party. 'The
34Ibid. pp. 46-7.
subconscious reactions, perception and existing organizational structure in literature "L. Lozowick, chap. 5 of Voices of October. Ed. J.
intuition'.47 Now that NEP was over, the and the other arts no longer corresponded to the Freeman, J. Kunitz and L. Lozowick. N.Y. Vanguard
proletarians had come into their own, their new situation created by the movement of many Press, 393o p 277.
36 Voices of October. p 34.
theories of culture as an ideological weapon fellow-travellers to the side of the Soviet regime 37Ibid. p 35.
could be put to use. One of their main theorists during the First Five-Year Plan.' 52 It was now "From the first resolution of the First All-Russian
in literature was Averbakh, in whose plan felt to be useless to have proletarian groups Conference of Proletarian Cultural Educational
Organization proposed by A. A. Bogdanov. Translated
`cognition' (the analysis of 'the complex teaching workers to paint and write when they in G. Reavey and M. Sonim ed. Soviet Literature.
interaction of biological, sociological and could be working, and already 'a stratum of N.Y. 3 934. P 396.
"H. Ermolaev, Soviet Literary Theories 1917-34.
psychological factors')48 was to be used in the Government-supported writers' (and artists)
The Genesis of Socialist Realism. University of
service of 'infecting' a whole society with `was in the making.' 53 RAPP and AHRR had Californial Press, 1963. University of California
socialist ideals. The ultimate aim was the made two mistakes : they had been working Tor publications in Modern Philology. Vol. 69, p 23.
creation of a society of 'harmonious' men; that theory rather than producing art'54 and 'their "Ibid. p 29.
41 Cf. Andrew Higgens, 'Art and Politics in the
is, men with no inner contradictions because of authors were intent on revealing more truth Russian Revolution' (2 parts), Studio International,
their oneness with Soviet reality. This idea about Soviet conditions than the Party was November/December 1970.
55
echoes both the earlier 'Constructivist man' and inclined to permit'. 42 E. H. Carr, A History of Soviet Russia 1923-4. The
Interregnum. Penguin, 3969. p 362.
foreshadows Stalin's 'Collective man'. Socialist In essence, then, Socialist Realism adapted 43 Ibid.
Realism was an important tool in Stalin's efforts the crudest aspects of all the theorists of 44 ibid. p 354.
to make the Russians at one with Soviet reality. proletarian culture and turned them into party 45 Ibid.
H. Ermolaev, p 6o.
46
In fact the element of cognition in Averbakh's propaganda. It is hardly coincidental that the 47 Ibid. p 66.
theories was a chimera. He tacitly admits this forms of Socialist Realism in painting and 48 Ibid. p 321.
when he says "First of all I am a member of the sculpture echo the middle-class taste for realism 49 Ibid. p 122.
50 Ibid. p 334.
Party, and after that... a poet." With these which had dominated since NEP, when 51 Ibid.
words of Bezymensky one can characterize the increasingly since that time the party had been "Ibid. p 323.
54 Ibid. p 122.
entire On Guard movement'.49 He states the dominated by a meritocratic careerism. Nor is it
54 Ibid. p 324.
idea even more clearly when he says 'The artistic surprising that this realism was given a thin "Ibid. p 334.
159