# Literature and Revolution

* This article is part of a series aboutLeon Trotsky
Personal
Childhood and family
Train
House Museum
Russian political activities
First exile
Russian Revolution of 1905
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
Russian Civil War
Trade-union debate
Kronstadt rebellion
Scissors Crisis
Deposition
Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites"
American Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky
Dewey Commission
Assassination
perpetrator
Political ideology
Leninism
Democratic centralism
Trotskyism
orthodox
Anti-Stalinist left
Soviet democracy
United Front
Worker's control
Affiliations
Left Opposition
United Opposition
Fourth International
Bibliography
Our Political Tasks
Our Revolution
1905
The Permanent Revolution and Results and Prospects
Terrorism and Communism
Trotsky's Military Writings
Literature and Revolution
New Course
Lessons of October
Towards Socialism or Capitalism?
Leon Trotsky on China
My Life
The Permanent Revolution
History of the Russian Revolution
The Revolution Betrayed
The Stalin School of Falsification
Their Morals and Ours: The class foundations of moral practice
The Transitional Program
Stalin: An Appraisal of the Man and His Influence
Writings of Leon Trotsky
The Spanish Revolution, 1931-1939
The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany
In Defence of Marxism :
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Literature and Revolution (Russian: Литература и революция) is a work of literary criticism from the Marxist standpoint written by Leon Trotsky in 1924. By discussing the various literary trends that were around in Russia between the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, Trotsky analyzed the concrete forces in society, both progressive as well as reactionary, that helped shape the consciousness of writers at the time.
In the book, Trotsky also argued that since the dawn of civilization, art had always borne the stamp of the ruling class and was primarily a vehicle that expressed its tastes and sensibilities. Nonetheless, he went on to argue against the seemingly obvious conclusion that after a proletarian revolution, the proletariat as a ruling class should, therefore, strive to create its own proletarian art.
To illustrate this, he points out that the bourgeoisie as a class had time and resources to form its culture long before the bourgeois revolutions in Europe in the 19th century, while the proletariat, by its position in society, is deprived not only of culture but primarily of the material means to attain it. Therefore, unlike previous revolutions in history, the proletariat takes power not to install itself as a ruling class forever and hence create its own distinct culture but to create a society in which the existence of classes is materially impossible. Therefore, the task of the proletariat in power with respect to art after seeing to the more pressing needs of daily life (one must not forget Russia was a war-torn backward country) is to assimilate all the cultural achievements of the past and lay the foundations for a truly classless and human culture and art in the future. Trotsky's conviction of the heights human beings can reach once the fetters of oppression are thrown asunder is illustrated by the following quote from the book:
   It is difficult to predict the extent of self-government which the man of the future may reach or the heights to which he may carry his technique. Social construction and psycho-physical self-education will become two aspects of one and the same process. All the arts – literature, drama, painting, music and architecture will lend this process beautiful form. More correctly, the shell in which the cultural construction and self-education of Communist man will be enclosed, will develop all the vital elements of contemporary art to the highest point. Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser and subtler; his body will become more harmonized, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will rise.

## Scholarly evaluation

In a comprehensive survey of Trotsky’s political thought, political scientist Baruch Knei-Paz argued that Trotsky’s writings on cultural matters as evident in Literature and Revolution "were undoubtedly amongst the most informed and enlightened within the Bolshevik leadership". Yet, Knei-Paz added that an underlying limitation of Trotsky’s analysis was that he premised the overall legitimacy of art on the basis of a political criteria.