Music in a ‘classless society’: Activities of members and ‘fellow travelers’ of communist party of Yugoslavia on the construction of conceptual and practical basis of the new musical order
Authors: Vesic Ivana 
Published: May 2012

On account of its illegal status in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the CPY
underwent many transformations in its organizational structure and methods of
political struggle during the 1920s and 1930s. Although there are different
periodizations of the pre-Second World war history of the CPY, most
historiographers designate as most important moments the termination of the
five-year long dictatorship of King Aleksandar in 1934 and the implementation
of new policies in Comintern in 1935. After that, the CPY began very dynamic
political campaigning attempting to reach different parts of the population
which affected the definition and application of its cultural policies.
Closer alignment with the leftist element of the field of culture created
fertile ground for the construction of a broad cultural programme as well as
the institutional circuit that enabled the implementation of some of its
parts. A group of music specialists among the left-oriented cultural actors
contributed to the process of the conceptual and practical articulation of
the parts of the programme regulating musical practice. The so-called ?left
music front? activists developed plural perspectives in the discussion of the
music order in a classless society, interpreting the problem of the
popularization of high-art music as well as the emancipation of proletarian
music from different ideological positions. In that process they leaned on a
specific version of the canon of composers both in the local and
international music traditions and also on a historical narrative grounded in
a dialectical materialism that was deduced from the Soviet model of the
history of music. At the dawn of the Second World War, ?left music front?
became more homogenized which was the result of strict ideological
disciplining of members of the CPY in that period. Unlike the leftist segment
of the literary field in which party policies were strongly opposed and
criticized publicly, there were no ideological conflicts of that sort in its
musical counterpart. Because of strict political control of the public
sphere, activists of the ?left music front? had difficulties in the
implementation of their cultural programme. They focused mostly on cultural
work within workers` and students` organizations and societies that gave them
an opportunity to promote in the public some of the core concepts of that
programme. Although the activities in the abovementioned organizations gave
modest results in the process of the institutionalization of the CPY`s
cultural policies, they could be seen as an important basis for the
development of musical practices after the Second World War. Together with
other artistic projects in the leftist part of the cultural field, the
musical undertakings of the members and ?fellow travellers? of the CPY
contributed to the pluralisation and differentiation of that field, creating
an alternative understanding of the production of music as well as of
cultural policies on music.