The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-12-03

GlOIlS Oh Lfl6 luGelllSciOold al oOliiS-
what off the line"
Some of them, indeed, who had
shared the workers experience in the
days of civil war were able to inter
pref the emotions Of those days with
power as we'll as perfection of form.
For instance, in Veressaev's "The
Deadlock" (Which is in an English
translation) one feels the primitive
force and creativeness of the Revolu-
ton graphing cumbrously with the
old order, brushing aside like flies
the impotent theories and ideals of
well-meaning "intelligentsia." The
conflict is here less impersonal thar
in Libedinsky, and is shown as reflec
ted in individual feeling and con
flicts; but the spirit of the Revolu
ton is there, unadorned, gargantua1
and real.
Some of this group, however, par
ticularly the younger among them
reacting violently against the circum
stances of their birth and the trad
lions which had formerly held then
in thrall, sought in an ecstasy of re
lease to out-revolutionize the revolu
ton. They were anarchists in the
cultural sphere: old forms, old trad
tions must be scrapped and the elias
sizes must be banished to museums
Some of the new forms and rhythm
which these "Leftist" experiment
produced had particular interest. The
ecstasy of breaking all ties with the
past produced several work ks of high
artistic value, such as those of the
peasant poet Yessenin and the futur-
list Mayakovslzy. But as Trotsky
says of the futurists:-
"Futurism carried the features of
it's social origin, bourgeois Bohemia,
into the new stage of its development
A Bohemian nihilism exists
in the Futurist rejection of the past,
but not proletarian revolutionism.
We Marxists live in tradition, and
we have not stopped being revolu-
tionists on account of it The
working class does not have to, and
cannot, break with literary tradition,
because the working class is not in
the grip of such tradition. The work
ing class does not know the old liter
ature, it still has to commune with II
to master Pushkin to absorb him anu
overcome him."
Present-day art in Russia is, there
fore, transitional: like Russia's eco
Monies it is at present a mixture of
various streams. AS the confusion of
a transition period passes into the
completer, more homogeneous society
of the future, these various currents
are likely to merge to form a Social
ist art.
Meanwhile Communist criticism ex-
ercises a selective judgment among
this transitional variety. This it does
by taking, not merely the usual cri-
terion as to perfection of form but
also judgment as to value as con-
stituent of a new art adapted to the
new order. To judge art by this cri-
terion is recognition of the fact
recognition possible only to the
Marxist- that art is product of So
cial conditions. Art, is the formula
ton of complex emotions in symbols,
and it is successful to the extent that
those symbols (be they sounds, color,
lines or words) have sufficient gen
crafty and similarity of appeal to
awake a similar complex of emotions
in the minds of others. Il. A. Rich
ards in his Theory of Literary Cri-
ticism" says that it evokes in the
nervous system a complex of "atti-
tudes" or incipient impulses to ac-
tion). The deeper the layer ESQ to
speak) of emotions which these SYM
bols touch, and the fuller the gamut
of emotions stimulated or released by
the symbol, the more powerful the
art. Art will have value in so lar as
it "systematises" emotions and gives
them more harmonious and effective
than they would otherwise
have had. Since emotions are the
result of experience, and the richest
of them the product of social expert
ence, new society, with new expert
ences and relationships, will require
a new art. Sine the new art, to full
fill its social function and to have
value and permanence, must, there
fore, be adapted to the new society,
one can Judge work of art from this
point of view; and in this sense one
can speak of Socialist art and con-
help in it's creation.
We in this country are still too
by circumstance to pre-
sent an alternative as yet to bour-
geois art. Our efforts in this sphere
are necessarily confined to political
satire through the workers theatre
to songs and verses and
cartoons. Isolated attempts of writ
ers, close to the proletariat, there
may be to anticipate the future, and
express the class Struggle in art, such
as Toller's plays and Martinets
Might" Some may try to interpret
the new Russia through the eyes of
an observer, like Ralph Fox in "The