The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-11-01
lola: The Significance
of His Writings
On the 30th Anniversary of the Death of the
Famous French Writer
ton and not vice versa.

ton and not vice versa.
This statement that zola's break
ing through the conventions of the
novel resulted from the substance
of his work, is most convincingly
confirmed by the fact that precisely
those novels of his dealing with the
Rougon-Marcquart family had a
rousing, in fact sensational, effect;
they tore aside the curtains Gorn
certain conditions in bourgeois So
ciety which up to then had re-
najued hidden. 1t was the novel
"L'assOmmoir DRINK which made
Zola famous at one stroke. Zola's
success, however, was not case Of
luck. 1t was much rather the mer-
tied success of a diScoverer. In
az aSsommoir" he discovered the
working -cIaSs, their environment,
their life, their cares and sorrows.
Il is not of decisive Importance that
Eola only succeeded in penetrating
the slum quarters and the haunts of
drunkenness, and passed over the
class conscious and fighting worker.
1t was not until much later that the
there dawned on him the problem
of class society. Nevertheless, and
this is the important thing. Zola's
description of the misery and COL
lapse of the worker Coupeau and
his wife. Gervais had stirring
effect on broad masses and led them
first to an understanding of the
social struggles of the present.
DESCRIBED LIFE
OF MINERS
zola's novel of the life of the
miners, "Germinal," was a further,
and bold advance into a new social
land. Even if here also he went to
work with painful reserve in order
not to write as moralist and poll
tician but only as an epic writer,
he could not do otherwise than lay
his finger CD the frightful social
wounds and involuntarily-in de-
Scribing the strike wrote as a
moralist, in fact as a socialist.
lola reached the pinnacle of his
fame with his novel, MANA" On
the day it appeared $1,000 copies
were sold. This success also is not
surprising. In scarcely any other
work does lola describe so drastic
ally the rotteneSs and commencing
disintegration of bourgeois circles as
in this book. This novel had above
all disintegrating effect on the
whole of bourgeois society and shook
the self-confidence of the bour-
geoisie, whilst it inspired its grave
diggers with courage.
HISTORICAL MATERIALISM
IN ART FORM
zola's series of novels on the
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT family and his
later works, Three cities, 'Iour-
des," Rome" and paris already
permeated with social criticism, are
in perception a piece of historical
materialism in the form of art.
This perception came to lola himself
at the time when the fight against
naturalism became the slogan of the
French literary world, and when he
was abandoned by his fellow
writer's. Eight against naturalisIn."
was of course, only a concealing
slogan; behind it there was hidden
reaction. The clinging to bourgeois
society, the defence of the Church,
barracks and exploitation, led to the
fight against naturalism, behind
which there was rightly scented,
socialism and revolution. lola did
not give way here. The DreyfuSS
affair, in which the corrupt sys-
tenn of the bourgeois State produced
blossom of a special kind, con-
verified lola into a socialist and
fighter.
AT the end of his life lola had
n advanced SO far that he de-
clared: after long portrayal Of
reality it is now necessary to work
for the morrow" In his novel
Work" he shows the aim, the Or
gained socialist society. He want
ed, however, to point the way. He
declared ION the one side the
Conservatives, the people of the
past, on the other side the people
of the future, the Revolutionares."
He wished to throw in his lot with
the revolutionaries. The book on
which he was engaged when death
took the pen from his fingers was
to help to open a new period OF
the fight of the working people.