Lenin’s Struggle against Wrong Tendencies in Literature & Art: Copying Western Modernist Art
January 2008
Author Prof. Zhou Zhonghou is from School of Liberal Arts, Renmin University of China, Beijing
Lenin adhered to the Marxism when leading the Soviet Union’s literary and art work. When criticizing wrong tendencies, Lenin waged a battle against two wrong tendencies. Lenin was against the proletarian culture school and also criticized copying Western modernism, both the “leftist” and the rightist tendencies. An analysis of Lenin’s theories and practices of fighting against the wrong tendencies will be made in two aspects, i.e., his resistance of the Prolecult and his critique of copying modernism.
Speaking of Lenin’s resistance of the proletarian culture school, the proletarian culture school was a school composed of the Prolecult organizations. Prolecult was a cultural and educational group set up in September 1917.
At the time, it declared itself to be an independent workers’ organization which was not administered by the Kerensky Ministry of National Education. After the October Revolution, many workers joined it with enthusiasm with the purpose of building the proletarian culture. In 1919, it developed rapidly to cover the entire nation. It’s estimated that it had about 400,000 members. It’s under such a situation that alien class elements mobbed it. Machist Bogdanov took the chance to take its leadership. He himself held the leading position of Prolecult, and his supporters held some important positions therein. They spread a series of ultra-leftist theories and adopted a whole set of wrong practices. Targeting at the ultra-leftist theories and practices of the proletarian culture school, Lenin waged a battle of principle in the following several aspects.
To start with, Lenin solved the issue about Party leadership over the proletarian culture school. Proletcult highlighted independence and getting rid of the jurisdiction of the Ministry of National Education during the Kerensky period, which was of positive significance before the October Revolution. After the October Revolution, the proletariat set up its own power, but the Proletcult insisted on “independence”, which was obviously an expression of trying to get rid of and resist Party leadership.
It’s of no positive significance at all. What’s more, it played a negative, even reactionary role. Lenin criticized some of its leaders for their theories and practices “to remain isolated in self-contained organizations, to draw a line dividing the field of work of the People’s Commissariat of Education and the Proletcult, or to set up a Proletcult ‘autonomy’ within establishments under the People’s Commissariat of Education and so forth.” He asked “the Congress enjoins all Proletcult organizations to fully consider themselves in duty bound to act as auxiliary bodies of the network of establishments under the People’s Commissariat of Education, and to accomplish their tasks under the general guidance of the Soviet authorities (specifically, of the People’s Commissariat of Education) and of the Russian Communist Party, as part of the tasks of the proletarian dictatorship” (Selected Works of Lenin, 3rd edition, vol.4, p.299).
The above is a passage from the draft resolution drawn by Lenin for the Proletcult Congress held in October 1920. Lenin asked the Proletcult organizations to accept Party leadership, accomplish their tasks under the general guidance of the People’s Commissariat of Education and become part of it. Lenin had expressed the same meaning to Lunacharsky, member of the People’s Commissariat of Education. Later Proletcult reorganized itself following Lenin’s instruction. While criticizing the proletarian culture school for insisting on “autonomy”, Lenin criticized Lunacharsky for the latter’s the concession on this issue of principle.
Then Lenin held that it was the Marxist world outlook instead of Machism which should be adopted to guide the building of the proletarian culture. Bogdanov, representative of the proletarian culture school, used to be a faithful believer of Machism.
The reactionary philosophical idea of Empirio-Criticism which Bogdanov advocated was once ruthlessly criticized by Lenin. The Machist philosophy of subjective idealism denied the existence of the objective reality beyond human mind.
According to the Machists, the world exists only in people’s perception and concepts, and it is a sum of human feelings. Bogdanov’s Machism, though having been criticized by Lenin before the October Revolution, saw the reduction of none of its popularity with Bogdanov. After the October Revolution, Bogdanov smuggled the Machist philosophy. Instead of viewing art as a special way adopted by human beings to reflect the world, Bogdanov viewed it as a means of “organizational experience”, i.e., being irrelevant to the objective reality and to people’s subjective sensation reflected by the objective reality.
Bogdanov advocated rebuilding “a pure proletarian culture”, departing from life and the reality, and inventing culture in “the lab way”. As early as before the October Revolution, Bogdanov had begun to invent a “particular brand of culture” following the Machist philosophy. His novel Red Star is a bizarre story made up by him in his study. After reading it, Lenin satirized, “That author in our country somewhat cheated us. His Mars beauty is by no means intact. It seems that his principle is probably ‘an encouraging lie is better than tens of millions of humble truths’” (Collected Works of Lenin, 2nd Chinese edition, vol.53, p. 311, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1988).
In refusal of Lenin’s critiques, Bogdanov stopped fabricating lies to replace the truths, but began to resist practice with the so-called experiments after the October Revolution. The Prolecult members were stubborn in that they claimed that the proletariat should separate itself from the real life and the struggles it’s launched for building socialism, but build its own literature and art in the lab, art rooms and studios.
They proclaimed, “The proletariat club is the factory for the proletariat to manufacture their own culture”, “art rooms train people to create new art forms and build new ways of scientific thinking”, “in these art rooms, it’s better to compare them to labs (which is normally seen). Here sees the experiments to explore new cultural fruits in a special and partly artificial environment.” The proletarian culture school artists separated themselves from life and practice, and isolated themselves in the lab of “creation”, creating a group of abstract and ashy works. In the preface he wrote for the 2nd-edition Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Lenin pointed out that Bogdanov smuggled the bourgeois reactionary views in the name of “proletarian culture”. In December 1920, when meeting Walken, Lenin also pointed out that some people attempted to influence the proletariat by smuggling alien ideologies and ideas through Prolecult. Obviously, he meant the smuggling of the Machist philosophy by Bogdanov and his like. In On Proletarian Culture, Lenin criticized “all attempts to invent one’s own particular brand of culture, to remain isolated in self-contained organizations”. ③ (Selected Works of Lenin, 3rd edition, vol.4, p. 299)
In 1922, Lenin once again refuted this view with strength. He criticized Pletnev for the latter’s comparing the building of the proletarian culture to an experimental course in article On the Ideological Front.
He also criticized Machism, the philosophical foundation of the proletarian culture school, believing it a must to guide the development of the proletarian culture with Marxism. In his words, “All the experience of modern history and, particularly, the more than half-century-old revolutionary struggle of the proletariat of all countries since the appearance of the Communist Manifesto has unquestionably demonstrated that the Marxist world outlook is the only true expression of the interests, the viewpoint, and the culture of the revolutionary proletariat” ③.
After that, Lenin criticized the historical nihilism held by the proletarian culture school toward cultural heritage. The proletarian culture school despised the classical cultural heritages. Kirrilov, the proletarian cultural school poet, wrote in the poem
We,
We are fanatic, we are pugnacious
We are crazy about
Hearing people shouting at us,
“You killers, you kill beauty!”
For our tomorrow-
We are to burn Raphael into ashes,
To destroy all museums,
And to crumble the flower of art underfoot.”
(Quoted from Zheng Yifan: A Debate over Cultural Inheritance published in People’s Daily, September 29, 1980)
Some proletarian culture school writer, with an ultra-leftist stance, claimed without any reservation that “no inheritance relationship” was needed between the “new” and the “old” creation (Quoted from Lenin and the Issues on the Russian Literature, 1st edition, p. 440).
They also yelled “to throw Pushkin, Tolstoy and some other writers off the ship of real life”, “to tear and crash the old art forms from the earth”. Targeting at the historical nihilism held by the proletarian culture school, Lenin reiterated, “Proletarian culture must be the logical development of the store of knowledge mankind has accumulated under the yoke of capitalist, landowner and bureaucratic society.” (Selected Works of Lenin, 3rd edition, vol.4, p. 285)
“Marxism has won its historic significance as the ideology of the revolutionary proletariat because, far from rejecting the most valuable achievements of the bourgeois epoch, it has, on the contrary, assimilated and refashioned everything of value in the more than two thousand years of the development of human thought and culture. Only further work on this basis and in this direction, inspired by the practical experience of the proletarian dictatorship as the final stage in the struggle against every form of exploitation, can be recognized as the development of a genuine proletarian culture.” (Ibid, p. 299)
Lenin criticized the wrong advocacy of the proletarian culture school to deny historical traditions and serve national cultural and historical traditions, holding that only by inheriting historical heritage could the proletarian culture be developed.
Lenin also criticized the wrong idea of the proletarian culture school on the aims of culture. In 1918, in his letter to the presidium of the Proletarian Cultural and Educational Organizations Conference, Lenin brought forth the political task faced by the Prolecult. He held the shortcoming of the Prolecult to be its rare association of its work with the general political task of struggle and its ignorance of helping the people to raise their awareness, training and improving the workers to hold the state power through the Soviet. Nevertheless, a few Prolecult leaders were in defiance of the task put forward by Lenin. Till 1920, In On Proletarian Culture, Lenin pointed out that the Prolecult organizations must “accomplish their tasks…as part of the tasks of the proletarian dictatorship”,
“…be imbued with the spirit of the class struggle being waged by the proletariat for the successful achievement of the aims of its dictatorship, i.e., the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the abolition of classes, and the elimination of all forms of exploitation of man by man” (Selected Works of Lenin, 3rd edition, vol.4, pp. 298-299).
The culture built by the proletarian culture school was not for serving people, even far away from the people. Poet Kirrilov wrote that if a work was not understood, it would not be able to extensively comprehended, but it may not be unfortunate; that trying to make him popular with people was a fault rather than a merit in a poet. The proletarian culture school writers and artists tried every means to create some art which was not understood by the people, and did not present the advanced ideas and thoughts of the people. As early as in Party Organization and Party Literature, Lenin had pointed out that art “…will serve…the millions and tens of millions of working people”.
Lenin criticized the proletarian culture school for the tendency of divorcing with the people. He said, “Art belongs to the people.” That is to say, it must have the most profound root in the grassroots working masses. It must be understood and loved by the masses; it must be based on the feelings, ideas and will of these people; and it must be able to arouse the arts from among the masses before helping them get developed.
Lastly Lenin criticized the sectarianism held by the proletarian culture school. What the proletarian culture school advocated was sectarianism and self-isolationism. Lenin criticized the sectarianism held by the proletarian culture school for many times. In his notes on On the Ideological Front, Lenin criticized this bad tendency of theirs in a more concentrated way. When reading Pletnev’s “only with the power of the proletariat itself could the task of building the proletarian culture be completed” (Lenin on Literature and Art (II), 1st edition, p770), he double underlined “itself” and wrote besides it, “What about the peasants?” When reading “the ship of the revolution could be ‘built’ only with ‘our own strength’”, “the proletarian class awareness” was “out of dune with the peasants, capitalists and intellectuals, i.e., the doctors, jurists and engineers trained following the capitalist principle of competitions” (Ibid, p771), he annotated, “What about the percentage of building the ship?” Lenin criticized the proletarian culture school for rejecting the peasants and the intellectuals. When reading “the task to build the proletarian culture could be completed only by the proletariat itself and the scientists, artists and engineers of a proletarian background”, he annotated, “Fully apocryphal” (Ibid, p. 774).
Secondly, when criticizing the proletarian culture school, Lenin picked on the copying modernist thought on literary and art. After the October Revolution, when the proletarian culture school developed at large, the copying modernist thought on literature and art also became widely speculated, which “brews chaos, feverishly seeks new slogans, announces today to ‘celebrate’ the art and thinking in the field of a faction and cries to ‘crucify’ it the next day”. Lenin’s theories and practices of fighting against the copying modernist trend of thought on literature and art will be introduced next in five aspects.
Firstly, Lenin was against the copying modernist thought on literary and art from the angle of resisting the influence of the bourgeois ideas. Copying modernism appearing in the Soviet Republic was a bourgeois trend of thought which was totally transplanted from the Western modernist ideology, and it was a rightist trend of thought. This trend of thought gave birth to a muddy and perturbed flood of vulgar novels and porn works of art. At the time, “the glass of water theory” appeared in literary and art works, which claimed that till the communist society, it would become as normal and easy as drinking a glass of water to meet the demand for love and sex. These lustful literary and artistic works annoyed Lenin very much. He said that it was not allowed to publicize the promiscuous behaviors between men and women in the revolution, that the sensuality of the sexual life was a decayed bourgeois phenomenon, and that it was not right to let the ideological chaos develop freely. In his words, “We can never sit by and let the chaos spread freely. We must make conscious efforts to lead the development and to form and determine its results.” (Lenin on Literature and Art (II), 1st edition, p. 434)
Secondly, Lenin criticized the copying of Western modernist thought on literature and art from the sense of beauty and artistry. He said, “I have the courage to show myself a ‘barbarian’. I can’t value the works of the expressionism, futurism, cubism and other isms as the highest expression of artistic genius. I don’t understand them. They give me no pleasure.” (Lenin on Literature and Art, 1st edition, p. 136, Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House, 1959)
That is to say, copying modernism art brought to Lenin no pleasure. At a concert, Lenin was sitting in the front several rows. When an actress recited the lines from Mayakovsky’s poem, i.e., “Our God/Is running/The heart/Is our drum”, she approaching Lenin, and Lenin sat there, being embarrassed out of expectation. It was not until another actor replaced the actress and began to recite Chekhov’s The Evildoer that Lenin felt released (Ibid, p. 120).
This copying modernist art performance gave Lenin no esthetic pleasure. He criticized Mayakovsky’s copying futurist poem by saying “barking, bellowing, fabricating some strange words, and nothing in his poems is necessary, being, in my opinion – not necessary and difficult to understand. Everything is disjointed and difficult to read” (Ibid, p. 134).
When visiting Higher Crafts and Arts School in 1921, Lenin talked with the students his opinions on resisting the copying modernist thought on literature and art. He pointed out that the enthusiasm in modernism also had an unconscious worship over the dominating trend of art in Western Europe. The blind worship of the Western modernist art served as one reason to explain why the copying modernist thought on literature and art was popular in the Soviet Republic. Lenin judged the worship as “ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous”! His thought on breaking the worship over theWestern modernism played a great role in promoting the development of socialist literature and art.
Thirdly, Lenin criticized the copying of modernist thought on literature and art from the angle that “art belongs to the people”.
Lenin held “Our opinion on art is not important”, and he did “not take the personal esthetic likes and dislikes as the leading ideas”. It’s from the angle of divorcing with the people and the masses that Lenin criticized the copying modernist thought on literature and art. He pointed out that both the workers and the peasants “have the right to true, great art”. Hence, before everything else, wide popular education and instruction needed launching. “They are the cultural soil-assuming the bread assured, on which a truly new, great will grow up, a Communist art, arranging its forms according to its content” (Lenin on Literature and Art, 1st edition, p438). The ideology of the masses restricts the development of art. People need art to not only contain the communist ideas and contents, but also have the corresponding forms. The masses were against the copying of modernist thought on literature and art, and asked for the socialist and communist art. Their opinions were the foundation for the Party to formulate its policies, also for the Party to formulate its policies on the copying modernist thought on literature and art. It’s rightly because it had no root in the masses that the copying modernist thought on literature and art saw a short life in the Soviet Republic.
Fourthly, Lenin criticized the copying of Western modernist thought on literature and art from the angle of critically inheriting heritage.
It has to be mentioned that Lenin did not resist all foreign literature and art. He advocated critically inheriting the foreign literary and cultural heritage. Lenin once signed an order to nationalize Sukin Art Gallery. In the order, he pointed out that the gallery “has collected the extremely precious works created by the great artists in Europe, of which most were created by the French masters at the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries. In terms of its high artistic value, the gallery is of a popular significance to the people’s educational cause” (Lenin on Literature and Art (II), 1st edition, p. 805).
After the October Revolution, the Communist Party and the Soviet Government, following Lenin’s ideas, preserved a large group of foreign literary and artistic heritage, including the modernist literary and artistic heritage. However like the proletarian cultural school, the copying modernist thought on literature and art adopted a nihilism attitude toward the literary and artistic heritage. Their artist claimed Pushkin, Tolstoy, Glinka and Repin to be “outdated figures”. They worshiped the guised Western European modernism while regarding the various modernist affections as the highest achievements. Lenin criticized the same nihilism attitude, pointing out that artists holding the copying modernist thought on literature and art denied the classical literary and art heritage, which was wrong. In the meanwhile, he resisted the innovation which was not made by critically inheriting the classical literary and artistic heritage.
Fifthly, Lenin not only criticized the copying modernist thought on literature and art in theory, but also waged a battle against it in practice. In 1920, Lenin got personally involved in making some measures to restrict the copying modernist thought on literature and art. He gave the publication of the modernist works his personal attention. In his letter to Lunacharsky, Lenin wrote, “Aren’t you ashamed to vote for printing 5,000 copies of Mayakovsky’s ‘150,000,000’? It is nonsense, stupidity, double-dyed stupidity and affectation. I believe such things should be published one in ten, and not more than 1,500 copies, for libraries and cranks.” (Lenin on Literature and Art, 1st edition, p. 363)
Long poem 150,000,000, in a bizarre form, reflected the poet’s ideological tendency of copying futurism in his earlier creation. Lenin criticized Lunacharsky for standing at the stance of copying futurist trend of literary and artistic thought, and notified him to limit the prints of the poem. On the same day, Lenin wrote another short letter to another commissar of the People’s Commissariat of Education Pokrovsky, in which he wrote, “Again and again, I request you to help us fight futurism, etc. 1) Lunacharsky has (alas!) got through the collegium the printing of Mayakovsky’s 150,000,000. Can’t we stop this? It must be stopped. Let’s agree that these futurists are to be published not more than twice a year and not more than 1,500 copies. 2) They say that Lunacharsky has once again driven out Kiselis, who is reputed to be a ‘realist’ artist, while directly and indirectly promoting a futurist. Could you find some reliable anti-futurists?” (Ibid, p. 364)
From this letter we can see how considerate Lenin was in organizing forces to fight against the copying modernist trend of thought on literature and art, and that Lenin advocated modernism.
In his attitude toward the copying of Western modernist trend of thought on literature and art, we can see that he aimed at reversing the then chaotic situation in the then literati to facilitate the socialist revolution and construction and the smooth development of the socialist cultural undertaking. It has to be admitted that his aim was later achieved.
However when reflecting on that period of history today, we have to see that the modernist literature and art and its trend was a very complex literary and art phenomenon. Different modernist schools had not only excellent works with advanced ideological tendencies, but also lamentable works with ideological decadence, presenting, to the utmost, both the weakness of denying traditions and of pushing some absurd means of art expression and the strength of boldly breaking the traditional techniques. As regards the foreign modernist schools, they all had shining spots worth analyzing and learning from, ideologically and artistically. Take an overall look at Lenin’s proposals to resist modernism, we may find that Lenin actually resisted copying the foreign modernist thoughts on literature and art. It’s not long after foreign modernism emerged that Lenin died. Since foreign modernism was still in its early development stage while Lenin was still alive, Lenin failed to have an overall understanding of it, thus failed to make an overall judgment on it. That copying modernist trend of thought on literature and art disappeared from the literati of the Soviet Republic mainly because of its own lethal weaknesses. However, the overall resistance and denial of foreign modernist literature and art in the Soviet Republic literati had something to do with Lenin’s attitude toward the copying modernist trend of thought on literature and art and the measures he took.
That Lenin was against the copying of modernist remarks was understood as his resistance against modernism; that the measures he took to restrict the copying modernist trend of thought on literature and art became measures to prohibit modernism. This must be remembered as a lesson. When Lenin fought against the copying of modernist trend of thought on literature and art and advocated modernism, it was read into simply allowing the existence of realism, not the modernist school in the Soviet Republic literati.
But we must accept that diversified styles and a number of literary and artistic trends of thought are needed in order to prosper literature and art. The practice of allowing simply the existence of the socialist modernist principle of creation later in the Soviet Republic was obviously undesirable. Take Mayakovsky for example, Mayakovsky shifted from the copying of Western modernist trend of thought on literature and art to socialist modernism and was the founder of the socialist modernist poems in Soviet Republic, but he still absorbed nutrients from the foreign futurist art he had pursued in the past, or he would never become the most talented poet with a distinct personality in the Soviet Republic. Later, refusing the modernist principle of literary and artistic creation was somewhat a loss.
In brief, from Lenin’s attitude and views on the critique of copying of Western modernist trend of thought on literature and art, we should have reached such an understanding, i.e., the Marxist theorists, thinkers and revolutionists all discussed literary and artistic issues under specific historical and objective conditions and at a cognitive level to which they could reach subjectively.
Hence it’s unavoidable that Marxist theorists, thinkers and revolutionists sometimes were biased and prejudiced. We should not avoid their opinions, nor demand perfection. When criticizing the copying of modernist trend of thought on literature and art, Lenin did see its inconsistence with the socialist revolution and construction and saw its own contradictions and weaknesses. However, I think that the prohibitive measures taken by Lenin to the modernist school should never be forgotten or repeated.
Though the proletarian culture school and the copying of modernist trend of thought on literature and art, both of which were opposed by Lenin, are two different trends of art thoughts with two totally different sets of theoretical systems, they have something in common, i.e., both are historical idealist and metaphysical in philosophy and both adhere to the views of philistine sociology.
In terms of literary and cultural heritage, both are surprisingly alike, etc. Some schools presenting the ultra-left or ultra-right trends seem to be completely different in form, but they have internal association in other aspects, thus may be transformed into one another under certain conditions. Therefore, when fighting against tendencies, we cannot resist one wrong tendency with another wrong one, but have to pay attention to the association between the “left” and the right and possible transformation under certain conditions.
Lenin’s theories on and practices of fighting against the proletarian culture school and his critique the copying modernist trend of thought on literature and art are his excellent contribution in the literary and artistic field after the October Revolution, also very valuable in the treasury of his esthetics and literary and artistic theories, which are of direct realistic significance even today.