Soviet Socialist Realism: Origins and Theory

Soviel Socialisl Realism

Origins and Theory

c. V AUGHAN JAMES
Senior Fellow in Language SJudies in Jhe Universily 0/ Sussex

Palgrave Macmillan
 © C. Vaughan James 1973
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1973
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without permission.

First published /973 by

THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basingstoke
Associated companies in New York Dublin
Me/boume /ohannesburg and Madras

ISBN 978-1-349-02078-2 ISBN 978-1-349-02076-8 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-02076-8
Contents

List 0/ Plates vi
I ntroduetion ix
1 ART AND THE PEOPLE

2 ART AND THE PARTY 15

3 A FEW DECREES ••• 38

4 SOCIALIST REALISM 84

Appendiees
I V. L. Unin, Party Organisation and Party Literature (1905) 103
11 V. I. Lenin, In Memory of Herzen (1912) 107
III (I) V. I. Lenin, On Proletarian Culture (draft resolution);
(2) On the Proletkults (letter from the Central Committee
of the Russian Communist Party, 1920) 112
IV On the Party's Poliey in the Field 01 Literature (resolution
of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist
Party (b), 18 June 1925) 116
V On the Reformation of Literary-Artistie Organisations
(decision of the Central Committee of the Russian
Communist Party (b), 23 April 1932) 120

Referenees and Notes 121

Seleeted Bibliography 138
Seleeted Index 143
List of Plates

betw~~n pages 50 and 51

I OFFICIAL RECEPTION FOR MAKSIM G6RKY
A friendly cartoon by the Kukryniksy on the occasion of G6rky's
return from abroad in 1928. Krasnaya Niva, No. 13, 1928
11 REPIN (1844-1930): The Zaporozhian Cossacks Write a Letter to
the Turkish Sultan (1891)
III PIMENOV (1903-): For Industrialisation! (1927)
IV DEINEKA (1899-1969): Defence of Petrograd (1928)
V J0 HA NSO N (1893-): At an Old Urals Works (1937)
VI YABLONSKAYA(I90o-): Grain (1949)
VII PLAST6v (1893-1973): The Tractormen's Dinner (1951)
VIII GERASIMOV (1881-1963): For the Power of the Soviets (1957)
IX SAGONEK (1919-): Morning (1960)
Agitation and propaganda acquire special edge and efficacy when
decked in the attractive and powerful forms of art.
Arts Seetion, Narkompros
& Rabis, 1921

In conformity with the interests of the working people and in order to

strengthen the socialist system, the citizens of the USSR are guaranteed
by law:
(a) freedom of speech;
(h) freedom of the press;
(e) freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings;
(d) freedom of street processions and demonstrations.
These civil rights are ensured by placing at the disposal of the working
people and their organisations printing presses, stocks of paper, public
buildings, the streets, communications facilities and other material re-
quisites for the exercise of these rights.
Constitution of the USSR 1936
(Article 125)

Agitation and propaganda conducted for the purpose of overthrowing or

weakening Soviet authority or for the commission of single especially
dangerous state crimes; the distribution for these same purposes of
slanderous inventions against the Soviet state and public structure, and
also the distribution or preparation of or possession for these same pur-
poses of literature having such a content shall be punished by deprivation
of freedom for a term of from 6 months to 7 years or exile for a term of
from 2 to 5 years.
lAw on Criminal Responsibility for
State Crimes, 25 Deeember 1958
Introduction
THE Western reader of Soviet literature is faced with a number of prob-
lems at severallevels. Quite apart from the linguistic barrier, the inacces-
sibility of sources, the lack of documentation and research, and the
piecemeal nature of most treatments, with the political attitudes that often
invest them, he encounters a whole philosophy that Unin, its prime
architect, described as 'alien and strange to the bourgeoisie and bourgeois
democracy'.l Brought up in a society that not only does not boast a widely-
accepted theory of the socio-political function of art but is, in the main,
ho stile to the very idea of the elaborat ion of such a theory, he is thrown
into dramatic confrontation with the 'artistic method' of Socialist Realism.
This, he learns, 'demands from the artist a true and historically concrete
depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. Moreover, this true
and historically concrete depiction of reality must be combined with the
task of educating the workers in the spirit of Communism.' 2 His bewil-
derment as to what this formula might mean will be rendered even greater
by being informed (as the reader of almost any Western history of Soviet
literature will be) that no less a personage than Mikhall Sh610khov,
winner of the Nobel Prize for literature and author of the universally
admired novels The Quiet Don (Tikhy Don) and Virgin Soil Upturned
(P6dnyataya tselinaJ, himself once proclaimed himself unable to say what
Socialist Realism was. 3 Yet without some unravelling of this mystery the
student will at best not completely understand, and at worst positively
misunderstand, a great deal of what he reads, hears or views.
Of course, the Western reader may prefer to judge Soviet writing only
by the 'universal' criteria by which he judges other literature; but an
important critical dimension may well be thought lacking if such writing
is not also regarded from the point of view of the explicit aesthetic criteria
of the society in which the author lives and writes. Certainly, any under-
standing of the scandales concerning such authors as Pasternak, Sinyavsky,
Daniel or Solzhenftsyn in anything but the crudest political terms is
rendered doubly difficult in the absence of detailed points of reference in
the sense of a grasp not only of the 'formula' of Socialist Realism but of
the principles that underlie it and, at least to some extent, of the history of
S.S.R.-I*
x INTRODUCTION

their evolution. The object of this present study is to contribute - however

modesdy - to providing a basis for such understanding and hence for
independent judgement.
Such an aim has naturally dictated much of the content of this book, in
which I have set out to present, in Chapters 1 (Art and the People) and
4 (Socialist Realism), abrief but fairly comprehensive survey of the Soviet
point of view. For this purpose I have made extensive use of Soviet
sources, in Russian, so that the arguments presented are those with which
the Soviet student is hirnself confronted. In these chapters I have restricted
my own comments to aminimum, and though my own convictions must
inevitably have influenced both my selection of material and its presenta·
tion, I am confident that the reader will have litde difficulty in applying
any necessary corrective interpretation.
Chapter 1 is a discussion of certain basic principles of Soviet aesthetics,
and Chapter 4 is a description of Socialist Realism which relies for its
clarity on a knowledge of those principles. Together they make up a
coherent whole, representing a summary of official Soviet attitudes since
the death of St:Hin in 1953. But whereas Chapters 1 and 4 are largely
descriptive, Chapters 2 and 3 are analytical and historical. A quite vital
element in the aesthetic system on which the method of Socialist Realism
is based is the principle of the writer's allegiance to the Communist Party
(partiinost'), which is extrapolated from Lenin's 1905 article, 'Party
Organisation and Party Literature', and vigorous arguments rage as to
whether or not such extrapolation is justified. In Chapter 2, therefore, I
have tried to follow through the Soviet line of reasoning, though not here
refraining from making my own comments or drawing my own conclu·
sions, and the theme is taken up again in Chapter 3.
Two quite distinct theories of the origin of Socialist Realism are wide-
spread. To its opponents, it is the extension into the cultural field of
Stalinist policies as they may be observed in other branches of sociallife.
This means that Socialist Realism was invented by Stalin, Zhdanov and
G6rky and forced on the unwilling artists in the early thirties by the
formation of the artistic unions, beginning with the Union of Soviet
Writers in 1934. From such a point of view, Socialist Realism derives from
the 1930S and is in origin Russian and Stalinist.
To the proponents of Socialist Realism, however, it is a world-wide
development, though with local peculiarities, associated with the rise of a
politically conscious, i.e. Marxist, industrial proletariat. It is therefore the
reflection in the arts of the batde for the creation of a socialist society. It
obviously dates in each country from the emergence of a Marxist pro-
 INTRODUCTION xi
letarian movement; in Russia the crucial date was 1895. The theory - as
opposed to the tendency in art - was not elaborated or given a name until
1932-4, but it was then simply a summary and codification of what had
already been evolving for several decades, strengthened by the Marxist-
Leninist understanding of social developments and consequent ability to
shape and foretell the future. From such a viewpoint it is in origin
Leninist, and what happened in the thirties in the USSR was not a logical
stage but a temporary aberration.
This is not a mere quibble, since its implications for the whole history
of the arts in the USSR are clearly very grave; Socialist Realism is either a
thing of the past or of the present and future. I have therefore examined
some of the evidence for the period between the 1917 October Revolution
and the announcement of the formation of the artists' unions in 1932 and
have drawn what seems to me the inescapable conclusion. Chapter 2,
which deals with Lenin's analysis of the three periods of the Russian
revolutionary movement as applied to the arts, aims to throw some light
on the subject but is, of necessity, inconclusive. Chapter 3 is a quite
detailed analysis of party statements on the arts and related topics through-
out the twenties: if the theory of Socialist Realism as proclaimed in 1934
contradicted previous attitudes, then there was a case for the 'Stalinist'
argument; if not, and a direct line could be traced back to Unin's own
pronouncements, then the contrary argument would seem the more con-
vincing.
The case for the 'official' Soviet version of the origin of Socialist Realism
rests on three major arguments: that Socialist Realism in art is a logical
development of nineteenth-century realism; that the principle of a11egiance
to the Party is properly attributable to Unin; and that the theory as
formulated in the thirties was firmly rooted in the practice of the twenties.
These arguments, in turn, rest upon certain documentary evidence: for
the relationship with previous epochs - Lenin's 19I2 speech 'In Memory
of Herzen'; for the principle of a11egiance to the Party - Lenin's 1905
article 'Party Organisation and Party Literature'; and for policy and
attitudes in the twenties - the Central Committee's resolutions and deci-
sions throughout that period. Space for a11 these documents was obviously
not available to us in this volume, but as Appendices we have included
translations of Unin's 1912 speech and 1905 article, and of documents on
the Proletkults (1920), the Central Committee's resolution 'On the Party's
Policy in the Field of Literature' (1925), and its decision 'On the Reforma-
tion of Literary-Artistic Organisations' (1932). It is hoped that within the
context of the arguments put forward in Chapters 2 (Art and the Party)
Xli INTRODUCTION

and 3 (A Few Decrees ... ) these will assist the reader to draw his own
conclusions. Other party statements from the 1920S are discussed in
Chapter 3 at some length since they are not, as far as I know, available in
English nor - indeed - are they easily obtained in Russian. Unless other-
wise stated, the translation of a11 documents and extracts is my own, as
are italics marked with an asterisk.
The reader who follows Soviet literary affairs as reflected in the Western
press may we11 feel inclined to comment that in this book I have spent
very little time discussing such well-known names as those of Pasternak,
Sinyavsky, DanieI and Solzhenitsyn. It is quite tme that they figure very
litde in the text; yet in a sense the entire book is about them. For each of
them in some way and to some degree either failed to observe or chose to
disregard one or several of the canons of Socialist Realism and in so doing
incurred the displeasure of the Union of Writers and the Communist
Party. Each of them questioned or rejected some element in the theoryof
the role of the artist in society, the individual in the collective, the intel-
lectual in the mass. It is my belief that although the study of exceptions
may tell us a great deal about the norm, the reverse is also true. A study
of the 'dissidents' is clearly illuminating; but our understanding of them
can only be deepened by a study of the philosophy from which they dis-
sent. My aim has not been to discount the celebrated names which have
become so familiar; rather has it been to embrace the coundess others of
whom the average reader never hears.
There are many ironies in the Soviet situation. Thus a sad legacy of
Stalinist days is that the very appellation 'socialist realism' tends to be
taken almost automatically as referring to something wholly negative,
though the socialist dream of a better reality continues to inspire millions.
And 'socialist realism' is similarly taken to mean the total negation of
artistic experimentation, though it is itself an artistic experiment on an
unprecedented scale. For not only is it an attempt to enlist the poet as
philosopher, the writer as tribune and the artist as teacher in the transla-
tion of the socialist dream into reality, but it explores the almost unknown
interstices between artistic genres by uniting poet, painter, sculptor,
singer, ac tor, dancer and director in one common socio-aesthetic system.
And as the fearful problems of the 1920S that faced an isolated revolu-
tionary regime clinging grimly to power over a largely illiterate populace,
hungry for bread as well as circuses, become with the passage of time less
awesome, there are signs that the purely restrictive aspects of Socialist
Realism may be giving way at last to the more creative elements. But its
history has been a chequered one: whenever a theory is elaborated to
 INTRODUCTION xiii
regulate an evolving situation, then one of two things must surely happen;
either the theory must itself evolve - in which case it may come near to
contradicting itself, or, if it remains rigid, it will become a bar to progress
and a force for conservatism. It is arguable that the 'method' of Socialist
Realism has exhibited both these characteristics even, on occasion, at one
and the same time.

• • •
For readers who are unfamiliar with the Russian language, the pronuncia-
tion of names is frequently something of a problem. I have attempted to
lessen this by using a form of transliteration in the body of the text wh ich,
while not entirely consistent, is scientific without being pedantic. And on
commonly-used names, etc. I have marked the stressed syllables with an
acute accent (e.g. Mayak6vsky) and the letter e, pronounced [0] or [yo]
(e.g. Khrushchev).
I should like to thank my Sussex colleagues Beryl Williams, Robin
Milner-Gulland and Christopher Thorne for their interest and advice,
Hazel Ireson for deciphering my script, and my publishers for their toler-
ance and support.

Ditch!ing, Suss~x C.V.J.