—

Be te ee ek ae

Br i ee oe fk ed ee eee MM eC an ee he Ub Ui Geni

of hu

Maxim Gorky with Joseph Stalin

“EVOLUTIONS in the past perished because, while giving the people freedom, they were unable to bring about any serious im- provement in their material and cultural conditions. Therein lay their

chief weakness.

Our revolution differs from all other revolutions in

that it not only freed the people from tsardom and capitalism, but also brought about a radical improvement in the welfare and cultural con- dition of the people. Therein lies its strength and invincibility.”

\

—History of the Communist Party of ihe Soviet Union (B).

WY 1936 the Soviet Union was the only country in the world without

a proletariat. Having seized state power and systematically elim- inated exploitation, the erstwhile proletariat had become transformed into an entirely new class, a free working class—something which his-

tory had never known before.

Alongside this new type of working class there developed a new intelligentsia, serving the working class,

Likewise the peasantry had thrown off its yoke, had become united around collective owner- ship of the means of production; had become, like the workers and the intelligentsia, a new type of elass, unknown in the previous history of the world.

The Soviet Constitution adopted in 1936 was not a declaration of hopes or promises, but a state- ment of accomplishment, the ach- jevement of socialism; and it also recorded the success of the cul- tural revolution, a component part of the political and economic revo- lution. : :

Cultural development cannot leap ahead of the economic found- ations on which it rests. Material conditions change before the thoughts of men change. Changes in the economic foundation of society always precede legal-poli-

tical and religious-philosophical

flevelopment; the material con- flitions are the content, the ideo- jogical form:is only its super- $tructure. s

} This doesn’t mean that content js possible without form; it simply ymeans that form always lags be-. hind content and never fully cor-

‘tesponds to content. g

®

. Mayakovsky, great poet of the devolution, wrote in his diary in October, 1917: “October. . . . To

accept or not to accept. That

question never arose in my mind. It is my revolution. Went to the

- $molny. Worked. Did whatever

had to be done.” : Mayakovsky, and other cultural workers who accepted the revo- lution, wrote pamphlets, appeals, skits, jingles, poems, plays; spoke from platforms, at the front and in the rear; painted posters, drew ‘eartoons—“did whatever had to be done” to inspire the people to de- fend their revolution against its

enemies within and outside the country. In the? fires of revolu-

tionary war they discarded the _ sterile theory of “art for art’s:

sake” and adopted the socialist theory of “art for the people.”

After the successful conclusion of the civil war, after the foreign interventionist armies had been driven back beyond the borders, the cultural revolution was on the order of the day.

: The starting point for Soviet literature, said Lenin, was the

mastering of the old cultural heri- ~

tage. Socialist writers must learn what to accept and what to reject in the bourgeois culture of the past; must learn how to critically assimilate the cultural heritage of the past, while condemning slav- ish acceptance of it. They must begin to develop a new culture, a new art and literature, on the new foundation, in the interests of the workers.

By BERT WHYTE

ArT Te Te Te eR Oe cE Ue Ge OL oe

man souls

at - " vdmesnve mcm cman yy memo cem tempo

One of the first great socialist books written in this early period was F. Gladkov’s Cement. Said

‘Gorky of Gladkov’s Cement. Said

the first book since the revolution which deals comprehensively and vividly with the most important subject of our times: labor.”

There is another reason for hon- oring Gladkov’s early novel. One of the main characters is the wife of the ‘hero. For the first time in Soviet literature we have a portrait of a woman who comes out of the kitchen and develops into a public leader of no mean ability.

Novels like Cement pointed the way to the coming cultural revo- lution inthe USSR. But this revo- lution could not take place until a tremendous increase in the na- tional income and growth of pros- perity among the working people (due to the rapid development of the economy of the country) had laid a firm foundation for the steady improvement in eultural standards. A

The base was laid during the Second Five-Year Plan. By 1936 socialism was triumphant. Some 33,000,000 pupils were attending elementary and high schools. More schools had been built in 20 years than were built during 200 years of ezarist Russia. Illiteracy had been virtually abolished. The Soviet intelligentsia had grown to nearly 10,000,000 persons. The gap between niental and manual labor had been narrowed. Socialist

society had banished for all time

crises, unemployment and destitu-

oni es ees 5 @

These achievements were reflect- ed in the new type of literature being created. Stalin described Soviet writers as “engineers of human souls” and called upon them to produce works which har- monized with the great epoch they were living in. ‘

A new culture, nationalist in form and socialist in content, be-

igan to develop in all parts of the

USSR. Just as Gladkov’s novel Cement

portrayed the beginning of con- .

struction, the rising of the coun- try from the debris of civil war, so the novels of the thirties de- picted the vast new construction, a. whole country seized with en- thusiasm for construction.

Man versus Nature is the theme that stirred the blood of Soviet writers, who thrilled to their coun-

_try’s vast industrial plans. (This

theme doesn’t stir the blood of bourgeois writers; they prefer Boy meets Girl—even if the boy is 51 and the girl 19, as long as they go Across the River and Into the Trees.)

The contention of these western writers and “critics” that Soviet authors are. required to become mechanical robots grinding out stereotyped novels according to a state plan, is simply the Big Lie applied to the cultural field.

The Soviet writer writes not on- ly about the people, he writes for them. As Lenin told Clara Zet- kin: “Art belongs to the people. It must have its deepest roots in the midst of the masses. It must

unite the emotions, thoughts and-

will of these masses, uplift them.”

Socialist realism is only possible,

where the writer himself is a part of reality and delves into the warp and woof of life itself by working with the masses. Socialist real- ism cannot be achieved by looking at the reflection of life in a mir- ror. :

The man of toil has become the hero in Soviet literature. Workers are the heroes, for labor is, and always has been, the prime source of arte

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels pointed out: “The history of all hitherto ex- isting society is the history of the class struggle. The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.”

Naturally the theme of labor, of activity, is alien to the non-labor-

ing classes. Only when the work-

ing class seized power, became its own master, could the worker be- come the principle hero of litera- ture. 4 /

The Kingdom of Labor creates a new world outlook—an outlook perfectly expressed by the Soviet flyer Valerei Chkalov a few years ago. When Chkalov landed in the United States after a non-stop across-the-Pole hop from the USSR, he was surrounded by Yankee newspaper reporters who fired questions at him. Said one: “Back home, are you rich?” Re- plied the Soviet air hero: “I cer- tainly am! A hundred and seven- ty million citizens of the USSR are working for me, and I work for them.”

In the post-war period, hund- reds of young Soviet authors are winning popularity alongside such greats as Gorky, Fadeyev, Sholok- hov, Ostrovsky: and Ehrenburg. Their whole adult life has been lived under socialism and their psychology is that of a new world.

Typical of the novels being wide- ly circulated in the USSR today are: Far from Moscow, by V. Az- hayev; Springtime in Saken, by Gulia; Up the Hill, by Anna Sakse; Light in Koordi, by Leberekht; Miners, by Igishev, and Steel and Slag by V. Popov.

These young Soviet authors, and the people they write about, are new types of men. Under © socialism men, for the first time in history, can consciously shape their own destiny. The front of free consciousness has been push- ed forward; in changing and im- proving the world around them. Soviet citizens themselves also rise to greater stature.

@.Condensed from a paper pre- sented at the third annual —

Vancouver Book Fair on Oc- tober 20, 1950.

WHITE MAN’S ‘BURDEN’

labelled Communists.”

will be weil,” they say.

‘chaos? If not, its hands.”

The Gold Coast | _no longer glitters _

WO BRITISH MP’s, David Garmans, Conservative, and Geof- frey Cooper, Labor, have just returned from a visit to British - West Africa and, according to the London Daily Telegraph, they are disturbed because an election is to be held next year in the Gold Coast—a country where 90 percent of the people have re-' mained illiterate under British rule. | Having cited illiteracy, superstition, corruption and back- wardness as reasons for not holding the election, the two MP’s reveal the real cause of their anxiety.

“The central factor in the election,” they say, “is the rise of ‘a political party known as the Convention People’s Party (CPP). It is led by a man Nkrumah who is at present in jail for sedition. He and some of his close associates have in their time been

They lament the fact that in the Gold Coast today, any one who has been jailed for “sedition” is treated as a public hero while “hatred of the white race is openly advocated.” They are

- shocked that when Field Marshal Slim recently visited the Gold Coast he was ‘publicly referred to as the “ambassador for war.”

Commenting on the coming election they regretfully fore- cast that Nkrumah will probably be out of jail in time for it. “Jt seems most certain that his party will seek the polls.” If after that, the CPP “become reasonable men, willing to cooper- -ate with the governor in theadministration of the colony, all

\

But, they ask, suppose Nkrumah “seeks the polls and de- mands as a result that we accept the verdict of ‘the will of the people, do we pull down the Union Jack as we did in Burma, abandoning the chiefs and moderates, all British interests to be seized and the country to sink into a state of stagnation and itehall might easily have another Malaya on

Terrified of this prospect of the people of the Gold Coast actually electing a parliamentary majority which demands inde- pendence, these two MP’s, Tory and Labor, recommend immediate and drastic measures prior to the election such as the banning of the press of the CPP which they describe as “seditious press,” —. “scandal sheet” and “not newspapers in any true sense.”

LONDON

=~

ge ( PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOV

j

ER 3, 1950 — PAGE 4