The development of Art depends on the political or ideological climate and art is directly linked with the everyday cares and anxieties of humanity.
The lives of the people are very closely bound up with the lives of others and at the same time they never have been so keenly aware of the divisive, centrifugal forces at work in the world today. And this is reflected in some form or another in art or rather, this is the lifehoodd of modern art, which is shaken by the unending conflict of opposing forces and tendencies. Artistic creativity has been shifted to the epi-centre of the battle of ideas, into the whirlpool of political passion of the age. And some keenest conflicts are taking place in this sphere:
The majority of bourgeois authors also view art and literature as one of the most important scenes for ideological struggle for example, Rechard V. Allen cites literature and art as among the most important factors which determines the ideological preparedness of the communist world that hates.
Theories and concepts which only recently seemed to be the province of men in ivory-towers are today of the most topical interest. They have become the object of heated discussions that involve not only specialities, but people from every walk of life. Aesthetics has literaly felt the full force of the winds of change-social, political and ideological.
In ancient times, art developed in conjunction with politics and religion. Thomas Mann, for example, regarded this indisputable fact as evidence of the oneness of the humanity.
In short, inherent to the very nature of art are its ties with social life, with the ideas of age and with political conflict.
Under present circumstances the question of poetry’s ties with politics is especially partinent and poignant and this is becoming clearer and clearer to both artists and politicians. The ties between poetry and politics contribute one of the fundamental subjects of contemporary aesthetics. The very logic of modern social development brought to the forefront the confrontation between the forces of reaction and progress, war and peace, the old and the new.
All the world heard Maxim Gorky When he asked, “Whose side are you on, artists?” That question is still on the agenda. Life poses this question everyday with utmost poignancy, demanding that the artist give a direct and unequivocal answer.
Two worlds-two cultures. This formula describing the real alignment of forces is as pertinent as it ever was. In the modern world two cultures stand in apposition to each other one brings to mankind the high ideals of freedom, peace and the flowering of the human personality and lay its very nature is profoundly creative. The other is a false culture in extricably rooted in the philosoply of the bourgeoisie, an art which promulgat5es” the most reactionary and inhumane ideas of the age.
The imperialistic oligarchy needs the sort of art which can help it maintain and strengthen the foundations of bourgeois society which will stifle man’s longing for freedom and raise him in the spirit of anti-humanism and distrust in ideals. And this sort of art exists. Many books published in capitalist countries with editions ruining into the millions, the cinema, Television and the theatre, the bourgeois press, radio everyday, everywhere, every minute the media delude man morally and spiritually.
#What is presented is filled to overflowing with violence, misanthropy, war and frenzied anti-communism and it all plays on man’s basest instincts and passions..
One should not over simplify the relationship between capital and art. Cash and profits, it goes without saying, play an enormous role, but the root of the matter goes much deeper. The imperialist obligerchy includes literature and art in its system of manipulation whose goal is to work on the personality in a specific way, to limit at its development to a single track in line with the requirement of modern capitalist production and new tasks & consolidating the political power of the bourgeoisie. We are speaking here of the creation of a culture industry which will serve as a component in drive against ideology and socialism and anti-imperialist, democratic forces. Given these conditions, of course, businessman so and so who invests his money in the publication of comics or in the production of a film or TV show it is much more likely to be concerned about profits than politics. But if one takes bourgeois society as a whole and the major current running through it, it turns out that commerce and politics are inextricably bound together. The commmercialization of the spiritual values is a common feature of capitalism,
manifesting itself in all spheres of art and culture. The tasks and goals of bourgeois mass art are not limited to this. Mass culture is a means for achieving a certain ideological effect and this effect is achieved through clear or masked political tendencies and through extremely widespread apolitical tendencies.
In the bourgeois world; there are many artists who will have nothing to do with fort of despicable work. Many of them stress their no-acceptance politics and not only the politics of imperialism
but politics in general, polities as such. They prefer to remain uncommitted. But life takes a cruel revenge on those who try to ignore its laws and sooner or later its forces one to come to terms with it. Countless examples could be cited in support of this fact.
We confront the drama of 20th century bourgeois thought- searching, hesitating, erring. Before us is the path of a man leading from’ Reflections of an Apolitical man’, a title which speaks for itself, to a recognition that” being apolitical is nothing less than being simply anti-democratic, that “when culture rejects politics, the result is error and self delusion.
The bourgeoisie today continues to increase and perfect its ability to play on notorious anti-political tendencies. The dangers of ending up in the camp of reactionaries may threaten the artists and intellectual who does not want to take any side.
It should be noted that today the spirit of the age is making itself felt: It more and more. more specialists and those working in the arts are taking account of the politicalisation of art going on today, the fact that art is engrossed with essential questions of the political struggle and the concerns of mankind.
The process of politicization is by no means spontaneous, but brought about by weighty and objective factors: the intensification the class struggle and national liberation movement, the internal contradictions of capitalism, the heightened consciousness of the working class and youth in bourgeois countries, the increasing influence of the scientific socialism.
In analyzing the specific features of the development of world culture and aesthetic thought,
we should constantly bear in mind Lenin’s ideas on two nations in each nation, the presence of two cultures in each national culture characterized by antagonistic forces within. In contemporary western culture there are important forces resisting reactionary tendencies. These forces above all consist of communist artists who have allied themselves and their art with the contemporary revolutionary movement, with the life and struggle of the the masses. We understand and sympathise with those honourable humanist artists of the west who suffer the painful experience of witnessing the deformity of this environment and reality, who are trying to find the way out of the contradictions they confront. But we must also recognize that because they are limited by this bourgeois o world outlook and at times pay considerable tribute to decadence,These artists are, for the most part, incapable of finding a way out.
Socialist art is the primary force resisting reactionary tendencies in world culture today, standing upto the art of disintegration and inhumanity. Socialist art incorporates the most progressive ideals of the epoch. It is deeply rooted in the revolutionary class struggle of the working masses. This is what determines the growing influence, the consolidation of socialist realism and represents the most significant tendency in contemporary art.
“The art of socialist realism selects and artistically assimilates all the best achievements of mankind. We are proud of this continuity. At the same time we stress that socialist art is genuinely innovative, for it is inspired by the most progressive idea of modern time– the idea of transforming the world on the basis of socialism. It participates fully in this transformation, being entirely rooted in the soil of rich soil. The historical experience of in-the masses who are creating a new life.
Lenin dreamed of a free literature which would enrich mankind’s revolutionary ideas with experience and real work of the socialist proletariat. Today we can assert with complete assurance that there now exists such a literature and such an art. This art is occupying a stronger and stronger position on the world stage and is attracting the hearts and minds of millions.
Given the acute ideological struggle and in the light of the crucial problems of communist construction, we find particular relevance in Lenin’s statements regarding the development of socialist culture, his views on art and its role in society. Life demands that we turn again and again to the aesthetics of Leninism, to the Leninist principles of a scientific influence of the artistic process and formation of its results.
Today one hears comments about the “unproductivity of the Marxist approach to art only from the lips of malicious and not too literate falsifiers. On the whole one has every right to say that this absolutely groundless opinion has long since seen repudiated by real facts concerning the development of Marxist-Leninist aesthetics thought.
One must bear in mind that at the turn of the century Marx’s and Engels’ views on art had not been summarized, studied and recognized as scientific. This was true of the problem of exerting a purposeful influence on the development. of art, the problem of guiding the literary process. Karl Kautsky concurs that not only material production but intellectual production as well-science, art and so on—must be re-organized after revolution. But precisely how should this be done? One may suppose that in this sphere only one path is possible and right– the replacement of capitalist enterprise.
The problem of the aesthetic needs of the proleriate is interpreted by Karl Kautsky. Kautsky does not deny that these needs grow and develop and even find a certain expression, but the major, decisive factor is that economic conditions supress to an ever increasing degree. That is why the proletariate scarcely capable of creating a new epoch in art.” The proletarian striving for art at first will by means lead to the development of a new, higher form of art. Initially, the proletariate will merely broaden its participation in the enjoyment of art now monopolised by the bourgeoisie.
Lenin’s famous article Party Organization and Party Literature appeared in 1905. Here for the first time the Marxist view on the role and place of art in society, on the partisanship and freedom of creative activity, was formulated with utmost clarity. Here the fundamental principles and foundations were laid for the scientific and purposeful directions of the artistic process, principles which to this day determine the content and form of the cultural policies of proletarian party. This essay of Lenin, along with other works and utterances dealing with art, oppose in principle the reformist and unscientific ideas.
In viewing Party Organization and Party Literature” as the theoretical foundation of in cultural policies of the proletarian party, one should stress first and foremost two important aspects of the Leninist principles, governing the party guidance of artistic creativity.
First, these principles are an expression of the objective laws of social development. In this sense they can and must be viewed as the part of the Marxist Leninist Science for the management of society as a whole.
Marxism not only posed the question of the possibility of exerting a purposeful influence on social processes, revealing the dialectical inter-dependance between the cognition of the objectively existing laws of development and the conscious use of these laws in human practice.
There is a second, no less important consideration.. The necessity of party leadership proceeds not only from our understanding of the social function of art and the demands made on it by society, but also from the conceptual and aesthetic nature of art itself.
The problems of party guidance in art is not simply a political or ideological issue and certainly not just and organizational problem, but an aesthetic one as well.
It is in the unity of proletarian, socialist art with the interests, goals and views of this class that the communist party’s spirit of art consists. *The interaction and relationship between art and ideology is one of the key questions of aesthetics, a question whose significance for literary and artistic practice is greater today than ever before. (To be continued)
