The Guardian 5 March, 2008
On society, culture and socialism
Vic Williams
The article, "Revolution and the re-invention of culture" (The Guardian, January 30) looked at the factors which transform culture for a socialist society. Lenin said the immediate task was to free literature from the "captivity of feudal censorship". He saw that proletarian culture could only come on the basis of universal literacy, and with deep links with the best flowers of bourgeois culture. The article looked for "organic intellectuals" of the working class to work at that transformation.
When culture is developed in different societies it has a function related to the specific needs of those societies: primitive, capitalist, socialist. Christopher Caudwell in Function of Literature showed this in primitive society; the songs, dances and cave paintings have the function to assist the hunters in physical and emotional preparations for the hunt. The dances included handling of weapons and of imitating the habits and characteristics of the animals to be hunted. "The rhythmic language is collective in spirit, in the language of public emotion." As in poetry.
Caudwell saw literature and art in capitalist society as having the function of adjusting individuals emotionally and intellectually to accept the conditions of society, as an emotional guide to action. The ruling class, with some awareness of its function, promote what best suits their purpose. The article recognised the control of literature and art as "yet another device to ensure hegemony to perpetuate class rule".
However, there are elements in this culture, influenced by struggle against feudalism, and also reflecting the working class struggle that, as Lenin saw, was the beginning of a different culture.
Lenin understood the function of literature in socialist society when he told Clara Zetkin:
"It (art) must unite the feelings, the thoughts and the will of the masses. It must stir them to activity and the art instincts within them ... We (Communists) must not stand idle and allow the chaos to develop in whatever way it pleases. We must systematically guide this process and shape its results."
Socialism is the first planned society. The Communist Party must plan the economy, plan the state structure, the social, political and educational processes, using the application of Marxist theory. It needs to plan and carry out the development of a culture whose function is to assist the masses to accept and build a socialist society. The "organic intellectuals" of the working class the article said were needed for the transformation could not do this; they need to be guided by the Party.
In 1920, on Lenin’s initiative the Central Committee of the Communist Party sent a letter to the periodical Prolatkult, pointing out the fallacy of the leftist approach to literature. With public speeches, Lenin put forward principles that became Party policy on literature. Party guidance in relation to the development of literature and art constituted an essential task of Party work. "But nothing would be achieved in the field of literature by doing things in a rush, by assault, by vim or vigour", warned Lenin.
Australian Communist author Katharine Susannah Prichard in 1934 saw how the Party in the Soviet Union encouraged writers. She found the State Publishing House would sign a contract for 25 percent of the price before any book was written, 45 percent when the MS was presented and the rest on the day of publishing.
Soviet literature absorbed the historical experiences of the working class in the struggle for socialism and began to express it, thereby becoming an active participant in the struggle. Alexander Serafimovich wrote The Iron Flood from his own experiences. A large body of troops and civilians with women and children fought their way against the White lines, and finally, with grim determination, won through to the Red areas. It showed revolutionary struggle in all its contradictions.
Alexander Fadeyev fought in a partisan unit in the Far East against the White Cossacks and the Japanese interventionists. In 1927 he wrote The Rout, an account of the rout of a partisan unit. He showed the role of the people at the bottom of the social scale in the proletarian revolution without embellishing anything, showing the sharpest contradictions and most difficult impasses.
It showed the organising and inspiring role of a Communist. The novel leaves the reader with feelings of the invincibility of the revolutionary movement. The book was published in twenty foreign languages and fifty-eight languages spoken in the Soviet Union. It had a great influence on the people. Fadeyev was later elected to the Central Committee of the Party and the leader of the Soviet Writers Union.
The first Soviet five year plan was the culmination of many struggles between social and capitalist elements, and millions rejoiced in 1928 at the consolidation of socialist society, Many books, short stories and poems were written, portraying the struggle and victories on the production front, often by the workers themselves.
Far from Moscow by Vasily Azayev, was the story of the building of an oil pipeline in the Far East. The "hero" was the collective of workers with their concern and initiatives, placing their collective objectives first, against the backward views of the engineer. Gladkov wrote Energy, about the experiences of building a power station on the Dneiper. The driving force in these books was the belief of the certainty of socialism. They consolidated readers’ feelings, thoughts and will to strengthen the fabric of the new society. The Communist Party encouraged the development of such a literature.