A reportage

and comment
on a topic
of controversy

among Marxists

By STAN LYNN

ie a deep-going debate on art
taking place among writers,
artists and critics in the
socialist countries?

Obviously there is, ever since
the exposure of the cult of the
individual in 1956. But some-
times it’s difficult to see the pre-
cise shape of the debate because
many of the articles from social-
ist countries—at least those ap-
pearing in English — tend to
place the whole question of art
in a general way and to make
positive assertions instead of
developing open polemic ex-
pressing a clear stand toward
differing points of view.

What often seems to emerge

is a united front of Marxist cri-.

ticism against bourgeois ideo-
logy in art; but there is little
Open evidence of debate among
Marxists themselves on the
whole question.

In contrast, among Commun-
ists in the capitalist countries,
notably France and Italy, the de-
bate dealing with art forms and
the social role of the artist often
is clearer cut.

But some indication of the
underlying debate in the social-
ist countries is now given in a
welcome article in the current
World Marxist Review. The

Effect

Even duing the person-
ality cult period people
often accepted the art
that was created be-

cause it propounded
things they knew; but it
neither stirred nor de-
lighted them. Art which
allowed illusion to over-
shadow historical and
social truth, which failed
to depict reality faithful-
ly. and in which wishful
thinking replaced the
facts, began to lose its
audience.

article — “Some Thoughts on

-Art and its Social Function”, by

Peter Karvas — includes a hard-
hitting description of what hap-
pened to art and literature in
Czechoslovakia as a result of the
personality cult,

Socialism has brought art
within the reach of millions.
At the same time-art cannot
be simply a means of propa-
ganda.

This writer notes that in the
15 years of socialist develop-
ment in his country “time and
again we have rejoiced at the
appearance of outstanding works
of art” and have welcomed their
effect on the reader, “helping to
mould his spiritual world, his
thinking,
ness, his world outlook, his atti-
tude to the revolution.”

Now these works are seen “in
an entirely different light.” Time
has shown that they have
“somehow” lost their  signifi-
cance, and that they had been
“arbitrarily endowed” with qua-
lities they did not possess,

“Other works, on the other
hand, have somehow contrived
to outlive their more successful
‘contemporaries’, although when
they first appeared they were
thought to be lacking in such
attributes of true social art as,
for example, popular appeal,
timeliness, the ability to retlect
the character of the epoch...”

How did all this happen’? asks
Karvas.

There had, he says, been a
“passionate desire to share in
building the new life.” Partly as
a result of this “art came to be
regarded as a sphere of ettort
similar to propaganda, or organi-
zational work, or the mining of
ores, or the building of tfacto-
ries.”

Thus, the outcome was that
the mark of good art was not
profound truth, “but how
promptly and unambiguously it
told us precisely what we want-
ed to hear.” 7

But, “the influence exerted by
art cannot be likened to the ac-
tion of a medicinal preparation,
to the influence exerted by
proven pedagogical methods, and
certainly not to the ettect of
commands and orders.”

Writer Karvas suggests that
an art which allows illusion to
overshadow historical and social
truth, art “in which faithful de-
piction of reality is not a merit,”
and in which wishful thinking
replaces facts, cannot but lose
its audience,

If people often accepted it
that was “because it propound-
ed things they had long known;

his civic conscious-

Thoughts on art
and about
its social function

but such art neither stirred nor
delighted them.”

Karvas lists some of the fea-
tures of art at that time:

@ “We insisted on the posi-
tive social forces triumphing
and the negative forces being
vanquished in each individual
case. The optimism intrinsic in
Communism became something
in the order of a new ‘happy
ending’ in many works.”

@ The reader “found neither
friends nor inspiration in an art
where the future was served up
as the present and the present

Audience

Peter Karvas says: Time
and again we rejoiced at
the appearance of out-
standing works of art
and welcomed their ef-
fect on the reader, help-
ing to mould his spiri-
tual world, his thinking,

his civic consciousness,
his world outlook, his
attitude to the revolu-
tion. “But the influence
of art cannot be likened
to the action of a medi-

cinal preparation.”

was lost in a priori jungles of
dogmatic aesthetics and cultural
directives.”

e@ “Official critics appeared,
whose judgements often had far-
reaching consequences not only
for the work criticized, but also
for the author.”

e “A system of public
awards” enabled some writers
to publish their works in large
editions, which had the ettfect
of “multiplying in geometric
progression both the beneficial
and pernicious tendencies.”

Karvas maintains that even in
this period art still exerted a
positive influence on people and
on their attitudes toward the
world and socialism and he de-
clares that works of permanent
value were produced.

“But the fact remains that the
cult engendered a climate in
which vulgarized views on the
relationship between art and
society predominated, in which
a dogmatic interpretation of the
functions of art led to its tragic
impoverishment, making it one-

sided and depriving it of much
that was precious and indispen-
sable to mankind.”

The turning point had been
the exposure of the personality
cult at the 20th Congress of the
Communist Party of the Soviet
Union.

Its effect on art was that the
“embellishment of reality was
seen to be a lie damaging to so-
cialism.” Schematism was shown
to be “objectively reactionary.”

And “one of the first success-
es in combatting dogmatism in
art criticism was the disavowal
of the primitive views on the
social role of art and literature,
of the mechanistic approach
which ignored the specific nature
of creative art.”

After the 20th Congress many
artists; especially prose writers,
turned their talents toward an
expose of the full effects of the
personality cult. Following this,
there was a tendency to concen-
trate on form. This tendency
was a reaction to the former
habit of judging a work of art
solely by its message, the topi-
cality of the theme and the ex-
tent to which it answered the
needs of the moment.

Karvas now suggests that in
some artists this concentration
on form has become experimen-
tation for its own sake. There
is also “a certain tendency to
divorce art from the needs and
interests of society.”

In Karvas’ opinion, “art and
literature are a powerful spiri-
tual and social force indispen-
sable in the long and difticult
struggle to shape human nature
along socialist lines, to build
socialist ethics.”

He adds: “Dogmatism in the
theory and sociology of art ham-
pered it from influencing life be-
cause, apart from everything
else, it incorrectly assessed the
social potential of art and as-
cribed to it a role it could not
fulfil without losing its specific
attributes, namely, truthtulness
and the ability to communicate.

“The socialist artist whose
heart, talent and convictions are
wholly dedicated to building the
new life expresses the thoughts
that spring from his heart, says
what he wants to say, not what
he has heard from others or
what he is expected to say.

“But there is no contradic-
tion, no difference between what

-his heart dictates and the inter-

ests of the society he serves, for
the destiny of the society of
which he is an active member is
his vital concern; he is keenly
sensitive to its problems. And
this is the well-spring of his
art.” ;

While Karvas’ last paragraph
expresses an admirable senti-
ment; it is still in my view one
sided. Human history shows that

the ability to profoundly
stand the present and se
the future has always beél
by a minority. While sod
raises the level of the ma
heights never before kn
history it cannot be rul
that profound truth, a
understanding than that h
the majority, will still D
by a minority. And in)
cases some of these views)
seem to contradict the apP
interests of society. .7

The question not answé
the way Karvas puts the
is this: what happens
writer expresses views |
apparently contradict thé
ests of society — even §
society? 4

(When this question is!
it has to be recalled that
writers who did not conf
a dogmatic view of art in
socialist countries were
seen as not conforming Wit
interests of society at tha
iod).

I think the proper ans
this question was indicat
Hungarian Communist criti
recently visited Canada.

“There are cases,” said *
Molnar Gal, drama, film an@
let critic of the Budapest %)
Nepsza Badsag, “where —
party itself has objected t0}
tain plays being present
even so, they’ve been §
uncut. The regime feels
plays like this should be
public, where they can DP
apart by Marxist logic.”

% Sesh \ BY
Y) ka j
3 my)
W.
= \ \G

Recently, a Soviet c@
toonist dismissed mode!
abstract painting
drawing this carto?
showing an ass and
monkey creating a wol
of “art”. But a few Mar
ist critics in the We
are now beginning
ask for a new look @
the “revolution in tech
nique” which has take
place in the past ?
years, but which h@é
been discouraged in th
socialist countries.

March 12, 1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—P