Max Eastman - Artists in Uniform: A Study of Literature and Bureaucratism

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Routledge Revivals

Artists in Uniform

First published in 1934, Artists in Uniform confronts what the author describes as two of the worst features of the Soviet experiment following Lenins death bigotry and bureaucratism and shows how they have functioned in the sphere of arts and letters. It is divided into three parts: The Artists International; A Literary Inquisition; and Art and the Marxian Philosophy.

Artists in Uniform A Study of Literature and Bureaucratism

By Max Eastman

First published 1934

by George Allen & Unwin

This edition first published in 2021 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

1934 Max Eastman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer
The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact.

A Library of Congress record exists under LCCN: 34012558

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-75211-8 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978-1-003-16150-9 (ebk)

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-75210-1 (pbk)

Book DOI: 10.4324/9781003161509

ARTISTS IN UNIFORM A STUDY OF LITERATURE AND BUREAUCRATISM

By

MAX EASTMAN

Copyright in the U.S.A., 1934, by Max Eastman. Revised and first published in Great Britain, 1934.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY KIMBLE & BRADFORD

ARTISTS IN UNIFORM

CONTENTS

• INTRODUCTORY
• PART I THE ARTISTS INTERNATIONAL
  1. The Kharkov Congress
  2. The New American Literature
• PART II A LITERARY INQUISITION
  1. The Three Phases of Soviet Culture
  2. The Workers Reach Toward the Stars
  3. The Minstrels Seek Bohemia
  4. Yessenins Suicide
  5. The Suicide of Several Poets
  6. Maiakovskys Suicide
  7. Art Tries to Be a Hermit
  8. The Framing of Eugene Zamyatin
  9. Romanovs Recantation
  10. The Silence of Isaac Babyel
  11. The Humiliation of Boris Pilnyak
  12. Trotsky Speaks for Arts Own Laws
  13. Voronskys Fight for Truth
  14. Polonskys Persecution
  15. The Revolution of April 23, 1932
• PART III ART AND THE MARXIAN PHILOSOPHY
  1. The Word Dialectic
  2. The Religious Heritage of Scientific Socialism
  3. What Dialectic Meant to Marx and Lenin
  4. Utilities of the Dialectic Faith
  5. The Marician Aesthetics
  6. The Soul of Man under Communism
• SUPPLEMENT
  • Lenins Views of Art and Culturea Translation from Polonsky
• Notes and References
• Index

ARTISTS IN UNIFORM

INTRODUCTORY

THIS IS A SOMBRE BOOK, AND WILL BE DENOUNCED AS counter-revolutionary by those who think the world can be saved by Soviet ballyhoo. I do not think it can. I am on the side of the soviets and of the proletarian class struggle. But I think that critical truth-speaking is an element of that struggle essential to its success.

It is one of the peculiar traits of the political regime set up by Stalin that, instead of arguing with honest Bolshevik critics who have courage, he denounces them as counter-revolutionists and puts them in jail. This makes it difficult for their supporters outside Russia to make clear their position. If either the communist party constitution or the constitutions of the Soviet Republics were lived up to, it would be simple to state that one is loyal to the Soviet Union but opposed to the Stalin leadership. Since, however, anyone who raises a whisper in opposition to Stalin is expelled instantly from the party and branded not only throughout Russia, but in the official communist press throughout the world, as an enemy of the Soviet Union, and is indeed attacked with twice the ferocity shown to its real enemies, that simple statement seems complicated and unclear. It is, however, so far as I am concerned, a complete statement of the fact.

Socialism can not be built without science, and science demands honesty of mind. Those who understand this will not keep mute lest some frail spirits, knowing the facts about Stalinism, lose faith in the whole revolutionary effort. The future of mankind does not rest with those weaklings. It does not depend in any degree upon the keeping up of false raptures.

The efforts toward socialist construction in the Soviet Union must inevitably serve the world movement in some sense as a guide. These efforts should not be followed, however, as a seamstress follows a pattern, but as a scientist repeats an experiment, progressively correcting the errors and perfecting the successful strokes. To this end the bad features as well as the good must be confronted and defined. This book confronts two of the worst features of the Soviet experiment as it developed after Lenin diedbigotry and bureaucratismand shows how they have functioned in the sphere of arts and letters. It is written in no utopian mood of general protest against human imperfection, but with the circumspect belief that in other countries the economic system can be revolutionized without these extreme sacrifices of what is good and of great hope in human civilization.

I have debated in my mind whether this book should be delayed, in view of the reactionary world-tendency of the moment. I have sought the advice of those whom I consider politically wise. The decision was not lightly taken.

MAX EASTMAN

PART I THE ARTISTS INTERNATIONAL

DOI: 10.4324/9781003161509-1

CHAPTER I THE KHARKOV CONGRESS

DOI: 10.4324/9781003161509-2

PEOPLE ARE TAKING SIDES IN THE CURRENT DISCUSSION about art and propaganda without a full understanding of what the issue is. It is not merely the robust and socially serious attitude towards art demanded by a world in revolution which has given rise to this argument. It is a systematic effort of the bureaucratic political machine set up in Soviet Russia after Lenin died to whip all forms of human expression into line behind its organizational plans and its dictatorship. In this effort it is aided by an antiquated philosophy of the universe, which, even when liberally interpreted, is in conflict with the method and the spirit of science, but which in the hands of these bureaucrats becomes a veritable theological bludgeon with which men of independent thought and volition are subdued to silence or conformity.

Not only must all art be propaganda in Soviet Russia, whether the artist will or no, but according to the prevailing view this propaganda should be created or carried on in a systemized fashion, like any kind of commodity production or public engineering work, under the direct control and guidance of the political power. Such slogans as the five-year plan in poetry, the magnetostroy of art and literature, poetic shock troops, collective creation, the art job, the turning out of literary commodities, poetry as socially responsible labor, the creative duty to the socialist fatherland, the militant struggle for partyism in the arts, the seizure of power in literature, the Bolshevik creative linesuch slogans have held the field for eight years in the Soviet Union without successful competition. The gifted poet Ilya Selvinsky shouts to his comrades:

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