Blaring Trumpets, Banging Drums: Dmitry Shostakovich and Politics of Music 1917-1953 in the USSR

September 24, 2025; minor amendments, and extra image added September 27;
September 28, An added section is in Introduction denoted with * *- due to late receipt of a book being Isaak Glikman’s “Letters”. These amendments do not alter any trend in my statements, but strengthen them.

Dmitry Shostakovich and Politics of Music 1917-1953 in the USSR – Part One

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dmitry Shostakovich – Politics of music 1917-1953 in the USSR

Preface
acknowledgements

1. Introduction

Shostakovich’s musical gifts
Some selected statements from the composer
Puzzles surrounding Shostakovich
“Cold War” pictures fabricated by Solomon Volkov’s “Testimony”
A life summary of Shostakovich
Sources
The overall plan of this article

Part One: On aesthetics and the art movements in the USSR up to 1932

2. Aesthetics – Development of music, and the balance of content and form in art
The origins of music
Form and content of art in general
Deviations from Marxism in politics
Deviations from Marxist views in art and aesthetic theory
The problems of interpretating music
An introduction to the Formalism Debate of 1948
How revisionists and Marxist-Leninists fought ideological battles in the USSR

3. Culture and art movements after the Bolshevik Revolution (1917-1930)
‘Proletarian Culture’ (1917-24)
The Narkompros (Commissariat of Education and Enlightenment) under Anatol Lunarcharsky (Lunarcharskii)
The appointments of Mikhail Porovsky and Alexsandr Bogdanov
The scope of Narkompros
Krupskaia (Krupskaya) and Illiteracy
Battles of Lunarcharsky against the ultra-lefts led by Kerzhentsev
The formation and growth of Agitprop
The arts or cultural front and Narkrompros

4. The politics of the ‘expert’ – Communist Academy and Proletkult
The Ultra-Left movements in the arts 1917-1930
The Communist Academy
Attacks on bourgeois specialists
Pokrovsky and the discipline of history
Proletkult (Proletarian Cultural and Educational Organization)

5. Lenin’s 1920 confrontation with the ultra-leftists
The Bolshevik state, Lenin, Trotsky and the Proletkult
Lenin disputes Lunarcharsky and Bukharin at the 1920 First Proletkult Conference

6. The period of State ‘neutrality’ on art
After Lenin’s death a Leninist view on Art put by Stalin is rejected by the Party Leadership
The Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP)
RAPP and the suicide of Mayakovsky
Ultra-leftism following the 1920 exposure of Proletkult by Lenin

7. The Marxist-Leninist rejection of ultra-leftism – to socialist realism
The 1932 Party Decision ‘On the Reformation of Literary-Artistic Organisations’
The Origin and characteristics of the Term ‘Socialist Realism
The question of tendentiousness in Marx and Engels’ time and in the USSR
The First Congress of Soviet Writers (1934)

8. The music organisations after 1920
The ‘Kuchka’ – the Great Five Russian composers
RAPM and simplicity in Music and anti-gypsy music
ASM (Association for Contemporary Music)
RAPM (the Russian Association of Proletarian Composers– (or Musicians)
ORKiMD – the ‘Association of Revolutionary Composers and Musical Activists’
Agitprop and Platon Kerzhentsev
Production Collective of Moscow Conservatory Students (Prokoll)
RAPM and Prokoll – “Monopolistic power on the musical scene”
RAPM takes the upper hand
Kerzhentsev’s Attack on Vsevold Meyerhold
Shape-shifting Kerzhentsev adopts ‘professionalism’ at ‘Leningrad Theatre of Working Youth’ (TRAM)
Dismantling RAPM and The Creation of the All Russian Union of Soviet Composers

Part 2 will follow shortly

Preface

At this time the world is undergoing a profound crisis of the capitalist system. One which unleashes a massive assault on the working peoples of the world. Some will question having a detailed article on the music history of the USSR at this time. Maybe this is a complete irrelevance for the world’s toilers and Marxist-Leninists? In a way, that simply cannot be disputed.

However questions of art in society are central to Marxist views as to how to change society. Matters of socialist aesthetics, and the socialist history of revisionism in the USSR continue to be very relevant.

Prior tellings of Shostakovich’s story in my view usually fall into a reductionism. These two areas – aesthetics and history of revisionism – join in some revealing ways in Shostakovich’s career. I believe the story bears telling – even now at this dire and crisis laden stage. Since this version may be controversial in Marxist-Leninist circles, I will use the personal pronoun.

Acknowledgements

Before going to the text, I should emphasise that I am not a musician or a musicologist. Hence this is not the best possible dissection of Shostakovich. I suggest the work is best viewed as a history of another ‘small’ chapter of hidden revisionism in the USSR. We must await a more musical Marxist-Leninist dissection on the musical scores and techniques – especially on Shostakovich’s chamber music.

Nonetheless over 50 years I have benefited from the musical insights of a good comrade. JP is an accomplished musician, able to coax music out of accordions, French horns, piano, tin-whistle, bagpipes . . . and drums at many a demonstration. Recently, I benefitted from an amendment made by Marv Gandall to a discussion on definitions of ultra-leftism. Marv is a Trotskyist, yet we have shared both agreements and disagreements over years. Lastly but not least, unquestionably the largest influence on my work has been W.B.Bland. His systematic and prescient exposure of revisionism in the USSR laid the basis for my much later and much more pedestrian thinking.

1. Introduction

2025 is the 50th anniversary of the death of Dmitry Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (1906-1975). Currently his opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” from 1934 is being revived in several opera houses over the world. Marxists of all shades for years have faced several questions on Shostakovich. These at core include the role of the socialist state in art; and on Shostakovich’s attitudes inside a socialist state.

Whether Shostakovich was a convinced communist – particularly by the end of his life is unclear. At least to me. Bourgeois musicologists are divided on this matter. Some say Shostakovich was a life-long communist, still others that he was a hidden enemy of communism forced to write in code. Meanwhile Marxists differ as well. Followers of L.D. Trotsky allege that Shostakovich was repressed by J.V. Stalin, and his art was cramped by the party. Marxist-Leninists include those who believe Shostakovich became a worthy musical practitioner  only after intense criticism. Others of both left and right, claim that he was only an opportunist pretending to be a socialist musician.

This piece will argue that understanding the career of Shostakovich can only emerge from situating him within the battles of revisionism against the socialist state. Bland outlined the hidden rise of revisionism inside the USSR. In part of that rise, he stated that the Yezhovschina directed a wide miscarriage of justice. It was possible to disguise this as being “justified” – as there were indeed, hidden revisionist traitors at all levels of the Party.

This Revisionism at various times was expressed in various ultra-left positions taken up in the arts. Starting with open and evident movements such as Proletkult, and later RAPM. After 1932, open revisionism was not feasible. Its adherents then were forced to work more secretively, as exemplified by the figure of Platon Krezhentsev. This article will follow this trail.

Already this battle against hidden revisionists introduces a confusing picture. Unsurprisingly then the picture of Shostakovich is blurred by many conflicting images. At two polar ends there is usually a cut-out stereotype. At one end is a picture of the victimised composer hiding from a vengeful Stalin – who was forced to write to order. At the other is a convinced, bluntly socialist-realist communism disguised in music.

Part of the blurring stems from bourgeois propaganda. Part stems from a 1936 attack prompted by a disgruntled ultra-Leftist remnant of the Proletkult – Krezhentsev. As the reader will find, he was the most likely author of the Pravda article “Muddle not Music” – not Stalin.

Shostakovich’s musical gifts
Even those taking extreme opposite views on Shostakovich, widely acknowledge that at his best, he expressed human emotions vividly. Some of his extraordinary music includes Symphony 5 (A Musician’s Reply To Just Criticism); Symphony No. 7 (The Leningrad); Symphony No.13 (The Babi Yar); his piano Preludes and Fugues; and his string quartets.

That short list includes music appreciated by socialists, but also music claimed by non-socialists. Many anti-communists for example, identify as “anti-Soviet” music, the 13th Symphony, the Babi Yar. That sets to music the words of poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. It is of course true that Yevtushenko was an anti-Stalinist (Obituary New York Times). However the words in ‘Babi Yar’ excoriate anti-Semitism, praise the mettle of Russian women, and the courage of Galileo (Libretto). Not anti-communism as far as I can see.

If Shostakovich’s music speaks to a progressive vantage point, and is meaningful to listeners – does the composer’s own underlying beliefs matter? Marxist-Leninists generally respond by arguing that even with a progressive content, the style of music composition by Shostakovich is “formalist”, “hard” and “inaccessible”. But – even “Lady Macbeth of Mtensk” was popular in the USSR.

The distinction between form and content will be discussed. But what is “formalism”? It is known that Shostakovich received frank – even harsh – criticism by the CPSU(B) on these grounds. A further charge against him was that the proletarian audience could not understand much of his work.

Some Liberals will argue that in any case, it is irrelevant what it is meant by ‘formalism’. Their position is that it is an artists’ ‘right’ for their work to be beyond any state criticism. That position is one of a right for ‘art for art’s sake’. Trotskyists do not generally go so far, and most of them will agree that art is socially conditioned. But they will then – if they follow Trotsky faithfully – say the workers state has to be neutral in matters of art. Marxist-Leninists argue in contrast that a socialist state – or a state constructing such a society – has all rights to proffer criticism and guidance for benefits of state support.

Few Marxists will quarrel with Karl Marx and Frederich Engels when they say:

“Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man’s ideas, views and conceptions, in one word, man’s consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life?”
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, “The Communist Manifesto”; CW Volume 6; Moscow 1976; p. 503-04

Is it really then too far a step, then to the view from Stalin about a part of the cultural front in the USSR?

“Comrade Stalin has called our writers engineers of human souls.”
Andrey A. Zhdanov: ‘Soviet Literature – the Richest in Ideas, the Most Advanced Literature’ in: H. G. Scott (Ed.): ‘Problems of Soviet Literature’; London; 1935; p. 21

Yet that phrase is often mocked by both bourgeois and Trotskyist writers.

So much for now, on the right of the state to proffer criticism. But one other point about whether his music was comprehensible, and the role of external criticism is worth considering.

Comparisons may be invidious, but recall that Ludwig van Beethoven’s music was frequently met with incomprehension in his lifetime. Including even the great 9th Symphony, or his quartets (Reception of Beethoven). Furthermore, Beethoven received severe musical criticism through his career. And on at least one notable occasion of the initially failed opera ‘Leonore’ later to become the famous ‘Fidelio’ – he was subjected to a concerted group revision and critique by friends and musicians:

“Not a note will I cut!” Beethoven kept shouting, as proposals for improvement were made. The entire opera was gone through, piece by piece, note by note, with frequent repetition. The group pleaded and cajoled; Beethoven resisted at every point. It was well past midnight before the end was reached. . . The net result was a reworked opera in two acts, and an entire aria was dropped.”
John Suchet; “Beethoven – The Man Revealed”; New York 2012; p.167-8

Some selected statements from the composer

Still, a blurred picture of Shostakovich is what we face. Can Shostakovich’s own remarks focus our view of the composer? It is often presented that the composer was often reluctant to clarify “explanations” of his work.

While to an extent this is true, a large corpus of his own thoughts does exist. Especially in the context of interviews. Many completely discount these sources from the Soviet media, as being merely words said to kow-tow to the Party (This is discussed further in the section below on sources). However it is unreasonable to throw out all these materials from his various numerous several interviews.

These following quotes are his own words and are of interest:

“’When a critic, in Rabochiy i Teatr or Vechernyaya krasnaya gazeta, writes that in such-and-such a symphony Soviet civil servants are represented by the oboe and the clarinet, and Red Army men by the brass section, you want to scream!”
Dmitry Shostakovich; ‘Sovetskaya muzika Pnaya kritika otstayot’ [Soviet music criticism is lagging], Sovetskaya Muzika (3/1933), 121; cited by: Richard Taruskin; “Public lies and unspeakable truth interpreting Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony”; in Fanning D (Ed); “Shostakovich Studies”; Cambridge Ibid; p.53

“Young Shostakovich delivered this harsh verdict, “This is why we consider Scriabin as our bitter musical enemy. Why? . . . Because Scriabin’s music tends towards unhealthy eroticism. Also to mysticism, passivity, and a flight from the reality of life.“
“In an interview granted to The New York Times in December 1931,
“There can be no music without ideology. . . We, as revolutionaries, have a different conception of music. Lenin himself said that ‘music is a means of unifying broad masses of people’. It is not a leader of masses, perhaps, but certainly an organizing force! For music has the power of stirring specific emotions . . . Even the symphonic form, which appears more than any other divorced from literary elements, can be said to have a bearing on politics . . . Music is no longer an end in itself, but a vital weapon in the struggle. Because of this, Soviet music will probably develop along different lines from any the world has ever known.”
The New York Times, 20 December 1931; cited by Boris Schwarz; “Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia: Enlarged Edition, 1917-1981”; p. 78;

“Asked what spectator he had written this for [“Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk’ -Ed], Shostakovich commented, “I live in the USSR, work actively and count naturally on the worker and peasant spectator. If I am not comprehensible to them I should be deported.”
Fay, Laurel E. Shostakovich: a Life”; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, p.55.

“Dmitri Dmitriyevich said pensively, “Of course – Fascism. But music, real music, can never be literally tied to a theme. National Socialism is not the only form of Fascism, this music is about all forms of terror, slavery, the bondage of the spirit.“
Elizabeth Wilson, citing Flora Litvinova recalling a conversation in 1941 on the 7th Symphony – in Kuibyshev having been evacuated from Leningrad; in “Shostakovich – A Life Remembered”; London 1994; p.158-9

*”“31 December 1943 Moscow: “Dear Isaac Davïdovich. . . The freedom loving peoples will at last throw off the yoke of Hitlerism., peace will reign over the whole world, and we shall live once more in peace under the sun of Stalin’s Constitution”. Of this I am convinced and consequently experience feelings of unalloyed joy.”
Isaak Glikman; “Story of a Friendship: The Letters of Dmitry Shostakovich to Isaak Glikman 1941-1975; and Commentary”; Cornell U Press 2001; p. 23 (69/376)”*

*”28 December, 1955, Moscow: Dear Isaac Davïdovich. . .  Chekhov wrote (I paraphrase). . . A write must never assist the price or the gendarmerie”. . .
As Shostakovich writes he cites “Chekhov “springing” to defence of slanderously accused Dreyfus”
Isaak Glikman, “Story of a friend; p.62-63 (108/376)*

 Of course these are selected quotes. They fail thus to give a complete picture of the composer. But they certainly do not give the impression of a dyed-in-the-wool anti-communist. *Rather what seems likely is a Communist in spirit, who became over time, disillusioned.* I believe a general picture emerges of a gifted musician, aware of the social context, who at first struggled to find an appropriate form in which to express his content. Certainly he was not content to stay in old forms or within old contents. But he was also grappling with a sense of “bondage of the spirit“. He then retreated into a private musical world.

Puzzles surrounding Shostakovich

The several puzzles include these:

i) “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” contains a central progressive theme – the oppression of women (including rich merchant class women) in pre-revolutionary Russia. If so why was it condemned?” Did Stalin write the ‘Pravda” articles that attacked Shostakovich? Was the popular reception of the opera in Russia hostile or otherwise?

ii) Why during the controversy over “Lady Macbeth” – did Maxim Gorki a chief supporter of Socialist Realism – come to the aid of Shostakovich – as follows?

“In March, Maxim Gorky—influential cultural and social figure and, significantly, the chief literary conceptualizer of Socialist Realism—used his personal access to Stalin to express his indignation at the destructive campaign:
‘Shostakovich is young, twenty-five [sic] years old, an unquestionably talented man, but very self-assured and quite high-strung. The Pravda article hit him just like a brick on the head, the chap is utterly crushed… “Muddle,” but why? What does this so-called “muddle” consist of? Critics should give a technical assessment of Shostakovich’s music. But what the Pravda article did was to authorize hundreds of talentless people, hacks of all kinds, to persecute Shostakovich. And that is what they are doing… You can’t call Pravda’s attitude to him “solicitous,” and he is deserving precisely of a solicitous attitude as the most talented of all contemporary Soviet musicians!”
Laurel E Fay; “Shostakovich: a Life”; New York; 2000; Chapter 6; p.91;  citing M. Gorky, “Dva pis’ma Stalinu,” Literaturnaya gazeta (10 March 1993): 6.

iii) Why did Stalin, even after the major ‘Pravda’ attack on Shostakovich – support Shostakovich?

iv) Why was the official reception of the 7th and the 8th Symphonies of Shostakovich so different?

v) Why did A.A.Zhdanov launch an attack in 1948 on the Composers Union, including a named attack on Shostakovich? And yet. . . Why did Stalin continue to support Shostakovich after this?

vi) Why despite all the attacks on Shostakovich, did he win five Stalin Prizes; and also sit as a judge on the Stalin Prize Committee?

vii) What underlies his chamber music, and especially his string quartets? How much truth is that these are a prism of his personal and political anguish? What were these anguishes, if the string quartets do indeed express them?

viii) Why after not even applying to become a member of the CPSU(B) under Stalin’s lifetime, did he do so during N.Khruschev’s rule?

I do not think that Leftists coming from the Trotsky wing can resolve these contradictions satisfactorily. One attempt was made by Simon Behrman (“Shostakovich, Socialism, Stalin and Symphonies”; London nd; ISBN 9781905192663). I consider this book to fail at a historical level. But Behrman’s enthusiasm for music and his  musical insights, in my view make this a very useful book. One that can be recommended to any calling themselves a Marxist. However it is not adequate. That is because it carries a political reductionism in two fundamental ways, which ultimately fails to unlock the Shostakovich story.

Firstly, on principle, Trotsky’s adherents deny the validity of any of the CPSU(B)’s criticisms against some of the more impenetrable aspects in some of Shostakovich’s works. Such Leftists usually end up denying any role of a socialist state – let alone the USSR to 1953 – in shaping a public art to help proletarians. Secondly another aspect stems from their particular theoretical reductionism. For they explain the history of the USSR, in some way as “Stalin’s megalomania” or “stupidity” etc. If this is what you believe – the classic Trotsky view – then there is of course, absolutely no need to probe further into the history of what happened. This convenience bars them from even seeing the role of personalities such as Kerzhentsev.

Appropriately Behrman’s view of the post-1917 revolutionary artistic fervor is absurdly simplistic:

“Along with the political gains of the revolution, the new culture that Trotsky referred to was also destroyed by Stalinism. The explosion of new art that immediately followed the revolution has become known as the Golden Age, a period that brought forth Symbolism and Futurism among many other cultural movements. The names of Rodchenko, Kandinsky, Eisenstein, Meyerhold and Mayakovsky are just some of the great artists of the 20th century indelibly linked with this period. However, by degrees this revolutionary ferment in art was gradually choked off.” Behrman Ibid; p. 10

This simply fails to understand the post-1917 period of Futurism, Constructivism, and other isms, in my view.

Obviously many bourgeois scholars are unable to adequately answer the above puzzles either. Perhaps that is because recently, so many have been generally taken up with a mythology deriving from Solomon Volkov.

“Cold War” pictures fabricated by Solomon Volkov’s “Testimony” 

Today’s concert-goers are largely unaware of how deeply the partisan views of the “Cold War” against Soviet USSR up to 1953, penetrate any ‘purely’ musical interpretation of Shostakovich. Yet that ‘Cold War’ affects all narratives of Shostakovich, whether in scholarly works or novels.

For example, in reviewing a recently acclaimed novel by Julian Barnes, the music scholar Richard Tarushkin wrote:

“Mr. Barnes evidently wanted to capitalize on the interest that frenzied debate has drummed up in his subject and to claim implicitly to have settled the issues concerning the composer’s relationship with Soviet power, which scholars continue to dispute. . .
Mr. Barnes’s view of Shostakovich conforms in every detail to the sentimental Cold War fable of a passive, pathetic yet saintly figure buffeted by an obtuse, implacable force. . . These are the naïve assumptions of pop Romanticism.
The sources on which Mr. Barnes most conspicuously relies are the two canonical texts of the Shostakovich wars. One is “Testimony,” a best-seller that appeared in 1979 whose subtitle is “The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich as Related to and Edited by Solomon Volkov”; the other is the invaluable “Shostakovich: A Life Remembered” (1994) by Elizabeth Wilson.”
Richard Taruskin; “Was Shostakovich a Martyr? Or Is That Just Fiction?” New York Times; Aug. 26, 2016

This ‘Cold War’ attitude also affects music professionals. The gifted conductor Michael Sanderling for example, prior to his debut with the Berlin Symphony said in an interview with Emmanuel Pahud (First Flute) that the 7th Symphony (‘The Leningrad’) reflected the pain of the prior years of unjust imprisonments (See Digital concert Hall interview June 1 2019) . Sanderling offered for this speculation, the reasoning that after all “Shostakovich had produced the 7th Symphony in just 6 weeks”.

Naturally any composer brings to bear on a new piece his or her entire prior experience. And it may have taken time to percolate, and then get shown down on paper rapidly. However, Sanderling minimises just how fast Shostakovich wrote – in general. More specifically in the 7th, Sanderling also minimises both the time, and the emotive power of being in Leningrad during the war and the start of the siege. Elisabeth Wilson informs us that:

“The outbreak of the war found Shostakovich examining the graduation composition students at the Leningrad Conservatoire. His immediate preoccupation was to be of use to his country, but his poor eyesight prevented him from enlisting in any kind of active service or home guard. Nevertheless he did his stint as an auxiliary of the Fire brigade. . .
In early July. . . he made arrangements of songs for the concert brigades to perform at the Front. He was then able to settle down to write his 7th Symphony. The massive first movement was written in less than 6 weeks, the next two movements in under three weeks. Shostakovich was evacuated from Leningrad with his family on 1 October, he took with three completed movements of the 7th Symphony. . . .
Nikolai Sokolov describes the first days in Kuibshev. . . Once I asked Mitya what stopped him from completing his 7th Symphony. He replied: “You know, as soon as I got on that train, something snapped inside me. . . I can’t compose just now, knowing how many people are losing their lives. . .” But as soon as the news came through that the Fascists had been smashed outside Mosocw, he sat down to compose in a burst of energy and excitement. He finished the Symphony in something less than two weeks”.
Wilson Ibid; p.148, 154

Almost needless to say, but Sanderling led the Berlin Philharmonic astonishingly and wonderfully. But I did listen very hard for the footfall of the Yezhovschina. I must say I failed to detect it. Instead I heard the encirclement, fear, worry, and then determination to break through, and then moves to the final battle and victory.  More or less as Shostakovich describes it himself. Naturally I plead guilty to being swayed by the title ‘The Leningrad” and the dates of the composition, and a knowledge of its composition circumstances. But only as guilty, as I fear Sanderling is – for his reading of Volkov’s “Memoirs”.

That partisan ‘Cold War” narrative of the musicologist – Solomon Volkov – has coloured all discussions of Shostakovich.

Volkov claimed his book was composed in frank interviews with Shostakovich. He alleges that Shostakovich was attacked by Stalin, and fought back with coded passages in his music. These were invisible to the casual listener – or to Stalin – it seems. For Volkov the ‘real’ Shostakovich was a hidden anti-Stalin dissident, a rabidly anti-communist.

Such allegations started the modern so-called “Shostakovich Wars”. However they were exposed as a fabrication:

“Mr. Volkov’s book . . . has been exposed as a mixture of recycled material that Shostakovich had approved for republication and fabrications that were inserted after his death. . .
Mr. Barnes has his hackneyed Shostakovich wonder whether Stalin had not only ordered up the editorial that attacked his opera but also had “perhaps even written it himself.” Nobody thought that in Russia in 1936: It was Mr. Volkov who raised the possibility for gullible Westerners in “Testimony.” But now we know who wrote it: a terrified former Yiddish writer named David Zaslavsky, who had become one of Stalin’s most reliable literary hit men. ”
Richard Taruskin; “Was Shostakovich a Martyr? Or Is That Just Fiction?” New York Times; Aug. 26, 2016

Whether it was Zalavsky, or Platon Krezhentsev will be discussed below. The point is that it is most unlikely to have been Stalin.

Volkov believes Shostakovich’s ‘real feelings’ about the USSR do not lie in either the famous 5th Symphony (‘A Soviet Artists response to just criticism’) or the Leningrad 7th symphony. For Volkov the ‘real’ Shostakovich resides more in the 10th Symphony with an alleged anti-Stalin theme; or in the Quartets, or in the ‘Babi Yar’ 13th symphony.

But other musicologists and art historians of Russia, probably the majority, are not entirely convinced:

“Was Shostakovich a “loyal son” of the Communist Party, as Pravda claimed on the composer’s death in August 1975? Was he a coward and reluctant collaborator, forced to survive by making political compromises? Or was he a secret dissident, a heroic teller of the truth through art, a voice of moral protest and dissent? This is how he was portrayed in ‘Testimony’, controversially presented to the world as “The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich” . . . in 1979.”
Orlando Figes; “The Truth About Shostakovich”; New York Review Books, June 10, 2004

One school of musicologists accepts the Volkov ‘Testimony’. For example Ian Macdonald (author of “The New Shostakovich”; London 1990) and the team of Allan Ho and Dmitry Feofanov (authors of ”Shostakovich Reconsidered” London 1998).

But a large body of non-Marxist musicologists and Shostakovich scholars, challenge Volkov’s interpretations and his “facts” (Pauline Fairclough; “Facts, Fantasies, And Fictions: Recent Shostakovich Studies”; Music & Letters, Vol. 86 No. 3; 452-460). Another leading Shostakovich scholar – David Fanning – baldly summarises:

“The fraudulence of Testimony is documented by Laurel Fay, ‘Shostakovich versus Volkov: whose Testimony? Russian Review 39 (1980), 484-93.”
David Fanning; “Talking about eggs: musicology and Shostakovich”; in Ed David Fanning; “Shostakovich Studies”; Cambridge 2009; p.4

Volkov mischaracterises several passages taken from prior published work in Soviet interviews with Shostakovich, as his own private interviews with a dying Shostakovich. Shostakovich’s widow and some of his friends challenged these as falsified. It is symptomatic that Volkov refused to allow his manuscript and notes any independent review. He now claims these are all ‘lost’.

In retrospect even the timing of the Volkov “Memoirs” was suspicious.

“The book appeared at a new height of the cold war, shortly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when the bankruptcy of the Brezhnevite regime was highlighted by a series of highly publicized defections to the West. For certain Western readers the “true Shostakovich” that was revealed appeared as a fallen hero of the moral crusade against the Soviet Union.”
Orlando Figes; “The Truth About Shostakovich”; New York Review Books, June 10, 2004

But virtually single-handedly, the Volkov “Memoirs” guided the critical interpretation for audiences hearing his works. Every commentator at Shostakovich concerts – whether the BBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, NPR in the USA etc – now asserts that a frightened Shostakovich resorted to musical innuendo.

Some authors simply weave quite un-warranted innuendos. As for example Wendy Lesser, in “Music for Silenced Voices”, which was judged the “best music book of the Financial Times for 2011”. On the 7th Leningrad Symphony Wendy Lesser drops this little bomb:

“His mother, sister and nephew were finally evacuated from Leningrad to Kuibysehev during the early rehearsals of the 7th Symphony. . . Nor did he, (or anyone else, as far as I know) ever voice the suspicion that these relatives had been held hostage until he had had produced the requisite masterpiece. The flow of power and privilege and disaster and deprivation was too erratic, in the wartime Soviet Union, for such calculation to seem likely.”
Wendy Lesser; “Music for Silenced Voices – Shostakovich and his 15 Quartets”; New Haven; 2011; p. 49

But trust Wendy Lesser – to do exactly that – to make such ‘calculation’. Lesser, far from any war – let alone the engineered thrust of Hitler’s against the USSR – refuses to try to calculate the difficulties of the resistance in the USSR.

As Paul Mitchison drily puts it Volkov had wrought a perceptual change in Shostakovich’s image.

“Most audiences today listen to Shostakovich through Volkov’s ears. It is a remarkable feat . . . Indeed, at the time of his death in 1975, Dmitri Shostakovich was widely considered, in the words of his Pravda obituary, a “faithful son of the Communist Party.” He was Soviet Russia’s most decorated composer, and his popular symphonies often came pre-packaged with dedications to make even the most hardened Communist bureaucrat smile: “October,” “The First of May,” “The Year 1905,” “The Year 1917.”
Genuine dissidents such as Solzhenitsyn and Lydia Chukovskaya considered Shostakovich a coward and a villain. Shostakovich returned the compliment, allowing his signature to appear beneath a published denunciation of Andrei Sakharov. He had to be convinced not to sign a letter supporting the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.
But twenty-five years ago, Solomon Volkov single-handedly destroyed this popular understanding of Shostakovich by publishing a manuscript that he alleged was the composer’s memoirs, dictated to Volkov as a young Soviet journalist.
‘Testimony’, as the book was titled, was explosive. In its pages, Shostakovich was revealed to be a bitter opponent of Soviet power who tried to express his resistance in music.
“The majority of my symphonies are tombstones,” he allegedly told Volkov. “Hitler is a criminal, that’s clear, but so is Stalin…. That is what all my symphonies… are about.”
Testimony transformed Shostakovich’s reputation in two ways. No longer considered a loyal servant of Soviet power, Shostakovich was increasingly understood, in one popular phrase, as a “secret dissident.” His music, meanwhile, was scoured for evidence of this dissidence, which was held to be the music’s “true” meaning.
There was just one problem: Testimony was not the document Volkov claimed it was.”
Paul Mitchinson; May 3, 2004; ‘The Nation’ (Vol. 278, Issue 17)

Volkov’s picture is undoubtedly falsified. W.B.Bland used him as a key source, but despite that Bland’s analysis largely holds up in my view. Largely, but not completely in my view. With newer published data, Bland’s narrative requires amendment.

Nonetheless perhaps Volkov does capture some grains of Shostakovich’s opportunism and his ‘play of both sides’ of the fence. Ian Macdonald highlights this (Review: Laurel E. Fay’s “Shostakovich: A Life”- A Review;).

A Further note on Sources

Both pro-Volkov and anti-Volkov schools line up an impressive array of musicologists and ‘witnesses’ to buttress their opinions. But interestingly, both schools frequently cited from the more ‘neutral’ biography of Elizabeth Wilson (“Shostakovich A Life Remembered”; London 1994). I take this as an anchor for many details. *In addition the letters of Shostakovich to his ‘secretary’, confident and friend – Isaak Glikman throw added light. (“Story of a friend. The Letters of Dmitry Shostakovich to Isaac Glikman 1941-1975”; Cornell, 20111*)

But in addition I find it strange that most literature takes no account of the many interviews that he gave in his own lifetime. This was collected in the volume “Dmitry Shostakovich: About himself and His Times”; Progress Publishers Moscow; 1980“. No doubt these are largely ignored, as they are simply dismissed as irrelevant dating from the revisionist USSR. There are places in the text that do appear to be from a propagandist rather than from Shostakovich himself. For example in a passage of a sudden paean of praise for Brezhnev from around 1970. There are also however meaningful sections including thoughts on old and modern composers of considerable interest. Where appropriate it will be referenced in the text.

Can Shostakovich’s career be summarised briefly? Before delving into details, I offer a working hypothesis – to be disproved or proven over the course of this article.

A life summary of Shostakovich

To reiterate the obvious, it is unlikely that we shall ever be certain if Shostakovich was a communist. Moreover he was an extremely complex man. Anyone capable of his compositions had to be so. But it is much easier to say that by the end of his life, he had not been a consistently, committed communist. I believe his career followed to some degree, this path:

(i) Shostakovich started out as an aspiring Bolshevik. Many have recalled that his family had helped various revolutionaries. He may have heard Lenin talk at a famous speech on Lenin’s return to exile to take command of the revolution, when he was a child.

(ii) Even during his studies, which began on entry to the St Petersburg Conservatory at the age of 13 years, he achieved quick success. He was enormously gifted which struck other musicians immediately. Then the famous German conductor Bruno Walter on a conducting tour in the USSR, met and heard him play his own Symphony No. 1. Walter premiered it in Berlin, making Shostakovich an international name in music (Schwartz Ibid p. 32). His subsequent work turned overtly towards proletarian societies of music and drama such as ‘Leningrad Theatre of Working Youth’ (TRAM). 

(iii) But even in his early work he was attacked by ultra-leftists of the Proletkult and RAPM. These continued up to the Pravda attack of 1936.

(iv) His opera Lady Macbeth of Mtensk, in 1934 was initially very popular in the USSR. However it led to sharp criticism. I believe that he did accept this criticism – going on to compose his much admired 5th Symphony. The alternative hypothesis offered by bourgeois scholars, is that he disguised his real views and only pretended to heed criticism. For what it is worth, I will argue that his contrition was genuine at this stage. I think he was still trying to find his own style at this stage.

(v) Up till 1945, he remained interested in, and succeeded in producing socially relevant music. Hence the success of his 7th Symphony – the Leningrad – composed and performed in war-time Leningrad.

(vi) Like many innovative musicians (including J.S.Bach, Beethoven and innumerable others) he remained interested musically in finding new ways to express musical thoughts. He was simply not content to stay in prior moulds. This undoubtedly led him into conflicts with some ex-RAPM musicologists and musicians. And in addition, some of his musical experiments were not to the taste of CPSU(B) party leaders.

(vii) He continued to make public music that gained him public audiences. But he had also started writing a more private set of music mainly in his string quartets. In these he allowed himself to be freer both in his musical form and content. I believe that he had become by 1945 soured and increasingly alienated by the revisionist led Yezhovschina. Marxist-Leninists hold that Yezhov carried out a terrible miscarriage of justice in order to alienate workers and intelligentsia from the party. If so why should it be strange that Shostakovich saw that miscarriage? Possibly by then, he already tempered his initial enthusiastic leftism. Increasingly he developed a ‘public face’ and a ‘private’ one. In the latter he pursued internally his own musical path.

(viii) But he was still composing for a wider audience. By the time of the famous 1948 critique by A.A.Zhdanov on formalism, he was still in the USSR publicly acknowledged as the leading composer.  That criticism was not followed by a sustained official ban. Upon appeal to Stalin about an unofficial ban, Stalin over-turned the ban. What lay behind the attack on formalism? It came in 1948 – at a time when the USSR was being forced into an isolationism. The USSR was being forced behind the ‘Iron Curtain” of Winston Churchill‘s making. Even immediately after his subsequent criticism in 1948 – in his open comments, Shostakovich remained a sharp critic of poorly performed music in the USSR, and politically openly backward musical content. He was asked by Stalin to represent the USSR musically at New York.

(ix) During N. Khruschev’s period of rule he joined the Communist Party. Now it seemed as if he had no choice in the matter and he was forced to join. *Glikman’s account of Shostakovich’s anguish is convincing of this.* There are also some comments by his widow that he was somehow forced into becoming a member.By now he was even more openly praised, and he was enjoying the fruits of recognition as a great artist. At this stage he appears to have acquiesced to Khruschev’s revisionist actions including invasion of Czechoslovakia. Ultimately by then, he had become an anti-Marxist-Leninist in his political actions. How much he had any choice in these decisions remains unclear. I suspect he had no effective choice.

(x) To a large extent he retained even then, enough musical independence to continue to produce some searing and meaningful music.

(xi) His work remains of considerable interest to the world’s working and toiling people. This includes his chamber works. I believe they are amongst the most important life enhancing musical works available to the world’s workers and toilers.

The overall plan of this article is as follows:

I believe there are three significant clues that can help to solve the Shostakovich puzzles.

One is the history of hidden revisionism in the USSR, which enabled ultra-leftists in the Arts to find niches such as within Proletkult up till 1920; and then in RAPM up till about 1934; and then within Agitprop. The name of Platon Krezhentsev is not well known to Marxist-Leninists, but is familiar to musicologists. His role was integral to the attacks on the Shostakovich opera ‘Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk’.

Second was the difficulty of actually finding a new dialectical balance between the form and content of a new Socialist Realist revolutionary classical music in the USSR.

Thirdly the external threats to the USSR in post-war USSR of 1945 onwards.

I endeavour to try to unlock the puzzles with these three keys.

To tackle these puzzles, first I discuss purely theoretical frameworks. These include some of the principles of socialist art theory. When distorted a range of right deviations and ultra-leftist deviations in the arts in the USSR post-1917 resulted.

This is followed by a chronological narrative of art history from 1917 to 1932. Regrettably, it has to follow  the in-fighting between various art movements in the early Bolshevik USSR. In essence, this section describes the art movements of the period following the 1917 revolution. There were departures from socialist principles, as the conflicts on art raged between ultra-leftists of Proletkult and RAPM and the Marxist-Leninists. Initially the Bolshevik line was held by Lenin, and then later on by Stalin. In between, as revisionists had held onto positions in the arts, an uncertain period spawned major ideological uncertainty.

Only having placed Soviet music into a context,  can we then follow Shostakovich’s career. This takes us from his early career up to the 1948 Zhdanov speech.

2. Development of music, and the balance of content and form in art

The origins of music

Music began as part of human communications in relation to wresting a livelihood from the natural world. In 1844 Karl Marx explicitly linked its essence and coming into being, to a social and “humanized nature”.

As he put it music is of no meaning to an “unmusical ear.” The “musical ear” is “either cultivated or brought into being”. Marx also understands the “forming of the five senses as a labour of the entire history of the world”:

“let us look at this in its subjective aspect. Just as only music awakens in man the sense of music, and just as the most beautiful music has no sense for the unmusical ear – is [no] object for it, because my object can only be the confirmation of one of my essential powers, therefore can only exist for me insofar as my essential power exists for itself as a subjective capacity because the meaning of an object for me goes only so far as my sense goes (has only a meaning for a sense corresponding to that object) – for this reason the senses of the social man differ from those of the non-social man. Only through the objectively unfolded richness of man’s essential being is the richness of subjective human sensibility (a musical ear, an eye for beauty of form – in short, senses capable of human gratification, senses affirming themselves as essential powers of man) either cultivated or brought into being. For not only the five senses but also the so-called mental senses, the practical senses (will, love, etc.), in a word, human sense, the human nature of the senses, comes to be by virtue of its object, by virtue of humanized nature. The forming of the five senses is a labour of the entire history of the world down to the present. The sense caught up in crude practical need has only a restricted sense.
For the starving man, it is not the human form of food that exists, but only its abstract existence as food. It could just as well be there in its crudest form, and it would be impossible to say wherein this feeding activity differs from that of animals. The care-burdened, poverty-stricken man has no sense for the finest play; the dealer in minerals sees only the commercial value but not the beauty and the specific character of the mineral: he has no mineralogical sense. Thus, the objectification of the human
essence, both both in its theoretical and practical aspects, is required to make man’s sense human, as well as to create the human sense corresponding to the entire wealth of human and natural substance.”
Karl Marx; Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844”; April and August 1844; at MIA

A link to labour as such was made explicit by Frederick Engels. He later laid out how the likely intermediary of the hand and labour – created the need to vocalise. It was labour that developed the need “of something to say to one another”:

“the development of labour necessarily helped to bring the members of society closer together by multiplying cases of mutual support, joint activity, and by making clear the advantage of this joint activity to each individual. In short, men in the making arrived at the point where they had something to say to one another. The need led to the creation of its organ; the undeveloped larynx of the ape was slowly but surely transformed by means of gradually increased modulation, and the organs of the mouth gradually learned to pronounce one articulate letter after another.”
Frederick Engels; “IX The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man
1876”; Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1934; as part of Dialectics of Nature. At: MIA.

This “social need” of the hand – “a product of labour” developed a potential for many functions. It became over time the expert means of developing the playing of instruments, but also to the composed ‘music of a Paganini”:

“Thus the hand is not only the organ of labour, it is also the product of labour. Only by labour, by adaptation to ever new operations, through the inheritance of muscles, ligaments, and, over longer periods of time, bones that had undergone special development and the ever-renewed employment of this inherited finesse in new, more and more complicated operations, have given the human hand the high degree of perfection required to conjure into being the pictures of a Raphael, the statues of a Thorwaldsen, the music of a Paganini.”
Frederick Engels; “The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man 1876”; Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1934; as part of Dialectics of Nature; at: MIA

The Marxist scholar of poetry – George Thomson extrapolated Engels’s sequence to the dance. Thomson explicitly notes the role of music in relation to the earliest forms of labour:

“As human skill improved, the vocal accompaniment ceased to be a physical necessity. The workers became capable of working individually. But the collective apparatus did not disappear. It survived in the form of a rehearsal, which they performed before beginning the real task – a dance in which they reproduced the collective, coordinated movements previously inseparable from the task itself. This is the mimetic dance as still practised by savages today.”
George Thomson; “Marxism and Poetry “; Lawrence & Wishart London nd circa 1949; p. 9

As Thomson goes on to describe, the separation of the voice from instrumental music followed:

“The three arts of dancing, music and poetry began as one. Their source was the rhythmical movement of human bodies engaged in collective labour. This movement had two components, corporal and oral. The first was the germ of dancing, the second of language. Starting from inarticulate cries designed to mark the rhythm, language was differentiated into poetical speech and common speech. Discarded by the voice and reproduced by percussion with the tools, the inarticulate cries became the nucleus of instrumental music.”
Thomson Ibid; p.19

This marked the likely start point of a long history of developing instrumental music.

This new art form of music – and especially in its full classical form of the symphony – is the most difficult of the arts to relate to. For that reason, interpretations of music, can be contentious.

Form and content of art in general

Many art theorists drew attention to two primary components of art of all types. These are content and form. Marxists-Leninists also recognise this distinction:

“The content of a work of art is the character imparted to its subject. by the artist, a character which reflects the artist’s intellectual and emotional – in short, psychological – attitude towards his subject.”
“Theses on Art”; London 1972 by the MLOB and League of Socialist Art’; London; at Alliance ML. 

“The form of a work of art is the manner in which an artist constructs his work of art in order to express its content. On the form of a work of art depends its capacity to communicate its content to consumers.
The form of a work of art is described in terms of the degree to which it truthfully reflects its subject, that is, in terms of the degree of its realism. The further the form of a work of art departs from realism, the nearer it approaches to abstraction, in which the form of a work of art reflects its subject in no discernible way. An abstract painting is composed of shapes and colours, which reflect reality in no discernible way, an abstract poem is composed of sounds without discernible meaning, and so on.“
“Theses on Art”; London 1972 by the MLOB Ibid.At: Alliance ML

Rupture of any unity between content and form – is what can make a particular work of art fail to achieve the highest level:

“The subject alone does not determine a particular form; but content and form or meaning and form, are closely bound together in dialectical interaction.”
Ernst Fischer,“The Necessity of Art – A Marxist Approach”; 1959 ; Tr Anna Bostock London 1981; p.131

What does any such rupture between form and content look like, or sound like?

Content – or as Fischer expresses it ‘meaning’- is itself made up of two aspects:

“The content of a work of art comprises two inter-related components:
1) the reflective content, and
2) the effective content.”
“Theses on Art”; London 1972 by the MLOB Ibid.At: Alliance ML

How do these differ? The reflective content reflects the artist’s self-view of their own life experience:

“The reflective content of a work of art is the reflection in this work of art of the artist’s world outlook – itself the subjective expression of his/her whole life experience. This world outlook is essentially that of the social class to which the artist belongs or with which he identifies his interests.“
“Theses on Art”; London 1972 by the MLOB Ibid.At Alliance ML

The effective content is what the end objective result achieves in its social or political effect:

“The effective content of a work of art consists of the particular thoughts and feelings, which the artist endeavours to create in the minds of consumers through the work of art concerned. The effective content of a work of art is described in terms of the social effects which these thoughts and feelings tend, objectively, to produce: as progressive . . . or as reactionary . . .”
MLOB Ibid

These two elements or components interact. If the artist conciously strives to connect the two elements – at its best this can heighten the mood that is achieved in the audience:

“The inter-relation between the reflective and effective components of the content of a work of art is thus a variable one, dependent on the stage of the development of the society in which the work of art is produced.
The more conscious an artist is of the class basis of the reflective content of his art and of the social effects of its effective content, the closer will the two components of the content of his art be integrated, and the more will the reflective content reinforce the effective content – the more powerful will be the thoughts and feelings created by his art.”
“Theses on Art”; 1972; the MLOB Ibid.

Ideally the form chosen is one that does not distract from the elements of content, but if anything enhances it.

Formalism in art, is usually meant to convey an art that is ‘distracting’, ‘incoherent’, ‘abstract’, or ‘difficult’. It is also a tendency to focus more exclusively on the form, and a tendency to disregard the content. The MLOB called formalism an “abdication” from content:

“abdication from the need to develop content through concentration on questions of form, not to illuminate and express an effective content, but for their own sake.”
Introduction; “Theses on Art”; 1972; Ibid; Alliance ML

Taken together, there are several potential break-points, at which a work of art may fail to achieve a social impact. Even when a social impact is actually desired by the artist.

Deviations from Marxism in politics

Revisionism is a perversion of Marxism-Leninism to serve the interests of the capitalist class.
It can take two main forms, a right deviation or a left deviation.

In general right wing deviations from Marxism-Leninism are relatively easy for the committed proletarian worker to recognise and expose. But this is often not so easy for a deviation that dresses itself as being a ‘left-wing’ movement.

Ultra-leftism is a political stance which generally places the communist movement far ahead of the political understanding of the working class. Indeed so far that it cannot help to move workers politics forward. It makes demands that either not understood by workers themselves as reasonable, or are simply not attainable at that time – or often both. Furthermore it often levels quite personal attacks at leaders of non-communist organisations including trade unions or reformist parties. When this takes place, it will usually alienate the workers from the positions that communists try to win the workers to.

Ultra-leftism was exposed by Marx and Engels in their battles with the anarchists of Mikhail Bakunin who sabotaged the First International. Engels showed how this failed Spanish workers struggles. Engels uses the phrase “ultra-revolutionary“ rather than ultra-leftism. Bakunin’s allies did this by calling prematurely for ‘Revolution Now!’ . To be concrete, as opposed to helping the workers take any interim steps to get to the point where revolution was feasible. The Bakuninists argued instead that  “no part should be taken in a revolution that did not have as its aim the immediate and complete emancipation of the working class”. The fuller context in this example is given as follows:

“Mikhail Bakunin’s secret Alliance has revealed to the working world the underhand activities, the dirty tricks and phrase-mongery by which the proletarian movement was to be placed at the service of the inflated ambition and selfish ends of a few misunderstood geniuses. . . they put into practice. . . ultra-revolutionary phrases about anarchy and autonomy, about the abolition of all authority, especially that of the state, and the immediate and complete emancipation of the workers. . . Spain is such a backward country industrially that there can be no question there of immediate complete emancipation of the working class. Spain will first have to pass through various preliminary stages of development and remove quite a number of obstacles from its path. . . But this chance could be taken only if the Spanish working class played an active political role. . . The members of the Alliance on the other hand had been preaching for years that no part should be taken in a revolution that did not have as its aim the immediate and complete emancipation of the working class, that political action of any kind implied recognition of the State, which was the root of all evil, and that therefore participation in any form of elections was a crime worthy of death.”
Frederick Engels; “The Bakuninists at Work- An account of the Spanish revolt in the summer of 1873”; from: “K. Marx, F. Engels, Revolution in Spain”, Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1939; at MIA:

Lenin, also identified the same major danger for the working class that lies in calls for a “revolutionary purity”. Lenin in 1918 pointed out a need instead for a step-wise progress in political demands that fit particular moments in time, that relate to that moment:

‘It is not enough to be a revolutionary and an adherent of socialism or a Communist in general. You must be able at each particular moment to find the particular link in the chain which you must grasp with all your might in order to hold the whole chain and to prepare firmly for the transition to the next link; the order of the links, their form, the manner in which they are linked together, the way they differ from each other in the historical chain of events, are not as simple and not as meaningless as those in an ordinary chain made by a smith.”
V.I. Lenin; “The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government”; The Development of Soviet Organisation”; March-April 1918; Collected Works, Moscow, 1972 Volume 27, pages 235-77 at MIA

In his most famous work on the question of “ultra-leftism”, Lenin was mainly directed against those eschewing parliamentary or trade union means of work. These ultra-lefts ended up arguing for ‘revolution now’. But argued this at times when the working class was not yet at the point of being able (whether mentally or pragmatically and practically) to reject bourgeois democratic means of struggle. The class had not reached that level of political understanding. For example Lenin attacked the German Lefts, who:

“Contrary to the opinion of such prominent political leaders as Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the German “Lefts” considered parliamentarism to be ‘politically obsolete’ as far back as January 1919. It is well known that the ‘Lefts’ were mistaken”.
V. I. Lenin: “Left-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder”, in: “Selected Works”., Volume 10; London; 1946; p. 98 

Lenin always stressed the need for working with “real humans” in mind and not an “abstract” notion of “human material“:

“We can (and must) begin to build socialism, not with abstract human material, or with human material specially prepared by us, but with the human material bequeathed to us by capitalism. True, that is no easy matter, but no other approach to this task is serious enough to warrant discussion.
. . . the revolutionary but imprudent Left Communists stand by, crying out “the masses”, “the masses!” but refusing to work within the trade unions, on the pretext that they are “reactionary”. . .
‘It would be hard to imagine any greater ineptitude or greater harm to the revolution than that caused by the “Left” revolutionaries! Why, if we in Russia today, after two and a half years of unprecedented victories over the bourgeoisie of Russia and the Entente, were to make “recognition of the dictatorship” a condition of trade union membership, we would be doing a very foolish thing, damaging our influence among the masses, and helping the Mensheviks. The task devolving on Communists is to convince the backward elements, to work among them, and not to fence themselves off from them with artificial and childishly “Left” slogans.”
V.I.Lenin; “Should Revolutionaries Work in Reactionary Trade Unions?“; in ““Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder”; April–May 1920; Collected Works, Volume 31, pp. 17–118; and at MIA 

Ultra-leftism alienates the working class and impedes their movement towards the communists. Yet precisely because it poses as being so “revolutionary”, it is more difficult to un-mask than right deviations.

Right and Left Deviations from Marxist views in art and aesthetic theory

Revisionism is a philosophy found within working class movements which distorts Marxism-Leninism. The ultimate effect – whether intentional or unintentional – is to serve the interests of the capitalist class. Just as in the broader political arena, it can manifest itself in the arts.

In the art schools of the post-1917 Russia and the USSR were several variants of either rightist or of ultra-leftist type. The following broad taxonomy is not given in abstract. It comes from the history of the art movements in the post-1917 USSR. Before looking at the politics of the period however, I believe a characterisation of how the ideology played out in art terms may be of help.

One particular way in which such deviations are shaped, is by disrupting the essential unity of form and content. As we noted above:

“The subject alone does not determine a particular form; but content and form or meaning and form, are closely bound together in dialectical interaction.”
Ernst Fischer, “The Necessity of Art – A Marxist Approach” 1959 ; Tr Anna Bostock London 1981; p.131 

Engels talks about this fusion in a very specific manner, to Ferdinand Lassalle. This is Engels’ advice on Lassalle’s drama “Franz von Sicklingen”. He advised judicious cutting to render it suitable for the stage which does not respond well to “long monologues”. This would restore a fusion of content and form:

“The idea content must, of course as a result suffer, but this is unavoidable. The full fusion of the greater depth of thought, of the conscious historical content, … with Shakespearian liveliness and fullness of treatment. . . is the future of drama.”
Frederick Engels Letter to Lassalle May 18, 1859; in “Marx and Engels on Art and Literature” Moscow 1976; p.103.

More generally, deviations from the unity, which rupture the “bounded together-ness”of form and content – can take either a  right or ultra-left style or aspects. These are quite various.

For example, one major right deviation is to stress only the form.
When for example, artists adopt a position of ‘art for arts’ sake’ . They repudiate content in the art basing themselves on “form” alone. Such artists are simply not interested in eliciting any response, actually their art does not aim at any effective content.

Often they may also argue that to overcome “bourgeois art” they must reject all prior, realist art:

“They hold that aesthetic questions – i.e. questions of quality in art – must be confined to questions of craftsmanship.
On the basis that art which directly serves the interests of the capitalist class is realist in form (as discussed above), they hold that “revolutionary art” must break with the “reactionary” heritage of realist art. . .
. . . They therefore repudiate content more or less completely, take their stand on the slogan “Art for art’s sake” (which rejects the conception of social content in art) and base their art purely on form: on abstract or semi-abstract images. It is this repudiation of content and concentration on form that revolutionary Socialists call “formalism.”
Introduction to, and “Theses on Art”; London 1972 by the MLOB and League of Socialist Art’; London; at Alliance. 

An exhalation and resurgence of tribal art forms, or Cycladic Greek early art – reflects this. Not that such art is poor by any means. But stripped of its context and re-presented as art for today – is a reactionary bow.

Right deviations in art may also stress “availability” of art – rather than content. Claims to be ‘socialist’, are replaced by relying on working class access to art:

“To the modern revisionists, the changed role of art in a socialist society means no more than the wider availability of art to the working people.
But, clearly, the interests of the working class and of socialism are not served by the wider availability, to the working people of art which serves the interests of the capitalist class – the class enemy of the working-class.
In fact, art which serves the interests of the capitalist class is widely available to the working people, within a capitalist society. A worker has little difficulty in obtaining access to the strip cartoons in the “Daily Mirror”; he can watch “Coronation Street” on TV; he can listen to “pop” music almost throughout his spare time; he can visit a “working man’s club”; and watch strip-tease shows every week-end.”
“Theses On Art” From The League Of Socialist Artists; London UK, 1972; Ibid at Alliance ML

A different right danger in theories of art is to simply deny any need for any changes from previous art, or historical art. These proponents argue that it is perfectly all right to stay within the moulds of either old art forms, or old content – or both.

For Right proponents in art, the form – and sometimes even content – of art from prior social eras is perfectly fine. A modern day example of this is the Estonian composer Arvo Pårt. His music became overtly liturgical, and was a very conscious retreat from the post-1953 Khruschevian revisionist USSR:

“the conductor Neeme Järvi (said in an interview) . . . “Everything in Estonia was Shostakovich and Prokofiev. . . But then there was this strange music that was different from what others were doing, and it was from Estonia.” It wasn’t long before Pärt moved on from serialism, experimenting with a collage technique that mixed early music, like Gregorian chant, with modern dissonance. Eventually, with “Credo” in 1968, he took a turn for the overtly spiritual.”
Joshua Barone; “Arvo Pärt Reached Pop Star Status. Now He’s Ready to Rest.”; New York Times September 11, 2025.

Finally another rightist danger is to deny any need for any socialist aesthetics. Such is the case in the later work of Gyorgy Lukacs for example. As the ‘MLOB’ put it:

“Lukacs has been at pains to repudiate his earlier correct, not to say pioneering, work and is now performing yeoman service on behalf of the right-revisionist centre in Moscow. This he is doing by denying in general any validity whatever of aesthetics as a science – thereby negating both his own earlier work and the objective growth and subjective need by the class conscious revolutionary proletariat wherever it may arise, of an art and Literature fully capable of expressing the world view and historical destiny of the proletariat as the prime mover of the socialist revolution.”
Introduction; “Theses On Art” From The League Of Socialist Artists; London UK, 1972; Ibid At Alliance ML

Other attitudes characterise left deviations in art.

One rejects all  prior historical artistic forms as completely irrelevant to the working class – not merely 18th-19th century realist. All prior art is to be rejected dismissed according to these ‘socialist’ artists. This simply extends what we saw in right trends to reject any ‘realist’ art. It extends this view to any previous historical art.
While it sounds ridiculous, this is in fact what a large contingent of artists proposed in the post-1917 revolutionary Russia.

Another form of ultra-leftism in art heavily prioritises content – over any consideration of form.
This presents art with only an effective progressive content, regardless of form. At its extreme, it simply states “this content here is socialist art because it states it is so”. But if the form does not help the viewer to understand the subjective content, then the art is useless in conveying any effective content.

A variant of this is insists that the sole reliance on a stated content extends to a rejection of any professional standards. Since these artists reject form, repeating “this content is socialist art” – this can be regardless of any form.

These errors tend towards  a common failing in ultra-left, which is to blur distinctions between art and propaganda.

Another variant of ultra-leftism in music might be termed ‘dumbing down’. This argues that the working class cannot understand complex music, it must be made to be simpler. This has the effect of damping adapting to current standards.

In the 17th century  J.S.Bach faced a variation of this. While Bach’s compositional skills became recognised widely and quickly, there was criticism in his own lifetime of an “over-complexity”. Or as a music critic Johann Adoplh Scheibe wrote “over-loading“:

“This great man would be the admiration of whole nations if he [his composition] had a more pleasing quality, and if he did not remove naturalness from his pieces by an unclear [schwülstiges] and incomprehensible [verworrenes] manner, and obscure their beauty by all-
too-great art. Because he judges according to his own fingers, his pieces are extremely difficult to play. He requires singers and instrumentalists to produce with their voices and instruments what he can play on the keyboard. This, however, is impossible. He uses conventional notes to express all the ornaments, all the small embellishments, and everything understood to fall under the method of playing. This not only removes the harmonic beauty, but also obscures the melody. [All voices have to work together and be equally difficult; no principal subject is recognizable.] . . . Over-loading has led both from the natural to the artificial and from the noble to the obscure. In both, one admires the difficult work and exceptional effort, which, however, is used in vain because it conflicts with Nature.”
Johann Adolph Scheibe; cited by Beverly Jerold; “The Bach-Scheibe Controversy: New Documentation”; Bach, 2011, Vol. 42, No. 1 (2011), pp. 1-45.

Bland points out that a key word here is to ‘suggest’ realism, and that a socialist realist work of art must not give the impression of being propaganda. Again this was also point made by Engels. As Engels expressed it in 1888, again to Margaret Harkness:

“The more the opinions of the author remain hidden, the better the work of art.”
Friedrich Engels: Letter to Margaret Harkness (April 1888); in: Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: ‘On Literature and Art’; Moscow; 1976; p.91

To even more clearly explain to Margaret Harkness this distinction (between art and propaganda) Engels explicitly discusses Honore Balzac, who he prefers to Emile Zola. Despite that Zola was politically an engaged leftist and Balzac was a “Legitimist” or a supporter of the Bourbons overthrown in 1792). We will discuss later Engels’ view on “tendentiousness” in art.

Just as in general politics, it is more difficult to detect the various ‘ultra-left’ forms of revisionism in art – than it is to detect the right revisionisms. I try to boil down its differences from right deviation, in a simple table below. Perhaps too simple, since context is crucial. Nevertheless it may have some taxonomic use.

The problems of interpreting music

Finally a caution has to be sounded. The abstraction of music makes its interpretations often quite unclear and subjective. It is likely that for example, that J.S.Bach found that his Fugues were rather more difficult for audiences than his Masses.

Understanding the content of music – especially if it carries no libretto, or no title – is simply not as transparent as understanding a painted canvas. Granting a title or a hint of the inspirational source to music, helps elucidate the mental images evoked. The vivid example of Ludwig Beethoven illustrates this.

Even the ultra-leftists of movements such as RAPM conceded (finally) that Beethoven was of significance for proletarian audiences in the USSR.  The ultra-leftists tolerated him largely based on Symphony no.3 (‘Eroica’). There Beethoven famously tore out his prior dedication to Napoleon Bonaparte after the latter declared himself ‘Emperor’.

Yet Beethoven felt it necessary to use subtitles for some of his other symphonies as well. Perhaps a more vivd example of the felt need of even the maestro Beethoven for guides to guide listeners is the “Pastoral”. In that great Symphony No.6  of 1808, labels are given. Such as the first movement, “Awakening of cheerful feelings on arrival in the countryside“. Moreover even though he clearly voices sounds of birdsong in the second movement (“Scene by the brook“) – he felt it necessary to write in the score which instrument was playing which bird was singing (See below).

The Russian composer Nikolai Roslavetz – a “dedicated communist” – sarcastically dismissed the Ultra-leftists of RAPM – who only saw content as important. He put it this way:

“Roslavetz attacked the concept of “representational” music. Using his slogan, “Music is music, not ideology”. . . “If we cross out the title ‘Hymn of Thanksgiving’ in Beethoven’s Quartet Op. 132 and substitute ‘Festive Victory Celebration of the Red Army’ or ‘Opening of the Streetcar Line in Baku’—does this in any way change the content of the quartet?”
Boris Schwarz; “Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia: Enlarged Edition, 1917-1981”; p.37;

Roslavetz’s career was destroyed in return for his views, by the ultra-lefts of RAPM:

“Roslavetz was described as “the rotten product of bourgeois society” and the exponent of “petit- bourgeois reaction hiding behind leftist phraseology. . . Roslavetz suffered professional ostracism and eventual oblivion after 1930.”
Boris Schwarz; “Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia”; Ibid; p.31, 38

This quality of an ‘opacity’ in ‘pure’ music was recognised in the USSR at the highest levels of music appreciation and education in the USSR. For example, many adjudicators of the ‘Stalin Prize’ in music acknowledged this, during various heated pro and anti-Shostakovich discussions.

The anti-Shostakovich musicologist Alexander Borisovich Goldenweiser insisted that:

“calling a musical work formalist just because one doesn’t understand it, is not always correct.”
Marina Frolova-Walker; “Stalin’s Music Prize – Soviet Culture and Politics”; Yale New Haven; 2016; p.100;

The chair of the Prize Committee of the Stalin Prize (KSP) Moskvin rejecting anti-Shostakovich views, claimed that:

“Music is obscure.”
Marina Frolova-Walker; Ibid; p.98

Between the years 1940-1953 – one common criticism of Shostakovich was indeed of “formalism”. But many reputable Social Realists pushed back against this and insisted that his music was not ‘gloomy, difficult to understand” etc.

Even the anti-Shostakovich socialist realist writer Alexander Fedayev, defended Shostakovich’s work setting poems on the 1905 failed revolution (‘Ten Poems on texts by Revolutionary poets op 88”).

In fact Fedayev was a former RAPP leader:

“For his major film projects of the decade, was assigned successively the former RAPP
leader Aleksandr Fadeev (for Moscow in Time).”
Katerina Clark; “Moscow, the Fourth Rome. Stalinism, Cosmopolitanism, and the Evolution of Soviet Culture, 1931-1941”; Cambridge, Massachusetts ; 2011 “; p. 83.

The charge was raised of pessimism – and in truth – it was prompted by the historical truth of the failure of the 1905 revolution. Fedayev rejected this saying:

“I can’t see that listeners after hearing this piece, would descend into gloom and start crying over (1905) revolutions; failure. . . This is not at all formalist music. It is heroic music, music that makes you want to sing together with the choir.”
Marina Frolova-Walker; Ibid; p. 109

Vera Mukhina “The great sculptor” – whose Socialist Realist masterpiece is the ‘Collective meets the worker”, during a heated debate on whether the 8th Symphony was to be attacked, or if it should be awarded a prize praised it:

“In my opinion the 8th Symphony is not at all lower than the 7th. . . The impression is colossal. The 8th Symphony is a huge work. There might be drawbacks, but there are always drawbacks. The two marches are quite exceptional.”
Marina Frolova-Walker; Ibid; p. 94

Finally the composer Kablevsky explicitly made a link between “Soviet titles of compositions and their non-Soviet content“. to the “the RAPM times”:

“Already in 1934, Kabalevsky had pointed to the discrepancy between Soviet titles of musical compositions and their non-Soviet content. He maintained that Soviet composers had not yet found “expressive means corresponding to the topics selected, and that even the topics were not always thought out thoroughly”. Kabalevsky’s criticism was obviously aimed at the shift to Soviet thematics that became so widespread around 1930. In lieu of “content”, the composers simply attached a catchy title or a programme to their music. This, Kabalevsky felt, was a “remnant of the RAPM times … the distrust of purely instrumental music which allegedly was incapable of fully reflecting our Soviet reality”. And in a final blow at “concrete musical images”, Kabalevsky said, “It does not mean at all that Soviet music must ‘depict’ and ‘portray’ concrete facts and occurrences—things of which, perhaps, music is not even capable. We must keep in mind the concrete ideo-emotional basis of creativity.”
Kabalevsky expressed what was on the mind of many serious composers.
Shostakovich said it bluntly and rather ironically, “There was a time when the problem of content was simple: put in some verses, there’s content; no verses—formalism.”
Boris Schwarz; “Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia: Enlarged Edition, 1917-1981”; p.94

An introduction to the Formalism Debate of 1948

Before reverting to a chronological description, it is appropriate in this section on aesthetics, to skip ahead in time and introduce the 1948 debate on formalism. After all is said and done – what is formalism?

A.A.Zhdanov explicitly called Shostakovich a ‘formalist’:

“The names of the following comrades have been mentioned: Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Myaskovsky, Khachaturyan, Popov, Kabalevsky and Shebalin. . . (and) Shaporin.
When mention is made of any leading group holding the reins, those are the names most frequently cited. Let us consider these comrades, who are also the leading figures of the formalist trend in music, a trend which is fundamentally wrong.”
A.Zhdanov: Chapter III: On Music: Concluding Speech at a Conference of Soviet Music Workers, 1948; I: Two Trends in Music”; at: MIA

For Zhdanov formalism in music was to “reject the classical heritage” of a “music realist and of truthful content … linked with people and folk music and folk song”:

“There is in fact, then, a sharp though hidden struggle between two trends taking place in Soviet music. One trend represents the healthy, progressive principles in Soviet music, based on the acceptance of the immense role to be played by the classical heritage, and in particular by the Russian school, in the creation of a music which is realist and of truthful content and is closely and organically linked with the people and their folk music and folk song – all this combined with a high degree of professional mastery. The other trend represents a formalism alien to Soviet art, a rejection of the classical heritage under the banner of innovation, a rejection of the idea of the popular origin of music, and of service to the people, in order to gratify the individualistic emotions of a small group of select aesthetes.
The formalist trend brings about the substitution of a music which is false, vulgar and often purely pathological, for natural, beautiful, human music. Furthermore, it is characteristic of this trend to avoid a frontal attack and to screen its revisionist activities by formally agreeing with the basic principles of socialist realism.”
A.Zhdanov: Chapter III: On Music: Concluding Speech at a Conference of Soviet Music Workers, 1948; I: Two Trends in Music”; at MIA:

For Zhdanov there was a marked difference between the classical music of the heritage, and the music of the formalists. In major part this was because classical music “has its sources in the musical creative powers of the people, in a deep respect and love for the people, their music and song”. In contrast the formalists were “anti-popular”:

“As an example, there is the attitude towards the classical heritage. There is no indication whatever that the supporters of the formalist school are carrying on and developing the traditions of classical music, however much they may protest to the contrary. Any listener will tell you that the works of Soviet composers of the formalist type differ fundamentally from classical music. Classical music is marked by its truthfulness and realism, its ability to blend brilliant artistic form with profound content, and to combine the highest technical achievement with simplicity and intelligibility. Formalism and crude naturalism are alien to classical music in general and to Russian classical music in particular. The high level of the idea content in classical music springs from the recognition of the fact that classical music has its sources in the musical creative powers of the people, in a deep respect and love for the people, their music and song.
What a step backward it is along the high-road of musical development when our formalists, undermining the foundations of true music, compose music which is ugly and false, permeated with idealist sentiment, alien to the broad masses of the people, and created not for the millions of Soviet people, but for chosen individuals and small groups, for an élite. How unlike Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Dargomyzhsky, Mussorgsky, who considered the basis for development of their creative power to be the ability to express in their works the spirit and character of the people. By ignoring the wants of the people and its spirit and creative genius, the formalist trend in music has clearly demonstrated its anti-popular character.”
A.Zhdanov: Chapter III: On Music: Concluding Speech at a Conference of Soviet Music Workers, 1948; I: Two Trends in Music”; at: MIA

Zhdanov contrasted two trends in Soviet music – a “healthy” and a “pathological” one:

“There is in fact, then, a sharp though hidden struggle between two trends taking place in Soviet music. One trend represents the healthy, progressive principles in Soviet music, based on the acceptance of the immense role to be played by the classical heritage, and in particular by the Russian school, in the creation of a music which is realist and of truthful content and is closely and organically linked with the people and their folk music and folk song – all this combined with a high degree of professional mastery. The other trend represents a formalism alien to Soviet art, a rejection of the classical heritage under the banner of innovation, a rejection of the idea of the popular origin of music, and of service to the people, in order to gratify the individualistic emotions of a small group of select aesthetes.
The formalist trend brings about the substitution of a music which is false, vulgar and often purely pathological, for natural, beautiful, human music.”
Zhdanov A: “Chapter III: On Music: Concluding Speech at a Conference of Soviet Music Workers, 1948”; Two Trends in Music”; in “Andrei Zhdanov 1950 “On Literature, Music and Philosophy”; Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1950. At MIA

We will return to the substance of these charges later.

Importantly he also flagged the manner and skill with which revisionism “screened itself by formally agreeing with the basic principles of socialist realism”:

“Furthermore, it is characteristic of this (formalist) trend to avoid a frontal attack and to screen its revisionist activities by formally agreeing with the basic principles of socialist realism. This sort of underhand method is, of course, nothing new. History can show many instances of revisionism behind the label of sham agreement with a given teaching.”
Zhdanov A: “Chapter III: On Music: Concluding Speech at a Conference of Soviet Music Workers, 1948”; Two Trends in Music”; Ibid at MIA

In addition it is important that the 1948 A.A.Zhdanov statements on formalism on art came within the context of a post-war USSR frozen out and under potential by her erstwhile Allies. Zhdanov made this quite explicit:

“We must take into account the fact that alien bourgeois influences from abroad will muster what remains of a capitalist outlook in the minds of some Soviet intellectuals in frivolous and crazy attempts to replace the treasures of Soviet musical culture by the pitiful tatters of modern bourgeois art. For this reason not only the musical but also the political ear of Soviet composers must be very sensitive. Your contact with the people must be closer than ever before. The ear for music must be an ‘ear for criticism’ too. You should keep track of the various stages through which art is passing in the West. But it is your task not only to prevent the penetration of bourgeois influences into Soviet music: it is your task, too, to consolidate the supremacy of Soviet music and to create a mighty Soviet musical culture which will embody all that is best from the past, and which will reflect Soviet society of today and enable the culture and the communist consciousness of our people to attain still greater heights.
We Bolsheviks do not deny our cultural heritage.”
A.Zhdanov: Chapter III: On Music: Concluding Speech at a Conference of Soviet Music Workers, 1948; I: Two Trends in Music”; Ibid at MIA

Zhdanov expressly points out that the Stalin Prizes were a “substantial advance payment”. That the Party had hoped for changes from “within the (composers) themselves” – but now the Central Committee was “intervening”:

“The formalist trend in music was condemned by the party twelve years ago. Since then the government has awarded Stalin prizes to many of you, among them those guilty of formalism. The rewards you received were in the nature of a substantial advance payment. We did not consider that your compositions were free of defects, but we were patient, expecting our composers to find within themselves the strength to choose the right road. But it is now clear to everybody that the intervention of the party was necessary. The Central Committee tells you bluntly that our music will never win glory along the road you have chosen.
Soviet composers have two highly responsible tasks. The chief one is to develop and perfect Soviet music. The other is to protect Soviet music against penetration by elements of bourgeois decay.”
A.Zhdanov: Chapter III: On Music: Concluding Speech at a Conference of Soviet Music Workers, 1948; I: Two Trends in Music”; Ibid at MIA

We will discuss this statement below, after reviewing Shostakovich’s career up to 1948.

Musical Battles between revisionists and Marxist-Leninists in the USSR

Resolving the contradictions identified in Shostakovich’s career demands discussing the battles between artistic movements in the USSR from 1917 onwards.

W.B.Bland briefly evaluated Shostakovich in the context of allegations against Stalin concerning artists in the USSR. (Bland 1993 at Alliance ML 1993)  However he largely dwelt with Proletkult and RAPP only up to 1932. Yet elsewhere in other fields, it is apparent that revisionists  defeated in open ideological battle often went underground and adopted new disguises. In literature, art and music, the same phenomenon is found.

For example, the CPSU(B) in 1932 made various statements on art and literature to prevent ultra-leftism in the arts. Some art revisionists may have well reconsidered and changed their minds about their positions. Undoubtedly others did not, and if so – then they had to retrench. In this some revisionists took new positions. They were apparently free of  discredited organisations like RAPM.

For example Agitprop – or the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b), became a new home for many displaced intellectuals from RAPM. This was initially headed by Evgeny Preobrazhensky. It gave berth to many ultra-leftists.

To many Marxists this may seem quite improbable.

However what are we to think for example, of the Agitprop leader V.N.Shulgin – who consigned schools to oblivion – from the Agitprop Department? The theoretical ‘justification’ of this was the ‘withering away of the state’. A distortion of the prior writings of Engels, and inapplicable at the contemporary stage in the USSR. This had been already explained by Stalin:

“Viktor Nikolaevich Shulgin, a young Communist intellectual who had entered Narkompros early in the 1920s. . .
He wrote in 1925: “in my opinion there will be no school at all in the future Communist society; the children will go straight into work in society [obshchestvennaya rabota]’; and in 1927 that the school is ceasing to be a school, is withering away as a school. . .
The teacher is withering away. . .
Shulgin’s theory of the ‘withering away of the school’ was clearly related to the Marxist theory of the withering away of the state, which had been sharply rejected (at least for the foreseeable future) by Stalin at the 16th Party Congress in 1930. In the spring of 1931, Shulgin acknowledged that his theory had proved ‘disorienting’ to teachers. But Stalin’s speech had done little apparent damage to the radicals: it was, in fact, in the year after the speech that Shulgin’s ideas became most influential and widely disseminated. “
Fitzpatrick, Sheila; “Cultural Revolution and the schools” in ; “Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union 1921–1934”; Cambridge UK 1979; p.140; 143; 156

So while ultra-left art revisionists were exposed in 1932 – as we shall see shortly – many of them found new positions.

3. Culture after the Bolshevik Revolution (1917-1930)

In the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, the people led by the Bolshevik fraction of the RSDLP seized the Russian state from the Tsarist regime. The task of the incoming Bolshevik Government was now to completely remake and rebuild the whole of society. While the tasks facing the Bolsheviks were huge, hope exploded in all spheres of life. The excitement amongst artists was intoxicating, and sometimes gave rise to un-realised projects. For example, the “Monument to the Third International” by the constructivist Vladimir Tatlin (below).

Among the many early and pressing needs was food. But even then one other leading priority was recognised. Namely to educate the hitherto largely illiterate and starved masses. This had to be done, even while repelling the attacks on Soviet Russia of the counter-revolutionary Whites and the imperialists. The Civil War made the educational and cultural advance of the people a huge priority.

‘Proletarian Culture’ (1917-24)

There was general agreement in Soviet Russia that culture in a socialist state, a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, should in some way be a ‘proletarian culture’. But there was no agreement as to what ‘proletarian culture’ should consist of.

But an even more immediate concern was the illiteracy and lack of education available to the working class. This dwarfed the needs of artists and shaped the goals of art. As V.I.Lenin said to Klara Zetkin:

“So that art may come to the people, and the people to art, we must first of all raise the general level of education and culture. And how is our country in that respect? . . .
We are confronted with the gigantic needs of the workers and peasants for education and culture, needs awakened and stimulated by us.
Not only in Petrograd and Moscow, in the industrial centers, but outside them, in the villages. And we are a poor nation, a mendicant nation, whether we like it or not, the majority of the old people remain culturally the victims, the disinherited. Of course we are carrying on a vigorous campaign against illiteracy.
We are setting up libraries and ‘reading huts’ in the small towns and villages. We are organizing educational courses of the most varied nature. We arrange good theatrical productions and concerts, we send ‘educational tableaux’ and ‘traveling exhibitions’ over the country. But I repeat, what is all that to the many millions who lack the most elementary knowledge, the most primitive culture! While in Moscow to-day ten thousand – and perhaps to-morrow another ten thousand – are charmed by brilliant theatrical performances, millions are crying out to learn the art of spelling, of writing their names, of counting, are crying for culture, are anxious to learn.”
Clara Zetkin; “Reminiscences of Lenin”; written in 1924; from a pamphlet by International Publishers 1934; MIA; at: Zetkin

Consequently leading a push on Education was a key priority for the Bolsheviks. A new central government structure was created to tackle this – the Commissariat of Education – Narkompros. 

It is not surprising that this central pillar of change in society was to become an intense arena of ideological battles. Especially since as we describe shortly, the Commissariat – roughly translated as either Education or Enlightenment or both – covered a large territory.

Thus before moving into the arts directly, some battles over the control of ideology and propaganda must be outlined. These we focus on here are those that took place in the period 1917-1923. A number of differing organisations arose, that are introduced into the text as becomes necessary.

The Narkompros under Anatol Lunarcharsky (or Lunarcharskii)

The Bolsheviks chose as the People’s Commissar of Education (Narkompros) – Anatol Lunarchasky. Reflecting Lunarcharsky’s later position on many cultural issues, he early on renounced any role for Party control:

“Lunarcharsky’s first declaration as Commissar of Education contained a virtual abdication of the powers of Soviet Government institutions in the direction of cultural affairs:
“The people themselves, consciously or unconsciously, must evolve their own culture. . . The independent action of . . . workers’, soldiers’ and peasants’ cultural-educational organizations must achieve full autonomy, both in relation to the central government and to the municipal centers”.
Sheila Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightenment – Soviet organisation of education and arts under Lunarcharsky October 1917-1921“; Cambridge 1970; p.89

But as we shall see, his firm position against any Party priority – vacillated quite a bit. Unfortunately when it counted in 1920, he was to disappoint Lenin by holding to this anti-Party line.

The appointments of Mikhail Porovsky and Alexsandr Bogdanov

Key positions under Lunarcharsky were appointed to former members of the on-Bolshevik faction known as “Vperyod” (‘Forward’). Almost immediately Lunarcharsky made the revisionist historian Mikhail Pokrovsky  his Deputy People’s Commissar for Education of the RSFSR (1918-32). He had long supported the Mensheviks. In addition Pokrovsky later held many other positions, including these following:

Director of the Institute of Red Professors (1921-32); Chairman of the Presidium of the Communist Academy; Director of the Central State Archive (1922-32), and Director of the Society of Marxist Historians (1925-32).
Bland W.B. for Communist League; “The Struggle Against Revisionism In The Field Of Linguistics”; Compass February 1997, No. 126; at MIA

Another influential cultural leader was Lunarcharsky’s brother-in-law – Alexsandr Bogdanov.

V.I.Lenin had long polemicised against all three – Lunarcharsky, Bogdanov, and Pokrovsky. The first two had espoused what Lenin dubbed a ‘Godhead’. This revival of idealism was disguised in a Machist philosophy.

Lunarcharsky believed that:

“the Bolsheviks should propagate Marxism as an anthropocentric religion whose God was Man, raised to the height of his powers , and whose celebration was revolution – ‘the greatest and most decisive act in the process of ‘Godbuilding’.. . The Godbuilding thesis was illustrated by Maxim Gorky, then a close friend of Lunacharsky in his novel ‘Confession”… (whose hero is directed by a prophet – ed) to a proletarian commune.”
Fitzpatrick S “The Commissariat of Enlightenment Ibid; p. 4-5

All three held ultra-leftist intellectual and political positions. The development of these individuals away from the Bolsheviks in 1909 is covered in “Trotsky Against the Bolsheviks Part One” (At Alliance ML 2000 reprint of 1975 at Alliance ML).

In brief, Pokrovsky led the formation known as Vperyod and both Lunarcharsky and Bogdanov were closely involved. Lenin characterised this as below:

“Vperyod”(Forward.) was characterised by Lenin as the faction:
“‘Vperyod’ represents a non-Socialist-Democratic tendency (otzovism and Machism)” ..
V. I. Lenin: “The New Faction of Conciliators or the Virtuous”; Lenin “Selected Works”; Volume 4; London; 1943; p. 106

All three became – to varying degrees engaged – in the various ultra-left artistic movements (Proletkult, Futurism, RAPP, RAPM); and in the universities and educational forum controlled by the ‘Communist Academy’.

However these appointments were early on in the Revolution. It must be recalled that in the situation of the looming and threatening Civil War, all hands were needed. Apart from outright traitors, all willing persons  were able to join the Revolution. Naturally the Revolution needed specialists in all fields. Nonetheless, the appointment of important and long standing anti-Leninists in the arts and educational institutions definitely carried negative consequences. Both in the medium and long term. In the long term, these were to embroil Shostakovich.

The Scope of Narkompros

The range of activity of Narkompros was immense. Hence over time, several sub-departments arose within it. The divisions of labour between these were overlapping but distinct:

“What began to be referred to as the cultural front – includ(ed) the various realms of agitprop, political enlightenment and science. Separate agencies emerged for each category: the Central Committee’s Agitprop Department in 1920; the Main Committee on Political Enlightenment (Glavpolitprosvet) in 1920-21, founded at the outset as a quasi-party organisation placed under a state institution, the Commissariat of Enlightenment (Narkompros); and an agency with a mandate to oversee social science scholarship and higher education, Narkompros’ State Academic Council (Gosudarstvennyi uchenyi sovet), which arose out of Narkompros’ “academic centre” after 1921.”
Michael David-Fox; “Science, Political Enlightenment and Agitprop: On the Typology of Social Knowledge in the Early Soviet Period”; Minerva , December 1996, Vol. 34, No. 4 (December 1996), pp. 347-366

What Narkompros covered and achieved on the ground was impressively extensive:

“The central organizational task facing Narkompros. . . was the administration of the school system; and this was the area of its most conspicuous failure during the Civil War period. But Narkompros had a number of achievements to its credit. Universities, the Academy of Sciences, scientific research institutes and theatres were kept open with government subsidy, and without excessive interference from Naropompros. . . Public libraries, art collections and museums were preserved and opened to the public. Narkompros formulated basic principles of educational reform, and set up a large number of kindergartens and a network of experimental schools and children’s colonies. It subsidized the arts on a fairly catholic basis which was in effect favourable to the development of experimental and avant-garde art, but at the same time discouraged the avant-garde from persecuting the conservatives. The leaders of Narkompros were exceptionally well qualified for their work, democratic in their methods, appreciative of expert advice and cooperation. ”
Sheila Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightenment – Soviet organisation of education and arts under Lunarcharsky October 1917-1921“; Cambridge 1970; p.xiv-xv

Krupskaya and Illiteracy

One main task of Narkompros as already mentioned, was to tackle illiteracy. Accordingly the Narkompromos created a specific department which at first was named “Extramural Education” in 1917. It was almost natural that this would be under Nadezdha Krupskaia’s (or Krupskaya) direction.

Of course Krupskaia was Lenin’s wife. But she was also a considerable political force of her own right. She had been a teacher before exile and then came the revolution. The tasks of combatting illiteracy were certainly in her bailliwick:

“In December 1917 the commissariat (Narkompromos) created an Extramural Education Department under Krupskaia, which renamed the Department of Political Education, and which became responsible for all educational and propaganda work among adults. In 1920, Krupskaia’s department was reorganized, renamed the Department of Political Education, and became responsible for all educational and propaganda work among adults.”
Kenez, Peter; “The birth of the propaganda state : Soviet methods of mass mobilization, 1917-1929”; Cambridge 1985; p.74; 76;

Krupskaia’s own primary work was focused largely on tackling the huge and daunting issue of illiteracy:

“The hostility of the nation’s teachers seriously hindered the Bolsheviks in organizing education. The literacy campaign in particular progressed slowly. . . December 26, 1919, when Sovnarkom issued its famous decree on illiteracy. Speaking on the tenth anniversary of the publication of this decree in 1929, Krupskaia admitted that at the time of the Civil War not a single paragraph of the decree was realized. . . The greatest achievement of the regime at the time of the civil war was in teaching the soldiers of the Red Army.”
Kenez, Peter; “The birth of the propaganda state”; Ibid; p.76; 77

In addition however, Krupskaia wanted together with Lunarcharsky – to bring all areas of propaganda together under the Commissariat (Narkompros). This was resisted by others in the Party. The story became part of Lenin’s battles against Proletkult (Proletarian Cultural and Educational Organization). A rapidly evolving battle between the most ultra-left member of the arts community and Lunarcharsky was brought into stark public view.

As the ultra-left attack on Narkompros increased with the aid of Nikolai Bukharin, the Central Committee stepped in.

Battles of Lunarcharsky against the ultra-lefts led by P.M. Kerzhentsev, and formation of Proletkult

Lunarcharsky understood and vigilantly represented the educational side of Narkompros. But on the arts in general, at key times he was hesitant. This stemmed from an inconsistent attitude to the ultra-Left of the arts.

He performed a balancing act walking between ultra-Leftists on one side and along the Leninist line on the other. Correspondingly Lunarcharsky advocated for all forms of art expression. These ranged from the traditional forms (including state theatre) and the most ‘avant-garde’ ultra-leftism (including Futurism).

As a consequence he was attacked by both the left and the Leninist parts of the Bolsheviks.

The Futurists and Proletkult

A fuller description of various left movements is given below. However it is helpful to introduce the early movements known as Proletkult and Futurism, at this stage.

Russian Futurism was in particular based in the literary arts. It began by emulating the Italian movement started by Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti, an Italian poet. He had ties with utopian and Symbolist artists, but  wrote his ‘Manifesto of Futurism’, to extoll the modern” in 1909. Marinetti later descended into Italian fascism.

While the Russian Futurists had no formal links to the Italian movement, it was influenced by it at the start. Among their leaders was the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. A taste of Russian Futurism is contained in these following lines of the December 1912 ‘Manifesto’ Slap in the Face of Public Taste” – by David Burliuk, Alexander Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Victor Khlebnikov:

“To the readers of our New First Unexpected.
We alone are the face of our Time. Through us the horn of time blows in the art of the word.                     The past is too tight.
The Academy and Pushkin are less intelligible than hieroglyphics.
Throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc., etc. overboard from the Ship of Modernity.
He who does not forget his first love will not recognize his last.”
See at “Manifestoes”

Mayakovsky formed the ‘Left Front of Art” (LEF) with the “Cubo-Futurist” wing. Most Futurists later became followers of the later literary movement RAPP (Russian Association of Proletarian Writers) – formed in 1920, after Proletkult declined. We will return in more depth to Mayakovsky later.

However Futurism was narrower than Proletkult. The broader vision of Proletkult is spelt out in its full title:

“An acronym for “proletarian cultural-educational organizations,” Proletkult was a loosely structured cultural organization that first took shape in Petrograd. . . a few days before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. It began as a loose coalition of clubs, factory committees, workers’ theaters, and educational societies.”
Lynn Mally, “Proletkult” in James R. Millar (ed): “Encyclopaedia of Russian History” Volume 3; London, 2004; p.1235

Proletkult began in Petrograd, in large part stimulated by Lunarcharsky. By March 1918, Moscow had also formed its own Proletkult. Here it was led by Bogdanov. It took the same position of being “an independent mass class organisation with full autonomy”.

“This wording followed that in Lunarcharsky’s 29 October 1917 declaration. But also it was also stated in the Sovnarkom 9 November 1917 decree on the State Education Commission, the cultural front was “on an equal footing with other forms of the workers’ movement – the political and economic.”
Sheila Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightenment – Soviet organisation of education and arts under Lunarcharsky October 1917-1921“; Cambridge 1970; p.91

The question of ‘experts’ and ‘amateurs’ in art, and ‘old culture’ versus ‘new culture’ – came quickly to the forefront of discussions.  At the 1917 October conference establishing Proletkult in Petrograd – held under Lunarcharsky’s sponsorship –  some had argued that:

“All culture of the past might be called bourgeois, that within it – except for natural sciences and technical skills (and even there with qualifications) there was nothing worthy of life, and that the proletariat would being the work of destroying the old culture and creating the new immediately after the revolution.” . .
In 1918 members of Petrograd Proletkult refused to participate in a ‘theatrical soviet’ including bourgeois specialists organized by Lunarcharsky . . (including Lebedev-Polyansky).”
Sheila Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightenment Ibid; p.92

The ultra-left attacks on Lunarcharsky

Lunarcharsky defended the already existing state theaters. This led to attacks on him from both ultra-leftists and Leninists. From the left, it was  Platon M. Kerzentsev and N Bukharin who led the attack:

“The battle of ideology was a constant accompaniment to the struggle over organisational forms, and in the winter of 1919-1920 Lunarcharsky was under constant attack from the left over his defence of the traditional theatre, and (supposed-Ed) neglect of the revolutionary and experimental theatre. His chief opponents were P.M. Kerzentsev and Bukharin. . .
Kerzentsev saw Lunarcharsky as in sinister alliance with the theatrical reactionaries Yuzhin (of the Maly theatre) and Tairov (of the Kamerny theatre). He believed that proletarian theatre would be created through rejection of the past, and not – as Lunacharsksky thought – through mastery and devleopment of traditional forms. The bourgeois theatres should be kept only as musums. . . “
Sheila Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightment – Soviet organisation of education and arts under Lunarcharsky October 1917-1921“; Cambridge 1970; p.146

Lunarcharsky was roundly attacked by Proletkult for defending the already existing former state theatres.

Kerzhentsky also attacked Lunarcharsky’s own plays, in the pages of “Pravda’. Mayakovsky and Meyerhold had been assisted into positions at Narkompros  by Lunarcharsky. But they joined in the attack from the ultra-left. Meyerhold liquidated the state model theater and gave it to Proletkult. Meyerhold then announced a “Theatrical October” leftist theatre festival in the theatres. (Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightenment Ibid; p.150-153).

He now retreated from his prior commitment to full freedom from party control for artists. He responded that Proletkult should be subordinated to both Narkompros as “the organ of the Soviet government” and to the CPSU(B).

Pravda was controlled by Bukharin as its Editor. He took a different ultra-leftist position:

“(Pravda) under Bukharin’s editorship, was sympathetic to Proletkult and (its) autonomy. Bukharin reviewing the first number of the journal Proletarskaya kult’tura on 23 July 1918, noted that the journal makes “an extraordinarily favourable impression”. . (despite some exaggerations – Ed) he praised Bogdanov’s article, as well as those by Kerzhentsev and Nikitin. Bukharin thought that Proletkult’s independence of Soviet government organs was on principle acceptable.
Sheila Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightenment”; Ibid; p.93

Bukharin’s Editorial in Pravda (16 October 1919 ”Struggle with the Whites in the Theatre – a business proposition’) said the traditional theatres were state funded to produce “pure tedium” in such plays as “The Cherry Orchard” by Chekhov. Bukharin further charged that Narkompros had sabotaged Proletkult’s attempts to get a decent theatre. In further editorials  Bukharin praised Futurist productions, although they may have been “crude” as he acknowledged. However – they suited he said – the “militant psychology of Red Army soldiers” (Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightenment”; Ibid p. 147)

Lunarcharsky was combative in his replies:

“Lunarcharsky, replying to Kerhsentsev. . . argued that the proletariat actually preferred the classical theatre to the ‘revolutionary’ . . “and imagine, comrade Lunarcharsky, I have seen not only how bored the proletariat was at the production of a few ‘revolutionary plays’ but have even read the statement of sailors and workers asking that these revolutionary speeches be discontinued and replaced by performances of Gogol and Ostrovsky.”
Sheila Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightenment Ibid; p.146

He noted that Kerzhentsev had violated the Party line on close worker-peasant relations at a conference on theatre by creating antagonism between proletarian and peasant playwrights. (Sheila Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightenment”; Ibid p.146).

Meanwhile from the Leninist side, Krupskaya attacked Lunarcharsky as being ultra-leftist for even allowing the staging of Futurist plays by Meyerhold. (Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightenment; Ibid p.154-7)

Clearly Lunarcharsky was under considerable pressure. His response was to back down to the ultra-leftists, and he assured the Futurists there was no question of withdrawing support from them (Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightenment –Ibid; p.157). 

However, by now the Pravda attacks by Kerzentsev, had ensured that the Central Committee was focused on the imbroglio. Within a week a Central Committee letter “On the Prolekults” was published in Pravda on December 1, which condemned Futurism and ‘criticised Narkompros” for encouraging it. (Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightenment; p.159). 

This spurred a proposed reorganisation of Narkompros to ensure Party control over Proletkult. Call s for this were largely led by Lenin. Bukharin on the Central Committee could not openly contradict this, but he limited its impacts as we shall see.

Reorganisation of Narkompros

In 1917 both Krupskaia and Lunarcharsky shared a common aim, that all propaganda should be under direct Party control, through Narkompros.  While Lunarcharsky had already buckled as we saw, later in 1920 this  became very public.

The early battle to consolidate all propaganda under Narkompros, was lost because Agitprop became detached from it. Krupaskaia was to become sidelined even as influential as she was:

“Although Krupskaia enjoyed considerable power, partly because she could call on Lenin’s support, she did not succeed in centralizing all propaganda work.”
Kenez, Peter; “The birth of the propaganda state”; Ibid; p.76; 77

Intense arguments over the Narompros followed. They led to a proposed “reorganisation”. Planning began in 1920, in a plan devised by Bukharin and Praeobrazhenski.

Superficially this appeared to preserve powers vis-a-vis propaganda under Krupskaia. Her own section of Mural education’ was transformed into a sub-branch of the Commissariat called ‘Glavpolitprosvet’ (political enlightment):

“Narkompros almost from its establishment included a section for mural education, which was responsible for the political indoctrination of adults. In the summer of 1920, in connection with a general reorganisation of the commissariat . . . this (became) the Chief Committee on Political Enlightenment (Glavpolitprosvet), which would assume authority for all types of political education by agencies of Narkompros. In October and November 1920, . . . Bukharin and Preobrazhenskii drew up a project . . .  On the basis of their work, Sovnarkom published a decree in November 1920 that greatly expanded the role of Glavpolitprosvet. . . N. K. Krupskaia became its permanent head.”
Kenez, Peter; “The birth of the propaganda state”; Ibid; p.123-4

Glavpolitprosvet was to be a new centre within Narkompros to unite all work:

“In 1920 plans were formulated for the Glavpolitprosvet, the Main Committee on Political Enlightenment. . . and aspired to sweeping powers over “political enlightenment work”. This was deliberately construed broadly to include areas from the “liquidation of illiteracy”, party schools, and mass educational and cultural matters. . . high-level backing . . . came in 1921 with a Council of People’s Commissars decree proclaiming the new agency would unite “all the political-enlightenment, agitational-propagandistic work of the Republic.”
Michael David-Fox; “Political Enlightenment and Agitprop”; Ibid Minerva , December 1996.

But Agitprop instead became the dominant force in propaganda, completely superseding Glavpolitprosvet. Granting the leadership of it to Krupaskaia was ultimately a feint and a pyrrhic victory. As noted, the plan was laid out by key revisionists Bukharin and Preobrazhenskii:

“ In October and November 1920. . . Bukharin and Preobrazhenskii drew up a project on the subject.”
Kenez, “The birth of the propaganda state”; Ibid; 1985; p.123-4

It was they who tried to ensure that agitprop would be in ‘safe hands’ – namely revisionist control.

The formation and growth of Agitprop

Agitprop is defined in Encyclopaedia Britannica as a social education form originating in Bolshevik Russia as:

“a political strategy in which the techniques of agitation and propaganda are used to influence and mobilize public opinion.”
Britannica 

Early on in post-1917 revolutionary Russia it was recognised that the Bolshevik positions had to be widely publicised at home in what would become the USSR.

Marxist-Leninists planned that the Party take ultimate direct control over Agitprop. After 1920 Agitprop, originally within Narkompros, reported directly to the Central Committee of the Party. It took over propaganda as a whole, and eclipsed Glavpolitprosvet:

“It was far more difficult to coordinate the work of the Agitprop Section of the Party’s Central Committee and of Glavpolitprosvet. . . Gradually the relative size and importance of the Agitprop Section of the Central Committee increased as compared to the role of Glavpolitprosvet.”
Kenez, Peter; “The birth of the propaganda state”; Ibid p.123-4

So Agitprop became a department of the Central Committee itself in 1921. As planned by Bukharin and Preobrezhensky,  the  first head was Evgeny Preobrazhensky. Agitprop oversaw all political education in almost all forums:

“The term agitprop originated as a shortened form of the Agitation and Propaganda Section of the Central Committee Secretariat of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. This department of the Central Committee was . . . was responsible for determining the content of all official information, overseeing political education in schools, watching over all forms of mass communication, and mobilizing public support for party programs. Every unit of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, from the republic to the local-party level, had an agitprop section; at the local level, agitators (party-trained spokesmen) were the chief points of contact between the party and the public.”
Britannica

We will return to examining Lenin’s move to ensure Narkompros and Proletkult were firmly under Party control, after looking more closely at the art mandate of Narkompros.

The arts or cultural front and Narkrompros

The very big task taken on by Lunarcharsky in 1917, entailed supervising 17 different departments, including the arts. The purely educational aspects of it have been discussed. However concurrently a plethora of artistic movements had also developed. But as Bland puts it:

“Aesthetics is the science of quality in art. Marx, Engels and Lenin did not develop a thoroughgoing theory of aesthetics, and even their passing comments on the subject were not systematically investigated until the 1930s. After the Russian Socialist Revolution of November 1917, in the absence of any authoritative guidelines, all kinds of artistic trends flowered, including many from the West.“
Bland W.B. for Communist League; “The Struggle Against Revisionism In The Field of Linguistics”; Compass February 1997, No. 126; at MIA 

It was the task of Narkrompos to coordinate and direct these.

Various existing theatre and music ensembles existed already of course in Russia. Initially many of these had concerns with the Bolshevik government. Some even launched strikes (for example at the Bolshoi).

The Bolsheviks tried right from the onset to win the intellectuals over. But initially only a few responded. In total   the two poets Alexsandr Blok, Vladimir Mayakovsky and the theatre director Vselvod Meyerhold were the leading 3 figures to come over. Meyerhold quickly went on to join the Bolshevik Party:

“Within days of the October Revolution Lunacharsky had invited a hundred and twenty leading artists and intellectuals to a conference at the Smolny Institute to discuss the reorganisation of the arts in the new Soviet Russia. Only five accepted the invitation, and they included Blok, Mayakovsky, and Meyerhold. . .
Bolshevik power was still far from secure and a declaration of solidarity amounted to a hazardous act of faith. This act Meyerhold committed, and soon affirmed it in August 1918 by joining the Bolshevik Party.”
Edward Braun; “Meyerhold: A revolution in Theatre“; 1979 London; p.152-153

Nonetheless by December 1917, the Bolsheviks succeeded in winning over most of the artistic community, following a much wider public appeal:

“On 1 December 1917 an appeal was published in Pravda, calling on all artists to fulfill their civic duty, We ask all comrades—painters, musicians, and artists—who wish to work towards the rapprochement of the broad popular masses with art in all its aspects, as well as the comrade-members of the Union of Proletarian Artists and Writers, to report to the office of the Commissar of Public Enlightenment in the Winter Palace.” Among those who followed Lunacharsky’s appeal were several musicians—the composer Shcherbachev, the critic Karatygin, and the composer-writer Asafiev.”
Boris Schwartz; ““Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia; Enlarged Edition, 1917-1981”; Bloomington Indiana; 1983; Chapter 2; p.13

However the cultural scene soon became dominated by the Vyperedists – who we met above.

Lunarcharsky’s October call to form a broad proletarian arts front, failed to become a broad cultural front. Instead it became, as Fitzpatrick notes –  “organised on a largely Vperedist initiative“. These individuals were hostile to the art of the past, and we noted one already – Platon M. Kerzhentsev:

“The first conference of proletarian cultural-educational organizations was held in Petrograd. from 16-19 October 1917. It was called by Lunarcharsky . . the initators other than him were F.I.Kalinin, P.K.Bessalo, P.I.Lebedeve-Polyansky, P.M.Kerzhentsev, A.I. Mashirov-Samobytnik, I.I. Nikitin and V.V.Ignatov. All of these men later played a prominent part in Proletkult: The first 3 had been associated with Luncharsky in the Vpered preolatarian culture movement in emigration. Kerzhentsev was a Bolshevik theorist of proletarian culture. . .
Mashirov-Samobytnik and Mikitin were proletarian writers, and Ignatov is described by Lunarcharsky as ‘half-proletrian, half-actor’. The conference in short, was organised on a largely Vperedist initiative but authorized by an organ of the Bolshevik party. . .
but the conference created an organization Petrograd Proletkult, which was distinct from Narkompros, and chose to remain so. The Proletkultists were jealous of their autonomy. . some argued that Proletkult should submit themselves to Party directives, all were agreed on the necessity of independence from Soviet government institutions.”
Sheila Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightenment”; Ibid; p.90-91

As one of the first decrees of the new proletarian and land toilers state, all the theatres, choirs, conservatories etc – were nationalised:

“One of the first steps was to nationalize the theatres. On 12 July 1918 the conservatories of Moscow and Petrograd were declared state institutions of higher learning; the decree was signed by Ulyanov (Lenin) and Lunacharsky. There soon followed the nationalization of the famed chapel choirs of Moscow and Petrograd, of all private music schools, publishing houses, and printing establishments, instrument factories, libraries, archives, and concert institutions. After seizing all physical means of artistic expression, the government turned to the music itself and declared the works of deceased composers to be state property. In the meantime, MUZO-Narkompros (the Music Section of Narkompros) worked towards establishing full supervision over all aspects of musical activities; by 1919, its decrees filled a 74-page volume. Artists were required to obtain MUZO’S permission for concert trips. Programmes, announcements, placards, even tickets were subject to advance approval. The musical repertoire was regulated by a special commission, the Glavrepertkom. Concerts without “artistic value” were refused a licence.”
Schwartz B; Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia”; Ibid; p. 16

4. The politics of the ‘expert’ – Communist Academy and Proletkult

 Movements in the arts 1917-1930

From many sections of the entire people a myriad of differing cultural organisations arose. Some arose aimed at the arts overall, others in a single branch for example, such as music, literature or painting.

They often competed against each other, undercutting each other and the government, as they fought for leadership of the arts. Most demanded ‘independence’ from the Soviet State. Feelings ran high. As Leonid Sabaneyev, a musicologist wrote:

“Musical life here is organised by anyone and everyone. There are no less than four main institutions: MUZO (the Music Section of Narkompros), MONO (the Moscow Department of People’s Education), Proletkult and the Academy Theatres. But to this we must add TEO (the Theatre Section of Narkompros), which is also in charge of music, and all the military institutions, all the clubs, and many others. . .
A terrible hostility and competition can be noticed among them, and this is very much at odds with the goals of the Soviet power. We think that the overlaps could be forgiven, if it were not for the mutual hatred and the desire of each organisation to monopolise music for its own benefit.”
“1920 Bureaucracy on the Rise“; In Marina Frolova-Walker and Jonathan Walker; Music and Soviet Power, 1917–1932 “; Cambridge 2012; p. 37

The more prominent art organisations to be discussed in further detail, include those especially concerned about music, which included:

Proletarian Cultural and Educational Organization (Proletkult)
Association of Contemporary Music: (ASM);
Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP)
Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM);
Association of Revolutionary Composers and Musical Activists (ORKiMD); and the Production Collective of Moscow Conservatory Students (Prokoll).

A characterising feature  of many of these was taking a very dogmatic stand against ‘complexity’, and ‘experts’. It was argued this was of its nature anti-proletarian. To counter it they argued for, and extolled ‘amateurism’.

Another arena for similar ultra-leftism was in the universities and academic sciences, and some leading individuals played prominent roles in both.

The Communist Academy

The “Communist Academy” was dominated by a strong ultra-leftist group of intellectuals. Its’ origins were overseas in the Bolshevik exiles in Italy:

“Most of its founders, who included Bogdanov and Pokrovskii, had been associated with the Forwardist schools at Capri and Bologna or with Lenin’s rival school at Longjumeau.”
George M. Enteen, “The Soviet Scholar-Bureaucrat – M. N. Pokrovskii and the Society of Marxist Historians”; Pennsylvania U; 1978; p.204 note #37

We previously discussed this body in relation to the disrupting activities of tis leaders in disciplines other than the arts:

(i) Biological sciences (“Lenin, Ultra-Leftism and Science: The Political Climate to Science and Agriculture in the USSR 1917-36”, at Alliance ML, 1993 ).
(ii) Linguistics (“The Struggle Against Revisionism in the Field of Linguistics 1997”; at MIA )
(iii) Law (“Marxism and Law: The Struggle Over Jurisprudence in the Soviet Union”: MLRG.online )
(iv) Military Sciences (“Part One: Soviet-Polish Relations to 1920“: at MLRG.online )

Here we focus on its role in the arts.

In post-revolutionary USSR, it was first formally founded in 1918 as ‘The Socialist Academy’, in Moscow:

“The Communist Academy grew out of an educational committee created under the
Moscow Soviet in 1917. Its immediate goal was to instruct workers in connection with the impending elections for the Constituent Assembly. But even at the time its members aspired to make it into a center of proletarian education.”
George M. Enteen; 1978 Ibid; p.204

It was renamed the “Communist Academy” in 1924. (Joel Shapiro; “The Communist Academy, 1918-1936”; Columbia University, Ph.D Thesis., 1976).

Many prominent Bolsheviks played roles in the ‘Communist Academy’, which only later would become an explicitly Party organisation. These included the revisionists N. Bukharin, E. Preobrazhenskii.

“In its first years the Communist Academy was considered the leader only of the “communist” scientific institutions, which were carefully distinguished from organizations still not under the Party’s complete control, such as the ‘Academy of Sciences’. After the 12th Party Congress in 1923 the Communist Academy greatly expanded its activities and created institutes in the natural as well as the social sciences… The Communist Academy was not strong in the natural sciences, but it contained many talented Marxist theoreticians of the social sciences, such as N. Bukharin, E. Preobrazhenskii, D. B. Riazanov, and G. L. Piatakov.”
Loren R. Graham, “The Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Communist Party, 1927-1932”; Princeton, 1967; p.74

While initially the ‘Academy of Sciences‘ that had been set up in Tsarist times was left relatively undisturbed, this was not to last after the death of Lenin:

“Lunarcharsky recalled that Lenin “warned me in so many words that there should be no “mischief-making” around the academy” and insisted on the need to deal with it cautiously and tactfully. “If some brave fellow turns up in your establishment, jumps onto the academy and breaks a lot of china, then you will have to pay dearly for it,”. . . The Academy remained unreformed and autonomous until the end of the 1920s;
Sheila Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightenment “; Ibid; p.71-2

However this was to change, and Pokrovsky led the charge:

“Pokrovsky later remarked that Lenin’s advice to “break less” in reforming higher educations sounded “quite old-fashioned, and conservative to the point of indecency”. Pokrovsky himself was hostile to the old academic world in all its manifestations. . . he disliked and despised almost all academics and had renounced an academic career under the old regime.“
Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightenment “; Ibid; p.74-75

Attacks on bourgeois specialists

Preobrazhenskii was a key advocate of the Communist Academy. The Communist Academy devalued any academic practices that were not explicitly Marxist :

“Marxism in Russia is the official ideology of the victorious proletariat; the Communist Academy is the highest scientific institute of Marxist thought. . . It recognises only the branches of socialist science which are anchored in Marxism. . . the theory of historical materialism is more important for the social sciences than the laws of Kepler and Newton are for physics.”
Cited in Alexander Vucinich, “Empire of Knowledge. The Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1917-1970).” Berkeley, California, 1984. p.81.

“For Aleksandr Bogdanov, the Bolshevik leader of the Vpered (Forward) group which formed the first party schools in 1909-11 and whose leading intellectuals became a driving force behind the party academic sector in the 1920s, the elaboration of socialist knowledge and a “proletarian science” meant not only the unification but the “simplification” of science.“
Michael David-Fox “Science, Political Enlightenment and Agitprop: On the Typology of Social Knowledge in the Early Soviet Period”: Minerva , December 1996, Vol. 34, No. 4 (December 1996), pp. 347-366

The Communist Academy set out a revisionist agenda in all cultural and academic fields, from history, to biological science, to linguistics, to the arts and music.

When Pokrovsky became the Chair of the Communist Academy, he inaugurated a wave of disruptive suppressions of allegedly “bourgeois” professionalism, and academic standards. This resulted in weakening for a time of various scientific disciplines.

This was not unlike the attack on the military “bourgeois specialists” previously launched by Trotsky and his allies in the “Military Opposition”. This ultimately had been reversed and Trotsky was rebuked, as made clear in the “Trotsky Papers”. (Minutes of Meeting of the CC, RCP (Bolsheviks); In Meijer J.M. Editor, “The Trotsky Papers 1917-1922”; Hague 1964; p.319-321; Volume 1; Cited in Poland Part 1)

It is pertinent to note how this type of ultra-left posturing affected all disciplines of the Communist Academy. All disciplines became increasingly disrupted. Already purging academic and arts organisations of previously appointed specialists had continued under the guise they were ‘bourgeois’. While this had continued for some time in the arts and universities, it reached a peak around late 1930.

It was especially difficult to understand that this was a revisionist policy. That was because there was indeed a real core problem. The Shakty Case had exposed a hidden sabotage against Soviet industry conducted by bourgeois experts. This was discussed by Bland (“The Shakty Case”, The Marxist Leninist Research Bureau Report No. 5; at MLRG.online September 13, 2025), and we do not need to dwell on the details.

In response Stalin had summarised a new awareness that:

We must master science, we must train new cadres of Bolshevik experts in all branches of knowledge.”
Josef V. Stalin: Speech at 8th Congress of the All-Union Young Communist League (May 1928), in: ‘Works’, Volume 11; Moscow; 1954; p. 73, 74. .82

Adding a year later the need to develop higher vigilance among the working class against the machinations of its class enemies:

“As a result of the Shakhty affair, we raised in a new way the question . . . of training Red experts from the ranks of the working class to take the place of the old experts. . .
The Shakhty affair. . . revealed that the bourgeoisie was still far from being crushed, that it was organising and would continue to organise wrecking activities to hamper our work of economic construction; that our economic, trade-union and, to a certain extent, our Party organisations had failed to notice the undermining operations of our class enemies, and that it was therefore necessary to exert all efforts and employ all resources . . . to develop and heighten their class vigilance.”
Josef V. Stalin: Speech at Plenum.of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission of the CPSU (b) (April 1929), in: ‘Works’, Volume 12; Moscow; 1955; p. 12, 13

However the revisionists were able to use this as a reason to continue their ultra-leftist academic and cultural purges.

Pokrovsky and the discipline of history

For some time,  Pokrovsky ‘ruled’ the field of history studies. It was only in 1930 that Stalin was to criticise some factual distortions. As Bland noted:

“Stalin opened the political struggle against the revisionist ’empire’ which Pokrovsky had built up. In 1930 Stalin wrote a letter to the editorial board of the journal ‘Proletarian Revolution’ – which specialised in Party history – protesting at its action in publishing an
“… anti-Party and semi-Trotskyist article.”
Josef V. Stalin: ‘Some Questions concerning the History of Bolshevism’ (1930): ‘Works’, Volume 13; Moscow; 1955; p. 86

As the Communist Academy’s anti-expert trend continued, resulting weaknesses became apparent. The Communist Academy was therefore steadily brought under Marxist-Leninist control from 1930 onwards. After Pokrovsky’s death in 1932,

“his historiographic empire began to. . . be actively broken up. The Institute of Red Professors, … the Communist Academy, and the Society of Marxist Historians were all gradually dismantled and the functions providing leadership in the field of history and supervising it were vested in the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.”
Marin Pundeff (Ed.): ‘History in the USSR: Selected Readings’; San Francisco; 1967; p. 97

“The Communist Academy was closed in 1936.”
George M. Enteen: ‘The Soviet Scholar-Bureaucrat: M. N. Pokrovsky and the Society of Marxist Historians’; University Park (USA); 1978; p. 191

In 1936 the “Communist Academy” was finally dissolved.

It is significant that in the arena of arts many members of the Communist Academy ohad verlapped with the membership and leaders of Proletkult.

Proletkult (Proletarian Cultural and Educational Organization)

We noted, the Bolshevik 1917 revolution was followed by a profusion of left movements. Some are listed below by Elizabeth Wilson. Of these we saw that Proletkult was initially founded with Lunarcharsky’s aid. It became the dominant movement:

“LEF was associated with Mayakovsky, FEKS (The Factory of the Eccentric Actor) the cinema laboratory of Kozintsev and Trauberg, and OBERIU (Proletarian, Cultural and Educational Association). . .
RAPP and RAPM are often confused with those of Proletkult (Proletarian Cultural and Educational Organization).”
Elizabeth Wilson; “Shostakovich – A Life Remembered”; London; 1994; p.70

A basic philosophical divide quickly emerged between two poles. One pole insisted on the predominance of “proletarian content” contained within a simplistic form. Those insisting on the primacy of “proletarian” content emphasised a reductionism, a simplicity, which was ‘amateurism’. This they argued, allowed any worker to participate in art:

“(Some) were overtly political, claiming to represent the proletariat’s views. In the minority were those who merely wished to defend professional artistic standards. . .
In music the most important of the proletarian groups was RAPM, the counterpart of RAPP, the writers association.”
Elizabeth Wilson; “Shostakovich – A Life Remembered”; London; 1994; p.70

These self-proclaimed proletarian groups emphasised an amateurism, that would fend off experts who might control the type of art produced. They insisted that there could be no “control’ by the state over this art:

“The emphasis on amateurism was, of course an inevitable corollary of the proletkult principle of worker self-determination. . . and insistence that “Proletarian culture can develop only in conditions of complete independence of the proletariat, outside any kind of control by decrees’. . .” which. . .was from the first, a source of irritation with the Party.”
Matthew Culleren Bown; “Socialist Realist Painting”; Yale New Haven,1998; p. 52.

In contrast a smaller grouping also wanted Bolshevik content, but did not wish to compromise on artistic standards. In general this group also was far more receptive to music not originating in Russia.

Starting out in Petrograd, Proletkult became a national organisation, which perhaps exaggeratedly – claimed a mass following:

“By 1918, when the organization held its first organizational conference under Soviet power, it had expanded into a national movement with a much more ambitious purpose: to define a unique proletarian culture that would inform and inspire revolutionary Russian society. . .
At its peak in the fall of 1920, the Proletkult claimed a mass following of almost half a million people spread over three hundred local groups. These figures . . . cannot be verified by existing records. Moreover, they imply a kind of cohesion that the organization did not possess during the chaotic years of the Russian civil war (1917–1922).”
Lynn Mally, “Proletkult” in James R. Millar (ed): “Encyclopaedia of Russian History” Volume 3; London, 2004; p.1235

Bogdanov was the main ideologist of Proletkult, and he put his ultra-leftist stamp on it. He saw its mandate as being to “define a unique proletarian culture”:

“In “The Paths of Proletarian Creation” (1920) Bogdanov refers to Proletkult’s “fundamental aspiration to conceive art as an industrial, organized process”;
“Monism is expressed in [the proletarian’s] aspiration to fuse art and working life, to make it a weapon for the active and aesthetic transformation of his whole life.”
David Roberts, chapter ‘Art and Revolution: The Soviet Union”; in “The Total Work of Art in European Modernism”; Cornell 2011; p. 220-221

For the leaders of Proletkult “mass drama” was the “summit of socialist culture”:

“The older Bolsheviks who administered Soviet culture immediately after the Revolution, such as Anatoly Lunacharskii, Pavel Kogan, and Vladimir Friche– saw mass drama as the summit of socialist culture. The generation that came to maturity after 1905 became leaders of the Proletkult (e.g., Platon Kerzhentsev) or of the futurists (Vladimir Mayakovsky).”
David Roberts; “Art and Revolution: The Soviet Union’”; in “The Total Work of Art in European Modernism”; Cornell 2011; p. 214

One application of Proletkult’s vision was for example the “biomechanical theatre” exhibited by Vsevolod Meyerhold:

“Vsevolod Meyerhold’s “biomechanical theatre” of the early 1920. . . set out to exemplify the organization of industrial labor through a Taylorist body training, designed to make the worker an extension of the machine. In order to demonstrate this organic unity of man and machine, the actors were dressed as stagehands, and the sets were constructed of mobile scaffolding. “
David Roberts, chapter ‘Art and Revolution: The Soviet Union”; in “The Total Work of Art in European Modernism”; Cornell 2011; p. 220-221

For the leaders of Proletkult, ‘proletarian culture‘ was to be a new, specially created culture:

“Its (Proletkult’s – Ed.) members actually denied the cultural legacy of the past. . . . isolated themselves from life and aimed at setting up a special ‘proletarian culture’.
Note to: Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 31; Moscow; 1974; p. 567

Yet for all their proximity of visions, there was intense jealousy of Meyerhold from RAPP and RAPM members. Perhaps because Meyerhold moved back more towards a realism – influenced by Stanslavsky.

5. Lenin’s 1920 confrontation with the ultra-leftists

Above we saw that Lunarcharsky had wavered and vacillated between a line closer to Lenin and an ultra-left line. This had led to calls to reorganise Narkompros as we saw. It also led to Agitprop reporting directly to the Central committee of the party. This was a development that various revisionists fought against.

Lenin, Trotsky and the Proletkult
(This section is modified from Bland’s “Stalin on Arts” Bland)

Simon Behrman in his “Shostakovich, Socialism, Stalin and Symphonies”, is keen to extoll Trotsky’s positions on the arts. Behrman argues that Trotsky – ‘saw’ through the ultra-left Proletkult, but Lenin did not as he was somehow “equivocal”:

“While Lenin was equivocal about proletkult, Trotsky was firmly opposed to it for two reasons. The first was the ‘proletarian state’ was aimed at the abolition of all classes including the working class itself, in the interests of a classless society. Therefore a proletarian culture, by the time it would have been constructed, would be obsolete. Second Trotsky argues that, as with philosophy and industrial techniques, so too the very best of what bourgeois society had produced should be appropriated for
all. . . The Association of Contemporary Music (ASM) followed Trotsky’s outlook by championing the Western European avant-garde music of composers such as Mahler, Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Paul Hindemith.”
Behrman Ibid; p. 33. 

Matthew Cullern Bown says that Trotsky insisted that Lenin was “very far” from making “laws” about artistic views:

“Trotskii (or Trotsky – Ed) described the relationship of Lenin and Lunarcharskii as follows: “Lenin with his ‘conservative’ personal artistic tastes remained politically extremely cautious in questions of art. Readily pleading his own lack of competence. The patronage of Lunarcharskii, people’s commissar for enlightenment and the arts, of all kinds of modernism not infrequently upset Lenin, but he insisted himself to ironic remarks in private conversation, and remained very far from the thought of turning his own personal tastes into law.”
Matthew Cullhern Bown; “Socialist Realist Painting”; Ibid, p. 61; Citing Volkogonov Trotskii Bk 1. P.374

It is true that later Cullern Bown also then tells us that:

“Lenin himself in May 1919, attacked the standard-bearers of proletarian culture, talking of the ‘merciless antagonism’ he felt towards “all kinds of intelligentsia’s bright ideas, to all kinds of ‘proletarian cultures’:
Matthew Cullern Bown “Socialist Realist Painting”; Ibid, p. 52

Ultimately both Cullern Bown and Behrman mis-represent Lenin’s attitudes to the arts, and also those of Trotsky. They aim at putting a favourable gloss on Trotsky. In reality the record does not agree with either Behrman or Cullern-Bown’s views on Trotsky or Lenin.

First, it is not accurate by any means to claim that Lenin as an “artistic conservative” was “cautious” about art as claimed by Cullern Bown.

Second in is not the case that Lenin “was equivocal” about Proletkult as Behrman claims. Even in Cullern Bown’s second statement cited above, acknowledges this was not so.

Thirdly, Cullern Bown wishes to retain the fiction that Lenin was “very far from turning his own personal tastes into law”, as he cites Trotsky in maintaining. In this Behrman agrees.

Trotsky repudiated Party or State “commanding role” over the arts – thereby taking the side of Proletkult. Far from opposing Proletkult as Behrman claims, Trotsky and his allies supported them against Lenin.

Again it was actually Trotsky who resisted any State and party mandate over Proletkult:

“In the sphere of the arts, the party should not assume a commanding role. It can and should offer the arts its protection and support, but its governance should only be indirect. The party can and should offer its trust conditionally to those artistic groups that strive to strengthen their links to the Revolution; in this way, the artistic embodiment of the Revolution can be assisted. But whatever the circumstances, the party cannot and will not act as if it were just one more literary circle, merely competing with the others and jostling for position.”
L. Trotskiy, ‘Partiynaya politika v iskusstve’, Pravda, no. 209 (16 Sept. 1923), 2–3; cited In Marina Frolova-Walker and Jonathan Walker 2012; Ibid; p.89

The Central Committee weighs in

The Pravda attacks by Bukharin on Lunarcharsky were followed by Lenin. By Spring of 1920 Lenin had discussed Bogdanov’s “Short course of Economic Science” in the Politburo, for its “serious deficiencies”. He informed Bonch-Bruevich that he would put out a new edition of his “Materialism and Empirocriticism” because:

“this was especially necessary in connection with the strengthening of propaganda for Bogdanov’s anti-Marxist views under the guise of “proletarian culture”.
Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightenment”; 174-p.175

Lenin strongly opposed Bogdanov’s conception of ‘proletarian culture’. Lenin’s views were that workers should “assimilate and refashion” the best of previous world culture:

“Marxism . . . has . . . assimilated and refashioned everything of value in the more than two thousand years of the development of human thought and culture. Only further work on this basis and in this direction . . . can be recognised as the development of a genuine proletarian culture”.
Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘On Proletarian Culture’ (October 1920), in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 31; ibid.; p. 317

“Only a precise knowledge and transformation of the culture created by the entire development of mankind will enable us to create a proletarian culture. The latter . . . is not an invention of those who call themselves experts in proletarian culture. That is all nonsense. Proletarian culture must be the logical development of the store of knowledge mankind has accumulated under the yoke of capitalist, landowner and bureaucratic society”.
Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘The Tasks of the Youth Leagues’ (October 1920), in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 31; ibid.; p. 287

Actually Lenin wanted Proletkult to be answerable to, and directed by – Narkompros – a direct arm of the State:

“Proletkult continued to insist on independence, thus setting itself in opposition to the proletarian state”.
Note to: Vladimir I. Lenin; ‘Collected Works’, Volume 31; ibid.; p. 567

Both Bogdanov and Lunarcharsky resisted that Proletkult come under government and Party apparatuses:

“Narkompros proposed to absorb Proletkult within its administrative structure in April, but the move was. . . voted down by the left SRs (the Socialist Revolutionary Party, initially in coalition with the Bolsheviks). And so this huge, lively cultural mass movement was allowed to continue growing outside the boundaries of the state and the Bolshevik Party. . .
Lenin was to become increasingly uneasy over Proletkult’s independence. . .
Lunacharsky echoed the artists’ own demands that art should be separate from the state, and expanding on this, added that it should remain free from all regimentation.”
Marina-Frolova Walker and Jonathan Walker “October 1917–18: Out of Chaos”; in Marina Frolova-Walker and Jonathan Walker; Music and Soviet Power, 1917–1932 “; Cambridge 2012; p.10

“Bogdanov contended that in order for a proletarian revolution to succeed, the working class had to develop its own ideology and proletarian intelligentsia to take and wield power. His insistence on working-class autonomy put him at odds with Lenin’s interpretation of revolutionary change. Bogdanov’s influence was clearly evident in the Proletkult’s political stance; its leaders insisted that the organization remain separate from government cultural agencies and the Communist Party.”
Lynn Mally, “Proletkult” in James R. Millar (ed): “Encyclopaedia of Russian History” Volume 3; London, 2004; p.1236

Opposing them Lenin demanded that:

“. . . all Proletkult organisations . . . accomplish their tasks under the general guidance of the Soviet authorities (specifically of the People’s Commissariat of Education) and of the Russian Communist Party”.
Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘On Proletarian Culture’ (October 1920), in: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 31; ibid.; p. 317

Lenin disputes Lunarchsky and Bukharin at the 1920 First Proletkult Conference

A major confrontation was inevitable. This occurred at the 1920 First Proletkult Conference where Lenin publicly clashed with Lunarcharsky.

Events led Lenin to “instruct” Lunaracharsky:

“Before the conference, Lenin “instructed” Lunarcharsky to close the autonomy of proletkult and inform the Conference that. . . “definitely that Proletkult must be under the control of Narkompros and must regard itself as an organ of Narkompros.”
Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightment“; Ibid; p.174, 177

However as Lunarcharsky himself said:

“’I phrased the speech I made. . . in a fairly evasive and conciliatory way’.. ‘It seemed to me wrong to launch into some sort of attack and disappoint the assembled comrades”. . . Izvestiya of 8 October reported the speech. . . On 8 October Lenin read the Izvestiya report and noted indignantly that “comrade Lunarcharsky said exactly the opposite of what I arranged with him yesterday”. Lenin “sent for me and scolded me”.
Fitzpatrick; “The Commissariat of Enlightenment”; p.177

This was openly rebuked by Lenin, as we have remarked previously (Alliance 7; “Ultra-Leftism In Linguistics, And The Communist Academy”; June 1994; at: Alliance ML):

“Both Proletkult, and RAPP. . . provoked Lenin’s disapproval on aesthetics, and their ultra-leftist insistence of “Out with the old”. For example Lenin explicitly did not support abstractionism in art and expressly countered movements like the Futurists (supported by Proletkult). . .
At the First Proletkult Congress in 1920, Lunarcharsky attempted to downplay the role of the State apparatuses like the Education commissariat, in ensuring that the Ultra-Left tendencies of Proletkult did not go unrestricted.
In an open rebuke, Lenin proposed a Draft Resolution. . . emphasising the leading role of the workers and peasants in creating socialism; and therefore the leading role of the vanguard Communist Party in pubic education.
The Third point pointed out that history had vindicated the Marxist world outlook.
The 4th and 5th points emphasised that all culture had to be absorbed, and that the State Apparatuses had to be the final arbiters of public education:

“4. Marxism has won its historic significance as the ideology of the revolutionary proletariat because, far from rejecting the most valuable achievements of the bourgeois epoch, it has, on the contrary assimilated and refashioned everything of value in the more than 2,000 years of the development of the human thought and culture. Only further work in this basis and in this direction, inspired by the practical experience of the proletarian dictatorship as the final stage in the struggle against every form of exploitation can be recognised as the development of a genuine proletarian culture.”

“5. Adhering unswervingly to this stand of principle, the All Russia Congress of Proletkul’ rejects in the most resolute manner, as theoretically unsound and practically harmful, all attempts to invent one’s own particular brand of culture, to remain isolated is self-contained organisations, to draw a line dividing the field of work of the Peoples’ Commissariat of Education and the Proletkul’t, or to set up a Proletkult “autonomy” within establishments, under the People’s Commissariat of Education and so forth. On the contrary the Congress enjoins all Proletkult organisations to fully consider themselves in duty bound to act as auxiliary bodies o the network of establishments under the People’s Commissariat of Education, and to accomplish their tasks under the general guidance of the Soviet Authorities (Specifically the People’s Commissariat of Education) and of the Russian Communist Party, as part of the tasks of the proletarian dictatorship.”
V.Lenin CW: Vol 31, Moscow, 1966-86. p.316-7.

Nikolai Bukharin is still considered today, by some as an authority on the arts and sciences. That may be so, but he refused to attend the Proletkult Conference. He knew he would have to either agree to Lenin’s views or publicly refute him:

“Bukkarin had refused to speak at the Congress, following Lenin’s draft resolution, as above. Bukharin’s grounds for refusal were that he would be in disagreement with Lenin on various issues, especially Point 4 of Lenin’s draft Resolution “On Proletarian Culture.”
Ibid.

Lenin tried to assuage Bukharin’s refusal with the following note:

“Why now dwell on the differences between us (perhaps possible ones), it suffices to state (and prove) on behalf of the Central Committee as a whole:
1. Proletarian culture = communism.
2. Is carried out by the RCP (ie the party-ed).
3. The proletar.class = RCP=Soviet power.
We are all agreed on this, aren’t we?”
V.Lenin Oct. 11th, 1920. In CW. Moscow, 1944 Vol 44. p.445.

The Draft Resolution of Lenin was adopted by the Congress of Proletkult. Correspondingly as the Bolshevik party came to Lenin’s viewpoint, the Proletkult organisations declined in the 1920s, finally completely:

” . . . ceasing to exist in 1932′.
Note to: Vladimir I. Lenin: ‘Collected Works’, Volume 31; ibid.; p.567

It is interesting to note Lenin’s attitude to Lunarcharsky following this.  This is conveyed by Viktor Shulgin, who in fact was a rather disapproving subordinate of Lunarcharsky at Narkompros:

“At the sharpest moment of the struggle with Proletkultism (1920) when Lunarcharsky had not carried out Lenin’s instructions, I said to Lenin reproachfully:
“And you are still fond of him’. Lenin then replied. . . “And I advise you to be fond of him. He is drawn towards the future with his whole being. That is why there is such joy and laughter in him. And he is ready to give that joy and laughter to everyone. Of course in this case he has been foolish, he should not get himself mixed up in Bogdanov’s net. But we will pull him out of it.”
Fitzpatrick S “The Commissariat of Enlightenment”; Ibid p. 10

6. The period of State ‘neutrality’ on art

After Lenin’s death a Leninist view on Art put by Stalin is rejected by the Party Leadership

For a period, an unresolved tension with its differing views on the arts ensured an uncertainty. This period was dubbed by Bland “The Period of Party Neutrality in Aesthetics (1925-1932)”.

In May 1925 Stalin put forward a view which became the basis of an objective Marxist-Leninist aesthetic – namely that proletarian culture should be socialist in content and national in form:

“Proletarian culture. . . is socialist in content . . national in form”.
Josef V. Stalin: ‘The Political Tasks of the University of the Peoples of the East’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 7; Moscow; 1954; p. 140

The then leadership of the Party rejected this conception of aesthetics put forward by Stalin. Instead in June 1925 it adopted:

“. . . a rambling, repetitious, verbose and pompous document.”
Edward J. Brown: ‘The Proletarian Episode in Russian Literature: 1928-1932’; New York; 1935; p. 43

This resolution was entitled ‘On the Policy of the Party in the Field of Literature‘, and declared the Party’s neutrality between aesthetic trends:

“The Party can in no way bind itself in adherence to any one direction in the sphere of artistic form. . . All attempts to bind the Party to one direction at the present phase of cultural development of the country must be firmly rejected.
Therefore the Party must pronounce in favour of free competition between the various groupings and streams in this sphere. . .
Similarly unacceptable would be the passing of a decree or party decision awarding a legal monopoly in matters of literature and publishing to some group or literary organisation, . . . for this would mean the destruction of proletarian literature.”
Resolution of CC, RCP, ‘On the Party’s Policy in the Field of Literature’ (July 1925), in: C. Vaughan James: ‘Soviet Socialist Realism’; London; 1973; p;. 118, 119

Edward J. Brown comments:

“As a result of that liberal policy, the years from 1921 to 1932 saw the growth of a literature in Russia which is thoroughly congenial to the tastes of Western intellectuals.”
Edward J. Brown: ‘Russian Literature since the Revolution’; London; 1963; p. 23

Schwarz whose subject was music in the USSR, agreed with this saying that during this period the “fellow-traveller – Poputchik” was allowed to”free competition”:

“These heated discussions culminated in a resolution of the Party’s Central Committee, published on 1 July 1925, under the title “On the Policy of the Party in the Field of Belles-lettres” (or as named above “.. . . of literature). It was a rambling, repetitious, and somewhat ambiguous document which lent itself to various interpretations. Some historians hail it as the Magna Carta of Soviet writers, others dispute its alleged liberalism. A few points deserve to be brought out. While supporting the proletarian writer in principle, the Resolution urged a patient approach towards the “fellow-traveller” (“poputchik”) and recommended free competition among various literary groups. “Communist criticism must drive out the tone of literary command,” it warned at one point. And again, “… The Party cannot grant a monopoly to any of these groups, not even to the most proletarian in its ideology; this would be above all ruinous to proletarian literature.” Clearly, the Party did not wish to permit any group—not even the proletarians—to speak on its behalf.”
Boris Schwarz; “Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia: Enlarged Edition, 1917-1981”: Ibid p. 34

This ‘liberal’ attitude towards aesthetics was facilitated by the then domination of the Party leadership by revisionists, by concealed opponents of socialism. The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party elected after the 13th Congress of the Party in June 1924 consisted of (in alphabetical order):

“Nikolay I. Bukharin, Lev B. Kamenev; Aleksey I. Rykov;
Josef V. Stalin; Mikhail P. Tomsky; Lev D. Trotsky;
Grigory E. Zinoviev.”
Leonard Schapiro: ‘The Communist Party of the Soviet Union’; London; 1960; p. 607

Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP)

RAPP was founded in 1920, after the Proletkult had been considerably weakened by Lenin. It published the journal ‘On Literary Guard’ from 1926 to 1932. It is not well known that RAPP was headed by the concealed Trotsky adherent Leopold Averbakh, who exercised a virtual dictatorship over literature:

“Averbakh exercised a virtual dictatorship over early Soviet Russian literature”.
Robert H. Stacy: ‘Russian Literary Criticism: A Short History’; New York; 1974; p. 196

“Averbakh’s first book, published in 1923, had appeared with a preface by Trotsky”.
Edward J. Brown (1963): op. cit.; p. 217

“In 1937 Averbakh was unmasked as an agent of Trotsky, one whose errors formed a pattern of subversion in Soviet literature”‘.
Norah Levin: ‘The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917: Paradoxes of Survival’, Volume 2; London; 1990; p. 863

Averbakh was the brother-in-law of Genrikh Yagoda, at this time Deputy Commissar for Internal Affairs, who later, in 1938, admitted in open court to treason:

“The main figure, Averbakh, had come under the protection of his relative by marriage, Yagoda. . . . Soon after Yagoda’s arrest, he (Averbakh – Ed.,) was attacked as a Trotskyite”.
Robert Conquest: ‘The Great Terror: Stalin’s Purge of the Thirties’; Harmondsworth; 1971; p. 446

“The RAPP leaders . . . were, shortly after the Moscow Trial of 1937, accused of having been themselves Trotskyists”.
Edward J. Brown (1935): op. cit.; p. 223

In the absence of any Party guidance on aesthetics, the Trotskyists in the leadership of RAPP caused great harm to Soviet literature during the period of their domination, partly by their sectarianism:

“Averbakh was sectarian and oppressively dogmatic in his treatment of literary questions”.
Victor Terras: p. 29; ‘Handbook of Russian Literature’; New Haven (USA); 1985;

For example, during the period of the First Five-Year Plan (1929-34) the leaders of RAPP decreed in 1930 that only literature which directly boosted the Plan should be published:

“‘Literature should help the Five-Year Plan’ was the slogan. . . .
The depiction of the Five-Year Plan is the one and only problem of Soviet literature, proclaimed the organ of RAPP in 1930. . . .
For about three years, the Five-Year Plan became the only subject of Soviet literature”.
Gleb Struve: ‘Soviet Russian Literature’; London; 1935; p. 86, 229.

As might have been expected:

” . . . the result was a drying-up of the creative sources of Russian literature and a narrowing-down of its themes”.
Gleb Struve: ibid.; p. 229

Even more serious, the leaders of RAPP used their positions to persecute writers who attempted to follow a socialist line in their art – this extending even to such famous and outstanding artists as Maksim Gorky, Mikhail Sholokhov and Vladimir Mayakovsky. We discuss here the case of Mayakovsky only.

RAPP and the suicide of Mayakovsky

It may be asked why in an article on Shostakovich and music in the USSR, is it worth discussing the literary figure Vladmir Mayakovsky? The reason is that his story is a particularly well documented account of how an ultra-leftist movement hounded an artist and then alleged that Stalin was the culprit.

The revisionist control over literature in the immediate next period was exercised through the RAPP. This came to embrace many of the older ‘Futurists” and Proletkultists. However it pointedly did not do so with perhaps the most famous poet – Mayakovsky.

It is true that Lenin had been incensed by the resources that the Futurists had obtained from the Navakarpmos:

“Noticing that Mayakovsky’s new poem, 150,000,000, had been awarded an exceptionally generous print run of 5,000 copies (generous in view of the paper shortage), Lenin read it for himself and was predictably outraged that so much paper had been dedicated to such an uncompromisingly Futurist piece. Bypassing Lunacharsky, he sent a letter instead to Pokrovsky, Lunacharsky’s deputy: ‘I very strongly request your assistance in the fight against Futurism’. . .
On 6 May a ‘disciplinary comradely court’ pronounced a judgement against the Mayakovsky–Meyerhold production of Mystery Bouffe. . .
a Pravda article under a pointed headline:
‘Enough of all this Mayakovsky nonsense [Mayakovshchina]’, and the production was duly banned, over the protests of the beleaguered Lunacharsky. “
In Marina Frolova-Walker and Jonathan Walker; “1921 Should I stay or should I go?“: Music and Soviet Power, 1917–1932 “; Cambridge 2012; p.57

But that is not to say that Lenin was against Mayakovsky in general:

“Yesterday I happened to read in Izvestia a political poem by Mayakovsky. I am not an admirer of his poetical talent, although I admit that I am not a competent judge. But I have not for a long time read anything on politics and administration with so much pleasure as I read this. In his poem he derides this meeting habit, and taunts the Communists with incessantly sitting at meetings. I am not sure about the poetry; but as for the politics, I vouch for their absolute correctness. “
V. I. Lenin; “The International and Domestic Situation of The Soviet Republic
Speech Delivered To A Meeting of The Communist Group At The All-Russia Congress
Of Metalworkers, March 6, 1922”; Moscow, 1965, Volume 33, pages 212-226 MIA

In her reminiscences of Lenin, Krupskaiai recalled how meeting young communists he mildly suggested that they read Pushkin instead of Mayakovsky. But that he ultimately admired the young art students saying later:

“After this Ilyich too a more favourable view of Mayakovsky. Whenever the poet’s name was mentioned he recalled the art students who, full of life and gladness, and ready to die for the Soviet system, were unable to find words in the contemporary language with which ot express themselves and sought the answer in the obscure verse of Mayakovsky.”
Nadezhda Krupskaya, “Ilyich’s favourite books”; in “Lenin on Literature and Art”; Moscow 1970; p.237

The poet Vladimir Mayakovsky became regarded as:

“the real troubadour of the Revolution”.
Herbert Marshall (Ed.): ‘Mayakovsky’; London; 1965 (henceforth listed as ‘Herbert Marshall (Ed.) (1965)’); p. 18

He wrote poems on topical matters, in ordinary everyday language, and travelled from town to town and village to village, reciting them.

In April 1930 Mayakovsky committed suicide by shooting himself, leaving a note. The story was widely spread that he had:

“committed suicide because of a romantic and unfortunate love affair”.
Gleb Struve: op. cit.; p. 167

Indeed, the official report of the investigation into his death his death (issued less than 24 hours after his death) was at pains to deny that death was connected with his social or literary activity:

“The preliminary data of the investigation show that the suicide was due to causes of a purely personal character, having nothing to do with the social or literary activity of the poet”.
‘Pravda’, 15 April 1930, in: Herbert Marshall (Ed.) (1965): op. cit.; p. 28-29

But, as Shakespeare expressed it:

“Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love”.
William Shakespeare: ‘As You like it’, Act 4, Scene 1, in: ‘The Complete Works’, Feltham; 1979; p. 226

In fact, it was in October 1929 that Mayakovsky was informed that the girl he thought himself in love with – Tatiana Yalovleva, the daughter of a White Russian emigrant living in Paris – had married someone else:

“In October Lilya Brik received a letter from her sister Elsa (Elsa Triolet – Ed.) . . . : ‘Tatyana has got married”‘.
A. D. P. Briggs: ‘Vladimir Mayakovsky: A Tragedy’; Oxford; 1979; p. 114

His suicide occurred only in April of – the following year – six months later – so that one must agree with Helen Muchnic when she declares:

“It is absurd to think, as some have done, that he ‘died for love’ in the sentimentally romantic sense”.
Helen Muchnic: ‘From Gorky to Pasternak: Six Writers in Soviet Russia’; New York; 1961; p. 263

It is clear that some event or events must have occurred in the spring of 1930 which were more immediate causes of his suicide.

In fact, in February 1930, with the aim of bringing himself closer to his audience, Mayakovsky had joined the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP):

“Mayakovsky joined RAPP in order to get closer to his workers’ auditorium”.
Viktor B. Shklovsky: ‘0 Mayakovskom’ (On Mayakovsky); Moscow; 1940; p. 215

But, as we have seen, RAPP had fallen under the control of a gang of concealed revisionists, headed by Leopold Averbakh, who exerted a reactionary dictatorship over the arts. Thus, in joining RAPP:

“Mayakovsky . . . fell into a dead sea”.
Viktor B. Shklovsky: ibid.; p. 215

Averbakh and his bureaucratic cronies made it clear that Mayakovsky was a far from welcome recruit to RAPP. They insisted that he required ‘re-education in proletarian ideology‘, making him feel isolated and depressed:

“There is no doubt that he felt his own increasing isolation and sensed the cloud of disapproval that in fact hung over him. . . The bureaucrats in control of RAPP . . . did not very much want him in their organisation.
Mayakovsky was not warmly welcomed in RAPP and . . . in this mass organisation he felt isolated and alone. . . . From February until April 1930 the secretariat of RAPP constantly hauled Mayakovsky over the coals in a trivial and didactic fashion. . . . From the moment of his entry until his suicide, the ‘secretariat’ of that organisation occupied itself with ‘re-educating’ him in the spirit of proletarian ideology, and literature, a truly depressing experience. Some people recalled that on the eve of his suicide . . . he was in a state of defenceless misery as a result of his sessions with the talentless dogmatists and petty literary tyrants whose organisation he had joined”.
Edward J. Brown: ‘Mayakovsky: A Poet in the Revolution’; Princeton (USA): 1973 hereafter listed as ‘Edward J. Brown; (1973)’); p. 362-63, 366, 367

“The whole set of vindictive attacks on Mayakovsky, of all people, on the ground of insufficient closeness to and concern for the masses – arguments that read so absurdly at this distance of time, but which then momentarily hounded and isolated him – bear the smell precisely of those methods. Mayakovsky was indirectly the victim of the same hands that later directly slew the great Soviet writer of the generation that preceded him, Gorky”.
Herbert Marshall (Ed.): ‘Mayakovsky and his Poetry’; London; 1945 (hereafter listed as ‘Herbert Marshall (Ed,): 1945’); p. 6

When ‘An Exhibition of the Life and Work of Mayakovsky’ took place in Moscow in February and in Leningrad in March, it:

“was boycotted by official and unofficial bodies, poets and critics; more and more bitter and scathing attacks were being made on him”.
Herbert Marshall (Ed.) (1965); p. 23

RAPP’s attacks on Mayakovsky continued – intensified – after his death:

“The cloud that had settled over Mayakovsky’s reputation during the last years of his life was not dispelled by his senseless death.”
Edward J. Brown (Ed.) (1963): op. cit.; p. 369

“They hounded him also after his death. His works only appeared in restricted editions, no new works published, no research, no production of his plays, his books and portraits were removed from libraries.”
Herbert Marshall (Ed.) (1965); p. 39

“For a time after Mayakovsky’s death, RAPP’s clique, by exploiting his suicide, even succeeded in hindering the publication of his works, delaying the opening of his museum, and removing his name from the school curricula.”
Herbert Marshall (Ed.) (1945); p. 6

When Elsa Triolet attended the Writers’ Congress in Moscow in 1934, she complained to ‘one of these petty bureaucrats’ about the neglect of Mayakovsky in the Soviet Union and was told:

“There’s a cult of Mayakovsky, and we’re fighting against that cult”.
Elsa Triolet: ‘Mayakovsky: Poet of Russia’, in: ‘New Writing’, New Series 3; London; 1.939; p. 222-23

On Stalin’s initiative, as we shall see, RAPP was liquidated in April 1932.

In 1935 Lilya and Osip Brik wrote to Stalin to complain of the neglect of Mayakovsky in the Soviet Union. (Edward J. Brown (Ed.) (1973); p. 370).

Stalin replied promptly:

“Mayakovsky was and remains the finest, most talented poet of our Soviet age. Indifference to his memory and his works is a crime”.
J. V. Stalin, in: A. D. P. Briggs: op. cit.; p. 121-22

As a result of Stalin’s initiative, Mayakovsky’s prestige was immediately restored:

“At once things began to happen, Mayakovsky’s ashes were re-interred in a place of honour alongside the remains of Gogol. Statues of the poet sprang up everywhere. His works were reissued and translated.”
D. P. Briggs: op. cit.; p. 122

One final point: the Trotskyist revisionists who drove Mayakovsky to his death plead not guilty to the crime. The American Trotskyist Max Eastman, for example, cannot deny Mayakovsky’s talent nor the role of Averbakh and his gang in his persecution, so he simply inverts the truth by presenting Averbakh as:

“the young adjutant of Stalin”.
Max Eastman: ‘Artists in Uniform: A Study of Literature and Bureaucratism’; London; 1934; p. 35

This type of ultra-leftist climate in the arts generally applied also within music. We will describe later the equally intense struggles in music, which are however less well known. However first we describe the Bolshevik Party’s attempts to rein in such ultra-left behaviour in the arts.

Ultra-leftism  following the 1920 exposure of Proletkult by Lenin

As various layers of revisionists became exposed, remaining ones had to be more careful, and they found new forms. There was a repetitive renewing of revisionism in USSR from a refusal to accept the possibility of “building socialism in one country”:

“(There are) Right, and also “Left” (Trotskyite), deviations from the Leninist line.
. . . Where does the danger of the “Left” (Trotskyite) deviation in our Party lie? In the fact that it overestimates the strength of our enemies, the strength of capitalism; it sees only the possibility of the restoration of capitalism, but cannot see the possibility of building socialism by the efforts of our country; it gives way to despair and is obliged to console itself with chatter about Thermidor tendencies in our Party.
From the words of Lenin that “as long as we live in a small peasant country, there is a surer economic basis for capitalism in Russia than for communism,” the “Left” deviation draws the false conclusion that it is impossible to build socialism in the U.S.S.R. at all . . . Hence the adventurism in the policy of the “Left” deviation. Hence its “superhuman” leaps in the sphere of policy.
There is no doubt that the triumph of the “Left” deviation in our Party would lead to the working class being separated from its peasant base, to the vanguard of the working class being separated from the rest of the working-class masses, and, consequently, to the defeat of the proletariat and to facilitating conditions for the restoration of capitalism.”
J.V.Stalin; “The Right Danger in the C.P.S.U.(B.) Speech Delivered at the Plenum of the Moscow Committee and Moscow Control Commission of the C.P.S.U.(B.)”; October 19, 1928; Works, Vol. 11, January, 1928 to March, 1929; at MIA

“The fact that an intense struggle has been waged against the “Left” deviation for several years now has, of course, not been without its value for the Party. It is clear that the Party has learned a great deal in the years of the fight against the “Left,” Trotskyite deviation and cannot now be easily deceived by “Left” phrases.”
J.V.Stalin; “The Right Danger in the C.P.S.U.(B.) Speech Delivered at the Plenum of the Moscow Committee and Moscow Control Commission of the C.P.S.U.(B.)”; October 19, 1928; Works, Vol. 11, January, 1928 to March, 1929; at MIA

7. The Marxist-Leninist rejection of ultra-leftism – to socialist realism

This determination to see through the deception of “Left phrases” enabled a firmer line to be taken in the arts.

The 1932 Party Decision ‘On the Reformation of Literary-Artistic Organisations’

By 1932, the Party had managed to liquidate open revisionism in the political field. The Marxist-Leninists was now in the leadership of the CPSU. They again turned their attention to the development of a genuine proletarian culture.

The first step was to dissolve the existing cultural organisations under revisionist domination and to form new broad organisations in each field of culture – organisations open to all cultural workers who supported Soviet power and socialist construction, with a Communist Party fraction in each to give Marxist Leninist leadership.

Thus, in April 1932, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party adopted a Decision ‘On the Reformation of Literary-Artistic Organisations’:

“The framework of the existing proletarian literary-artistic organisations . . . appears to be too narrow and to seriously restrict the scope of artistic creativity. . .
Consequently the Central Committee of the ACP (b) resolves:
1) to liquidate the association of proletarian writers.
2) to unite all writers supporting the platform of Soviet power and aspiring to participate in the building of socialism into one union of Soviet, socialist writers with a communist fraction in it;
3) to carry out an analogous change with regard to the other forms of art.”
C. Vaughan James: op. cit. p. 120

The fact that this radical decision was taken on Stalin’s personal initiative was revealed by Lazar Kaganovich at the 17th Congress of the CPSU in January-February 1934:

“A group of Communist writers, taking advantage of RAPP as an organisational instrument, incorrectly utilised the power of their Communist influence on the literary front, and instead of unifying and organising around RAPP the broad masses of writers, held back and impeded the development of the writers’ creative powers. . .
It might have been possible to bring out a resolution on the tasks of the Communists in literature; it might have been possible to suggest that the RAPP people alter their policy. But this might have remained merely a good intention. Comrade Stalin posed the question differently: it is necessary, he said, to alter the situation in an organisational way.”
Lazar Kaganovich: Speech at 17th Congress, CPSU, in: Edward J. Brown (1935): op. cit.; p. 201

The American music critic Boris Schwarz tells us that:

“. . . the Resolution . . . was received with widespread approval.”
Boris Schwarz: ‘Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia: 1917-1970’; London; 1972; p. 110

The single organisation created by this decree in the field of literature was the Union of Soviet Writers. But in the field of music the corresponding one was the Union of Soviet Composers. Such a centralisation was not seen by all artists as a negative. It had distinct benefits, and for example – “the demise of RAPP was for most writers liberating”:

“The abolition of all independent writers’ organizations in 1932 may have “herded” Soviet writers into a single union under Party supervision, but in many respects it also represented a liberalization. The possibilities were greater literally thanks to a dramatic improvement in their material situation (higher royalty payments, etc.), which propelled writers into the New Class. But the cultural horizons also became broader. The April decree explicitly disbanded the powerful RAPP, which was not just militantly “proletarian” (Communist) but essentially also an entity of narrow, Russo-centric horizons.
The demise of RAPP was for most writers liberating. The change was almost immediately reflected in Literaturnaia gazeta, where in recent years RAPP had been the driving force. Its editorial board was revamped—now to include Koltsov—and the amount of material it published about Western writers and intellectuals increased exponentially, with regular columns such as “Literary New York” and items on current”
Katerina Clark; “Moscow, the Fourth Rome. Stalinism, Cosmopolitanism, and the Evolution of Soviet Culture, 1931-1941”; Cambridge, Massachusetts ; 2011; p.138

It yet remained to lay down some of the guiding principles of aesthetics which Soviet artists would be expected to follow. It was these principles which came to be known as “the method of socialist realism.”

The Origin and characteristics of the Term ‘Socialist Realism

The first known use of the term ‘socialist realism’ was in an article in the ‘Literary Gazette’ in May 1932:

“The basic method of Soviet literature is the method of socialist realism.”
‘Literary Gazette’, 23 May 1932, in: Herman Ermolaev: ‘Soviet Literary Theories: 1917-1934′; Berkeley (USA); 1963 (h’); p. 144

Five months later, in October 1932, at an informal meeting in the writer Maxim Gorky’s flat, Stalin gave his support to the term:

“If the artist is going to depict our life correctly, he cannot fail to observe and point out what is leading towards socialism. So this will be . . . socialist realism.”
Josef V. Stalin, in: C. Vaughan James: op. cit.; p. 86

Realism is a trend in art which seeks to represent its subject faithfully and truthfully. One of the earliest descriptions by Marxists of this was from Engels, in his already cited letter to Margarte Harkness (see above). Here he defined realism as:

“Realism to my mind, implies, besides truth of detail, the truthful reproduction of typical characters under typical circumstances.”
Engels Letter to Harkness; “Marx and Engels on Art and Literature” Ibid; p.90

His criticism of Harkness was that she had failed to surround her truthful characters with a working class that was not simply a “passive mass”, but instead a class with:

“rebellious raction. . . attempting – convulsive half conscious or conscious – at recovering their status as human beings, belonging to history.“
Ibid; p. 90-91

However Engels also conceded to Harkness that:

“I must own in your defence, that nowhere in the civilised world are the working people less actively resistant, more passively submitting to fate, more hebetes (French = bewildered-Ed) than in the East End of London. And how do I know whether you have not had very good reasons for contenting yourself, for once, with a picture of the passive side of working class life, reserving the active side for another work?”
Engels Letter to Harkness; “Marx and Engels on Art and Literature” Ibid; p.92

Realism must be distinguished from naturalism, which represents reality only superficially and statically. In fact, the world is in process of constant change, so that a work of art which fails to hint at the forces working beneath the surface of reality is not a realist, but a naturalist, work.

For example, Russia in 1907 lay under the ‘Stolypin Reaction’.

At that time, the organisations of the working class were being destroyed; the prisons were filled with revolutionaries; Black Hundred terror raged unchecked.

On the surface, it was a picture of unrelieved, hopeless gloom for the mass of the people. Yet less than ten years later the whole rotten system of Tsarism had been swept away in the October Revolution. Consequently, a novel set in Russia in 1907 which failed to hint at the revolutionary social forces operating beneath the surface would be a work not of realism, but of naturalism.

Marxist-Leninists understand that monopoly capitalism, imperialism, is moribund capitalism, capitalism which has outlived its social usefulness to the mass of the people. Consequently, a 20th-century work of art which fails to suggest the underlying forces of the working class, of socialism, which will bring about the socialist revolution, is not a realist work: 20th century realism must be socialist realism.

To emphasise again, Bland points out that the word ‘suggest‘ – was used by Engels – in order to avoid falling into propaganda. It is worth repeating here Engels’ view to Minna Kautsky in 1888 that:

“The more the opinions of the author remain hidden, the better the work of art.”
Friedrich Engels: Letter to Margaret Harkness (April 1888); in: Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: ‘On Literature and Art’; Moscow; 1976; p.91

Thus, the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Writers adopted at the 1st All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934 declares:

“Socialist realism demands from the author a true and historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development.”
Constitution of Union of Soviet Writers, in: C. Vaughan James: op. cit.; p. 88

Socialist realist art does not exclude distortion and exaggeration, so long as this departure from naturalism assists in bringing out the truth about the subject. Thus, a caricature of Margaret Thatcher showing her as a vulture with bloody talons would be much more realistic than a naturalistic portrait showing her as a sweet, silver-haired grandmother.

As summarised by Emerson, four guiding principles evolved:

“Four socialist realist principles eventually governed what a conscious subject, inside and outside the fictional text, is privileged to see.
Partiinost , “partymindedness,” decrees that every artistic act is also a political act. The source of all authoritative knowledge is the Party.

Ideinost, “idea-mindedness,” is specifically topical: the “idea” of the artwork should embody the current high priority party slogan (reconstructing a ruined factory, abolishing drunkenness, building the Moscow metro, destroying the fascist enemy).

Klassovost , “classmindedness,” both acknowledges the social-class origin of art and obliges it to further the struggle of the proletariat.

Narodnost , “people or folkmindedness,” requires art to be accessible and appealing to the masses by drawing on their traditions, language, melodies, rhythms, and values. Since the Soviet Union was a multinational state, narodnost authorized considerable cultural diversity (within, of course, a framework of ideological uniformity). In practice this meant that folk songs, legends, colorful costumes and superstitions, local peasant and tribal rituals were allowed their own expression, even their own national language, and could coexist alongside the more “consciously” proletarian plots of hydroelectric dams, cement factories, and metros.
Emerson, Caryl. The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Literature, Cambridge University Press, 2008’ p. 201-2

These are focused on the content. How that is to be integrated with the form is not specified here.

The question of tendentiousness in Marx and Engels’ time and in the USSR

Anti Marxist-Leninists argue that Stalin and the CPSU(B) took a leftist departure from Marxism on the question of socialist art. This draws a distinction between Marx, Engels, Lenin – and Stalin on art. However is this is a mistaken distinction.

In Engels and Marx’s day, they saw that the best art from the workers point of view, was not “stupidly tendentious” and thus it should not be liable to being labelled as propaganda. But taking a partisan view was appropriate for the workers movement.

To make this point clear, we look at Engels’ letter to the German writer Minna Kautsky actually the mother of the more famous socialist Karl Kautsky (See Minna Kautsky at Wikipedia). Here Engels specifically notes that he is “by no means opposed to partisan poetry as such“. But he does argue that the “purpose must become manifest without being expressly pointed out”. The truth – let us the word – “does not have to served on a platter” – at least in art:

“I am by no means opposed to partisan poetry as such. Both Aeschylus, the father of tragedy, and Aristophanes, the father of comedy, were highly partisan poets, Dante and Cervantes were so no less, and the best thing that can be said about Schiller’s Kabale und Liebe is that it represents the first German political problem drama. . . I think however that the purpose must become manifest from the situation and the action themselves without being expressly pointed out and that the author does not have to serve the reader on a platter – the future historical resolution of the social conflicts which he describes. To this must be added that under, our conditions novels are mostly addressed to readers from bourgeois circles, i.e., circles which are not directly ours. Thus the socialist problem novel in my opinion fully carries out its mission if by a faithful portrayal of the real conditions it dispels the dominant conventional illusions concerning them, shakes the optimism of the bourgeois world, and inevitably instils doubt as to the eternal validity of that which exists, without itself offering a direct solution of the problem involved, even without at times ostensibly taking sides.”
Engels to Minna Kautsky, Letter London, November 26, 1885; in “Marx Engels On Literature and Art”; Moscow. 1976; p. 88; and at: MIA 

But as the preface to this collection makes clear that:

“Marx and Engels were at the same time resolute opponents of stupid tendentiousness – bare-faced moralising, didacticism instead of artistic method, and abstract impersonations instead of live characters.”
B.Krylov Editor in ‘Preface’ to ‘Marx and Engels on Art’; Ibid p. 25

In any case, in a later – and uniquely new and developing socialist state – as was the USSR in the 1930s, there were quite different needs to those of Marx and Engels’ day. Even Engels’s letters bear testimony that the needs of art for the working class changed over his own lifetime:

“If I have anything to criticize, it would be that perhaps, after all, the tale is not quite realistic enough. Realism, to my mind, implies, besides truth of detail, the truthful reproduction of typical characters under typical circumstances. Now your characters are typical enough, as far as they go; but perhaps the circumstances which surround them and make them act, are not perhaps equally so. In the “City Girl” the working class figures are a passive mass, unable to help itself and not even showing (making) any attempt at striving to help itself. All attempts to drag it out of its torpid misery come from without, from above. Now if this was a correct description about 1800 or 1810, in the days of Saint-Simon and Robert Owen, it cannot appear so in 1887 to a man who for nearly fifty years has had the honour of sharing in most of the fights of the militant proletariat. The rebellious reaction of the working class against the oppressive medium which surrounds them, their attempts – convulsive, half conscious or conscious – at recovering their status as human beings, belong to history and must therefore lay claim to a place in the domain of realism.
I am far from finding fault with your not having written a point-blank socialist novel, a “Tendenzroman”, as we Germans call it, to glorify the social and political views of the authors. This is not at all what I mean.”
Letter Engels to Margaret Harkness In London; April, 1888; Selected Correspondence; Moscow : 1953; in “Marx and engels on Literature”; Ibid at MIA 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1888/letters/88_04_15.htm

Socialist realist art is not, just a passive reflection of reality; it must play an active role in building socialist consciousness:

“The relationship between art and reality is twofold. . . Socialist Realism demands a profound and true perception of reality and reflection of its chief and most progressive tendencies ; but it is itself a powerful weapon for changing reality. . . Artistic truth facilitates the development of communist awareness, and education in the spirit of communism is possible only through a true reflection of life.”
Vaughan James: ibid.; p. 80

In Stalin’s famous phrase, socialist realist artists are ‘engineers of human souls’:

“Comrade Stalin has called our writers engineers of human souls.”
Andrey A. Zhdanov: ‘Soviet Literature – the Richest in Ideas, the Most Advanced Literature’ (hereafter listed as ‘Andrey A. Zhdanov (1934)’, in: H. G. Scott (Ed.): ‘Problems of Soviet Literature’; London; 1935; p. 21

This carries the same viewpoint, in my opinion, as that of Marx and Engels:

“Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man’s ideas, views and conceptions, in one word, man’s consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life?”
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, “The Communist Manifesto”; CW Volume 6; Moscow 1976; p. 503-04

Socialist realist art is  ‘tendentious‘, ‘partisan‘. Far from pretending to be neutral in the class struggle, it consciously sides with the working people:

“Soviet literature is tendentious, for in an epoch of class struggle there is not and cannot be a literature which is . . . not tendentious.”
Andrey A. Zhdanov (1934): ibid.; p. 21

Of course, all art is selective in its subject matter. There may be a millionaire who gives away all his money to the poor; but he would be so exceptional that a work of art with him as subject would give a completely false picture of millionaires. It would not be truly realist. True realism, socialist realism, requires typicality in its selection of subject matter:

“Realism . . . implies, besides truth of detail, the truthful reproduction of typical characters under typical circumstances”.
Friedrich Engels: Letter to ‘Margaret Harkness’, (April 1888), in: Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: op. cit.; p. 90

Romanticism is a form of art expressing intense emotions. However, in the majority of cases romanticism became linked with idealist soarings into metaphysics. Socialist realist art makes use of romanticism, but shorn of its metaphysical tendencies to give revolutionary romanticism:

“Romanticism of the old type . . . depicted a non-existent life and non-existent heroes, leading the reader away from . . . real life into . . . a world of utopian dreams. Our literature . . . cannot be hostile to romanticism, but it must be romanticism of a new type, revolutionary romanticism.”
Andrey A. Zhdanov (1934): op. cit.; p. 21)

We have seen that the form of a work of art is the manner or style in which the artist has presented the content of his work of art. Where the artist gives priority to form over content, we encounter a deviation from realism known as formalism.

Finally, socialist realist art should be national in form, not cosmopolitan:

“Proletarian culture . . . is . . . national in form.”
Josef V. Stalin: ‘The Political Tasks of the University of the Peoples of the East’, in: ‘Works’, Volume 7; op. cit.; p. 140

“Internationalism in art does not spring from depletion and impoverishment of national art; on the contrary, internationalism grows where national culture flourishes. To forget this is . . . to become a cosmopolitan without a country.
Our internationalism . . . is therefore based on the enrichment of our national . . . culture, which we can share with other nations, and is not based on an impoverishment of our national art, blind imitation of foreign styles, and the eradication of all national characteristics”.
Andrey A. Zhdanov: p. 61, 63

The First Congress of Soviet Writers (1934)

The First Congress of Soviet Writers, held in Moscow in August 1934 resolved that socialist realism:

“become the officially sponsored method, first in literature and subsequently in the arts in general.”
Vaughan James: op. cit.; p. 87

Thus, by 1935 it could be reported truthfully:

“The Union of Soviet Writers comprises all those writers, living and writing in Soviet Russia, who adhere to the platform of the Soviet Government, support Socialist construction and accept the method of Socialist Realism.”
Gleb Struve: op. cit.; p. 231

However, revisionism in the arts had not been completely defeated.

Papers were presented at the congress not only by the Marxist-Leninists Andrey Zhdanov and Maksim Gorky, but also by the still concealed revisionists Nikolay Bukharin, Karl Radek and Aleksey Stetsky:

“Bukharin . . . dismissed officially acclaimed ‘agitational poets’ as obsolete, and praised at length disfavoured lyrical poets, particularly the defiantly apolitical Pasternak.”
Stephen F. Cohen; ‘Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography: 1888-1938’; London; 1974; p, 356

Thus, the battle of ideas between Marxist-Leninists and revisionists in the field of the arts did not end in 1934, but it continued. This can be traced in the specific field of music, on where we now focus more directly upon.

8. The music organisations after 1920

As we saw after Lenin’s intervention in 1920, Proletkult declined. But its ultra-left adherents did not become any less insistent nor disappear. They continued to agitate and they simply formed new organisations.

The equivalent of the RAPP in music was RAPM. Both had close roots in Proletkult.

There remained quite visible, the two main competing poles within the arts.  At one end a reductionist ‘simplicity’ versus, at the other end a maintenance of professional standards – or ‘expertise’. The simplicists  stressed folk music, and Russian-ness in music. They would often invoke the example of in particular Mussorgsky – one of the so-called “Mighty Five”.

The Kuchka – “The Mighty Five”

Proletkult had been vehemently opposed to the courtly elite status in which Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was privileged. His music was thus rejected as decadent by the Proletkult, and it only became re-popularised after 1932.

For Proletkult, if there was ‘good’ music composition in Russia – it was exemplified by the ‘Great Five’ composers. They had worked in St.Petersburg and Moscow, between the years 1856-1870; and were Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin.

They embodied acknowledged musical virtues. These were not aristocrats like Tchaikovsky, they were in contrast were:

“from the minor gentry of the provinces. .  and were self-trained amateurs.”
Orlando Figes, “Natasha’s Dance. A Cultural History of Russia”; New York 2002; p. 179

Figes points out that they themselves created a myth:

“they created a myth of a movement that was “authentically Russian” in the sense that it was closer to the native soil, that the classical academy.”
Figes Ibid p. 179

In this myth-making they did develop a “musical language poles apart from the Academy”. This incorporated two main elements:

“First they tried to incorporate in their music what they heard in village songs, in Cossack and Caucasian dances, in church chants and (cliched though it soon became) the tolling of church bells.”
Figes Ibid; p.179.

These took several musical technical forms, from Balakirev’s study of folk songs of the Volga area in 1860. devices and themes that would become recognisable as a “Russian” style, with a Russia theme. These tried:

“to reproduce the long-drawn, lyrical and melismatic peasant song, what Glinka had once called “the soul of Russian music.” . . .
Tonal mutability: A tune seems to shift naturally from one tonal center to another, often ending up in a different key than the one in which the song began. The effect is to produce a feeling of elusiveness, a lack of definition or of logical progression in the harmony. . .
Heterophony: A melody divides into several dissonant voices each with its own variation of the theme, which is improvised by the individual singers until the end, when the song reverts to a single line. . .”
Figes Ibid; p.180

They also invented what Figes calls an ‘Exotic styling’ which was not used in Russian folk or church music using:

” the whole tone scale: (C-D-E-F sharp-G sharp-A sharp-C) invented by Glinka . .  in the march of Chernomor, the sorcerer in his opera Russian and Ludmila..  used by all the major composers form Tchaikovsky .. in the Queen of Spades) to Rimsky-Korsakov. . in all his music-story operas including Sado. . .)  and Mussorgsky and Debussy. . .
The octatonic scale consisting of a a whole tone followed by a semi-tone (C-D-E Flat-F-G Flat-A-B Double Flat-C Double Flat) used for the first time by Rimsky-Korsakov.. and all his followers including Stravinsky .. (The Firebird, Petrushka, and the Rite of Spring).
The modular rotation in sequence of thirds: a device of Liszt’s which the Russians made their own as the basis of their loose symphonic-poem type of structure that avoids the rigid (German) laws of modulation in sonata form.. . . The effect is to break away from the Western laws of development, ending the form of a composition to be shaped by the ‘content’ of its the music (programmatic statements and visual descriptions) rather than by formal laws of symmetry”
Figes Ibid p. 180-1; but see also Wikipedia at: Great Five-Wikipedia 

As a non-musician, I only understand this quite superficially. But what is clear even to me, is that the beautiful music of these composers was not necessarily based on merely copying a heard folk-music in the Volga region.

The kuchists invented a new language of music quite consciously. Moreover this was developed in a musical dialogue with international musicians – not in a hermetic vacuum. Finally having developed that new language, it itself became fertile techniques for non-Russian musicians.

In any case, they were to become a weapon in the hands of crude ultra-leftists in the RAPM, against non-Russian, and new musical elements.

RAPM and simplicity in Music and anti-gypsy music

Consistent with making music “accessible”to the people – Proletkult and RAPM emphasised “simplicity” and “amateurism”.  RAPM also insisted that any music had to be ‘ideologically correct’, and ‘uplifting’. One particular stipulation where music could only be “anti-proletarian” – was anything labelled as “gypsy music”.

Boris Krasin was a leader of the Music Section of Moscow Proletkult. His report to the 1920 First All-Russian Conference of the Organisations of Proletarian Cultural Enlightenment expressed this anti-gypsy music sentiment vociferously. The editors of his speech extracts show this (Frolow-Walker M & Walker J) :

“The Resolution passed at the forum declared that ‘Music is the purest reflection of our inner spiritual life, the most powerful force organising the will and feelings of the masses, and a great force for the reconstruction [peresozdaniye] of humankind. As such, it must form an integral part of proletarian culture.’
. . . Boris Krasin attack(ed) the highly popular ‘gypsy music’ genre, which he deemed unhealthy for the proletariat. In the twenties, once the world-changing aspirations had begun to look out of place, much musical campaigning would revolve around the idea that communist intellectuals knew what was best for the proletariat, and that it should be weaned off its taste for ‘gypsy’ and other popular music.“
Marina-Frolova Walker and Jonathan Walker “October 1917–18: Out of Chaos”; in Marina Frolova-Walker and Jonathan Walker; Music and Soviet Power, 1917–1932 “; Cambridge 2012; p.10

Instead of this ‘popular music’ – Boris Krasin hailed ‘folk music’ and ‘choral music’ as the epitome of desirable musical type for the proletarian state. Partly this was simply because choral music could potentially be played by amateur societies. By this virtue it simply could not be ‘poison’. Because if it was simple enough to be played by them, it passed the test. But on the other hand, gypsy music was ‘restaurant music’ which “reflected the degradations of bourgeois society”. Again the best solution was choral music:

“Boris Krasin’s report. . . on some aspects of the Proletkult programme, such as the fight against ‘restaurant music’ or the encouragement of choral singing, were later taken up again by RAPM (Frolova-Walker et al Editor; followed by Krasin’s words as follows):
“. . . First, it is necessary to provide a lead in the decisive struggle against all the anti-artistic music that has found favour with the masses: namely, restaurant music (i.e. the so-called ‘gypsy romances’), vulgar songs, dances, marches, and similar surrogates for real music. All this music reflects the degradations of bourgeois society, which has poured it into the mouths of the people like a poison. . .
The revival of the art of folk song is, in our opinion, one of the most important and urgent tasks. . .
In our opinion, the best and shortest path towards the above-mentioned goals is choral singing, which will also assume additional importance as an organising and unifying force, as artistic work directed towards a harmonious collective consciousness.”
“B. Krasin, ‘Zadachi muzïkal’nogo otdela’ [The Tasks of the Music Section],
Gorn, no. 1 (1918), 58–61; cited in Marina Frolova-Walker and Jonathan Walker; Music and Soviet Power, 1917–1932 “; Cambridge 2012; p.15-16

The members of RAPM reacted aggressively against the staging of many composers including such as J.S.Bach (on grounds of anti-religious music), and any Western composers in general. But especially the contemporary modern composers. The main exception to this anti-Western rule was Ludwig Beethoven. |His stand as a bourgeois democratic revolutionary and against Napoleon Bonaparte gave him standing. Rightly ignored was Beethoven’s own relationship to aristocratic patrons, at times stormy – but not always so.

ASM (Association for Contemporary Music)

In their mission to continue to proletarianise music, former Proletkult members now faced an organised professional enemy. This was organised in the Association for Contemporary Music (ASM).

ASM was formed in 1923 by Pavel Lamm, Nikolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky (who later was to win the Stalin Prize 5 times), Vladimir Derzhanovsky, Viktor Belyayev; and Boris Asafyev. The society was based in a State publishing house (Music Section of the State Publishing House (Muzsektor Gosizdata), which was started and then run by Lamm.

Lamm and ASM stressed professionalism and musical expertise – rather than amateurism. Equally they did not feel that music should be exclusively folk music. While the ASM liked the “Great Five” (Kuchka) composers, they also promoted modern Russian music including Alexander Scriabin and Sergei Prokofiev. Myaskovsky a co-founder of ASM, was himself a traditional and well respected prolific composer.

In addition however, they became enchanted with differing streams including modernist, “avant-garde” Western composers – Arnold Schoenberg, and Paul Hindemith. As Behrman puts it:

“The ASM followed Trotsky’s outlook by championing the Western European avant-garde music of composers such as Mahler, Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Paul Hindemith.”
Ibid; p.33

But other leftist musicians would also invoke Trotsky, as we see fbelow.

RAPM (the Russian Association of Proletarian Composers– (or  Musicians)

We have already saw how the poet Mayakovsky became subject to virulent attack. The ultra-leftists in RAPM and music were no milder. The very formation of RAPM involved similar tactics.

RAPM was formed jointly by Chernomordikov, Lev Shulgin and Alexei Sergeyev in 1923. The origins of the organisation involved slander, rough tactics and a coup – against Lamm and ASM. All three were employed originally at the Agitational Section of the State Publishers, and of the Narkopromos (Agitotdel), and all had prior strong links with Proletkult.

Lamm found himself falsely accused by David Chernomordikov on trumped-up charges of anti-Semitism. After Lamm was arrested, Chernomordikov simply seized the State publishing house staging a coup.

Chernomordikov institutionalised this, by forming ‘The Union of Proletarian Composers’ (Marina Frolova-Walker and Jonathan Walker 2012; Ibid; p.88).

“Both RAPM and ORKiMD evolved from the Agitational Department of the State Press’s Music Section (Agitotdel). Agitotdel was established by the government in 1922 to coordinate the composition, publication and distribution of musical propaganda, and was headed by the composer Lev Shulgin. . .
In order to unify and co-ordinate . . . what Shulgin described in the typical terminology of the day as ‘musico-revolutionary forces’, the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM) was created in June 1923 by Shulgin with Aleksei Sergeev and David Chernomordikov (two employees of Agitotdel), and the composer Dmitrii Vasilev-Buglai (1888–1956). RAPM united composers, performers, music teachers and instructors working in the amateur music field, and the majority of its members associated with trades’ unions or the military, or were members of the Communist Party or Komsomol (the Communist Youth League).”
Neil Edmunds ‘Lenin is always with us – Soviet musical propaganda and its composers during the 1920s”; in “Soviet Music and Society under Lenin and Stalin : The Baton and Sickle”, Ed. Neil Edmunds, London, 2004; p.149

Alexsei Sergeyev was closely linked to Trotsky (A. Sergeyev “Those on the Other Side”; In Marina Frolova-Walker and Jonathan Walker 2012; Ibid; p.113).

RAPM now tried to provide one home for former Proletkult musical practitioners across several disciplines. Its members were mainly in the military or trades unions, and had a heavily Party based membership:

“RAPM united composers, performers, music teachers and instructors working in the amateur music field, and the majority of its members associated with trades’ unions or the military, or were members of the Communist Party or Komsomol (the Communist Youth League).”
Neil Edmunds ‘Lenin is always with us – Soviet musical propaganda and its composers during the 1920s”; In “The baton and sickle”; Ibid, 2004; p.149

ORKiMD – the ‘Association of Revolutionary Composers and Musical Activists’

But a split of RAPM, led to a new organisation for only composers rather than all musicians and musicologists. This thus became the ‘Association of Revolutionary Composers and Musical Activists’ (ORKiMD):

“Shulgin and Sergeev left RAPM at the end of 1924 to form the Association of Revolutionary Composers and Musical Activists (ORKiMD). Virtually all the composers who worked for Agitotdel also joined ORKiMD. . .
In 1928 ‘almost every. . . revolutionary musical composition on the market . . . was written by members the Association of Revolutionary Composers’. . .
ORKiMD acquired a mouthpiece in Muzyka i revoliutsiia [Music and Revolution ] . . . .it had a greater emphasis on providing practical guidance to those working in the amateur music field. . .”
Neil Edmunds ‘The Baton and Sickle”, Ibid, 2004; p.149

In 1923 RAPM and ORKiMD took over the State publisher Agitodel after the coup against Lamm.

The RAPM journal was called Muzykal′naia nov ′ [Musical Virgin Soil]. The hijacked ‘Muszsektor’ State Publishing House, now published large amounts of agitational music – rather than the prior corpus of work favoured by Lamm.

Since their views had not changed, they continued to battle against ‘complex’ music. For RAPM, as it had been for Proletkult – ‘simplicity’ enabled music that was suitable for proletarians. Both for audiences, but also for performers. As seen above RAPM also argued against Western music, and many Russian composers including Peter Tchaikovsky.

The main ideological leader of RAPM quickly became Lev Lebedinskii (Simon Morrison; “ Plans Gone Awry, 1935–1938; In” The People’s Artist”, 2008 ; p.44). Lebedinskii was critical of the music State Publishers:

“In December 1924 the musicologist Lev Lebedinskii, a member of RAPM and of the Moscow Conservatory’s Komsomol cell, criticised Agitotdel for publishing music that was either too difficult (and thus inaccessible for proletarian audiences), or too simplistic and therefore insulting to the class that had theoretically inherited power. Lebedinskii also attacked Agitotdel’s leadership for not encouraging collective composition or discussion of music before publication, not seeking to attract more composers from proletarian backgrounds, and ignoring the musical needs of the peasantry.”
Neil Edmunds ‘The Baton and Sickle”, Ibid, 2004; p.149

Agitprop and Platon Kerzhentsev

Some ultra-leftists also found berths in the organisation of Agitprop. We discussed its beginnings above.

We saw above that Platon Kerzhentsev– was a leading ‘Left Art’ representative. He came to be deputy of Agitprop and later head of the Committee for Fine Arts:

“. . . After 1917, returned to Russia and occupied positions in Narkompros, Narkomindel (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), also serving as a diplomat and newspaper editor. From 1928 to 1930, he was deputy of the Central Committee’s Agitprop Department, and from 1933 to 1936, Head of the Radio Committee. From 1936 to 1938, his career reached its apex as he served as head of the Committee for Arts Affairs.”
Marina Frolova-Walker & Jonathan Walker; Name Glossay; “Music and Soviet Power 1917–1932”; Cambridge 2012; p.358

Recall that Agitprop had been headed itself by Praeobrazhenksi. Kerzhentsev was:

“a controversial figure in the history of post-revolutionary theatre and its relationship with the state. Initially a vocal supporter of the workers and their artistic creativity, he eventually morphed into a major critic and player in the attack against formalism that characterized the 1930s. Typical of this attack was Kerzhentsev’s active participation in the closure of Meyerhold’s theatre in 1938.”
Aquilina, Stefan, Ed; ‘Introduction’, in “Amateur and proletarian theatre in post-revolutionary Russia: primary sources “; London 2021; p. 4

Platon Kerzhentsev had earlier declared during the heyday of Proletkult that:

“The Proletkult strives to awaken proletarian creation in the areas of science and art . . . It wants to find and establish the sprouts of a new culture which have already made their way through the thickness of the old bourgeois cultural layer. Amateur performances of the masses are taken as the foundation of its work.”
Platon Kerzhentsev; “The Proletkult – ‘Organization of Proletarian Amateur Performances”; Proletarskaia kul’tura, no. 1, 1918, pp. 7–8; contained in: Aquilina, Stefan, Ed; “Amateur and proletarian theatre in post-revolutionary Russia : primary sources “; London 2021; p. 45–47

His views became very relevant to Shostakovich. As we saw, Kerzhentsev was highly critical of Lunarchaskii – who he dismissed as too “broad and tolerant”.

Agitprop as we saw was established after 1920, and initially grew out of Narkompros. It had powers that affected all academics institutions:

“Agitprop in particular emerged with the power and strong political incentives to expand its jurisdiction, and this impinged on the scholarly work of academic institutions almost exclusively in the social sciences”
Michael Lane-Fox; “Political Enlightenment and Agitprop”; Ibid Minerva , December 1996.

Kerzentsev in Agitprop, first came to attention when he attacked the playwright, Mikhail Bulgakov:

“In January 1929, he played a pivotal part in getting Bulgakov’s fourth play, Flight, banned. He then wrote an article that appeared in Pravda on 7 February 1929, alleging that the Ukrainian people were being insulted by a play performed at the Moscow Arts Theatre, his obvious target being Bulgakov’s first and best known play, The Day of the Turbins known to western audiences as The White Guard, set in Kiev, and attacked the People’s Commissar for Enlightenment, Anatoli Lunacharsky for allowing it to be staged. The play was suppressed in March 1929, but later revived, because Stalin liked it.”
See Kerzhentsev at Wikipedia 

It seems Stalin did not agree with the attack. Stalin had in fact quietly arranged that after Kerzhentsev’s attack, that Bulgakov’s play was not black-listed, and that Bulgakov would get a position in a state theatre (See ‘The Case of Bulgakov” in Bland’s ‘Stalin on the Arts”,  citing Josef V. Stalin: Reply to Bill-Belotserkovsky (February 1929), in: ‘Works’, Volume 11: Moscow; 1954; p. 343).

Kerzhentsev rose to become first the President of the All Union Radio Committee. In 1936, he was appointed Chairman of the State Committee on the Arts. However he was removed in 1938 from that role. Thereafter he became editor-in-chief or deputy editor in chief of various projects of the  Soviet Encyclopaedia. (Wikipedia).

After Lenin’s attack on Proletkult in 1920, Kerzhentsev arranged safe havens for many ultra-leftists who left Narkompros. Many were  within Agitprop. He looked after RAPM’s interests in music:

“(In) RAPM . . . success (was linked to -Ed) the role of one man, Platon Kerzhentsev, who held office in the Party’s Agitprop section, but also happened to take a strong interest in music (and opera in particular). Most important, he was hostile to Lunacharsky, both as an individual and as the representative of a broad and tolerant Soviet approach to the arts. Kerzhentsev was adept as a puppet master in effecting the shift of power in the music world from the Lunacharskyites of Narkompros to an array of hardliners operating through a number of institutions and organisations, including RAPM. Outside of the present narrative, he came to historical prominence in 1936 as the powerful Chairman of the Committee for Arts Affairs, when he played a leading role in the debacle over Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth. In 1929, however, he waged war on the music front at a time when Stalin’s attention was entirely absorbed by economic matters and internal Party struggles.“
Marina Frolova-Walker & Jonathan Walker; “Music and Soviet Power, 1917–1932”; Preface; p. xviii ; Cambridge University Press 2012.

The Agitprop department had become a very “powerful pole“:

“Agitprop can thus be seen as a powerful pole within party Marxism after 1920. Its staff in the mid-1920s included (in the prestigious Central Committee propaganda groups, or propgruppy TsK ) about 100 graduates of central communist universities, chosen from those who were the “most developed theoretically and loyal politically”. One might speculate that for Agitprop the party scholars’ hierarchy of social knowledge was reversed: agitation-propaganda, and not the scholarship of the party social scientists, stood at the top. This even had its terminological logic: the communist universities and the Institute of Red Professors were overseen by Agitprop’s division of propaganda, as if their activities were subsumed under that rubric.”
Marina Frolova-Walker & Jonathan Walker; “Music and Soviet Power, 1917–1932”; Preface; p. xviii ; Cambridge University Press 2012

Production Collective of Moscow Conservatory Students (Prokoll)

Yet another organisation to consider was the Production Collective of Moscow Conservatory Students (Prokoll)”. This catered to a group of professionals who did not see their task as being to create only “agitmuzyka” – they were a half-way house musically speaking between ASM and RAPM-ORKiMD:

“Prokoll was founded in January 1925 from entrants of a competition amongst students from the Moscow Conservatory to compose a work that would commemorate the first anniversary of Lenin’s death. Prokoll initially sought to distance itself from both RAPM and ORKiMD. As the collective’s nominal leader and inspirational figure. . .
Alexander Davidenko, explained: ‘We do not intend deliberately to compose unsophisticated music. . . The members of Prokoll were anxious that their music was not described as agitmuzyka, . . and believed it important not to completely reject the traditions of the past in the composition of musical propaganda.”
Neil Edmunds ‘The Baton and Sickle”, Ibid, 2004; p.149-50

However they practiced in a manner approved of by RAPM, in practicing “collective” authorship:

“The only politically correct concept of authorship was collective. . . (as they-ed) banded together to produce revolutionary operas and oratorios that were in essence medleys of mass songs.”
Richard Taruskin; “Public lies and unspeakable truth interpreting Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony”; in Fanning D Ed; “Shostakovich Studies”; Cambridge Ibid; p.19

RAPM and Prokoll – “Monopolistic power on the musical scene”

The forces of RAPM and Prokoll soon came to be a powerful force that showed a “contemptuous attitude towards dissenting fellow musicians”. This adopted a crude tendentiousness which was not matched by professional expertise:

“the young Prokoll composers join(ed) forces with RAPM. . . within the brief span of three years, between 1929 and 1932, RAPM acquired a monopolistic position of power on the musical scene. Prior to 1929, it had been an organization militant in spirit but weak in creativity. The influx of talented composers in 1929 raised the level of the group and gave it added importance. Yet, many influential musicians preferred to remain outside the organizational orbit of RAPM. They resented the bureaucratic mediocrity of the leadership, the intolerance towards the classical heritage, the simplistic views on the role of music in society, the contemptuous attitude towards dissenting fellow musicians. Although RAPM’S professional standards were considered low, there was interference in the conservatory curriculum.
Said Professor Shebalin in comic anger,“. . . My pupils who studied with Shekhter [one of the prominent proletarian musicians] bring me three-four bars of some clumsy melody. Then the discussion starts whether these three-four clumsy bars reflect the experience of the proletariat at the time of the Kronstadt uprising. This is simply an idiotic exercise in semantics. . .
Everyone was to be re-educated in the Marxist image—composers, critics, musicologists, listeners. The RAPM policy was violently anti-modern, anti-Western, anti-jazz, often anti-classical. RAPM fought the alleged bourgeois tendencies tolerated during the years of NEP. One such vitriolic attack was entitled “Against Nepmanski Music”. A welcome target was the Association for Contemporary Music”
Boris Schwarz; “Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia: Enlarged Edition, 1917-1981”; Ibid p. 40

Following a pagebook written by RAPP – the RAPM moved quickly and aggressively. The Ultra-leftists won an ideological monopoly in music. Platon Kerzhentsev helped them make “their way through the thickness of the old bourgeois cultural layer”.

Competent composers such as Myaskovsky were fired from the Conservatory. Exams were “abolished” for the Conservatory (and other faculties); and the music of “the past” was dismissed. Excepting only Beethoven, Mussorgsky and French revolutionary musicians from France’s bourgeois democratic Revolution:

“In December 1928 the Central Committee passed a resolution establishing ideological controls over the dissemination of art and literature, and placing members of proletarian organisations in charge of the organs of dissemination and training. In music, executive power was concentrated by decree in the hands of the so-called RAPM, the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians. . .
The composers Myaskovsky, Gliere and Gnesin, stalwarts of the old, pre-revolutionary musical elite, were denounced and fired from the faculty. Grades and examinations were abolished, and admission restricted to students of acceptable class background. Ideologists of the RAPM like the young Yuriy Keldish consigned the composers of the past wholesale to the dustbin of history, excepting only Beethoven, the voice of the French revolution, and Mussorgsky, the proto-Bolshevist ‘radical democrat’. Tchaikovsky, virtual court composer to Tsar Alexander III, was a special target of abuse. Composers were exhorted to spurn all styles and genres that had flourished under the tsars and cultivate instead the only authentically proletarian genre, the march-like massovaya pesnya, the ‘mass song’, through which proletarian ideology could be aggressively disseminated.”
Richard Taruskin; “Public lies and unspeakable truth interpreting Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony”; in Fanning D Ed; “Shostakovich Studies”; Cambridge Ibid; p.19

It cannot be said that the RAPM views were very different from those of Proletkult.

Kerzhentsev’s Attack on Vsevold Meyerhold

Having lost the launch-pad of Proletkult, Kerzhentsev now adopted the language of “anti-formalism”. This was his main weapon that he used this to attack Vsevolod Meyerhold.

Meyerhold together with Mayakovsky, became an early supporter of the Bolsheviks.

“By the time of the 1917 revolution, the year of his celebrated production Masquerade, he was considered the leading avant-garde director in Russia. Meyerhold was involved with the Revolution, joining the Bolsheviks. . .
Meyerhold was appointed Head of the Theatre Section of the Petrograd People’s Commissariat of Education in 1918 and continued his work in various projects despite health problems and difficulties during the Civil War, which took place after the revolution until 1922. The theatre he founded in Moscow was known The Meyerhold Theatre from 1923 and he was awarded the honoured title ‘People’s Artist of the Republic’.”
Rose Whyman; “A Concise Introduction to: Vsevolod Meyerhold“ 2019 update (originally 2016); Digital Theatre.

Meyerhold was after Konstantin Stanislavkii, the second most important theatre director in the USSR.

Shape-shifting Kerzhentsev adopts ‘professionalism’ at ‘Leningrad Theatre of Working Youth’ (TRAM):

We saw that Kerzhentsev had been a prominent Proltekultist and then member of RAPM.

The story of the theatre company known as the ‘Leningrad Theatre of Working Youth’ (TRAM) brings together a potent group of artists. TRAM was originally an amateur collective:

“TRAM was a Leningrad theater . . . organized in 1925 by Mikhail Sokolovsky on the basis of the amateur dramatic groups of young workers who presented topical skits, songs, and dances in their factory clubs. TRAM was conceived as a collective; the agitprop plays were written and performed by amateurs, young workers who drew directly from their everyday life for the theatrical action. . . making them extremely popular with young viewers as well as with the press. . . by the late 1920s the “TRAM movement” had become an influential force in the Soviet theater.“
Fay, Laurel E. Shostakovich: a Life”; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, p.57-58;

Recall that Kerzhentsev in common with Proletkult, RAPP and RAPM – had been stridently pro-amateurism. But always alert to keeping his revisionism hidden, by 1929 Kerzhentsev had morphed away from ‘amateurism’ to upholding ‘professional standards’.

He now became an adviser to TRAM – but he had changed his tune to now extolling “professionalism”:

“Platon Kerzhentsev represented the Communist Party. . . This chameleon-like Soviet bureaucrat had argued for the superiority of amateur theater during the Civil War in his often-republished book, Creative Theater. Now he argued in favor of professional standards. He warned that TRAM should recognize that it had a lot to learn from professional stages, even from Stanislavsky.”
Lynne Mally; “TRAM: The Vanguard of Amateur Art”: in Revolutionary Acts Amateur Theater and the Soviet State, 1917-1938”; Cornell ; p.136

Accordingly TRAM altered its approach.

“By 1929, the Leningrad TRAM had become a professional theater; its actors and actresses left their factory jobs for full-time work on the stage.“
Fay, Laurel E. Shostakovich: a Life”; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, p.57-58

Shostakovich had already attempted to shield himself from RAPM attacks of being “anti-proletarian”. He had started by working with TRAM:

“No musician could afford to ignore the implications of RAPM’s militancy. The need to protect himself from their attacks was a guiding factor in Shostakovich’s decision to accept a position at TRAM in 1929, and also influenced his choice of themes in the Third Symphony and the ballet scores. . .
Shostakovich worked at TRAM from 1929 to 1931. His position there shielded him from ideological attack at a time when the proletarian associations such as RAPM were at the height of their power. “
Elizabeth Wilson, “Shostakovich: A Life Remembered”; London 1994; pp.71, 78.

“Shostakovich’s Conservatoire progress report of October 1929 shows that he was aware of the several ideological issues at stake. He declared that he was about to start work on a ‘Soviet’ opera and in connection with this was working at TRAM, where real workers art’ is being forged“
Elizabeth Wilson, “Shostakovich: A Life Remembered”; London 1994; p.78.

While this ‘shield motivation’ is evident, maybe in addition – he had some real wish to particpate in a workers endeavour. . . perhaps? This author believes that to be the case, but accepts that this is an unprovable hypothesis.

Now both Meyerhold and Shostakovich became targets for RAPM. The RAPM attacked their joint production of Mayakovsky’s play ‘The Bedbug’, at TRAM in July 1929. RAPM had already attacked Shostakovich’s first opera “the Nose”. Now the “Bedbug” was:

“describ(ed) as a “scathing satire of the new bourgeois spirit” (i.e., Nepovshchina, the ethos of the New Economic Policy or NEP). . .
the Leftists, having begun to stalk Mayakovsky after The Bedbug, descended on him like wolves after his next play The Bathhouse (which satirised both RAPP, the proletarian literary group, and Glavlit, the literary censorship board). . .
less than a month earlier, a public hearing of The Nose in Leningrad had resulted in RAPM delegates denouncing the composer for “formalism” and “anti-Soviet escapism”.
Rejecting the opera as “irrelevant to students, metal and textile workers”, the (then-proletarian) Daniil Zhitomirsky warned: “If [Shostakovich] does not accept the falsity of his path, then his work will inevitably find itself at a dead end.”
Ian MacDonald, “ Laurel E. Fay’s Shostakovich: A Life A review Part 2: 1923-32 “: at MacDonald

Shostakovich was at this time only just out of the Conservatory as we shall see when we trace his chronology. His own musical expressions were also “ultra-left”. We return to the “Nose” below.

There was no love lost between Meyerhold and Kerzentsev:

“Kerzhentsev eventually morphed into a major critic and player in the attack against formalism that characterized the 1930s. Typical of this attack was Kerzhentsev’s active participation in the closure of Meyerhold’s theatre in 1938.”
Aquilina, Stefan, Ed; ‘Introduction’, in “Amateur and proletarian theatre in post-revolutionary Russia: primary sources “; London 2021; p. 4

Meyerhold was arrested and executed in the aftermath of the main revisionist attacks of the Yezhovschina, in 1940. It must be said that by the end, Meyerhold refused to accept any criticsm and became unable to take responsibility for any of his own errors. A full assessment of Meyerhold’s work and his theatre cannot be undertaken here.

Nonetheless, it can be said that a situation of effectively a civil war in the arts was present. This became increasingly untenable as RAPM created more sectarian and narrow-minded battles.

Dismantling RAPM and The Creation of the All Russian Union of Soviet Composers

The RAPM attacks were dangerous and aimed at severing relations between the Party and intellectuals. Several honest intellectuals in the arts had already been victimised. This alienated party from artists and intellectuals. In addition, particularly the more gifted and prominent ones such as Gorki and Prokofiev were important to the USSR.

“The reining-in of the proletarian cultural organisations became necessary in order to regain the good will of an alienated intelligentsia, but especially in order to woo back emigre luminaries like Gorky and Prokofiev, who were fearful of proletarianist opposition. Prokofiev, whose eventual decision to return to Soviet Russia had been sparked by the triumphant success of his first post- emigration visit in 1927, had been frightened off by the RAPM, which all but wrecked his second tour in 1929.”
Richard Taruskin; “Public lies and unspeakable truth interpreting Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony”; in Fanning D Ed; “Shostakovich Studies”; Cambridge Ibid; p.20

In the music field – as in others – corrective moves by the Marxist-Leninists began. To remedy the previous in-fighting amongst musical groups, the Party dissolved the ultra-left organisations such as RAPM.

“So the Party . . . suppressed them in the name of benign perestroyky (restructuring – ed). The RAPM and its sister organisations in the other arts were dissolved, and replaced by all-encompassing Unions of art workers.”
Richard Taruskin; “Public lies and unspeakable truth interpreting Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony”; in Fanning D Ed; “Shostakovich Studies”; Cambridge Ibid; p.20

In its place the Party created ‘The Union of Soviet Composers”:

“The Union of Soviet Composers was established at first in Moscow and Leningrad, and over the next sixteen years grew geographically and organisationally to encompass the entire country. . .The Union of Soviet Composers . . . was established by a decree of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, promulgated on 23 April 1932, entitled ‘On the Restructuring [perestroyka] of Literary and Artistic Organisations.”
Richard Taruskin; “Public lies and unspeakable; Ibid; p.18

The Ultra-left was thus effectively dis-enfranchised in 1932. These were the same people identified as ‘radicals’ in the quote below from the musicologist Taruskin:

“Now the radicals were stripped of power. . . Nominal power reverted to the old guard, from whose standpoint the 1932 perestroyka meant salvation from chaos and obscurantism – an obscurantism that was now officially labelled levatskoye (‘left’, for which read ‘Trotskyite’) and thus politically tainted. The grateful old professors were called out of forced retirement, given back their classes, and installed as willing figureheads in the organisational structure of the Union along, eventually (and very significantly), with the pupils of their pupils. To all appearances, the Composers’ Union was a service organisation, even a fraternal club. “
Richard Taruskin; “Public lies and unspeakable truth interpreting Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony”; Ibid; p.20-21

The Union not only funded the various composers, but it introduced a form of “peer-review” – with a ‘Bolshevik self-criticism’ an internal ‘pokaz’t’. Shostakovich was a member of this Union, and attended meetings. The Moscow Union was Chaired by an appointee of the CPSU(B) who intitally was the editor of Sovetskaya Muzika – Nikolai Ivanovich Chelyapov – who was not a musician but a jurist by background:

“material assistance through the so-called Muzfond, the Union was ostensibly engaged in protecting the interests of composers, . . (and) was implicitly endowed with the power to enforce conformity. The Union’s chief social functions were the so-called internal pokaz’t – meetings at which composers submitted their work in progress to peer review in the spirit of idealistic ‘Bolshevik self-criticism’ – and open forums at which composers and musical intellectuals shared the floor discussing topics like Soviet opera, Soviet ‘symphonism’, or the state of music criticism, for eventual publication in Sovetskaya Muzika, the Union’s official organ, which began appearing early in 1933.
. . . the Central Committee of the Communist Party installed one Nikolai Ivanovich Chelyapov (1889-1941) as chairman of the Moscow Union and editor of Sovetskaya Muzika. He was not a musician. A jurist by training, Chelyapov was an all-purpose bureaucrat . . . From the beginning of 1936 he reported directly to the All-Union Committee on Artistic Affairs (Vsesoyuzniy komitet po delam iskusstv), a subdivision of the Sovnarkom, The Council of People’s Commissars (later the Council of Ministers). “
Richard Taruskin; “Public lies and unspeakable truth interpreting Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony”; in Fanning D Ed; “Shostakovich Studies”; Cambridge Ibid; p.20-21

With this background we can directly enter the world of Shostakovich and his works.

See Part Two, shortly to be placed on-line – here.

26 September, 2025