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p O. Makarov

p The linking of the art to ideology belongs to the set of problems the posing and interpretation of which particularly vividly reveal the innovative character of the Marxist approach to art.

p As is known, the problem itself is not new. It has a long history commensurable with the history of aesthetic thought. Nevertheless Marxism could not be satisfied with a partial, though essential, modification in ideological material inherited from the past. The ideological demands of the growing proletarian revolutionary movement brought about a radical revision of the fundamentals of aesthetic knowledge. Such a revision was carried out in the process of the formation of an integrated scientific world outlook in the working class which included the dissemination of the principle of materialistic monism on the study and explanation of aesthetic and artistic phenomena.

p The scientific posing of the problem of linking the art to ideology in the general sociological sense and the defining of the principles of its investigation concur chronologically and in essence with the emergence of materialist studies on social being and social consciousness.

p The scientific explanation of art was not only a result or consequence of the materialistic conception of history but also an internal, necessary feature of this great discovery. Research into the process of the formation of integrated Marxist studies shows that the categories of social consciousness developed by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels and the solving by them of the more general historical and materialist problem of the correlation of social being and social consciousness presupposed and included a philosophical analysis of art and its essence. The principal significance of that 146 analysis lies in the irrefutable proof of the reflection of people’s social being in their consciousness in reference to the profoundly specific form of spiritual creativity, filled with individual, unique features, the study of which has long since gained the reputation of being one of the most complex theoretical problems.

p Marxism proceeds from the fact that it is impossible to explain art profoundly as such or to show how it differs from other social phenomena without ascertaining what unites it with them.

p Historical materialism focuses first and foremost on the systems qualities of social consciousness.-seeing them as the basis of the study of the individual forms of social consciousness. In his letter to W. Borgius (1894) F.\thinspaceEngels emphasised: “Political, legal, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic, etc., development is based on economic development. But all these react upon one another and also upon the economic basis. One must think that the economic situation is cause, and solely active, whereas everything else is only passive effect. On the contrary, interaction takes place on the basis of economic necessity, which ultimately always asserts itself."  [146•1  Thus the influence of each of the forms of social consciousness listed by F. Engels on the economic foundation and on the course of social development is realised no differently than by its interaction with all other superstructural formations. This conclusion should serve as a reference point in specifying the subject spheres, in defining the border problems of concrete sociological disciplines, and in the studies by representatives of the given disciplines of the influence of morals, science, the arts, etc. accordingly on the social behaviour of individuals and social groups.

p Conclusions which are of a fundamental methodological significance follow from the historical and materialist analysis of the given problem. One of them is that it is impossible to determine once and for all the place and role of art in ideological practice irrespective of the concrete historical circumstances of social and cultural development. They depend on the character of the ideological struggle between the classes; on the composition of the opposing ideologies with which art, formed on the grounds of existing reality or inherited from the past, is associated on the stage of development and type of intercommunication of the other phenomena forming these ideologies, and also on a number of other factors. Behind all these “variables” are hidden clashing interests and the aspirations and needs of social groups, which directly or indirectly influence art and the perception of its works. 147 Thus, as far as possible, a comprehensive calculation of the above factors, taken in their aggregate, is a sine qua non for the determination of the ideological function of literature and art.

p Another conclusion can be formed in the following manner: the content of the question of the interaction of art with ideology cannot be exhausted by its sociological interpretation; it also requires aesthetic study and art criticism based on the achievements of Marxist thought. The characteristics of art as an ideological phenomenon presupposes, consequently, a corresponding analysis of its constantly developing graphic language and the phenomenon of artistry connected with it.

p The ideological conceptions of people express the interests of these or those social classes and by virtue of this have a definite social and practical tendency. Does it not follow from this that unlike science, any ideology distorts the true state of things? The founders of Marxism, as is known, repeatedly characterised ideology as a false awareness, however in this they always had in mind only those ideological views (more often than not philosophico-idealistic or religious) which falsify reality. The ideologist who develops or systematises such views doesn’t realise the true prerequisites and motivations of his own activity. He works exclusively with thought material, wrote Engels, “which he accepts without examination as something produced by reasoning, and does not investigate further for a more remote source independent of reason".  [147•1  In discovering this source in the real, and not imagined, world of human relations the founders of Marxism explained the essence of ideology and along with this the secret of ideological illusions. The scientific criticism of such illusions developed by them in many works was a judgement not of ideology as such, but rather of anti-scientific (religious) and non-scientific ideological systems. It is known that Marx and Engels preferred not to apply the term “ideology” to their own teaching. By this they emphasised the qualitative uniqueness of scientific communist ideology, because there was not and is not any doubt that its creators were proletarian ideologists. They were never theorists of the “end of ideology" as they are often characterised in the West. The study of social consciousness developed by Marx and Engels excluded the absolutising of the traditional antagonism between science and ideology, and Marxism on the whole serves as an example of the inner unity and mutual permeation of scientific and ideological content.

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p Depending on the circumstances of time and cultural traditions the role of art in social movements can be different, including most important (let us recall, for example, Renaissance fine arts or Russian classical literature of the 19th century). But in any case art discredits the ruling ideology only in the capacity of another, opposing ideology already formed or in the process of being established.

p In revising the usual perception of the world and in opening up new cognitive horizons progressive art thus undermines the influence of reactionary or conservative ideology because it becomes a form of the self-awareness of the social forces which are consolidating themselves on the proscenium of history. Such is the dialectics of social consciousness taken in its historical development. By ignoring the fact that art is ideologically conditioned it is impossible to understand and explain either the objective contradictions of the artistic process or the sources of the subjective inspirations of its creators.

p Sometimes the evaluative character of ideological activity is emphasised and pushed to the foreground, moreover the latter action, from this point of view, represents not reality but namely the attitude to reality formed in the consciousness of this or that social group and reflecting its conception of the existing and what is due to exist. This view of ideology has much in common with its interpretation given above as a form of false awareness. In particular, it is also connected with the contraposition of ideology to science, however such a contraposition is already effected by another indication: if in the first case ideology is correlated with science as false awareness with true awareness, then in the present case they are correlated as an evaluative attitude to social reality and its study.

p There is also a definite difference between the theoretical study of ideological problems, on the one hand, and the practical assimilation of ideology, on the other. In capturing mass consciousness, ideology acquires in it a vividly expressed subjective and emotional colouring, appearing in the form of personal ideals, aspirations, motives of social behaviour, a diverse set of practical stimuli, etc. In absolutising this distinction, the supporters of the point of view under consideration exclude altogether theoretical activity from the structure of ideological activity.

p Ideological judgements are unquestionably evaluative. But does not the cognition of social life presuppose a definite evaluation of its phenomena? “... It is impossible ’to study the real state of affairs’,” emphasised Lenin, “without qualifying it, without appraisingit from the Marxist, or the liberal, or the reactionary, etc., 149 point of view!"  [149•1  In their turn evaluative ideological judgements in one way or another reflect reality and are based on a certain knowledge of it. This means that they include at least an element of objective content. If any ideology is seen as an attitude not connected with the reflection of such conditions, then its objective content is denied or placed in doubt. This then makes lip the prerequisite for principally excluding scientific study from the sphere of ideological production.

p Scientific ideology is a system of those ideological views and ideas that correspond to objective truth. This principle was formulated and discovered by Lenin in his fundamental philosophical work Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.

p The level of development and the maturity of this or that ideology are usually judged on the basis of the systematisation of its theory—economic, political, legal, philosophical, etc. This is not surprising. Social theory is the highest, most consistent form of the expression of the corresponding interests of a class or an entire society. But this in no way means that its ideological function in the socialist or communist social movement is carried out only by the theory of social life. Lenin, in his article “Party Organisation and Party Literature" put forward and substantiated the idea of the adherence to party principles of literature and art, applying the most important ideological characteristics to the phenomena of artistic creativity. These innovative theses, which enriched Marxism, are interrelated and supplement one another.

p It is not ideological forms differing from it, including art forms, that the idea of scientific ideology opposes, but rather nonscientific or anti-scientific (religious) ideologies. It characterises the bases of world outlook of both the theoretical and the artistic mastering of reality from social positions. Convinced that proletarian ideology can and must “present an integral picture of our realities”, satisfy “the requirements of science”,  [149•2  Lenin meant, in the final analysis, the whole system of phenomena out of which it is formed. As is known, he developed the idea of the interconditionality of the cognitive and ideological functions of social consciousness, objectivity and proletarian adherence to party principles on the material of not only scientific theory but also art (in “Party Organisation and Party Literature”, in his articles on Lev Tolstoy and in a number of other works).

p What characterises art as an ideological phenomenon?

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p Firstly, the reflection in it of existing or past social reality (moreover the involvement of art in the conflicts and circumstances of the past includes artistic interpretation of the historical material in reference to the actual problems of the present and the dawning future). Secondly, the artistic evaluation of reality in respect to a definite aesthetic ideal in which class or national interests and aspirations are interpreted. “In its basis art is the struggle for or against,” wrote M. Gorky. “There is not nor can there be any indifferent art because man is not a camera, he doesn’t ‘fix’ reality but either affirms or changes, destroys it.”  [150•1  And, finally, the orientation of the reader, viewer or listener around this or that form of perception of the world and civic conduct, and the educating of him as a subject of social activity. In the unity of these three factors the latter serves as fundamental proof of the ideological nature and ideological activity of art.

p The scientifically based character of art as an ideological phenomenon is disseminated in a class society on all artistic creativity, on all it produces. There are sufficient grounds for such a conclusion, especially today. In connection with the growing politicisation of artistic culture the definitions “political cinematography”, “political film”, “political theatre”, etc., became widespread in the art criticism of the 1960’s. Inasmuch as the representation of political events is not a necessary and, all the more so, main condition of the political significance of a work of art, the need for clarifying the meaning of those definitions arose very quickly. Along with other considerations the idea of the need for distinguishing “political” art and “ideological” art was expressed in foreign art research and criticism. All these terminological and conceptual innovations, in my view, cannot be considered successful. They create the impression that only some of the contemporary artistic phenomena involve political life and the ideological struggle, while the others have no relation whatsoever either to politics or to ideology.

p Of course it does not follow from this that it is necessary in general to repudiate the differentiation of artistic phenomena by their ideological efficacies. The more fully social reality is represented by means of and in the material of the given form of artistic creativity and the more general it is, the higher in principle is its ideological and aesthetic efficacy. In this respect the leading forms of socialist realist art today are the belles-lettres and cinema. Along with this such a combination of the various forms of socialist 151 art is conventional and relative. Supplementing each other in the embodiment of the humanist ideal and in the expression of the various facets and shades of the new man’s attitude to the world, they constitute an integrated system and’ influence social consciousness in the aggregate and not separately.

p Thanks to this, the forming of communist convictions in man is in a particularly close and many-faceted contact with the growth of his emotional culture.

p In cultivating the universal spiritual capabilities of imagination, taste, aesthetic perception and others in man, the artists in a class society are fulfilling thus their mission through the forms of ideologically conditioned creativity. In principle, the richer the universally human content of the ideological concepts and values guiding (or essentially influencing) people who create or perceive works of art, the more successfully art awakens and cultivates these abilities. For evaluating this or that system of ideological views the essential thing is which possibilities they open up for the spiritual mastering of concrete historical reality, and particularly its progressive tendencies. In this respect the enrichment by the leading masters of socialist realism of the spectrum of the artistic portrayals of man, seemingly already “exhausted” by world art, with new characters, conflicts, and typical situations serves as practical corroboration of the heuristic values of the ideological convictions of these artists.

p It can be said that consistent progress towards the fundamental goal of art—spiritual development, enrichment of the personality—is possible in the modern era only through a truly democratic socialist upbringing. The prerequisites for this should be seen in the qualitative singularities of socialist ideology, both taken as a whole and in those features of the latter which characterise it as scientific ideology. Socialist ideology is a universal one; it expresses the interests of the international working class and at the same time (and thanks to this) the interests of all mankind and the requirements of its historical development. Therefore an orientation around the fundamental interests of this progressive class as the basis of aesthetic evaluation reproducing social reality in art is a choice benefitting the most adequate, truthful (though necessarily historically conditioned) and artistic reflection of it.

p Socialist realism as an artistic method was developed in indissoluble- affinity with the dissemination of Marxism-Leninism and the consolidation ol scientific ideology in the mass consciousness. The basic principle of this method was and remains the principle of artistic truth. The idea of instilling “beneficial” 152 illusions into the reader or viewer is completely alien to the masters of socialist art. Like Marxist scholars, they share the conviction that “we must not create illusions or myths for ourselves; this would be entirely incompatible with the materialist conception of history and the class point of view".  [152•1 

p In his awareness of his responsibility to society and art, the modern artist particularly strongly feels the inevitable insufficiency of his individual experience in life. The development and spreading of scientific ideology more than anything coincides with his inner need forgathering his own impressions and thoughts about life into an integrated aesthetic conception. For in the experience of the revolutionary reconstruction of the social relations reflected by this ideology the essence of modern man and the direction of the growth of his awareness and self-awareness is particularly fully manifested.

p Does it follow from the above that the ideological self-education of the artist and his mastering of the conclusions of Marxist thought only anticipate artistic practice or just correct it? No. They are inseparable from such practice which is a most important sphere of the artist’s activity in life. Namely a direct and vital involvement in national life and a passionate interest in concrete human relations, destinies and characters more than anything motivate the artist’s turning to those teachings which explain the sophisticated interactions of phenomena. In its turn, Marxist-Leninist theory arms the artist with a knowledge of the laws and perspectives of social development and orientates him around an intent “scrutinising” of life and around its purposeful creative research by the specific means of art. Therefore it is understandable that its influence on the writer or cinematographer by no means reduces in principle his impressionability and emotional “responsiveness”. On the contrary, by intensifying and improving the artist’s attitude to reality it promotes a development of the powers, versatility and flexibility of emotional reactions of the creative subject. In other words, such an emotional culture of art’s creators, so important to aft, is bound in the closest possible way to their world outlook and dependent upon it.

p Everything for which an artist is indebted to socialist achievements in the field of spiritual culture he assimilates by himself, mainly in the course of his own creative life. If, in principle, the assimilation of a socialist world outlook serves as a general condition for the productivity and fruitfulness of the creativity of artists, then, actually, such an assimilation appears as 153 an inimitable individual process and a result of the searchings and discoveries of each of the masters of socialist realism. World outlook, which defines the purposefulness of an artist’s talent and aesthetic convictions, is not only a premise for his artistic achievements. They form and develop by themselves in the process of individual artistic cognition and changing reality. Artistic assimilation of concrete historical phenomena through socialist practice in the light of Marxist-Leninist studies is at the same time an assimilation of those studies as a world outlook, thanks to which a talented artist finds freedom of expression and the inner right to creative searchings which allow him to make a unique investigation into phenomena which go far beyond the bounds of individual life experience.

p As Soviet literary criticism has convincingly shown, the forming of aesthetic views in, for example, Mikhail Sholokhov and Alexander Fadeyev is tied in with their artistic research of the events of the Civil War, and in Alexander Tvardovsky- with an understanding of the processes of the socialist transformation of the village. The further development of the individual aesthetic conception of these artists is also inseparable from the most significant stages in the life of our country and its people. This natural tendency expresses the specific (by no means mechanical) conformity between the development of socialist realist art and the putting of Marxist-Leninist ideology into practice.

p Scientific ideology develops an immunity against sectarianism in questions of spiritual culture and against a nihilist attitude to the art of the past. It is important that the artist of the new world feel and realise himself to be a full-fledged heir to all the genuine values of world art. The progressive tendency of this art is not reduced to the significance of the richest school of artistic mastery for him. Its assimilation, realised in many-faceted, individual selective forms, turnsthat truth, the truth that communism, which is in the process of being created today in our country, has been prepared by the entire development of mankind, into the aesthetic conviction of the writer, painter and musician. Thanks to this, socialist reality is realised and recreated by the masters of socialist realism as a process of the practical solving of the problems of the individual and society, put forward or outlined by the greatest humanist artists of the past.

p Socialist ideology, being scientific, is an open and, in this sense, incomplete system presupposing the constant development and clarification of its founding principles and attitudes (in particular, through art). Its characteristic ideal of the improvement of human powers and abilities which know no bounds overcomes the former 154 prevailing finalist notions of social and cultural evolution. In the matter of elucidating such an ideal the role of realistic artistic thinking is particularly great and truly indispensable.

p The productivity of the union of Marxist science and realistic creativity is not exhausted by the successes of the artistic mastering of Marxism, which determines the innovative feature of socialist art. It also finds its expression in the fact that this art, in its turn, stimulates and supplements social theory by its own discoveries. Unlike the theorists, who need sufficient statistical data for their generalisations, artists do not reduce the individual to the social. They observe social tendencies in the individual images of life recreated by them and frequently draw attention for the first time to the sprouts of the new in social being and consciousness. The ability of realistic art successfully to “compete” with theoretical thought in discovering only yet outlined and developing phenomena (of course without supplanting it and giving it valuable material for analysis) is its unquestionable merit. “The artist is valuable,” noted Anatoly Lunacharsky, “when he turns up virgin soil, when he intuitively breaks into a sphere which logic and statistics would find hard to penetrate."  [154•1 

In this way artistic creativity is not only ideologically determined “from without”, from the aspect of practical and theoretical awareness, but it itself, by its own means, also forms specific ideological values, involving itself thereby in the general process of the development and consolidation of socialist ideology.