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p Y. Kartseva

p The principle of the national character of art is one of the most important in Marxist-Leninist aesthetics. Marxist aesthetics understands national character first and foremost as an expression of the ideological and aesthetic ideas and interests of the people in art. National character in art also presupposes its accessibility to the people at large. In socialist art national character is inseparably and organically linked with its mass character.

p This article will examine the different conceptions of mass and national character which demonstrate the complexity of the ideological struggle around these problems, problems which have philosophical, historical, social and aesthetic significance.

p Scientific and technological progress and the rapid development of still newer means of mass communication have necessitated an accurate definition of the broad term “mass character”, which is now in use not only in reference to socialist art but which is used in the West also in reference to a certain portion of bourgeois art. In each of these two cases it is filled with different and diametrically opposed content.

p And so, Herbert Marcuse states that in every mass reproduction not only a quantitative but also a qualitative change in the initial aesthetic value of the work of art is inevitable. Marcuse polemicises with critics who state their satisfaction apropos of the fact| that classics have left their “mausoleums” and have joined the masses. H. Marcuse considers that the advent of the works of the classics into the modern world in paperback editions is attended by a cardinal transformation of their content. In addition they ostensibly forfeit their antagonistic power of alienation which was the main criterion for measuring their authenticity.

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p Like many other bourgeois researchers of the problem of mass character Marcuse does not want to see the diverse nature of definite cultural phenomena and does not wish to distinguish between consumer culture and democratic culture. When the works of Dante, Whitman, Tolstoy, Balzak, i.e., works of true cultural value, are published in huge editions, then this is a progressive -phenomenon. And H. Marcuse’s philosophical arguments about how the works of the classics have lost their social significance and critical power are groundless.

p The mass reproducing of books in the West has given rise to serious problem which Marcuse does not notice, but which is far from being immaterial for the development of literature. As soon as paperback editions turned into big business, questions immediately arose which were never posed earlier in normal publications and smaller editions, or in any case never so acutely. It happened that along with works of the classics and venerable modern writers, second-rate literary products also began to be published in paperback. Why? The answer to this question is simple and is hidden not only in the definite ideological and aesthetic purposes of the publishers but also in the economic conditions of the mass producing of products of the human mind in capitalist society. In order to agree to print an inexpensive book, the publisher must be convinced beforehand that he can sell a large edition, otherwise he will not make a profit. And where does this leave novice writers? The businessman himself is often not in a position to decide whether a distinctive and talented book will be successful or not. Nor can a single consultant tell him this for certain. A risk is necessary. But in huge editions such a risk could be ruinous. On the strength of these reasons either the books of authors who have already achieved popularity or pulp literature—cheap looe and crime novels of low manner—which is always in mass demand in western society, are published.

p Though the problem of profitability also exists in the affairs of Soviet book publishing, profit as an economic lever is absent in it. In our publishing houses there are strong barriers against trite, vulgarity, low standards, and antihumanism. Therefore mass reproducing in our pountry has a different character than it has in the West. Under socialism the printed word brings culture to the masses of the people and promotes the moral and aesthetic shaping of the human personality.

p The nature of the mass character of art as an expression of the content of any culture is closely linked with the use of definite expressive ways and means of aesthetic influence. The mass culture 169 of the West invariably strives to entertain and to provide a show achieving this through proven means.

p The orientation around success mentioned above involves not only the mass reproducing of books but also the proliferation of films, television programmes and advertisements. From this point of view it is unimportant out of what material this or that film is made—historical, biographical or contemporary—since the process of making it is essentially indifferent to that material and proceeds not from it but rather from the task that stands before the film. A sufficient quantity of nudity and impressive bloodshed, a heap of sentimentality and profiteering by showing children, animals and defenceless girls always unerringly have an effect on the audience.

p One ought also to judge the character of the heroes of a work of bourgeois, so-called mass culture and those of socialist culture for the masses of the people by proceeding not from forms, external appearances, mannerisms and habits, but from content. The fact lies not in how the hero looks or how much he uses his fists but rather in those social and political ideals which that hero embodies.

p It is incorrect to consider mass culture a child of only the technological age; it is necessary to recall the historical roots of that phenomenon. Mass culture existed in various forms in different stages of the development of human society. The ideological and methodological principles for analysing mass culture are given in the works of Marx and Engels which were written in the last century. The fact is not even in isolated utterances but in the specifically historical approach elaborated by them for evaluating some of the trends of mass culture and also in showing the close relation of the manifestations of the spiritual life of society to its material basis and to the aims, aspirations and ideals of the ruling class. “The class which has the means of material production at its disposal,” they wrote, “consequently also controls the means of mental production."  [169•1 

p The reasons for such broad diffusion of mass culture in modern bourgeois society lie not in the scientific and technological revolution. It would be naive to think as the Luddites once did that evil is brought on by technical devices themselves. The,sources of this phenomenon are concealed not in scientific and technological progress, though it actually promotes the development of mass culture, but rather in the commodity character of private- 170 ownership relations which Marx and Engels had already indicated in Capital. The main and dominant, feature of bourgeois mass culture is the fact that being a product of spiritual production it stands in the same rank with consumer goods, a fact which gives rise to many important consequences involving both its content and form.

p There is a sharp distinction between bourgeois mass culture and a genuine popular culture serving the masses of the people. V. 1. Lenin conceived of socialist culture as one accessible to the masses of the people, however he did not conceive of it as one Jacking a significant spiritual content. The leader of the proletariat considered that serving the people consisted not in adapting to their cultural backwardness but in enriching the masses of the people spiritually and artistically. Namely this is lacking in bourgeois mass culture, which is reduced to the position of a commodity and strives at any cost to satisfy the tastes of the consumers.

p In this way the distinction between it and a truly mass socialist culture lies in the very content of the concept of culture. This is why the term “consumer culture" is much more suitable for designating this phenomenon in the West. It adequately reflects both the system of values embodied in the works of art and the system of values by which man is guided in perceiving them.

p If the main and determining indicator of bourgeois mass culture is its marketability, then like any other commodity it has to be in demand and has to be able to satisfy this demand. And in order to do this mass culture must respond to a definite consumer credo: everything that the man in the street buys must be pleasant, comfortable and demanding little effort. These qualities rarely coincide with true art, but for that they are easily included in its ersatz. That is namely why the term “consumer culture" is the most accurate in disclosing the very essence of the phenomenon. In addition, the term “mass character" forfeits two different meanings which are now enveloped by it when the question involves bourgeois culture and socialist culture.

p The mass character of consumer culture presupposes an earlier set commercial purpose. The conscious programming of the psychology of the man in the street is already the distinctive feature in a work itself of consumer culture. This was pointed out 25 years ago by André Malraux, who wrote: “...But the difference that separates Giotto from the most mediocre of his imitators is not of the same kind as that which separates Renoir from the caricaturists of La Vie Parisienne... Giotto and the Gaddi are separated by talent, Degas and Bonnat by a schism, Renoir and ‘suggestive’ 171 painting by what? By the fact that this last, totally subjected to the spectator, is a form of advertising which aims at selling itself."  [171•1 

p The mass character of democratic and socialist culture is closely connected with its national character. Under the conditions of capitalist society a truly national work, however, does not always get mass distribution. And, on the contrary, mass character by no means always becomes an equivalent of national character.

p In the last century A. S. Pushkin wrote in the essay “On the National Character in Literature": “One of our critics, it seems, thinks that the national character consists in choosing subjects from native history. (...) Others see the national character-in words, i.e., they rejoice in the fact that in expressing themselves in Russian they have used Russian expressions."  [171•2  The great Russian poet correctly believed that neither the first nor the second give the essence of national character in literature, which Pushkin defined as an “image of thoughts and sensations, a host of customs, superstition sand habits belonging exclusively to a certain people,” and I define as a measure of the depth and adequacy of the reflection of the make-up, world outlook and ideals of a people in a work of art.

p One recalls these words of Pushkin while reading the research of certain bourgeois aestheticians who try without any reservation to declare such a wide-spread genre of American cinematography as the Western as having national character. Of course there is no doubt that it is closely connected with a “subject of native history”. But is the Western as a whole an American national epic as certain western critics affirm? I doubt this.

p In my view you can speak of epic traits only in the best individual Westerns which relate the odyssey of millions of migrants—their single combat with nature, their courageous readiness to face the unknown.

p Only a few of the best Westerns like, for example, “The Oxbow Incident”, directed against lynching, or “Little Big Man”, truthfully showing how the whites treated the Indians, reincarnated the brutality contained in these stories and directed their wrath against the brutality of the victors.

p However, considerably more often the Western greedily soaks up everything that emphasises the brutality of the moral atmosphere during the times of the conquest of the West. It is exactly this brutality that is the principal motivation for the ruthlessness, at 172 times extreme, that reigns in films of this genre. On the other hand the Western, notwithstanding the authenticity of the details of the background of the times put into such films, goes back more to literary tradition than to history.

p That is how affairs stand with the “subject of native history”. As to the “national character of words and expressions”, about which Pushkin also wrote, then in this too the Western often displays a pseudo-national character. This is particularly distinctly revealed in jokes and stories thought up in imitation of folklore.

p All this speaks of the fact that the Western, in its mass manifestations, turns into a genre of consumer culture. The mass character and the national character: in an antagonistic society these two concepts, as a rule, fail to concur. In general, national character is uncommon in that part of bourgeois mass culture which creates a pseudo-realistic world. True national character is a genuine embodiment of art’s bond with life.

p You can observe a reverse phenomenon when a work, national in its essence, does not receive mass distribution in bourgeois society where the means of mass communication are in the hands of people far from defending the interests of the masses of the people. Along this line the folksinger movement—singers who in their songs strove to use the folk traditions of American music—which sprung up at the beginning of the 1960’s is extremely interesting. Tunefulness, warmth, sincerity, meditation on life, and notes of social protest are present in the songs of Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylon, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Arlo Guthrie.

p The songs of Joan Baezhave their origins in Negro spirituals and in the traditions of the AnglorAmerican ballad. She sings about how man needs a feeling of his own dignity and how society demoralises him, about mothers trying to save their children from hunger and poverty, about little Negro girls blown up along with churches by racists, about American youths dying in Vietnam. Pete Seeger portrays the young people’s attraction to humanity, warmth and sincerity in his songs. He seems to talk with the audience, trusting it with his most intimate thoughts. In his songs, which use the traditions of western folk music, you often hear a criticism of American society and a protest against the predatory exploiting of nature. Buffy Sainte-Marie sings about American Indians and uses their folk motifs. Her most famous song—“Now That the Buffalo’s Gone"—tells of the present disastrous situation of the native inhabitants of the North American continent. She also wrote the song “Soldier Blue" which relates the bloody annihilation of an Indian tribe by Custer’s soldiers. (This song is sung in the famous film of the same name.)

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p The success of the folksingers is not accidental. Their songs meet the youth’s yearning for the simple human values, sincerity and tunefulness they are looking for in the treasure-chest of folk music. As the American art scholar H.R. Rookmaaker validly noted in his book Modern Art and the Death of a Culture, “...protest singers, folksingers, these are the people forming the new art still in the making. Their protest is in their music itself as well as in the words....”  [173•1 

p Art of this kind, which is restoring to the American people not only a feeling of spiritual affinity with other people but also an awareness of folk and national traditions, which are presenting them with simple human joys again, is a phenomenon of a national, democratic culture. However, the possibilities for mass dissemination of such songs are quite restricted. Unfortunately their authors more often than not appear only at improvised performances in front of demonstrators, at protest meetings and in youth cafes, and, naturally, their circle of listeners is considerably narrower than the circle of the consumers of commercial mass culture.

p Under conditions of bourgeois society cases when a talented artist, able, thanks to the colossal success of his works, to take control of this or that means of mass communication in his own hands and to achieve in his creativity a combination of national character, democratic character and true mass character, are rare. Charlie Chaplin was one in the 1930’s. More often than not in the West works of consumer culture trying to use only external signs of national character, without penetrating into the ideals and world outlook of the people, are published in huge editions, and this naturally leads to artistic defeats.

p The antagonistic relationship between mass character and national character about which we spoke earlier is eliminated only under conditions of a socialist society and a socialist culture for the masses of the people. For namely here the kindred bond of art and life, the indivisible union of talent and the environment which produced it, and the faithfulness of art to the interests of the people are most distinctly manifested. The art of socialist realism shows not only the people’s part in the historical process but also that the people have become a conscious maker of history. The works of the greatest Soviet masters of literature and the arts are directed against falsified notions about the people and also against portraying the masses of the people as a faceless element. Their characters are distinctive, vivid personalities, and the best in them 174 reflects the potential possibilities of national traits. Of course national character manifests itself not only in the heroes but also in the themes and problematics of the works, in illustrating how the progressive development of society inevitably leads to the appearance of a new man, in the pithiness and capacity of the aesthetic ideals of the artist, and in the optimistic and humanistic impact of works of art.

p All these characteristics of true national character can be shown by example of an analysis of the creativity of almost any great Soviet artist, whether M. Sholokhov or A. Dovzhenko, A. Tvardovsky or P. Korin, Ch. AitmatoV or L. Gudiashvili. By using an author’s privilege of choice we will examine these basic signs of national character by example of the work of Vassily Shukshin, a most talented Soviet writer, film producer and actor who died prematurely.

p N. A. Dobrolyubov wrote that for a truly national writer “much more is needed other than knowledge and keen insight, other than the talent of a story-teller: he needs not only to know, but also to experience profoundly and strongly, to suffer through this life; he himself has to be vitally linked with these people, he has, for a time, to look at things through their eyes, think with their minds, and desire with their will; he has to get into their skin and their soul”.  [174•1  Notwithstanding the fact that these words were written over one hundred years ago, it seems that they were written about Shukshin.

p A village lad from the Katun River area in Altai, a village school principal, and the Secretary of the regional committee of the Komsomol, he spent the largest portion of his life, one which turned out to be so short, in a remote Siberian village somewhere not far from the Chuya Highway. And when Shukshin’s first short stories were published in the magazine Novy Mir (New World) in 1963 they breathed of the transparent air of the cedar forests and the fragrant moisture of the morning mists drifting over the river. But what is still more important, such a knowledge of the life, customs and manners, and moods of the new Soviet village was revealed in them as is not easily accessible to the detached onlooker and can be drawn only from within, from the very depths of that life. His heroes—grain-growers, tractor drivers, chauffeurs—are shown through a warm feeling and deep respect for their labour, a brilliant knowledge of all the subtleties of life, through an intricate 175 mastery in developing characters and the skilful use of all the nuances of language.

p This utmost authenticity, naturalness, and truthfulness became the distinctive feature ol Shukshin’s work in cinema as well. As in literature, he brought his own unique integral world to the screen. The organic character of man’s blending with nature, which is so native to him, is one of the main themes of Shukshin the prose-writer as well ,as the cinematographer. By this he emphasised the folk and national nature of his characters. He was convinced that it is easier to preserve a human distinctiveness by an iiffinity with nature. And yet for Shukshin this was not as important as showing the people who preserve their inimitable individuality and retain their human integrity.

p Shukshin’s positive heroes—people from the masses: loggers, carpenters, hunters, etc.—are by no means average people, but rather people involved in searching for the meaning and goal of life and for a lofty spirituality. Shukshin did not take up backward partiarchal principles. Like in all the best masters of socialist realism the portaying of typical characters takes place in his works under the mark of the true historical method and is closely connected with the progressive advancement of life. How skilfully Shukshin grasped that of the new which made the villager a truly contemporary man, a man of socialist society!

p We can see the organic synthesis of national character and historical method in his novella “Meditations” from the film “Strange People". The theme and concept of the responsibility of the simple, ordinary man for the course of history—one of the basic themes and concepts of socialist realist art—was revealed here in full measure. The historical approach of “Meditations” is an illustration of how human psychology changes with alterations in the conditions of life.

p The hero of “Meditations”, the no longer young chairman of a collective farm Matvei Ryazantsev, is wondering why modern “sons” are not quite like them—’ fathers”. While organising the collective farm, fighting at the Iront, and rebuilding the warravaged village, he himself forgot about everything else and did not know other interests or diversions. And his daughter, finishing secondary school, is eager for something else—for a higher education, for a new level of culture, for a different life. Condemning her at first, the father, after much soul-searching, comes to the conclusion that this is the way it should be. It is impossible to stop life’s forward advance. An improvement in the material conditions of life and the absence of 176 the problem of bread and a roof should naturally give birth to a thirst for knowledge, progress and spirituality, for man does not live by bread alone. The ability of Shukshin’s heroes to rise above mundane calculations and the humdrum of life and preserve and enrich themselves as individuals gives all his films and many of his short stories a vividly expressed optimistic sounding.

p It is typical that Shukshin’s last film “The Red Snow-Ball Tree" which ends in the death of the hero, leaves a bright impression. For the theme of the film is by no means the reforming of a bandit and thief as it seems to some shallow viewers, but rather the purification of a human personality and the cleansing of all of life’s sediments adherent to it—bravado, boasting, showing off, and mistrust of people—in order to become, like before, so long ago that you cannot even remember, yourself once again. This, the main theme of the picture, is brought to a complete conclusion. Now the hero is ready to accept death, and, like in the best, profoundly national works of world art, this death summons up a catharsis in the audience. One has to be a truly humane artist and deeply love one’s heroes in order not to be afraid of such an ending. This optimistic conception of the world in Shukshin’s creativity, as generally in socialist realist art, continues and develops in our time the deeply-rooted national traditions of world art.

p Falsification, pretentiousness, and artificiality of form and content were .always alien to any genuine national character in literature and art. Even long ago, Marx and Engels, in their critical analysis of Eugene Sue’s novel Mystères de Paris, criticised the vulgar understanding of art’s link with the interests of the “lower classes" and showed that by creating the allegorical images the novelist sacrificed the real logic of life for an author’s biases. Thus realism in art becomes out of the question. Such is the principal aesthetic conclusion that the classics of Marxism formed from their analysis of that novel. Marx and Engels showed that the basis of the genuine national character in art is a true artistic knowledge of reality and a compliance of the aesthetic ideals with the real content of historical development. Thus national character is inseparable from realism and appears in the form of a unity of the principles of world outlook and aesthetics.

p A famous aphorism says that “good ideas do not necessarily make good films”, and the most progressive idea can be compromised by an inadequate artistic portrayal. However even high artistic form itself can degenerate into an empty play of devices if it is not inspired by a profound content and lofty ideas.

p In summing up everything in this article it is necessary to mention that the quality of national character is intimately linked 177 with the peculiarities of a conception of the world and with the creative method of an artist.

At the same time I would like to empasise that even though mass character is an integral concomitant of genuine national character, nevertheless this is a dialectic concept and mass character fer from always appears as a synonym for national character.