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p I. Kulikova

p During the fifty years of socialist society’s existence socialist culture has been formed, developed, and has blossomed. This includes artistic culture, a party, class culture which has become “part of the comrnpn cause of the proletariat".  [186•1  The art of socialist realism which prevails in the socialist countries, expresses the interests and ideals of the working people and opposes bourgeois art and the bourgeois ideals which this art expounds. It is of international nature and has wide significance and influence throughout the world. Socialist realist art expresses the interests and embodies the ideals not only of the peoples of socialist countries but also of progressive people all over the world.

p The socialist realist method is founded upon the teaching of Marxism-Leninism. “If the world is matter in motion, matter can and must be infinitely studied in the infinitely complex and detailed manifestations and ramifications of this motion, the motion of this matter; but beyond it, beyond the ‘physical’, external world, with which everyone is familiar, there can be nothing."  [186•2  In strict accordance with this idea of Lenin, socialist realist art is aimed at comprehending and analysing the phenomena of the world around us, at transforming this world in the interests of mankind, and at realising the social and aesthetic ideals of creating the most progressive society, a communist society.

p The prevailing art of bourgeois society is going in the opposite direction. That art abandons the reflection of objective reality, i.e., 187 the material world, and maintains that the realistic method is outdated. One can draw one’s conclusions about the outcome of abandoning the reflection of the material world from the extreme dissipation of the “latest” trends of modernism, whose decline was admitted by bourgeois art theoreticians themselves at the 7th International Congress of Aesthetics.

p The new social formation, socialism, naturally demanded an art which would answer the new tasks facing society. The socialist realist method is a method of art which serves a developing progressive society. Artists who employ this method do not limit themselves to a statement of existing facts and phenomena, or to a fixation of observations, no matter how astute. Socialist realism is guided by the present and strives towards the future. At the dawn of the formation of this method Maxim Gorky noted: “What we need to know is not only two realities—the past, and the present in which we participate to a certain extent. We also need to know a third reality, that of the future.... We must somehow include this reality in our everyday life, and we should depict it.Without this reality we cannot comprehend what the socialist realist method is."  [187•1 

p Lenin’s theory of reflection is the direct theoretical basis of socialist realism. Lenin noted specifically that reflection is not a simple, direct, “dead-mirror” action, but a complicated, dichotomous, zigzag-like one, which contains the possibility of departing from real life. The Leninist theory of reflection leads socialist realist artists to comprehend the complex dialectical connections among the phenomena of reality. Many a time Lenin stressed the eternally vital, dialectical nature of cognition: “Cognition is the eternal, endless approximation of thought to the object. The reflection of nature in man’s thought must be understood not ‘lifelessly’, not ‘abstractly’, not devoid of movement, not without contradictions, but in the eternal process of movement, the arising of contradictions and their solution."  [187•2  As we see, Lenin’s theory of reflection does not limit the possibilities of cognition by fixing contradictions, but necessarily entails an attempt to solve those contradictions. The way they are solved depends upon the activity of people themselves, upon their world outlook, their standpoint, and the purposefulness of their actions.

p The active, creative nature of socialist realism was defined by Gorky: “Socialist realism proclaims being as an action, as creativity whose aim is to achieve the continuous development of a person’s most valuable individual capabilities in order that he be 188 triumphant over the powers of nature, that he be healthy and enjoy long life, and that he derive pleasure from the great happiness of life on earth, which, in accordance with his ever increasing demands, he wishes to change entirely into a wonderful dwellingplace for mankind united into one family.”  [188•1 

p With a greater or lesser degree of accuracy realistic art has always reflected the phenomena of the surrounding world. The degree of accuracy depended upon the talent of the artist, his sophistication, and the depth of his understanding of the phenomena of life and his ability to analyse them. The cognitive value of works of art depends upon the degree of accuracy and depth of reflection of reality in them. Engels placed the work of one of the greatest realist writers, Balzac, very high in this respect. He learned more about French society from Balzac’s books “than from all the professed historians, economists and statisticians of the period together".  [188•2 

p The writers and artists of preceding epochs, though they accurately reflected the phenomena of their times in their works and had a sufficiently profound understanding of the past, had no recourse to the truly scientific understanding of the laws of social development and, as a rule, would come to a helpless standstill in the face of the vital problem of mankind’s future, the problem of how to achieve social progress. Any attempts to describe, even in general terms, the vital and desirable social relations of the future were, as a rule, of a subjective, idealistic and Utopian nature. Marxism-Leninism, the theory of scientific communism, opened up new vistas for artists and men of letters. An understanding of the objective laws of social development permitted the workers of new art, the art of socialist realism, to reveal creatively the ways to a progressive development of human society and the ways to progress and an embodiment of the new socio-aesthetic ideals with extreme variety adequate to life itself. The cognitive significance of art has grown with the appearance of socialist realist art.

p The ideological and political maturity of the creative intelligentsia, their awareness of the responsibility for the content and ideological and artistic value of their works are promoting a profound representation of the phenomena of life and the humanistic purposefulness of creativity. Inasmuch as the subjective element in art is the reflection of objective reality by the .individual consciousness of the artist, a consciousness determined by his world outlook, it is natural that the strictly scientific foundations of the Marxist artists’ world outlook will have a 189 considerable effect upon the nature of their creativity and upon the nature of works of socialist realist art. Traces of subjective arbitrariness disappear from works of art; the objectivity and accuracy of the reflection of reality in art both increase; and the objective overall significance of works of art grows. Art, however, does not lose its special nature as a particular form of social consciousness based upon a graphic reflection of reality from the standpoint of a definite social and aesthetic ideal. And naturally accuracy of reflection does not limit the artists’ creative possibilities, for the real world in its development and the infinite variety of the phenomena of life provide inexhaustible material for artistic activity and serve as a never-ending source of creative inspiritation.

p The nature of socialist realist art is greatly influenced by the Marxist concept of man as above all a social being. As a result in socialist art which authentically reflects reality the personal and the social interact in dialectical unity. Both society and the individual are revealed in works of art in the process of their development, the process of their perfection in accordance with the social and aesthetic ideal of building a communist society and moulding a harmoniously developed personality.

p In its comprehension of the place and role of man in life and art socialist realism is diametrically opposed to the trends in modern bourgeois art which set man in opposition to any society, tear him out of his social milieu, present the personality either as an abstraction or as a purely biological specimen, and deny man’s ability to achieve perfection and his right to make progressive social changes.

p The new tasks faced by socialist realist art and the innovative nature of that creative method itself and its strictly scientific ideological basis have given rise to a new, expanded and more profound understanding of aesthetic categories. The most important categories of aesthetics and art such as the beautiful, the sublime, the tragic and the comic reflect the prospects of the development of society and the human personality. The category of the aesthetic ideal has grown in importance. This key aesthetic category, which in many ways determines the others, has embodied progressive people’s general conception of the beautiful, of the perfect social formation, and of the progressive man of our times. The category of the heroic has come into the foreground. The image of the positive hero has occupied an indisputably leading place in works of socialist realist art. This hero of the new social formation is not an exceptional “titanic” personality, not the “superman” of bourgeois pop art. He is the ordinary man of our 190 times and of our society, a man capable of waiving his personal interests, of performing great deeds and even of sacrificing his own life in the name of lofty ideals.

p Marxist-Leninist aesthetics understands the category of the typical in accordance with the historical laws of social development not as the mechanical sum total of the phenomena and relations still fairly widespread, but as new, growing and developing phenomena inevitably triumphant in the process of historical development. Thus the basic indication of the category of the typical ceases to be quantitative and becomes qualitative. This new understanding of the typical determines to a great extent the ideological content and nature of the conflicts in socialist realist art in its struggle with vestiges of the past and backwardness, and for the active forming of a progressive world outlook in the spectator, listener or reader.

p There may be a question of whether the sphere of significance of socialist realism is not limited to socialist society, where exploitation has been done away with and wide expanses for the development of the human personality and the perfection of the social order have been opened up. Could it be that critical realism, which ruthlessly exposes the faults of the bourgeois social order and thereby proves that it is doomed, is sufficient for progressive artistic creativity in capitalist countries? The answer to these questions is an emphatic no!

p In its day, before the Great October Socialist Revolution, the critical realist method produced some outstanding works of art which did great service to mankind and promoted a comprehension of the phenomena of reality. The method of critical realism originated in a bourgeois society based upon antagonistic class contradictions. Critical realist art exposed those contradictions uncompromisingly and set out to defend man against the conditions of the bourgeois world. As the contradictions which were tearing bourgeois society apart became more acute, so did the works of critical realist art. Their positive heroes took and are still taking an active stand against the injustices of an exploiter society, against the oppression and lack of rights of the individual in this society. But they fight against concrete manifestations of evil without having any realistically attainable social and aesthetic ideals. The authors of critical realist works contented themselves with abstract ideals of justice and the freedom of the individual, ideals which were not practically attainable under the conditions of bourgeois reality. The critical realist method forfeited its leading significance and the leading place was taken over by the socialist realist method.

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p Works of critical realism are still being created in capitalist countries. To a certain extent they are fulfilling useful functions by exposing the antagonistic contradictions of bourgeois society. This method no longer has real social basis in the new, socialist society, for the growing and developing socialist society is devoid of the internal antagonistic contradictions which the critical realist method is called upon to expose, though non-antagonistic contradictions which are consistently being overcome in the process of social development are inherent in this society. Attempts to portray socialist reality basing upon the principles of critical realism lead to a falsified depiction of reality. This results in the distortion of the truthfulness of the depiction of life; under socialist reality critical realism becomes detrimental realism.

p The appearance of such works in socialist countries can be explained by the ideological, philosophical immaturity of their authors, by their misunderstanding of and lack of desire to understand the progressive essence of socialist society and its radical differences from capitalist society. Such one-sided works which distort socialist reality are eagerly published in capitalist countries: the falsified, unsightly “portrayal” of socialist reality which they contain gives some comfort to the bourgeois ideologists who do not savour the flourishing of a society which is building communism; and on the other hand these ideologists never relinquish the hope that such types of deceitful works, which disorient the people of their countries, will to some extent contribute to diverting the masses from the building of a new society.

p Progressive figures in art who live in capitalist countries are becoming more and more aware of the progressive nature of the socialist realist method and the historical limitedness of critical realism. Thus the English writer James Aldridge recalls Gogol, the devastating exposer of reaction, while calling for uncompromising criticism of warmongers. “What horror Gogol could find in such men who are trying to conduct human affairs on profitable trade in dead souls. The horror and tragedy and idiocy of it needs a Gogol to present it in its immense human proportions.” Having noted the significance of Gogol’s talent Aldridge sees at the same time the limitedness of his artistic method and writes that “a Gogol today would not have much difficulty in seeing the way to a better future for his own people. Today he would see a way of salvation, clear and unshakable and unchangeable, not only in the example of his own country; but in all countries where each day another and another soul is added to the number who will refuse to be dead souls on credit to war brokers.”  [191•1 

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p However even the critical realist method is not encouraged in capitalist countries: it is tolerated as an undesirable phenomenon, but one not signifying an active threat to bourgeois society. All the fire, the ardour of reactionary propaganda is directed against socialist realism. This propaganda tries to discredit socialist realism because it offers art the widest avenues of active social influence, acts as an effective means of forming progressive ideas and ideals, promotes the moulding of a harmoniously developed personality through the medium of art and helps to turn every person into an active fighter for building a new society, the most progressive human society, the communist society.

p While offering men of art vast, in fact truly limitless creative possibilities, socialist realism at the same time charges them with a great responsibility and makes considerable demands upon them. In works of art a true reflection of reality in it% dialectical development can only be attained on the basis of a MarxistLeninist scientific understanding of the laws of social progress. For this reason a mastery of the Marxist-Leninist methodology of comprehending and analysing the phenomena of life is essential to socialist artists.

p Lenin disclosed one of the fundamental gnosiological demands of materialist dialectics when he wrote: “...if we are to have a true knowledge of an object we must look at and examine all its facets, its connections and ‘mediacies’. That is something we cannot ever hope to achieve completely, but the rule of comprehensiveness is a safeguard against mistakes and rigidity."  [192•1  Only having creatively mastered the Marxist-Leninist principles of the dialectical cognition of reality are men of the art of socialist realism in a position to create works of general significance and interest. If an artist, even one who possesses considerable artistic abilities, has not mastered the scientific method of cognising reality and relies on “inspiration” and “sudden insight”, he limits his creative possibilities.

p If an artist is to follow successfully the method of socialist realism he must possess a progressive world outlook and must share the viewpoint of the progressive class. He must be deeply convinced in the possibility and necessity of realising communist ideals and believe that these ideals will finally triumph throughout the world, for they express the interests of the working people of all countries, of all continents.

p It is because socialist realism aims at the embodiment of lofty aesthetic ideals and poses problems of great importance to the 193 artist, it demands artist’s full maturity and development. While expanding and deepening the means of expressing artistic abilities, the socialist realist method does not of course replace talent, nor does it make up for lack of it. It is a complex and profound method which demands independence of thought on the part of the artist. It calls on him to stretch all his powers of creation, to produce a powerful and sincere burst of creativity. Because they so obviously do not correspond to the lofty ideal inherent in socialist realist art, primitive works of art created “to a ready-made scheme" and not inspired by an artist’s independent thought look so terribly mediocre. These works discredit the artist, but in no way the method which he was unable or unwilling to master. Art absolutely demands the unity of a profound content and perfect form and takes harsh revenge upon the artist if he separates them.

p Modern bourgeois art makes few demands upon the artist: art, devoid of deep content, which has absolutised form and denied the communicativeness of a work of art, and has done away with objective criteria for evaluating it opens the road to any charlatan.

p The necessary, fundamental quality of socialist art is ideological meaningfulness. Socialist realist art is full of the most progressive ideas, since it is inseparably linked to communist ideology. In their ideological purposefulness the art and method of socialist realism serve the interests and ideals of the working masses of the whole world, and this is what constitutes the greatest significance of socialist realism in our time.

p Do bourgeois theoreticians now realise the necessity for ideological purposefulness in art, the necessity for it to be inspired by ideas of general importance? Yes, namely now, under the pressure of reality, and most of all under the influence of socialist reality, bourgeois theoreticians are compelled to recognise, and are gradually coming to recognise the fact that for modern art to develop it must be tied to life, to a certain definite ideology which directs it. In his research work Kapitalismus und Sozialismus in never Sicht, Albert Lauterbach directly expresses his sound point of view that any activity, including artistic activity, needs ideological support, that an “~‘ism’ requires the moral support and the spiritual orientation of an ‘ideology’ for it to become valid and to dominate the world outlook of the masses."  [193•1  Hopelessness and alienation of contemporary “elitist” art from life has become so evident that Herbert Read, the English bourgeois aesthetician, admitted this shortly before his death. In his last book, which bore 194 the telling title To Hell With Culture, he wrote: “The mistaken presentation of my point of view, of which I have myself been guilty in the past, is to describe art as self-expression. If every artist merely expresses the uniqueness and separateness of his self, then art might be disruptive and antisocial...."  [194•1 

p Over ten years have passed since bourgeois scholars “discovered" the truth, long known to Marxists, that art needs ideological purposefulness and meaningfulness. Since that time bourgeois aestheticians and critics have been stubbornly trying to find a way of bringing art closer to life and of increasing the influence of bourgeois art on people. However their fear of true progress, their class dislike of progressive ideas and their fear of the realist method which truthfully reflects in the works of art the antagonistic contradictions of capitalist society make it impossible for them to revive their art.

The future belongs to the art which enriches people spiritually, which expresses their interests, ideals and aspirations, to the art which, along with other forms of social consciousness, promotes social progress and the moulding of a harmonious personality, to the art which brings people joy and lofty aesthetic pleasure. And in our age that means socialist realist art. The treasure-house of world culture wilt be added by works of art which immortalise the greatest victory of mankind, the transition to the new, socialist formation which opens boundless vistas of freedom and progress before man—the works of art created by the socialist realist method.