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DOI Artikel:Piotrowski, Piotr: The dialectics of destiny
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28178#0125
THE DIALECTICS OF DESTINY
95
imposition on society of their own vision of culture, namely utopia, as
well as the violent attacks on their adversaries, both actual and assumed,
using a vocabulary of Soviet anti-intelligentsia propaganda. The above
cited Aleksei Gan writes: ,,It is only the proletariat with its sound
Marxist materialism that does not follow them, but for all that, the vast
masses do: the intellectuals, agnostics, spiritualists, mystics, empirioc-
ritics, eclectics, and other podagrics and paralitics."^
It must be realized that this type of strategy and phraseology was used
in a particular social and political context, in Russia under the Bolshevik
regime. Nationalization of the channels of publications, along with the
shortage of paper and other materials needed for the normal functioning
of culture, not to mention the censorship, made easy self-expression
impossible for everybody.^ It is self-evident then, that in the more
privileged position were those artists and writers who situated themsel-
ves closer to the distributor of deficient articles, and so closer to political
power. The feeling of intolerance was so strong that Sergei Tretyakov
refused to discuss with Alfred Barr (who visited Moscow in 1927-1928) the
works of Malevich, Pevsner and Altman, stressing that the productivist
Rodchenko is a considerably much more interesting artist.^ On the other
hand, I am far from demonizing the avant-garde's ifluence on the
totalitarian atmosphere in Russia. Particularly at the time of NEP, that
atmosphere was relatively free, from which radical productivists profi-
ted as much as socialist realists, and these movements — it is worth
noticing -- developed simultaneously in Soviet Russia.^ But is was
precisely the NEP that became the subject of violent criticism by the
avant-garde for its restoration of bourgeois economic and cultural
models as well as its desertion of the doctrinal purity of communism. The
model closest to the avant-garde was moreso ,,war communism" than
the 'reactionary' idea of the NEP.
At this point, from the rejection by the Stalinist 'cultural revolution' of
the NEP's ideology, and through an appeal to the heroic slogans of ,,war
communism", there exists the possibility of explaining the role of
avant-garde artists in the propaganda of the First Five Year Plan.
Employed by Stalin the Revolution's rhetoric enabled for these artists
a self-identification in the new political situation. El Lissitzky col-
laborated with the propagandist magazine, USSR in Construction, and
also created posters and books which glorified Soviet reality and Soviet
institutions (for example, the Red Army). In order to meet the needs of
2° Russian Art of the Avant-Garde ..., op. cit., p. 218.
See: Art, Society, Revolution .... op. cit.
^ A. H. Barr Jr.: Russian Diary, 1927-1922,, October," no 7, Winter, p.15, 1978.
^ J. E. Bowlt, ,,Afterword,",.October," no 7, Winter, p. 52, 1978.
95
imposition on society of their own vision of culture, namely utopia, as
well as the violent attacks on their adversaries, both actual and assumed,
using a vocabulary of Soviet anti-intelligentsia propaganda. The above
cited Aleksei Gan writes: ,,It is only the proletariat with its sound
Marxist materialism that does not follow them, but for all that, the vast
masses do: the intellectuals, agnostics, spiritualists, mystics, empirioc-
ritics, eclectics, and other podagrics and paralitics."^
It must be realized that this type of strategy and phraseology was used
in a particular social and political context, in Russia under the Bolshevik
regime. Nationalization of the channels of publications, along with the
shortage of paper and other materials needed for the normal functioning
of culture, not to mention the censorship, made easy self-expression
impossible for everybody.^ It is self-evident then, that in the more
privileged position were those artists and writers who situated themsel-
ves closer to the distributor of deficient articles, and so closer to political
power. The feeling of intolerance was so strong that Sergei Tretyakov
refused to discuss with Alfred Barr (who visited Moscow in 1927-1928) the
works of Malevich, Pevsner and Altman, stressing that the productivist
Rodchenko is a considerably much more interesting artist.^ On the other
hand, I am far from demonizing the avant-garde's ifluence on the
totalitarian atmosphere in Russia. Particularly at the time of NEP, that
atmosphere was relatively free, from which radical productivists profi-
ted as much as socialist realists, and these movements — it is worth
noticing -- developed simultaneously in Soviet Russia.^ But is was
precisely the NEP that became the subject of violent criticism by the
avant-garde for its restoration of bourgeois economic and cultural
models as well as its desertion of the doctrinal purity of communism. The
model closest to the avant-garde was moreso ,,war communism" than
the 'reactionary' idea of the NEP.
At this point, from the rejection by the Stalinist 'cultural revolution' of
the NEP's ideology, and through an appeal to the heroic slogans of ,,war
communism", there exists the possibility of explaining the role of
avant-garde artists in the propaganda of the First Five Year Plan.
Employed by Stalin the Revolution's rhetoric enabled for these artists
a self-identification in the new political situation. El Lissitzky col-
laborated with the propagandist magazine, USSR in Construction, and
also created posters and books which glorified Soviet reality and Soviet
institutions (for example, the Red Army). In order to meet the needs of
2° Russian Art of the Avant-Garde ..., op. cit., p. 218.
See: Art, Society, Revolution .... op. cit.
^ A. H. Barr Jr.: Russian Diary, 1927-1922,, October," no 7, Winter, p.15, 1978.
^ J. E. Bowlt, ,,Afterword,",.October," no 7, Winter, p. 52, 1978.