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diff --git a/extra/communists_must.tex b/extra/communists_must.tex index 8ee41d4..2eb2a3f 100644 --- a/extra/communists_must.tex +++ b/extra/communists_must.tex @@ -1,7 +1,16 @@ -\chapter{Communists Must Give Revolutionary Leadership in Culture (1965)} +\newcommand\CF[1]{{\centering \vskip 1em \framebox[1.1\width]{\parbox{3.5in}{\vskip 0.5em #1 \vskip 0.5em}} \par \vskip 1em}} -\section*{1\hfill} +\titleformat{\section}[wrap]{\normalfont\HUGE\filright}{\itshape\HUGE\thesection}{0.5em}{} + +\titlespacing{\section}{2em}{2em}{1em} + +\titleformat{\subsection}[display]{\scshape\large}{\itshape\thesection}{1em}{}[\titlerule] + +\titlespacing{\subsection}{2em}{2em}{1.5em} + +\chapter[Communists Must Give Revolutionary Leadership in Culture (1965)][Communists Must Give Revolutionary Leadership in Culture]{Communists Must Give Revolutionary Leadership in Culture (1965)} +\section*{1\hfill} If the bourgeoisie could keep control indefinitely of the world's most productive economies, the U.S. and West Europe, then all cultural leadership, no matter how revolutionary, would come to nothing. The culture of the future would be fascist @@ -9,7 +18,6 @@ barbarism. The discussion of revolutionary cultural leadership is contingent upo this state of affairs. \section*{2} - \uline{For clarity}, \uline{somewhere}, \uline{sometime}, the \uline{best possibility} in culture for the present period has to be defined. As an analogy, with respect to religion Communists have to state somewhere, sometime that we @@ -36,7 +44,6 @@ socialist documentaries, and require that they appear on every film program alon with the melodramas. \section*{3} - The following three conditions for revolutionary cultural leadership are the ones I will argue from. I will refer to them by letter throughout the text. \begin{enumerate}[label=\Alph*., nosep, itemsep=0.5em] @@ -46,7 +53,6 @@ I will argue from. I will refer to them by letter throughout the text. \end{enumerate} \section*{4} - The following is the best possibility in culture for the present period. (The many tasks pressing on me allow time only to sketch it.) It is important to remember that implementation of the best possibility @@ -58,7 +64,7 @@ to continually increase the proportion of documentaries to theatrical films. -\subsection*{\enquote{\textsc{Applied Arts}}} +\subsection*{\enquote{Applied Arts}} These include architecture, automotive products, appliances and utensils, furniture, graphics, and clothes. Actually, they are nothing but fields of design engineering which are particularly \uline{retarded} @@ -198,14 +204,14 @@ as if it were a bottomless pit of tar. But \uline{in general}, the music of the Communists, particularly Anglo-American popular music, is simply hopeless. It is a cultural expression -of \enquote{white}---chauvinism and racism. It is \enquote{dead} and on +of \enquote{white}-chauvinism and racism. It is \enquote{dead} and on the way out. As I suggested, street-Negro music is already replacing it among the white masses, wherever they accept rock'n'roll, bemb\'{e} or the like. The Communist opposition to this process simply will not do. The music of the Communists must be virtually replaced by street-Negro music. (Condition B.) -\framebox[1.1\width]{The amount that U.S. Communists can do now to implement all this +\CF{The amount that U.S. Communists can do now to implement all this is of course very limited. But they can do some things. They can be asked to listen to the R\&B and R\&R radio programs rather than the other music programs. They can be asked to replace their Classical @@ -328,7 +334,7 @@ When the documentary has been favored, in Russia, Britain, and elsewhere, the ca The whole production and of course distribution of the film tends toward a high productivity of culture per worker. Vertov himself had a network of cameramen-correspondents throughout the Soviet Union who supplied him with footage. He and his assistants then put it together in his Moscow workshop. Of course, this procedure is standard for the newsreel. -\framebox[1.1\width]{ +\CF{ The amount that U.S. Communists can do now to implement all this is of course very limited. But when our movement is far enough along that we have to have cultural activities, we must make our @@ -344,7 +350,7 @@ Then, if the bankers circulate a movie or play so fascist that we have to demonstrate against it, we must publicize our own films in the demonstration.} -\subsection*[(\enquote{\textsc{Theatre}})] +\subsection*{\enquote{\textsc{Theatre}}} The Legitimate Theatre, Broadway and off-Broadway, is a culture of the luxury-consuming \'{e}lite. It is a luxury analogous to handwoven clothes. As soon as Legitimate theatrical productions are a success, they are filmed. The film is far more efficient than the Legitimate Theatre. Even though the Theatre is more original and intimate than the \uline{theatrical} cinema, it will tend to be replaced by films of itself, because of their greater efficiency. The Legitimate Theatre survives to the extent that a luxury-consuming \'{e}lite supports it. Vaudeville has reappeared, but on television, on videotape. Even the comic nightclub monologue, which is not being filmed, is being recorded. @@ -353,7 +359,7 @@ As for the feudal and \enquote{folk} theatres, Noh, the Japanese puppet theatre, Thus, the Legitimate Theatre is a highly inefficient luxury com-pased to the film. It is revolutionary leadership to do everything with the film; to replace the Theatre, including performances of old Dramas, with the socialist film. (\uline{Condition A}: higher labor pro-ductivity; \uline{Condition B}: against \'{e}litist luxuries.) -\subsection*{(\enquote{VISUAL ARTS})} +\subsection*{\enquote{\textsc{Visual Arts}}} Before the Invention of photography, much Art involved representation, from Chinese silk painting to the French Academy to Indian sculpture. As photography was developed in bourgeois society in the 19th century, and rapidly achieved widespread popularity, Serious Artists progressively lost Interest In representation. The decline of representational Art resulting from the invention of photography is an accomplished fact. The acceptance of this irreversible technical advance is obligatory for revolutionary leadership. (\uline{Condition A.}) As for calligraphy, it is replaced by the Roman alphabet and typography; and as for decoration in the \enquote{applied arts}, I have already dealt with it, @@ -375,7 +381,7 @@ No doubt the fiction of Proust, Joyco, Samuel Beckett will die out. (Condition B At best, if the workers' pressure for a revolutionary political line in the best-seller becomes great enough, it may be possible to divert them from the best-seller to the socialist journalistic book and film. (By the \enquote{journalistic book} I mean the book-length account of current events by a writer-participant, such as John Reed's \uline{Ten Days.}) -\framebox[1.1\width]{ To implement this, U.S. Communists should encourage filmmakers, not novelists; because we can get so much more out of the film in the short run, as well as the long run. It is wisest for us to leave the writing of the best-sellers to the cynics, who do it so well.} +\CF{ To implement this, U.S. Communists should encourage filmmakers, not novelists; because we can get so much more out of the film in the short run, as well as the long run. It is wisest for us to leave the writing of the best-sellers to the cynics, who do it so well.} Can as much established culture as I have said really be exhausted? It is extremely significant that during the same early Soviet period I have referred to, all of the famous cultural specialists, even Eisenstein, even Mayakovsky, believed that Art would ultimately disappear; as every honest history of the period admits. In general, this period was the most revolutionary yet in cultural history; there must be some truth in the unanimous belief of its celebrities, @@ -388,7 +394,7 @@ Top published studies of the finances of culture are Francis Haskell's \uline{Pa In many cases a reference to one of Conditions A--C has been a sufficient argument for revolutionary leadership. For example, a reference to Condition A is a sufficient argument for prefabricated architecture. -Only the applications of Condition B need to be explained: To show that certain \enquote{folk art}, Ballet, Grand Opera, exploiting-class Music (\enquote{Classical} or \enquote{Serious} Music), Poetry, the Legitimate Theatre, bourgeois Modern Art---and European popular music---\uline{promote the formation of a labor aristocracy, the stratification of the workers by nationality, and the formation of bureaucracies in [he proletarian dictatorships.} +Only the applications of Condition B need to be explained: To show that certain \enquote{folk art}, Ballet, Grand Opera, exploiting-class Music (\enquote{Classical} or \enquote{Serious} Music), Poetry, the Legitimate Theatre, bourgeois Modern Art---and European popular music---\uline{promote the formation of a labor aristocracy, the stratification of the workers by nationality, and the formation of bureaucracies in the proletarian dictatorships.} Economic causes have greatly stratified the world proletariat. The bourgeoisie has used part of the profits from one section of the workers to bribe another section. The low labor productivity of proletarian dictatorships in backward countries is another cause. At the top of the world proletariat is the white labor aristocracy, and the revisionist managers in the proletarian dictatorships; at the bottom are the \enquote{street Negroes}, the \enquote{field Negroes}. The upper layer of the proletariat seeks to consolidate its privileges, and uses methods pioneered by the aristocracies of earlier eras. @@ -412,5 +418,5 @@ A general remark on implementation of the best possibility for theatre and film. \section*{7} I have so far limited myself to the present period, but I would like to make one remark with respect to the period after the defeat of the U.S.-European bourgeoisies. Music-dancing will then be an amusement rather than a class-struggle symbol. In the present period, street-Negro music is permeated through and through with \uline{competition}. There is competition between the singers and combos. There is competition on the dance floor. The conceptions of one's superiority to another, one's getting ahead and leaving another behind, or of one's mediocrity or inferiority, are involved. Thus, disappointment and failure are possible in this music-dancing. Now competition is inimical to amusement, I think the people of the future will turn against this competition. They will find a way, in music-dancing and other amusements, for everybody to be "best". -\section*{8} -If the bourgeoisie could keep control indefinitely of the world's most productive economies, the U.S. and West Europe, then all cultural leadership, no matter how revolutionary, would come to nothing, +\section*{{\Large 8}} +If the bourgeoisie could keep control indefinitely of the world's most productive economies, the U.S. and West Europe, then all cultural leadership, no matter how revolutionary, would come to nothing. |