Publications. Leon Trotsky: Revolution is like a war in which all means are good and terror especially

Literature and revolution

Thank you for downloading the book for free electronic library http://filosoff.org/ Happy reading! Trotsky L. D. Literature and revolution. Yuri Borev Aesthetics of Trotsky. Any schoolchild knows that Sergei Yesenin was considered a fellow traveler writer for many years, and the fact that L. D. Trotsky called him that is known only to specialists, because for the majority of Soviet people, until very recently, this name was probably associated with the theory permanent revolution is not the best of his creations. Trotsky lived a bright life as a revolutionary and projector, a commander and party leader, a fanatic and a dreamer of world revolution, an ideologist of barracks socialism, a fighter against Stalin’s tyranny and a contender for his place with all the ensuing consequences. Unlike those leaders for whom fate had prepared a prison, Trotsky was destined to lose money. He died in Mexico, in exile, at the hands of a Stalinist assassin. Tradition says that at this hour of death, blood stained the pages of the manuscript of his last book - a book about Stalin. It is up to historians to comprehend (or rethink) Trotsky’s political legacy. I will try to give the most general and brief analysis his aesthetics. Trotsky's main work on this topic, Literature and Revolution, was published in 1923 and includes works he wrote between 1907 and 1923. This collection is structured, but its parts do not quite fit together, and one feels that the book was not written as a single work. At the same time, it has a certain integrity. Everything in it is united by the bright personality of the author and the material of the era. The book became a bibliographic rarity; it was included in the category of prohibited literature. What does this “forbidden” theoretical fruit contain and how sweet is it? In Trotsky's writings we will find many patterns dictated by class. fanaticism and disdain for universal human values ​​in culture, which, however, unlike some later party theorists, Trotsky still recognized. And yet, his theoretical consciousness, which was limited to the assimilation of the ideas of Hegel and Marx and did not go through the aesthetic school of Aristotelian, Platonic, Kantian thought, bears the stamp of vulgar sociologism - this pandemic disease of almost all “r-r-revolutionary” criticism and aesthetics. As a result, Trotsky believes that it is historically legitimate to exclude entire layers of the Russian intelligentsia from culture and history: “... the military collapse of the regime broke the spine of the inter-revolutionary generation of the intelligentsia” (p. 31). Unfortunately, it is true about the spine - it could not withstand the enormous weight of the proletarian dictatorship. However, it was precisely this inter-revolutionary generation of intelligentsia, about which the author writes so caustically, that gave Russian culture the post-October works of A. Bely, A. Blok, O. Mandelstam, A. Akhmatova and created Russian culture abroad, although Trotsky was too hasty in asserting that “emigre literature does not exist". Trotsky is one of the few of our party leaders who showed erudition in artistic culture. This advantage is due in part to the cultural level of most of his fellow party rivals. However, he was not an academic researcher. He has no aesthetic professionalism, he did not create aesthetic system. In his book, he appears not as a serious scientist, but as a tendentious politician. For example, Trotsky does not have a single principle of division literary process: either he proceeds from purely political characteristics (“muzhikovsky”, “fellow travelers”, etc.), sometimes from purely artistic ones, taking as a basis literary trends(realism, symbolism, futurism, etc.). In places this essay is boring: we have all heard enough and talked our heads off about the classism of art and the class struggle. In some places it’s interesting: “Listen to the music of the revolution!” - this call was close to both Blok and Mayakovsky, and, reading Trotsky, you seem to hear it. “Literature and Revolution” has the significance of a historical source and belongs to the past both in its system of views and in its interpretation of literary phenomena. At the same time, in these interpretations the author showed a certain aesthetic insight and taste. Thus, he calls Leonid Andreev the most prominent, if not the most artistic, figure of the inter-revolutionary era; he is one of the first to note the high talent of Anna Akhmatova. On the pages of the book the reader will find the names of V. Rozanov, S. Yesenin, N. Tikhonov, D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius, M. Kuzmin, E. Zamyatin and many other writers, without whom there is no history Russian literature XX century. Here you will also find the names of painters, and reflections on architecture, theater, and painting. We have before us general aesthetic ideas developed on specific material. At the same time, in accordance with the traditions of domestic aesthetics, reflecting real value literature in Russian artistic culture, Trotsky’s reasoning is based primarily on literary material. Today, when the whole cycle has ended historical movement who has reached a critical point, it is interesting and instructive to look at his first steps. From the historical peak last decade century, one can clearly see “the birth of streams and the first movement of menacing collapses.” What collapses did Trotsky provoke with his aesthetics and criticism, and what cultural currents originated in his activities? How can its aesthetics be characterized, what place in the chain cultural events century can it be determined? The book's author justifies brutal Soviet censorship as directed against "the alliance of capital with prejudice." Nevertheless, the violence against culture, which sometimes occurred in the first years of the revolution, was perceived by him as normal and necessary, and Gorky, who was then trying to resist this violence, Trotsky disrespectfully called “an amiable psalm-reader” (p. 34). In passages of this kind today we see a man who, at the word “culture,” grabs his Mauser. And this vision is real, but it does not yet give Trotsky the full complexity of his aesthetic concept. Trotsky proceeded from an insufficiently broad understanding of Marx, without a general aesthetic basis. Objectively, he was a link between pre-revolutionary Marxist art history thought and the vulgar sociological theories of the second half of the 30s and early 50s. Before the publication of this work, the historical chain of development of Soviet aesthetics lacked a link between Plekhanov and Zhdanov, and the historical origins of some postulates of the aesthetics of Trotsky’s antipode and enemy, Stalin, were not entirely clear. The latter, it seems to us, had such hatred for Trotsky that he sentenced him to death. And he was so partial to him that on the first anniversary of the revolution he called Trotsky its creator and then re-read the pages of his works for many years. Perhaps Trotsky inspired the poorly educated and internally enslaved Stalin with reverence, envy and a desire to be like him. Maybe that’s why we find the characteristic Stalinist word “adulation” on the pages of this book? The similarity of the aesthetics of Stalin - Zhdanov with the aesthetics of Trotsky is in the primacy of the vulgar sociological class approach to art over its understanding in the spirit of universal human values, in search of a political and ideological equivalent artistic content. The only difference is that Stalin more consistently implemented these principles than Trotsky, who can be given some advantage by beneficial deviations from the consistent ideologization of art towards the aesthetic vision of art itself. artistic value works. This is what allowed him, contrary to other party leaders of the 20s and subsequent years, to see in Sergei Yesenin not a hooligan lumpen, but a poet, or to appreciate Akhmatova’s high talent, which I have already mentioned. And yet, it was Trotsky who laid the foundation for the Soviet tradition of evaluating artistic phenomena not from an aesthetic, but from a purely political point of view. He gives political, rather than artistic and aesthetic characteristics of the phenomena of art: “kadetstvo”, “joined”, “fellow travelers”, etc. Culture has soil - traditions, but there are no fertilizers - pegasi do not produce manure. Socrates, who proclaimed that a basket of manure is beautiful if it is useful, in a certain sense was the forerunner not only of utilitarianism in aesthetics, but also of the sociological continuation of utilitarianism in the vulgar class approach, for which what is useful, moral, artistic is what is revolutionary, politically advantageous. Without going through the Kantian reflection of the disinterestedness of the aesthetic approach to reality, Trotsky’s thought turned out to be prone to utilitarianism. Prejudice prevented me from going through the Kantian school of aesthetics. He writes: “From materialism and “positivism,” partly even from Marxism, through critical philosophy (Kantianism), the intelligentsia from the beginning of the century moved towards mysticism” (p. 43). Be that as it may, Stalin, Zhdanov and Trotsky are “twin brothers” in relation to the problems of art. If we answer the question: “Who is more valuable than mother history?”, then we can say: Stalin’s aesthetics played a more destructive and formative role and left a real stamp on the artistic process, both because with its primitiveness it was attractive to the masses, and because which was brought to life through a powerful totalitarian government. On the other hand, Trotsky’s aesthetics have certain advantages over Stalin’s, since it is based on a broader historical and cultural basis and on the greater erudition of its creator. In terms of politics and cultural policy Trotsky acts as a true Stalinist, and Stalin as a true Trotskyist. Noteworthy are Trotsky's arguments about the role of revolutionary terror, which he unconditionally approved as a historical necessity. This historical necessity will manifest itself in a crescendo and will lead to the death of both Trotsky’s comrades and opponents, and himself, and many people who had no relation to him. How many peasants, workers, intellectuals will die in this fire! Naively hoping that violence will not be used for personal purposes, Trotsky writes with fanatical carelessness, thoughtless cruelty and delight: “The revolution, using the terrible sword of terror, sternly guards this state right: it would be threatened with inevitable death if the means of terror were to be used.” used for personal purposes. Already at the beginning of the 18th year, the revolution dealt with anarchic unbridledness and waged a merciless and victorious struggle against the corrupting methods of partisanship” (p. 101). Theoretically, Stalin’s vague idea about the existence of bourgeois and socialist nations and the erasure of his “enemies” from the people are anticipated by Trotsky’s thoughts about the nation. He divides the nation and sees the national behind the “progressive”, “advanced”, “class-revolutionary”, and the other half in this refuses - “The barbarian Peter was more national than all the bearded and decorated past that opposed him. The Decembrists are more national than the official statehood of Nicholas I with its peasant serf, state icon and full-time cockroach. Bolshevism is the national of monarchical and other emigration, Budyonny is the national of Wrangel, no matter what the ideologists, mystics and poets of national excrement say” (p. 82). According to Trotsky, in its dynamics the national coincides with the class, and in all critical epochs the nation is broken into two halves, and national is that which raises the people to a higher economic and cultural level. It is impossible to agree with this, because the essence of the civil war is that on both sides of the front line there are the same people or the same peoples, divided not by nationality, but by class. Trotsky's reasoning often resembles Stalin's characterizations of historical and cultural processes. The similarity of many of the postulates of Stalin and Trotsky suggests that their struggle was more a struggle for personal power, for personal stay at the helm of state, rather than a struggle for a different historical and cultural path of development. Trotsky often thinks quite like Stalin: whoever is not with us is against us, the main thing in art is content and political orientation, and in the sphere of artistry and form certain liberties can be taken. Thus, artistic policy should be that all writers are judged according to a categorical criterion; for the revolution or against

Leon D Trotsky

Leon Trotsky's book “Literature and Revolution” reveals his general aesthetic ideas. views on the problems of literary and artistic processes. On its pages the reader will find names returned to our spiritual everyday life, without which there is no history national culture beginning of the 20th century. These are Rozanov, Zamyatin, Merezhkovsky, Kuzmin and others. The reader will have the opportunity to get acquainted with Trotsky’s assessment of many works of fiction, painting, and architecture of the 10s - early 20s of our century.
First published in 1923, this book long years was not only a bibliographic rarity, but also a banned publication. It is now offered to the reader.

L. Trotsky

PREFACE

CHRISTIAN GEORGIEVICH RAKOVSKY, FIGHTER.
TO THE PERSON.
TO A FRIEND.
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK.
August 14, 1923

The place of art can be determined by such schematic reasoning.

The chapters devoted to current literature and making up the first part of the book were conceived two years ago as a preface to old articles, but the work expanded during the summer holidays of ’22. Unfinished, it lay there until the summer of '23. We had to significantly expand and rework last year's sketches based on the new literary material. But even now they are, of course, very far from completeness and completeness...

The second part of the book contains articles covering - without a system - the inter-revolutionary period (1907–1914). I did not include literary critical articles that preceded the 1905 revolution here. For two reasons: firstly, it was a different era, sharply different, and secondly, in apprenticeship.

Part I
MODERN LITERATURE

Fenced off. - Furious. - “Islanders.” - Foam removers. - “Those who have joined.” - Mysticism and canonization of Rozanov

The October Revolution overthrew not the Kerensky government, but an entire social regime based on bourgeois property. This regime had its own culture and its own official literature. The collapse of the regime could not help but become - and did become - the collapse of pre-October literature.
The songbird of poetry, like the owl, the bird of wisdom, makes itself known only at sunset. During the day things happen, and at dusk the feeling and mind begin to realize what is perfect. The idealists, including their deaf and blind followers, the Russian subjectivists, thought that the world was moved by consciousness, by critical thought, in other words, that progress was led by the intelligentsia. In fact, throughout past history consciousness only hobbled behind the fact, and the retrograde stupidity of the professional intelligentsia after the experience of the Russian revolution does not need proof. This law is observed with complete clarity, as has been said, in the field of art. The traditional equation of poets with prophets can only be accepted in the sense that poets reflect the era with approximately the same delay as the prophets. If it happens that other prophets and poets are “ahead of their time,” this only means that they gave expression to the known needs of social development not as late as their other colleagues.
In order for the pre-dawn trembling of a revolutionary “premonition” to pass through Russian literature at the end of the last - beginning of this century, it was necessary that history had made, during the previous decades, profound changes in the economic foundation of the country, in social groupings and in the feelings of broad masses. For individualists, mystics and epileptics to occupy the literary forefront, it was necessary for the revolution of 1905 to break down due to its internal contradictions, for Durnovo to defeat the workers in December, for Stolypin to disperse two Dumas and create a third. The bird of paradise of Syria sings after sunset, at the same time that the prophetic owl flies out. An entire generation of Russian intelligentsia was formed (or corrupted) on the social attempt at reconciliation between the monarchy, the nobility and the bourgeoisie that filled the inter-revolutionary gap (1907–1917). Social conditioning does not necessarily mean conscious interest. But the intelligentsia and the ruling class that contains it are communicating vessels: the law of equality of levels applies here too. The old intellectual radicalism and renegadeism found during the period Russo-Japanese War their expression in the completely defeatist mood of the intelligentsia, quickly disappeared under the star of June 3. Using the metaphysical and poetic aspirations of almost all centuries and peoples and resorting to the help of the church fathers, the intelligentsia more and more openly “self-determined”, proclaiming their self-worth regardless of the “people”. The loudness of this natural process of bourgeoisification was a kind of revenge for the grief that the people caused her in 1905 with their stubbornness and irreverence. The fact, for example, that Leonid Andreev - the loudest, if not the most profound, artistic figure of the inter-revolutionary era - ended his orbit in the organ of Protopopov-Amphiteatrov, is a symbolic indication of its kind on the social sources of Andreev's symbolism. Here social conditioning turned into outright interest. Under the epidermis of the most refined individualism, unhurried mystical searches, and polite universal melancholy, the fat of bourgeois reconciliation was deposited, and this was immediately reflected in the most vulgar patriotic verses when the “organic” development of the June Third regime was shaken by the catastrophe of the world dump.
The test of war, however, turned out to be unbearable not only for June Third poetry, but also for its social basis: the military collapse of the regime broke the backbone of the inter-revolutionary generation of the intelligentsia. Leonid Andreev, feeling how the seemingly so stable mound on which the dome of his glory rested was disappearing from under his feet, waving his arms with a squeal, wheezing and foam, trying to save something, to defend something...
Despite the lesson of 1905, the intelligentsia still harbored in their souls the hope of restoring their spiritual and political hegemony over the masses. The war strengthened her in these illusions. Patriotic ideology was the psychological cement that, of course, the “new religious consciousness,” scrofulous from the day it was born, could not provide, and which vague symbolism did not even strive to provide. The democratic revolution that grew out of the war and immediately culminated it gave the strongest impetus - but for the shortest possible time - to the revival of intellectual messianism. March is the last historical outbreak. The burning fuse began to smoke with Kerenskyism...
Then October, a milestone that goes far beyond the history of the intelligentsia, but at the same time simultaneously marks its irrevocable failure. But just in the hole, crushed to the ground by all the sins of the past, she became wildly delirious with its greatness. The world has completely overturned in her mind: she is a born representative of the people; she has a recipe history book in her hands. The Bolsheviks are wielding Chinese opium and the Latvian boot; You can’t hold out against the people for long... New Year’s toasts on the theme “in a year in Moscow.” Evil stupidity, insanity! But it didn’t take long to show up; It is really impossible to rule against the people, but against the emigrant intelligentsia it is possible, and even with success, and, moreover, completely regardless of what kind of emigration we are talking about - external or internal.
The pre-revolutionary swell of the beginning of the century, the first revolution that did not give victory, the tense but unstable balance of the counter-revolution, the eruption of war, the March prologue, the October drama - all this hit hard and often like a battering ram on the consciousness of the intelligentsia. Where was there to assimilate facts, transform them into images and find expression for the images in words? We received, however, Blok’s “The Twelve” and several works by Mayakovsky. This is something, a hint, a modest deposit, but not the payment of history's bills, not even the beginning of payment. Art revealed, as always at the beginning of a great era, a terrifying helplessness. The poets, unclaimed for the sacred sacrifice, turned out, as expected, to be more insignificant than all the insignificant children of the world. Symbolists, Parnassians, Acmeists, who swept over social interests and passions, as if on a cloud, were found in Ekaterinodar Osvag or in the state of Marshal Pilsudski’s defensive forces. In poetry and prose of high Wrangelian tension, they anathematized us.
The more sensitive, and partly more cautious, fell silent. Marietta Shaginyan interestingly tells how in the first months of the revolution she labored on the Don as a weaving instructor. It was necessary not only to move away from the desk to the loom, but also to move away from myself so as not to completely lose myself. Others dived into proletcults, political education centers, museums and sat silently away from the most tragic and terrible events such as the earth has ever experienced. The years of the revolution became years of almost complete poetic silence. And Glavbum is not at all to blame for this. For what was not printed then could be printed now. And not necessarily for the revolution, but at least against it. We know foreign literature: round zero. But ours has not yet given anything that would be adequate to the era.
* * *

Literature after October wanted to pretend that nothing special had happened and that it did not concern it at all. But somehow it turned out that October began to manage literature, sort and shuffle it - and not only in the administrative, but also in some more in a deep sense. A significant part of the old literature ended up, and not by chance, abroad - and it so happened that it was precisely in a literary sense that this part was published. Does Bunin exist? It cannot be said about Merezhkovsky that he disappeared, because he essentially never existed. Or Kuprin? Or Balmont? Or Chirikov himself? Or maybe “Firebird”, “Flashes” and other publications, the most notable literary trait which is conservation solid sign and the letters yat? All this is entirely an exercise in the book of complaints at the Berlin station: horses are not being supplied to Moscow for a very long time, and passengers are venting. In the most provincial "Flashes" artistic creativity is represented by Nemirovich-Danchenko, Amphitheatrov, Chirikov, Pervukhin and other regular dead people, however, they were hardly ever seriously born. Alexei Tolstoy discovers some, however, rather subtle signs of life. But for this reason he was excommunicated from the mutual responsibility of the keepers of the firm sign and other retired, so to speak, goat drummers.

L. Trotsky

LITERATURE AND REVOLUTION

PUBLISHING HOUSE “KRASNAYA NOV” GLAVPOLITPROSVET MOSCOW * 1923

Yuri Borev

AESTHETICS OF TROTSKY

Any schoolchild knows that Sergei Yesenin was considered a fellow traveler writer for many years, and the fact that L. D. Trotsky called him that is known only to specialists, because for the majority of Soviet people, until very recently, this name was probably associated with the theory permanent revolution is not the best of his creations.

Trotsky lived a bright life as a revolutionary and projector, a commander and party leader, a fanatic and a dreamer of world revolution, an ideologist of barracks socialism, a fighter against Stalin’s tyranny and a contender for his place with all the ensuing consequences. Unlike those leaders for whom fate had prepared a prison, Trotsky was destined to lose money. He died in Mexico, in exile, at the hands of a Stalinist assassin. Tradition says that at this hour of death, blood stained the pages of the manuscript of his last book - a book about Stalin.

It is up to historians to comprehend (or rethink) Trotsky’s political legacy. I will try to give the most general and brief analysis of his aesthetics.

Trotsky's main work on this topic, Literature and Revolution, was published in 1923 and includes works he wrote between 1907 and 1923. This collection is structured, but its parts do not quite fit together, and one feels that the book was not written as a single work. At the same time, it has a certain integrity. Everything in it is united by the bright personality of the author and the material of the era. The book became a bibliographic rarity; it was included in the category of prohibited literature. What does this “forbidden” theoretical fruit contain and how sweet is it?

In Trotsky's writings we will find many patterns dictated by class. fanaticism and disdain for universal human values ​​in culture, which, however, unlike some later party theorists, Trotsky still recognized. And yet, his theoretical consciousness, which was limited to the assimilation of the ideas of Hegel and Marx and did not go through the aesthetic school of Aristotelian, Platonic, Kantian thought, bears the stamp of vulgar sociologism - this pandemic disease of almost all “r-r-revolutionary” criticism and aesthetics. As a result, Trotsky believes that it is historically legitimate to exclude entire layers of the Russian intelligentsia from culture and history: “... the military collapse of the regime broke the spine of the inter-revolutionary generation of the intelligentsia” (p. 31). Unfortunately, it is true about the spine - it could not withstand the enormous weight of the proletarian dictatorship. However, it was precisely this inter-revolutionary generation of intelligentsia, about which the author writes so caustically, that gave Russian culture the post-October works of A. Bely, A. Blok, O. Mandelstam, A. Akhmatova and created Russian culture abroad, although Trotsky was too hasty in asserting that “emigre literature does not exist".

Trotsky is one of the few of our party leaders who showed erudition in artistic culture. This advantage is due in part to the cultural level of most of his fellow party rivals. However, he was not an academic researcher. He has no aesthetic professionalism, he did not create an aesthetic system. In his book, he appears not as a serious scientist, but as a tendentious politician. For example, Trotsky does not have a single principle for dividing the literary process: either he proceeds from purely political characteristics (“muzhikovsky”, “fellow travelers”, etc.), then from the strictly artistic ones, taking literary trends (realism, symbolism, futurism, etc.) as a basis. etc.).

In places this essay is boring: we have all heard enough and talked our heads off about the classism of art and the class struggle. In some places it’s interesting: “Listen to the music of the revolution!” - this call was close to both Blok and Mayakovsky, and, reading Trotsky, you seem to hear it.

“Literature and Revolution” has the significance of a historical source and belongs to the past both in its system of views and in its interpretation of literary phenomena. At the same time, in these interpretations the author showed a certain aesthetic insight and taste. Thus, he calls Leonid Andreev the most prominent, if not the most artistic, figure of the inter-revolutionary era; he is one of the first to note the high talent of Anna Akhmatova. On the pages of the book the reader will find the names of V. Rozanov, S. Yesenin, N. Tikhonov, D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius, M. Kuzmin, E. Zamyatin and many other writers, without whom there is no history of Russian literature of the 20th century. Here you will also find the names of painters, and reflections on architecture, theater, and painting. We have before us general aesthetic ideas developed on specific material. Moreover, in accordance with the traditions of Russian aesthetics, reflecting the real significance of literature in Russian artistic culture, Trotsky’s reasoning is primarily based on literary material.

Today, when a whole cycle of historical movement has completed and reached a critical point, it is interesting and instructive to look at its first steps. From the historical peak of the last decade of the century, one can clearly see “the birth of streams and the first movement of menacing collapses.” What collapses did Trotsky provoke with his aesthetics and criticism, and what cultural currents originated in his activities? How can his aesthetics be characterized, what place in the chain of cultural events of the century can it be defined? The book's author justifies brutal Soviet censorship as directed against "the alliance of capital with prejudice." Nevertheless, the violence against culture, which sometimes occurred in the first years of the revolution, was perceived by him as normal and necessary, and Gorky, who was then trying to resist this violence, Trotsky disrespectfully called “an amiable psalm-reader” (p. 34). In passages of this kind today we see a man who, at the word “culture,” grabs his Mauser. And this vision is real, but it does not yet give Trotsky the full complexity of his aesthetic concept.

Trotsky proceeded from an insufficiently broad understanding of Marx, without a general aesthetic basis. Objectively, he was a link between pre-revolutionary Marxist art history thought and the vulgar sociological theories of the second half of the 30s and early 50s. Before the publication of this work, the historical chain of development of Soviet aesthetics lacked a link between Plekhanov and Zhdanov, and the historical origins of some postulates of the aesthetics of Trotsky’s antipode and enemy, Stalin, were not entirely clear. The latter, it seems to us, had such hatred for Trotsky that he sentenced him to death. And he was so partial to him that on the first anniversary of the revolution he called Trotsky its creator and then re-read the pages of his works for many years. Perhaps Trotsky inspired the poorly educated and internally enslaved Stalin with reverence, envy and a desire to be like him. Maybe that’s why we find the characteristic Stalinist word “adulation” on the pages of this book?

The kinship between the aesthetics of Stalin and Zhdanov and the aesthetics of Trotsky lies in the primacy of the vulgar sociological class approach to art over its understanding in the spirit of universal human values, in search of a political and ideological equivalent of artistic content. The only difference is that Stalin more consistently put these principles into practice than Trotsky, who can be given some advantage by beneficial deviations from the consistent ideologization of art towards an aesthetic vision of the actual artistic value of the work. This is what allowed him, contrary to other party leaders of the 20s and subsequent years, to see in Sergei Yesenin not a hooligan lumpen, but a poet, or to appreciate Akhmatova’s high talent, which I have already mentioned.

And yet, it was Trotsky who laid the foundation for the Soviet tradition of evaluating artistic phenomena not from an aesthetic, but from a purely political point of view. He gives political, rather than artistic and aesthetic characteristics of the phenomena of art: “kadetstvo”, “joined”, “fellow travelers”, etc. Culture has soil - traditions, but there are no fertilizers - pegasi do not produce manure. Socrates, who proclaimed that a basket of manure is beautiful if it is useful, in a certain sense was the forerunner not only of utilitarianism in aesthetics, but also of the sociological continuation of utilitarianism in the vulgar class approach, for which what is useful, moral, artistic is what is revolutionary, politically advantageous. Without going through the Kantian reflection of the disinterestedness of the aesthetic approach to reality, Trotsky’s thought turned out to be prone to utilitarianism. Prejudice prevented me from going through the Kantian school of aesthetics. He writes: “From materialism and “positivism,” partly even from Marxism, through critical philosophy (Kantianism), the intelligentsia from the beginning of the century moved towards mysticism” (p. 43).

Current page: 3 (book has 32 pages total) [available reading passage: 18 pages]

3. New culture

At the very beginning of the 20s. Trotsky began to think about how to capture his life’s path in collections of his own works created, preserved and accessible to the general reader. He was encouraged to begin this work in 1921 by the head of the history commission October revolution and RCP(b) (Istparta) M. S. Olminsky 59
Olminsky (real name Alexandrov) Mikhail Stepanovich (1863–1933) - participant in the populist movement since 1884, since 1898 - social democrat. He was repeatedly arrested and exiled. Since 1903 - Bolshevik. Participated in the publication of the newspapers “Zvezda” and “Pravda”. In 1918–1920 Member of the editorial board of Pravda. In 1920 he acted as the organizer of Istpart and was its chairman until 1928. He supervised the publication of the works of Lenin and Plekhanov, documents on the history of Russian social democracy, and memoirs of leaders revolutionary movement. He also acted as a literary critic.

: “Why don’t you start preparing full meeting your literary works? After all, [you] could entrust this to someone under your leadership. It's time! The new generation, not properly knowing the history of the party, not familiar with the old and new literature of the leaders, will always have to go astray.” 60
RGASPI. F. 315. Op. 1. Unit hr. 325. L. 28.

So Olminsky considered the publication of such a publication as a purely political task, not a scientific one. The collected works did not reach that time, but in 1922 Trotsky published the two-volume work “War and Revolution”, which was preceded by a preface and introductions to the volumes, which were partly general historical, partly autobiographical in nature. (Some pages of introductions were later completely transferred to the book of memoirs “My Life”.) But the memoir fragments were much broader than the topic of the book. Thus, in the introduction to the first volume, meetings with Plekhanov at the beginning of the century and contacts with Kautsky during the second emigration were described in some detail. But mostly they talked about the vicissitudes of their own fate, the publications in which Trotsky participated, and their employees. Sometimes very vivid, memorable images arose, for example, a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee of 1917, G. I. Chudnovsky, who died in battle during the Civil War 61
Trotsky L. War and revolution. The collapse of the Second International and the preparation of the Third. Pg.: Gosizdat, 1922. T. 1. P. 27.

In total, the two-volume book included over 250 articles published in the emigrant press in 1914 – early 1917.

Political and cultural performances, supplemented by documents from the past, served as support for Trotsky in the conflict with the Stalinist group. The latter could not help but notice this and, without openly demonstrating any deep dissatisfaction, made it clear that Trotsky was replacing serious state-party work with his aesthetic and journalistic hobbies. Meanwhile, Stalin, who still behaved outwardly with emphatic modesty, already in 1923 saw in Trotsky the figure who must be eliminated from the scene at any cost with the help of his loyal allies at that time - Zinoviev, Kamenev and the obedient party pseudo-intellectual Bukharin.

Waging an intense struggle against the Stalinist group, Trotsky tried to use not only political methods. Compared to the majority of the party leadership, Trotsky was more educated, had a greater outlook, and knew foreign languages. He tried to combine the “proletarian revolution”, the demagogic glorification of “ordinary people” as bearers of power, the general coarsening of morals, with ostentatious respect for the values ​​of global culture and its bearers, with attempts to instill in these lowest strata the need to join civilization as a purely everyday, and sublime – artistic and intellectual. Trotsky was the only senior Bolshevik figure who not only recognized the compatibility of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” and the achievements of human thought and culture (formally, all leaders had stood on this position since Lenin’s sharp speech in 1920 against the ideology and practice of Proletkult 62
Proletkult (Organization of Proletarian Culture) emerged in the fall of 1917 and soon united more than 200 local organizations in various fields of art, especially literature and theater. By the summer of 1919, about 100 local organizations were affiliated with it. In 1920, the organization numbered about 80 thousand people. Proletkult ideologists A. A. Bogdanov, A. K. Gastev and others declared that any work of art reflects the interests and worldview of only one class and is therefore unsuitable for another. Therefore, the proletariat needs to create its own culture. According to Bogdanov’s definition, proletarian culture is a dynamic system of elements of consciousness that governs social practice, which the proletariat implements as a class. The ideology of Proletkult caused serious damage to the artistic development of the country, denying cultural heritage. Proletkult solved two problems - to destroy the old noble culture and create a new, proletarian one. If the task of destruction was partially solved, then the second task never went beyond the scope of unsuccessful experimentation. Lenin criticized Proletkult (his position was largely due to the hostility towards Bogdanov, whom Lenin encountered in the competition for leadership of the Bolshevik faction after the revolution of 1905–1907), and from 1922 the organization’s activities began to fade. Instead of a single Proletkult, separate, independent associations of “proletarian” writers, artists, musicians, and theater experts were now created.

), but also tried to translate these general considerations into a specific plane. That is why Trotsky’s numerous speeches on cultural issues were important integral part his political activity, his struggle for his own preservation in the highest echelon of power, for expanding his influence through opposition to the purely political party hierarchy.

With an article under the somewhat strange, not entirely literate title “Man Lives Not About Politics Alone,” Trotsky opened a series of publications on culture in Pravda. Soon this article, with additions, was released as a separate brochure 63
Trotsky L. Household issues. M.: Krasnaya Nov, 1923.

Later - already as a book - it was reprinted several times, with new additions, in different languages 64
Sinclair L. Trotsky. A Bibliography. 2 vol. Brookfield: Gover Publishing Company, 1989. Vol. 1. P. 1306.

In connection with its publication in Tatar, Trotsky wrote: “When writing this book, I relied mainly on Russian experience and, therefore, did not take into account the everyday uniqueness that characterizes Muslim peoples... There is no need to say that questions of everyday life in my book are by no means are not exhausted, but only set and partly outlined. The central task in the restructuring of everyday life is the liberation of women, transformed by old family and economic conditions into a beast of burden.” 65
Trotsky L. D. Essays. T. 21. Problems of culture. Culture of transition. M.; L.: Gosizdat, 1927. P. 453 (note 1).

The brochure collected materials on a wide variety of topics, which could be generally characterized by the words of Trotsky: “We need culture in work, culture in life, culture in everyday life... But there is no such lever to immediately raise culture. What is needed here is a long process of self-education of the working class, and next to it and after it the peasantry.” 66
Trotsky L. Household issues. pp. 3 – 12.

Literally all issues of everyday life, the protection of motherhood and infancy, physical education, the work of clubs and libraries were posed by Trotsky from the point of view of strengthening Bolshevik power and turning the USSR into an object of worship and imitation abroad.

Trotsky attached great importance to the details of behavioral culture. One of his articles was called “Attention to detail.” Here he resolutely opposed untidiness, sloppiness, dirt, and declared a campaign against the widespread inattention to cultural details. Another non-trivial article in the same series, “Vodka, Church and Cinema,” was published in Pravda on July 12, 1923. Without yet openly attacking the “drunken budget,” which in fact was already beginning to be implemented through a number of party decisions that hypocritically allowed “exceptions” from general rules and essentially encouraging the production and sale of vodka, Trotsky called for “to develop, strengthen, organize, and complete the anti-alcohol regime in the country of resurgent labor.”

Having understood earlier than other Bolshevik leaders the simple truth about the need for entertainment and its use to influence the crowd, the author of the article emphasized that this must be done carefully, while simultaneously raising the tastes of the masses: “We are looking for points of support in this living human material for the application of our party and revolutionary -state leverage. The desire to have fun, to be distracted, to stare and laugh is the most legitimate desire of human nature. We can and must give this need satisfaction of ever higher artistic quality and at the same time make entertainment a weapon of collective education, without pedagogical guardianship, without intrusive direction on the path of truth.”

It is curious that in this article Trotsky Special attention devoted to cinema, which he considered as the most important positive contrast to the tavern and the church (especially the church). “And this rivalry can become fatal for the church if we complement the separation of the church from the socialist state by combining the socialist state with cinema.” In reality, however, it turned out that cinema could well be combined with the tavern, moreover, under certain conditions, turn into its complement, and the Bolshevik leaders preferred to wage the fight against religious consciousness through repression. So in this respect, Trotsky turned out to be a utopian.

Of particular interest was a group of materials that Trotsky later included in the twenty-first volume of his collected works under the general title “Science and Revolution.” Besides short article“Attention to Theory”, intended for the first issue of the magazine “Under the Banner of Marxism”, it included two really interesting document: letter to academician I. P. Pavlov 67
Pavlov Ivan Petrovich (1849–1936) – physiologist, creator of the doctrine of higher nervous activity. Developed the method of conditioned reflexes, which is widely used in world science. Nobel Prize laureate 1904 Academician since 1907

and the article previously published in Pravda “Towards the First All-Russian Congress scientific workers" The first material, written on September 27, 1923, was not published until 1927. Trotsky turned to Pavlov not as a politician, but as a person who was seriously, albeit amateurishly, interested in the problems of physiology and psychoanalysis. He recalled that during his stay in Vienna he came into fairly close contact with the Freudians, read their works and even attended meetings. “I was always amazed in their approach to problems of psychology by the combination of physiological realism with an almost fictional analysis of mental phenomena.” 68
Is it true. 1923. November 24; Trotsky L. D. Essays. T. 21. pp. 257–268.

Trotsky suggested that Pavlov's teaching on conditioned reflexes embraced Freud's theory “as a special case”: “Freudians are like people looking into a deep and rather muddy well. They stopped believing that this well is an abyss (the abyss of the “soul”). They see or guess the bottom (physiology) and even make a number of witty and interesting, but scientifically arbitrary guesses about the properties of the bottom, which determine the properties of the water in the well.” According to Trotsky, the physiological teaching of Sechenov and Pavlov was a step forward, for it is not satisfied with “the half-scientific, half-fictional method of looking closely,” but “goes down to the bottom and experimentally rises up.”

Organizers of the 1st All-Russian Congress of Scientists 69
The congress was held in Moscow on November 23–27, 1923. 128 professors, university teachers and researchers elected by their professional organizations participated. The congress was emphatically non-partisan in nature.

invited Trotsky to participate in the congress and make a report. These, however, were precisely the days when he caught a cold while hunting. Trotsky was unable to appear at the congress. His article was distinguished by a well-known liberalism of judgment. In any case, he called on scientists to be scientifically objective and warned them against “creating a new, Soviet-style state-owned science.” Among the branches of natural sciences to which he paid the greatest attention were physiology (the achievements of I.P. Pavlov were again discussed in detail) and chemistry. A not entirely trivial thought running through the entire article was the inadmissibility of “ignorant narrow-mindedness or, even more frankly, self-righteous rudeness.” Naturally, the author expressed hope “for the comprehensive assistance of scientific thought, which has determined its social orientation towards the working masses and their workers’ state.”

On June 2, 1922, Trotsky’s article “Dictatorship, Where is Your Whip?” appeared in Pravda, directed against the works of critic Yu. I. Aikhenvald, and in particular his new book “Poets and Poetesses.” Trotsky accused Aikhenvald of defending “pure art”, argued that behind the philosophy of pure art and literary criticism “they have always and invariably discovered the donkey ears of reaction”, that Aikhenvald has “ears of exorbitant length”, that he strives to find in fiction “a little bit a disguised cobblestone that could be thrown into the eye or temple of the workers’ revolution.” But the dictatorship “has a whip in stock, and there is vigilance, and there is vigilance. And with this whip it’s time to force the Aikhenvalds to get the hell out, to the camp of content to which they rightfully belong - with all their aesthetics and with their religion.” Essentially, it was an open call to repress the author.

At the same time, while on vacation and only still preparing for protracted and nervous political battles, Trotsky decided to republish his old articles on issues of literature and art and write a preface to them. The preface grew into a rather large book, Literature and Revolution, published in 1923. 70
Trotsky L. Literature and revolution. M.: Krasnaya Nov, 1923.

In 1924, it was published in a second, somewhat expanded edition. 71
Trotsky L. Literature and revolution. M.: Gosizdat, 1924. The second edition included a speech at a meeting on literary issues in the Central Committee on May 9, 1924.

And then it was republished many times in different languages. 72
Sinclair L. Trotsky. A Bibliography. Vol. 1. P. 1245–1246.

Trotsky dedicated it to his friend Rakovsky, who at that time held the post of chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of Ukraine, but was soon “exiled” to diplomatic work for “national deviationism.”

Although the book was written in the tones generally accepted for the Bolshevik attitude towards fiction, it rejected special “proletarian art.” More precisely, the author recognized the possibility of creating a “proletarian culture” in principle, but believed that the working class would not have enough time to create its own in the transitional era special culture. The collection contained condemnatory notes against the “dictatorship in the sphere of culture.” Trotsky welcomed the emergence of “fellow travelers,” that is, those writers and artists who cooperated with the Soviet government without being its supporters. He gave them the following definition: “We call a fellow traveler in literature, as in politics, someone who, hobbling and staggering, goes to a certain point along the same path along which you and I go much further.” The term invented by Trotsky has firmly entered into use in Soviet literary and art criticism.

In addition to sections on fellow travelers and “proletarian culture,” there were chapters on “non-October literature,” on futurism and the formal school, and on party politics in art. Moreover, the book expressed the idea, completely seditious for Bolshevik sociologism, that works of art should be judged by the own laws of art (and not by class criteria). Immediately, however, the author moved on to the opposite criteria - political usefulness.

The internal contradictions of the book “Literature and Revolution” served as evidence of the non-standard nature of Trotsky’s aesthetic thinking, his deliverance from a primitive-simplified approach to the creations of human thought and soul. Trotsky's social-democratic centrist past sometimes broke through his Bolshevik shell. Let us note in passing that in a letter written at the same time (March 28, 1924) to the loud literary critic and fighter for the “purity” of proletarian literature L. Averbakh 73
Averbakh Leopold Leonidovich (1903–1939) – member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) since 1919, an active participant in the communist youth movement. In 1919 he joined the Central Committee of the RKSM. In 1922–1924 edited the magazine "Young Guard", in 1924–1925. conducted party work in the Urals. In subsequent years, he showed himself mainly as a literary critic and official in the field of literature. Relative of Ya. M. Sverdlov and brother-in-law of G. G. Yagoda. In the 20s - 30s. was one of the leaders of the “On Post” group and editor of the magazine of the same name. In 1925, he compiled the “April Theses,” in which he declared the cause of the crisis in literature to be “the transition of the press department of the Central Committee from hostile neutrality to hostile actions against the Nazis.” In 1926, he made a statement in the Bolshevik magazine about the aggravation of the class struggle in culture. Averbakh’s relationship with Trotsky was complex, as evidenced by Trotsky’s positive preface to Averbakh’s book, on the one hand, and his sharp condemnation at a meeting of the Central Committee in 1924, on the other, since 1926. Averbakh actively opposed Trotsky (and was later accused in that he created the appearance of loud, irreconcilable hostility with Trotsky). In the “On Post” group, Averbakh tried to establish a personal dictatorship, attacking many writers, declaring them “fellow travelers.” His satirical image is presented in the novel “The Master and Margarita” by M. A. Bulgakov - as one of the most aggressive literary critics. Averbakh contributed to the appearance of D. Bedny’s poem “Get Off the Stove”, after which he put forward the slogan of “clothing” literature. In 1937, Averbakh was arrested, and his group was declared Trotskyist. Averbakh himself was sentenced to death and executed.

Trotsky spoke with an explicit, although somewhat restrained, defense of his “fellow travelers”: “They have not turned their backs on the revolution, they look at it, even if only with a sidelong glance. They see a lot that we don’t see, and they show it to us... A fellow traveler who at least somewhat expands our field of vision is more valuable than a communist artist who adds nothing to what we realized and felt before him and without him » 74
RGASPI. F. 325. Op. 1. Unit hr. 387. L. 157.

At the center of the book was the section “The Formal School of Poetry and Marxism,” previously published in Pravda. 75
Is it true. 1923. July 26.

Although Trotsky showed a clearly and decisively negative attitude towards formalism in the field of literature and art, allowed rude expressions, characterizing it, for example, as a “prepared half-baked idealism” or “precocious priesthood,” the author recognized the scientific value of the achievements of formalism and paid attention only to the most polemically sharpened theses of literary scholars V. B. Shklovsky and R. Ya. Yakobson (who later became a world-class linguist). A little later, during the polemic, Shklovsky dared to throw daring words at Trotsky: “You have an army and a navy, and we are four people. So why are you worried? 76
Ginzburg L. Translation of experience. Riga: New literature, 1991. P. 146.

In addition to Shklovsky and Yakobson, they talked about the poet and linguist A.E. Kruchenykh. Because of this phrase, Shklovsky himself then had problems with the OGPU, which put him under control. At a chance meeting with Trotsky, Shklovsky did not find anything more suitable than to ask “to give him something with which he could walk calmly.” Trotsky allegedly wrote him a note: “So-and-so has been arrested by me and is no longer subject to any arrests.” 77
Ginzburg L. Records from the 20s - 30s. From the unpublished // New World. 1992. No. 6. P. 147.

Many sections and fragments of Trotsky’s book were devoted to the work of individual writers (S. Yesenin, Vs. Ivanov, V. Mayakovsky). Trotsky met Yesenin in the summer of 1923. The People's Commissar made the most magnificent impression on the emotional poet. Yesenin even called Trotsky “the ideal type of person” 78
Konstantinov S. Trotsky, Fyodor Sologub and the magazine “Crocodile” // Nezavisimaya Gazeta. 2000. January 12.

Trotsky, apparently, also had a warm attitude towards Yesenin. On January 20, 1926, after the death of the poet, he published in Pravda and Izvestia a deeply sympathetic article “In Memory of Sergei Yesenin,” in which he tried to explain, condition and justify the peasant intonations in the poet’s lyrics, his despair in connection with the destruction of rural ideals leading to suicide. The first and last lines of Trotsky’s article were imbued with a genuine feeling of grief, usually not characteristic of Bolshevik leaders, and not very characteristic of Trotsky himself: “We have lost Yesenin - such a wonderful poet, so fresh, so real. And how tragically lost! He left on his own, saying goodbye in blood to an unidentified friend - perhaps to all of us. These last lines of his are amazing in their tenderness and softness! He passed away without a loud insult, without a note of protest - not slamming the door, but quietly closing it with his hand, from which blood was oozing... And in our minds, the acute and still very fresh grief is tempered by the thought that this wonderful and genuine poet in his own way reflected the era and enriched it with songs, speaking in a new way about love, about blue sky, fallen into the river, about the month, which grazes like a lamb in the sky, and about a unique flower - about itself.”

It was difficult to express more clearly and directly the deep human pain in connection with the loss suffered. Trotsky’s sincerity became especially obvious when comparing his obituary with the article about Yesenin by the “intelligent” and “educated” Bukharin, who published in the Pravda he edited an article on Yesenin’s death, “Evil Notes,” in which he attacked the late poet with the most serious accusations, declaring already in the first lines that “Yeseninism is the most harmful phenomenon of our literary day that deserves real scourging” 79
Is it true. 1927. January 12.

This was the obvious response of the Stalinist majority to Trotsky’s warm article. They also tried to discredit Trotsky from the literary flank 80
In 2001, the Russian state television channel RTR aired a 40-minute “documentary” film by V. Mirzoyan, “Blood and the Word,” which presented an unsubstantiated, false version of the murder of Yesenin as a result of a “Jewish conspiracy” directed by Trotsky. A few years later, in 2005, Russian state television (Channel One) presented viewers with a multi-part (11 episodes), now feature film “Yesenin” (based on the novel by V. Bezrukov), in which the same, equally untrue justifiable evil version. In both films, Trotsky appears as a “genius of evil” and at the same time Stalin is exalted in every possible way.

Trotsky paid special attention to the poetry of A. A. Blok. Referring to the poem “The Twelve,” Trotsky argued that Blok created “the most significant work of our era." Recognition is all the more important because the critic-commissar imagined true character this work. The book said: “The bloc does not give the revolution and, of course, not the work of its leading vanguard, but the phenomena accompanying it... in fact, directed against it... 81
Trotsky L. Literature and revolution. M.: Politizdat, 1991. pp. 101–102.

For Blok, revolution is an indignant element" 82
Right there. P. 83.

One of the chapters of the book was devoted to the work of B. A. Pilnyak, who in the highest party circles was considered almost as a counter-revolutionary 83
Pilnyak’s story “Ivan da Marya” was banned for publication by Glavlit (censorship), the matter reached the Politburo, which confirmed the ban (From the correspondence of A.V. Lunacharsky and P.I. Lebedev-Polyansky // De Visu. 1993. No. 10 (11), pp. 19; Konstantinov S. Trotsky, Fyodor Sologub and the magazine "Crocodile").

Trotsky welcomed the writer’s works and concluded: “Pilnyak is talented, but the difficulties are great. We must wish him success." 84
Trotsky L. Literature and revolution. P. 78.

In connection with the persecution of Pilnyak’s works by censorship, on December 15, 1923, Trotsky addressed Lunacharsky with an official letter, where he posed a rhetorical question: “What is our dear, but too pious censorship doing?” 85
De Visu. 1993. No. 10. P. 19.

It should be noted that even those writers whose work was completely alien to him both politically and culturally Trotsky was not only tolerant, but, unlike other senior Bolshevik functionaries, he sought to help them. Characteristic in this regard is his attitude towards the writer F.K. Sologub, with whom Trotsky had known since 1911 and met with him in Munich. Trotsky really did not like Sologub’s grotesque satirical novel “The Little Demon.” Nevertheless, he responded sympathetically several times to the requests of a writer who was in extreme distress. At the request of Sologub, Trotsky asked to reconsider the decision of the Cheka to ban him from traveling abroad, contributed to the provision of a dacha for him, took measures to protect his apartment in Petrograd, even petitioned for a discounted ticket for the writer from Kostroma to Petrograd 86
RGVA. F. 33987. Op. 1. Unit hr. 467. L. 81, 175, 341, 343.

Finally, I sympathized with the idea of ​​V.P. Polonsky 87
Polonsky (real name Gusin) Vyacheslav Pavlovich (1886–1932) - Social Democrat since 1905, Menshevik. Since 1919 Bolshevik. Literary critic, editor, journalist, historian. Author of works about M. A. Bakunin. Editor of the magazines “Print and Revolution” (1921–1929) and “New World” (1926–1931).

Head of the literary and publishing department of the Political Directorate of the Red Army, to provide material assistance to Sologub.

At the request of the same Polonsky, assistance was also provided to the painter B. M. Kustodiev, who, although he adhered to a generally realistic manner, paid tribute to modernist trends, which Trotsky did not approve of. In the last years of his life, Kustodiev was paralyzed and was in an almost catastrophic financial situation. Having learned about this, Trotsky ordered to provide him with prompt financial assistance. “The experience with Kustodiev showed,” Polonsky wrote to Trotsky in June 1924, “that of all the influential comrades, you were the only one who took his cause to heart. Thanks to your assistance, it was possible to alleviate his situation." 88
RGVA. F. 33987. Op. 2. Unit hr. 195. L. 52.

Even earlier, in August 1922, on the eve of the departure abroad of the poet Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, who was leaving for Germany with official permission, Trotsky invited him to his place, giving him a half-hour audience, which was more like an interrogation. Pasternak’s biographer D. Bykov writes: “This was Pasternak’s first contact with a party official of this level. Reisner, with whom Pasternak was on first terms, was on short terms with Trotsky; however, he had never yet had the opportunity to speak personally with the leaders. From the very beginning, he chose an impeccable strategy - he spoke to the leader very simply, and answered, as always, vaguely. Trotsky asked if Pasternak planned to stay abroad. Pasternak warmly – and quite sincerely – assured that he could not imagine himself outside of Russia. However, Trotsky consoled him, soon the revolution will step into Germany and everywhere... Why, he asked, are you not responding to the events of the current moment? Pasternak began to explain that “My Sister is My Life” is the most relevant response, that they are even writing about it - the book is revolutionary, but there is nothing revolutionary in its subject matter; the revolution, he said, is designed primarily to give freedom to the individual. Is not it? Trotsky nodded, this fit into his concept. And if so, Pasternak continued, then lyrics are the highest manifestation of individual freedom... the flowering of personality... Trotsky graciously let him go.” 89
Bykov D. Boris Pasternak. M.: Young Guard, 2010. pp. 193–194.

He let me go because he was not able to conduct a dialogue with Pasternak: they were at different cultural levels. At the beginning of 1927, Trotsky invited a group of writers who were members of the so-called LEF (Left Front) or close to it to his place at Glavkontsessky. Among those present was Pasternak. Lev Davidovich remembered a seemingly unfinished past conversation that began during a previous meeting, and, wanting to continue the discussion with Pasternak about the revolution, he not very delicately asked whether Pasternak sincerely wrote the poems “Nine Hundred and Fifth” and “Schmidt” (which in Pasternak’s work of course previously stood out for their insincerity). Pasternak was even taken aback by such a straightforward formulation of the question: “Well, you know, I don’t even talk about such topics with close relatives!” 90
Right there. P. 251.

Shortly before Trotsky began preparing the book Literature and Revolution, he met Antonio Gramsci, who was in Russia as a representative of the Italian Communist Party on the Executive Committee of the Comintern. 91
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) – Italian politician. Graduated from the Faculty of Philology of the University of Turin. Member of the Socialist Party since 1915. During the First World War, he became the leader of the Turin organization of the party, opposed the war and for splitting the party by creating a left-wing political organization. He initiated the formation of the Italian Communist Party in 1921. In 1922–1924. represented the party in the Executive Committee of the Comintern and lived in Moscow. In 1924, that is, after the fascist coup that took place in October 1922, he returned to Italy and was elected to parliament. B. Mussolini himself sharply criticized the fascist government. In 1926 he was arrested, in 1928 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison (then the term was reduced to 11 years). In prison he wrote “Prison Notebooks” - notes on history, philosophy, culture. In general, he supported the Stalinist USSR and opposed Trotsky, but criticized the extremes of Stalinism, and in the 30s. exposed critical analysis totalitarianism (without naming the USSR). Released from prison in 1937 upon expiration of his sentence; soon died of a stroke.

This intellectual, who became a communist leader due to his adherence to Marxist views, but who looked at Marxism not as a collection of recipes, but as a method requiring not just improvement, but the introduction of significant conceptual additions and changes into it, attracted Lev Davidovich for the unorthodoxy of his judgments, in particularly in relation to literature and art.

Trotsky asked Gramsci to write an essay on Italian Futurism, which he included in Literature and Revolution. 92
Trotsky L. Literature and revolution. pp. 116–118.

Both of them were close in their assessment of futurism as a “bohemian-revolutionary branch of bourgeois art,” understanding by “bourgeois art” not the class origin of the movement, but its existence in the era of bourgeois domination. Both of them, however, ignored the fact of the existence and even prosperity of futurism in Russia in the first years of Bolshevik power, which initially looked at it as a revolutionary trend in literature and art, and this continued until the mid-20s, when the authorities began unification cultural sphere. Trotsky and Gramsci did not entirely approve of futurist speeches, but not because of a desire for unification, but because of their artistic tastes and preferences.

The book “Literature and Revolution” was greeted enthusiastically by the party elite (it is unclear how sincerely it was). “A brilliant book, a brilliant contribution to our culture,” wrote People’s Commissar of Education Lunacharsky 93
RGASPI. F. 325. Op. 1. Unit hr. 325. L. 77.

Published big article“Leon Davidovich Trotsky on Literature”, in which “with great joy” he noted “the appearance of this truly wonderful book” 94
Print and revolution. 1923. No. 7. P. 1 – 16.

Lunacharsky especially emphasized that the author opposes “proletschvanism,” which is expressed in the fact that “those who suffer from it think that it is with them that the history of culture begins.” Justice requires clarification that Trotsky rather opposed not proletarian, but communist arrogance in the artistic field.

Trotsky dedicated his speech, delivered at a meeting organized by the press department of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) on May 9, 1924, to the party’s policy in the field of fiction. 95
RGASPI. F. 325. Op. 1. Unit hr. 88. L. 1 – 19; Print and revolution. 1924. No. 3. P. 1 – 14.

It became the main event of this meeting and was subsequently translated into many languages. Remaining captive of communist ideology, Trotsky at the same time advocated the maximum freedom of expression allowed within these narrow limits, that is, he proposed that writers should be kept on a leash, but that this leash should be longer. He sharply polemicized with the Napostovites (a group of writers who rallied around the editorial board of the magazine “On Post” 96
The magazine “On Post” (1923–1925) was the critical and theoretical organ of the Russian Association proletarian writers(RAPP). The writers grouped around him showed a clearly nihilistic attitude towards the classical heritage, towards non-proletarian writers who light hand Trotsky began to be called “fellow travelers.”

), strongly objecting to their negative, rude, contemptuous attitude towards their literary fellow travelers. The most active role among them was played by an old acquaintance of Trotsky and ex-husband his beloved - Raskolnikov. Although normal personal relations still remained between Trotsky and Raskolnikov, it was Raskolnikov - a sailor, diplomat, writer - who became the main object of criticism from the People's Commissar. Trotsky was so carried away by his own sarcasm that he even used against Raskolnikov his recent return from diplomatic service in Afghanistan, where Raskolnikov, along with Larisa Reisner, was sent into honorable exile, either because of mistakes made in the initial period of the Kronstadt uprising, or because he had cooled down. to Larisa Trotsky, who now wanted to get rid of her. In both cases, the question of sending Raskolnikov to Afghanistan was decided by Trotsky. And now he mocked Raskolnikov: “After a long absence, Raskolnikov spoke here with all the freshness of Afghanistan - while other “Napostovites” have tasted a little from the tree of knowledge and are trying to cover up their nakedness.” For Raskolnikov, hearing from Trotsky about the “tree of knowledge” and “nakedness” was probably doubly offensive. Trotsky struck “below the belt.”

Trotsky’s words about the pre-revolutionary Bolshevik “poets” who presented themselves to readers and whom the Bolshevik press presented as “proletarian” artists sounded offensive to proletarian writers. Their publications, according to Trotsky, were exclusively political, but not literary fact. Trotsky did not advise modern literature to focus on them. Moreover, he opposed the party’s monopoly policy in the field of art, citing, in particular, the absence of the “artistic elements” necessary for this behind the party’s back. He illustrated the specifics of art with the example of “ Divine Comedy"Dante, which "raises the experiences of the modern era to enormous artistic heights," and the examples of Shakespeare and Byron, which "tell something to our soul." Illustrations were drawn from Western classical literature and they were hardly accidental - Trotsky wanted to demonstrate his erudition and his artistic passions.

Literature must be perceived from a literary point of view as a completely specific area human creativity– this was the most important idea of ​​the speech. You cannot treat artistic creativity as politics - not because it “is a sacred act and mysticism,” but because it has its own techniques and methods, laws of development and original nature, in which subconscious processes play a huge role. “The artistic creativity of a given era is a very complex fabric”, “in a momentary way” it “is not developed, but is created by complex relationships” - this was the conclusion of the speaker, which differs significantly from the Leninist principle of partisanship in literature, adopted by the Soviet leadership.

Trotsky first wrote to Mayakovsky back in August 1922, trying to understand what Russian futurism was. He answered, perhaps not too seriously, that futurism is the desire to respond to any task of the Soviet government with specific means of language 97
RGASPI. F. 325. Op. 1. Unit hr. 504. L. 1–2.

Communist functionaries were supposed to treat Mayakovsky well and consider him one of the few talented proletarian poets. Trotsky was no exception here and repeatedly indicated that he highly valued the poet. He considered, however, an artistic failure in the poem “150,000,000,” in which Mayakovsky, in Trotsky’s opinion, left his “creative background” and embarked on a rationalistic path. In other words, Mayakovsky’s work was criticized for precisely the opposite of what the poet was persecuted for by the Nazis and writers close to them. Trotsky concluded his original and very unusual speech for a party forum with the words: “You want the party, in the name of the class, to officially establish your small artistic proletarian dictatorship. Do you think that by planting beans in flower pot, you are capable of growing the tree of proletarian literature. We will not take this path. No tree can grow from beans.”

It can be assumed that the speech discussed was important and of fundamental importance for the organizational measures that were taken soon. Party leaders were forced to listen to Trotsky’s opinion, especially since in this case it coincided with the position of Bukharin, and the latter was able to convince Stalin of its correctness, who agreed to follow this issue for the adoption of an appropriate decision by the Central Committee. On June 18, 1925, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) approved the resolution “On the Party’s Policy in the Field of Fiction,” the main content of which was close to Trotsky’s position expressed at the May meeting of 1924. Since 1926, instead of the magazine “On Post,” the magazine “On Post” began to be published. At a literary post,” declaring his commitment to this party decision, although he implemented it inconsistently and did not completely abandon his previous position. Many years later, the writer and literary historian Benedikt Sarnov will tell how by chance “one day, having ordered - just in case, not expecting to find anything special in it - a brochure with the dull, official title “On the question of the politics of the RCP (b) in fiction “I found gold deposits of sedition in it... The speech was not at all in a party-based, Mordovian spirit, but in a completely liberal spirit.” 98
Sarnov B. The Ehrenburg case. M.: Eksmo, 2006. P. 55.

Outside of party forums, Trotsky continued to closely monitor the development of fiction and art, made efforts to attract wavering writers to the side of the Soviet government, showed a much greater breadth of views than other party leaders, while at the same time maintaining not only communist utilitarianism, but also a high degree of subjectivity in the assessment of artistic creativity. Trotsky spoke most favorably of those writers who were members of the party or the Komsomol and were thus his political like-minded people. He was fully aware of Demyan Bedny’s artistic mediocrity and hardly hid it, but he wrote a preface to the Austrian edition of his brochure “Main Street” 99
Bednyi D. Die Hauptstrasse. Wien: Verlag für Literatur und Politik, 1924.

However, Trotsky was working off the advance he received from Bedny in 1923, when he published a fawning poem in Pravda about going over to Stalin’s side, ignoring the disgraced Lenin, but clearly mentioning Trotsky.

Type of material: monograph

Year of publication: 1924

Place of publication: M.

Publisher: State. publishing house

Publication language: Russian

Storage address: inion (Ed.book)

Number of pages: 422

GRNTI codes: 09.17.91

Key words: Russian literature; 20th century; literature and politics

Information about authors

Place of birth: Yanovka village, Elizavetgrad district. Kherson province.

Activities: policy; political sciences, humanities, social sciences

Trotsky (real name Bronstein) Lev Davydovich - political figure. From the family of a wealthy farmer. He studied at a real school in Odessa, then Nikolaev. Activist of the Russian and international revolutionary movement. Social Democrat (1897). He was arrested and exiled. 1907–1917 - in exile. At the VI Congress of the RSDLP (1917) he was admitted to the Bolshevik Party. Participant of the October Revolution and Civil War. From 1918 - People's Commissar for Military Affairs, Chairman of the Russian Military Revolutionary Union. In 1919–1926 - member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) - CPSU (b). In 1927 he was expelled from the CPSU(b), in 1929 he was expelled from the USSR, and in 1932 he was deprived of Soviet citizenship. Op.:...