Trotsky’s Writings on Literature and Art

Keywords:Trotsky’s Writings on Literature and Art⤷

Keywords: Arts, Leon Trotsky, Literature

Literature and Revolution (1923)[edit source]

Introduction
Chapter 1. Pre-Revolutionary Art
- The Intelligentsia Which Stood Aloof – “The Islanders” – The Culture-Skimmers – The Ralliés – Reform in the Church – The Retainer – Quality In Literature. – Individualism And Mysticism – Romanticism And Anthroposophy
- Andrey Biely
Chapter 2. The Literary “Fellow-Travellers” of the Revolution
- Transitional Art – A New Soviet Populism. – Kliuev, a Revolutionary “Fellow Traveller” – Yessenin And The Imagists – The Unformed Realism of the “Serapion Fraternity” – The Retrogressional Realism of Pilnyak – Rustic or Peasant-Singing Poets – The “Changing Landmarks” Group – Neoclassicism or “Revolutionary Conservatism”
- Nikolai Kliuev
- Sergey Yessenin
- Boris Pilnyak
- The rustic or peasant-singing writers
- The insinuating “changing landmarks” group
- “Neo-Classicism”
- Marietta Shaginyan
Chapter 3. Alexander Blok
- Blok’s Place in Russian Literature – The Pre-Revolutionary Element of Blok’s Symbolism – Why The Twelve is not a Poem of the Revolution. – Dualism – Blok and the Bourgeoisie
Chapter 4. Futurism
- Its Bohemian Origin – The Break with the Past – The Component Elements of Russian Futurism. – Mayakovsky and the Revolution – Futurism, a Line Between the Creative Intelligentsia and the People.
Chapter 5. The Formalist School of Poetry and Marxism
- The Formalist Opposition to Marxism – The Reduction of Poetry to Etymology and Syntax – Art for Art’s Sake and The Materialist Dialectics – The Argumentations of Shklovsky and Others – An Analogy with the Theologic Argument Against Darwinism
Chapter 6. Proletarian Culture and Proletarian Art
- What Is Proletarian Culture, and Is It Possible? – The Cultural Methods of the Bourgeoisie and of the Proletariat – The Dictatorship of the Proletariat in Relation to Culture – What is Proletarian Science? – Workingmen-Poets and the Working-Class – Cosmism – Demyan Biedny.
Chapter 7. Communist Policy Toward Art
- Revolutionary Art Not Produced by Workers Alone – Leisure and Political Indifference Of True Intelligentsia as Factors in Creative Art – The Functions of the Communist Party in Relation to Art – Social Cataclysm and the Continuity of Art and Culture
Chapter 8. Revolutionary and Socialist Art
- Greater Dynamics Under Socialism – The “Realism” of Revolutionary Art – Soviet Comedy – Old and New Tragedy – Arts Technique and Nature – The Reshaping of Man