[page 35]
ART FI Shostakovitch:
Stalinism and art LAST MAY saw the British stage premiere of Shostakovitch's musicdrama "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk'. The production, by the English National Opera, was also shown recently on BBC TV.
Shostakovitch, who died in 1975, was the most talented composer to come to prominence in Russia since the 1917 revolution. His music consistently attempted to express the aspirations and suffering of the Russian people. His themes of war, revolution, an attack on bureaucracy and careerism, and freedom of the individual, led to a series of clashes with the bureaulater, under Stalin and, cracy Khruschev.
He completed 'Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk' in 1932 and the work received its first performance in Leningrad two years later. It was initially hailed as a masterpiece in the Soviet Union and performed an unprecedented number of times for a modern work. It was also acclaimed in the West.
Set in the Mtsensk district of provincial Russia the opera tells the story, to use Shostakovitch's own words, of the struggle of a "clever gifted woman in the nightmarish conditions of prerevolutionary Russia." The main character Katerina, despite committing two murders, is portrayed as the victim of the oppressive "cruel, greedy, petty merchant environment" she lives in. In fact Shostakovitch's detestation of the exploitation of women permeates the This is no traditional whole work.
opera, with set-piece arias, escapist and sugary stories, prima donnas 'et al' but powerful drama. The suffering and rebellion of Katerina is vividly brought to life on the stage and in the music in a way not seen before (or since) in a By John Bulaitis work by a Russian composer. 'Lady Macbeth' was to be the first in a series of works dealing with the position of women at different stages in Shostakovitch planned next an opera about Sofia Perofskaya, a leader of the 'Peoples Will' movement who was hanged for her part in the assassination of tsar Alexander II. He was to follow that with a work expounding womens role in the building of a socialist society. However these plans were never to be brought to fruition. In January 1936 Stalin and his entourage paid a visit to a production of 'Lady Macbeth' in Moscow. He left the theatre in a fury. A few days later a major unsigned article attacking the work, written as if an editorial, appeared in Pravda. It was headlined "Chaos instead of Music."
Attacked by Stalin "From the first minute the listener is shocked by a deliberately discordant, confused flood of sounds. Snatches of melody, embryos of musical phrases appear, only to disappear again in the din, grinding and screeching. To follow this 'music' is difficult, to remember it impossible." And further on appeared a "This is playing not very veiled threat:
at abstruse things which could end badly." In the atmosphere of Stalin's purges this was a remark not to be taken lightly. The article was probably penned by one David Zaslavsky. Lenin had once described this hack as a "notorious slanderer" and a "blackmailing pen for hire." Stalin had appointed him to the editorial board of Pravda. Zaslavsky may well have written the article but the instigator of it was undoubtedly Stalin himself. A week later another Pravda article attacked Shostakovitch's music.
All further performances of 'Lady Macbeth' were scrapped. In effect it was to become a proscribed work for the rest of Stalin's lifetime. The plans for the other operas in the series were abandoned. 'Lady Macbeth' was not to be produced again until the end of 1962, but now in a revised version and under a new name 'Katerina Ismailova'. This new version, however, smoothed some of the sharper language and What was behind Stalin's attack? Certainly the subject matter must have touched a raw nerve. While Shostakovitch was portraying the oppression of women under the tsar, Stalin was busy preparing legislation reversing all the advances in this area made after 1917. Neither would the scene where the tsarist police torture a socialist, nor the conclusion of the opera set in a Siberian labour camp where the prisoners are seen as victims of injustice, have gone down too well! 1936 was not a time to remind people of such things! In these same police cells it was now Stalin's police extorting 'confessions' from life-long revolutionalabour camps ries, while the same were being filled with supporters of the Left Opposition and anyone else daring to question his authority.
By this time, Stalin had effectively
[page 36]
throttlea the revolutionary advances of October with the exception of the planned economy itself. He had also snuffed out the 'cultural revolution' it had ushered in. Socialism means for the first time the freeing of the whole population, not just a privileged minority, from the drudgery, poverty and degradations of life in class society. The harmonious planning of the world's resources, the harnessing of the most advanced techniques and the abolition of waste (particularly spending on weapons of destruction) would mean the possibility of satisfying all human needs while cutting the working week to a few hours. Everyone with the talent and inclination would have the time and opportunity to devote themselves to science, philosophy and the arts. Human intellect would develop to unimaginable levels.
This, of course, was not an immediate prospect in Russia. The world revolution had begun in a backward country. The cultural level of the masses was far below that of the advanced capitalist countries. Yet the smashing of the tsarist yoke unleashed a flourish of invention and initiatives in all fields of art. The films of Eisenstein, 'Battleship Potemkin', 'Strike' and others, were way ahead of their time and brought the reality of the struggles of the masses alive on the screen. In the theatre new and revolutionary ideas were pioneered by Meyerhold. The poet Mayakovsky and others produced some outstanding pieces of revolutionary literature. There were strides forward in sculpture, architecture and painting. It was similar in the field of music. Up to the mid 1920's Leningrad was to become a centre of innovation. There was a stream of performances of new music by European composers, such as Krenek, Milhaud, Berg and Hindemith. Into this atmosphere stepped the young Shostakovitch. His early music was full of experimentation. His second symphony entitled 'October' includes a part for a factory whistle. His first opera 'The Nose' ', based on Gogol's story, is a sharp satire aimed against the establishment. It is awash with provocative, new musical methods. The singer of the part of the nose even has to sing while holding his own!
As Trotsky was to explain, while the regime was one of workers' democracy with a "seething mass-basis and a prospect of world revolution, it had no fear of experiments... for it understood that only in this way could a new cultural epoch be prepared." Yet after Stalin's
counter-
bureaucratic revolution free expression any kind could not be tolerated.
In 1926, alongside the
reactionary
37
Art was to be created by decree. For the bureaucracy this meant art that worshipped their monstrois distortion of 'socialism'. Trotsky took up this nonsense: 'An old engineer can perhaps build a turbine reluctantly. It will not be first rate, precisely because it has been built reluctantly, but it would serve its purpose. But one cannot, however, write a poem reluctantly'.
idea of building 'socialism in one country, Stalin espoused the theory of 'Proletarian culture' . This theory was fundamentally false. Whilst the bourgeois developed a culture and art that permeated society there are essential differences as far as the proletariat is concerned. Unlike the bourgeoisie, which was to rule for a whole series of generations, the period of workers' democracy is relatively short. On the basis of the development of the productive forces, the state withers away and the proletariat itself dissolves into a classless society. (Of course in Russia, because of the isolation of the revolution, the opposite took place with the state becoming a monstrous growth on society.)
Workers' democracy is therefore a transitionary period. The task was not to create a 'new' proletarian culture but to absorb all that was best in 'bourgeois culture'. • This was particularly so in Russia because of the cultural backwardness. The possibility of a new culture and art would open up only under a socialist society.
Yet in 1932 Stalin was to announce that because this socialist society had been achieved (!) it was necessary, therefore, to create no longer a proletarian but a "socialist art and culture." Stalin's hatchet man in implementing this policy of 'socialist realism' in art was Zhdanov. Speaking to a congress of writers he spelled out what had to be done: "Your congress meets at a time when the socialist way of life has incontrovertibly and finally triumphed (!) thanks to the leadership of the Communist Party guided by Comrade Stalin, that genius (!) and leader and teacher... Comrade Stalin has called our writers 'engineers of the human soul! What does he mean? (A good question!-JB) What obligations does such an appellation put upon you? Create works of great craftmanship, of profound ideological and artistic content."
In other words art was to be created by decree. For the bureaucracy this meant art that worshipped their monstrous distortion of 'socialism' and in particular heaped praise on 'Comrade Stalin' himself. Trotsky took up this nonsense about 'engineers of the human soul': "An old engineer can
perhaps build a turbine reluctantly. It will not be first rate, precisely because it has been built reluctantly, but it would serve its purpose. But one cannot, however, write a poem reluctantly."
Stalin's policy was a mirror image of that of the Nazis. In Germany any progressive artists such as the writer Brecht and composers Weill and Eisler were forced to flee. The Nazis tried with predictably pathetic results to create a National-Socialist brand of music and other art. Likewise in the Soviet Union all sorts of mediocrity that served the bureaucracy's interests were to be proclaimed masterpieces. In the field of music everything had to be written in the 'Russian tradition' and beaming with optimism. Works by composers like Dzerzhinsky, written strictly to formulae of the past, were proclaimed as model socialist compositions. Today this music is of no importance. On the other hand anything new, different or smacking with the reality of life was denounced.
The attack on 'Lady Macbeth' was just one part of the crackdown on all progressive thought in all fields of the arts. The Pravda article itself pointed out: "The ugly distortions of the opera spring from the same source as similar distortions in painting, poetry, education and science." For many, 'things did end badly'. Many writers 'disappeared' in the purges. Shostakovitch himself expected to be arrested. This did not happen although many of his friends and associates, including Meyerhold and the military genius Tukhuchevsky, were to perish on orders from Stalin. However, Shostakovitch and others were attacked again in 1948 and as late as 1962 his anti- Stalinist 13th Symphony was banned.
Trotsky once pointed out that "The development of art is the highest test of the vitality and significance of each epoch." In the 70 years since the revolution the achievements in Russia in literature, poetry, painting, music etc have in general been miserable. The achievements of note have always come from artists who have been forced into conflict with the bureaucracy.