III.
42
PARTISAN REVIEW
re-created reality in a subjectivist, moralizing and preaching manner, thus
making it a foreign element in the creative work.
It follows from the bourgeois conception of art (which Mehring
was unable to abandon completely) that the "ideal" of art is the "absence
of propaganda," and that solely circumstances unfavorable to the devel-
opment of art (i.e. the intensification of class antagonisms) force "prop-
aganda" upon it. As a sincere revolutionary, Mehring made an effort to
deduce the correct, class conclusions, that is, he approved of "propaganda."
But his political, class-determined standpoint was irreconcilably opposed
to his artistic judgment.
He expresses this very clearly, without realizing
the import of his words:
"In all revolutionary epochs and in all classes fighting for
their emancipation taste is always considerably obscured by logic
and morals, which, translated into philosophical terms, merely
means that esthetic judgment will always suffer whenever knowl-
edge and the appetitive faculty are under great strain."
(Works,
Vol. II, p. 263.)
Here we have the germ of the
literary theory of Trotzkyism.
For
when Trotzky says that "the dictatorship of the proletariat is not an
organization for the production' of the culture of a new society, but a
revolutionary and military system struggling for it"
(Literature and
Rroolution,
p. 190), it is obvious that in Trotzky's argument
cuiture in
general plays the role that (Kantian) "pure art" played for Mehring.
This fits in with the greater intensity of the class struggle today and the
concrete fo·rm taken on by all problems in it. Later on Trotzky writes:
"Revolutionary literature cannot but be imbued with a spirit of social
hatred ...
(thus it is merely "propaganda art"-G.L.)
UndpT Socialism
solidarity will be the basis of society"
(ibid,
p. 230). In other words,
"pure art" and "true culture" are attainable.
Hence it is no mere accident that Mehring's heritage, uncritically
accepted, has promoted Trotzkyism in our theories of literature and culture.
N or that every mechanical abatement of our literary aims consciously or
unconsciously, deliberately or involuntarily must lead to Trotzkyist views.
It is beyond the scope of this essay to analyze all the theoretical errors
of these views; that has already been done
in extenso
in the polemic
against Trotzkyism.
We shall confine ourselves to the error of decisive
importance to the problem in hand: the false, undialectical conception of
the
subjective factor.
