PARTISAN REVIEW
44
it must be achieved.
But the process of gaining it is also the product of
the inner (material and ideological) stratification of the proletariat.
At
the same time it aids in the proletariat's development from a "class in
itself" to a "class for itself," as Marx puts it in his
Poverty of Philoso-
phy,'
it aids in the latter's inner organizations for the fulfilment of its
historical task.
(e.g.,
the rise of trade unions and parties, their growth,
etc.)
If the subjective factor in history is so defined-and the proletarian
revolutionary writer who has mastered dialectical materialism must so
define it-all the problems discussed above in connection with "propaganda"
cease to be problems. The writer then rejects the dilemma of "pure art"
versus "propaganda art." For there is no room for an "ideal," either
moral or esthetic, in his work, which is a portrayal of objective reality,
its actual motive forces and its actual trends of development.
He makes
no "external" demands upon his recreation of reality, for-if he is to
mirror reality correctly, i.e. dialectically-his recreation of it must itself
contain the fate of those demands (which arise really and concretely out of
the class struggle) as integrating factors of objective reality, as arising
out of it and reacting upon it. And he likewise rejects the other dilemma
of the "tendentious" weaving of "propaganda" into creative work-the
naked, direct contradistinction between "propaganda" and the image of
reality.
He does not need to distort, rearrange or "tendentiously" color
reality, for his portrayal-if
it is a correct, dialectical one-is founded
upon the perception of those tendencies (in the justified Marxian sense of
the term) that make themselves felt in objective evolution.
And no
"tendency" can be set up as a "demand"
10
contrast to this objective
reality, for the demands made by the writer are an integral part of the
dynamics of this very same reality-the effects as well as the antecedents
of its dynamics.
All this likewise indicates that the rejection of "propaganda" by no
means signifies Freiligrath's "above the battle" standpoint for the writer,
which he felt is higher than any "partisan position." On the contrary,
correct dialectical
portrayal
an,d literary re-creation of reality presuppose
partisanship on the writer's part.
What is more, not Herwegh's abstract,
subjectivist, undifferentiated "partisanship in general," but partisanship
on the side of the class that is the instrument of historical progress in our
time-the proletariat.
This partisanship differs from "propaganda" and "tendentious" por-
trayal in that it is not inconsistent with objectivity in reproducing and
re-creating reality.
Quite the contrary, it is the
necessary prerequisite
