PROBLEMS AND PERSPECTIVES
IN REVOLUTIONARY LITERATURE
Editorial
T HE LAST YEAR
has seen a quickening in the growth of revolutionary
literature in America. The maturing of labor struggles and the steady
increase of Communist influence have given the impetus and created a re–
ceptive atmosphere for this literature. As was to be expected, the novel
-which is the major literary form of today-has taken the lead. Cant–
well, Rollins, Conroy alld Armstrong have steered fiction into proletarian
patterns of struggle.
In
the theatre,
Peace on Earth, Stevedore
and
They
Shall Not Die
show a parallel growth. The emergence of a number of
little revolutionary magazines, together with the phenomenal success of
the weekly
New Masses,
has provided an outlet for the briefer forms of
wntll1g.
The Great TraditiolZ,
by Granville Hicks, has launched us on
a revaluation of American literary history.
This new literature is unified not only by its themes but also by its
perspectives. Even a casual reading of it will impress one with the con–
viction that here is a new way of looking at life- the bone and flesh of
a revolutionary sensibility taking on literary form. The proletarian writer,
in sharing the moods and expectations of his audience, gains that creative
confidence and harmonious functioning within his class which gives him
a sense of responsibility and discipline totally unknown in the preceding
decade. Lacking this solidarity with his readers, the writer, as has been
the case with the esthetes of the twenties and those who desperately carry
on their traditions today, ultimately becomes skeptical of the meaning of
literature as a whole, sinking into the Nirvana of peaceful cohabitation
with the Universe. Indeed, it is largely this intimate relationship between
reader and writer that gives revolutionary literature an activism and pur–
posefulness long since unattainable by the writers of other classes.
Conflicting Currents in Revolutionary Literature
However, despite the unity of outlook of revolutionary literature,
it contains a number of trends embodying contradictory aims and assump–
tions.
It
would be strange indeed,
if
the class struggle did not operate
within
revolutionary literature, though it is most clearly defined in the
