POETRY AND SOCIALIST REALISM
13
If
we need a multiplicity of poetic material, it is not difficult to see
that as a result of the alliance of form and content a multiplicity of poetic
rorm is also necessary.
The rhythm of an elegy and rhythm of ·a soldiers' song cannot be the
same, because the resonant aspect of the figure is at the same time its
emotional content aspect. But if we admit the great multiplicity of poetic
material and consider it desirable, and, as a consequence, also the greatest
possible multiplicity of poetic form, what is in this case the unifying factor
of form? The answer to this question is: The unity of this multiplicity
will be obtained by the unity of style or the unity ot method.
The forms of poetic creation must be its most multifarious forms
which arc made into a unity by a uniform great style or by the method of
socialist realism. 1 shall devote the last part of my speech to the question of
socialist realism.
Dialectical materialism
IS
the philosophical basis of socialist
realism. Socialist realism is that special method in art which is in accordance
with dialectical materialism. lt is the transference of dialectical material–
ism into the world of art.
Socialism realism differs from simple realism in that it always places
in the centre of attention the representation of socialist construction, tht:
proletarian struggle, the new socialist men and women, and all the ofteu
complicated "relations and intermediaries" of the great historic process
of our day.
Is this the only difference? Or has socialist realism any special
methodological and consequently also style peculiarities which differentiate
it from bourgeois realism? Naturally there arc also such factors. These
factors are closely connected with the content
oi
the material and the
conscious aim of its authors, which is dictated by the class position of the
proletariat. With the development of socialist society the difference
between physical and mcutal labour will gradually disappear. A new type
of human being will develop iu whom intellect is no longer apart from will.
He really recognise the world in order to change it. Contemplation of the
object, simple representation of the object without any attempt to show
the tendency of movement, without any attitude towards the practical
alteration of the material world, will gradually disappear into the past.
To a certain degree the old realism was anti-lyrical, while the old
lyric form was to a certain degree anti-r::alistic. Socialist realism can take
its alignment from
hum~nity
only. In the last resort socialism is the
development of new human qualities, the enrichment of the ideological
content, the development of the multiplicity of humanity and the abolition
of the poverty of humanity divided into classes, into narrow occupational
categories, and into urban and rural dwellers. The whole world of feel–
ing of these developing new human beings, including the "new eroticism,"
if one may call it that, is the field of socialist art. The lyric form is not in
