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PdRTISAN REVIEW
conflict with socialist realism, because it is not an anti-realistic lyric which
seek:s the metaphysical world beyond our own, but the poetic representation
of the ideological movement of the developing sociaiist human beings.
Socialist realism
is
not anti-lyrical.
And here a related problem may be put: Socialist realism is not anti–
lyrical, but it is anti-individualist. This. does not mean that it gives no
play to personality and does not · permit it to develop. Socialism means
the real flowering of personality, the enrichment of its content, and the
intensification of its consciousness as a personality. However, the develop–
ment of individuality which is furthered here is not the development of
individualism, or, in other words, the development of that which separates
man from man. On the contrary, the feeling of collective interdependence
which is one of the characteristics of socialism and the effort to give it a
poetic form will undoubtedly express itself in stylistic peculiarities in
socialist realism.
Socialist realism is therefore anti-individualist.
This type of poetic work which reflects the epoch in its most general
and universal form by embodying it in its own concrete and abstract
representations, representations which are both as un iversal and as concrete
as possible does contradict the old realism in the usual sense of the
wmd. This is also the case, for instance, with Goethe's
"Faust."
In
form it is certainly not the representation of a concrete historical process,
but rather of the struggles of the human spirit. At the same time,
however,
Faust
is a philosophic-poetic conception of the developing bour–
geois epoch. In my opinion a work like
Faust
with a different content,
and in consequence also a different form, bu.t maintaining the greatest
possible degree of universality, would undoubtedly belong to the category
of socialist realism which represents the most monumental form of the
poetic creation of socialism.
These are the chief characteristics of socialist realism in its fundamen–
tal principles. From this we draw the conclusion that socialist realism
is the method of poetic creation and the style of socialist poetry to represent
the real world and the world of human feelings-a style which differs
from that of bourgeois realism, both in the content of the subject poetically
treated and also in the special peculiarities of the style.
We have seen that the development of our poetry pre-supposes a
tremendous increase in our poetic culture in general. It must be admitted
quite frankly that occasionally, and particularly w ith those who are ideol–
ogically nearest to us, our poetry is primitive. However, it is just the rich–
ness of the associations and feelings, of thoughts and ideas which arc con–
jured up by a work, which is a sign of its import;;nce. When we compare
the work of many of our poets with the work of Verhaeren, we observe how
many ideas, even philosophic ideas, are present in his work, how many
problems, comparisons, and pictures, and how much culture his worlc
