liTERATURE IN TWO WORLDS
Andre Malraux
IT
IS
I~DISPENSARLE,
first of all, to render clear a couple of ideas which
will provide an undertone to all that I am about to say, just as they have
done for all that has been said here up to now.
The first has to do with the relations between Marxism and Soviet
literature. The conception of a literature as the application of a doctrine
never represents a correspondence with reality. The Gospels produced
Christianity, which in its turn produced Christian literature. The Greek
doctrines shaped the Hellenic city, which gave birth to Greek literature.
Marxism has built the Soviet soc1ety, which finds expression in the literature
of the
USSR.
Between a literature and a doctrine, there is always a
civilization of living men.
The second problem has to do with the freedom of the artist.
To assume that the bourgeois writer's freedom is represented by the
possibility which is always his of giving expression to the bourgeois class,
is socially accurate enough, but much less accurate artistically. It is my
opinion that the bourgeois class has never expressed itself directly. It
makes no attempt to justify itself as a bourgeoisie, but always as an aris–
tocracy, whether in the matter of culture, of nationalism, or of religion.
Whereas Christian civilization essays a justification for what it is, the
bourgeoisie, ever since its great period in the Eighteenth century, always
seeks one by a round-about way.
It
is neither Claude! nor Proust who
stand fw
the bourgeoisie; it is
Henry Bordeaux.
The artist as an artist knows so little freedom in the choice of sub–
ject-matter that it is impossible for us to picture, at the present time, the
best among the bourgeois writers making up his mind to .dedicate a book to
President Doumerg11e and, at the same time, being able to produce a worth–
while work. That is because
it is only from the Positive elements of a
civilization that a work of art derives its strength;
and this is the point to
which I would draw your attention. The freedom that means something
for the artist is not the liberty to do just anything; it is the liberty to do
what he wants to do; and the Soviet artist is well aware that it is not
from a lack of harmony with the civilization about him, but on the con-
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