12
PARTISAN REf/lEW
class. So far so good. Later on he bespeaks the truism that the American
writer is a revolutionist, in that he aims to destroy "the existent remains
of capitalism."
Now the latter purpose may be assisted by a novel which
d~
deal primarily with the proletariat, although it is difficult (but not incon–
ceivable or impossible) to see how any novel can be written today which
does not include some aspect of the life of the property-less, and the ex–
ploited. But, in effect and in practise, I think two terms are needed.
I do not think "proletarian" and "revolutionary" are synonymous adjec–
tives when applied to literature. Or to anything else, for that matter.
It can be argued, I suppose, that, inasmuch as the proletariat is the
bulwark of the revolutionary movement, anything which contributes to its
sustenance and increase, and to the success of the cause of which it is the
chief support, is pro-proletarian, It can't be denied. But Seaver
was
dealing with definitions, and dealing with them very expertly. Therefore,
I think: it would improve the current critical nomenclature if the word
"proletarian" were reserved for those novels which are concerned pri–
marily with the life and problems of the proletariat, and the word "revo–
lutionary" for those novels which do not primarily deal with the proletariat
but which contribute to the destruction of capitalism.
All this sounds like just so much hair-splitting. But the proletariat
is a class now expanding at such an accelerated velocity as to ensure the
absorption of practically everybody except the last of the plutocrats. Thus
it will soon be a term without a distinction. It will denote a
genre,
in
the end, without any revolutionary implications (like those it now con–
notes). Indeed, as Seaver points out by his allusion to the present-day
Soviet novelist, the proletarian novel of the future will decidedly be non–
revolutionary.
It is usually taken for granted today that any proletarian novel (in
Seaver's and the accepted sense) is
ipso facto
a revolutionary novel. This
is more often true than not. But it is easily possible to unscramble the
Siamese association of these two adjectives, and to classify novels
as
proletarian
and
revolutionary, proletarian
but not
revolutionary, prole–
tarian and anti-revolutionary, and the same permutations and combina–
tions on the word revolutionary.
I seem now to have befogged the issue Seaver set out to clarify, and
did
clarify. In messing it up again I had only the best of intentions.
It was to make explicit this fact: that the acceptance of the Marxian inter–
pretation of history should and must also be utilized in novels not pri–
marily proletarian.
