52
PARTISAN REVIEW
the role of art is too high to refuse it an influence on the fate of society.
We believe that the supreme
task
of art in our epoch is to take part
actively and consciously in the preparation of the revolution. But the
artist cannot serve the struggle for freedom unless he subjectively
assimilates its social content, unless he feels in his very nerves its mean–
ing and drama and freely seeks to give
his
own inner world incar–
nation in
his
art.
In the present period of the death agony of capitalism, democratic
as well as fascist, the artist sees himself threatened with the loss of his
right to live and continue working. He sees all avenues of communi–
cation choked with the debris of capitalist collapse. Only naturally,
he turns to the Stalinist organizations, which hold out the possibility
of escaping from
his
isolation. But
if
he is to avoid complete demoral–
ization, he cannot remain there, because of the impossibility of deliver–
ing
his
own message and the degrading servility which these organ–
izations exact from him in exchange for certain material advantages.
He must understand that his place is elsewhere, not among those who
betray .the cause of the revolution and of mankind, but among those
who with unshaken fidelity bear witness to this revolution, among
those who, for
this
reason, are alone able to bring it to fruition, and
along with it the ultimate free expression of all forms of h\:man genius.
The aim of this appeal is to find a common ground on which
may be reunited all revolutionary writers and artists, the better to
serve the revolution by their art and to defend the liberty of that art
itself against the usurpers of the revolution. We believe that esthetic,
philosophical and political tendencies of the most varied sort can find
here a common ground. Marxists can march here hand in hand with
anarchists, provided both parties uncompromisingly reject the reac–
tionary police-patrol spirit represented by Joseph Stalin and by his
henchman, Garcia Oliver.
We kriow very well that thousands on thousands of isolated think–
ers and artists are today scattered throughout the world, their voices
drowned out by the loud choruses of well-disciplined liars. Hundreds
of small local magazines are trying to gather youthful forces about
them, seeking new paths and not subsidies. Every progressive tendency
in art is destroyed by fascism as "degenerate." Every free creation is
called "fascist" by the Stalinists. Independent revolutionary
art
must
now gather its forces for the struggle against reactionary persecution.
It must proclaim aloud its right to exist. Such a union of forces is the
aim of the
International Federation of Independent Revolutionary Art
which we believe it is now necessary to form.
We by no means insist on every idea put forth in this manifesto,
which we ourselves consider only a first step in the new direction. We
