88
PARTISAN REVIEW
of Western decadence, as individualism without any contact with
the masses.
"These masses originally had, however, just as little connection
with old art as with the new, because formerly the politico-economic
systems of their countries offered them no opportunity of getting
to know and understand it. Western art has for centuries lived with–
out associations with the masses, particularly in the classical period
which today occupies such a dominant position
in
the U.S.S.R.
Thus the attitude of the
masses
both to the old and new art styles
probably remains essentially dependent on the nature of the educa–
tion afforded them by their respective states."
Why, after all, should ignorant peasants prefer Repin to Picasso,
whose abstract technique is at least as relevant to their own primitive
folk art as
is
the former's realistic style? No, if the masses crowd
into the Tretyakov, it is largely because they have been conditioned
to shun "formalism" and to admire "socialist realism." The regime
has conducted this conditioning with its usual thoroughness, and
for its own political ends.
As for the cinema, the first question has already been answered
in detail in the course of these articles. But the second question, of
the inevitability of what has happened, is worth spending some time
on here.
As
we shall shortly see, the Eisenstein-Pudovkin school based
their approach largely on the principle which London states above.
Were they "Utopian visionaries"? The description I have given of
the mass response to their films might seem to indicate they were.
But the fact that it has been easy to popularize the conventional
Hollywood type of film does not mean that it is impossible to interest
the masses in something more advanced. "In Russia," wrote an
English journalist recently,
"all
films are popular. A vast public,
much of it still in the early stage of movie fascination, is hungry
for films, and there are nowhere near enough efficient craftsmen to
produce them. A failure in our sense of the word does not exist.m
21
This would seem to be an ideal situation for raising the level of mass
taste. The quotation from London given above indicates that "form–
alism" is not necessarily any bar to a popular response in the Soviet
Union. There is also some interesting evidence that, in social con–
tent (as against esthetic form), the Eisenstein-Pudovkin cinema was
in some ways more appealing to the masses than the present realistic
films.
Speaking at the 1935 conference, L. Trauberg, the director,
made a comparison: "Chapayev is a hero, but he is not above
the heads of the audience. He is their brother. But in
October
the
people were very high up.m
22
But perhaps the people like to see
