AFTER THE MUSIC PURGE
851
Music is a medium of communication which has no ideographic
content. That is, it is not representational of any concrete ideas.
Thus, it is rather difficult for a layman to know what actually goes
on in a new piece of music, particularly when this piece of music is
of a symphonic or chamber orchestra character. And notice that the
present attack is directed precisely toward the excessive use of these
two forms of musical composition.
A police character of a famous Russian satirist of the Czarist
regime, Saltykov, once said, "What I don' t understand is undoubtedly
dangerous to the security of the state." The Politburo feels that the
composers are doing something over which it has no immediate con–
trol. Some form of supervision must be established. Let them write
music that is pleasing and comprehensible to the new Soviet middle
class. That will keep the composers from participating in mysterious,
unknown, and therefore subversive activities. A good name for such
activities is "formalism."
Despite all the jargon about formalism, classicism, and socialist
realism, the real fear of the Soviet government is the state of mind
which may grow within a closed body of specialists, with its own
favorably-inclined critics, and its possible protectors in government
circles. This state of mind is creative individualism-which is still
tied in many ways to the Western European tradition. It may lead to
political individualism, particularly since some of the composers, with
their wide national and international reputations, may feel themselves
by definition outside and above the Party line. One should not forget
that the Politburo considers the people it governs as a part of an
immense pedagogical enterprise, and the individual is only valid in–
sofar as he actively and submissively participates in this enterprise.
The Politburo and the Central Committee of the Party are both
teachers and wardens.
It
is evident that a closed cell within the framework of a total–
itarian police state is intolerable. It is also evident that music is only
one of the areas of intellectual life where such a cell may attempt to
form itself. The theater, the literary world, the cinema, painting, and
pure science, are other domains which are or may become dangerous
in the eyes of the Politburo. It is, therefore, only natural that the
Soviet government has extended its cultural purge to all these areas.
