Date unknown
From the Text-Book of Marxist Philosophy:
“Every social class has its determinate criterion of practice. In every historic epoch this criterion is changed; it is changed along with the development of the class in the course of its historic role.” p. 71.
“In class society there cannot be extra-class knowledge. The criterion of truth in class society is the practice of the given class. In the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and in the first half of the 19th, when capitalism had not yet arrived at its period of decay, capitalist practice was the criterion of progressive mankind.”
From “On Literature, Music and Philosophy,” by A. A. Zhdanov:
“The present position of bourgeois literature is such that it is already incapable of producing great works. The decline and decay of bourgeois literature derive from the decline and decay of the capitalist system and are a feature and aspect characteristic of the present condition of bourgeois culture and literature. A riot of mysticism, religious mania and pornography is characteristic of the decline and decay of bourgeois culture. As you know, at one time there were strong bourgeois influences at work in painting which came to the surface now and again under extremely ’left’ flags, and attached to themselves names like futurism, cubism, and modernism. Under the slogan ’Overthrow rotten modernism,’ they called for innovation, and this innovation reached its most insane point when a girl, for instance, would be portrayed with one head and forty legs, one eye looking at you and the other at the North Pole.” p. 65.
(And which is the ’greatest’ of these innovators? But God help you if you criticise the mysticism and abstractionism in the work of Picasso to Party comrades, they will dub you a reactionary, go into hysterical fits, and come to hate your very guts, A.E.)
From Problems of Art and Literature, by Mao Tse-tung:
“The exploiters and oppressors have a feudal literature and art that serves the landlord class and belonged to the ruling class in China’s feudal stage, but still wields a considerable influence today. There are also literature and art the bourgeoisie—capitalist literature and art. Writers like Liang Shih-chu... maintain that literature and art stand above class distinctions. In reality, these writers promote bourgeoisie literature and art and oppose proletarian literature and art. Then there is also literature and art that promote the interest of imperialism and thus represents a slavish culture. There is still another kind of literature and art—created by the secret service; it appears to be ’very revolutionary’ but in actual essence fits into one of the three categories.” Note how carefully Comrade Mao has investigated this matter, how he points out that there are observable periods within the domination art form. The questions dealing with the rise of class art, its naive beginnings, its strength in full maturity and its decline, have never, to my knowledge, been systematised–or even examined in more than cursory fashion. The work of the bourgeois along such lines is unreliable, thin and spotty. Only a class with a universal outlook is capable of performing this task, and it may well be too much even for us for the working class is soon merged and lost in the rising bloom of a Communist society.
There you are, comrade, I have given you enough material to blow the enemy to smithereens! I hope you don’t think I am interfering. As I mentioned to you I may not be able to attend the meeting. I agree with you so wholeheartedly I could have wept at your just indignation when that comrade fiercely stated that there was no such thing as bourgeois art. He only openly voiced what many another comrade, I am sorry to say, believes in implicitly. The only difference is that, they are cunning enough to ’cover themselves up.’ And it is usually accomplished by their stressing the fact that they welcome criticism “as long as it is constructive,” and honest and sincere comrades fall for their cunning. You are also correct in criticising that other comrade’s poetry as bourgeois. Unfortunately, some of the best-known name’s on the left are writing ’poetry’ about which there is little evidence of art, but plenty of the influence of formal display rotten with a declining system.
If you wish you can, of course, place this before the group, in which case I’ll have one or two more enemies to face. Truth and beauty walk hand in hand, comrades who have fallen in love with formulism will not take kindly to the above. They have deserted truth and beauty in a somewhat feverish search for self-expression. I do not blame the younger comrades, but those who are older are steeped through and through with bourgeois tastes and longings. I despise them from the bottom of my heart. They are the type of people who are always bowing low to Chekhov, completely unaware of the fact that the best of Gorki is immeasurably higher than the best in Chekhov, for Gorki represented that which was coming in, he saw the dawn breaking over the mountain-tops with a beauty almost incredible. That is why he could write, “A Man is Born.” Chekhov, great as he was, was walled-in by the very nature of his own class and its time period, by the people among whom he moved, in the main from the petty-bourgeois and bourgeois. That is why Comrade Mao never gets tired of urging intellectuals to go among the people, to work with them at their daily tasks. To help the people rise, rise with them, become one of their beloved through severe personal sacrifice and struggle.
Best wishes,
ARTHUR EVANS.