Socialist Realism

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

What is your opinion on Socialist-Realism?
Your favorites?

Example:
http://img.tapatalk.com/4dc74f10-1d27-e8dc.jpg

[corolla]

I just threw up a little in my mouth. :(

[Omsk]

Socialist-realism art is secondary to the soc-realist literature.

I have some diaries and notes from various writers who visited Moscow and attended the various Union of writers events.I will write it down and transcribe it when i have the time,right now,i have some work to do. I will post it later.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

What is your opinion on Socialist-Realism?
Your favorites?

Example:
http://img.tapatalk.com/4dc74f10-1d27-e8dc.jpg

Socialist realism is the best form of art for the working masses, devoid of all bourgeois influence.

http://www.globeimages.net/data/media/201/worker_and_kolkhoz_woman_sculpture_moscow_russia.j pg

[Jimmie Higgins]

Socialist realism is the best form of art for the working masses, devoid of all bourgeois influence.Who says it's best for the working masses? Why don't the working masses get to decide what kind of art and literature speaks to them the best.

While the content of this art might be progressive or support things that you support, the forms of this art are indistinguishable from art created under the influence and ideological assumptions of the bourgeois.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Xq1_QVuOUV4/S19M3PBu8II/AAAAAAAAOCw/XYlZL2hrJ6E/s400/sov60.jpghttp://abagond.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/normanrockwell-patriotic-1.jpg?w=500

Sure there are amazing works of socialist realism, but there are also amazing works made by artists under feudalism or capitalism. The problem I have with the genre is that it was dictated - art from above. Not only that but dictated TO... dictated to workers as being the "pure" art. This is not revolutionary in my view... at least not revolutionary in a proletarian sense:

http://www.courtesy.nl/tac/images/cardslarge/55694-Jacques%20Louis%20David-Napoleon%20Crossing%20the%20Saint%20Bernhard%20Pas s.jpghttp://farm4.static.flickr.com/3443/3753102584_40632bd340.jpg

Who needs a horse eh?

After the Russian Revolution there was a sense of "opening up" the art that only the rich usually have access to: people were able to see the Opera and go to museums and with increased education could read great Russian Literature. I think that should be the only political agenda for revolutionaries regarding art: more access, more ability for people to produce their own art, more education, less daily labor and tasks so they can actually read, play, see art, and enjoy all that society and culture (including past cultures) have to offer. Dictating form or content is not only anti-art, it's anti-working-class-self-liberation.

No one reads Chaucer and suddenly develops feudal consciousness - no one today reads Shakespeare and longs for a King. This is because the social and productive relations of those eras have been demolished and replaced. So now people read or watch or see past-art with our own social context and assumptions. The same would be true of communism - we don't know what post-class art would be like because the conditions for such a thing don't exist. They also wouldn't exist immediately after a revolution in which workers took control of society - but as class differences are eliminated and new socialist relations in production take hold in society then the chance for a new universal (no-class) art can emerge organically.

Again this isn't to say there isn't wonderful and truly artful and meaningful socialist realism, just that it isn't "socialist" art.

[LeftAtheist]

I actually love Socialist Realist art aesthetically, but I don't subscribe at all to the notion that it's "best for the working class".

[thriller]

Socialist realism as far as art is somewhat lacking for me. I know the message they are trying to get a across, it doesn't force me to think or question. As far as literature goes, socialist realism sucks. Reading a novel about how people saved the cement factory really isn't worth my time. Although Sergei Eisenstein was one the greatest directors of the early 20th century, and his socialist-realist works are pretty bad ass.

[roy]

too bland. decadent bourgeois stuff all the way.

[Book O'Dead]

Political kitsch.

[Per Levy]

"socialist realism" meh, not my kind of stuff since it has hardly anything to do with realism, since it paints people always as nicer looking and happier then they really were/are, its propaganda and not much else. there are some good works in that, though. still not my thing.

[Omsk]

You people obviously haven't read much socialist-realist novels.

The socialist realist literature was not propaganda,how can you say the works of so many great authors were just party generated novels of no value? There was much more to them,the works of many authors were indeed great artistic jewels,some more,some less.The Soviet literature of that period was not a turbid stream,but a flowering plant,full of literary works of immense value.How many pictures were painted trough words and lines,how many moments in human consciousness were 'traped' and depicted by the great novel writers from Baku to Leningrad? How many stories of life and death during the period of the Great War were captured in verse while the Soviet society faced the great problems of its existance? How many
lives were recorded as tragedies while the war machines of the Nazi invaders destroyed life at each step?

If a young inexperienced writer tries to earn money by writing a novel which praises the Soviet regime,and if he keeps the money factor,as the main moving force behind his work,than that is no art,that is opportunism and carrierism. Socialist realism is heterogeneous,and it can be observed as a period in Soviet artistic society,and not a tool of the party. I mean,some guiding lines had to be followed,for an example,no one wrote in a positive light about the reactionaries,but than again,why is that negative?

Not to mention that socialist-realist art is not something inextricably linked to the Soviet Union,many great socialist-realist writers came from other countries,the Chinese,(I only read a couple of novels from Ding Ling.) the Bulgarians (Radevski,Karaslavov.) the authors from Czechoslovakia (Jan Drda,and others.) the authors from Yugoslavia,Germany,Hungary,Albania.

You must read all of the novels,and you must ignore politics,for the sake of learning,and understanding some of the main aspects of the novels.You might not agree with the authors,you might dislike his politics,but if you read only the works of Soviet authors pre 1953,you are going to run out of books very soon.Of course,this does not mean you should waste your time on the books of reactionary anti-Soviet authors,or the books of anti-communists,but even in that case,read what they have to say,and than construct counter arguments and in that way,expand your knowledge and area of interests. I will give you a good example,i was having a discussion with friends,on a terrace above the sea.We were talking about literature.I was a communist,and i of course,disliked their focus on 19th century Russian authors who wrote about old Tzarist Russia.As the conversation went on,they asked my which author was my favorite.I said i like the 20th century Soviet authors,and they were surprised with my abrupt answer.As the conversation went on,some of them said that the Russian classics were much better than the 'party books of political pets' this made me angry,and i went on about all the Soviet authors,however,they simply changed the subject to the older Russian novelists,and i was on glass legs there.I read most of the classics,but when it came to the lesser known authors,i was not prepared to discuss about their works in detail.I mostly stayed out of the conversation after that.My point was proven,but i felt a big gap between their level of knowledge regarding the Russian literature of the 19th century,and mine.So i decided that i should read even the lesser known works,with attention.So i did.The next time we had a chat,i 'pushed' the subject back to literature again and pointed out the obvious problems with the older writers and their creative process.I felt it certainly helped my defense of the socialist-realist authors and their works,and it did.

[fabian]

I love the simple posters, does that style have a name?

http://bp1.blogger.com/_NzHG4HjtdwI/RpZbTVDkZaI/AAAAAAAAAAM/HNIcaempTqc/s1600/poster-1931h.jpg

http://owni.fr/files/2011/04/r28.jpeg

http://www.chisholm-poster.com/large/CL1383.jpg

[Robespierres Neck]

Need one more post to be able to post pictures.

[Ismail]

Posters are not socialist realism, so Higgins post and so on are rather irrelevant. Fabian's post is irrelevant too.

These are random examples of socialist realism (there's plenty of Soviet examples of socialist realism, but yeah):

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc207/MrdieII/kimilsungkimjongiljpg.jpg

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc207/MrdieII/Dikur3.jpg

Here's the thing, it's meant to be realism, it doesn't have red guys smashing things or a gigantic Stalin or whatever. That's just poster propaganda.

[hatzel]

You people obviously haven't read much socialist-realist novels.


Or maybe they just:

a) don't like that kind of stuff;
b) don't have a fetish for all things Soviet;
c) both of the above.

[fabian]

Are you stupid or what? I know posters are not socialist realism, I asked if someone knows what style are they.

[Ismail]

Examples of Soviet socialist realism: http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/visual_arts/painting/exhibits/socialist-realism.htm


Are you stupid or what? I know posters are not socialist realism, I asked if someone knows what style are they.I figured that in a thread about socialist realism, in which examples were given which weren't actually socialist realism, that you were assuming they were.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

I just threw up a little in my mouth. :(

Hahahahaha,that's not funny.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Or maybe they just:

a) don't like that kind of stuff;
b) don't have a fetish for all things Soviet;
c) both of the above.

Socialist-Realism has existed before the Soviet-Union

[Prometeo liberado]

What I really like about the art form is how it is manifested in sculpture. The dramatic lines and well defined bodies that speak of a lifetime of hard work. The intense stares that seem to suggest that nothing short of total working class ownership and rule will suffice. The large artworks that imply that the working class is nothing if not a single unified mass moving in one direction.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

I don't know if its really s-r but I really like the statue at stalingrad.
http://www.abandonthecube.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Stalingrad-Warrior.jpg

http://www.awesomestories.com/images/user/807f8371dc.jpg

[Rooster]

Socialist realism is just propaganda. Surrealist at the best of times. In technique, it's extremely similar to conservative bourgeois art styles and taste. Most of it, especially sculpture and architecture, are just horrible and seem to be just trying to copy western styles, but only bigger and more kitsch.


I love the simple posters, does that style have a name?

This art style comes under the general umbrella of avant-garde of which there are several different styles.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Socialist realism is just propaganda. Surrealist at the best of times. In technique, it's extremely similar to conservative bourgeois art styles and taste. Most of it, especially sculpture and architecture, are just horrible and seem to be just trying to copy western styles, but only bigger and more kitsch.



This art style comes under the general umbrella of avant-garde of which there are several different styles.

How is this propaganda:

http://images.travelpod.com/users/mies/4.1274032175.stalin-statue-1.jpg

[Omsk]

Socialist realism is just propaganda


What novels written in the socialist-realist style have you read?


it's extremely similar to conservative bourgeois art styles and taste.

This shows how little you know about socialist-realism. In the conservative art,the focus is on the kings,the cities,the nation,the individual,in socialist-realism,the focus is on the collective,the people and the proletariat and it's struggle.

[Rooster]

How is this propaganda:

Are you seriously asking me why a giant heroic type statue of Stalin is propaganda?

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Are you seriously asking me why a giant heroic type statue of Stalin is propaganda?

Sorry forgot to put up a sarcasm-sign next to my question.

[Rooster]

What novels written in the socialist-realist style have you read?

I'm talking about visual arts, you're the only one talking about literature.




This shows how little you know about socialist-realism. In the conservative art,the focus is on the kings,the cities,the nation,in socialist-realism,the focus is on the collective,the people and the proletariat.

This shows how little you read. I wrote that the technique was bourgeois and conservative in style. You're talking about the content, which was propaganda. Also, it's really funny that you said that in bourgeois art that the focus is on kinds, the cities, the nation and then suggest that there are no parallels in socialist realism.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

I'm talking about visual arts, you're the only one talking about literature.





This shows how little you read. I wrote that the technique was bourgeois and conservative in style. You're talking about the content, which was propaganda. Also, it's really funny that you said that in bourgeois art that the focus is on kinds, the cities, the nation and then suggest that there are no parallels in socialist realism.

Does it really matter?
Even if some things are similar, does that make the art any less pretty?

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Omsk, any suggestions for literature?

[Rooster]

Does it really matter?
Even if some things are similar, does that make the art any less pretty?

If you like it, then fine, but that wasn't the point of socialist realism though (art preference is kinda subjective). It was propaganda and it only passed mustered if it was of a conservative nature and ideologically pure. Other art styles and forms suffered because of it and were suppressed. It wasn't a period generally that allowed for much expression.


Omsk, any suggestions for literature?

Read We by Yevgeny Zamyatin :rolleyes: It's genuinely a good book.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

RevLeft=Ohhhhhh, Art! ZOMG, those evil Marxist-Leninists like socialist realism and are going to takez away our freedomz by forcing us to like socialist realism! We must fight back and start a stupid debate about.....art, because they are evillll!!!!111

[Omsk]

Yevgeny Zamyatin


Why don't you keep your suggestions for yourself.


Omsk, any suggestions for literature?


There are a lot of Soviet authors,what type of a genre do you like? (History,like War and Peace,or something about WWII,or a classic novel?)

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Read We by Yevgeny Zamyatin :rolleyes: It's genuinely a good book.
I sense trolling.

[Railyon]

Read We by Yevgeny Zamyatin :rolleyes: It's genuinely a good book.

I own a copy. Yes, a damn fine book indeed, I second that recommendation.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Posters are not socialist realism, so Higgins post and so on are rather irrelevant. Fabian's post is irrelevant too.Well that wasn't my argument - my argument was that this form of art is not the best art for the proletariat or "true art of the proletariat" or whatever. The posters and paintings I used were simply an example of how despite different in content, in form this is not qualitatively different from bourgeois art and so to say that one form is "true" and one is "bourgeois and illegitimate" is illogical. If it's only the subject-matter and themes that matter, then why have aesthetic guidelines? If aesthetics are what make it "proletarian art" then bourgeois art with similar aesthetics are proletarian?

My problem with socialist-realism isn't that it can't achieve beautiful or meaningful works, as I said in my first post, it's that it's inorganic and top-down. It's what was thought that workers should read or see, not what developed organically from a new worker's society. At times it was explicitly argued that worker's wouldn't understand abstract art or would be degraded by reading bourgeois literature. Did Gorky write valuable things, sure, but so did Joyce. The goal of revolutionaries should be only to liberate art from class, not direct it. We should not try and destroy art from past system or epochs nor should be try and determine what art is valuable for all of society or not.


Here's the thing, it's meant to be realism, it doesn't have red guys smashing things or a gigantic Stalin or whatever. That's just poster propaganda.And realism has always been a construction of "reality" an aesthetic agreement about what society is "really like" and has always been tied into a particular class society's view of what is real and universal (that is how the ruling class sees it). If there were no classes, then there is no realism, since we wouldn't need to define what is a real reflection of society against opposing views of what society is like.

[Rooster]

The socialist-realist literature is what is important,the visual art is secondary.
If a discussion about socialist-realism is going on,the literature should be the main subject,because that is where the socialist-realism had the biggest effect.

Fine whatever.



The content is what makes the difference,call the technique what you like,it matters little.

You were the one throwing a hissy fit over it. The technique, and if you want to get argumentative over it, the content, was conservative and bourgeois in style. It didn't change, everything looked the same and it looked pretty much like any other painting that any other bourgie collector would enjoy at that time.


There is little individualism in Soviet art,for the better part,it's the large group of people that is the main object.

That's ignoring a large amount of it. What about all the stuff about the leaders? The nation? Cities? Oh wait, maybe that's too bourgie for you to remember.


RevLeft=Ohhhhhh, Art! ZOMG, those evil Marxist-Leninists like socialist realism and are going to takez away our freedomz by forcing us to like socialist realism! We must fight back and start a stupid debate about.....art, because they are evillll!!!!111

Can't you write a post that has any content?


I sense trolling.

I'm not, it's a good book. It's got everything; action, romance, people working together to achieve goals, a great leader with a mustache, justice, order.... a rollocking read.

[Robespierres Neck]

I like Mayakovsky, Gorky, and Becher.


http://www.tretyakovgallery.ru/pictures/a/af/af0aaa17f1114d6d01a379aa49a8a188.jpg

http://rjosephhoffmann.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/lenin.jpeg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NuajfIdF0MA/S-BgN43s4eI/AAAAAAAAAN0/DaoLSLEHLXU/s400/serov-lenin.jpg

http://espressostalinist.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/enver_hoxha_republic_declaration.jpg?w=500&h=346

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/images/unk-serf.jpg

http://apscuf.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/stalin_poster.jpg

http://www.modelgovernment.org/images/great-stalin1.jpg

http://professionalhousegirlfriend.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/stalin-painting.jpg

http://markwadestone.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/stalin_gottwald1.jpg?w=239&h=300

http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/pictures/462xAny/0/1/4/2014_Lenin-and-Stalin-20th-anniversary.jpg

http://www.logoi.com/picture-movies/img/stalin_07.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_LoPTdkHrjjk/SsyYAqDhPII/AAAAAAAAFeY/aTItC1oSUZg/s1600/stalin-applauded-victory-germany-second-world-war-oil-painting.jpg

http://www.soviethistory.org/images/Large/1934/stalin_xvi.jpg

http://www.comtourist.com/images/large/stalin-museum/gori-stalin-painting-01.jpg

http://www.russianavantgard.com/images/manufacturers/86/yuon_lenin_smolny.jpg

http://blogs.artinfo.com/outtakes/files/2011/12/kimjongil-painting_1920x1080-1.jpg

http://espressostalinist.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/07114510.jpg?w=436

http://bookofscorpions.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/albanian-bs-enver-hoxha.jpg

http://albanianpyramids.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/enver_hoxha_1960.jpeg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AXhWXW1FFeA/TDRjgNnb47I/AAAAAAAAJd8/Sbh5viKNBhQ/s1600/stalin+mao.jpg

http://summerinshanghai.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/chairman_mao_visit_guangdong_country.jpg

http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/visual_arts/painting/exhibits/socialist-realism/lenin-village.jpg
Personal favorite of mine.

http://uttaps.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/roses-for-stalin.jpg

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Can't you write a post that has any content

No, it's literally impossible. My computer might explode.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

I like Mayakovsky, Gorky, and Becher.


http://www.tretyakovgallery.ru/pictures/a/af/af0aaa17f1114d6d01a379aa49a8a188.jpg

The first one is really beautiful.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Why don't you keep your suggestions for yourself.



There are a lot of Soviet authors,what type of a genre do you like? (History,like War and Peace,or something about WWII,or a classic novel?)

I read every genre, and it really depends if the book itself is good. So just something that you think is good would be fine.

[Robespierres Neck]

Forgot these:

http://ngart.com/painting/colection/other/vladimirsk32max.jpg

http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/visual_arts/painting/exhibits/socialist-realism/peoples-love.jpg

http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/visual_arts/painting/exhibits/socialist-realism/young-steel-workers.jpg

http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/visual_arts/painting/exhibits/socialist-realism/korzevchuvelev_3.jpg

[Ismail]

Albanian socialist realism (actually depicting workers and such): http://www.wsc.co.uk/component/option,com_kunena/Itemid,73/func,view/id,4673/catid,28/limit,20/limitstart,420/#431702

(Scroll down to post #431702)

[Omsk]

You were the one throwing a hissy fit over it. The technique, and if you want to get argumentative over it, the content, was conservative and bourgeois in style. It didn't change, everything looked the same and it looked pretty much like any other painting that any other bourgie collector would enjoy at that time.


How can the content be bourgeois if it depicts class struggle or revolutionaries?



That's ignoring a large amount of it. What about all the stuff about the leaders? The nation? Cities? Oh wait, maybe that's too bourgie for you to remember.




The portraits of Lenin and Stalin are actually not that common,usually,they were good paintings,but were rare,because neither Lenin or Stalin had the time to mess with such problematics. (The artists would simply get a picture of Lenin/Stalin and they would paint based on the photo.)

And the Soviet art really had a lot of focus on the 'unity' part,so unlike the bourgeois art,there is no 'special' nation.But a mix,the Soviet people.


I read every genre, and it really depends if the book itself is good. So just something that you think is good would be fine.

Choose something from Gorky,he is,after all,one of the most important authors.(Although a dubious individual.) (The Mother is one of his most important novels.)

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

I like some of the artwork given here, but seeing that I hate art and don't really care much for a debate about something I find stupid, I am going to disengage. All I have to say is that I find socialist realism to be the form of art that best represents the nature of the revolutionary proletariat. If you disagree, go have a panic attack for all I care.

And thanks for the artwork, guys.

[Robespierres Neck]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFNw1I2hc_M

[Robespierres Neck]

Albanian socialist realism (actually depicting workers and such): http://www.wsc.co.uk/component/option,com_kunena/Itemid,73/func,view/id,4673/catid,28/limit,20/limitstart,420/#431702

(Scroll down to post #431702)

I love this one:
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_IF_mEzDeYk4/TI0cdzD0oTI/AAAAAAAAAOw/iRXtGfhHCX4/s512/Picture%20066.jpg

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

I like some of the artwork given here, but seeing that I hate art and don't really care much for a debate about something I find stupid, I am going to disengage. All I have to say is that I find socialist realism to be the form of art that best represents the nature of the revolutionary proletariat. If you disagree, go have a panic attack for all I care.

And thanks for the artwork, guys.

How can you hate art?

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

How can you hate art?

I am terrible at it, thus it is my enemy :)

I wouldn't say I hate it as much as I am not interested by it. I can appreciate art, but it is not.....like......fun. Yet, when I have to do it myself, I hate it with a passion.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

I am terrible at it, thus it is my enemy :)

I would say I hate it as much as I am not interested by it. I can appreciate art, but it is not.....like......fun. Yet, when I have to do it myself, I hate it with a passion.

Then you hate making art. I'm not a good artist either but therefore I appreciate it more when someone can make something beautiful.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

I think from albania:
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01671/albania3_1671086c.jpg

[Ismail]

That is from Albania, yes. It's the top of the Palace of Culture. It had some symbolic value since the Soviets began constructing it in 1959, but in 1961 they left with the blueprints, so the Albanian government was like "alright, we'll not only build it, but it'll be even grander than the original plan."

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

http://www.mises.org.br/images/articles/2008/Agosto/classe.jpg

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Mother Albania:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d9/Mother_Albania_Tirana_3.JPG/249px-Mother_Albania_Tirana_3.JPG

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Mother Albania:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d9/Mother_Albania_Tirana_3.JPG/249px-Mother_Albania_Tirana_3.JPG

That needs an explanation from Ismail because I have never heard about that :)

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

From wikipedia:

The statue figuratively represents the country as a mother guarding over the eternal slumber of those who gave their lives for her. There are 28,000 graves of Albanian partisans in the cemetery, all of whom perished during World War II. The massive statue holds a wreath of laurels and a star. The cemetery was also the resting place of former leader Enver Hoxha, who was subsequently disinterred and given a more humble grave in another public cemetery.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Mother_Albania_Tirana_2.JPG

[Robespierres Neck]

I think from albania:
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01671/albania3_1671086c.jpg

Ah yeah, I remember this piece. Great find.

[Robespierres Neck]

All I have to say is that I find socialist realism to be the form of art that best represents the nature of the revolutionary proletariat.

What about some Dada art?
Like Grosz:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/18/Grosz_Widmung_an_Oskar_Panizza.jpg

http://senyorkeuner.wikispaces.com/file/view/GROSZ-1926-Elspilarsdelasocietat.jpg/30594927/GROSZ-1926-Elspilarsdelasocietat.jpg

http://cdn2.all-art.org/art_20th_century/expressionism/grosz/143.jpg

http://cdn2.all-art.org/art_20th_century/expressionism/grosz/141.jpg

http://uploads7.wikipaintings.org/images/george-grosz/methusalem-1922.jpg

http://cdn2.all-art.org/art_20th_century/expressionism/grosz/139.jpg

He shows more of the ugly nature of the bourgeois or the despair of the proletarian in capitalist society, but I think he's still significant.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

What about some Dada art?
Like Grosz:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/18/Grosz_Widmung_an_Oskar_Panizza.jpg

http://senyorkeuner.wikispaces.com/file/view/GROSZ-1926-Elspilarsdelasocietat.jpg/30594927/GROSZ-1926-Elspilarsdelasocietat.jpg

http://cdn2.all-art.org/art_20th_century/expressionism/grosz/143.jpg

http://cdn2.all-art.org/art_20th_century/expressionism/grosz/141.jpg

http://uploads7.wikipaintings.org/images/george-grosz/methusalem-1922.jpg

http://cdn2.all-art.org/art_20th_century/expressionism/grosz/139.jpg

Extremely bourgeois, in my opinion.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Extremely bourgeois, in my opinion.

It makes fun of the bourgeoisie and the nazis as you see in the second.

[OHumanista]

I actually love Socialist Realist art aesthetically, but I don't subscribe at all to the notion that it's "best for the working class".

Same thing with me. It looks pretty great, but it's hard to appreciate it when it has been used for some insane Stalinist propaganda.
I like it a lot better when it's not.(rare occasions...or just a more discreet "propaganda" showing workers instead of a giant messiah-like Stalin or something like that)

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Same thing with me. It looks pretty great, but it's hard to appreciate it when it has been used for some insane Stalinist propaganda.
I like it a lot better when it's not.(rare occasions...or just a more discreet "propaganda" showing workers instead of a giant messiah-like Stalin or something like that)

But he is the messiah!

[Robespierres Neck]

Extremely bourgeois, in my opinion.

He depicts the bourgeoisie & fascists as they really are, pigs and shitheads. Or he's showing the confusion, chaos, or misery of proletarians under capitalism. How is that bourgeois?

In 1922, he also spent 5 months in Russia and met Lenin & Trotsky. He was a very advocated communist till his death.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Don't know from where but:
http://www.only-apartments.com/images/only-apartments/2973/socialist-realism-rome.jpg

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

He depicts the bourgeoisie & fascists as they really are, pigs and shitheads. Or he's showing the confusion, chaos, or misery of proletarians under capitalism. How is that bourgeois?

In 1922, he also spent 5 months in Russia and met Lenin & Trotsky. He was a very advocated communist till his death.

I didn't know. I can't see that well anyway (perhaps another reason I don't like art).

[Prairie Fire]

Rooster


In technique, it's extremely similar to conservative bourgeois art styles and taste.


You refer to artistic renderings that are instantly recognizable to all as "Conservative styles"; well, in contrast, the non-conservative styles of art (ie. Abstract expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, etc,) are to this day openly mocked and unabashedly shunned by the working people of my country, in favour of impressionism and other styles that more accurately represent the world as it truly is. I would imagine that this is the case world-wide.

Despite the general availability of Art galleries and museums to the public in every city that I have ever lived in, no one ever visits them, save the elite (which are trying to appear cultured,)and the wavering petty bourgeois intelligentsia (who openly spit on the working class for being unwashed dullards who can't appreciate their own chosen esoteric cultural mediums).

I have heard Canadian working people criticize Van Gough even (let alone Picasso). Even The Starry Night is a bit too metaphysical for the tastes of some.

The Art museum is empty, and the local multiplex theatre is packed. Does this make the working class bovine,dim-witted philistines? Or is the art itself the problem?

It has always been my opinion that forms of expression that lean towards subjectivity, or that are altogether incomprehensible, are the ultimate form of Bourgeois culture. Subjectivity in painting (among other art forms,), not only renders the whole thing incapable of conveying any sort of discernable content (especially subversive or critical themes,), but it also elevates the individual above the mass, as only the individual can deduce the meaning of the painting through their own persynal lenses. Unsuprisingly, this form is ideal to reinforce the superstructure of bourgeois society.

My suspicions in this were confirmed when I heard about how during the cold war the CIA essentially made abstract art into a commercially viable and accepted art form, to offset the socialist realism of the USSR, as well as the deluge of socially-conscious cultural achievements that were being produced (and appreciated) by the people of the US at the time:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html

There is a reason that the "conservative" styles that you speak of are rendered the way that they are: because the message contained within these pictures is intended to reach the majority, hence the form that appeals to the sensibilities of the masses of working people is employed. The content obviously varies significantly between Norman Rockwell Americana and Socialist realism, and really that is the decisive differentiation that you should be focusing on, but presentation is similar because of it's effectiveness.

On a related note, there were Soviet paintings that didn't conform to socialist realism.



http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/498844/498844,1299498246,2/stock-vector-soviet-abstract-painting-background-in-style-socialist-avant-garde-art-72634486.jpg

http://www.jamieherzlinger.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/02.jpg

What a coincidence that these are generally the only soviet cultural achievements praised by the Gadfly infantile left. Really, your critique of Soviet art is simply an extension of the never ending kneecapping that you inflict on the USSR (and other historical socialist states,) only because your own understanding of class struggle is severely inadequate (at best).



Socialist realism is just propaganda.


Again, this is statement only highlights the political inadequacy on your own part.

All art, all culture, in a class society is propaganda. This is the same no matter which class is at the head of the society, or which class the propaganda in question serves. Even art that has no discernable message, or no message at all, is taking a stand on the side of one class or the other; if you are not criticizing the system, then you are in collusion with it.

You must understand that human society is divided primarly into two antagonistic classes, the Ownership class (bourgeoisie) and the working wage-labourer class (proletariat), and that their goals as classes are mutually exlusive. Furthermore, you must understand that whichever class holds supremacy in a society will wield the superstructure of that society (ie. Art, culture, etc) as a weapon for the subjugation of the other class. The dominant culture in a society is that which reinforces the society itself, especially the relations to political and socio-economic power, and therefore it is 'propaganda' by necessity.

To point out that the "Propaganda" originates with the Soviet state (or any other socialist state) rather than "the workers themselves" is splitting hairs. The Soviet state (at least, for a time,) was the organized arm of working class political power in the USSR, and the content of the art clearly reflected this.

The only way for art to get beyond simply being a mouth piece for the ambitions of one class or the next is for classes themselves to be completely eliminated. To get to this historical stage will not be pretty, and it will involve suppression of the exploiter classes and what Marx termed " despotic inroads on the rights of property". To exercise this power, logistically, a state will be required (up until a point of historical development).

Sorry that class war in application doesn't conform to your liberal definitions.



Fine whatever.



Well, at least we're having a nuanced and intelligent discussion here.

[hatzel]

Dada and its offshoots were always going to be better. Troofaktz.

[Robespierres Neck]

I didn't know. I can't see that well anyway (perhaps another reason I don't like art).

Haha, it's alright, comrade. It's all out of preference.

I think the Dada movement was the first to rebel against the traditional aesthetics of art as a protest against modern politics and society. They even called their work 'anti-art'. In some cases, it is.

[Ismail]

I like it a lot better when it's not.(rare occasions...or just a more discreet "propaganda" showing workers instead of a giant messiah-like Stalin or something like that)Again, that's not socialist realism, it's just poster propaganda.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

http://domz60.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/russian-bread-line-2.jpg

Why couldn't any of the realists paint this?

[Robespierres Neck]

Ismail, can you link me to that site you posted somewhere that had a bunch of Albania/Hoxha socialist realism paintings?

[Prometeo liberado]

Ok Rooster, is not all art propaganda of some sort? The very purpose of art is for the artist to convey a message, be it love, anger, hope or what ever, using subtle/not so subtle veils? Another attempted derailment by roosterism.

[Ismail]

Ismail, can you link me to that site you posted somewhere that had a bunch of Albania/Hoxha socialist realism paintings?... I just posted that link in this thread.

If you mean socialist-realist portrayals of Enver Hoxha, then here you go: http://www.enverhoxha.ru/enver_hoxha_socialist_realism_1.htm


Why couldn't any of the realists paint this?Pretty sure socialist realism wasn't allowed in Imperial Russia (which is what that picture is from, early 1917 IIRC.)

[Jimmie Higgins]

You refer to artistic renderings that are instantly recognizable to all as "Conservative styles"; well, in contrast, the non-conservative styles of art (ie. Abstract expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, etc,) are to this day openly mocked and unabashedly shunned by the working people of my country, in favour of impressionism and other styles that more accurately represent the world as it truly is. I would imagine that this is the case world-wide.So people's attitudes today are the same as they'd be in a revolution and also after a revolution that shakes the foundations of society and creates a whole new democratic proletarian society?

Most people don't have acess to art and art education while high art strives to "jargonize-itself" to justify it's unique position. To understand contemporary art, you kind of have to know about the fads and recent history of art and the art that X piece is referencing. Contemporary art is very insular and elitist and no doubt this is due to the conditions of capitalism.

But these are the conditions of capitalism not some "inherent" proletarian taste in art. Have you seen Russian Revolution posters - they're ABSTRACT! Have you seen graffiti - it's abstract! Jackson Pollack, who I don't like as an artist, was very popular with regular people.

What the "world really looks like" is a construction, and ideological construction. Without bourgeois modes of production coming into artistic practice, there would be no impressionism. Painting something pretty without a specific patron for that work is unique to painting in capitalism. The novel, naturalism, and realism all developed out of capitalism and while some content is progressive, some reactionary, the Form is tied to the material realities these arts developed under.

Socialist art would not be ABOUT the collective, rather than the individual, it would probably a collective effort! People would come together and hash-out a film or play together without a specific director or writer - some people might have better skills or practice, but it would be part of a greater whole effort. Maybe the novel, which is always individual even when it's about collectives*, will no longer be a form used, maybe internet technology and new social realities will create some other form of textual storytelling.




*which happens in capitalist literature too, not just socialist-realism... sometimes because of the ideology of the producer him/herself, but also often to get the people to have a sense of "we're all in this together". Look at US WWII films - they're often some morality tale about putting ideals (nation, humanity, democracy) before the individual. Hmm, great way to justify demanding sacrifice for the ruling class - the "greater good".

[Robespierres Neck]

If you mean socialist-realist portrayals of Enver Hoxha, then here you go: http://www.enverhoxha.ru/enver_hoxha_socialist_realism_1.htm

That's it, thank you.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Pretty sure socialist realism wasn't allowed in Imperial Russia (which is what that picture is from, early 1917 IIRC.)

Maybe so, then why not this:

http://blog.kievukraine.info/uploaded_images/5955-790945.jpg

Point being, Socialist Realism, never seemed to reflect reality and thus is no less decadent or bourgeois in it's own character, lacking soul and vision than any other art form. Fuck it.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Maybe so, then why not this:

http://blog.kievukraine.info/uploaded_images/5955-790945.jpg

Point being, Socialist Realism, never seemed to reflect reality and thus is no less decadent or bourgeois in it's own character, lacking soul and vision than any other art form. Fuck it.

Just because we like this art-style, we have to apologize for painters who didn't paint one of your photo's?

I want to see a painting of your favorite painter of every photo I can find too.

[Jimmie Higgins]

http://www.jamieherzlinger.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/02.jpgYes as a personal preference I like this early modernist era more than the conformity of the USSR or US in the post-war era. But as much as I like Brecht or some Constructivism these shouldn't be "official art" for workers either.

And you are right, all art currently is entangled with class and the relationships of production in society. When US naturalist painting was big, it was during "manifest destiny" and it was just pretty scenery on the one hand, but painted on such huge canvasses as if to say, this is all empty and for the taking - see any people already living here, no - ok, westward ho! And grab a Winchester while yer at it!

So what does it say about visual Socialist Realism when much of it was directed at Russians and about how much abundance and happiness there is? Who is that propaganda intended for and for what reason?

[Ismail]

Maybe so, then why not this:The 1921-22 Russian famine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fridtjof_Nansen,_Les_deux_%C3%A9tapes_de_la_f aim_%281922%29.jpg)? Why?

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

http://onlyhdwallpapers.com/wallpaper/war_ruins_soviet_russia_flags_berlin_historical_ta nk_reichstag_scott_the_victory_banner_desktop_1366 x768_wallpaper-340477.jpg

[Omsk]

That is a poster from Majakovskij. The proletcult was bad though,a nest for individualist and bourgeois thought and a perfect 'intellectual circle'.

[Robespierres Neck]

That is a poster from Majakovskij. The proletcult was bad though,a nest for individualist and bourgeois thought and a perfect 'intellectual circle'.

Sorry, I deleted my post because I felt it was off topic.

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/visual_arts/painting/pics/soldier.jpg

[Os Cangaceiros]

You refer to artistic renderings that are instantly recognizable to all as "Conservative styles"; well, in contrast, the non-conservative styles of art (ie. Abstract expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, etc,) are to this day openly mocked and unabashedly shunned by the working people of my country, in favour of impressionism and other styles that more accurately represent the world as it truly is. I would imagine that this is the case world-wide.

Despite the general availability of Art galleries and museums to the public in every city that I have ever lived in, no one ever visits them, save the elite (which are trying to appear cultured,)and the wavering petty bourgeois intelligentsia (who openly spit on the working class for being unwashed dullards who can't appreciate their own chosen esoteric cultural mediums).

That's pretty dumb. When you're talking about "working people", you're talking about a population that's billions strong.

Many of them have varied tastes and interests, as well, much as some idiots want to construct a "mass worker" from figments of their own fevered ultra-ideological imagination. So no, I don't think that it's completely beyond "working people" to appreciate the aesthetics of a painting not featuring some cherub faced kid thanking Stalin for his happy childhood. You can trot out your anecdotes of "prole culture" and I'll trot out mine, k?

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Any place where I can download Mother by Gorky?

[marl]

I like Mayakovsky, Gorky, and Becher.

Personal favorite of mine.



I like how those Stalin posters depict him as bigger than everyone.

Also, the DPRK does it as seen above, but on steroids.

[Omsk]

Any place where I can download Mother by Gorky?


You can read it on Marxist Internet Archive.

http://marxists.org/archive/gorky-maxim/index.htm - A lot of things Gorky wrote."Mother" is included.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Any place where I can download Mother by Gorky?

Check your visitor messages. I just left you a link 15 minutes ago that Roach sent me an hour ago. I'm gonna read it this weekend. Care to discuss next week?

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Check your visitor messages. I just left you a link 15 minutes ago that Roach sent me an hour ago. I'm gonna read it this weekend. Care to discuss next week?

Yeah I send you a pm.
Sure I will discuss anything. ;)

[Ostrinski]

I'm no expert on visual arts but I kind of find SR boring, but I don't see a problem with liking it.

[corolla]

I prefer Georgia O'Keeffe's vagina flowers to paintings of Stalin coveting young children.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

Gorkys Mother is the only socialist realist work of art, in any medium, I have ever mildly enjoyed.

[thriller]

Read We by Yevgeny Zamyatin :rolleyes: It's genuinely a good book.

Not really socialist realism. And "War and Peace" isn't either. Just saying.

[Ismail]

I think the fact that a lot of people are bringing up socialist realism involving Stalin as if 99% of Soviet art made between 1928-1953 was J.V. Stalin holding a baby in preparation for eating it kinds shows the shallowness said people have towards it simply because it's associated with Stalin (even though it continued, in diminished form, to exist in the post-50's USSR and in the Eastern Bloc as a whole up to the end.)

The 1970's Great Soviet Encyclopedia has an article explaining what it is: http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/socialist+realism

[Robespierres Neck]

Any place where I can download Mother by Gorky?

Here you go, comrade:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3783

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Here you go, comrade:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3783

Oh thanks, I was actually looking for an ebook because then I can read it ,without getting a headache, on my phone. :D

[Yuppie Grinder]

Does Upton Sinclair's The Jungle fit into this category? cuz that's one of my favorite novels.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think the fact that a lot of people are bringing up socialist realism involving Stalin as if 99% of Soviet art made between 1928-1953 was J.V. Stalin holding a baby in preparation for eating it kinds shows the shallowness said people have towards it simply because it's associated with Stalin (even though it continued, in diminished form, to exist in the post-50's USSR and in the Eastern Bloc as a whole up to the end.)

The 1970's Great Soviet Encyclopedia has an article explaining what it is: http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/socialist+realism

Maybe that's the main issue for some of the people here and it's the most glaring crude examples of art from this time, but the "you just don't like Stalin" argument is a deflection I think.

From the encyclopedia article you linked:


Officially sanctioned theory and method of artistic and literary composition in the Soviet Union from 1932 to the mid-1980s. Following the tradition of 19th-century Russian realism (http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/realism), Socialist Realism purported to serve as an objective mirror of life. Instead of critiquing society, however, it took as its primary theme the struggle to build socialism and a classless society and called for the didactic use of art to develop social consciousness. Artists were expected to take a positive view of socialist society and to keep in mind its historical relevance, requisites that seldom coincided with their real experiences and frequently undermined the artistic credibility of their works.The bold, which is the first line of the link, is the part I think that's the issue.

Socialist realism is neither socialist nor a "real mirror of life". It's not socialist because it did not emerge organically from new socialized social relations, rather it was a bureaucratically constructed concept placed on top of artistic production. If the writers union was not "officially" in charge and was merely a group of artists who wanted to explore these themes and aesthetics, there would really be no political debate on it (at least not as far as I'm concerned) - it's the idea that there needs to be a sanctioned art, that there is one art or aesthetic sense or subject matter that is "appropriate" for or is appreciated most by the working class that and that can be imposed is inherently anti-marxist.


The exclusive concentration of artistic talent in particular individuals, and its suppression in the broad mass which is bound up with this, is a consequence of division of labour. Even if in certain social conditions, everyone were an excellent painter, that would by no means exclude the possibility of each of them being also an original painter, so that here too the difference between “human” and “unique” labour amounts to sheer nonsense. In any case, with a communist organisation of society. there disappears the subordination of the artist to local and national narrowness, which arises entirely from division of labour, and also the subordination of the individual to some definite art, making him exclusively a painter, sculptor, etc.; the very name amply expresses the narrowness of his professional development and his dependence on division of labour. In a communist society there are no painters but only people who engage in painting among other activities.In other words in a society with new social relations, the very forms of artistic expression would change and reflect that just as the rise of the bourgeois changed art from an patron-basis (usually the church and then aristocrats, and later the wealthier feudal-era bourgeois) to a commodity to be produced and then sold.

To have to organize an aesthetic agreement on how to reflect "realism" shows that socialist realism is an ideological construction, not some universal or "true" art. Again I think the only policy towards art by a DoP is for workers to give themselves more free-time, more access to education and the means of artistic expression (communal recording studios, film equipment, training, design and painting materials etc). It's the change at the "base" (the social relations) that will be reflected in the superstructure (artistic expression in this case); not trying to consciously shape the superstructure to protect or re-shape the base.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Does Upton Sinclair's The Jungle fit into this category? cuz that's one of my favorite novels.It's considered a (actually "The") muckraking novel. It would probably be considered part of the naturalist tradition in US literature. These books looked at life for common people - particularly in cities. While there was a streak of progressive writers using realism and naturalism in US literature to talk about some of the themes that socialist realism takes up, mostly this genre sensationalized urban working class communities: gangsters, prostitutes, melodrama.

[Robespierres Neck]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1Gjw9GucKk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqUUsdoLXx4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0qjeqIkLrE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgxIuvGD_Lk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wb3VaCElcY

[Grenzer]

Posters are not socialist realism, so Higgins post and so on are rather irrelevant. Fabian's post is irrelevant too.

These are random examples of socialist realism (there's plenty of Soviet examples of socialist realism, but yeah):

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc207/MrdieII/kimilsungkimjongiljpg.jpg


Here's the thing, it's meant to be realism, it doesn't have red guys smashing things or a gigantic Stalin or whatever. That's just poster propaganda.


Holy shit. Kim Jong-Il looks like a fucking boss in that piece of art. What's so realistic about that?

It looks like he and his good ol' dad are planning to cast the bright sunrays of the Juche Idea across the globe.

[Regicollis]

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc207/MrdieII/kimilsungkimjongiljpg.jpg

This is what it reminds me of...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Dictator_charlie5.jpg

But on a more serious note I'm not that into social realism although I can appreciate a novel like Hans Fallada's Little Man, What Now?. It is too one-dimensional and kitschy for my taste. The workers are always heroic, the leaders are always great etc. In essence it is just a bad pastiche of bourgeois art. The only difference is that the painters painted Lenin instead of the czar.

I think Socialist Realist architecture is one of the worst movements in architecture. Heavy, overloaded with cheesy ornaments and deliberately out of proportions with a human scale. It creates buildings that intimidate people rather than creating inviting and usable spaces. The megalomania of SR architecture also led to some batshit insane projects where historical towns were demolished to give place for completely useless monoliths like The Palace of the Republic in Bucharest.

I think constructivist art was much more interesting. Unlike Socialist Realism it actually created something new and original.

[Omsk]

In case someone might have doubts about this poster:

http://markwadestone.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/stalin_gottwald1.jpg?w=239&h=300

It's Stalin and Klement Gottwald,the leader of Czechoslovakia.

Someone may have already noticed this,but the topic is long,so if someone did point this out,what can i say,sorry.

Few people have heard of Gottwald,so i guess most of you comrades didn't notice him.

[JoeySteel]

Socialist realism is neither socialist nor a "real mirror of life". It's not socialist because it did not emerge organically from new socialized social relations, rather it was a bureaucratically constructed concept placed on top of artistic production. If the writers union was not "officially" in charge and was merely a group of artists who wanted to explore these themes and aesthetics, there would really be no political debate on it (at least not as far as I'm concerned) - it's the idea that there needs to be a sanctioned art, that there is one art or aesthetic sense or subject matter that is "appropriate" for or is appreciated most by the working class that and that can be imposed is inherently anti-marxist.


Socialist realism was NOT "bureaucratically constructed." You are rehashing cold war anticommunist nonsense of Socialist Realism as the "impossible aesthetic" or something unnatural. Much of the literature since the 1990's no longer supports this caricature. Here is an earlier post of mine:



Evgeny Dobrenko in his essay on 'Who "Invented" Socialist Realism?' in the collection Socialist Realism Without Shores (1997) shows that the culture of socialist realism "originated in neither state power nor the masses, but was the product of a hybrid, the "power-masses," functioning as a single creator. Their joint creative surge gave birth to the new art."

In all realms and particularly literature, great importance was attached to workers' reviews of books which were published and served as a guide for Soviet culture and literary production. Dobrenko classifies the main trends apparent throughout the criticism of Soviet mass readers in the 1920's as such:

"The book should be recognizably useful; it should instruct", "The book should be accessible to, even cultivate, the reader", "Literature should be realistic, yet optimistic and heroic", "Literature should realistically show the guiding role of the collective and the Party as well as their impact on working-class life", "Novels should be big, thick books with realistic, well-developed plots", "A novel's plot should be absorbing and full of adventures, simply narrated in a language that's artistic but comprehensible", "Poetry should be free of "futurism", "Literature should not be "obscene"", "Love stories should be "elevated," science fiction is "nonsense," and proletarian humor has great merit" (144-156)

Each section in Dobrenko's essay is illustrated with a selection of roughly a page worth of quotes from mass-readers and worker-reviewers. These aesthetic commitments are easily evidenced in the best of Soviet literature in Stalin's time.

Similar processes occurred in relation to Soviet theatre. Industrial plays, or works produced, written, and performed by workers in their respective shops had a far higher popularity than old theatre, opera, and ballet which was still exhibited in the major urban theatres in the 1920's.

From Dobrenko's essay:

"[The] openly agitational industrial play, produced on the workers' own initiative, enjoyed the greatest popularity. To appreciate this, one need only glance at the repertory of such plays, which can easily be divided into the following "hot" themes:

-The international situation of the USSR and the workers' struggles in the West: "America on Fire", "China and the USSR", "A Thousand Liebknechts", "Their Card Will Be Covered", "About Good Khim and Bad Jim", "Hands off China", "The Rumanian Executioner and Moaning Bessarabia", and "Down with Amsterdam!"

-The history of the Party, the revolution, and workers' movement: "Ten Days that Shook the World", "Stenka Razin", "Working-Class Youth in Defence of the Revolutionaries", "1905", "Lena", "The Paris Commune", "Origins of October", "The First Year of the October Revolution", "At the Gates of October", "Spartacus", "Uprising", "Lenin in October", "October in Moscow", "The Seventh Anniversary", "The Decennial of World War I", "The Mysterious Cabin", "May First", "Guards of the Revolution"

-Current economic-political tasks: "Without Matches There's No Union", "The Union of City and Country", "The Thirteenth Party Congress", "Industrialization Must be Increased"

-Culture and everyday life: "Vera the Communist", "Judgement for a Syphilitic", "Devilry", "Our Everyday Life", "First You Study, Then You Marry", "How Terrible to be Illiterate", "A Komsomol Easter"

It is obvious that the "mass viewer" wasn't ready to embrace traditional aesthetic forms. And what is important here is not only the forms themselves, but precisely their unwelcome reception. In almost every worker-correspondent's report one reads some such statement as "we wrote plays collectively"; "we composed our own dramatization"; "we have an initiative group on writing plays and dramatizations for the drama club"; "we are working in league with a literary club and with worker-correspondents who give us material."" (141-142)

The last pre-Gorbachov summation of Socialist Realism by Dmitry Markov was as such:

"Socialist realism, freed from all scholastic and biased interpretations, appears as a completely novel trend in world literature. I describe it as a historically open system of truthful representation of life. We see it in movement, in constant development; it is open for comprehensive cognition of the laws governing life, and based on the all-embracing criterion of truthfulness."Pp. 6 (Socialist Literatures: Problems of Development. Raduga Publishers, Moscow. 1984)

This view also saw the 19th century proletarian literatures and modern socialist realism as different stages of the same process.

So, actually, the aesthetic of socialist realism developed and was demanded precisely not by the elite, and in fact developed in an open and responsive way to the Soviet mass reader. Neither did it exist in stasis. In fact, major published works could be re-written and style adapted in response to criticism. Artistic censorship in the Stalin period, especially in film and literature, took on a mass-critical dimension.

EDIT: If anything, socialist realism in paintings would be closer to the imposition, via the party and state, of proletarian aesthetic values against any anti-proletarian leanings of individual painters, who after all were paid partly from the sweat of the workers' brow. If workers thought something was "trash", they were quick to mention that the state has wasted their money on nonsense formalism, or what have you.

There is much more to read on the subject, I would suggest the books Socialist Realism without Shores, Socialist Cultures East and West, Rereading Global Socialist Cultures after the Cold War. A study of the matter does not validate your crude understanding.

[black magick hustla]

Rooster
blhalbhalbha


even if we took your rotten, constructed idea of the "mass worker" where everyone thinks the same etc., your evaluation of surrealism/dada/cubism etc. as only appreciated by elitist people is pretty stupid. a lot of pop art/pop culture that is consumed en masse owes a lot of its heritage to surrealism and dada. a lot of younger folk like trippy art and trippy architecture in general. i don't know a working person that appreciates some fuckin picture of a fat faced kid giving roses to uncle stalin or whatever.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Socialist realism was NOT "bureaucratically constructed." You are rehashing cold war anticommunist nonsense of Socialist Realism as the "impossible aesthetic" or something unnatural. Much of the literature since the 1990's no longer supports this caricature. Here is an earlier post of mine:I don't mean necissarily constructed by a state bureaucrat in some office somewhere, I mean that it was an inorganic placing of guidlines on an organic process. For the same reason Prolekult isn't "socialist" - I am all for people experimenting with the forms and aesthetics of constructivism or socialist realism, I'm against it being seen as somehow the "true" worker's art or whatnot.


There is much more to read on the subject, I would suggest the books Socialist Realism without Shores, Socialist Cultures East and West, Rereading Global Socialist Cultures after the Cold War. A study of the matter does not validate your crude understanding.My crude understanding of art and class comes from Marx, Engels, Trotsky and Brecht among others. I'm no expert on art or these theories, but I wish to know more and becoming a Marxist actually opened my horizons to art and culture (even bourgeois art and culture) more than I had even cared to think about these things beforehand.

All the quotes you posted do nothing to invalidate my claims, most are just talking about how the gatekeepers of this genre think that workers liked their shit the best - well a lot of workers went to see "Rambo" and "Birth of a Nation" so I guess these are examples of "proletarian art" and "true representations without bias". I guess capitalists are right, ticket-sales for some patriotic movie show that Americans are all content with our society. On the other hand, if you counter this argument by saying, well Russian workers had more revolutionary consciousness than US workers seeing Rambo, then fine, if we accept this premise, then why was there a need to try and control what novels and subjects audiences were exposed to?

No matter what way you look at it "socialist realism" doesn't make sense as some "true post-revolutionary working class art". It's a complete misunderstanding of the relationship of base to superstructure, and it's not materialist, Marxist, or Socialist.

[Jimmie Higgins]

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc207/MrdieII/kimilsungkimjongiljpg.jpg

This is what it reminds me of...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Dictator_charlie5.jpg
Lol, the picture made me think they were looking for a talisman that fits on the pole Kim has - and when attached, it will reveal the location of the Ark.

[JoeySteel]

I'm sorry, I have no idea what to say to this. There is no basis for your crude distinction between "organic" and "inorganic" in reference to art or human society if that is what you profess to be studying (is there "inorganic" bourgeois art too, or is only the working class movement guilty of this supra-historical category?). I don't remember where you can find such a thing in the personalities you list but be sure to find me a some quotes if you can. I don't know why you put "true post-revolutionary working class art" or whatever in quotes because I certainly never referred to such a thing, it sounds like a sloppy argument to try and paint me as loony. All I did was refute your assertion that Socialist Realism was "bureaucratically constructed" and refer to several works which deal with the subject, and point out that the view of SR as "inorganic" (pretty much the same thing as 'the impossible aesthetic', 'forced', 'propaganda' etc) is completely untenable theoretically and historically and is really nothing more than the bourgeois cold war view.

[Os Cangaceiros]

That picture of Kim Jong Il makes me think of "today Korea, TOMORROW THE WORLD!"

[black magick hustla]

anyone who whines about literature and art being "individualistic" is strongly suspect to me. i rather have the "individualism" of the classics of literature and art than the mind numbing and artificial "collectivism" of soviet bureacrats. collective and community bonds cannot be imposed by mere propaganda etc. art expresses the condition of man and if man is alienated and fragmented the art will surely be.

[Robespierres Neck]

Here's Kim Jong-un's first known painting:
http://www.reasonableman.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/korea-portrait04nw_1048361a.jpg

[JoeySteel]

anyone who whines about literature and art being "individualistic" is strongly suspect to me. i rather have the "individualism" of the classics of literature and art than the mind numbing and artificial "collectivism" of soviet bureacrats. collective and community bonds cannot be imposed by mere propaganda etc. art expresses the condition of man and if man is alienated and fragmented the art will surely be.

all i gotta say is you strike me as somebody who has never read a well-known socialist realist novel because that's profoundly ignorant. start with quiet flows the don, then how the steel was tempered, read gorky, etc. the idea that these incredible novels exhibit a forced "collectivism" is outrageous. however not only in the USSR but around the world many of these works DID speak profoundly to "collective and community bonds" and provided a shared revolutionary and proletarian literary vocabulary to tens of millions. the impact of just How the Steel was Tempered on the Chinese people was massive (http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CE4QFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mh.sinica.edu.tw%2FModule%2FU cSysUserUploadFile_Handler.ashx%3FfilePath%3DD%253 A%255C%255CNew_Web%255C%255CFileUpload%255C%255C59 %255C%255CA%2BSoviet%2BHero%252C%2BPaul%2BKorchagi n%252C%2BComes%2Bto%2BChina.pdf&ei=1dSiT-rTC6L46QG9vcDDCA&usg=AFQjCNFjU_IwX3teCvVTIpqJKz4WR2XzCw&sig2=uG8fFcpWBSy_OGXZ8ZRdSg)

you are just rehashing the main refrain of the ultralefts in this thread, that socialist realism is an inorganic, bureaucratically imposed, illegitimate art form, but i have strong doubts whether you are actually familiar with socialist realism.

[Robespierres Neck]

http://img.chinasmack.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/kim-jong-il-propaganda-posters-06-riding-horse-on-mountain.jpg
:laugh:


These one's are pretty well done:
http://www.chinasmack.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/kim-jong-il-propaganda-posters-03-comforting-the-masses.jpg

http://www.chinasmack.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/kim-jong-il-propaganda-posters-05-determination-beside-waves.jpg

http://www.chinasmack.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/kim-jong-il-propaganda-posters-11-smiling-juche-tower.jpg

http://www.chinasmack.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/kim-jong-il-propaganda-posters-12-sunrise.jpg

[Omsk]

but i have strong doubts whether you are actually familiar with socialist realism.

Few of them are.Most base their criticism on propaganda posters,which are designed to be as they described,'partyist'.The literary genius of people who were the most famous Soviet authors will forever remain in memory of thousands of people who actually read the books.There are some great soc-realist novels,some are not so good,but to denounce it as: "Propaganda,"bureaucratic" shows how little they know.

[Tim Finnegan]

How can the content be bourgeois if it depicts class struggle or revolutionaries?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Sans-culotte.jpg/439px-Sans-culotte.jpg

And at least that's halfway well-composed.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'm sorry, I have no idea what to say to this.
There is no basis for your crude distinction between "organic" and "inorganic" in reference to art or human society if that is what you profess to be studying (is there "inorganic" bourgeois art too, or is only the working class movement guilty of this supra-historical category?).No, propaganda posters and revolutionary art are organic - S.R. is organic in relations to soviet society, but inorganic to socialism because it did not develop ORGANICALLY from new relations of production, rather it was the same relations of production in art re-directed and organized FOR the benefit and appreciation of workers supposedly. How can you not see that this is an inorganic way for "working class art" to develop? How can a "true" art be declared and organized rather than just coming into being from the logic of the society itself?

Again and again, your argument is because there was some market research done, and some abstract or anecdotal workers like what was produced, then it's organic to a new worker's society. This is a telling peek into the logic of the USSR - workers are passive consumers who's power in society goes as far as being consulted.

[Omsk]

And at least that's halfway well-composed.

Nice try.Although a second-rate provocateur like you should know better,at least you know how to get things out of the context.

[Tim Finnegan]

Nice try.Although a second-rate provocateur like you should know better,at least you know how to get things out of the context.
I don't see the problem. It's art, it depicts a revolutionary, he is presumably engaged in some sort of class struggle, and it's quite bourgeois. What one of those criteria do you claim that it does not meet?

(Or maybe you just think it's poorly-composed?)


You refer to artistic renderings that are instantly recognizable to all as "Conservative styles"; well, in contrast, the non-conservative styles of art (ie. Abstract expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, etc,) are to this day openly mocked and unabashedly shunned by the working people of my country, in favour of impressionism and other styles that more accurately represent the world as it truly is. I would imagine that this is the case world-wide.
The whole appeal of impressionism is that it doesn't represent the world "as it really is", but as it is experienced; it's essentially perspectivist. So that's pretty shitty judgement on your part.

[Omsk]

You got my comment out of the context.

It was a response to a claim that socialist-realist art is 'bourgeois' - and when i said revolutionaries,i obviously ment socialist revolutionaries,because i doubt Soviet art would include bourgeois revolutionaries.(And the art we were talking about was - obviously,Soviet art.)

[Jimmie Higgins]

Few of them are.Most base their criticism on propaganda posters,which are designed to be as they described,'partyist'.The literary genius of people who were the most famous Soviet authors will forever remain in memory of thousands of people who actually read the books.There are some great soc-realist novels,some are not so good,but to denounce it as: "Propaganda,"bureaucratic" shows how little they know.

The anti-SR side keeps arguing "it's the form that's not socialist, irregardless of the content" and the pro-SR side keeps replying, "You're ignorant, the content is great".

And IMO something can be propaganda and be beautiful. Something can be apolitical and be beautiful and have artistic merit. Have you seen "Soy Cuba?" it's amazing but it's also straight propaganda. Hell a TV ad might be dazzling and innovative. Art can be bourgeois or feudal and be beautiful and meaningful and artful. This is not the point, content and aesthetics can change, the form is the issue.

The problem is mandating what "true" art should do or what kinds of art prols can wrap their tiny little heads around: that's anti-marxist and anti-art.


You got my comment out of the context.

It was a response to a claim that socialist-realist art is 'bourgeois' - and when i said revolutionaries,i obviously ment socialist revolutionaries,because i doubt Soviet art would include bourgeois revolutionaries.(And the art we were talking about was - obviously,Soviet art.)And you don't think it's problematic that you can simply change the colors on a flag in a painting and it goes from being bourgeois art to proletarian art?

[Tim Finnegan]

You got my comment out of the context.

It was a response to a claim that socialist-realist art is 'bourgeois' - and when i said revolutionaries,i obviously ment socialist revolutionaries,because i doubt Soviet art would include bourgeois revolutionaries.(And the art we were talking about was - obviously,Soviet art.)
And the fella depicted in my picture was a san-cullote, not a bourgeois, demonstrating that it is entirely possible to depict plebeian revolutionaries in a bourgeois manner.

[Omsk]

The anti-SR side keeps arguing "it's the form that's not socialist, irregardless of the content" and the pro-SR side keeps replying, "You're ignorant, the content is great".


You,and a couple of other people talked about that.When the thread started,a sea of user's kept writing wrong comments,and claimed that socialist-realist art is rubbish,kitsch,propaganda,"It's about Stalin ergo it's junk" (They proposed the idea that all socialist-realist art is propaganda.) and other silly comments,which i absolutely do not aprove of,and i believe that you share my view.


And IMO something can be propaganda and be beautiful. Something can be apolitical and be beautiful and have artistic merit. Hell a TV ad might be dazzling. Art can be bourgeois or feudal and be beautiful and meaningful and artful. This is not the point, content and aesthetics can change, the form is the problem. The problem is mandating what "true" art should do or what kinds of art prols can wrap their tiny little heads around: that's anti-marxist and anti-art.

It's not about "true-art" and it was not that rigid,it served to promote what is right and the authors were left to experiment,however,after Gorky,and some later authors,a lot of carrierist writers kicked in and decided that it would be much better to just copy the form that was already set up by those before them and to add absolutely no inovation.



And the fella depicted in my picture was a san-cullote, not a bourgeois, demonstrating that it is entirely possible to depict plebeian revolutionaries in a bourgeois manner.


A good attempt,but yet again you fail to see my point - you got it out of the context,and we are talking about content,and not style.

[JoeySteel]

No, propaganda posters and revolutionary art are organic - S.R. is organic in relations to soviet society, but inorganic to socialism because it did not develop ORGANICALLY from new relations of production, rather it was the same relations of production in art re-directed and organized FOR the benefit and appreciation of workers supposedly. How can you not see that this is an inorganic way for "working class art" to develop? How can a "true" art be declared and organized rather than just coming into being from the logic of the society itself?


this is gibberish. again, these categories of "organic" and "inorganic" you created are meaningless. how can you determine whether some aspect of human society and culture is "organic" or "inorganic"? you are the one using language of "true" art which also is scarcely comprehensible. are you arguing that socialist realism did not "come into being from the logic of society itself"? Where else could it come from? Outer space? See why this is nonsense? You do realize that the fact that there were declarations about Socialist Realism in the 1930's does NOT imply that it was declared into existence, or that any of its proponents ever thought it was, right?



Again and again, your argument is because there was some market research done, and some abstract or anecdotal workers like what was produced, then it's organic to a new worker's society. This is a telling peek into the logic of the USSR - workers are passive consumers who's power in society goes as far as being consulted.

Not at all. That's a strawperson. Let's just go to the example of Nikolai Ostrovsky who wrote "How the Steel Was Tempered" as a consummate example and see whether workers are passive consumers. He was born in a working class family, joined the Komsomol at age 17 during the civil war, and was blinded in one eye and severely wounded. Though he became paralysed and mostly blind, he took a university course hoping to write about his own experiences. His first manuscript of the novel was lost in the mail and thought he was devastated, he re-wrote the novel. In the late 1920's no literary journals would publish his writing as his style was rough. Finally in 1932 after a fellow communist friend with literary connections was able to convince someone, the literary magazine The Young Guard began to serialize the novel. But it wasn't until he was interviewed in Pravda in 1935 that his popularity took off and the book became a spontaneous sensation in Soviet society, and was translated into 50 different Soviet languages by Ostrovsky's death in 1936. The book described his transformation as a proletarian youth developing revolutionary consciousness through the revolution and civil war. You really can't get much better examples of the logic of society creating great proletarian art right from the heart of the working class.

[Tim Finnegan]

A good attempt,but yet again you fail to see my point - you got it out of the context,and we are talking about content,and not style.
So am I. The patriotic, flag-waving sancullote is one of the most thoroughly bourgeois archetypes in French culture, despite representing a non-bourgeois class of person. They're the French equivalent of American art depicting rugged cowboys or British art depicting kilted highlanders.

The fact that it's also a pretty bourgeois style just emphasises the point.

[Omsk]

despite representing a non-bourgeois class of person


Well,that does not make the content bourgeois than,does it? The style might be bourgeois,but the content (Ie,militant) is not.That's my point,that there was no bourgeois content in soviet art during the age of socialist-realism.

[Tim Finnegan]

Dear christ, you're thick. http://beaty625.com/smilies/cringe.gif

[Jimmie Higgins]

this is gibberish. again, these categories of "organic" and "inorganic" you created are meaningless. how can you determine whether some aspect of human society and culture is "organic" or "inorganic"? you are the one using language of "true" art which also is scarcely comprehensible. are you arguing that socialist realism did not "come into being from the logic of society itself"? Where else could it come from? Outer space? See why this is nonsense? You do realize that the fact that there were declarations about Socialist Realism in the 1930's does NOT imply that it was declared into existence, or that any of its proponents ever thought it was, right?Sorry, you are correct I wasn't as clear. It's INORGANIC as socialist art, it's totally organic for a beurocratic top-down society that uses the aesthetics of the Russian Revolution while mimicking the form of bourgeois societies. So yes, it's organic to fake socialism, inorganic to a worker's society.


Not at all. That's a strawperson. Let's just go to the example of Nikolai Ostrovsky who wrote "How the Steel Was Tempered" as a consummate example and see whether workers are passive consumers. He was born in a working class family, joined the Komsomol at age 17 during the civil war, and was blinded in one eye and severely wounded. Though he became paralysed and mostly blind, he took a university course hoping to write about his own experiences. His first manuscript of the novel was lost in the mail and thought he was devastated, he re-wrote the novel. In the late 1920's no literary journals would publish his writing as his style was rough. Finally in 1932 after a fellow communist friend with literary connections was able to convince someone, the literary magazine The Young Guard began to serialize the novel. But it wasn't until he was interviewed in Pravda in 1935 that his popularity took off and the book became a spontaneous sensation in Soviet society, and was translated into 50 different Soviet languages by Ostrovsky's death in 1936. The book described his transformation as a proletarian youth developing revolutionary consciousness through the revolution and civil war. You really can't get much better examples of the logic of society creating great proletarian art right from the heart of the working class.So SR allowed for individual working class artists to develop? This whole biography could be a formerly-working class Brit or US writer who tries to get published, writes about his experiences, then gets a job in a publishing house where he makes connections and then is published in the New Yorker where he then get's a book-deal and press and becomes a famous writer.

As for the "true" art vs. "organic" art. 1) Realism in art is a construction, if people have the same social interests, there's less of a need to distinguish one realism from other realism - instead the only differences are realistic vs. fantasy. So in this sense no realism "shows the world as it really is" as is claimed by SR theorists. So it's not "true" in that sense.

It's true and organic to the USSR system, yes. Just not the ORGANICLLY produced art of a socialist society. For this to happen, the forms of art would be much different and we wouldn't see a parody of capitalist relations of artistic producer vs. artistic consumer because the means of artistic production would be socialized. So there might still be one person writing a single work like today, but then the process wouldn't involve trying to find the "right people" who can help you publish something. That's as anachronistic to socialism as a feudal painter trying to find an art-dealer would be. Feudal and capitalist art are totally different in FORM even though in content, someone could make a nativity scene or paint a portrait today.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Well,that does not make the content bourgeois than,does it? The style might be bourgeois,but the content (Ie,militant) is not.That's my point,that there was no bourgeois content in soviet art during the age of socialist-realism.And yet someone COULD paint or write in this style but with bourgoise content. So SR really is just regulations over artistic content then? So then why do you like the style if the only thing unique about SR is the content?

[Omsk]

Dear christ, you're thick.


This was a big misunderstanding.

My original comment which you got out of the context,was against the notion that the content of the Soviet art is bourgeois.

Your answer and all other points that followed are strawmen.


And yet someone COULD paint or write in this style but with bourgoise content. So SR really is just regulations over artistic content then? So then why do you like the style if the only thing unique about SR is the content?

Find me a book that is written in the socialist-realist style but a book of bourgeois content.

[JoeySteel]

Sorry, you are correct I wasn't as clear. It's INORGANIC as socialist art, it's totally organic for a beurocratic top-down society that uses the aesthetics of the Russian Revolution while mimicking the form of bourgeois societies. So yes, it's organic to fake socialism, inorganic to a worker's society.

So SR allowed for individual working class artists to develop? This whole biography could be a formerly-working class Brit or US writer who tries to get published, writes about his experiences, then gets a job in a publishing house where he makes connections and then is published in the New Yorker where he then get's a book-deal and press and becomes a famous writer.

As for the "true" art vs. "organic" art. 1) Realism in art is a construction, if people have the same social interests, there's less of a need to distinguish one realism from other realism - instead the only differences are realistic vs. fantasy. So in this sense no realism "shows the world as it really is" as is claimed by SR theorists. So it's not "true" in that sense.

It's true and organic to the USSR system, yes. Just not the ORGANICLLY produced art of a socialist society. For this to happen, the forms of art would be much different and we wouldn't see a parody of capitalist relations of artistic producer vs. artistic consumer because the means of artistic production would be socialized. So there might still be one person writing a single work like today, but then the process wouldn't involve trying to find the "right people" who can help you publish something. That's as anachronistic to socialism as a feudal painter trying to find an art-dealer would be. Feudal and capitalist art are totally different in FORM even though in content, someone could make a nativity scene or paint a portrait today.

OK, so your whole argument is actually just an argument about how the soviet union doesn't fit your pet definition of socialism, therefore any art it produces cannot be "socialist realism" because it has the word socialist in it, and it's not socialist because you said so. this is why ultra-leftism is hilarious - you are actually positing that if it's hard to get something published (in this case, due to the non-SR artistic prejudices of the 1920's!!), or if not every person can physically make a print run of a book on their own, it cannot be socialism according to your magic definition. do you care to think a bit about the physical requirements of your hallucination in relation to the state of Soviet society in the 1920's or 30's? :laugh: it's the same old story, we're not actually having a conversation about Socialist Realism (because you don't know or care to know anything about it) but about how there is a "true" socialism (which exists in your mind) and a "fake" socialism (which exists in real life and spoils your fun).

edit: Furthermore you seem to be implying that there cannot be a genre of art called socialist realism if there was no socialist society, when nobody was implying that socialist realism existed because the USSR built socialism. SR existed before socialism in the USSR, and before the October revolution, even according to its proponents...

edit2: and if there's no socialist art before socialism, how can there be communists before communism?

[Jimmie Higgins]

OK, so your whole argument is actually just an argument about how the soviet union doesn't fit your pet definition of socialism, therefore any art it produces cannot be "socialist realism" because it has the word socialist in it, and it's not socialist because you said so.No my argument is: this art is not organically socialist art because socialist relations didn't exist in society, if they did exist, then socialist art wouldn't need conscious construction and direction because it would develop ORGANICALLY.


this is why ultra-leftism is hilarious - you are actually positing that if it's hard to get something published (in this case, due to the non-SR artistic prejudices of the 1920's!!), or if not every person can physically make a print run of a book on their own, it cannot be socialism according to your magic definition. I was giving a hypothetical example - I can not know what future art would be produced under different conditions.


do you care to think a bit about the physical requirements of your hallucination in relation to the state of Soviet society in the 1920's or 30's? :laugh: it's the same old story, we're not actually having a conversation about Socialist Realism (because you don't know or care to know anything about it) but about how there is a "true" socialism (which exists in your mind) and a "fake" socialism (which exists in real life and spoils your fun).I was not offering an alternative prescription for socialist art, in fact that would undermine my whole argument which is that such a thing would develop naturally out of the new social conditions of a socialist society.


edit: Furthermore you seem to be implying that there cannot be a genre of art called socialist realism if there was no socialist society, when nobody was implying that socialist realism existed because the USSR built socialism. SR existed before socialism in the USSR, and before the October revolution, even according to its proponents...If artists want to organize THEMSELVES around certain principles or themes they want to explore or aesthetic choices etc, then fine - that's what all conscious art movements have done! But the issue is that art was regulated and directed by the art union and at the same time art was deemed "socialist" or "bourgeois".


[qedit2: and if there's no socialist art before socialism, how can there be communists before communism?There is no issue with art that doesn't proclaim itself to be the most appropriate for the working class. I have no problems with conscious art movements, I think they can produce some exciting work, I have a problem with "official" or "appropriate" art.

For worker's revolution and proletarian art from below! ;)

[fabian]

So... No one knows what's that style used to make the simple posters called?

[Tim Finnegan]

I'd hazard a guess that they fall under the heading of "constructivism". That was the primary avant-garde movement in revolutionary Russia, and they look close enough to the other constructivist stuff I've seen.

[Deicide]

I like Mayakovsky, Gorky, and Becher.


http://www.tretyakovgallery.ru/pictures/a/af/af0aaa17f1114d6d01a379aa49a8a188.jpg

http://rjosephhoffmann.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/lenin.jpeg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NuajfIdF0MA/S-BgN43s4eI/AAAAAAAAAN0/DaoLSLEHLXU/s400/serov-lenin.jpg

http://espressostalinist.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/enver_hoxha_republic_declaration.jpg?w=500&h=346

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/images/unk-serf.jpg

http://apscuf.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/stalin_poster.jpg

http://www.modelgovernment.org/images/great-stalin1.jpg

http://professionalhousegirlfriend.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/stalin-painting.jpg

http://markwadestone.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/stalin_gottwald1.jpg?w=239&h=300

http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/pictures/462xAny/0/1/4/2014_Lenin-and-Stalin-20th-anniversary.jpg

http://www.logoi.com/picture-movies/img/stalin_07.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_LoPTdkHrjjk/SsyYAqDhPII/AAAAAAAAFeY/aTItC1oSUZg/s1600/stalin-applauded-victory-germany-second-world-war-oil-painting.jpg

http://www.soviethistory.org/images/Large/1934/stalin_xvi.jpg

http://www.comtourist.com/images/large/stalin-museum/gori-stalin-painting-01.jpg

http://www.russianavantgard.com/images/manufacturers/86/yuon_lenin_smolny.jpg

http://blogs.artinfo.com/outtakes/files/2011/12/kimjongil-painting_1920x1080-1.jpg

http://espressostalinist.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/07114510.jpg?w=436

http://bookofscorpions.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/albanian-bs-enver-hoxha.jpg

http://albanianpyramids.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/enver_hoxha_1960.jpeg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AXhWXW1FFeA/TDRjgNnb47I/AAAAAAAAJd8/Sbh5viKNBhQ/s1600/stalin+mao.jpg

http://summerinshanghai.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/chairman_mao_visit_guangdong_country.jpg

http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/visual_arts/painting/exhibits/socialist-realism/lenin-village.jpg
Personal favorite of mine.

http://uttaps.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/roses-for-stalin.jpg

You may aswel be a fascist. I hear they have a supreme, infallible leader fetish. You'll fit right in.

[Tim Finnegan]

To be fair, the second-from-last one shows Lenin actually listening to the peasants, rather than just flapping his gob at them. Presumably he's just about to jump in with a forty-minute lecture on the importance of centralised planning or personal hygiene or some fucking thing, but, still, it could be worse.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

You may aswel be a fascist. I hear they have a supreme, infallible leader fetish. You'll fit right in.

Thanks for adding to the conversation, you insecure bourgeois libertarian that pretends to have a proletarian ideology, but the only ideology you really have is the fear of Marxism-Leninism. You always have to attack it like a child.

We are demonstrating art, not worshipping it.

[Bostana]

My Favorite:
http://blog.riskmanagers.us/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/obama_communist_poster-p228677910792026651tdcp_400.jpg


To be serious these posters were really just to get the people going. To tell them to 'Get up for your Revolution'

[Tim Finnegan]

Thanks for adding to the conversation, you insecure bourgeois libertarian that pretends to have a proletarian ideology, but the only ideology you really have is the fear of Marxism-Leninism. You always have to attack it like a child.

We are demonstrating art, not worshipping it.
Out of interest, why is that Stalinists are always really, really bad at insulting people? All they ever seem to manage are stock-denunciations that would only offend another Stalinist. Is there explanation for this particular to Marxism-Leninism as a body of thought, or is just that the sort of person who buries himself (and it is always himself, isn't it?) up to the arsehole in a dead ideology isn't gong to have a sense of humour?

[MustCrushCapitalism]

I quite like genuine socialist realist art that shows everyday proletarian life and that kind of thing, but I'm not really a fan of art that glorifies individuals. The cult of personality that existed in the USSR in Joseph Stalin's time was a problem.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

Some of the original socialist realist novels were ambitious and honest works, like Gorky´s Mother (which I´ve read and like) and How the Steel was Tempered (which I haven´t read). Same can be said of a lot of the early soviet films. They were about showing "the plight and struggles" of the working classes in positive and even heroic light, as well as bringing a positive message in the end about the victory of those struggles (their version of the hollywood happy-ending). I see nothing wrong with this if it´s done in an honest way, even though this art style does not conform to my tastes in general. However, most Socialist realist films from the eastern block I´ve seen (from the 1930´s onwards) are usually very trite, stale and predictable. Even more formulaic than mainstream Hollywood. I don´t reject them because of their ideology, but because they are bad cinema. A positive message is not enough to salvage bad art IMO. It can do more to undermine it´s credibility.
I think it´s safe to say that 90% of the paintings shown in this thread are absurd glorifications of "great leaders". Sorry, but that sure doesn´t redeem socialist realism for it´s sceptics. It reinforces the negative attitudes towards it more than anything.

[El Oso Rojo]

I don't think DADA and expressionist art is bourgeoise, because it have a very leftist history. The artists were associated with the German KPD. Just because the works of Max Beckmann are in a bourgeoise museum. doesn't means the whole gerne is bourgeoise.

As for Max Beckmann, his works are all in St.Louis because he taught at a very Bourgeoise university wash u, where the models are oppress badly.

I dabbel in socialism realism time from time, but i try to be more comptempary with my socialist realist work, I am doing something with SR relating to the gay community. might do a series.

[El Oso Rojo]

I quite like genuine socialist realist art that shows everyday proletarian life and that kind of thing, but I'm not really a fan of art that glorifies individuals. The cult of personality that existed in the USSR in Joseph Stalin's time was a problem.

I think that a problem with all political artwork, Anarchist artwork can be and is just as bad as marxist leninist socialist realism.

That why it hard to do political artwork in General.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Are you stupid or what? I know posters are not socialist realism, I asked if someone knows what style are they.

I believe the posters you posted were earlier Constructivist influenced art from the 1920s, before socialist realism became the official art form of the Soviet Union.

There can be no "official" culture of the working class. the art and culture of all times and epochs-from ancient Babylon, to Lady Murasaki, to Shakespeare, to Bach, to the Kama Sutra are the heritage of the global working class.

Much "socialist realist" poster and painting is kitsch.There was and is a fair amount of this in the US-Norman Rockwell, Thomas Hart Benton were the US versions.Neither country produced deep SR visual art. How many cheesy pictures of Stalin or Mao or Hoxha or Kim or "average Americans of all creeds and colors" saying the "Pledge of Allegiance" or having "Thanksgiving dinner" can one take before the meme dries up?

I feel true art can't be contained, its subversive by definition.Freedom defined is freedom denied, as they say.

The "heroic" SR statues in Russia and China are just silly, in my opinion.

Its more difficult to be reductionist in other art mediums.

SR architecture is more interesting. The "Stalin gothic" buildings in Moscow are interesting,as is the Moscow subway. There is a fair amount of this in the US-WPA buildings from the 1930s are American SR.

I'm not as familiar with SR novels. All Quiet Flows The Don" by Mikhail Sholokhov is SR (I think)and this is a great book and film.

[Koba Junior]

I personally like socialist realism. That being said, the only requirement for socialist art of any kind is that it depicts the human experience honestly and with an awareness of the historically determined development of society.

[ComradeGrant]

Holy shit. I like what I like, you like what you like. How has this gone beyond that?

[Tim Finnegan]

Giant big fuck-off statues off hero-Stalin and demanding that people admire them is going to do that for you.

[Taboo Tongue]

I don't like Lenin, and I don't like Stalin... But I do like high-contrast realistic art. Especially with lots of pretty lighting and shadowing.

One of my favorite paintings has already been posted but here is another:

http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/visual_arts/painting/exhibits/socialist-realism/steel-workers.jpg

And I like many of the statues and what not.

Regardless of what it stood for in the past; what does it say to me in the present?
(I work in a factory with the commodities these people are making, and I like the romanticized view of where my steel came from)