Options for a Marxist-Leninist theory of the aesthetic

E D W A R D M. SWIDERSKI

O P T I O N S F O R A M A R X I S T - L E N I N I S T T H E O R Y

OF THE A E S T H E T I C *

It is a commonplace today to speak about Marxist theories in all domains of public and academic discussion. Marxist theories are identifiable not merely

because the names Marx, Engels, Lenin, et al. crop up in them. More significant in judging the authenticity of these theories is the consistent employment of an entirely characteristic conceptual framework, first elaborated by the

men mentioned, but later developed and extended by their epigoni to subjects about which they betrayed little or no interest. Today, consequently, Marxism- Leninism claims not only that it is a universal doctrine, but that it can justify

this claim by showing that the doctrine can be converted into an equally

universal methodology.

Despite this declared optimism of principles, Soviet theoreticians have

had considerable difficulty in satisfactorily realizing the universal methodolo-

gical postulate. A case in point is that of the aestheticians, who have for some time been struggling to determine whether it is possible to speak unambigu-

ously and unequivocally of an aesthetic which is Marxist-Leninist. In particu-

lar they have become increasingly aware that it is grossly insufficient for an

aesthetic worthy of the name mechanically to couple a worldview to a prob-

lematic employing a battery of concepts developed throughout a tradition

having little or nothing in common with the philosophical thrust and purpose

of Marxism. Recognition of this danger has brought Soviet aestheticians - or

at least certain among them - into closer contact with the phenomena in question. It has also forced some of them to inquire whether their world-view

can be empioyed as a monolithic whole in the identification and articulation of aesthetic phenomena, or whether it must be employed selectively, in part

only, depending on the characteristics of the phenomena themselves. In short, strange as it may sound, Marxist-Leninist aestheticians have in some cases attempted to do more than pin their beliefs on aesthetic phenomena; rather have they been trying to discover whether what is aesthetic has a 'Marxist- Leninist essence'.

Studies in Soviet Thought 20 (1979) 127-143. 0039-3797/79/0202-0127 $01.70. Copyright © 1979 by D, Reidel Publishing Co., Dordrecht, Holland, and Boston, U.S.A.

128 EDWARD M. SWlDERSKI

1. PRACTICE AND THEORY IN THE SOVIET UNION: SOCIALIST CONSTRUCTION

For Soviet aestheticians the problem of the specific character of their disci-

pline is not simply a matter of academic debate; it has a very real foundation,

viz. the social and political realities in the Soviet Union. Soviet aestheticians

are obliged by the Party to participate in the construction of a socialist

culture. 1 This task of contemporary Soviet society is predicated on the ideal that homo sovieticus will be a new man, that, in other words, the

construction of full socialism goes hand in hand with the qualitative trans-

formation of the human species very much for the better. Already at this

present stage of their struggle Soviet theoreticians and ideologues proclaim

that socialist culture is not merely one among many cultures, but that it is by

far superior to non-socialist, i.e. bourgeois capitalist culture.

If we are willing to suspend overhasty evaluations of the Soviets' des-

cription of their contemporary situation, we might instead ask them in

function of what principles they are constructing socialist culture and how

much success they have achieved. The only answer that would do justice to

the history of this process since 1917 would suggest that the Soviets have not been applying a permanent blueprint, but have rather followed a 'trial a n d

error' method of socialist construction. Witness, for example, the iconoclasm of such early movements as the Proletkult which threatened to destroy

centuries-old Russian culture, because it was supposedly the expression of

decadent social classes. Later came the reversal, already heralded by Lenin, according to which socialist society is the repository of the best that mankind has created and which the Proletarian culture must cherish and emulate. So too Party policy in the arts has followed a similar zig-zag course. From ~danov's sweeping condemnations in the late forties of artistic achievements portraying the glories of collective labor to the reevaluations after Stalin's death that led eventually to the official publication of Sol~enicyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovi6, the truths of Socialist Realism have undergone different interpretations, and artists have passed overnight from the status of State heroes to that of reactionary falsifiers and the like.

It would be sheer folly to suppose that such vicissitudes in the Soviet Kulturpolitik repose solely on debates about the meaning and applicability of the Marxist-Leninist credo. On the contrary, for reasons which have been

wholly pragmatic and tactical, i.e. economic and political, the Party has used

MARXIST-LENINIST THEORY OF THE AESTHETIC 129

all the tools at its disposal to cajole, prod and entice citizens to accept the

fact that changes in course at any given moment reflect the true and proper approach to the task of socialist construction. Rather than heralding such changes the theoreticians are called upon by the Party to expound and elaborate the General Line handed down to them, to provide references for

similar policies in the works of the classics, etc. Lest it be thought, however, that the present remarks about the construc-

tion of socialism are purposefully cynical, it should be stressed that it is not at all certain that under the circumstances the Party and the theoreticians could interact differently. The task of socialist construction has very little to rely upon in the way of theoretical principles and rules. What this means will be illustrated by the example of the Marxian analysis of the emergence, and development of art.2

Everyone knows that, according to Marx, socialism will bring the era of human prehistory to a close. What is significant about this doctrine in the present context is that the classical Marxian model of social analysis, viz. the base-superstructure model, is relative to this 'prehistory', i.e. to societies characterized by the existence of private property and the attendant class struggles. The categories which operate in this scheme, e.g. blind determinism, contradiction, revolution, false consciousness, etc. are inoperative in the socialist model of society. The situation of art follows a similar pattern. Art arose in class societies in the course of the division of labor between mental and manual labor which accompanied the emergence of private property. Just as private property deforms social productive relationships as a whole, so too the individual is estranged from the truly creative possibilities of his (social) lab or. In such social circumstances different human activities are not integrated in every individual member of society but rather are separated from one another in specialized compartments, each of which is represented by different social groups - 'professions' - which sometimes even enter into conflict with one another, because of conflicting interests in relation to the dominant mode of production.

Now art falls into this situation, too, although with one important qualifi- cation. It is the one activity in class societies which is expressive of the whole man. Although unaware of the true nature of his activity, the artist alone in class society calls on the entire panoply of human faculties, i.e. on the intellectual, imaginative, volitional, emotive and physical aspects of human existence. For this reason art in class society foreshadows what human activity

130 EDWARD M. SWIDERSKI

as a whole will become under socialism, viz. creative activity expressive of the entire wealth of the human being free from constraint and physical need. Socialist man will be homo aestheticus. 3

This philosophical-anthropological analysis of art poses a curious problem for those who are concerned with the course of socialist construction. For even if Lenin was correct about the appearance of proletarian culture already in the decadent capitalist system, the situation of the proletariat in relation to the means of production under capitalism does not enable it to realize the reintegration of human activities in the way envisaged above. Hence, in class society the proletariat can at best do no more than use conventional artistic forms to express its ideal of the integrated human being in classless society. Proletarian art under similar circumstances is not, strictly speaking, new art; rather, it is the means whereby the proletariat ideally transcends the actual dehumanizing circumstances. Once the revolution has transpired, social reality and the ideal will have become one, the integration of the personality and society will have been achieved. Dialectically, therefore, all activity henceforth becomes artistic in the sense defined above and art as a specialized profession of a privileged minority ceases to exist. 4 Hence the force of the paradoxical slogan: 'Art is dead, long live art'. s

In the light of these remarks the problem for Soviet theoreticians is not to know which policy to promulgate in order to construct socialism. The problem is that there is need of a policy at all, something still to be realized, a determinate direction to be followed. It is perhaps a controversial point whether Marx's class-conscious proletarian in dying capitalism and the yet to be created Soviet socialist man should or should not be the 'same' man. In any case, by the admission of the Party itself, homo aestheticus is still an ideal toward which homo sovieticus is striving. The Marxists-Leninists find themselves in a situation altogether left out of account by Marx and of little immediate consequence for the earliest Soviet leadership, intent on con- solidating its grasp on the political structure. In short, the present Soviet man is neither a vestige of the capitalist mentality nor the fully integrated self- governing, non-egotistical personality. It is here, in this doctrinally anomalous transitional stage, that error-prone plans and policies are required. It is here too that Soviet aestheticians have struggled to elaborate the meaning and tasks of their discipline.


2. SOCIALIST REALISM AND THE PHILOSOPHICAL FRAMEWORK OF AESTHETICS

One of the best known measures adopted by Soviet policy-makers in this period of uncertitudes outlined in the foregoiing paragraphs is the doctrine of Socialist Realism. 6 Promulgated in 1934 it came at a moment when Stalin was busy committing the Soviet people to draconian measures designed to bring about socialism in one country. Though said officially to be the method of artistic creation, it should not be supposed that Socialist Realism had a sense

and purpose destined to apply to artists alone. It was rather the ideological program of education instantiated with appropriate reformulations at all levels of social and cultural life. The model proposed is roughly the following one.

Homo sovieticus can become a reality only if the transitional socialist culture has got rid of the ideological mystifications rampant in the bourgeois

social consciousness. To guarantee this ideological purity three conditions must be respected. 7 First, socialist culture must spring from the spirit of the

people as a whole. But, second, because of its situation vis-~-vis still existing hostile class forces the people must continue to maintain its militant class- consciousness, thereby remaining sure of its specific interests and its role as the emancipator of humanity. Third, in this frame of mind cultural activity must satisfy the interests of the masses as these are given form and expressed

by the Party, which is the receptacle of true knowledge about the historical mission of the working class and the symbol of the goal of socialist construction. The satisfaction of these conditions guarantees that socialist culture is not only progressive, i.e. in tune with the tempo and tenor of socialist economic construction, it is above all realist in character, i.e. it reflects and typifies the increasingly perfect appropriation through collective labor of the natural and social laws of development.

Quite evidently, the purpose of cultural activity defined in this manner (the expression and typification of the objective laws and conditions of collective labor) is precisely the 'education' of the newly forming socialist consciousness and personality. The combination of realism with the typification of natural and social laws immediately suggests the existence of objective criteria for measuring the successful, the true realization of any social project. Nothing else is required to uphold an authority structure which is in possession of these criteria and can therefore evaluate the progress of social education and integration.


This model of cultural activity in transitional socialism received its comple- ment in the Marxist-Leninist philosophy (diamat and histomat), codified by Stalin himself not very long after the promulgation of Socialist Realism. This philosophy provided the framework in which the central categories of Socialist Realism - such as 'realism' and 'law' - received their full clarification. As such, therefore, this philosophy afforded the publicly discernible criteria for judging the effectiveness of social projects launched by the Party.

Taken as a whole, dialectical and historical materialism project a view of the world which can be characterized in the following sweeping terms. It is a view which is: monistic (materialist), cosmocentric, determinist, scientistic, economistic and collectivist. The cosmos is a hierarchical whole governed by developmental laws. Humanity was a relatively late product in the developmental process; it began its emergence as the result of tile complexification of matter into the epiphenomenal form of psychic life and continued it in the social form of matter's development wherein the properly human consciousness took shape. The history of humanity is an extension of natural evolution. Man is related to his environment through 'reflection', which is both a property of matter as a whole, involving universal interaction, and the specific form of human cognition, a fact which Lenin described in his copy theory of knowledge. In this model the realism and laws referred to in the doctrine of Socialist Realism are explained scientistically: humanity gives expression to and acts in accordance with universal structural and developmental laws of matter of which it itself is a product. Fully developed socialist man would come to do purposefully and without obstacles and constraints what nature

has so far accomplished 'blindly'. It was with this formidable ideological and philosophical edifice in mind

that Soviet aestheticians sought over the years to construct a model of artistic activity and the reception of art suitable for the high standards of men in socialist society. In the first place, it was evident that art would have the obli- gation to instruct man in some specific way about the world and humanity's role in it. Given the nature of consciousness as such, it was out of the question that artistic cognition could have some non-cognitive, purely aesthetic function independent of the laws of material reflection. In the second place, artistic consciousness in particular and aesthetic consciousness in general are always directed to real material objects, to objects existing in space and time and subject to causal interconnections. Eliminated from consideration are views which place the object of artistic cognition in the artist's mind or make


it the product of t'ds fantasy, s Artistic consciousness can only reflect objects

which are structurally and qualitatively transcendent to it. Hence, the im-

portant category in the analysis of art is content, what art is about, while artistic form, the organization of the content, is derived from the content. Taken literally, this overall view entailed the conclusion, that if artistic consciousness is possible at all, then this is because it is called into being, univo-

cally determined by objectively existing material objects which are intrinsically aesthetic in nature. Without such an object art would be inexplicable in this

framework, it would be a pointless and literally absurd. Curiously enough, however, even though this conclusion seems evident on

the basis of the rigid premisses sketched above, it was not immediately drawn

by Soviet aestheticians. And once it was explicitly spelled out it became the

cause of heated debates among them. In fact, the history of Soviet aesthetics

more or less after Stalin's death has been characterized by a number of attempts to come to grips with the consequences of this conclusion.

3. FROM 'VULGAR GNOSEOLOGISM' TO THE 'AESTHETIC APPROPRIATION OF REALITY'

To assert on the basis of the foregoing premisses that to be explicable and

possible at all art must reflect an intrinsically aesthetic object, presupposes

an answer to the question: what makes art art? What is it that guarantees that

what is conventionally labelled a work of art has the right to answer to that

description? And for that matter why must it be that art has to have an

aesthetic rather than, say, a scientific or moral character instead? In whatever

way such questions are finally resolved, it remains true that to assert that art

must have a wholly specific aesthetic object to reflect supposes in fact that one already knows what the aesthetic as such is and that everything standard- ly identified as art does satisfy certain altogether definite aesthetic conditions

in order to be art. Otherwise aesthetics would languish in arbitrary dogma-

tism; every artist would have to rely on his own devices. Socialist construction would not advance beyond inspired pronouncements and exhortations.

When in the middle fifties certain bold younger aestheticians raised these questions Soviet aesthetics was rocked to its foundations. 9 Moreover, because

the so far accepted doctrines rested on the Procrustean bed of the officially sanctioned world-view, these startling questions risked having repercussions beyond their immediate context.


It is from this period that the debates about the so-called 'specific object and methods'l° of Soviet aesthetics can be dated. Basically, these debates came down to choosing either to maintain apriori the conceptual framework described in the preceding paragraphs as the only correct methodology of aesthetics, regardless of any difficulties, or to attend directly to the phenomena themselves, eventually at the expense of this conceptual framework.

Soviet philosophy has all too often been marred by the impossibility of carry- ing on such a dialectical debate which would permit the existing conceptual

scheme to adapt and to undergo modifications for internal and external reasons. But the changes in the social and political climate after Stalin's death suddenly opened the possibility of just such a debate. An additional factor was the first Russian translation in 1956 of Marx's youthful writings, including the now celebrated Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.11 On the authority of Marx himself and in connection with the de-Stalinization campaign it became conceivable to approach aesthetic phenomena from a considerably modified perspective. The upshot of all these circumstances was that the heretofore unshakeable monolith of the Marxist-Leninist world-view began to teeter under the influence of revivifying 'revisionistic' tendencies.12

Ironically, this process got under way as an effort to save rather than to dismantle orthodoxy. Certain critics noted that the reigning conception of art since the thirties had stressed realism without bothering to provide any explanation how in this regard art differed from science and philosophy. 13 'Vulgar gnoseologism', as the criticized conception came to be called, em- broiled itself at worst in 'subjectivist formalism' or at best in an aestheticaUy sterile 'illustrationism'. As long as the content of art was not construed as reflecting something intrinsically aesthetic, art's aesthetic substance could only come from the form arbitrarily imposed by the artist on any random, aesthetically indifferent reality. But such a conception was tantamount to idealism pure and simple. Most frequently, however, the 'vulgar gnoseologists' even failed to pretend to be aestheticians. Art was no more than the illus- tration of the principles of the Marxist-Leninist world-view and Soviet reality by means of academic techniques sanctioned by the political commissars. Stripped to its essentials this 'aesthetic' advocated an equally 'vulgar' sociolo- gism which reduced art in any form, including the socialist variety, to its 'class equivalent' (Plekhanov).

As it turned out, however, the critics of these vulgarities created more problems than they resolved. Their defense of the orthodox philosophical


framework coupled with their sudden concern for the 'specificity of the

aesthetic' led them to a position which can be described as 'realism to a fault'.

Their arguments set out originally along the following lines: Whereas the

Western aesthetic tradition had come to distinguish the aesthetic qualities of

art from those of nature, natural beauty in particular, the new Soviet con-

ception seemed to suggest, by contrast, that these two dimensions of the

aesthetic are essentially related, that art draws its aesthetic substance from the depiction of natural aesthetic qualities, which are more primary in the

order of being. Thus, instead of analyzing a beautiful painting in artistic terms (e.g. by studying its form) this approach would have it that the beauty of the painting derives wholly from the intrinsic beauty of the depicted object. 14

Just how far Soviet aestheticians were from according any autonomy to

art can be brought out by the following considerations. Suppose that besides the beautiful nature also contains what might be called 'negative' aesthetic

qualities, such as e.g. the ugly, the base, etc. On the grossly mimetist Soviet conception of art, it would follow that, if a work of art depicted an aestheti-

cally ugly or base object, it would itself have to be qualified as aesthetically

ugly, base, and so on. Because on this view the aesthetic quality of the artistic

content is entirely relative to the aesthetic qualities of the depicted object,

there would exist absolutely no justification for saying that a given work of

art had, for instance, beautifully depicted the ugly or base object. The only criteria of depiction which Soviet aestheticians had at hand came from

extraneous sources, viz. from philosophy, viz. the Leninist reflection or copy theory, and science, neither of which could say anything particularly relevant

about the specificity of art inrelation to aesthetic qualities. All in all, there-

fore, despite their intentions in the name of realism, the aestheticians had

actually deprived themselves of contact with art, and they further complicated

matters by introducing natural aesthetic qualities into their discussion.

It would seem evident that the only way out of this impasse was to return

a measure of autonomy to art as an aesthetic phenomenon in its own right.

Artistic content would have to be more than a passive reflection of a non- artistic aesthetic object or quality; the aesthetic substance of art could not

possibly come from outside art, but would have to be a characteristic sui generis of art itself. However, as evident as this solution seems in the present context, it simply seemed to run into difficulties vis-h-vis the Marxist-Leninist philosophical framework. For, according to this framework, artistic consciousness had differentiated itself in the course of human history when thanks to


their increasingly effective labor men mastered their blind and instinctual

needs and began to confront nature in its objective forms and determinations.

In the light of the conclusion drawn earlier it would therefore seem that the

aesthetic consciousness could be no more than the particular human response

to specific objective circumstances in which man discovers aesthetic features

of reality.

And so it was that certain readers of Marx's thus far suspect youthful writ-

hags came upon an interesting idea which at that moment they were able to

express without risking adverse consequences. Instead of concentrating on the

apparently unbridgeable chasm between natural aesthetic qualities and art,

why not suggest that art and its object have a common essence, i.e. that they

both exemplify the same aesthetic quality or qualities? Instead of tenaciously

adhering to a fruitless epistemological interpretation of artistic content, might it not be more illuminating to concentrate on artistic activity qua activity, i.e. as a special form of human activity in general? There is nothing astonishing

about this proposal since, on one hand, it is a dogma of Marxism that humanity establishes its fundamental reflective tie with nature through activity

- labor or practice as the Marxists prefer to call it. And, on the other hand, the aestheticians who fell upon this idea drew support from a classical view of art in modern European aesthetics. It had after all been a tradition to maintain

that in comparison with other human activities art was gratuitous. It was

not a directly practical activity, it served no tangible purpose like satisfying

hunger. For this reason art had often been considered a disinterested, detached

activity; it appeared to be an autotelic phenomenon. In combining this

traditional view of art with their own doctrine concerning the central role of practice in shaping human existence, certain Soviet aestheticians suggested

that art should be construed as the very expression, and in this sense as the

reflection, of human acitivity as such once it had become purposeful activity,

i.e. from the moment humanity had begun to master, to 'appropriate ' its world.

Note that while this conception continues to uphold the traditional concern for the cognitive dimension of art insofar as art is about something (viz.

human activity), it overcomes the passivity of earlier Soviet conceptions. For like its object art is now seen as above all an activity and not just as the

product of activity - not as something static, reified, detached from its

origins and yet requiring a clarification as to how it can point beyond itself, objectively represent, depict other realities. However, unlike other activities


in which man expresses himself through the intermediary of an object whose

'laws' he must respect to realize his own ends, art has no other object than human self-expression as such manifested in any and every activity.16

Tempting though this model might be for the Marxist-Leninist, it could

not be sanctioned until it had explicitly resolved the problem that had brought

the previous conception to grief, viz. the problem of the aesthetic. It re-

mained to be determined just what exactly was intrinscially aesthetic about human activity, and in what sense artistic activity was the quintessence of the

aesthetic in human life and therefore 'reflected' it. If no satisfactory answer was forthcoming, the proponents of this conception risked being identified

as 'subjectivists' - for aberrantly imposing an arbitrary form, a subjective meaning, on a wholly objective process.

The proponents of this new conception did not so much resolve these questions in a final and effective way as isolate key factors that had to be taken into account in a satisfactory Marxist theory of the aesthetic.

According to the new conception, every human activity was a social ac-

tivity, because it involved the satisfaction of needs and the creation of new ones on the basis of the degree and nature of social interdependence. New

needs required not only the reorganization of the social milieu, they also

entailed that the objects and processes of nature subject to human activity

took on different senses and functions in relation to one another and to social

practice, depending on the structure of the latter at a given historical point.

Increasingly, brute nature was absorbed into the social whole as the latter

became more complex and refined due to the elaboration of activities intended

to satisfy new needs. It seemed senseless to speak of a hard and fast distinc-

tion between nature and society, nature and culture, since all the 'terms' had

been intermediated, each had been transformed in its contact and initial opposition to the other. In this sense, therefore, as men had become 'human',

natural being had been dialectically transformed into social - not sociological - being.

This analysis of humanity's interaction with nature, inspired by Marx's

youthful philosophy, was designed to show that every activity, regardless of its purpose and degree of sophistication, carried a certain residue of meaning which could not be explained solely by reference to that activity itself. This residue was the pure social sense of all activity, in that all activities acquired their meaning and function in the process of the division of labor through which men became interdependent. In their activity, therefore, men left this


social sense of their activities as a trace, indeed as a property in all objects

absorbed into the social system. Essentially, what these properties were from

moment to moment was the expression of the stage humanity had attained

in its progress toward complete freedom from physical necessity, and hence

the freedom to constitute the world solely in function of socio-human ideals.

The aestheticians in question here simply proposed to identify this social

sense and ideal deposited in every object o f human concern as the essence o f

the aesthetic. 17 In relation to the aesthetic thus conceived, art was but the

(non-practical) activitity destined to capture the essence of all human activity,

to bring to attention the fact that man is tending toward full freedom in the

constitution of a wholly human world. The world itself became conceived as

humanity's artistic masterpiece. It is not difficult to perceive behind this proposal the aforementioned Marxian ideal of the homo aestheticus. What

better logic indeed than to transpose this ideal of socialist construction into the 'object' of art! For, as we have seen, once he exists homo aestheticus

will realize the artistic function in all his activity; like the idea that grips the masses and bears them toward its own realization, art too will disappear when

it changes reality.

Basically, we are at the end of this survey of the possibilities for a Marxist- Leninist aesthetics. For today most Soviet aestheticians agree that the aesthe-

tic appropriation of reality is the philosophical foundation of their discipline.

However, contemporary formulations shy away from certain excessive original

formulations which they ascribe to uncritical usage of Marx's early ideas.

Vestiges of Hegelianism and Feuerbachian anthropologism in Marx seem to

make it necessary to read his initial philosophical notions in light of his mature system. 18

Today the notion of the social mediation of nature is not given the quasi-

ontological status it received in the initial formulation of the aesthetic appro-

priation of reality. Individuals are not said to perceive reality qua social being, but the world, material reality insofar as it has been subjected to rational human designs and purposes. The evolution of human needs and the constitu-

tion of objects that satisfy them are not processes which become detached from their natural foundation; nature continues to determine the possibilities

of human action and the latter is effective only if it respects nature's laws. Clearly, this conception is much closer to the classical Soviet view of man's place and role in the cosmos (today the conception goes under the name

'scientific-t echnological revolution').


What, then, does it mean to speak about the aesthetic appropriation of

reality in the light of this reaffirmation of the traditional philosophical frame-

work? The answer is simply that in this fundamental tie with reality men

constitute and realize values. Since the early sixties awareness has been grow-

ing that what was once considered in Soviet philosophy as a trapping of

idealism can provide the category necessary to draw together Marxist philos-

ophy as a system and the insights gained about man's active role vis-a-vis

nature. 19 Though the issue is not without its controversial aspects, Soviet

philosophers like to think of values as neither 'objective' nor 'subjective', but

as 'relational' ('dialectical') phenomena5 ° Roughly, a value is said to arise in

the socially mediated nexus of an individual's contact with nature. What is

now called a value is nothing other than the social sense referred to above,

but with this difference that it is neither a deposit in things nor, of course, a

content of the subject.

This model of value relies mutatis mutandis on Marx's conception of un-

alienated production. The previous conception of aesthetic appropriation as

transformation had been too objectivistic, too ontological in character.

As such it recalled what Marx had said about commodity production and

fetishism: there the individual had no role in realizing the 'social content '

embodied in things. Artistic activity was not, strictly speaking, the activity of

an individual, but of the alienated system of social relations. The individual

could do no more than 'reflect' cultural deposits in things over which he had

no control even though he had participated in their creation.

The introduction of the category of value next to that of social practice

was designed to make room for the individual. It is worth stressing this point,

for it shows that Soviet theoreticians had come a long way toward over-

coming their virtually paralyzing fear of anything 'subjective' as 'non-objec-

tive', 'false', 'mystified' - 'idealistic' in their sense of that term. Of course,

the individual is still the 'ensemble of the social relations' and the values are

the fruit of collective activity which respects the conditions and limits of

rational activity imposed by material reality. But values are now said to

require individuals to activate, realize them in human life. No longer do

Soviet aestheticians insist that, e.g. as yet undiscovered treasures of antiquity

must possess objective beauty just because we know today that ancient

society expended labor on them and thereby left a trace of its ideal of human

freedom. Without appreciation and evaluation, i.e. without individual aesthetic

experiences, nothing aesthetic is constituted, even if objects do have some


real axiological potential. 21 In the context of the Marxist-Leninist construc-

tion of socialism the great prerogative, the responsibility of the individual in

socialist society is to possess a secure knowledge of the criteria by which to

recognize in the history of culture the genuine values indicative of humanity's

social essence.

4. CONCLUSION

It is debatable whether Soviet aestheticians have resolved anything by putting

their collective finger on value as the locus of the aesthetic. For instance, it is

difficult to escape the impression that it is completely arbitrary to identify the social ideal of a human world as an aesthetic rather than, say, an ethical value. 22 However, in concrete terms the relationist conception of value has in

principle opened the door to extensive empirical and historical investigations which could prove to be fruitful and tie in with the results of research carried

on outside the 'socialist camp'. For, since an aesthetic value is a relational phenomenon, involving the interaction of a subject and an object in a socio-

cultural context, it is essential for an aesthetics conceived in this fashion to

study all the conditions to be satisfied by both relata in their interaction. For

once in Soviet philosophy a philosophical-speculative axiom does not stand in the way of genuine research carried out with reliable methods, but, on the

contrary, appeals to the findings of such research on a very wide front.

Since the mid-sixties there have been a number of innovations in the

methodology of aesthetics which have been intended to ally aesthetics with

both the 'exact' and other 'human' sciences. Most in evidence, perhaps, is the

rehabilitation of structural investigations in the style of Formalists in the twenties and the consideration of the results of the various Kunstwissen-

schaften. 23 There is a great deal of talk about the applicability of semiotics,

information theory, systems theory, etc. to the aesthetic as a phenomenon involving a series of discrete and heterogeneous elements in interaction. 24

Empirical psychology in the Soviet Union is concentrating much attention on aesthetic perception and creativity. Sociological methods (e.g. statistical evidence) have been pressed into service by the aestheticians to assist studies of aesthetic taste and evaluation in contemporary Soviet life. 2s Indeed, it is

ironic that in comparison with these and other developments in methodology philosophical axiology has received little development. It may be that ideologists, philosophers and aestheticians alike have purposefully left axiology in

MARXIST-LENINIST T H E O R Y OF THE A E S T H E T I C 1,41

this relatively undeve loped state. For it is arguable that the so-called relational

theory o f value says m u c h less than at first sight it appears to say. Under the

banner o f values which take form in the in teract ion o f the socially media ted

subject and the socially meaningful world any philosophical , historical, socio-

logical, etc. con ten t can be passed o f f wi thou t affect ing the fundamenta l

no t ion o f relat ionali ty. Thus the ideologists can breathe easily, assured that

their treasure is not a museum curiosi ty, because it cont inues to furnish the

trappings to a research ident i f ied as Marxist-Leninist by its geopoli t ical

si tuation. And in such circumstances the serious researcher is less likely to

run into ideological obstacles and closed doors so long as he allows for the

t ranslat ion of his findings, or at least their conclusions, into the rhetor ic o f

the Par ty ideologue and of the Marxist-Leninist phi losophy as a whole.

Fribourg

NOTES

A paper read at a meeting of the Seminar for Austro-German Philosophy, organized in conjunction with the British Society for Aesthetics and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Nash House, London, on March 11, 1978, and having as its theme: 'The Philosophy, Literature and Arts of Austria-Hungary'. 1 The interested reader will come across innumerable passages exhorting aestheticians in this direction in such works as Marksistska]a-leninskaja estetika, M., MGU, 1973, especially Part 5 : 'The aesthetic culture of socialist society'. 2 What follows is, to say the least, a reconstruction of Marx's views on art which does not find explicit textual conftrmation in his writings. However, there is a tradition tending in this sense which began with M. Lifgic's essay The Philosophy of Art of Karl Marx, first published in Russian in 1933, translated in 1938 for the Critics Group, New York, and republished by Pluto Press, London, 1973. 3 The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and the German Ideology supply the basis for this interpretation. According to texts scattered throughout the former, man in his labor reproduces nature to suit his human needs according to his knowledge of the 'laws of beauty', i.e. all activity takes its measure from a standard which unites man and nature through man's creative appropriation. In the German Ideology Marx is very explicit about the function of art in relation to the 'whole' man: 'In a communist society there are no painters, but at most men, who, among other things, also paint". 4 Marcuse wrote along these lines as follows. "In Marxian theory, this antagonism [between man's essence and his existence] is an historical fact, and is to be resolved in a society which reconciles the existence of man with his essence by providing the material conditions for the development of all human faculties. If and when this has been a- chieved, the traditional basis of art would have been undermined - through the realization of the content of art. Prior to this historical event, art retains its critical cognitive


function: to represent the still transcendent truth, to sustain the image of freedom against a denying reality. With the realization of freedom, art would no longer be a vessel of the truth." Soviet Marixism, A Critical Analysis, New York, 1958, p. 130. s Lifgic, op. cit. p. 116. 6 For the appropriate historical data cf. Herman Ermolaev, Soviet Literary Theories 191 7-1934. The Genesis o f Socialist Realism, Berkeley and Los Angeles, Univ. of Cali- fornia Press, 1963. A good systematic exposition and analysis of Socialist Realism is found in C. V. James, Soviet Socialist Realism. Origins and Theory, London, Macmillan, 1973.

The following is a restatement of the content of the three concepts: narodnost' (people-ness), klassovost' (class-ness), partijnost' (partyminded-ness), all of which received their initial formulation in Lenin's analysis of Russian popular culture in the nineteenth century. s These two conditions lie at the heart of Soviet criticisms of contemporary bourgeois aesthetics. For a recent example of these criticisms cf. Ju. Borer, Kritika sovremennych bur'Iuaznyeh esteti~eskich koneepcij, M., Vy~. ~kola, 1977. 9 It would appear that more than anyone else A. I. Burov is responsible for this situation; cf. his book Esteti~eskaja suf~nost' iskusstva, M., Iskusstva, 1956. The discussion that arose as a result of his theses divided aestheticians into two groups: the 'societalists' (obf~estvennikO whose spokesman was L. N. Stolovig, and the naturists (prirodniki), led by N. A. Dmitrieva and A. I. Egorov. lo The specificity in question actually involved two factors: (1) the specificity of artistic cognition in relation to science and philosophy, hence an epistemological problem, and (2) the problem of genesis, i.e. the differentiation of an aesthetic/artistic consciousness in the course of humanity's evolution, a question investigated in histomat. Soviet philosophy has had no small difficulty combining these two dimensions. 11 Karl Marks i Friclrix Engel's: Iz rannyx proizvedenii, M., 1956. 12 It is a curious coincidence that just at this time Soviet ideologues were engaged in decrying as falsifications interpretations of the young Marx that had sprung up especially in Germany (e.g. Their, Hommes) and France (e.g. Calvez) and which found echoes among E. European Marxists (e.g. Kotakowski in Poland). 13 The reigning conception opposed art to philosophy and science by insisting on a distinction between thinking in concepts (science and philosophy) and thinking in images (art). The latter, which is still maintained whatever the changes since the thirties, is an amalgamation of Hege!, Belinskij and Lenin. 14 In fact, only Burov (op. cir.) came close to maintaining this position, and not without ambiguities and inconsistencies. If it is true, however, that the controversy between the societalists and the naturists took form as a result of Burov's opinions, the conception set forth here was indeed a sort of foil with which the aestheticians in question grappled. is The aestheticians involved were, among others: L. N. Stolovi~, V. V. Vanslov, I. I. Gol'dentricht, L. N. Pagitnov, Ju. Borer, et al. 16 These remarks should not be understood in such a way as to suggest that Soviet aestheticians began to construe artistic activity as a completely autonomous mode of human self-expression. Artistic activity is not the 'sUbject and object' of art. 1 7 , , . . . the natural qualities of objects, things, phenomena emerge as the form of their aesthetic properties, whereas the social significance, the social sense of these things, objects, phenomena, objectively formed in the course of socio-historieal practice, emerges

M A R X I S T - L E N I N I S T T H E O R Y OF THE A E S T H E T I C 143

as the content of aesthetic properties." L. N. Stolovi?, Esteti~eskoe v dejstvitel'nosti i v iskusstve, M., 1959, pp. 41 -42 . "Aesthetic qualities are natural according to their immediate being, in the sense that they are material, sensible, dependent on the stuff of nature, its properties and laws. But they are social according to their essence, for they express marl, the traits and properties formed by his society; they objectively correspond to one side or another of his activity." V. V. Vanslov, Problema prekrasnogo, M., Iss- kusstvo, 19, 57, p. 59. 18 In 1963-1964 the leading philosophical and literary journals (Voprosy filosofii. Filosofskie naukL Voprosy literatury) conducted forums on the 'esteti~eskoe question' and found the societalists to be guilty of subjectivist tendencies. 19 Axiology began to develop even while the esteti~eskoe controversy was under way. In fact, credit goes to V. P. Tugarinov, who in 1960 published O cennostfach Zizni i kul'tury, L. LGU. 2o The expression 'relational' or 'relationism' is not employed by the Soviets, who prefer such elocutions as 'dialectical', but by their Polish conf~res, e.g., S. Morawski and B. Dziemidok. W. Tatarkiewicz employs the expression in his history of aesthetics to designate such positions as Aquinas' on the nature of the beautiful (Cf. Estetyka Sred- niowieczna, Wroctaw-Krakdw, Ossolineum, 1960, p. 281ff.). 21 Two somewhat differing but very official positions in this question are found in M. S. Kagan's Lekcii po marksistsko-leninskoj estetiki, L. LGU., 1963/1971, and L. Stolovi~'s Priroda esteti~esko] cennosti, M., Politizdat, 1972. 22 This question is complicated by the 'whole-man' doctrine where it is not clear if the distinctions between ethical and aesthetic dimensions, etc. have any place. 23 Of particular prominence is the Tartu school under the leadership of J. Lotman, whose Struktura chudo~estvennogo teksta has been translated in the West. z4 A good picture of the developments in this regard is to be found in Birjukov and GeUer: Kibernetika v gumanitarnych naukach, M., Nauka, 1973 and in To~nye metody v issledovanijach kul'tury i iskusstva, c. 1 -3 , M., 1971. 25 The amalgamation of all these investigations goes under the name 'kompleksnyf- sistemnyf podchod' (complex-systems approach) which is philosophically grounded in the dialectical laws.

Options for a Marxist-Leninist theory of the aesthetic

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