Social Scientist

Marxian Aesthetics and People's Democratic MovementAuthor(s): Malini BhattacharyaSource: Social Scientist, Vol. 8, No. 5/6, [Marxism and Aesthetics] (Dec., 1979 - Jan., 1980), pp.80-90Published by: Social ScientistStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3520277 .

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MALINI BHATTACHARYA

Marxian Aesthetics and People's Democratic A4ove?nent

IN his article, "Two Tactics of Social Democracy", Lenin intro- duces the concept that the "'oinly force capable of gaining a decisive victory over tsarism" is the proletariat and the peasantry as well as the rural and urban petty bourgeoisie who are distributed among these two "main, big forces". Their victory would result in the establishment of the "revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry."1 The implications of this posi- tion are carried to their logical conclusion by Mao Zedong. He asserts that the first step towards a proletarian-socialist dictator- ship cannot any longer be the establishment of a capitalist society under bourgeois dictatorship; it must rather be the "establishment of a new-democratic society under the joint dictatorship of all Chiinese revolutionary classes headed by the Chinese proletariat.'" He describes these revolutionary classes as the "people", that is, the proletariat and its allies-the peasantry, the army, the labour- ing masses of urban petty bourgeoisie and petty bourgeois intellec- tuals.3

"Joint dictatorship" and "headed by the proletariat" are the key plhrases. They help us to focus the problem that Marxian aesthetics confronts in the context of people's democratic move- ments. The followinig incident illustrates the point. During the

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DEMIOCRATIC MOVEMENT 81

emergency proclaimcd by the Indira Ganidhi government in 1975, steel workers in the West Bengal- Bihar border were on strike. The management tried to break the strike by bringing in blacklegs from the adjacent rural areas. But the rural people would not oblige the management because of the earlier organizational work there. rhe resulting tension led to the murder of a political worker who had been activc in the rural areas, by the henchmen of the inanagement. Because of the energency it was niot possible to or- ganize a mass meeting. But on the mnorning of the sraddlba (obseques for the dead) large numbers of people, each carrying his own food, turned up spontaneously from the adjacent areas to show their respect to the dead so that the sraddlha itself took the character of a mass meeting.

Worker-Peasant Alliance Two significant points are to be noted here: 1) the forging

of alliance between the rural masses and the industrial workers and 2) the possibility of turning traditional social and cultural for- mations into a political event. On the one hand, one finds a revo- lutionary content in popular consciousness which provides the basis for joint struggle. On the othier hand, it emphasizes th-e element of communal participation within traditional social and cultural formations which miglht aid in their revolutionization. The inci- dent has other implications also, for example, spontaneity of people's participation. But one should not lose sight of the fact that this spontaneity was not something inherent, but was deve- loped as a result of organizational work in the area. It developed, in other words, as a resuilt of political intervention. Yet the sraddha was not just a facade for such intervention; it was a genuine com- munal experience based on religious tradition iwhich developed into its own opposite, that is, a communal experience based on political reality as a result of intervention.

Marxian intervention represents the class interest of the proletariat. Just as this might be different from the immediate nterest of the individual proletarians, it might also go beyond the minimum common programme the proletariat shares with its allies -a programme which may not be specifically socialistic. Thus in China, the new-democratic front was an anti-imperialist, anti- feudal one, reinforced by the sporadic participation even of the Chinese national bourgeoisie. But the Chinese Communist Party, rep- resenting the Chinese proletariat, sought to retain a firm hold over anti-imperialist, anti-feudal movements while guiding them in the direction of socialism. Mao Zedong says: "New-democratic politics,

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economy and culture all contain a socialist element, which is not casual but decisive, because they are under the leadership of the proletariat. But, viewed as a whole, the political, economic and cultural conditions are not yet socialist but new-democratic."4 That is, at this stage, communist ideology is to be popularized, but not implemented as a programme; the communist outlook and method are to be applied to educational and ideological problems but not pursued as a national policy.

Of course. there are certain non-socialist and non-commu- nist characteristics in the expectations of the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie as a class. The land hunger of the peasant is a typical illuistration of this. However, transitionally, tllese elements may not be antagonistic to the leadership of the proletariat; on the other hand, the interest of these sections of the people are best taken care of under proletarian hegemony, as they too come under the exploited class. But even in these areas, ideological interven- tion is indispensable, although actual organizational intervention may come at a later stage.

Approach to Cultural Life Here we are primarily concerned with the Marxian aesthe-

tic approach to the problems of popular cultural life. In this con- nection, we cannot avoid a discussion of Marxian cultural practice. Here we find that Marxian assumptions on a general level can serve only as a beginning by offering a scientific method of enquiry; they do not offer, nor do they claim to offer, any readymade solu- tions. Thus one starts with the broad thesis that the problems of casteism, nationalities, language and women's liberation cannot be solved without social revolution; but these problems are not auto- matically solved as soon as the first decisive step towards social revolution is taken through the actual seizure of state power by the proletariat and its allies. Moreover, prior to the establishment of a people's democratic dictatorship, certain strategical lines have to be adopted with respect to the problems of caste, nationalities and liberation of women. Although they may be solved only by looking at them in the light of class struggle, one has to acknow- ledge the reality of the problems at the level of popular conscious- nesss before solving them.

Marxian aesthetics, too, has to recognize the relatively independent nature of the problems within each sphere, even if this is temporary. Intervention in the cultural sphere assumes specific implications both theoretically and practically. This becomes particularly evident in Marxian cultural practice where

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DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT 83

rhetoric, the technique of persuasion, has to operate from whithin the logic of traditional aesthetic forms. However, for a Marxist, this logic itself is not fixed and permanent but dynamic. It deve- lopes a capacity for change even as the position of certain art forms, as social products, changes. Thus the question of putting a revolutionary content wvitlhin a traditional art form is in reality a question of revolutionizing the art form itself. It also assumes a theoretical understanding of these possibilities, which is what Marxian aesthetics represents. Intervention at every level and in every aspect of cultural consciousness is the essence of Marxian aesthetics. For that reason, intervention must take account of the authenticity of traditional cultural forms.

Also, the "form" of a work of art is embodied in that ar tistic logic which develops dialectically through the interaction of the individual creative mind with the artistic materials it has at its command, for example, the characteristics of the genre the artist may be using. The logic consists in the communicability of the work of art; hence "form" may be described as the "structure of response" constituted by the work of art, a structure which estab- lishes itself through the artistic working out of materials and is prior to the actual response of any particular audience.

Certain difficulties arise if one admits this interpretation of artistic form, from Mao's formulation that there are two criteria to judge literature and art-political and artistic. Even while de- manding the 'unity of politics and art", "the unity of revolutionary political content and the highest possible perfection of artistic form"5 asserting the subordinatioil of the ideological and artistic struggle to the political struggle, Mao Zedong seems to preclude the aspect without which neither this unity nor this subordination would be feasible. TFhe concept of politics is not simply a matter of the content of literature, but something penetrating the internal logic of a work of art by which it is structured. The aesthetic crit- erion, by which alone a work of art may be judged, must involve politics; this would lead to a position where artistic quality itself will be understood as political quality. From this point of view, a great work of art may be based on a subject matter which is appare- ntly neutral or even antagonistic to revolutionary slogan and pro- gramme in a particular phase, but when one looks at the actual working out of it in the structure of the work, consistency with the revolutionary end would emerge. Engels's praise for the artistry of the royalist Balzac and Lenin's praise for the artistry of Tolstoy involve and are based on political judgements. On the other hand,

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84 SOCIAL SCIENTIST

a work of art having politically progressive content but is artisti-

cally inferior must have something wrong axbout it not just artisti-

cally but politically. It is a lacuna in the political thinking which

is embodied in the structure of the work itself. While this lacuna can

be diagnozed only by a specific aesthetic analysis and not a general

political analysis, the aesthetic judgement would, of necessity,

include political judgement.A

An Example of Chinese Filmn

To see the politicization of art as a direct point-to-point

conformity with the slogan and the programme of a particular

phase is to constrict the range of application of politics to art.

It might become a superficial and mechanical conformity, and

thus produce not only bad art, but also bad politics. This becomes

evident from the Chinese feature film Lin-Tse-Tsu (Opium War)

which was shiown recently by the film clubs in Calcutta. Towards

the end of the film, one sees vast masses of Chinese people moving

across the fields, armed with traditional makeshift weapons, and

turning the Opium War into a people's war. Earlier, there is a

scene on the river at Shanghai where the boatman utters curses

against the British ships bringing in opium; his father, having

refused to unload opium, had been shot dead by a British trader.

Again, there is a short scene showing the inside of an opium den,

and a very brief sequence where a man snatches the meagre earn-

ings of hiis wife and rushes out to buy illegal opium. But apart

fromn this, there is cinematically very little indication as to how the

British imperialist imposition of opium trade affected the day-to-

day life of the Chinese people, and why the people were opposed

to it.

Heroic participation of certain sections of the people may

well have been a fact of this tragic episode of Chinese history; but

since, in the film, the concrete context of this participation has

not been properly laid out, the heroic popular characters fail to

emerge as typification of a historical reality. Typification in

Marxian aestlhetics inight involve emphasis on certain general class

features, but these class features are not fixed, metaphysical cate-

gories. They can comne alive only within the defining limits of

their historical context in a work of art. The depiction of popular

heroism in the film does not typify popular consciousness in the

period of the Opium War, but merely gives a superficially flattering

portrait of it. Consequently, the manner in which the people are

shown to be automatically inspired by the nationalistic sentiments

of the Commissioner to Shanghai, who resists the opium trade,

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DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT 85

fails to carry conviction. The impression thle audience gets of the people in the film is as though they are watchinig them principally through the eyes of the Commissioner, down to the very last sequence where they are moving carrying arms. An indication of this is that althlough the ragged clothes and worn-out looks of the people offer a sharply realistic visual contrast to the luxurious mode of living of the Commissioner, this contrast is simply kept at the level of the realism of visual details. It does not prevent the film from putting all its emphasis on the unity of interest between the patriotic Commissioner and the people.

Cultural Intervention Here, are we to make a criticism according to the aesthetic

criterion or the political criterion? We should not take into con- sideration the usual non-Marxian argument that the film is an artistic failure because of its propagandistic nature; nor should we say that at certain hlistorical junctures, it is not necessary for the Marxists to adopt nationalistic slogans in order to emphasize the principal contradiction of that particular juncture, or to popula- rize them through art forms. But one falls into the anti-Marxian trap of the allegation that communists operate by manipulation from above even at thc level of cultural practice if one constricts the artistic struicture so as to exclude all indications regarding the context and limits of these slogans-indications which would arise out of the logic of the artistic structure itself. The undue fear that this would reduce the importance of the immediate agenda might lead to the neglect of quality of popular commitment to the agenda which is what should be the primary concern of a Marxist intellec- tual. The pith and marrow of the all-important Maoist formula- tioIn "from the people to the people" is belied by the neglect of this aspect. Thus it will be seen that if the film is artistically unconvincing, this involves a lacuna in the political thinking which goes into the making of the film--political thinking not only with regard to the interpretation of a particular episode in Chinese history, but also with regard to artistic presentation of tlis episode to a particular audience. Intervention here does threaten to decline to manipulation which suggests dishonesty both at the political and the artistic level.

Cultural intervention, then, is diffcrent from otler forms of political intervention insofar as it aims at a change in popular consciousness by working directly at the level of consciousness. This is not to negate the importance of change at the political and economic level, but to assert that politicization of cultural forms

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86 SOCIAL SCIENTIST

is a slow and gradual process, and cannot be achieved merely through generalized political directives. This intervention has to be thoroughgoing and responsive to the specific logic of cultural forms at each stage.

Response to Social Forces At the theoretical level, Marxian aesthetics is a study of the

dynamics of cultural forms. To be responsive to their logic means also to be responsive to the social forces which create a change in the manner of production of these cultural forms. As a result of the increasing participation of the people in democratic movements a vast increase in the number of possible consumers of culture takes place. Mao Zedong describes the gradual widening of possible audience bothl in the Kuomintang areas and the Red areas.7 How- ever, the hunger of the people for aesthetic satisfaction offers a virgin field for the forces of reaction as well. Likewise, in India, one is confronted with the challenge of the sleek formulae of the commercial Hindi film asserting their monopoly over the entire sphere of popular culture. The character of the advertisement film itself gets changed through the influence of these formulae. The yatra (an indigenous form of theatrical performance), taken up by the city-based, big commercial companies, is going back to its former place of origin in an urbanized and debased form, losing all toucih with popular life and providing for a rural audience means of escape from reality. Or again, big newspaper groups with their all-pervasive capital arid their brazen professionalism reap the full benefits of the growtlh of a mass reading public.

On the other hand, there is a rush among petty bourgeois intellectuals and writers to seek alliance with the democratic forces. Undoubtedly, they constitute a very significant element in people's democratic movements. But since only a few of them are prepared to go through the difficult and painful process of politi- cization, it may be said of them that if the proletariat has such friends, it does not need any enemies. On finds that the antithesis which Mao Zedong points out between "popularization" and "raising of standards" is less duie to the people themselves than to these petty bourgeois interpreters of culture. They tend to water down the implications of Marxian politics and aesthetics on the basis of their own notions of what the people demand.

This is so not only because of the ambivalence of petty bourgeois consciousness, but also because of the inertia of the cul- tural forms of which they are the exponents. In a semi-feudal situation, the "traditional intellectuals", as Gramsci would call

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DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT 87

them, can neither remain in their traditional position, nor find a niche of security in a new mode of production as is available in advanced capitalist countries. The easy confidence of the big news- paper groups in Britain and America, which enables them to pass as disinterested representatives of a great many shades of opinion, is not to be found among any of the big newspaper groups in India. Even their professionalism rests on extremely naive assump- tions regarding public demand. Small evanescent theatre groups, leading a hand-to-mouth existence both economically and from the point of view of their production, can still draw a part of the audience away from the commercial theatre. Lack of cultural organization breeds insecurity, and insecurity, in its turn, breeds conventionalism; but at the same time being relatively unorganized and dominated by petty bourgeois, the cultural world in our country is more open to intervention that has revolutionary implications. With all its ambivalence and inertia, petty bour- geois cultural consciousness serves as a historical link in the transi- tion from people's democratic movement to a people's democratic dictatorship. There are a number of examples to illustrate this point.

Revival of Interest in Folk Culture The "People's War" phase in the early forties was a period

of intense activity for the mass organizations of the Communist Partyof India at the cultural level. A revival of interest in folk culture was one of its aspects. A genuine eagerness to establish a cultural link with the people was cvident among the petty bour- geois intelletuals who came in touch with the Communist Party at this time through the Progressive Writers' Association and the Anti-fascist Writers' and Artists' Union. While efforts were made towards a Marxian analysis of the cultural history of India, experiments with forms of folk culture assumed tremendous impor- tance. Not only did the Indian People's Theatre Association carry its offerings to the countryside, but rural artists representing various forms of folk culture attended them. This we gather from the records of the 1945 conference of the Bengal wing of the Anti- fascist Writers' and Artists' Union. This extremely active and fertile period, however, did not last very long. The paralysing effect of revisionism and its corollary, left deviationism, within the party line was felt by the cultural organizations as well. This manifested itself in the form of failure in politicizing leftist intellectuals on the one hand and in vulgar Marxian sectarianism on the other. While the petty bourgeois intellectuals were left more or less on

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88 SOCIAL SCIENTIST

their own, the party itself took up a rigid and mechanical line with regard to culture. This not only led to the alienation of many such intellectuals from the party, but 1had a deadening effect on the cultural movements led by the party.

Ramesh Seal was an exponent of kabigan (a performance consisting of an extempore duel of wit in verse set to music and a form of popular entertainment of very long standing in Bengal). Along with compeers like Nibaran Pandit and Sheikh Gomani, he came in touch with the Communist Party in the early forties. Kabigan, in its conventional urbanized obscenities, reflected the decadence of the feudal overlords under whose patronage it had flourished; still it had not been completely severed from its roots in popular life. Ramesh Seal, with others, sought to make this form responsive to the changes in the social and political life of the people. His songs,8 one discovers, are not onily an accumulation of references to the details of popular life in Chittagong (Ramesh Seal's native district) but also provide a new structure of response for the objective changes both in the material sphere and in the sphere of consciousness. While the external features of kabigan are left more or less intact, its inward structure is that of revolutioniz- ing the people. Here we have the direct authentic voice of the people. Here artistic intervention, which refers to the folk-poet's experiment with popular forms, and political intervention, which refers to the intellectual discipline of a Marxist party, become one. Ramesh Seal might not have been well read in Marxism, but he has been able to apply the logic of a certain body of thoughts presented to him to the structures of experience shared by his people and thus revolutionize a popular form. Had he been well read in Marxism, it might have helped him in his task by clarify- ing the logic of the form, which he was resuscitating mainly on the basis of his experience of popular life. It is precisely in this way that party discipline may fruitfully intervene in the creative life of the individual artist.

Nagarik (The Citv Dweller), the first film made by Ritwik Ghatak in the early fifties, also illustrates this point.9 Ritwik Gha- tak has come to be known as the supreme example of undisciplined genius in Indian film-making. Whatever might have been his per- sonal life and his relationship with the Communist Party, his art- istic work displays a rare aeshetic discipline. From the Marxian point of view, Ritwik Ghatak's filmis are a typical illustration of artistic authenticity leading to politcal authenticity. His contact with the Communist Party in the forties and early fifties was one

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DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT 89

of the most disturbing as well as the most enriching episodes of his life. It was not the organized intervention by the party but the lack of it that led to his subsequent rejection of party discipline, or at least to the aggravation of a natural dislike for such disci- pline. But his early training as the member of a cultural organiza- tion of the party did not forsake him throughout his artistic life.

Mani Bandopadhyay, perhaps the most important name in mnodern Bengali literature from the Marxian point of view, also came in touch with Marxism and the Communist Party in the for- ties, but he remained a faithful and meticulous worker of the party till his death in 1956. In his recently published diaries and notebooks'0 there is ample evidence to show that his commitment to the party was a carefully considered decision, full of critical insight both regarding the party and his relation with it.

He was already an established writer when he came in touch with Marxism and had written two of the best novels in the history of Bengali literature. Although these novels were not the works of a protessed Marxist, they show that Manik Bandopadhyay's conversion to Marxism was part of his natural development as an artist. Once again, it is his sense of realism that leads him to- wards it. Also, after the conversion, he seeks to remake himself not only as a political man, but also as an artist, and in the pro- cess works out changes in the form and the language of the Beng- ali novel and the short story which have far-reaching implications for the future of people's democratic movements.

Ramesh Seal, Ritwik Ghatak and Manik Bandopadhyay were, of course, individuals whose achievements were confined, to some extent, to themselves. The standard they set in artistic inno- vation has not been maintained. But, in each case, their assump- tions about the real demands of the people on the cuiltural level have to be sifted and incorporated into people's democratic move- ments. This task of discovering the correspondence between the aesthetic assumptions of Marxism and the real demands of the people is the most important function of Marxian aesthletic inter- vention today.

V I Lenin, "Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revoltition", Selected Works, Volume I, Moscow, 1970, p 493.

2 Mao Zedong, On New Democracy, Peking, 1967; p 12. Mao Zedong, "Yenan Forum Talks" in Mao Zedang on Literatture and Art, Peking, 1967, p 12. Mao Zedong, On New Democracy, pp 57-58. Mao Zedong, "Yenan Forum Talks", p 30. Marxian aeithctics, of course, would have to a(mrnit the possiblitv, at certain histori-

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90 SOCIAL SCIENTIST

cal junctures, of direct political intervention in cultural matters, based on exclu- sively extra-aesthetic judgements. But this interventioni cannot su-lbstitute specific aesthetic judgements of the kind I am talking about, and is likely to be ineffectual unless it is supplemented by such judgements.

7 Mao Zedong, "Yenan Forum Talks", op. cit, pp 4-5. Pulak Chanda. Ganakavial Rainesh Seal 0 Tawe Gaanz, Calcutta, Kathasilpa, 1978. For details see Malini Bhattacharya, "Nagarik: Ritwik Ghatak's First Film", Social Scientist, Vol 8, No 3, October 1979.

10 Jugantar Chakravarti (ed), Alprakasita Manik Bandopadhv,av: Diary ) Chlithipatra,Aruna Prakasani, 1976.

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