Revolutionary Cultural Work on the Crises of
Capitalism and Democracy,
a Historic View:
LEFT
FORUM 2015
'REVOLUTIONARY ARTS PERFORMANCE' SEGMENT, OPENING REMARKS
By
John Pietaro
The
art of rebellion is a tradition as old as dissent itself. Radical writers,
musicians, painters, actors, dancers and other creative activists have long
used their artwork as a weapon in the fight for social justice. If the very
nature of expressive freedom lends itself toward a revolutionary voice, then it
is arguable that the arts gave birth to radicalism, or in the least offered a
vision toward its path. And the cultural workers fight for his or her own
freedom of expression—and against the confines of censorship—further
exemplifies the voice of creativity in this good fight.
One
can easily look to the works and dreams of revolutionary artists of every
stripe to see the connection with the Left in general; those members of the
creative community that are of the Right are in the minority and their opinions
tend to not do well at gallery openings, play read-throughs, late night jam
sessions or even intermission kibitzes at theatre juice bars.
However,
the artists who have specifically focused their repertoire on progressive
struggles, people’s stories and real-time issues, move into a specific realm,
one which pulls them far from the art-for-art’s-sake idiom. These
artist-activists extend the possibilities of the dissident’s pamphlet by leaps
and bounds. They have the power to put melody to fiery speeches and add a
universe of color to the black-and-white of dogma. They add the necessary
ingredient of emotion to demonstrators’ placards and hold the history of
revolutionary art within their hands.
In
analyzing the breadth of cultural work, eras of a rather advanced sense of
struggle and propensity toward collectivism clearly produce artists—and
artforms--of striking radicalism. Between the latter part of the 19th
century and the first few decades of the 20th, the horrors of
unbridled capitalism, racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, imperialism, classism and
xenophobia were realized in the Industrial Revolution, wars of profit,
financial panics and recessions, the Great Depression, and a wealth of
reactionary governmental repression. The revolutionary responses to this were
by no means confined to professional revolutionists, organizers and advocates;
the creative community, too, spoke out and stood up, but in new and daring
ways.
Cultural
workers can be credited with beating swords into revolutionary artists’ weapons.
The Industrial Workers of the World, even in its founding year of 1905, counted
song, visual art, poetry and journalism among its strongest assets. Legends
such as Joe Hill, Mac McClintock and Ralph Chaplin (and later Utah Phillips and
Phil Ochs) are still recalled as the core of the movement. The Socialist
Party’s own cultural program began in this period and included the likes of
Jack London and Carl Sandburg. But it was the Communist Party and its
nation-wide cultural commission that advanced the cause in a most profound way.
Celebrated writer John Reed was actually a founder of the CP and in his brief
life stood as a model for all others to follow.
During
the 1920s, 30s and 40s, most of the great artists of the era stood as Party
members or Fellow Travelers. These included Langston Hughes, Woody Guthrie, Max
Eastman, Paul Robeson, Floyd Dell, Rose Pastor Stokes, William Gropper, Claude
McKay, Michael Gold, John Howard Lawson, Dalton Trumbo, Aaron Copland, Dashiell
Hammett and an amazing array of others, most of which would suffer the pains of
the Blacklist in the decades beyond.
And
when the cultural workers build their own institutions of higher learning for
dissent, look out. In a 1930 article in the Daily Worker, the writer and
organizer Michael Gold wrote of the founding of the John Reed Club. This was an
organization to foster writers and other creative artists in the struggle
against raging capital as the Great Depression boiled over onto the so-called
working class. Gold wrote:
“The
John Reed Club was organized about two months ago here in New York. It is a
small group of writers, artists, sculptors, musicians and dancers of
revolutionary tendencies…Several activities have begun. The artists arranged an
exhibition at the Workers Co-Operative House in the Bronx. About 35 pictures
were hung. The exhibit will be shown for about four weeks. Over 300 workers
came to the opening. There was a furious discussion led by Lozowick, Basshe,
Gropper, Klein and others…At the next meeting I shall propose the following--
“That every writer in the
group attach himself to one of the industries. That he spend the next few years
in and out of this industry, studying it from every angle, making himself an expert
in it, so that when he writes of it, he will write with like an insider, not
like a bourgeois intellectual observer. He will help on the publicity in
strikes, etc. He will have his roots in something real. The old Fabians used to
get together and write essays based on the books they had read. We will get
close to the realities”
The
John Reed Club’s Manhattan office begat a series of local branches around the
country and by 1932 devised an expanded mission statement which identified core
values, including the support of labor and the fight against imperialism, white
chauvinism, fascism, oppression of immigrants. The Clubs pledged to “Fight
against the imprisonment of revolutionary writers and artists” and cited the organization’s principal goal as, “forging
a new art that shall be a weapon in the battle for a new and superior
world” (Draft Manifesto, John Reed Clubs, 1932).
In
the throes of the world’s worst financial disaster, in the face of a newly
expansive level of corporate control, greed and avarice, as waves of fascism were
spreading violently across the globe, revolutionary cultural workers associated
with the John Reed Clubs not only offered their radical artistic visions to the
bruised landscape, but actively engaged in the street-heat for democracy and
change. Members were active in the Poor Peoples Marches, fights against
lynchings and discrimination, union strikes and organizing actions, May Day
Parades, educational seminars and tutelage, and a wide swath of political
actions. These were fused into the missions of the Workers Music League, the
Red Dancers, the League of American Writers, “The New Masses”, the Film and
Photo League, “Partisan Review”, the League of American Artists and several
international Congresses of Writers and Artists.
Eventually,
the cultural workers’ institutions would be torn apart by often excruciating
conflicts, within and without. But the lure of creativity is more than
compelling and the full catalog and the legacy of these powerful figures of
revolutionary creativity is almost insurmountable.
And
so stand as examples of what could have been---and what may still be.
