Interpretation of Soviet Socialist Literature Terminology

This term and its definition were put forward by writers and theorists when the Soviet literary and art circles discussed the creative methods from 1932 to 1934, and were determined with Stalin's consent. Regarding the definition of socialist realism, it was stated in the Constitution of the Soviet Writers Association adopted by the first writers' congress in the whole Soviet Union in 1934: "Socialist realism, as the basic method of Soviet literature and Soviet literary criticism, requires artists to describe reality truly and historically from the revolutionary development of reality; At the same time, the authenticity and historical concreteness of artistic description must be combined with the task of transforming and educating working people with socialist spirit. Socialist realism ensures that artistic creation has special possibilities to give full play to the initiative of creation and choose various forms, styles and genres. "

Although the creative method of socialist realism was established in 1930s, its basic features were formed in the creative practice of some writers before it was established in theory. It is formed by history and has profound social and historical content. In Gorky's words, it appeared because "the facts created by revolutionary socialism have already existed" (Gorky spoke at the first writers' congress in the whole Soviet Union).

What is directly related to socialist realistic literature is proletarian literature. Since the proletariat became an independent political force and stepped onto the stage of world history, the proletarian literature movement began. English chartist poetry, German proletarian poetry and French Paris Commune literature are the beginnings of proletarian literature. Generally speaking, socialist realistic literature was formed in the early 20th century, that is, after the 1905 Russian Revolution, and began with Gorky's creation of Mother and Enemy. /kloc-Proletarian poetry in the 0/9th century, including portal's Paris Commune literature, is only the bud of proletarian literature, and cannot be regarded as socialist realistic literature. Although scientific socialism was formed in the middle of19th century, which can scientifically demonstrate the historical regularity of the inevitable victory of socialism, the workers' movement in this period has just begun. Writers and artists associated with the workers' movement, because the workers' movement itself is still immature, can't paint a broad realistic picture of the whole era and social life associated with the workers' movement. To achieve this, only under the leadership of the proletariat, millions of people United for socialist ideology take action. In other words, socialist realism is associated with the mature stage of proletarian revolution. Only during the first Russian revolution did the situation and characteristics of this revolution exist. Gorky's novel Mother matured in the climax of the first Russian revolution. This work has a profound realistic foundation. Guided by the Marxist world outlook, the author truly shows the broad picture of Russian proletarian revolutionary struggle from the realistic revolutionary development, clearly shows the future prospect of this revolution, reveals the revolutionary torrent that runs through the whole social life through the description of the artistic image of revolutionaries, and establishes the belief that the socialist cause will surely win for workers. Here, Gorky used a different method from previous artists to solve the new problems raised by art in the new era, and the appearance of Mother marked the beginning of a new era in the history of world art. Gorky is recognized as the founder of socialist realistic literature.

The victory of the October Revolution provided a reliable guarantee for the development of art along the direction of socialist realism. Although many literary schools and groups with different ideological tendencies appeared in the Soviet literary and art circles in the early days of the victory of the revolution, since the mid-1920s, a large number of important works with the same ideological and artistic tendencies have appeared in Soviet literature, such as Serafimovic's Liu Tie, Furmanov's Chabaev, Ge Ratkov's Cement and Mayakovski's Lenin and Good! Fadeev's Destruction, sholokhov's The Silent Don (up and down), panfilov's The Grindstone Farm, and the works of Tolstoy, leonov, Feiding and other writers. The common feature of these works is to inherit and develop the basic principles of Gorky's creation of Mother. On the basis of being loyal to reality, they strive for a comprehensive historical description of real events and show enthusiasm for new things, which have become the leading trend of Soviet literature. Since the second half of the 1920s, many Soviet writers and theorists began to pay attention to these increasingly mature experiences in creative practice, and put forward many slogans of different creative methods from different angles, such as proletarian realism, inclined realism, social realism and heroic realism. Among them, the theorists of Lapp (Russian Federation of Proletarian Writers) strongly advocate "dialectical materialism creation method" and directly apply philosophical concepts to artistic creation.

From 1932 to 1934, one of the most positive achievements of the Soviet Union's discussion on creative methods is to promote the literary and art circles to attach importance to the theoretical heritage of Marxism-Leninism. During the discussion, many people began to study and study the basic principles of Marxist literary theory, and published several important letters in Russian for the first time, thus initially popularizing Marxist literary thought. As early as 1859, Engels had outlined the blueprint of future art: "greater ideological depth", "conscious historical content" and "perfect combination of vividness and plot richness". Here, Engels not only predicted the prospect of socialist literature, but also pointed out the characteristics that this kind of literature should have: profound ideological content and the ability to foresee the future, as well as perfect artistic form. Engels gave a very incisive explanation of realism and tendentiousness in "Letter to Ma Harkness and others". He believes that realism "in addition to the truth of the details, it also truly reproduces the typical characters in the typical environment", that is to say, art reflects reality, not simply copying and repeating reality in isolation, but describing reality from the historical development and showing the leading tendency of the development of the times; And clearly pointed out that after nearly half a century of struggle, the working class "should occupy its own position in the field of realism."

When talking about literature and art, Lenin first emphasized the relationship between art and reality, realism and tendency (party spirit). Lenin's series of articles about Tolstoy spoke highly of realism in art, pointing out that a real artist can certainly "reflect some essential aspects of revolution" in his works. Lenin developed Engels' tendentiousness theory under the new historical conditions. Engels thought in 1885 that a work with a socialist tendency, as long as it gives a true description of the realistic relationship, can shake the optimism of the bourgeoisie and arouse doubts about the eternal existence of the existing system, then the author has completed his mission even if he has not made a clear statement. By the beginning of the 20th century, the people had entered the stage of conscious revolution. During this period, the "circle" of readers has changed, and it has become an objective reality to educate and arm the revolutionary masses with socialist ideology. Therefore, Lenin put forward the party spirit principle of proletarian literature. He pointed out in the article "Party Organization and Party Literature" in 1905 that proletarian literature is an integral part of all proletarian revolutionary undertakings, and it is "literature that openly contacts the proletariat", which requires writers to openly and consciously stand on the position of proletarian revolution. On the basis of studying and popularizing Marxist-Leninist literary thoughts, Soviet literary and art circles can theoretically summarize new artistic methods and establish the principle of socialist realism.

The establishment of Soviet socialist realistic literature also depends on the great achievements of19th century world literature, especially Russian realistic literature. Russian literature sympathizes with the insulted and damaged people's humanitarian spirit and the thought of demanding liberation, the progressive aesthetic view of Russian revolutionary Democrats and the exquisite artistic skills of Russian realists ... These fine traditions have created conditions for the formation of new socialist art and aesthetic thoughts. However, Gorky, as the founder of socialist realistic literature, has accomplished what his predecessors and even his contemporaries (first of all, due to objective conditions) could not accomplish or realize. He used new artistic means to reflect the new social relations and the historical struggle of the people. He is a true innovator who links the past with the future. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, he put forward the limitations of the old realism. In his letter to Chekhov, he clearly pointed out that the form of old realism "has fallen behind his own time"; "The time has come to need heroes", and people want to have "something higher, better and more beautiful than life". In order to seek new ways of expression, Gorky first paid attention to revolutionary romanticism, then put forward the idea of combining realism with romanticism, and finally adopted the term socialist realism in 1932. According to Gorky, Luna Tsarski, Fadev and others, the cover of Mayakovski's long poem Lenin is the result of transforming realistic art on the basis of scientific socialism, the fusion of realism and scientific socialism, or "realistic thinking based on the image of socialist experience" (Gorky).

The basic ideological principles of socialist realistic literature are:

Guided by the Marxist world outlook, I believe that "life is a continuous movement and change" (Gorky). "Socialist realism understands reality as a kind of development, a kind of movement in the constant struggle of opposites" (Luna Tsarski). Therefore, it is the most basic feature of socialist realism to observe, describe and reveal the essence and trend of life from the viewpoint of revolutionary development and contradictory struggle.

② Adhere to Lenin's party spirit principle. Party spirit means that writers consciously stand on the proletarian side and serve the cause of revolution and socialism. Gorky said that socialist realistic literature is "the cause of the times, the state and the class", and writers must consciously work for the cause of the working class. At the same time, party spirit is not an accessory, not something attached to work from the outside. The party spirit of socialist realism is an aesthetic factor dissolved in the ideological system. Fadeev specifically pointed out this point: "The cause of the working class should become the writer's own cause ... Only in this way can socialist artistic creation have deep sincerity and rich feelings." But the writer's political inclination should not be naked. Socialist thought should not enter the works as foreign things, but the essence of the works is reflected in the image. Only when ideas are embodied in works, when wisdom and will, good and evil, love and hate, courage and cowardice, integrity and hypocrisy are all embodied in vivid images, and when the content finds corresponding vivid images, can works of art become completely satisfactory and convincing.

(3) Affirming the socialist reality and shaping a positive heroic image are the basic requirements of socialist realism. Gorky emphasized that socialist realism "is possible and has the right to state that its criticism is aimed at the past and the remnants of the past." Its main task is to establish socialism by depicting facts, figures and the relationship between people in the process of labor. Fadeev also pointed out that our realism is socialist, "because it shows and affirms the new and socialist reality". In connection with this, they believe that socialist realism must have ideals and revolutionary romanticism. This ideal and revolutionary romantic spirit is nothing more than a kind of "foresight" under the guidance of Marxist thought: "stand higher than reality, raise it above reality, and do not make people divorced from reality." (Gorky)

1953 After Stalin's death, the Soviet Union revised the definition of socialist realism. At the Second Writers' Congress of the whole Soviet Union (1954), the writer simonov asked to delete the sentence "the authenticity and historical concreteness of artistic description must be combined with the task of transforming and educating working people with socialist spirit" from the definition. He believes that in practice, this sentence makes some writers and critics try to "improve" the reality itself on the pretext of describing the reality from the development trend. For example, works by writers such as panfilov and Babaevsky (The Late Stage of the Grindstone Farm, Venus Hero, etc.). ) There is a tendency to "improve" reality and whitewash it. In 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet literary and art circles launched another extensive and lasting debate on the issue of socialist realism. Some people continue to insist that socialist realism is the basic principle of Soviet literature and literary criticism, while others attack that socialist realism has become a "formula", "dogma" and "law of death", and link the problem with Stalin's "personality cult" and demand reconsideration of this principle. Since this period, the literary and art circles of the Soviet Union have seen a diversified situation of creative methods. Some advocate critical realism, some are in favor of naturalism, and some demand that the concept of "socialist literature" be added to socialist realism, arguing that the scope of socialist realism is too narrow to summarize the creative essence of all Soviet writers.

The new situation in Soviet literary and art circles has attracted the attention of Soviet leaders. 1959 the Soviet union held the third writers' congress. The Central Committee of the Soviet Union once again emphasized the significance of socialist realism in its congratulatory message to this congress: "Life irrefutably and convincingly shows that the creative principle of socialist realism is unshakable and fruitful, and it truly, concretely and historically reveals the main content of our times-marching towards * * * productism." The third writers' congress published the revised articles of association (the articles of association were not published after the second congress). The articles of association wrote: "Socialist realism was and is a tried-and-tested creative method of Soviet literature. Socialist realism requires writers to describe reality truly, historically and concretely starting from the revolutionary development of reality. " In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Soviet literary and art circles gradually agreed on socialist realism: on the one hand, they opposed the "dogmatic narrow understanding" of socialist realism and demanded a correct interpretation of its meaning; On the other hand, it also opposes "exploration" divorced from the principled position of socialist realism, criticizes and denies the tendency of socialist realism and advocates the diversification of creative methods. After a long and repeated debate, a new viewpoint (a new interpretation of socialist realism) has gradually formed, which is the viewpoint that the literary theorist De Markov regards socialist realism as "a historical and open system that truly describes life". He pointed out that in the past (1930s-1950s), Soviet literary theorists had a vulgar dogmatic interpretation of realism, including socialist realism, which regarded it as a code of assumptions, standards and laws. Later, this view was gradually abandoned. Many writers and theorists have pointed out the narrowness of this explanation, thinking that socialist realism should be endowed with greater ideological capacity and a broader aesthetic world, but at the other extreme, there is an attempt to "cancel the ideological basis of socialist art" The theory of "open system" was put forward after denying two extreme views of socialist realism. In his view, socialist realism should not be limited to a form of expressing life, that is, expressing life in the form of life itself, but should be based on "extensive authenticity." In addition to expressing life in the form of life itself, it should also be allowed to express life in the form of romanticism, hypothetical fantasy and even grotesque. Socialist realism can not only absorb nutrients from the heritage of classical art, but also get useful things from all modern art schools. Of course, this needs to be reformed to "adapt to the requirements of the new system." Socialist realism should be an "open aesthetic system". There is no end to the objective understanding of the developing real life, and there is no limit to the choice of subject matter. However, the "openness" of socialist realism is not infinite, and its boundary is "the standard of extensive authenticity". Markov's "open system" theory has been accepted by most writers and critics in the Soviet Union.