Book: G. V
Plekhanov
Plekhanov 1. Biography. 1. BIOGRAPHY. - Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov (1856-1918) - one of the first theorists of Marxism in Russia, a prominent figure in the Second International, literary critic. R. in a poor landowner family, in the village. Gudalovka Lipetsk u. Tambov province. After graduating from the Voronezh Military Gymnasium, in 1873 he entered the Konstantinovsky Military School, and a year later he transferred to the Mining Institute. In 1875 he joined the ranks of the revolutionary populists and was one of the organizers of Land and Freedom. In 1876 he took part in the famous demonstration on Kazan Square in St. Petersburg, during which he made a speech. While still a populist, he conducted revolutionary propaganda among workers, spoke at meetings before workers, wrote proclamations, took part in leading strikes, etc. In 1878 he became one of the editors of the magazine. “Land and Freedom” drew up the program for this party. After the split of “Land and Freedom” at the Voronezh Congress (1879), he became the head of the “Black Redistribution”. In 1880 Plekhanov emigrated abroad. Here he began to study the theory of Marxism and became involved in the practical activities of Social Democracy. Having broken with populism, P. in 1883 founded abroad (together with P. B. Axelrod, V. I. Zasulich, L. G. Deych and Ignatov) the first Russian social-democracy. organization - the group "Emancipation of Labor". The group’s first publication was P.’s brochure “Socialism and Political Struggle” (1883), in which P. criticized the Narodnaya Volya program, arguing that the driving force of the Russian revolution was the proletariat. Lenin subsequently wrote about the publications of “Emancipation of Labor”: “The literary works of this group, published without censorship abroad, began for the first time (for Russia - A.G.) to present systematically and with all practical conclusions the ideas of Marxism” (Lenin, Collected Works, volume XVII, p. 343). In subsequent years, P. published a number of works (“Our differences,” 1885; later (1896) - “The Justification of Populism in the Works of Mr. Vorontsov”), directed against populism; P. smashed here the petty-bourgeois utopian illusions of the populists about the peasant community as the bearer of socialism in Russia and irrefutably proved that Russia, like the Western countries. Europe is following the capitalist path of development. It should be noted, however, that Plekhanov’s criticism of populism, which played a huge role in the destruction of populist illusions, did not have that understanding of the specific conditions of Russia, that class analysis of populism and the justification of the tasks of proletarian socialism in Russia, which are imbued with Lenin’s works. Plekhanov's criticism of populism was abstract and led to underestimation and ignorance of the peasantry in the revolution. 2. AESTHETIC VIEWS OF PLEKHANOV IN THE LIGHT OF HIS GENERAL POLITICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS.- V.I. Lenin distinguished in the development of Russian social-democracy. two main directions: Marxist and opportunist. In the article “From the Past of the Workers’ Press in Russia” (1914), Lenin wrote: “A remarkable fact, far from being sufficiently appreciated to this day: as soon as the mass workers’ movement arose in Russia (1895-1896), a division into Marxist and the opportunistic direction - a division that changes shape, appearance, etc., but remains essentially the same from 1894 to 1914. Obviously, there are deep social, class roots of precisely this, and not any other, division of the internal struggle between Social Democrats” (Lenin, vol. XVII, p. 344). “Economism”, Menshevism, “liquidationism” - these are the various “forms” and “guises” that the opportunist trend changed, remaining - in the words of Lenin - “essentially the same.” The split of the social democrats the party into two factions - Bolsheviks and Mensheviks - was dictated precisely by the presence of two lines in the labor movement: proletarian and petty-bourgeois. “Bolshevism,” wrote Lenin, “expressed the proletarian essence of the movement, Menshevism - its opportunist petty-bourgeois intellectual wing” (ibid., p. 346). During the period of his political degradation, P. not only comes to Menshevism, he becomes, in Lenin’s words, “the leader of the Russian opportunists” (Lenin, vol. X, p. 196), eventually falling to the most rabid social chauvinism. But at the beginning of his theoretical and political activity, P. wrote more than one glorious page in the history of the development of Marxism in Russia. Lenin wrote in 1908: “...not a single Russian Social Democrat should confuse the present Plekhanov with the old Plekhanov” (Lenin, vol. XXVIII, p. 524). P.’s ideological and political path from populism to Marxism and from Marxism to Menshevism and social chauvinism is a complex path, and even having come to Menshevism, P., according to Lenin, “took a special position, many times moving away from Menshevism” ( Lenin, vol. XVII, p. 353). All these zigzags in P.’s ideological and political development could not but affect the development of his aesthetic and literary views. That is why, when studying P.’s aesthetic and literary views, it is necessary to dissect them in accordance with the various stages of his ideological and political path. The populist period of P. (until 1883) is marked by only one short article on a literary topic (“What is the dispute about?”, 1878), so it can not be taken into account when periodizing aesthetic views P., although we must not forget that P.’s populism subsequently affected a number of relapses in the process of developing Plekhanov’s views. Without going into detailed periodization, the main watershed in the development of P.'s political and theoretical views should be considered the time after the Second Congress of the RSDLP (1903), when P. gradually switched to the position of Menshevism. The opportunistic fluctuations and zigzags characteristic of Plekhanov do not, however, allow one to draw clear, firm boundaries of the intended periods in Plekhanov’s activity. The rudiments and embryos of Menshevik opportunism are found in Plekhanov in the early period of his activity; on the other hand, during his Menshevik period, P. at times and within certain limits (for example, in the fight against “liquidationism”) became close to Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Lenin, however, in cases of such “rapprochement” never forgot what separated him from P. “Without renouncing anything,” Lenin wrote at one of these moments of “rapprochement” with Plekhanov in connection with the common struggle against “liquidationism,” without forgetting anything, without making any promises about the disappearance of differences, we are doing a common cause together” (Lenin, vol. XV, p. 54). 3. NATURE AND ESSENCE OF ART.- for Plekhanov, his work on issues of art - in addition to their immediate purpose and goal - was an addition to his general propaganda of the materialist understanding of history. In search of a “new and strong argument” in favor of a “monistic view of history,” P. turned to the field of art, striving to develop, on the basis of this view, scientific, i.e., Marxist aesthetics. “Philosophy did not eliminate aesthetics, but, on the contrary, paved the way for it, tried to find a solid foundation for it. The same must be said about materialist criticism" (Preface to the 3rd edition of the collection "For Twenty Years", 1908, vol. XIV, p. 189). “I am deeply convinced,” P. wrote in “Letters without an Address” (1899), “that from now on criticism (more precisely: the scientific theory of aesthetics) will be able to move forward only by relying on a materialist understanding of history. I also think that in its past development, criticism acquired a more solid foundation, the closer its representatives came to the historical view I defended” (vol. XIV, p. 30). The last remark defines P.'s range of interests in the field of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois literary heritage, among individual representatives of which - Taine, Brunetiere and others - P. sought to discover features of approaching the scientific understanding of aesthetics. 4. PLEKHANOV’S INTERPRETATION OF THE PROBLEMS OF THE ARTISTIC PROCESS.- Considering art as a social phenomenon, P. repeatedly dwelled on the views of those bourgeois critics and literary historians who, to one degree or another, carried out a historical point of view in their works, one way or another connecting the development of art and literature with the course of social life. P. paid special attention to French bourgeois literary criticism (and historiography) of the 19th century, which put forward such names as Steel, Guizot, Sainte-Beuve, and Taine. The development of art and literature for P. is a natural process; its regularity lies in its social conditioning. In his long article “French Dramatic Literature...” (1905), Plekhanov explored the change of various genres in French dramatic literature (and painting) of the 18th century. in connection with the struggle of various social classes (bourgeoisie and aristocracy) during the era of the Great French Revolution. Some of P.’s provisions were repeated here in a modified form by Marx’s statements (on the question of the attitude of bourgeois ideologists to antiquity, P. gave a paraphrase of the opening pages of “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”). Despite a number of correct observations and comments, it was precisely in P.’s solution to the question of the development of the literary (and in general artistic) process that logicism and that anti-dialecticalism that Lenin noted in Plekhanov manifested themselves with particular force. In “Letters without an address” P. put forward the role of imitation and especially Darwin’s so-called. “the beginning of the antithesis” in the history of the development of aesthetic ideas and tastes. P. here went so far as to identify Darwin’s “beginning of antithesis,” which in Darwin has a narrow and exclusively biologically interpreted content, with Hegel’s dialectical concept of “contradiction” (vol. XIV, p. 20). It is known that Marx and Engels highly valued Darwin’s theory: in a letter to Engels (December 19, 1860), Marx wrote that Darwin’s theory “contains the natural-historical basis for our theory.” But they sharply objected to any attempts to transfer Darwin’s “laws of life of animal societies to human society" Engels writes in “Dialectics of Nature”: “Here - in the social production of means of development - categories from the animal kingdom are completely inapplicable.” This is in full agreement with Marx’s statement that by influencing the external world, man also changes his nature. P., no matter how he tried, so to speak, to “sociologize” Darwin’s “beginning of antithesis” and even connect it with the class struggle, he essentially mechanically transferred it to the development of the literary (artistic) process. “The licentiousness of the noble morals of the second half of the 17th century,” writes P., “was reflected, as is known, on the English stage, where it assumed truly incredible proportions... In view of this, we can say a priori that sooner or later in England there had to be appear, at the beginning of the antithesis (emphasis added by me - A.G.), this kind dramatic works, the main purpose of which would be to depict and extol domestic virtues and bourgeois purity of morals. And such a family, indeed, was subsequently created by the intellectual representatives of the English bourgeoisie” (vol. XIV, p. 19). P. repeated the same idea in his lectures on “ materialistic understanding history", where new genre a tearful comedy featuring virtuous characters is viewed as a “reaction” against the boundless licentiousness of literature and theater, and political events only “contributed,” in P.’s opinion, to this “reaction” (see vol. XXIV, p. 380). We find the same term “reaction” and in the same sense applied to Corneille in P.’s review of Lanson’s book (the review dates back to 1897, see the collection “G. V. Plekhanov - Literary Critic,” M., 1933, page 64). In all these cases, P. did not explore the genuine, real connections of art with real processes, which lead dialectically to new artistic formations. After all, the dialectics of the literary process is the dialectics of the social process. Ideologies, say Marx and Engels in The German Ideology, “have no history, they have no development; people who develop their material production and their material communication, along with the given reality, also change their thinking and the products of their thinking” (works by Marx and Engels, vol. IV, p. 17). P., in the above constructions, proceeded from a purely external logical-mechanistic. schemes: one phenomenon in art is replaced by the opposite due to the naturally operating “principle of antithesis”, due to the “reaction”, which can be predicted a priori. Lenin speaks of the need to “know all the processes of the world in their self-movement, in their spontaneous development, in their living life”; such dialectical knowledge of processes “is knowledge of them as a unity of opposites” (Lenin, Collected Works, 3rd ed., volume XIII, p. 301). Plekhanov gave here a logical scheme for the alternation of phenomena based on their opposition. And in fact: if “mental representatives of the English bourgeoisie” really created this type of dramatic works, the task of which was to “depict and extol domestic virtues,” then this did not happen due to “reaction”, not because, as Plekhanov thinks, that earlier in English literature “the licentiousness of noble morals” dominated, but because these sanctimonious “domestic virtues” and the hypocritical “philistine purity of morals” constituted a real characteristic feature of the grown English bourgeoisie, whose class interests and position at a certain stage of its development determined it the desire to “depict and extol” this trait. 5. PRINCIPLES OF MARXIST CRITICISM IN PLEKHANOV’S UNDERSTANDING. - As for Chernyshevsky, aesthetics was for P. a “theory of art.” P. sought to scientifically substantiate this theory and to determine its objective criterion. P. found this objective criterion in Marxism, in the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels, and in this, i.e., in the propaganda of Marxist aesthetics, P.’s main merit as an esthetician and literary critic lies. “Now,” wrote P., “scientific literary criticism is possible, because now some necessary prolegomena of social science have already been established” (“A. L. Volynsky,” vol. X, p. 196). In his speeches against idealists like Volynsky, against adherents of “subjective sociology” and reactionaries of all other shades and modifications, P. emphasized (and rightly emphasized) the objective nature of Marxist literary criticism, which proceeds in its judgments and sentences from an objectively given state productive forces and social relations. Analyzing Belinsky's literary views, P. dwelt in particular detail on those moments of his activity when he tried to “find objective foundations for criticizing works of art” (see vol. X, p. 303). From the same point of view, P. studied the aesthetic theory of Chernyshevsky and the views of French bourgeois sociological criticism. Declaring that scientific aesthetics is “objective, like physics” (vol. X, p. 192), P. echoed Taine’s predecessor, the Fleming A. Mikiels, who wrote back in 1842 that “study opens... a number of aesthetic laws that are just as clear, just as definite, just as demonstrable as physical laws.” P. understood this objectivity of scientific criticism, of course, much more deeply, because he fought for it in the name of Marxism, i.e., in the words of Lenin, “modern materialism, immeasurably richer in content and incomparably more consistent than all previous forms of materialism” (“ Materialism and empirio-criticism,” Lenin, Collected Works, 3rd ed., vol. XIII, p. 275). But this recognition of the objectivity of scientific criticism is not permeated by P. with that partisanship, which, according to Lenin, materialism includes, “obliging, in any assessment of an event, to directly and openly take the point of view of a certain social group” (Lenin, Collected works. , vol. I, p. 276). In his struggle against the subjectivist premises of “enlightenment” criticism, P. went so far as to completely deny the category of “ought” in the field of criticism, reducing the role of Marxist criticism exclusively to a statement, to the establishment of social genesis. The social function of literature (and art), the enormous importance of artistic ideologies as a powerful means of class struggle and class influence seemed to fall out of Plekhanov’s field of vision here. And indeed, from recognizing the objectivity of scientific criticism, P. actually slides into the positions of objectivism in the last period of his activity, such as for example. in an article about Ropshin. 6. PLEKHANOV’S SPECIFIC ASSESSMENTS OF INDIVIDUAL WRITERS AND ARTISTIC PHENOMENA.- The concrete study of artistic phenomena requires for itself - as one of the main prerequisites - a correct understanding of the historical process, within the framework of which they, these phenomena, occur and a direct component of which they form. P. was precisely alien to a correct understanding of the historical process and not only the era of imperialism and proletarian revolutions, but also previous eras. P.'s socio-political views, his Menshevism and social chauvinism, being, so to speak, turned to the past, represented this past in a distorted form. P. did not understand the character and driving forces our revolution. He opposed Lenin’s doctrine of two paths of development of capitalism and two lines of revolution in Russia; in order to justify Menshevik tactics, he accepted the bourgeois point of view on the uniqueness of the Russian historical process and defended the theory of the non-class nature of the Russian autocracy (in “History of Russian Social Thought”). . Historical views P. provided, so to speak, a “theoretical” basis for his Menshevik statements in the field of current politics and tactics. That is why, despite the comparative abundance of P.’s works relating to Russian literature, mainly of the 19th century, we will not find in him a correct, integral scheme for the development of Russian literature. And in assessing individual ideologies that played a significant role in the development of Russian literature, in assessing populism and “enlightenment”, P.’s positions differ significantly from Lenin’s. Lenin characterized the attitude of Menshevism (and therefore also P.) to populism in the following way: “By fighting populism as an incorrect doctrine of socialism, the Mensheviks doctrinairely overlooked, missed the historically real and progressive historical content of populism, as a theory of the mass petty-bourgeois struggle of democratic capitalism against liberal capitalism. landowner, American capitalism versus Prussian capitalism. Hence their monstrous, idiotic renegade idea... that the peasant movement is reactionary, that the Kadets are more progressive than the Trudoviks, that the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry... contradicts the entire course of economic development" (from Lenin’s letter to I.I. Skvortsov-Stepanov, 1909, see Lenin, Collected works, vol. XIV, p. 214). There are also features of a doctrinaire attitude in Plekhanov’s assessment of the “Enlightenment,” emphasizing its ahistorical nature, in contrast to Lenin’s assessment, and here revealing “historically real and progressive historical content.” 7. DEVELOPMENT OF PLEKHANOV’S VIEWS IN THE THEORETICAL WORKS OF HIS FOLLOWERS.- P. had to pursue and defend his views on literature and art in an atmosphere of hostility and misunderstanding on the part of the last-born of populism, these - in P.'s words - “Don Quixotes of our days,” and various other idealists, aesthetes and formalists, united by P. one common name for “decadents”. It was from here that the accusation of Mr. Plekhanov’s “ossified devotion to Hegel’s philosophy” came; It was here that the contemptuous nicknames of “Marxometer” and “Mr. Beltov’s dial” were born. Bolshevik criticism, grouped around the Bolshevik periodical press and striving to implement the Leninist principle of partisanship, of course owed a lot to P.’s literary critical activity, to the valuable and positive from the revolutionary Marxist point of view that it included; and a number literary articles P. himself first saw the light of day in Bolshevik publications. But those anti-Marxist attitudes and tendencies that P. had (especially in his later period) were picked up by Menshevik literary criticism. Literary Menshevism, having declared P. as its banner, picked up and began to further develop the negative side of P.’s views, its anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist tendencies and elements. After the October Revolution, already under Soviet conditions, literary Menshevism continued this work, applying itself to new conditions. Literary Menshevism emasculated the revolutionary content from P.’s literary works and emphasized their reactionary Menshevik tendencies and elements. In this regard, the Menshevik literary system of Pereverzev (and his followers) is especially characteristic, in its historical. constructions that repeated false historical P.'s concept and P.'s Menshevik objectivism which led to fatalism. A number of other Plekhanovian points, such as the theory of art as a “game,” were further developed by Pereverzev. L. Axelrod (Orthodox), another representative of Menshevism in literary criticism, emphasizes and develops the Kantian elements that P. has only in rudimentary form. In the works of such representatives of literary Menshevism as Kubikov and Lvov-Rogachevsky, Plekhanov’s method degrades to the extent of historical and cultural constructions somewhat modernized thanks to Marxist phraseology. Such was the “fate” of Plekhanov’s legacy, which fell into the hands of the Menshevik continuers of Plekhanov’s work (for more details, see “Menshevism in Literary Studies”). Various “theorists” with different attitudes tried to “stylize” P. in their own way: for example, M. A. Yakovlev turns P. almost into a follower of Aldr Veselovsky, and Andruzsky uses Plekhanov’s statements to substantiate his idealistic views. constructions in the field of aesthetics. I. Sochin. Plekhanov, 24 vols., M. - L., 1923-1927. For a literary critic, the following works and articles are of immediate interest here: Volume II - Our disagreements; vol. V-VI - N. G. Chernyshevsky; vol. VII - On the issue of the development of a monistic view of history; Vol. VIII - On the question of the role of personality in history; vol. X - Populists-fiction writers (Gl. I. Uspensky, S. Karonin, N. I. Naumov), Pessimism as a reflection of economic reality (Pessimism P. Ya. Chaadaev), The fate of Russian criticism (A. L. Volynsky, Russian criticism; Belinsky and reasonable reality; Literary views of V. G. Belinsky), speeches about Belinsky, about December 14, 1825 and about Nekrasov and others (the entire volume is entirely devoted to literary critical articles, 1888-1903); vol. XIV - Letters without an address, Proletarian movement and bourgeois art, French dramatic literature and french painting XVIII century from the point of view of sociology, Art and public life, Preface to the 3rd ed. Sat. “For Twenty Years,” Henrik Ibsen, The Son of Doctor Stockman (about Hamsun), The Ideology of the Philistine of Our Time (about Ivanov the Reasoner), etc. (the whole volume is entitled “Art and Literature”); Vol. XVII - About the so-called religious quest in Russia; Vol. XVIII - Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his teaching on the origin of inequality between people. Utopian socialism of the 19th century. (in the section on French utopian socialism, Chapter VI - on the views of Pierre Leroux on art), French utopian socialism of the 19th century, From idealism to materialism (Chapter V - on the aesthetics of Hegel, Chapter XVI - on the aesthetics of Feuerbach), Basic questions of Marxism; vol. XX-XXII - History of Russian social thought; vol. XXIII - P. Ya. Chaadaev, M. P. Pogodin and the struggle of classes, I. V. Kireevsky, Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky, About Belinsky, Vissarion Belinsky and Valerian Maykov, A. I. Herzen and serfdom, Philosophical views of A. I. Herzen, Herzen the emigrant, etc.; Vol. XXIV - Dobrolyubov and Ostrovsky, five articles about Tolstoy, On the psychology of the labor movement (about Gorky), Letters to Gorky, About what is in the novel “That Which Wasn’t” (about Ropshin), Materialistic understanding of history (lecture 4th - about art), etc. Not included in the collection. composition Articles on literary topics and new publications are collected in the publishing house: G. V. Plekhanov - literary critic, New Materials, M., 1933 (Bibliography magazine "Literary Heritage"). During his lifetime, P. repeatedly included articles on literary topics in various collections of his articles; from these collections we will name here due to its special significance collection. “For twenty years”, Collection of literary, economic and philosophical-historical articles, St. Petersburg (collection published under the pseudonym Beltov and went through several editions; 1st edition, 1905). In Soviet editions. Several separate collections were published, including literary articles by P. These are: G. V. Plekhanov, Art, ed. “New Moscow”, M., 1922; G. V. Plekhanov, Literature and Criticism, vol. I, ed. “New Moscow”, M., 1923. P.’s articles dedicated to Belinsky and Herzen were also published in separate editions: V. G. Belinsky, Giza, M. - P., 1923; A. I. Herzen, Giz., M., 1924. P.’s articles on Tolstoy are collected in several publications, of which we will name: Plekhanov and Tolstoy, publishing house of the Comacademy, M., 1928 (Classics of Marxism on Tolstoy, book .II). Currently, the publication of P.'s articles on literature is being prepared by the Academia publishing house. A number of excerpts from P.’s literary articles have been included in various anthologies on issues of literature and art (a list of such anthologies is given by S. Balukhaty, Theory of Literature, Annotated Bibliography, Priboy Publishing House, Leningrad, 1929, see p. 58 etc.). II. Lenin V.I., Materialism and empirio-criticism (1908), Works, vol. XIII, ed. 3rd; One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (1904), vol. VI; How does Comrade Plekhanov talk about the tactics of Social Democracy? (1906), vol. IX; On two lines of revolution (1915), vol. XVIII; State and Revolution (1917), vol. XXI (for other statements by Lenin about P. see: “Subject index to the first edition of the works of V. I. Lenin”, Lenin Institute under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks), Guise, M. - L. , 1930, as well as “Index to Lenin’s collections, I/XX”, Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Partizdat, M., 1933); Stalin I., On the foundations of Leninism, in collection. articles by Stalin “Questions of Leninism” (several editions); Myakotin V., New words about old figures, “Russian wealth”, 1897, No. 11; Chukovsky K., Dial of Beltov, “Scales”, 1906, No. 2; Gippius Z., From the diary of a journalist, II. Tolstoy and Plekhanov, “Russian Thought”, 1908, book. II; Rusanov N. S., Disciples of Marx about Chernyshevsky, “Russian wealth”, 1909, No. 11; Axelrod I., G. Plekhanov on art, “Renaissance”, 1909, Nos. 9-12, and 1910, No. 1 (reprinted in the collection of articles by Axelrod “Literary-critical essays”, Minsk, 1923); Ivanov-Razumnik, Marxist criticism, in collection. Art. Ivanov-Razumnik “Literature and Public”, I, St. Petersburg, 1910; Kranichfeld Vl., Reply to G.V. Plekhanov, “Modern World”, 1913, No. 2; Voitolovsky L., Reply to G.V. Plekhanov, “Kiev Thought”, 1913, No. 65; Malinin K., G.V. Plekhanov on art, “Working World”, 1918, No. 8; Voronsky A., G.V. Plekhanov (1918-1920), “Workers' Land”, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, 1920, No. 117 (reprint in the collection of articles by Voronsky “At the junction”, Guise, M. - P., 1923); Axelrod L.I., On the attitude of G.V. Plekhanov to art, according to personal recollections, “Under the banner of Marxism”, 1922, No. 5-6 (reprinted in the collection of articles by P. “Art”, M., 1922 , and in the collection of articles by Axelrod “Sketches and Memoirs”, Guise, Leningrad, 1925); Fritsche V., G.V. Plekhanov and “scientific aesthetics”, “Under the banner of Marxism”, 1922, No. 5-6 (reprinted in the collection of articles by P. “Art”, M., 1922, and in the collection. Art. Fritsche “Problems of art criticism”, Guise, M. - L., 1930); Wolfson S., G.V. Plekhanov and questions of art, “Red Nov”, 1923, No. 5 (reprinted in Wolfson’s book “Plekhanov”, published by Beltrestpechat, Minsk, 1924); Zventsov A.I., Plekhanov, the proletariat and art, “The Key of Creativity”, Ufa, 1923, No. 2; Polyansky Val., Plekhanov on Tolstoy, “Under the Banner of Marxism”, 1923, No. 6-7; Vaganyan V., G.V. Plekhanov and V.G. Belinsky, ibid.; Molotov K., Plekhanov and art, “The Communist’s Companion”, 1923, No. 24; Rodov S., Aesthetic criticism as a weapon of class self-defense (Scientific criticism of Plekhanov and our aesthetes), “On duty”, 1923, No. 4 (reprint. on Sat. Art. Rodov “In Literary Battles”, ed. “Life and Knowledge”, M., 1926); Lelevich G., G.V. Plekhanov and the tasks of Marxist literary criticism, “On duty”, 1925, No. 1(6) (reprinted in the collection of articles by Lelevich “On the principles of Marxist literary criticism”, publishing house “Priboy”, L., 1925); Him, Plekhanov and the foundations of Marxist criticism, Komsomoliya, 1925, No. 4-5; Lezhnev A., Plekhanov as an art theorist, “Print and Revolution”, 1925, book. II and III; Him, Plekhanov and modern criticism, “Red Nov”, 1925, No. 5 (both articles were reprinted in the collection of articles by Lezhnev “Questions of Literature and Criticism”, publishing house “Krug”, M. - L., 1926); Yakovlev M. A., G. V. Plekhanov as a methodologist of literature, ed. “Book”, L. - M., (1926); Him, Plekhanov as a methodologist of literature, “Native language at school”, 1926, No. 10; Pereverzev V., Plekhanov in the book. Sakulina, “Bulletin of the Communist Academy”, 1926, book. XVI (Sakulin’s answer with Pereverzev’s note about his answer - see book XVIII for the same year); Becker M., Plekhanov on decadent phenomena in literature and art, “At the Literary Post,” 1927. No. 1; Bochkarev N., Plekhanov as a critic, “Native language at school”, 1927, book. IV; Nusinov I., L. N. Tolstoy and G. V. Plekhanov, in collection. “Plekhanov and Tolstoy”, Komakademiya publishing house, Moscow, 1928; Podolsky I.I., Plekhanov as a sociologist of art, “News of the Oriental Faculty of the Azerbaijan State. University named after V. I. Lenin, Oriental Studies,” vol. III, Baku, 1928; Fritsche V., To the anniversary of G.V. Plekhanov, “Literature and Marxism”, 1928, book. III; Mirov V., Chernyshevsky and Plekhanov in their aesthetic views, “Print and Revolution”, 1928, book. V; Woden A., G.V. Plekhanov as a literary historian, “Under the Banner of Marxism”, 1928, No. 5; Zivelchinskaya L., Aesthetics of Plekhanov, “Under the Banner of Marxism”, 1928, No. 5 (reprinted in the book by Zivelchinskaya “The Experience of Marxist Analysis of the History of Aesthetics”, Komakademiya Publishing House, M., 1928); Yakovlev M., Theory and practice of literary criticism in Plekhanov, “Print and Revolution”, 1928, book. VII; Bespalov I., Plekhanov as a literary critic, “Revolution and Culture”, 1928, Nos. 10 and 13 (reprinted in the collection of articles by Bespalov “Problems of Literary Science”, “Moscow Worker”, M., 1930); Averbakh L., Down with Plekhanov (Where Voronsky’s school is growing), “At the literary post,” 1928, No. 20-21; Egorov I., For Plekhanov’s method, “Notes of the Scientific Society of Marxists”, 1928, No. 4; Ermilov V., For Plekhanov’s orthodoxy, “At the literary post”, 1929, No. 19 (reprinted in the collection “Who and why are we fighting”, “ZiF”, M. - L., 1930); Andruzsky A. Ya., Aesthetics of Plekhanov, ed. "Surf", L., 1929; Ostretsov Iv., Plekhanov’s legacy is in danger. Regarding Andruzsky’s book “Plekhanov’s Aesthetics,” “At the Literary Post,” 1929, No. 24; Shchukin S., Two critics, Plekhanov - Pereverzev, ed. “Moscow Worker”, M., 1930 (extract from Shchukin’s book, published in “Under the Banner of Marxism”, 1930, No. 1); Polyansky V., Plekhanov, “Small Soviet Encyclopedia”, vol. VI, M., 1930; Yakovlev N.V., Towards the theory of the literary process (Formalists, Pereverzev, Plekhanov), in collection. "In the Struggle for Marxism in Literary Science", ed. “Surf”, L., 1930; Nusinov I.M., What is the objective criterion of artistry, “Literature and Marxism”, 1931, book. I; Belevitsky S.L., Plekhanov or Pereverzev? (about the book by I. Bespalov “Problems of Literary Science”), “Literature and Marxism”, 1931, book. I; Dobrynin M., For Lenin’s revaluation of Plekhanov’s legacy, “RAPP”, 1931, No. 3 (cf. review of this article: Luzgin M., Mikhailov A., Shushkanov N., About Dobrynin’s Menshevik smuggling, “Proletarian Literature”, 1932, No. 1-2); Kanaev F., For Lenin’s criticism of Plekhanov’s views, On the work of M. Gorky, “RAPP”, 1931, No. 3; Mikhailov A., On the aesthetic heritage of Plekhanov, “Proletarian Literature”, 1931, No. 4; Nusinov I., G.V. Plekhanov and V.I. Lenin about Gorky, Literary Newspaper, 1931, No. 26; M. B., For Lenin’s criticism of Plekhanov’s literary views, ibid., 1931, No. 26; I. B., For Lenin’s criticism of G. V. Plekhanov’s literary criticism, ibid., 1931, No. 35, 38; Him, For Lenin’s criticism of Plekhanov’s views on art and literature, “Literature and Art”, 1931, No. 4; Art and classes in the light of Plekhanov, ibid., No. 5-6; Lenoble G., Plekhanov and Lenin about Tolstoy, “Young Guard”, 1931, No. 13-14; Glagolev N., Lenin and Plekhanov about Tolstoy, “At the Literary Post”, 1931, Nos. 20-21 and 23; Anisimov I., For Lenin’s criticism of Plekhanov’s views, In connection with the book by S. Shchukin “Two Critics, Plekhanov - Pereverzev”, “At the Literary Post”, 1931, No. 34; Glagolev N., Gleb Uspensky and populism, Towards a critique of Plekhanov’s concept of populism, “RAPP”, 1931, No. 2; Him, For Lenin’s criticism of Plekhanov’s views on Belinsky, “Marxist-Leninist Art History,” 1932, No. 2; Osipov N., About the slogan “for Plekhanov’s orthodoxy”, ibid., 1932, No. 4; Belchikov N., Criticism of Plekhanov’s views on populism (The work of the populist writer N. I. Naumov), ibid.; Voitinskaya O., Plekhanov - Pereverzev - Shchukin, ibid.; Ippolit I., G.V. Plekhanov on newly discovered literary works, “Literary Heritage”, 1932, No. 1 (reprint. on Sat. "G. V. Plekhanov - literary critic", M., 1933); Voitinskaya O., Aesthetics of Plekhanov, “Great Soviet Encyclopedia”, vol. LXIV, M., 1933; Hers, Plekhanov’s views on art, “October”, 1933, book. XI; Desnitsky V., Theory of art for art in the aesthetic system of G. V. Plekhanov, in collection. Art. Desnitsky “On Literary Topics”, GIHL, L. - M., 1933 (in an abbreviated form printed in “Literary studies”, 1932, No. 6-8). From the biographies of P. we will name: Wolfson S. Ya., Plekhanov, Beltrestpechat, Minsk, 1924. III. Vaganyan V., Experience of bibliography of G. V. Plekhanov, Giza, M. - P., 1923; His, Addition to the experience of the bibliography of G.V. Plekhanov, “Under the Banner of Marxism,” 1923, No. 6-7 (a number of additions are also in the review of St. Krivtsov, “Under the Banner of Marxism,” 1923, No. 6-7); Wolfson S. Ya., Literature about Plekhanov, in the book. Wolfson “Plekhanov”, “Beltrestpechat”, Minsk, 1924, appendix. 2nd; Rozanov Ya., Systematic bibliography about Plekhanov, in the book. “Plekhanov’s Reader”, Edited by G. Marenko, State. publishing house of Ukraine, 1925; Wolfson S. Ya., Around Plekhanov, Plekhanov literature for 1922, Beltrestpechat, Minsk, 1923; Him, Around Plekhanov (Plekhanov literature for 1923), in collection. "Group Liberation of Labor", collection. No. 1, Guise, M., b. G.; Him, Around Plekhanov (Plekhanov literature for 1924), in collection. "Group Liberation of Labor", collection. No. 5, Guise, M. - L., 1925; Plotnikov A.E., Plekhanov and about Plekhanov, “Book and Revolution”, 1923, No. 3; Rozanov Y., Philosophical and sociological literature of Marxism (1917-1927), Komakademiya Publishing House, M., 1928; Vladislavlev I.V., Russian writers, Experience of a bibliographic manual..., ed. 4th, Guise, L., 1924; Mandelstam R.S., Fiction in the assessment of Russian Marxist criticism, ed. 4th, Guise, M. - L., 1928; Balukhaty S., Theory of Literature, Annotated Bibliography, ed. "Surf", L., 1929; Mandelstam R.S., Marxist art criticism, Bibliographic index of literature in Russian, Giza, M. - L., 1930. Pseudonyms with which P. signed his articles on literary topics: N. Andreevich, N. Beltov, G. Valentinov , N. Kamensky, A. Kirsanov, D. Kuznetsov. Other pseudonyms of Plekhanov are given in V. Vaganyan, Experience of bibliography of G. V. Plekhanov (Appendix I, p. 107), and in I. V. Vladislavlev, Russian Writers, ed. 4th (p. 275). Wikipedia 1000 biographies
2. Plekhanov’s aesthetic views in the light of his general political and philosophical views.
3. The nature and essence of art.
4. Plekhanov’s interpretation of the problems of the artistic process.
5. The principles of Marxist criticism in the understanding of Plekhanov.
6. Plekhanov’s specific assessments of individual writers and artistic phenomena.
7. Development of Plekhanov’s views in the theoretical works of his followers.
Bibliography.
In 1889, P. participated in the formation of the Second International. In his speech on the situation of the revolutionary movement in Russia, he said: “The revolutionary movement in Russia can only triumph as a revolutionary movement of the workers. We have no other choice and cannot have it.” This formula expressed full awareness of the collapse of populist illusions and the affirmation of the only true path for the revolutionary movement in Russia, along which our revolutionary Social Democracy followed.
Plekhanov's role as a theorist of Marxism in Russia was expressed both in translations classical works Marxism (“Communist Manifesto”, “Ludwig Feuerbach” by Engels), and in the independent popularization of the ideas of Marxism. In 1895 P. released legally (under the pseudonym Beltov) his famous book“On the Question of the Development of a Monistic View of History,” in which he outlined the main provisions of historical materialism, continuing his criticism of populism and in particular one of its most important theorists, N. K. Mikhailovsky. At the end of the 90s. P. took a close part in the magazine “New Word”, the organ of legal Marxists: he published a number of his works on literary topics in it under the pseudonym of Kamensky. During this period of his activity, Plekhanov led an active struggle against various attempts to “revise” Marx and emasculate the revolutionary content of his teaching. He energetically opposed “Bernsteinism” and its reflection on Russian soil - “economism”. Having become one of the editors of Iskra and Zarya in the 900s, Plekhanov came up with a draft party program, but a number of his provisions (characteristics of capitalism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the role of the peasantry, etc.) were erroneous, which was immediately revealed Lenin. Plekhanov took an active part in the Second Congress of the RSDLP, speaking together with Lenin against the Mensheviks. However, soon after the end of the congress, Plekhanov began to show hesitations, which led him to the Menshevik camp. In the revolution of 1905, P. went with the Mensheviks. “There was no need to take up arms,” wrote P. in December 1905 after the suppression of an armed uprising in Moscow. Sharply speaking out against Bolshevik tactics, against the leading role of the proletariat in the revolution, against the idea of developing a bourgeois revolution into a socialist revolution, against the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, P. argued that the revolution of 1905 was national, bourgeois, and called for focusing on bourgeois-liberal groups . At the IV and V party congresses, P. became the head of the Mensheviks; but when, during the years of reaction, a movement of “liquidators” arose among the Mensheviks, calling for the entire struggle against tsarism to be transferred to legal soil, P. spoke out against “liquidationism,” supporting Lenin in his struggle for a revolutionary, illegal party. This period of P.’s activity includes his articles directed against various forms of God-building and God-seeking, which, after the defeat of the revolution of 1905, began to penetrate among the revolutionary intelligentsia, and against the philosophical revision of Marxism on the part of Bogdanov and his followers - the Machists, empirio-critics and empirio-monists.
During the imperialist war, P. was at the head of the defencists. P. remained in his social-chauvinist positions even after the February Revolution. Standing at the head of the gas. “Unity”, he called on socialists to cooperate with liberal-bourgeois parties and stood for the continuation of the imperialist war until complete victory over Germany. After the July days, P. reached in his counter-revolutionary demands the slogan of establishing “firm power”, to actual support for the Kornilov dictatorship. P. was hostile to the October Revolution; however, while remaining an opponent of Soviet power, he categorically refused to oppose the proletariat.
At the end of 1917, P.'s health deteriorated greatly, and he was transported to a sanatorium in Finland. On May 30, 1918, he died and was buried in Leningrad, at the Volkov cemetery, next to Belinsky’s grave, not far from Dobrolyubov’s grave.
In his literary critical activity, P. from his first steps followed in the footsteps of Russian revolutionary-democratic criticism of the 60s. Plekhanov himself recognized the enormous impact that our revolutionary-democratic criticism, especially Chernyshevsky’s criticism, had on the development of his views. This criticism was a sharp “social criticism”; Due to the specific conditions of tsarist Russia, it largely sublimated revolutionary energy, which often did not find an outlet in the field of journalism and direct practical political activity. Our revolutionary-democratic criticism considered its main task, according to Dobrolyubov’s formula, repeatedly cited by P., “to explain those phenomena of reality that caused a famous work of art.” Recognition of the enormous social and ideological role of fiction was one of the main prerequisites for this criticism. With regard to the general orientation, P. continued in his literary critical activity the traditions of “social criticism.” But the very content of “social criticism” is radically different for P., because, having become a Marxist, P. approached social reality with the standards and demands of the “fourth estate.” This also determined the new quality of P.’s literary journalism; since it relied on the objective social criterion that guides Marxist criticism, it approached “scientific criticism.” P. steadily emphasized the difference between this “scientific criticism” and subjective “enlightenment” criticism, even underestimating the real historical content of our revolutionary-democratic criticism. Moreover, in his opposition of “scientific” criticism to “enlightenment” criticism, P. sometimes went so far as to completely deny the category of “ought” as a supposedly exclusively subjective category, turning it into such. arr. its scientific objectivity into passivist objectivism and fatalism.
The development of P.'s general philosophical views, which served as the theoretical basis for his aesthetics and literary judgments, proceeded in very close connection with the development of his political views and beliefs. Philosophy here fed politics and vice versa: politics required theoretical and philosophical justification for itself. Anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist is the assertion of the followers of the Deborin “school” in philosophy about the unconditional Marxist orthodoxy of P.’s philosophical views, which supposedly did not experience any influence from his political Menshevism. The Deborinites contrasted Lenin, who, in their opinion, was only the leader and organizer of the labor movement, with P. precisely as a theorist of Marxism. We know that Lenin highly valued P.’s general philosophical works, but even if we take only the positive side of P.’s philosophical and theoretical activity, abstracting for a while from his biggest mistakes in understanding the teachings of Marx and Engels, we will have to admit that P. never rose to the theoretical heights reached by Lenin, who, according to Stalin, “further developed the teachings of Marx and Engels in relation to new conditions of development, in relation to the new phase of capitalism, in relation to imperialism” (Stalin, Conversation with the first American workers’ delegation, 1927 , see collection of articles by Stalin “Questions of Leninism”, 9th edition, Partizdat, 1933, p. 263). After the death of Engels, Marxism faced the enormous task of theoretically generalizing everything new that science had given in various fields; A whole revolution took place in natural science during this time. And “it was none other than Lenin who took on the most serious task of generalizing in materialist philosophy the most important of what was given by science during the period from Engels to Lenin, and a comprehensive critique of anti-materialist currents among Marxists... It is known that he completed this task for of his time, none other than Lenin, in his wonderful book Materialism and Empirio-criticism. It is known that Plekhanov, who loved to make fun of Lenin’s carelessness about philosophy, did not even dare to seriously begin to carry out such a task” (Stalin, On the Foundations of Leninism, 1924, “Questions of Leninism”, 9th ed., Partizdat, 1933, p. 17 ). The doctrine created by Lenin, Leninism, is, according to Stalin’s definition, Marxism of the era of imperialism and proletarian revolutions. And P.'s theoretical works - even in their positive aspects - come into contact with the theoretical dogmas of the Second International, a characteristic feature of which is the gap between theory and practice. It was precisely when P. approached living social reality with the goal of its theoretical understanding and generalization that his misunderstanding of the revolutionary dialectical essence of Marxism and its logicism were particularly evident. This was especially evident in P.’s attitude to the first Russian revolution of 1905. Instead of “a concrete analysis of the situation and interests of various classes,” P. discovered here, according to Lenin, “a desire to seek answers to specific questions in the simple logical development of the general truth about the basic character of our revolution" (written in 1907, see Lenin, Collected Works, volume III, p. 12). And Lenin qualifies this “way of reasoning” as a “vulgarization of Marxism”, as “a complete mockery of dialectical materialism” (ibid.).
Lenin repeatedly noted P.'s lack of understanding of revolutionary dialectics. In “State and Revolution” (1917), Lenin wrote: “...for Marx, revolutionary dialectics was never that empty fashionable phrase, the trinket that Plekhanov, Kautsky, etc., made it.” (Collected works, vol. XXI, p. 400). In his philosophical notebooks (dating back to the years of the imperialist war), Lenin systematically emphasized P.'s misunderstanding of revolutionary dialectics. “Dialectics,” writes Lenin, “is the theory of knowledge (of Hegel and) Marxism: this is the aspect of the matter (this is not an aspect of the matter, but the essence of the matter) that Plekhanov did not pay attention to” (Lenin, Collected Works, vol. XIII, p. 303). And indeed P. showed a tendency to identify Marx’s theory of knowledge with Feuerbach’s, despite the fact that dialectics, which, according to Lenin, is the theory of knowledge of Marxism, is alien to Feuerbach’s philosophy. In “Basic Questions of Marxism” (1908), P. wrote: “... Marx’s epistemology in the most direct line comes from Feuerbach’s epistemology or, if you like, ... it is actually Feuerbach’s epistemology, but only deepened through what Marx made to it genius amendment" (vol. XVIII, pp. 190-191). Somewhat later, in one of his articles about Chernyshevsky, P. again said that Marx and Engels, having subjected Feuerbach’s materialism to significant revision, retained Feuerbach’s theory of knowledge (see vol. VI, p. 305). For P., dialectics was like this. arr. something separate from the theory of knowledge. However, this does not exhaust the traces of Feuerbachianism in P.’s philosophical views: they clearly appear in P.’s interpretation of the unity of subject and object. Here P. to a certain extent fell into Feuerbachian anthropologism, when he saw this unity of subject and object primarily in the biological nature of man (see “Basic Questions of Marxism,” Sochin. Plekhanov, vol. XVIII, p. 187). Especially in aesthetic views, the features of unresolved Feuerbachianism were reflected in P.’s lack of a clear understanding of the dialectical connection between the biological and the historical. These features of Feuerbachianism in Plekhanov's aesthetics are - genetically - to a certain extent explained by the great influence of Chernyshevsky on the very process of developing Plekhanov's views in the field of aesthetics.
One of the most significant problems for Marxist-Leninist aesthetics - the problem of the relationship between ideology and reality - finds a consistent Marxist solution in P. This is in connection with P.'s attitude towards Kantianism. Plekhanov, of course, spoke out and spoke out very sharply against the revisionist slogan “back to Kant,” but Plekhanov criticized Kantianism, in Lenin’s words, “more from a vulgar materialist point of view than from a dialectical materialist point of view” (see Lenin’s Collection, vol. IX, 2nd ed., p. 179). This suggests that the influence of bourgeois philosophy on P. is undeniable. P.’s actual attitude towards Kant was a compromise, half-hearted; he made concessions to Kantianism, which was especially clearly reflected in Plekhanov’s “theory of hieroglyphs” (which P., however, later abandoned under the influence of Lenin’s criticism). Lenin very sharply opposed this “theory,” seeing in it “a completely unnecessary element of agnosticism” (Lenin, vol. XIII, p. 193), and, following Marx and Engels, he contrasted it with the theory of “reflection.” It is absolutely indisputable that the Marxo-Leninist “theory of reflection” alone returns to ideology that powerful power of knowledge and influence that “critical” philosophy is trying to nullify, skeptically setting boundaries for the human mind, powerless and helpless in the face of the “thing in itself.” In particular, in the field of literature (and art), Lenin’s “theory of reflection” brings to the fore the objective, the real, while the agnostic “theory of hieroglyphs” leaves room for everything conditional, arbitrary, and subjective. That is why P. never rises to that clear and consistent formulation of the problem of realism in art, which we find in Lenin (in his articles on Tolstoy). P.'s inconsistency and duality in these basic premises of aesthetics dulls and distorts the social orientation of his literary critical activity. Although Plekhanov’s positions in relation to Kantianism, precisely thanks to Plekhanov’s struggle against attempts at neo-Kantian “revisions” in the field of Marxism, cannot be identified with the positions of the Second International, whose official philosophy has now become neo-Kantianism, we nevertheless have to recognize the presence of well-known tendencies towards a compromise with Kantianism. The role of these tendencies in the general system of Plekhanov’s philosophical views is increasing as Plekhanov’s political Menshevism deepens and strengthens, which culminated in social chauvinism during the World War. In P.’s social-chauvinist politics, Kant’s “categorical imperative” of morality finds a unique implementation.
For P., one of the main questions of aesthetics remained unresolved, the question of the essence of the aesthetic attitude to reality and, in particular, the question of the role and place of “beauty” in art. Plekhanov sympathetically quoted Chernyshevsky’s words that “the field of art is not and cannot be limited to the field of beauty” (vol. VI, p. 250; Plekhanov noted a similar idea from the utopian socialist Pierre Leroux, with whose views “advanced Russian Westerners” were familiar forties", see vol. XVIII, p. 72); but he himself was unable to draw all the conclusions arising from this. The idealistic concept of “beautiful” every now and then invades the aesthetic constructions of P., clearly emerging through their materialistic fabric and bringing with it other relapses of the idealistic order. Of course, we have a Kantian relapse in P. when he considers Kant’s thesis that “pleasure, which determines the judgment of taste, is free from any interest” (see Vol. XIV, p. 118) to be completely correct when applied to an individual person. ; in addition to repeating Kant’s idealistic thesis, we here see in Plekhanov a completely abstract understanding of the “individual person” as the opposite of the “social person” (as if society does not consist of “individual persons” and each “individual person” is not at the same time a “social person”! ). P. himself declares that “we still have room (my discharge - A.G.) for the Kantian view on this issue” (ibid., p. 119); this element of Kantianism in Plekhanov’s aesthetic views is certainly combined with the same elements in his general philosophical views. And the element - not so much Kantian as general idealistic - we find in P.’s statement that “the main distinguishing feature of aesthetic pleasure is its immediacy,” that beauty (as opposed to benefit, cognizable by reason) is cognized by the “contemplative ability” and that the area of beauty there is “instinct” (ibid., p. 119). This “localization” of the perception of beauty has nothing to do with the Marxist understanding of aesthetic perception. For Hegel, art was the free contemplation by the spirit of its own essence. Feuerbach created a materialist philosophy, but for him, too, all reality appeared, in the words of Marx, “only in the form of an object or contemplation.” P. and in relation to art retained this category of contemplation, equally inherent in both idealistic systems and Feuerbachian materialism.
By preserving this category in relation to art and emphasizing the instinctive nature of aesthetic perception, his, so to speak, “intuitionism,” P. deprives art of its “world-changing” role, its powerful social function, while for Marx any ideology was a form "development of the world." We must contrast P.'s passivist views with the unconditional and unconditional assertion of Marxism-Leninism about the partisanship of art (like all other ideologies), which in all its modifications is a powerful means of class struggle.
The main flaw in both general theoretical and practical political activities of P. was his lack of understanding of the need to fight for the implementation of the dictatorship of the proletariat. His main mistakes and shortcomings and, in particular, P.’s misunderstanding of the principle of partisanship in philosophy and science and the Menshevik denial of it are associated with this main flaw. In its opposition between the objective and the subjective, P. considers partisanship only as a subjective category; for him, party membership is always a phenomenon of class limitation: Plekhanov does not reach the understanding that the party, which is the revolutionary vanguard of the working class, is the bearer of objective knowledge, that its knowledge is in class society the historically highest and most complete, deepest form of objective knowledge. Based on this, Lenin criticized P. for his fatalistic attitude towards the spontaneous triumph of objective knowledge and tirelessly emphasized the principle of partisanship.
Denying the true partisanship of science, P., however, willingly turned his theoretical articles into a means of factional struggle against Bolshevism. In “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism,” Lenin wrote: “In his remarks against Machism, Plekhanov was not so much concerned about refuting Mach as about causing factional damage to Bolshevism” (Lenin, Collected Works, vol. XIII, p. 290). P.'s articles on literary topics are also full of attacks on the Bolsheviks; Suffice it to remember, for example. P.’s article “On the Psychology of the Labor Movement” (1907), where he criticized Gorky for sharing the tactical views of the Bolsheviks, which P. called “revolutionary alchemy” (see Vol. XXIV, p. 268). Similar attacks on the Bolsheviks are scattered in other articles by P. on literary topics (see, for example, vol. XIV, pp. 190 et seq.; ibid., p. 249).
P.'s general views - political and philosophical - determined the nature and direction of his aesthetic and literary views. The development of the latter in P. is not evolution in the positive sense of the word, in the sense of growth, but a movement along a downward curve, naturally caused by the political degradation of P. towards Menshevism and social chauvinism. In the first period of his activity, when P. waged a passionate, energetic struggle against all varieties of idealism, against populist “subjective sociology”, against the distortions of Marxism, he created basically everything that was positive and valuable that was in his aesthetic and literary views. This is positive and must be assessed from the point of view of Marxism-Leninism, separating it from the anti-Marxist, anti-revolutionary elements and tendencies that, to varying degrees, at different stages of P.’s ideological and political path, permeate his aesthetic and literary works.
Seeking an answer to the question about the nature and essence of art, P. repeatedly turned to Hegel’s aesthetics. P. was aware of the significance of Hegelian aesthetics; he knew that it represented “a major step forward in understanding the essence and history of art” (“From Idealism to Materialism,” 1916, vol. XVIII, p. 144). Of course, P. did not accept all of Hegel’s positions; he tried to highlight in Hegelian aesthetics the core that could be used by materialist aesthetics, and P. just accused the idealist Volynsky of “not criticizing Hegel” (“A. L.” Volynsky", 1897, vol. X, p. 167).
P.'s greatest attention was attracted in Hegel's aesthetics by those moments when Hegel - in his own words - descended onto “concrete historical soil.” “Hegel, even in Aesthetics,” says P., “at times he himself leaves his idealistic kingdom of shadows in order to breathe the fresh air of everyday reality. And it is remarkable that the old man’s chest breathes in these cases as well as if it had never inhaled any other air” (ibid., vol. X, p. 179). As an example of such “historicity” of Hegel, P. cites his reasoning about Dutch painting, the works of which Hegel connected with the social reality of their time and the bourgeois character of the environment that created them.
Of the general definitions of art established by Hegel, P. first of all emphasized the position that “the subject of art is identical with the subject of philosophy”, that “the content of art is precisely reality,” and here reality was meant precisely in the Hegelian sense, i.e. “reality , free from those elements of chance that are inevitable in any finite existence” (“From Idealism to Materialism,” vol. XVIII, p. 146). “This,” says P., “shades the enormous value of the content of works of art” (ibid.); in art, “as in any other human endeavor, the content is of decisive importance” (“History of modern Russian literature by A. M. Skabichevsky,” 1897, volume X, p. 310). P. tirelessly pursued and emphasized this idea in his works (see, for example, “A. L. Volynsky,” volume X, p. 191); “without an idea,” said P., “art cannot live” (“Proletarian Movement and Bourgeois Art,” 1905, vol. XIV, p. 77). Polemicizing with the definition of art given by Tolstoy, who saw in art only emotional content (through art “people convey their feelings to each other”), Plekhanov argued that art expresses both people’s feelings and thoughts (“Letters without an address”, vol. XIV, pp. .1-2). By this, P. emphasized the ideological nature of art.
Bringing the content of art to the forefront in art, following Hegel, P. did not oppose forms to it: form is determined by content, and there is a constant relationship between content and form. The specificity of art lies, according to Hegel, in the fact that spiritual content is expressed in art in sensual form: “while the philosopher cognizes the truth in a concept, the artist contemplates it in an image” (Vol. XVIII, p. 146). This idea of Hegel was accepted by Belinsky, who viewed art as “thinking in images.” Plekhanov also saw in the imagery of art the specificity of its ideological nature. “The content of a work of art is a certain general... idea. But there is no trace of artistic creativity, where this idea appears in its abstract form. The artist must individualize that general thing that makes up the content of his work” (“A. L. Volynsky,” vol. X, p. 190). Seeing in imagery the specificity of art as ideology, dialectical thought does not, however, draw a sharp line between logical and figurative thinking; As in all areas, here too she marks constant transitions. P. himself knew how highly Hegel placed reflective poetry (see “Literary views of V. G. Belinsky,” 1897, vol. X, p. 274); nevertheless, Plekhanov at times sharply distinguished the areas of logical and figurative thinking, revealing here his mechanistic, anti-dialectical understanding of the issue. This was reflected with particular vividness in Plekhanov’s articles on populist fiction writers, where Plekhanov sharply contrasted the interests of social and literary, journalistic elements in the work of the populists with aesthetics, which supposedly benefits “from the more objective (“impartial?”, “neutral?” - A.G.) the author’s relationship to the subject” (“Gl. I. Uspensky”, 1888, volume X, p. 13); P. made the same sharp mechanistic contrast between the “language of logic” and the “language of images” in his famous “Preface” to the 3rd ed. collection “For Twenty Years,” when he, speaking against Gorky’s “Mother,” said that the role of a preacher is not suitable for an artist (see vol. XIV, p. 192). Not to mention the fact that P. with a single stroke of the pen crossed out here the social and ideological role of art, which he defended and promoted in the best period of his activity - he did not see those new qualitative changes that, under certain conditions, journalistic elements bring with them into the artistic fabric of the work, without violating its general artistic specificity.
Hegel's aesthetics, perceived by P. to a certain extent in a “mediated” form through Belinsky, was one of the main sources in the formation of his aesthetic views. Repeating the sequence of the historical course of development of Marx-Engels' dialectical materialism, it was legitimate to turn after Hegel to Feuerbach as a new source for substantiating materialist aesthetics. P. did just that.
Feuerbach himself did not give a detailed statement of his views on aesthetics; this was done by his followers, about whom P. spoke in summary terms in the essays “From Idealism to Materialism” (vol. XVIII, pp. 179-181). The most complete and striking application of Feuerbach's general philosophical views to the field of aesthetics on Russian soil were the aesthetic views of Chernyshevsky, which Plekhanov subjected to critical analysis. The features of Feuerbachianism were already inherent in the literary views of the late Belinsky. Aesthetic theory Chernyshevsky “was a further development of those views on art that Belinsky came to in the last years of his literary activity” (“The Aesthetic Theory of N. G. Chernyshevsky,” written in 1897, vol. VI, p. 251).
This theory, in contrast to various idealistic constructions, put forward the rehabilitation of reality as its task (ibid., p. 264). One of its main provisions is the following definition of “beautiful”: “beautiful is life”; the beautiful in reality is higher and more significant than the beautiful in art. In this statement of “life” Chernyshevsky’s materialistic worldview is reflected with great force; However, in comparison with the Hegelian concept of “reality,” the category of “life” (“reality”) of Feuerbach’s follower Chernyshevsky does not know (almost does not know) development. The point of view of development “is almost completely absent from his (Chernyshevsky - A.G.) dissertation” (vol. IV, p. 275); This is why we find in Chernyshevsky (in his “Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality”) “much fewer truly materialistic remarks about the history of art than, for example, in the Aesthetics of the absolute idealist Hegel” (“N. G. Chernyshevsky,” 1890, vol. V, p. 60). And yet Chernyshevsky did not deny the historical point of view; he considered it necessary in the field literary criticism and believed that “the history of art serves as the basis for the theory of art” (ibid., pp. 54-55). It was precisely by staying on historical ground that Chernyshevsky came to the conclusion that “different classes of society have different ideals of beauty depending on the economic conditions of their existence” (ibid., p. 58). Having causally connected the aesthetic concepts of people with their economic life, Chernyshevsky, according to P., made “a discovery that was brilliant in the full sense of the word” (ibid., p. 60). Chernyshevsky, however, stopped at the threshold of the correct view of art. His aesthetic views “were only the embryo of that correct view of art, which, having adopted and improved the dialectical method of old philosophy, at the same time denies its metaphysical basis and appeals to concrete social life” (“The Aesthetic Theory of N. G. Chernyshevsky,” vol. VI, pp. 284-285). This correct view of art was given by the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels; Considering such historical sources of Marxism as the philosophical teachings of Hegel and Feuerbach in their relation to issues of aesthetics, P. sets as his task the propaganda of the Marxist understanding of aesthetics.
From the point of view of dialectical materialism, literature and art in general represent “ideologies”, specific forms of social consciousness. As such they are determined by social existence. P. repeatedly repeated this one of the main tenets of Marxism in his works, illustrating it and confirming it concrete examples from the field of literature and art of various eras and peoples. “I hold the view,” writes P., “that social consciousness is determined by social existence. For a person who holds this view, it is clear that any given ideology is also art and the so-called. fine literature expresses the aspirations and moods of a given society or, if we are dealing with a society divided into classes, of a given social class" (Preface to the 3rd edition of the collection "For Twenty Years", vol. XIV, p. 183). The psychology of the characters in a work of art “is the psychology of entire social classes, or at least layers, and... therefore, the processes occurring in the souls of individuals are a reflection historical movement"(A. L. Volynsky, vol. X, pp. 190-191). On the question of the nature of the influence of the economic basis on ideologies, Plekhanov notes: “The direct influence of economy on art and other ideologies is generally noticed extremely rarely” (“Literary views of V. G. Belinsky,” vol. X, p. 296). At the same time, P. emphasized the constant interaction of various ideologies (ibid.). P. found the direct influence of a person’s productive activity on his worldview and on the nature of his art in a primitive society that did not know the division into classes (P. speaks more about this in “Letters without an address”; see also vol. XIV, p. 96 and next; vol. XVIII, p. 223; vol. XXIV, p. 377). P. came to this conclusion inductively, drawing on a large amount of specific material collected by bourgeois science for analysis. P.’s theoretical generalization here converges with the generalization of Marx and Engels, given by them in “German Ideology”: “The production of ideas, ideas, consciousness is initially directly (emphasized by me - A.G.) woven into material activity and into the material communication of people - language real life. The idea, thinking, spiritual communication of people are still here directly resulting from the material relationship of people” (see the works of Marx and Engels, vol. IV, p. 16). In a society divided into classes, class struggle acts as a “factor” that has, according to P., “truly colossal significance” (vol. XVIII, p. 223). In his early work “On the Question of the Development of a Monistic View of History” (1895), P. wrote: “... this (class - A. G.) struggle has a huge, extremely important influence on the development of ideologies. It can be said without exaggeration that we will understand nothing of this development without taking into account the class struggle” (Vol. VII, p. 215). P. persistently repeated this idea in relation to the tasks of art criticism: “A person,” writes P., “who is not clearly aware of the struggle, the centuries-old and diverse process of which makes up history, cannot be a conscious art critic” (“A L. Volynsky", vol. X, p. 190). P. himself, when studying artistic phenomena, sought to understand and explain them in the light of the class struggle taking place in a given society. “The Marriage of Figaro” by Beaumarchais is for P. “an expression of the struggle of the third estate against the old order” (vol. X, p. 190); all French dramatic literature (and painting) of the 18th century. P. analyzes precisely from this point of view (“French dramatic literature and French painting XVIII century from the point of view of sociology", 1905, vol. XIV). In all these cases, literature (and art in general) appears in P. as a very significant ideological means of class struggle that plays a large role. Here P. developed Marx’s own quoted idea that literature and art are “ideological forms”, “in which people are aware... of conflict (resulting from the contradiction between the material productive forces of society and existing relations of production - A.G. ) and fight among themselves on its basis” (vol. XXIV, p. 369. My discharge - A.G.). In his best works, Plekhanov takes this point of view, but during the period of his political degradation, Plekhanov completely distorts the very concept of class struggle. In his famous introduction to the History of Russian social thought“(this introduction appeared in 1914, written back in 1912) P. sees class struggle only “where it concerns the internal social structure”; during wars, when “it comes to protecting the country from external attacks,” the mutual struggle of classes is replaced, according to P., by their “more or less friendly cooperation” (vol. XX, p. 13). In this formula, which already foreshadows the later social chauvinism of P., the betrayal of the interests of the working class is, as it were, elevated to a permanent principle.
The question of the origin of art is of great importance for substantiating the materialist understanding of aesthetics. That is why P. dwelled on this issue in detail (especially in “Letters without an address”), drawing on material from history for analysis primitive art. P. saw the prerequisites for aesthetic feeling in the biological nature of man; the development of this feeling and its direction, according to P., are determined by social historical conditions. “Human nature makes it possible for him to have aesthetic tastes and concepts. The conditions surrounding him determine the transition of this possibility into reality; they explain the fact that a given social person ... has precisely these aesthetic tastes and concepts, and not others” (“Letters without an address,” vol. XIV, p. 11). P. referred to Darwin, who, also to resolve the issue of aesthetic sensations in “civilized man,” “sends us from biology to sociology” (ibid., p. 7). P. showed in a number of examples that the concept of beauty is formed “due to a rather complex association of ideas”; beautiful e.g. in a number of cases it turns out to be “that which is precious,” and therefore “aesthetic concepts arise on the basis of ideas of a completely different order” (ibid., p. 8). These statements by P. were directed against idealistic theories regarding the “independence” of aesthetic feeling, as well as against idealistic constructions regarding the “absolute nature” of this feeling. Bringing into the area the so-called. “beautiful” category of historicity, we thereby deprive any reasoning about the “eternal laws” of art. P. took, in general, the right path here: from biology to sociology. But not to mention the fact that P. actually eliminated dialectical materialism from the field of natural science here (the field of research “of supporters of the materialist view,” says P. in “Letters without an address,” “begins exactly where the field of research of Darwinists ends,” see vol. development of the historical process - the transition of the biological to the social. In his later work“Art and Social Life” (1912) P. wrote: “The ideal of beauty that dominates given time, in a given society or in this class society, is rooted partly in the biological conditions of the development of the human race, which create, among other things, racial characteristics, and partly in the historical conditions of the emergence and existence of this society or this class” (vol. XIV, p. 141). Here, biological and historical conditions appear in P. as if in a kind of parallel coexistence. How far this thesis is from the dialectics of Marx, who asserts that the very category of aesthetic feeling arises only in the process of human productive activity!
Speaking about the origin of art, P. saw in the game “the embryo of artistic activity” (vol. XXIV, p. 376). In “Letters without an address” P. paid a lot of attention to this issue. The thesis that art is a game belongs to Kant and Schiller, for whom this thesis has exclusively idealistic content. In “Letters without an address,” P. brought art closer to play only in genetic terms, only in terms of the origin of art, perceiving the Kant-Schiller thesis in its positivist modification given by Spencer. At the same time, P. emphasized the sociological significance of the game (see Vol. XIV, p. 63), repeating after Wundt that “game is the child of labor” (ibid., p. 57). But nevertheless, P.’s interpretation leaves room for idealistic relapses, and indeed, in his later book about Chernyshevsky (ed. “Rosehovnik”, 1910, see section III: Literary views of N. G. Chernyshevsky) P. already talks about art as a game not only in genetic terms, P. here sees the kinship between art and play in their very nature. P. writes here: “... art must certainly be recognized as akin to play, which also reproduces life” (vol. V, p. 316). Despite all the reservations and limitations, P. here essentially departs from the Marxist understanding of art as ideology and approaches the idealistic constructions of Kantianism, for which the identification of art with play is organically connected with the affirmation of the “independence” and “selflessness” of art.
In this “antithetical” scheme of literary development, P. essentially repeated Brunetiere’s views on the change of literary phenomena. In the work preceding “Letters without an address,” in the book “On the Question of Development...” P. dwelt in more detail on these views of Brunetiere. “There,” writes P., “where Brunetiere sees only the influence of some literary works on others, we see, in addition, deeper mutual influences of social groups, strata and classes; where he simply says: a contradiction arose, people wanted to do the opposite of what their predecessors did, we add: but they wanted because a new contradiction appeared in their actual relations, that a new social stratum or class arose that could no longer live as people of old lived” (vol. VII, p. 217). Plekhanov here correctly put forward the Marxist position that the development of literature and art is based on the “contradiction” that arises in the actual relations of people, in their social relations. But P. is often limited to introducing only Marxist “amendments” to certain views of bourgeois art criticism, without violating their own structure. This is what P. did in relation to Brunetiere: Brunetiere’s very scheme, which knows only two lines of development - either imitation or opposition, - P. retained in its entirety despite all his criticism. “In all ideologies,” writes P., “development occurs along the path indicated by Brunetiere. Ideologists of one era either follow in the footsteps of their predecessors, developing their thoughts, applying their techniques and only allowing themselves to compete with them, or they rebel against old ideas and techniques and come into conflict with them” (vol. VII, p. 216) . In this scheme, the very formulation of the question is extremely characteristic: “either - or”, this typical anti-dialectical formula of logical, rationalistic thought. How far this straightforward scheme of P. is from Lenin’s dialectical solution to the “problem of inheritance”! After all, the education and development of such an ideology as the ideology of the revolutionary proletariat - Marxism, which - in the words of Lenin - "assimilated and processed everything that was valuable in more than two thousand years of development of human thought and culture" (Lenin, Sobr. Works, 3rd ed., vol. XXV, pp. 409-410). And if one can argue about whether P. really always understood the process of development of ideologies in such a straightforward and mechanistic way, because P.’s analysis of the movement of French dramatic literature XVIII V. is precisely marked by tendencies of an opposite nature, tendencies that go along the line of searching for real connections with reality, yet the mechanistic nature of the formula being analyzed remains characteristic of P., reflecting his inherent tendency towards schematization and logicism.
Among the positive moments from a Marxist point of view in P.’s statements on the issue of the development of the literary (artistic) process should include, as we noted above, P.’s remarks on the sociology of various genres in literature and art. P.’s comments about the so-called are also valuable. "literary influences". “The influence of the literature of one country on the literature of another,” writes P., “is directly proportional to the similarity of social relations of these countries. It does not exist at all when this similarity is zero” (Vol. VII, p. 212). At the same time, “the imitator is separated from his model by all the distance that exists between the society that gave birth to him, the imitator, and the society in which the model lived” (ibid.). Here the question of “influences” in art was also posed by P. on the basis of real social relations.
A very important question is the question of the dialectic of form and content in the movement of the literary process. As stated earlier, the form and content of a work of art were correlative concepts for P.: there is a constant relationship between form and content, the form is determined by the content. P. emphasized the historicity of the literary form: “... French tragedy owed its form to a number of reasons rooted in the course of the social and literary development of France” (“Literary views of V. G. Belinsky,” vol. X, p. 297 ). But P. did not rise to the understanding of the dialectical nature of the connection he established between form and content. “Generally speaking,” he wrote, “form is closely related to content” (vol. XXI, p. 208). But in their dialectical connection, form and content represent a single whole, which is a unity of opposites. As one of the elements of dialectics, Lenin points out: “15) the struggle of content with form and vice versa. Removing the form, remaking the content" (Leninsky Collection, vol. IX, 2nd ed., p. 259). If we observe a correspondence between form and content in a work of art, then this is only a special case, only one of the forms of that unity of opposites, which is the artistic whole; most often (and precisely in the movement of the process) this unity of opposites does not appear as a correspondence of form and content, but manifests itself in the form of a struggle of opposites, in the form of a contradiction between form and content. P.'s approach to such a contradiction reveals with particular acuteness his inability to embrace the entire historical concreteness of the phenomenon. He either does not know how to distinguish a real contradiction from a contradiction that is only visible, apparent (as we see in P.’s article “French dramatic literature, etc.” in the place where they talk about new revolutionary content poured “into old literary wineskins” , see vol. XIV, p. 106), or, having correctly sensed the contradiction, he bypasses the real, concrete historicity of phenomena and is satisfied with a mechanistically formulated scheme, which is essentially a paraphrase of Hegel’s idealistic teaching about the three stages in the historical development of art ( symbolic art East, classical art of Greece, romantic art of Christianity). We have in mind the well-known passage from P.’s “History of Russian Social Thought”: “Generally speaking, form is closely related to content. True, there are eras when it separates (my discharge - A.G.) from it to a more or less strong extent. These are exceptional eras. In such eras, either form lags behind content or content behind form. But we must remember that the content lags behind the form not when literature is just beginning to develop, but when it is already inclined to decline - most often due to the decline of the social class or layer whose tastes and aspirations are expressed in it. Examples: decadence, futurism and other similar literary phenomena of our day, caused by the spiritual decline of certain layers of the bourgeoisie. Literary decline is always expressed, among other things, in the fact that they begin to value form much more than content” (vol. XXI, pp. 208-209). This Plekhanov scheme provides a correct statement of the decline of bourgeois art during the period of socio-political degradation of the bourgeoisie; here there is also, so to speak, a feeling of the contradiction observed in art between form and content. But this “sensation” is not comprehended, P. is not fully realized, and this scheme does not go beyond the abstract-logical constructions characteristic of P., which impoverish the entire dialectical diversity of living, concrete historical life. P. - with his characteristic penchant for schematization and logicism - speaks here abstractly about the eras of decline and rise, about ascending and descending classes, and did not take into account the entire diversity of the specific historical situation. In addition to all this, P. completely mechanistically, anti-dialectically separates form from content here, forgetting that this “lag” itself, which he states, is only a peculiar form of the dialectical relationship between form and content. Reminiscing Hegel's idealistic scheme about the stages of development of art, P. at the same time rejected Hegel's dialectical understanding of the relationship between form and content. Summarizing Hegel's thought, Lenin wrote: “Form is essential. The essence is formed in one way or another depending on the essence” (“Leninsky collection”, vol. IX, p. 135). Hegel emphasizes that “when considering the opposition between form and content, it is essential not to lose sight of the fact that content is not formless, but form is both contained in the content itself and represents something external to it. Here we have a doubling of form: firstly, it, as reflected within itself, is content; secondly, it, as unreflected into itself, is an external existence, indifferent to content” (Works of Hegel, Russian edition of the Marx and Engels Institute, “vol. I, p. 224). In the above diagram, P. does not know this dialectical “doubling” of form: “form” here drags out for P. only an “external existence, indifferent to the content.” P. only externally stated the “phenomenon” here, without defining its essence. Instead of the dialectic of form and content in the movement of the literary process, P. gave here a geometric diagram of mechanically alternating straight lines. Mechanism here again dominates in P. over the dialectical understanding of processes.
True, in his early works P. put forward the thesis about the “journalism” of scientific criticism (as opposed to the subjective journalism of “enlightenment” criticism). In his early works, P. argued that “true philosophical criticism is at the same time true journalistic criticism” (“A. L. Volynsky,” vol. X, p. 191). P. pursued this position in a number of his works relating to the early, “socialist” (as defined by Lenin) period of his activity, when P. stood on the positions of Marxism. In one of his first articles on literary topics (“Two words to the worker readers,” 1885), P. writes, addressing the workers: “You must have your own poetry, your own songs, your own poems. In them you must look for the expression of your grief, your hopes and aspirations. The more consciously you become of your situation, the more anger and indignation your modern fate arouses in you, the more persistently these feelings will ask to come out, the richer your poetry will be" (collection "G. V. Plekhanov - Literary Critic", M., 1933, p. 28). P. ended his speech about Nekrasov (1903) as follows: “...death has long since mowed down Nekrasov. The poet of the commoners has long since left the literary stage, and we can only wait for the appearance of a new poet, the poet of the proletarians” (vol. X, p. 325). In an article about French dramatic literature and painting of the 18th century. (1905) P. came out in defense of political art: “...let them not say,” P. writes here, “that such art cannot but be fruitless. This is mistake. The inimitable art of the ancient Greeks was, to a very large extent, just such political art... And as for French art era of the revolution, then the sans-culottes led him onto a path that the art of the upper classes could not follow: it became a national cause” (vol. XIV, p. 117).
In all these above cases, as well as in a number of others (see, for example, P.’s article “Proletarian Movement and Bourgeois Art,” 1905, vol. XIV), P. acted as a publicist in the true and good sense of the word, as a revolutionary publicist, pursuing a Marxist, proletarian point of view. But the inconsistency and duality characteristic of P. cross this revolutionary journalistic line of his literary critical activity. And it would be extremely erroneous to identify Plekhanov’s thesis about the “journalism” of scientific criticism (and literature as such) with the Leninist principle of partisanship. For Lenin, the principle of party membership is the basic, formative principle of truly Marxist, truly proletarian science and literature, truly free, according to Lenin, and openly associated with the proletariat. Lenin understood the “principle of party literature” in the sense that “literary work should become part of the general proletarian cause, the wheel and cog of one single, great social democratic one (written in 1905, when the communist party still bore the name “social democratic” - A. D.) a mechanism set in motion by the entire conscious vanguard of the entire working class” (Lenin, Party organization and party literature, Collected works, vol. VIII, p. 387). The principle of party membership in Lenin’s understanding is, as it were, “included” in the very concept of objective knowledge, because the party of the revolutionary proletariat, as its vanguard, possesses the historically highest form of this knowledge. For P., “publicism” is essentially only a form of class bias, class sympathies and antipathies, and even Plekhanov’s “publicism”, narrowed to such limits, is not a necessary, permanent feature of Marxist criticism; “publicism” in his understanding is limited only to certain, namely "transitional" social eras. P. writes: “... in certain historical epochs, journalism uncontrollably bursts into the area of artistic creativity and rules there as if it were at home. Same with criticism. In all transitional social eras it is imbued with the spirit of journalism, and in part it directly becomes journalism. Is this bad or good? C'est selon! But the main thing is that it is inevitable...” (“A. L. Volynsky”, vol. X, p. 193). This understanding of “journalism” is fundamentally different from Lenin’s “party spirit.” Plekhanov’s formulation sounds like an objectivist attitude even towards “publicism” itself. P. seems to be saying: nothing can be done, in transitional social eras this cannot be avoided! These notes of Struvian objectivism, which break through every now and then even in P.’s early works, subsequently begin to sound with all certainty and clarity. In his famous preface to the 3rd edition of the collection “For Twenty Years” (1908), P. resolutely rejects the accusation brought against him by one critic that in his literary judgments he is guided by the degree of similarity of the social views of the authors he examines with him, P., by his own social beliefs. P. considers such an accusation “ridiculous”, “because for a critic, as such, we're talking about not about laughing or crying, but about understanding” (vol. XIV, p. 184). But from such “understanding” one step is taken to “forgiving.” And indeed, in his article about Ropshin’s novel “That Which Wasn’t” (1913, vol. XXIV), P. in his objectivist “understanding” reaches the point that he completely forgives the author for his renegadeism and departure from the revolution. This article was written by P. shortly before he began to preach “class peace” in the face of the enemy advancing on the “fatherland”. Obviously, the era of “class peace” no longer left any room for Plekhanov’s “publicism”!
In the very construction of literary analysis, P., paraphrasing Belinsky, distinguished between two acts. The critic P. saw the first task as “to translate the idea of a given work of art from the language of art into the language of sociology in order to find what can be called the sociological equivalent of a given literary phenomenon” (vol. XIV, pp. 183-184). “The second act of true materialist criticism should be, as it was with idealist critics, an assessment of the aesthetic merits of the work being analyzed” (ibid., p. 189). The question of the form of a work of art is, as P. has repeatedly emphasized, a question essential for an art critic. “Looking at the Mariage de Figaro as an expression of the struggle of the third estate against the old order, we, of course, will not turn a blind eye to how this struggle is expressed, that is, whether the artist coped with his task” (“A. L Volynsky", vol. X, p. 190). The form of a work of art is, according to P., the object of precisely the so-called. "second act" of criticism. Any analysis, of course, requires division and differentiation; That’s why the very division of critical analysis into two “acts” would not raise any special objections if we did not associate with this division P.’s statements about the “area of aesthetics” as an area opposed to the living, real relations of people with their class interests and predilections, in It is in this environment that real works of art are created. “Aesthetic” is contrasted here with the real, i.e. social, class, as a “non-aesthetic” category. P., fortunately, does not remain consistent in pursuing this idea, which is in clear contradiction with his Marxist thesis about artistic form as a historical category associated with content. But in general, P. does not deny the possibility of criticizing “purely aesthetic judgments” (vol. XXIV, p. 288) and in a number of his specific aesthetic assessments remains captive to traditional, customary bourgeois aesthetic concepts and ideas. We encounter such moments, for example. in P.’s article on the international art exhibition in Venice (1905), when P. speaks of “anti-aesthetic impressions” (vol. XIV, pp. 78, 84). But these features of P. appear especially sharply in an article about Uspensky, as well as in a speech about Nekrasov (1903), where P. speaks of his “anti-aesthetic errors” (vol. X, p. 377). P. does not know how to find here those new qualitative moments that were created by the poetics of Nekrasov or Uspensky as representatives of a new social stratum in literature. The correct view of the artistic form as a historical category that changes along with the social conditions of its creation gives way in these judgments to P.’s “prejudice,” to the bourgeois-idealistic concepts of “aesthetic” and “anti-aesthetic.” It is in these cases that P.’s mechanistic distinction between sociological and aesthetic (artistic) analysis comes into play.
This question is most closely related to the question of the criterion of artistry in the understanding of P. And here P. does not reveal the necessary consistency. For Lenin, the question of artistry is subordinated to the more general problem of the relationship of a given artistic phenomenon to reality. Speaking about Tolstoy as a “mirror of the Russian revolution,” Lenin notes: “...if we really have before us great artist , then he should have reflected at least some of the essential aspects of the revolution in his works” (Lenin, Collected works, vol. XII, p. 331). Here Lenin seems to establish a certain gradation of artistry depending on the depth and completeness of the reflection of reality in a work of art. P., speaking about artistry, fluctuates between two poles. He either puts forward as an “objective measure” of artistry the exclusively formal sign of “compliance of the form with the idea” (vol. XIV, p. 180) or, rightly demanding a certain quality of ideological content, puts forward an extremely unsteady and colored in the tones of “absolute morality” category “ false idea,” arguing that such an idea cannot be the basis of a work of art (see P.’s article on Hamsun, “The Son of Doctor Stockman,” vol. XIV). When determining the “truthfulness” and “falsity” of an artistic idea, P. tries to rely on Ruskin’s formula about the “height of the expressed mood.” Taken in this way, the category of “false idea” loses its historical outlines in Plekhanov, acquiring the contours of “eternal” “ethical” norms. But Plekhanov’s very thought about the ideological nature of works of art as an essential point (“all other things being equal,” in P.’s words) of their comparative assessment belongs to his positive and fruitful statements. And P. rightly connects the artistic shortcomings of Ibsen’s work, which consist in the “lack of definiteness of his images”, in the “element of abstraction and schematism”, with the nature of Ibsen’s ideologicalness, with the fact that the artist “did not become ideological to the end” (“Henrik Ibsen”, vol. XIV, p. 194). P. speaks about ideologicalness as a necessary and decisive moment of artistic creativity, moreover, ideologicalness of a certain quality, commensurate with the “idea of the fourth estate.” “The Proletarian Movement and Bourgeois Art” (vol. XIV). In all these provisions and demands, P. approached the question of artistry from the right positions. Particularly clearly - albeit in a different way - P. formulates his view on the significance of the artist and his work in one of his early articles about Belinsky: “... a great poet,” P. wrote here, “is great only insofar as he is an exponent great moment in the historical development of society” (“Literary views of V. G. Belinsky,” vol. X, p. 298). This correct view of true artistry, however, coexists in P. with relapses of bourgeois-idealistic concepts of “aesthetic” and “anti-aesthetic”, as mentioned above.
P., for all his mistakes and deviations from the positions of Marxism, opposed “art for art’s sake,” in the name of “art for life.” Already in one of his first articles on literary topics, “The Reactionary Priests of Art and Mr. A.V. Stern” (1888), P. exposed the supporters of “art for art’s sake.” “Meanwhile,” P. wrote here, “as Messrs. critics of the Russian Messenger have always been ardent supporters of the so-called theory of art for art's sake - Messrs. the fiction writers who labored on the pages of this magazine were never in such an ideal mood,” they “willingly took part even in the battles of the organ that sheltered them with people of the hostile camp” (vol. X, p. 408). Using the aesthetic theories of Belinsky and Chernyshevsky, P. traced how the principle of “art for life” was gradually developed and established on Russian soil. Already Belinsky came to the conclusion that art serves public interests (vol. X, p. 279); according to Chernyshevsky’s concepts, art is called upon “to be a textbook of life for a person,” it “must serve for some significant benefit” (vol. VI, pp. 251 and 252). And P. accepted these provisions, trying to translate them onto the scientific basis of the Marxist worldview. A deviation from this path is P.’s seemingly dialectical attempt to prove that not in all eras the principle of “art for art’s sake” was reactionary (this attempt dates back to 1897; P. first put forward this idea in the article “Literary Views of V.G. Belinsky,” but especially developed it in the article “Art and Social Life,” 1912, vol. XIV). P. wanted to prove this idea using a number of examples, in particular using the example of the French romantics. In their propaganda of “art for art’s sake” P. saw - admittedly, a limited - protest against the bourgeois way of life, against the way of life of the bourgeoisie; however, P. forgot that, despite the elements of this protest, the romantic exaltation of “pure art” as the only refuge of genuine thought and feeling is essentially a more refined form of reaction than overt bourgeois morality. Here P., under his external “dialecticalism,” again clearly revealed his alienness to the Leninist principles of unwavering and unconditional partisanship. But everything valuable and positive that is in P.’s literary heritage was created under the sign of “art for life.” To a certain extent, it is possible to apply to P. himself - the revolutionary period of his activity - the words he said about our enlighteners: “Our enlighteners did not neglect poetry at all, but they preferred the poetry of action to any other” (i.e. VI, p. 254).
Of P.'s works devoted to individual representatives of Russian literature, his works on Belinsky and Chernyshevsky are of greatest importance. Despite the fact that a number of P.’s provisions on Belinsky require revision and revision, P.’s articles on Belinsky retain their value for us. P.'s merit here lies in the fact that he does not limit his analysis to the framework of Belinsky's literary views, which in themselves were of great importance in the development of Russian literature and in the development of aesthetic views. P. writes: “... Belinsky’s lively and strong mind sought to pave new paths not only in literary criticism. His persistent work was also aimed at the socio-political field. And his attempt to find a new path in this area deserves even more attention than what he actually did in literature” (talking about Belinsky, 1898, vol. X, p. 332). P. opposed Vengerov’s attempts to “stylize” Belinsky as a “peaceful” socialist and dwelt in detail on the evolution of Belinsky’s views in relation to the working class and the class struggle. P.'s early articles on Chernyshevsky, collected in his German book on Chernyshevsky (this book was published in 1894; P. touched on Chernyshevsky's aesthetic views only partially here, giving a detailed analysis of them a little later, in 1897), aroused very high praise from Lenin. “Plekhanov,” wrote Lenin, “in his book about Chernyshevsky (articles in the collection “Social Democrat”, published as a separate book in German) fully appreciated the significance of Chernyshevsky and clarified his relation to the theory of Marx and Engels” (Lenin, Backward Direction in Russian Social Democracy, 1899, Collected Works, vol. II, p. 545). In 1910 P. released new book about Chernyshevsky (ed. “Rosehovnik”), which included old articles, which, however, underwent a number of changes. Lenin's notes in the margins of a copy of P.'s book about Chernyshevsky were published in the XXV Lenin Collection. Lenin carefully compares the new and old formulations of P. and in cases where changes are made, he notes in the margins: “changed!” Lenin emphasizes the place in P. where it is said that Chernyshevsky, like Feuerbach, focuses his attention almost exclusively on the “theoretical” activity of mankind, and Lenin notes in the margin: “this is also the shortcoming of Plekhanov’s book about Chernyshevsky” (p. 221 ). And in another place Lenin writes: “Because of the theoretical difference between the idealistic and materialist views of history, Plekhanov overlooked the practical-political and class difference between the liberal and the democrat” (p. 231). Similar changes can be found in Plekhanov’s later articles on Belinsky, written in the last period of Plekhanov’s activity.
Opposing idyllic “stylizations” in relation to such “violent” representatives of literature as Belinsky, P., however, sometimes he himself created completely incorrect characteristics of major literary phenomena. This is for example his legend about Pushkin, which should argue for his own incorrect construction, which includes idealistic elements, about the discord between the artist and his environment.
P.'s articles on Gorky and Tolstoy are interesting for us in the sense that they make it possible - by comparison with Lenin's articles on the same topic - to especially clearly detect the deep difference that existed between P. and Lenin in their approach to writers and literary phenomena. For Lenin, Gorky was “undoubtedly the largest representative of proletarian art, who did a lot for him and can do even more” (Lenin, Notes of a Publicist, 1910, Collected Works, vol. XIV, p. 298). P., although he calls Gorky “a highly talented proletarian artist” (“On the psychology of the labor movement,” 1907, vol. XXIV, p. 257), repeatedly opposes Gorky’s sympathy for Bolshevik tactics in the labor movement, turning his statements about Gorky in his speech against Bolshevism. P.'s articles on Tolstoy had a certain positive significance, because P. spoke out in them against the reactionary passivist doctrine of Tolstoy and against various revisionist attempts on the part of the liquidators to justify this reactionary Tolstoy doctrine. Lenin calls one of these articles by P. about Tolstoy “a good feuilleton,” and about another Lenin writes: “Plekhanov also became enraged by lies and servility before Tolstoy, and here we agreed” (from Lenin’s letter to Gorky, 1911, see Lenin’s work , 3rd ed., vol. XV, p. 57). But what a profound difference between the assessments given to Tolstoy P. and Lenin! In P.'s articles about Tolstoy, P.'s commitment to the logical and immanent analysis of ideological phenomena was especially clearly reflected. P. analyzes the ideological content of Tolstoy’s teaching and establishes the “mixture of ideas” dominant in it. P. does not even raise the question of the social genesis and content of Tolstoy’s work. He limits himself only to the postulate that “Tolstoy was and until the end of his life remained a great gentleman” (“From here to here,” 1910, vol. XXIV, p. 192). Lenin, true to his principle of revealing the class essence of phenomena, “to look at the essence of the matter, and not at phrases, - ... to explore the class struggle as the basis of theories and teachings, and not vice versa” (Lenin, Collected works., ed. 3 -e, vol. XV, p. 466), approaches Tolstoy’s work “from the point of view of the nature of the Russian revolution (we are talking about the revolution of 1905 - A.G.) and its driving forces” and comes to his brilliant thesis about Tolstoy’s work as “the mirror of the Russian revolution” with all its contradictions, expressing “precisely the features of our revolution, as a peasant bourgeois revolution” (“Leo Tolstoy as a mirror of the Russian revolution”, 1908, Collected Works, vol. XII, p. 333). Of course, Plekhanov could not come to such a conclusion, who did not understand the role of the peasantry in the revolution, who generally did not understand the nature and driving forces of the first Russian revolution, this “dress rehearsal” of ours.
In his specific works on literary issues, P. deals not only with Russian literature, but also with a whole range of Western literary phenomena. Europe. P., by the way, back in 1897, in a review of Skabichevsky’s book, he wrote: “It is impossible to write... any meaningful history of Russian literature without knowing the history of Western European literatures” (vol. X, p. 307). Plekhanov often relies on the conclusions of bourgeois sociological literary criticism, especially French (Taine, Brunetière, etc.). Among the Marxist critics, P. Mehring, whose “Legend of Lessing” P. refers to, praising it very highly (vol. XIV, p. 100), and especially Lafargue, had a noticeable influence on P. From the latter, P. borrowed the qualifications of French romanticism as a bourgeois literary formation (“The Origin of Romanticism” by Lafargue appeared in 1896). What brings P. closer to Lafargue is his passion for French bourgeois sociological criticism and a number of similar errors (the objectivist nature of some formulations about the tasks of historical criticism, the understanding of the change in literary phenomena in the sense of Brunetier’s “reaction” against previous phenomena). With Mehring - in theoretical terms - P. is brought together by Kantian relapses, which, however, occupy a larger and more significant place in Mehring; but there is a huge fundamental difference between P. and Mehring: while P. in his “evolution” rolled down to Menshevism and social chauvinism, Mehring remained a revolutionary and in the course of his development came to communism.
From the characteristics of individual European writers given by P., it is worth highlighting the characteristics of Balzac. Even in his book “On the Question of the Development of a Monistic View of History” (1895), P. wrote that “Balzac did a lot to explain the psychology of the various classes of his contemporary society” (vol. VII, p. 239). In 1897, in a review of Lanson's book, P. gave a somewhat more detailed description of Balzac, which, despite its brevity, is striking in its significance. P. wrote here: “He (Balzac - A.G.) took passions in the form that the bourgeois society of his time gave them; With the attention of a natural scientist, he watched how they grew and developed in a given social environment. Thanks to this, he became a realist in the deepest sense of the word and his works represent an indispensable source for studying the psychology of French society during the restoration and Louis Philippe" (collection "G. V. Plekhanov - literary critic", M., 1933, p. 50). The characterization given to Balzac by Engels was published only recently; P. could rely in his characterization only on scattered remarks by Marx about Balzac. Based on these remarks and correctly applying the dialectical method of Marx and Engels here, P. came to conclusions regarding Balzac that to a certain extent coincided with the conclusions of Engels. In addition to its direct significance as a specific characteristic of the writer, the characterization of Balzac given by P. also has great methodological significance, since it raises the question of the objective significance of artistic creativity. Let us also highlight P.’s brochure on Ibsen (vol. XIV; the final chapter is given in the above-mentioned collection “G. V. Plekhanov - Literary Critic”), which gives a class analysis of his work.
Regarding the phenomena of modern bourgeois art, P. invariably emphasized its degradation and decline. “That same capitalism,” writes P., “which in the field of production is an obstacle to the use of all those productive forces that modern humanity has at its disposal, is also a brake in the field of artistic creativity” (collection “G. V. Plekhanov - literary critic", p. 130).
P. began his literary work, when the subjective sociological doctrine of the Narodniks dominated in the field of Russian social thought, and in the field of literary criticism, along with the epigones of the “real” movement such as Skabichevsky with his “well-intentioned,” “smug, petty-bourgeois” (by P.’s definition) democracy Our home-grown idealists like Volynsky began to take their place. P. sharpened his articles against all these various knights of absolute and subjective “truth,” just as he later castigated the bearers of religious-mystical decadence and other idealists (P.’s articles on “so-called religious quests,” articles against Ivanov-Razumnik, Filosofov, Gershenzon). In his best works, P. fought against idealism in its various manifestations and variations, promoting the ideas of Marxism.
Like the criticism of Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, these best representatives of the revolutionary commoners in literature, P.’s criticism was not confined to the framework of literature alone, but contained clear elements of “social criticism.” P. continued the tradition of revolutionary-democratic criticism of the 60-70s, preaching and defending his socio-political views in the form of literary critical articles. But P.’s views were already - in his best, revolutionary period - the views of a new class that had come to the Russian historical arena, the views of the proletariat, the “fourth estate.”
Literary style P. was created under the direct influence of examples of Russian revolutionary journalism. He owes clarity and simplicity of presentation to the traditions of French criticism, for which P. had an invariable passion. P. learned polemical sharpness from the founders of Marxism, having learned their favorite technique - through criticism, through the denial of hostile ideologies, to assert his own views and beliefs.
Bolshevik thought immediately rebuffed the anti-Marxist positions in P.’s theoretical works; it is enough to recall the sharp criticism of Plekhanov’s mistakes in the field of philosophy, distorting the teachings of Marx and Engels, which we find in Lenin. Stalin, in his lectures “On the Foundations of Leninism” (1924), with the utmost clarity raised the question of the difference between Lenin and Plekhanov in the field of theory, as well as, more broadly, between Leninism and the theoretical dogmas of the Second International in general. Despite these precise and clear instructions, P. remained, in the minds of a number of different “theorists” and their followers (even within the party), the founder of Marxism in Russia, its main theoretician, in contrast to Lenin, who was considered by the bearers of these views only as an organizer and practitioner labor movement. This was precisely the concept of the Deborin school in philosophy, this - according to Comrade Stalin's definition - Menshevik idealism.” The views of the Deborin school had a great influence on the nature of the literary work of a number of researchers (Bespalov and others), and of course, in close connection with the views of the Deborin school is the slogan of “Plekhanov’s orthodoxy” thrown by some “theoreticians” of the RAPP. The struggle against various Menshevik and idealist systems in literary criticism, carried out by the RAPP, was often carried out precisely from the erroneous Plekhanovist, and not from the Marxist-Leninist positions. An apologetic attitude towards P., who was declared the only and orthodox teacher in the field of literary and art history, runs like a red thread in the books of a number of literary and art critics, especially S. Shchukin. All these features of an apologetic, uncritical attitude towards P. are, of course, the result of unresolved Menshevik influences and tendencies.
A. V. Lunacharsky in 1928 raised the question of objectivism in P.’s literary works; In response to him, V. M. Fritsche expressed the idea that P.’s dialectics was insufficiently developed in relation to problems of literature and art (although Fritsche himself assimilated and developed Plekhanov’s anti-dialectical “laws” of the literary process). However, only a philosophical discussion against the Deborin school, the first stage of which was Comrade Stalin’s famous speech in December 1929 at the conference of Marxist agrarians, where he acutely raised the question of the need to eliminate the gap theoretical work from the tasks of socialist construction, led to a broad critical discussion of P.’s literary views. As a result, an abundant literature arose: both P.’s general views on issues of literature and art, as well as his assessments of individual writers (L. Tolstoy, Gorky, etc.), were criticized. Unfortunately, not everything in this literature is equally valuable: when criticizing P., some authors themselves admitted an anti-Marxist understanding in this or that issue (for example, the Menshevik distortion of the party’s attitude to questions of philosophy in M. Dobrynin), others slipped into complete vulgarization, into complete denial P. (I. Anisimov, for example, called the entire “theory of art” Menshevik). Despite all these excesses, Plekhanov’s discussion cleared the way for evaluating P.’s literary views from a Marxist-Leninist position, for separating what is valuable and positive in his views from anti-Marxist, Menshevik elements and bourgeois-idealistic relapses. There is still a lot to be done in this direction. Overcoming and correcting the incorrect positions of P., Marxist-Leninist literary criticism will move forward along the path outlined for it by the brilliant works of the founders and classics of Marxism. Bibliography:
Preface
L. Axelrod-Orthodox. About G. V. Plekhanov’s attitude to art. (According to personal memories)
V. Fritsche. G.V. Plekhanov and “scientific aesthetics”
ARTICLES G.V. Plekhanov:
1. About art
2. Art among primitive peoples (I-II articles)
3. French dramatic literature and French painting of the 18th century from the point of view of sociology
4. Art and social life
5. Proletarian movement and bourgeois art
Preface
Marxist literature on art is known to be extremely poor. Of the greatest theoreticians of Marxism, only G. V. Plekhanov definitely set the task of constructing a Marxist doctrine of art.
G. V. Plekhanov approached the solution of the problem he posed with his characteristic breadth of view and interest, subjecting to the study not only literature, moreover, on a global scale, but also the plastic arts and music - (it must be remembered that not all , what he thought and said about this subject is published) - covering the creativity of both primitive tribes and highly civilized peoples, and it seems that there is not a single fundamentally important question in this area that would not have been put forward by him: the origin and essence art, the influence of the environment on it, the meaning of a “brilliant” personality, factors in the evolution of artistic creativity, form and content, etc., etc. - all these questions were posed and resolved by him in the spirit of historical materialism, in the spirit of the theory of class struggle , for only “by taking into account the class struggle and studying its manifold vicissitudes, can we at least satisfactorily explain the spiritual history of civilized societies,” and therefore, anyone “who is not aware of the struggle, the centuries-old and varied process of which constitutes history, he cannot be a conscious art critic")
True, G.V. Plekhanov did not systematically set out his “scientific aesthetics” anywhere, because he did not initially set such a task for himself, and in any case he did not have the time to complete it). However, both in the articles printed below and in his other piles (“Basic questions of Marxism”, On the question of the monistic view of history”, “On the role of the individual in history”, “The aesthetic theory of Chernyshevsky”), as well as in his articles , devoted to issues of literature and literary criticism ("Belinsky's Literary Views", "The Fates of Russian Criticism", in articles about populist writers, etc.), such a great variety of theoretical positions and specific illustrations are scattered that on the basis of them it would not be at all difficult to recreate in a systematic form the basic principles of “scientific aesthetics”, the doctrine of art on the foundations of Marxist sociology.
It should not be forgotten that Plekhanov posed these questions not as an armchair scientist, not as a “specialist,” but always in combat, as a militant Marxist, and therefore his articles on these issues are usually of a polemical nature, taking up arms against those who are not sufficiently correct or clearly false methods of research, for example, against the exclusively biological point of view as applied to primitive art, or against the essentially idealistic sociology of Taine, or against the “philosophical” criticism of Volynsky, or against the populist approach of Ivanov-Razumnik, etc., and even the most The issues he wrote about were usually of such a combative, polemical nature, combining scientific significance with topical relevance.
This militant position, depriving him of the opportunity to systematize his views, at the same time allowed him to discover, along with enormous erudition and methodological clarity, the brilliant gift of a polemicist-fighter, a destroyer of bourgeois methods and values, and what, if not this, is the significance of the ideologist of the fighting proletariat?
Every young Marxist should become familiar with the following published articles by the founder of “scientific aesthetics.” The first “On Art” (reprinted from the collection “For Twenty Years”) clarifies the fundamental positions of historical materialism in its application to art. The following (actually two articles from the collection “Criticism of Our Critics”: “Art among Primitive Peoples” and “More about Art among Primitive Peoples”) explores the main problems of primitive art, indirectly illuminating the question of the origin and original meaning of art. Article “French dramatic literature and French painting of the 18th century.” With sociological point vision" (“For Twenty Years”) shows, using a particular example in a masterful analysis, how class evolution and class psychology predetermine the evolution of artistic “form” and artistic “content” in the field of literature, theater and painting. Finally, the last article, given initially as a lecture in Paris and Liege (reprinted from the Sovremennik magazine, 1912, No. 11 and 12 and 1913, No. 1), brilliantly reveals, on the one hand, the various social combinations that lead in other cases to the dominance of the theory of “art for art’s sake”, and in others - to the triumph of the theory of “art for life”, and on the other hand, raises the question of artistic and public value the latest art, making it clear that the art of a class leaving the historical stage must inevitably lead to extreme subjectivism, symbolism, mysticism, lack of ideas and technicalism, and that the incorrectness and wretchedness of thought caused by the class affiliation of the creators of such art fatally lowers the very artistic value their creations.
Reviewing G. V. Plekhanov’s articles on art, you involuntarily regret that it does not exist, because at the present time, when obvious chaos reigns in the field of artistic creativity and aesthetic assessments and a strong public opinion on these issues has not yet crystallized in party and Soviet circles, his instructions would, of course, be of enormous value, and who would consider it possible not to listen to his voice in this area?
G. V. PLEKHANOV ART AND SOCIAL LIFE (1913)
Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov
The question of the relationship of art to social life has always played a very important role in all literature that has reached a certain degree of development. Most often it was and is being resolved in two directly opposite senses.
Some said and say: man is not for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath is for man; not society for the artist, but the artist for society. Art should contribute to the development of human consciousness and the improvement of the social order.
Others strongly reject this view. In their opinion, art itself is target; turn it into means to achieve some extraneous, even the most noble goals - means to humiliate the dignity of a work of art.
The first of these two views found vivid expression in our advanced literature of the 60s. Not to mention Pisarev, who in his extreme one-sidedness brought it almost to the point of caricature, one can recall Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov as the most thorough defenders of this view in the criticism of that time.<...>
The opposite view of the task of artistic creativity had a powerful defender in the person of Pushkin of the Nicholas era. Everyone knows, of course, such of his poems as “Mob” and “To the Poet”.<...>Pushkin’s view of the poet’s task is expressed in the following, so often repeated words:
Not for everyday worries, Not for self-interest, not for battles, We were born for inspiration, For sweet sounds and prayers!
Here we have before us the so-called theory of art for art's sake in its most vivid formulation. It was not without reason that opponents of the literary movement of the 60s so readily and so often referred to Pushkin.
Which of these two directly opposite views on the task of art can be considered correct?<...>
In approaching this question, it is necessary to note first of all that it is poorly formulated. It, like all such questions, cannot be looked at from the point of view of “duty.” If the artists of a given country at a given time shun “everyday excitement and battles,” and at other times, on the contrary, greedily strive for both battles and the excitement inevitably associated with them, then this is not because someone outside is prescribing for them various duties (“must”) in different eras, but because under some social conditions they are dominated by one mood, and under others by another. This means that the correct attitude towards a subject requires us to look at it not with points from the point of view of what should be, but from the point of view of what was and what is. In view of this, we will pose the question this way:
What are the most important of those social conditions under which artists and people with a keen interest in artistic creativity develop and strengthen a penchant for art for art’s sake?<...> What are the most important of those social conditions under which the so-called utilitarian view of art arises and strengthens among artists and people who are keenly interested in artistic creativity, that is, the tendency to give its works the meaning of a verdict on the phenomena of life?<...>
The tendency of artists and people keenly interested in artistic creativity to art for art's sake arises on the basis of a hopeless discord between them and the social environment around them.
That's not all. The example of our “people of the 60s”, who firmly believed in the near triumph of reason, as well as the example of David and his friends, who no less firmly held the same faith, shows us that the so-called utilitarian view1 of art, that is, the tendency to give its works the meaning of a verdict on the phenomena of life and the joyful readiness that always accompanies it to participate in social battles, arises and strengthens where there is mutual sympathy between a significant part of society and people, more or less less actively interested in artistic creativity.<...>
<...>From all this it follows with complete conviction that the utilitarian view of art gets along just as well with a conservative mood as with a revolutionary one. An inclination towards such a view necessarily implies only one condition; a lively and active interest in the known, no matter which one, social order or social ideal, and it disappears wherever this interest disappears for one reason or another.
Like all questions of social life and social thought, this question does not admit of an unconditional solution. It all depends on the conditions of time and place. Let us remember Nicholas I and his servants. They wanted to make of Pushkin, Ostrovsky and other contemporary artists servants of morality, as the corps of gendarmes called it. Let us assume for a moment that they managed to carry out this firm intention. What was supposed to come out of this? It's not difficult to answer. The muses of artists who submitted to their influence would, having become state muses, show the most obvious signs of decline and would lose extremely much in their truthfulness, strength and attractiveness.
Pushkin’s poem “To the Slanderers of Russia” cannot at all be classified as one of his best poetic creations. Ostrovsky’s play “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh,” favorably recognized as a “useful lesson,” is also God knows how successful. Meanwhile, Ostrovsky took barely a few steps in the direction towards the ideal that the Benckendorffs, Shirinsky-Shikhmatovs and others sought to realize. similar to them supporters of useful art.
Let us further assume that Théophile Gautier, Theodore de Banville, Lecomte de Lisle, Baudelaire, the Goncourt brothers, Flaubert, in short, all the romantics, the Parnassians and the first French realists reconciled themselves with the bourgeois environment that surrounded them and gave their muses to the service of those gentlemen which, as Banville puts it, before and more The five-franc coin was the most valued coin. What would come of this?
Again it is not difficult to answer. The Romantics, the Parnassians and the first French realists would have sunk very low. Their works would be much less powerful, much less truthful and much less attractive.
Which is higher in artistic merit: Flaubert’s “Madame Bovaru” or Ogier’s “Le gendre de monsienr Poirier”? It seems there is no need to ask about this. And the difference here is not only in talent. Ogier's dramatic vulgarity, which represents a real apotheosis of bourgeois moderation and accuracy, inevitably presupposed completely different methods of creativity than those used by Flaubert, Goncourt and other realists, who contemptuously turned away from this moderation and accuracy. Finally, there was also a reason for the fact that one literary movement attracted much more talent than another.
What does this prove?
What romanticists like Théophile Gautier did not agree with was that the dignity of a work of art is ultimately determined by the specific gravity of its content. T. Gautier said that poetry not only does not prove anything, but does not even tell anything, and that the beauty of a poem is determined by its music, its rhythm. But this is a huge mistake. Quite the opposite: poetic and artistic works in general are always something they say because they are always doing something express. Of course, they “tell” in their own special way. An artist expresses his idea with images, while a publicist proves his idea with the help of logical conclusions. And if a writer uses logical arguments instead of images, or if he comes up with images to prove a well-known theme, then he is not an artist, but a publicist, even if he wrote not studies and articles, but novels, stories or theatrical plays. All this is true. But from all this it does not follow that in a work of art the idea does not matter. I will say more, there cannot be a work of art devoid of ideological content. Even those works whose authors value only the form and do not care about the content still express a certain idea in one way or another. Gautier, who did not care about the ideological content of his poetic works, assured, as we know, that he was ready to sacrifice his political rights as a French citizen for the pleasure of seeing a genuine painting by Raphael or a naked beauty. One was closely connected with the other: exclusive concern for form was determined by socio-political indifference. Works whose authors value only form always express what is known, as I explained earlier, hopelessly negative the attitude of their authors to the social environment around them. And this is the idea common to all of them together and expressed in different ways by each of them individually. But if there is no work of art that is completely devoid of ideological content, then not every idea can be expressed in a work of art. Ruskin says it well: a girl can sing about lost love, but a miser cannot sing about lost money. And he rightly notes that the dignity of a work of art is determined by the height of the mood it expresses. “Ask yourself about any feeling that has taken a strong hold of you,” he says, “can it be sung by a poet, inspire him in a positive, true sense? If yes, then the feeling is good. If it cannot be sung or can only inspire in the direction of the funny, then it is a low feeling.” Otherwise it can not be. Art is one of the means of spiritual communication between people. And the higher the feeling expressed by a given work of art, the more conveniently, other things being equal, this work can play its role as the indicated means. Why shouldn't a miser sing about lost money? It’s very simple: because if he sang about his loss, then his song would not touch anyone, that is, it could not serve as a means of communication between him and other people.<...>
Even Belinsky, who quite rightly asserted during the last period of his literary activity that “pure, detached, unconditional, or, as philosophers say, absolute, art has never happened anywhere,” he admitted, however, that the works of painting of the Italian school of the XV! centuries to a certain extent approached the ideal of absolute art, since they were the creation of an era during which “art was the main interest, exclusively occupying the educated part of society.”<...>
The ideal of beauty that prevails at a given time, in a given society or in a given class, is rooted partly in the biological conditions of the development of the human race, which, among other things, create racial characteristics, and partly in the historical conditions of the emergence and existence of this society or this class. And that is precisely why it is always very rich in quite definite and not at all absolute, that is, not unconditional, content. Whoever worships “pure beauty” does not at all make himself independent of those biological and socio-historical conditions that determined his aesthetic taste, but only more or less consciously closes his eyes to these conditions. This was the case, by the way, with romantics like Théophile Gautier.<...>
I said that there is no work of art that is completely devoid of ideological content. To this I added that not every idea can form the basis of a work of art. Only something that promotes communication between people can give true inspiration to an artist. The possible limits of such communication are determined not by the artist, but by the height of culture achieved by the social whole to which he belongs. But in a society divided into classes, the matter also depends on the mutual relations of these classes and on what phase of its development each of them is at a given time. When the bourgeoisie was just trying to achieve its liberation from the yoke of the secular and spiritual aristocracy, that is, when it itself was a revolutionary class, then it led the entire working masses, which together with it constituted one “third” estate. And then the leading ideologists of the bourgeoisie were also the leading ideologists of “the entire nation, with the exception of the privileged.” In other words, at that time the limits of communication between people, the means of which were the works of artists who took a bourgeois point of view, were relatively very wide. But when the interests of the bourgeoisie ceased to be the interests of the entire working masses, and especially when they came into hostile conflict with the interests of the proletariat, then the limits of this communication became very narrow. If Ruskin said that a miser cannot sing about the money he has lost, now the time has come when the mood of the bourgeoisie began to approach the mood of the miser mourning his treasures. The only difference is that this miser mourns a loss that has already occurred, and the bourgeoisie loses peace of mind from the loss that threatens it in the future. “By oppressing others,” I would say in the words of Ecclesiastes, “the wise become foolish.” The same harmful effect must have on the wise (even the wise!) the fear that he will lose the opportunity to oppress others. The ideologies of the ruling class lose their intrinsic value as it becomes ripe for destruction. The art created by his experiences falls.<...>
We have seen how mysticism penetrated into modern French fiction. What led to him was the consciousness of the impossibility of limiting oneself to form without content, that is, without an idea, accompanied by the inability to rise to the understanding of the great liberating ideas of our time. The same consciousness and the same inability led to many other consequences, no less than mysticism, reducing the internal value of works of art.
Mysticism is irreconcilably hostile to reason. But it is not only those who embrace mysticism who are at enmity with reason. He is also at enmity with those who, for one reason or another, in one way or another, defend a false idea. And when a false idea is placed at the basis of a work of art, it introduces such internal contradictions into it that its aesthetic dignity inevitably suffers.
As an example of a work of art that suffers from the falsity of its main idea, I have already had to point to Knut Hamsun’s play “At the Royal Gates.”< ■>
If Pushkin and the romantics of his day reproached the “crowd” for valuing the stove pot too much, then the inspirers of today’s neo-romanticists reproach it for being too sluggish in defending it, i.e., for not valuing it enough. Meanwhile, neo-romantics also proclaim, like the romantics of the good old days, the absolute autonomy of art. But is it possible to seriously talk about the autonomy of that art, which is set with the conscious goal of protecting these social relations? Of course not. Such art is undoubtedly utilitarian. If its representatives despise creativity guided by utilitarian considerations, then this is a simple misunderstanding. In fact, to them, not to mention considerations of personal benefit, which can never have a guiding meaning in the eyes of a person truly devoted to art, only considerations that have in mind the benefit of the exploited majority are intolerable. The welfare of the exploiting minority is the supreme law for them.<...>
When a talented artist is inspired by a wrong idea, then he spoils his own work. But it is impossible for a modern artist to be inspired by the right idea if he wants to defend the bourgeoisie in its struggle against the proletariat.<...>
However, communicating the ideological content of your works is not as easy as it might seem. An idea is not something that exists independently of the real world. The ideological stock of any given person is determined and enriched by his relationship to this world. And the one whose relationship to this world has developed in such a way that he considers his “I” as the “only reality” inevitably becomes a complete poor man in terms of ideas. Not only does he not have them, but, most importantly, he has no way of thinking of them. And just as people eat quinoa for lack of bread, so for lack of clear ideas they are content with vague hints of ideas, surrogates gleaned from mysticism, symbolism and other similar “isms” that characterize eras of decline.<...>
It is not good for a person to be alone. Today's “innovators” in art are not satisfied with what was created by their predecessors. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. On the contrary, the desire for something new is very often a source of progress. But not everyone who looks for it finds something truly new. You have to be able to look for something new. He who is blind to the new teachings of social life, for whom there is no other reality except his “I,” will find nothing but new nonsense in his search for the “new.” It is not good for a person to be alone.
It turns out that under current social conditions, art for art's sake does not bear very tasty fruits. The extreme individualism of the era of bourgeois decline closes all sources of true inspiration from artists. It makes them completely blind to what is happening in public life, and condemns them to fruitless fuss with completely meaningless personal experiences and morbidly fantastic fictions. The final result of such fuss is something that not only has no relation whatsoever to any kind of beauty, but also represents an obvious absurdity, which can only be defended with the help of a sophistical distortion of the idealistic theory of knowledge.<...>
We see: art for art's sake has become art for money.< >
I strive, as the famous expression goes, not to cry, not to laugh, but to understand. I am not saying that contemporary artists “should” be inspired by the liberating aspirations of the proletariat. Not if it's an apple tree must give birth to apples, and the pear tree bears pears, then artists who stand on the point of view of the bourgeoisie, must rebel against these aspirations. Decadent art "should" to be decadent. It's unavoidable. And in vain we would become “indignant” about this. But, as the Manifesto of the Communist Party rightly says, “in those periods when the class struggle is nearing its denouement, the process of disintegration among the ruling class, within the entire old society, reaches such a strong degree that some part of the ruling class separates from it and joins the revolutionary the class carrying the banner of the future. Just as a part of the nobility once united with the bourgeoisie, so now a part of the bourgeoisie, namely the bourgeois ideologists, who have risen to a theoretical understanding of the entire course of the historical movement, is passing over to the proletariat.”
Among the bourgeois ideologists who go over to the side of the proletariat, we see very few artists. This is probably explained by the fact that only those who think can “raise to a theoretical understanding of the entire course of the historical movement,” and modern artists - unlike, for example, the great masters of the Renaissance - think extremely little. But be that as it may, we can say with confidence that any significant artistic talent will greatly increase its strength if it is imbued with the great liberating ideas of our time. It is only necessary that these ideas enter his flesh and blood, so that he expresses them precisely as an artist *. It is also necessary that he be able to appreciate the artistic modernism of the current ideologists of the bourgeoisie on its merits. The ruling class is now in such a position that to go forward means for it to go down. And this sad fate of his is shared with him by all his ideologists. The most advanced of them are precisely those who have sunk below all their predecessors.<...>
The text is printed according to the edition: Plekhanov G. V. Favorite philosophical prod. M., 1958, vol. 5, p. 686-688, 691, 693, 698, 703-705, 707, 708, 716-718, 723-724, 736, 739-744.
Based on the work “Art and Social Life” (1)
... Everything written by Plekhanov on philosophy
...this is the best in all the international literature of Marxism.
V. I. Lenin (2)
Never, perhaps, has Marxism as a philosophical doctrine been subjected to such fierce criticism as in our turbulent times. There are, of course, good reasons for this. This is the collapse of socialist ideals, discredited by Stalinist ideology and economic voluntarism due to the Marxist illiteracy of the leaders, and the unviability of the regimes created by them.
And yet, turning again and again to primary sources, rereading the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, you come to the conviction that there is no more harmonious and flexible system of views on the world around us, its development and the variety of forms it takes, than the teachings of Marx, based on a materialistic approach to the most diverse manifestations of nature and the human mind.
And if we consider such a branch of human mental activity as aesthetics, then, perhaps, no one has contributed so much to its development and renewal from the perspective of Marxism as the great Russian philosopher G. V. Plekhanov. Perhaps this will sound too loud, especially if we keep in mind the enormous interest that aroused the idealistic philosophical systems created by other great Russian philosophers, such as Solovyov, Fedorov, Bulgakov, Karsavin.
But, as usually happened in Russia, interest was aroused not so much by the fidelity of these systems, but by their long oblivion, closedness from mass reader, the skew of official propaganda towards materialism in recent years. Now, it seems, the skew, according to the law of the pendulum, is happening in the other direction.
And therefore, in our opinion, the desire to go against the flow in order to prevent imbalance or, at least, weaken it, becomes especially relevant.
In this sense, Plekhanov’s personality and his works seem to be a natural continuation of that line of Russian thought, which can be designated by such names as Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Pisarev. Plekhanov brought this line to such a high level that his judgments on aesthetic topics are of considerable interest to a modern researcher. To ward off accusations of Plekhanov’s one-sidedness, it is worth citing the statement of one of the best experts on his work, G. I. Kunitsyn: “G. V. Plekhanov was one of the few followers of K. Marx and F. Engels who (despite numerous literary slander against him in the past) did not reduce either the aesthetic or the artistic only to the class. He was a great master of precisely the clear separation of the universal human essence of the artistic and aesthetic itself from their class application and interpretation.” (3)
Of course, it is difficult in a small work to even briefly touch on all the problems that interested Plekhanov, and therefore we will dwell only on a few issues that he considered in one of the most interesting works, “Art and Social Life.”
The fact is that in it Plekhanov touches on an issue that has not lost its relevance to this day. After all, his civic, aesthetic, and creative position depends on how the artist resolves this issue. Either art for art's sake, or art for society. In order not to misinterpret, it is better to give the floor to the author:
“Some have said and continue to say: man is not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath is for man; not society for the artist, but the artist for society. Art should contribute to the development of human consciousness and the improvement of the social order.
Others strongly reject this view. In their opinion, art in itself is a goal; to turn it into a means to achieve some extraneous goals, even the most noble ones, means to humiliate the dignity of a work of art.” (4)
The differences between these two views remain the cause of ongoing controversy to this day and may always exist. Perhaps this contradiction is the driving force behind the development of artistic thought.
However, Plekhanov, as a dialectical Marxist, poses the question differently - not which of these views is more correct, but why one or another view prevails in a given period in the history of a given society. To pose the question this way, one must really have a completely different point of view compared to how others did it.
What conclusion does Plekhanov come to when looking at the relationship between social life and artistic creativity from this angle?
It is worth noting here that the work “Art and Social Life” is notable for the fact that the author draws conclusions from his judgments in a concise, concentrated form. This is apparently due to the fact that the work was written on the basis of lectures he gave in France.
So, the first conclusion that Plekhanov makes:
“The tendency towards art for art’s sake arises where there is a discord between artists and the social environment around them.” (5)
This conclusion is not unfounded; it is confirmed by the example of Pushkin, and then by the example of French literature. It would seem that the French romantics were not at odds with their environment. Where then did the sentiment expressed by Gautier come from:
“I will with great joy give up my rights as a Frenchman and a citizen in order to see an authentic painting by Raphael or a naked beauty.” (6)
Plekhanov proves that the romantics could not help but dissociate themselves from the bourgeoisie, who thought only about how to earn more and invest their earnings better. Romantics treated them with contempt. Another thing is that such a demarcation did not threaten the power of these “bourgeois” in any way, since the departure of the artist to “ pure art“does not pose anything dangerous to the authorities.
“When the bourgeoisie took a dominant position in society, and when its life was no longer warmed by the fire of the liberation struggle, then the new art was left with one thing: the idealization of the negation of the bourgeois way of life.” (7)
But that's not all. Clarifying the previous conclusion about artists’ inclination towards “art for art’s sake,” Plekhanov adds:
“The tendency of artists and people keenly interested in artistic creativity to art for art’s sake arises out of a hopeless discord between them and the social environment around them.” (8)
This explains why contempt for the bourgeoisie is not expressed in the desire to overthrow their power, but causes them to withdraw into “pure” art. Feeling the impossibility of practically changing anything, artists are looking for ways to realize their ideas in art for art’s sake. At least establish justice in imaginary worlds, if this is impossible in the real world. This reason for going into “pure art” has not lost any of its relevance even now.
But what reason brings to life a different view of art? Here is how Plekhanov answers this question:
“... the so-called utilitarian view of art, i.e., the tendency to give its works the meaning of a verdict on the phenomena of life and the joyful readiness that always accompanies it to participate in social battles, arises and strengthens where there is mutual sympathy between a significant part of society and people, more or less actively interested in artistic creativity.” (9)
But there is a difference between when such relationships develop spontaneously between the artist and society, as, for example, during revolutions, and when political power tries to impose such relationships.
And Plekhanov clarifies: “... any given political power always prefers a utilitarian view of art, of course, since it pays attention to this subject.” (10)
But it is interesting that “... a utilitarian view of art gets along just as well with a conservative mood as with a revolutionary one. The inclination towards such a view necessarily presupposes only one condition: a living and active interest in a known, no matter what kind of social order or social ideal, and it disappears wherever this interest disappears for one reason or another.” (eleven)
And here is another very interesting conclusion that clarifies many things even today:
“The muses of artists ... would begin, having become state muses, to reveal the most obvious signs of decline and would lose extremely much in their truthfulness, strength and attractiveness.” (12)
Next, Plekhanov touches on another complex but important topic. We are talking about ideological content a work of art. He is convinced that ultimately the value of any work is determined by its content, that is, the value of the idea contained in the work. “... when a false idea is placed at the basis of a work of art, it introduces into it such internal contradictions that its aesthetic dignity inevitably suffers.” (13)
Here Plekhanov cites as an example one of Hamsun’s plays, where main character is inspired by the idea of a superman, but as a result the play itself did not work out, because: “Only something that promotes communication between people can give true inspiration to an artist. The possible limits of such communication are determined not by the artist, but by the height of culture achieved by the social whole to which he belongs.” (14)
It is worth noting here that when you come across a work as densely written as this work Plekhanov, it’s difficult to get your word in, but you just want to quote and quote, risking being accused of simply taking notes. What can we do, and our capabilities are determined by the height of culture.
But let's continue. In the same work, Plekhanov argues with Lunacharsky, who accused him of the fact that if you believe Plekhanov, then there is no absolute ideal of beauty at all, since “... it is always rich in quite definite, and not at all absolute, i.e., not unconditional content.” . (15)
To this Plekhanov replies: “... if there is no absolute criterion of beauty, if all criteria are relative, this does not mean that we are deprived of any objective possibility of judging whether this criterion is well fulfilled.” artistic design" (16)
How then to evaluate works? What can serve as a yardstick, independent of existing social relations, that can measure the quality of a work of art? Plekhanov gives the following answer: “The more the execution corresponds to the plan, or, to use a more general expression, the more the form of a work of art corresponds to its idea, the more successful it is. Here’s an objective measure for you.” (17)
In this work, we wanted not so much to argue with Plekhanov, since such an argument would require having different convictions, but to once again be convinced of the strength and vitality of the Marxist method in any science, including aesthetics. This strength and this vitality exist because Marxism really stands on a solid foundation. existing world with all its contradictions and zigzags of development.
Not the construction of certain spiritual systems that exist only in the imagination of their creators and are therefore unviable, but the study of the laws of social and economic development and, on this basis, the choice of a path always from several possible options. The more known facts about the previous path, the easier and more correct the choice. This is precisely what I would like to learn from Plekhanov. Actually, that’s why we turned to his work.
Sources:
1. G. V. Plekhanov. Collected Works, vol.5.
2. V.I.Lenin. Selected works in three volumes. vol.3, M., Politizdat, 1976, p. 457.
3. G. I. Kunitsyn. Universality in literature. M., Soviet writer, 1980, p. 243
4. G. V. Plekhanov. Collected Works, vol. 5., p. 686
5. Ibid., p.693
6. Ibid., p.694
7. Ibid., p.696
8. Ibid., p.698
9. Ibid., p.699
10. Ibid., p.700
11. Ibid., p.703
12. Ibid., p.703
13. Ibid., p.717
14. Ibid., p.716
15. Ibid., p.708
16. Ibid., p.745
17. Ibid., p.746
One of the founders of the Russian Social Democratic movement. At an early stage of his creativity, he was influenced by French materialism and revolutionary democracy of N. Chernyshevsky, and later became the first consistent Marxist theorist in Russia. Plekhanov set the task of systematizing the philosophical heritage of Marxism, fitting it into the context of the movement of European philosophical thought. Main works: “Essays on the history of materialism”, “On the development of a monistic view of history”, “On the materialist understanding of history”, “On the role of the individual in history”, “Letters without an address”, “Art and public life” . Plekhanov did not limit himself to systematizing the heritage of Marxism - he introduced a number of new topics into Marxist theory: he turned to the problem of the geographical environment and the nature of its impact on society, paid considerable attention to social psychology, studied the structure of religion as a special form of mastering reality, and for the first time gave a systematic presentation of the principles of Marxist aesthetics .
The materialist thesis “being determines consciousness” is the starting principle of all Plekhanov’s theoretical constructions. The fundamental basis of social life, in his opinion, is geographical environment. The immediate cause of the development of society is the mode of production dominant in a given historical era. Speaking about the dialectic of productive forces and industrial relations causing changes in the “state of mind,” in ideas, feelings, beliefs, Plekhanov believes that the development of society is determined by its internal contradictions. An equally important law determining social development is the mandatory transition quantitative changes in quality by leap. The historical process proceeds “not peacefully, evolutionarily, but revolutionary, which finds its best confirmation in the struggle of classes, “forgetting about which nothing can be understood in the life of class society.”
In order to provide a “strictly scientific” explanation of the state of social life, Plekhanov strives to reveal its structure. He puts forward the so-called “five-member formula”, which, in his opinion, expresses the connection between various “members of the series”: “a given degree of development of the productive forces; relationships between people in the process of social production, determined by this degree of development; a form of society that expresses these relationships between people: a certain state of spirit and morals corresponding to this form of society; religion, philosophy, literature and art corresponding to the abilities generated by this state...” As an intermediary link between various material manifestations of social existence and activities to create spiritual values, Plekhanov introduces the category of social psychology.
Specifying the reasons for historical changes, Plekhanov talks about the decisive role of the masses in history. Debunking the concept of heroes - “history makers”, he emphasizes: the role of great personalities is that they are aware of social needs before others and, thanks to these characteristics of their character, can influence the fate of society. Sometimes their influence is even very significant, but both the very possibility of such influence and its extent are determined by the organization of society and the balance of its forces. Personality is a factor social development only there, only then and to the extent that she is allowed to do so public relations" This solution to the question of the role of the masses and the individual was one of the reasons for his disengagement with V.I. Lenin, who, according to Plekhanov, concealed behind his external objectivism “the subjectivism of a new edition of the theory of the hero and the crowd.”
P. believed that February Revolution should mark the beginning of a long process of development of capitalism in Russia and any introduction from outside into the masses of the “most advanced consciousness” with the aim of preparing a socialist revolution will be a “violation of all historical laws.”
Dealing with issues of aesthetics, Plekhanov, for the first time in Marxist literature, criticized the so-called “biological” concept of the origin of art and, using a large historical and artistic material, proved its origin from labor activity. In general, art for Plekhanov is an expression of social psychology, and the artist himself is an exponent of trends, tastes, ideals of his class, group. The idea of the conditioning of the artist’s creativity by the “environment” opened up the possibility of interpreting artistic creativity in the spirit of vulgar sociologism, which happened not without the influence of Plekhanov’s clearly understood ideas in the aesthetics of the Soviet period of the 20s. However, Plekhanov himself, clarifying his thought, wrote about successively connected “two acts of criticism” of the work. The first is to determine the sociological equivalent of an artistic phenomenon (“translate the idea of a given work of art from the language of art into the language of sociology”). The second act of criticism assumes that the assessment of the idea of a work of art should be followed by an analysis of its artistic and aesthetic merits. These estimates may not be the same. An ideologically necessary, socially useful work can be of little artistic value (this is Plekhanov’s assessment of Gorky’s novel “Mother”), but a work that is meaningfully divorced from public interests and the tasks of the class struggle can be aesthetically perfect. Trying to resolve the contradiction between the utilitarian and aesthetic points of view, Plekhanov writes: “Utility is known by reason, beauty by contemplative ability. The first area is calculation; the second area is instinct... But precisely because we mean not an individual, but a society (tribe, people-class), we still have room for Kant’s view on the same question: the judgment of taste undoubtedly presupposes the absence of any utilitarian considerations on the part of the individual expressing it.” Plekhanov's Marxist beliefs and his familiarity with world philosophy allowed him to formulate with particular acuteness the antinomy of social-class and aesthetic evaluation criteria, but they also did not allow him to find its solution.
Kirilenko G.G., Shevtsov E.V. Brief philosophical dictionary. M. 2010, p. 282-284.