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Art and Revolution: Writings on Literature, Politics & Culture
One of the outstanding revolutionary leaders of the 2Oth century discusses questions of literature, art, and culture in a period of capitalist decline and working-class struggle. In these writings, Trotsky examines the place and aesthetic autonomy of art and artistic expression in the struggle for a new, socialist society.
272 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1971
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About the author
Leon Trotsky
1,093 books805 followersSee also Лев Троцкий
Russian theoretician Leon Trotsky or Leon Trotski, originally Lev Davidovitch Bronstein, led the Bolshevik of 1917, wrote Literature and Revolution in 1924, opposed the authoritarianism of Joseph Stalin, and emphasized world; therefore later, the Communist party in 1927 expelled him and in 1929 banished him, but he included the autobiographical My Life in 1930, and the behest murdered him in exile in Mexico.
The exile of Leon Trotsky in 1929 marked rule of Joseph Stalin.
People better know this Marxist. In October 1917, he ranked second only to Vladimir Lenin. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as commissar of people for foreign affairs and as the founder and commander of the Red Army and of war. He also ranked among the first members of the Politburo.
After a failed struggle of the left against the policies and rise in the 1920s, the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union deported Trotsky. An early advocate of intervention of Army of Red against European fascism, Trotsky also agreed on peace with Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. As the head of the fourth International, Trotsky continued to the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, and Ramón Mercader, a Soviet agent, eventually assassinated him. From Marxism, his separate ideas form the basis of Trotskyism, a term, coined as early as 1905. Ideas of Trotsky constitute a major school of Marxist. The Soviet administration never rehabilitated him and few other political figures.
Russian theoretician Leon Trotsky or Leon Trotski, originally Lev Davidovitch Bronstein, led the Bolshevik of 1917, wrote Literature and Revolution in 1924, opposed the authoritarianism of Joseph Stalin, and emphasized world; therefore later, the Communist party in 1927 expelled him and in 1929 banished him, but he included the autobiographical My Life in 1930, and the behest murdered him in exile in Mexico.
The exile of Leon Trotsky in 1929 marked rule of Joseph Stalin.
People better know this Marxist. In October 1917, he ranked second only to Vladimir Lenin. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as commissar of people for foreign affairs and as the founder and commander of the Red Army and of war. He also ranked among the first members of the Politburo.
After a failed struggle of the left against the policies and rise in the 1920s, the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union deported Trotsky. An early advocate of intervention of Army of Red against European fascism, Trotsky also agreed on peace with Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. As the head of the fourth International, Trotsky continued to the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, and Ramón Mercader, a Soviet agent, eventually assassinated him. From Marxism, his separate ideas form the basis of Trotskyism, a term, coined as early as 1905. Ideas of Trotsky constitute a major school of Marxist. The Soviet administration never rehabilitated him and few other political figures.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 26, 2023
92/100
Une compilation absolument fascinante. Un camarade a écrit, en anglais, que sa lecture était « fertilisante » — certainement une bonne description de l’effet que fait ce livre sur la pensée du lecteur.
Le livre s’ouvre sur une introduction extrêmement intéressante de Paul Siegel (ancien militant trotskiste américain et prof de littérature). Cette introduction est un résumé extrêmement convaincant de l’approche marxiste de l’art et de la culture, par exemple sur les lois du développement des formes artistiques, sur la notion de « vérité artistique » ou sur la place de la propagande dans l’art.
Puis, le livre est divisé en deux parties: d’abord, les contributions de Trotsky à une théorie marxiste de l’art; ensuite, des essais de critique littéraire.
La première partie fait suite à l’introduction. J’ai trouvé que les textes les plus intéressants abordaient le fameux débat sur l’art prolétarien. Trotsky explique qu’une culture prolétarienne est impossible. L’argument va comme suit: les travailleurs vivent actuellement dans la culture bourgeoise, qu’ils le veuillent ou non. Ils peuvent produire de l’art extraordinaire mais seulement comme continuité-opposition à la culture bourgeoise. Le jour où ils auront bâti une authentique culture neuve, ayant dépassé l’héritage de la période bourgeoise, c’est qu’ils ne seront déjà plus une classe ouvrière exploitée. Ainsi, le prolétariat a comme mission historique l’éventuelle construction d’une culture socialiste, et non, à court terme, d’une culture prolétarienne.
Auparavant, je ne comprenais pas l’importance de ce débat qui me semblait hautement abstrait. Mais à travers ces textes, on comprend que ce débat était *extrêmement concret*. La question était de savoir quelle type de politique culturelle privilégier dans la jeune république socialiste. Fallait-il trouver la « chapelle littéraire » officielle du prolétariat au plus vite? Trotsky voyait bien que cela dépassait les tâches d’un parti communiste et mènerait à l’étranglement de la pensée créatrice. La tâche était plutôt de travailler à la lente transmission de l’héritage culturel de l’humanité aux masses enfin libérées de l’esclavage et de l’obscurantisme. Il fallait aider le travailleur à se lever debout et enrichir sa faculté à penser par-lui même. Évidemment, la bureaucratie montante n’aimait pas cet angle d’approche et s’est rapidement approprié le mot d’ordre de « littérature prolétarienne » pour en faire un dogme.
Ce débat théorique majeur, et d’autres, sont expliqués dans la première partie du livre.
La deuxième partie m’a agréablement surpris. Au lieu d’un fouillis de textes sur diverses œuvres, on trouve un véritable carnet des réflexions de Trotsky sur l’art, la culture, la société, la vie quotidienne, la langue, l’éducation, etc. Mis à part certaines tangentes que je n’ai pas comprises (c’est un classique avec Trotsky), ces commentaires étaient extrêmement pertinents. L’un de mes passages préférés est quand Trotsky profite d’un article sur Louis-Ferdinand Céline pour critiquer le nationalisme français, qu’il décrit comme la religion laïque de la Troisième République:
« La liturgie du patriotisme, mise au point avec la dernière perfection, constitue un chapitre indispensable du rituel politique. Il est des mots et des tournures qui, au Parlement, provoquent automatiquement des applaudissements, tout comme certaines paroles liturgiques, chez le croyant, appellent la génuflexion et les larmes. »
On s’imagine facilement l’Assemblée nationale québécoise applaudir comme des phoques à toute phrase mentionnant les mots « les Québécois »…
On retrouve aussi dans ces textes une critique de l’utopie moraliste de Tolstoï, des réflexions sur l’utilité et les limites du pessimisme et du nihilisme, une analyse de la corruption étatique, etc. Le contenu est donc hautement stimulant, malgré sa variété et son manque d’unicité.
Ce qui propulse le livre au sommet, c’est le style de Trotsky — il sait écrire. Sur la vacuité des politiciens bourgeois comme Poincaré, Trotsky écrit que « le masque a fusionné avec la face. » De Gorky, compagnon de route de la révolution, Trotsky dit qu’il était un « satellite de la révolution. Attachée à elle par la loi inexorable de la gravité, il a tourné autour de la Révolution russe toute sa vie. Comme tout satellite il avait ses "phases". Le soleil de la révolution parfois illuminait son visage. Parfois il tombait sur son dos. »
C’est un livre énergisant. Notre existence dans la société de classes est pénible et souffrante. Bien souvent, elle fait violence à notre désir créatif. Elle nous aplati et mène certains à l’abandon et au nihilisme. On le voit trop souvent dans l’art d’aujourd’hui. Mais même dans ce sentiment se cache le désir « d’une vie plus harmonieuse et complète ».
Trotsky rend hommage à Sergeï Essenine, un poète qui s’est enlevé la vie dans les années 20, dans un monde en révolution. Il écrit: « son ressort lyrique n’aurait pu se dérouler jusqu’à sa fin que dans des conditions où la vie serait harmonieuse, heureuse, pleine de chansons, une période où règnerait en maître, non pas le combat brutal, mais l'amitié, l'amour, la tendresse. Ce temps viendra; dans le nôtre, il y a encore bien des combats implacables et salutaires d'hommes contre des hommes; mais après lui, il y aura d'autres temps que les luttes actuelles préparent; alors l'individu pourra s'épanouir en véritable fleur, comme alors s'épanouira la poésie de chaque être.
*La Révolution gagnera surtout, par haute lutte, pour chaque individu le droit non seulement au pain, mais à la poésie.* »
Si nous aimons la vie et voulons la dépeindre, avec toutes ses laideurs, dans nos mots et nos chants, c’est que nous savons qu’elle *peut* être aussi belle, qu’elle *peut* être aussi pleine, aussi regorgeante de rires et de larmes que toutes les œuvres. Alors lisons nos strophes et chantons nos chansons, mais fourbissons nos armes; préparons-nous à la lutte. Et, comme l’a écrit Rimbaud, « changeons la vie ».
Une compilation absolument fascinante. Un camarade a écrit, en anglais, que sa lecture était « fertilisante » — certainement une bonne description de l’effet que fait ce livre sur la pensée du lecteur.
Le livre s’ouvre sur une introduction extrêmement intéressante de Paul Siegel (ancien militant trotskiste américain et prof de littérature). Cette introduction est un résumé extrêmement convaincant de l’approche marxiste de l’art et de la culture, par exemple sur les lois du développement des formes artistiques, sur la notion de « vérité artistique » ou sur la place de la propagande dans l’art.
Puis, le livre est divisé en deux parties: d’abord, les contributions de Trotsky à une théorie marxiste de l’art; ensuite, des essais de critique littéraire.
La première partie fait suite à l’introduction. J’ai trouvé que les textes les plus intéressants abordaient le fameux débat sur l’art prolétarien. Trotsky explique qu’une culture prolétarienne est impossible. L’argument va comme suit: les travailleurs vivent actuellement dans la culture bourgeoise, qu’ils le veuillent ou non. Ils peuvent produire de l’art extraordinaire mais seulement comme continuité-opposition à la culture bourgeoise. Le jour où ils auront bâti une authentique culture neuve, ayant dépassé l’héritage de la période bourgeoise, c’est qu’ils ne seront déjà plus une classe ouvrière exploitée. Ainsi, le prolétariat a comme mission historique l’éventuelle construction d’une culture socialiste, et non, à court terme, d’une culture prolétarienne.
Auparavant, je ne comprenais pas l’importance de ce débat qui me semblait hautement abstrait. Mais à travers ces textes, on comprend que ce débat était *extrêmement concret*. La question était de savoir quelle type de politique culturelle privilégier dans la jeune république socialiste. Fallait-il trouver la « chapelle littéraire » officielle du prolétariat au plus vite? Trotsky voyait bien que cela dépassait les tâches d’un parti communiste et mènerait à l’étranglement de la pensée créatrice. La tâche était plutôt de travailler à la lente transmission de l’héritage culturel de l’humanité aux masses enfin libérées de l’esclavage et de l’obscurantisme. Il fallait aider le travailleur à se lever debout et enrichir sa faculté à penser par-lui même. Évidemment, la bureaucratie montante n’aimait pas cet angle d’approche et s’est rapidement approprié le mot d’ordre de « littérature prolétarienne » pour en faire un dogme.
Ce débat théorique majeur, et d’autres, sont expliqués dans la première partie du livre.
La deuxième partie m’a agréablement surpris. Au lieu d’un fouillis de textes sur diverses œuvres, on trouve un véritable carnet des réflexions de Trotsky sur l’art, la culture, la société, la vie quotidienne, la langue, l’éducation, etc. Mis à part certaines tangentes que je n’ai pas comprises (c’est un classique avec Trotsky), ces commentaires étaient extrêmement pertinents. L’un de mes passages préférés est quand Trotsky profite d’un article sur Louis-Ferdinand Céline pour critiquer le nationalisme français, qu’il décrit comme la religion laïque de la Troisième République:
« La liturgie du patriotisme, mise au point avec la dernière perfection, constitue un chapitre indispensable du rituel politique. Il est des mots et des tournures qui, au Parlement, provoquent automatiquement des applaudissements, tout comme certaines paroles liturgiques, chez le croyant, appellent la génuflexion et les larmes. »
On s’imagine facilement l’Assemblée nationale québécoise applaudir comme des phoques à toute phrase mentionnant les mots « les Québécois »…
On retrouve aussi dans ces textes une critique de l’utopie moraliste de Tolstoï, des réflexions sur l’utilité et les limites du pessimisme et du nihilisme, une analyse de la corruption étatique, etc. Le contenu est donc hautement stimulant, malgré sa variété et son manque d’unicité.
Ce qui propulse le livre au sommet, c’est le style de Trotsky — il sait écrire. Sur la vacuité des politiciens bourgeois comme Poincaré, Trotsky écrit que « le masque a fusionné avec la face. » De Gorky, compagnon de route de la révolution, Trotsky dit qu’il était un « satellite de la révolution. Attachée à elle par la loi inexorable de la gravité, il a tourné autour de la Révolution russe toute sa vie. Comme tout satellite il avait ses "phases". Le soleil de la révolution parfois illuminait son visage. Parfois il tombait sur son dos. »
C’est un livre énergisant. Notre existence dans la société de classes est pénible et souffrante. Bien souvent, elle fait violence à notre désir créatif. Elle nous aplati et mène certains à l’abandon et au nihilisme. On le voit trop souvent dans l’art d’aujourd’hui. Mais même dans ce sentiment se cache le désir « d’une vie plus harmonieuse et complète ».
Trotsky rend hommage à Sergeï Essenine, un poète qui s’est enlevé la vie dans les années 20, dans un monde en révolution. Il écrit: « son ressort lyrique n’aurait pu se dérouler jusqu’à sa fin que dans des conditions où la vie serait harmonieuse, heureuse, pleine de chansons, une période où règnerait en maître, non pas le combat brutal, mais l'amitié, l'amour, la tendresse. Ce temps viendra; dans le nôtre, il y a encore bien des combats implacables et salutaires d'hommes contre des hommes; mais après lui, il y aura d'autres temps que les luttes actuelles préparent; alors l'individu pourra s'épanouir en véritable fleur, comme alors s'épanouira la poésie de chaque être.
*La Révolution gagnera surtout, par haute lutte, pour chaque individu le droit non seulement au pain, mais à la poésie.* »
Si nous aimons la vie et voulons la dépeindre, avec toutes ses laideurs, dans nos mots et nos chants, c’est que nous savons qu’elle *peut* être aussi belle, qu’elle *peut* être aussi pleine, aussi regorgeante de rires et de larmes que toutes les œuvres. Alors lisons nos strophes et chantons nos chansons, mais fourbissons nos armes; préparons-nous à la lutte. Et, comme l’a écrit Rimbaud, « changeons la vie ».
November 19, 2023
Trotsky's writings on art and literature are a treasure trove.
I picked this up when I was at a bit of a dead end with other reading, with few expectations, but it was full of so many gems that in unexpected ways helped me understand other questions I'd been mulling over.
The 1924 pamphlet early in the book on Literature and Revolution, written in polemic against the Proletkult (a group that wanted to dispense with bourgeois culture in favour of a new "proletarian" culture) might have easily been written in response to the postmodernist off-shoots in academia that "reject" the product of bourgeois culture for being "eurocentric", "masculine", "universalising" etc.
The book has a collection of articles Trotsky wrote on a wide variety of books and authors: Tolstoy, Gorky, Jack London and many others, and all these little reviews and assessments are of the most profound observations.
For instance, one of the pieces on Tolstoy for instance really strikes home on all those utopian trends that see ideas as the motive force of history and they all end up at the same conclusion: that there is no such thing as historical necessity. Although it was said about Tolstoy, who was a genius, I happened to be reading a bad book by Silvia Federici at the same time, and he might as well have been characterising her.
Anyway, it was a really fertilising read for me, a pleasure to read and I couldn't recommend it enough for anyone looking for Marxist insights into culture or to simply broaden your horizons. Shame about the price Pathfinder put on their books.
I picked this up when I was at a bit of a dead end with other reading, with few expectations, but it was full of so many gems that in unexpected ways helped me understand other questions I'd been mulling over.
The 1924 pamphlet early in the book on Literature and Revolution, written in polemic against the Proletkult (a group that wanted to dispense with bourgeois culture in favour of a new "proletarian" culture) might have easily been written in response to the postmodernist off-shoots in academia that "reject" the product of bourgeois culture for being "eurocentric", "masculine", "universalising" etc.
The book has a collection of articles Trotsky wrote on a wide variety of books and authors: Tolstoy, Gorky, Jack London and many others, and all these little reviews and assessments are of the most profound observations.
For instance, one of the pieces on Tolstoy for instance really strikes home on all those utopian trends that see ideas as the motive force of history and they all end up at the same conclusion: that there is no such thing as historical necessity. Although it was said about Tolstoy, who was a genius, I happened to be reading a bad book by Silvia Federici at the same time, and he might as well have been characterising her.
Anyway, it was a really fertilising read for me, a pleasure to read and I couldn't recommend it enough for anyone looking for Marxist insights into culture or to simply broaden your horizons. Shame about the price Pathfinder put on their books.
June 26, 2022
LEON, THE LIGHTER SIDE. Lev Davidovich Bronstein proved a far better observer and prophet of art, literature and social mores than he did revolutionary politician, although he would insist the two categories cannot be separated. That is why these essays are still germane today. He was, for instance, one of the first critics to recognize the genius of Celine: "With the publication of JOURNEY TO THE END OF NIGHT Celine walks into the hall of great authors as other men walk into their living rooms" yet he was perceptive enough to see that Celine's nihilism could not be maintained in the political sphere: "Celine will either throw in his lot with the proletariat or the fascists. There is no middle ground for him." Or, take his swipe at the use of profanity in Russia: "I wonder if there is any other language so filled with obscenities as the Russian", and traced this to the mutual contempt between landlord and serf. Last, and perhaps most relevant, is a short talk on cartography and politics: "First, comrades, we must look at the map. Without it, all political talk is so much claptrap." Enjoy.
May 19, 2016
You've got to get out of bed early if you want to outdo Leon Trotsky. When he's not commanding armies, plotting revolution, or leading mass opposition, he spares time for art criticism. And why not? Art, he says, is an integral part of human culture, a necessary function of social man.
The first part of this book contains Trotsky's art criticism, the second part essays on particular subjects or artists. In the critical part he of course deplores the decline in bourgeois art, a process only to be expected of a system in dire need of replacement. Not all art present and past is bad, but art transcends its time and class only when "feelings and moods [receive] such broad, intense, powerful expression as to have raised them above the limitations of life in those days." Yet culture remains an instrument of class oppression, albeit one whose techniques can be used against the oppressive forces.
Trotsky sees little in modern bourgeois art movements to inspire the future. "The idea that art has as its purpose only the inspiration of certain moods" he tells readers, "is radically false." He adds that "the effort to set art free of life is [...] an unmistakable sign of intellectual decline." But even worse is the despair and disillusionment that has become the hallmark of today's bourgeois artists. "Serious success," Trotsky states, "has never yet been based on political, cultural and aesthetic disorientation." Bourgeois culture must be replaced by a socialist one, for true art aspires to a radical reconstruction of society.
Trotsky criticizes what was called proletarian art in the Soviet Union under Stalin. He points to the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera as the greatest interpreter of the October Revolution, noting with irony that Rivera's work was unknown in the Stalinist state. He criticizes Soviet authors on a case-by-case basis and sums up Soviet literature of the 1930's thus: "Honest and talented books appear as if accidentally, bursting out from somewhere under the counter, and have the character of artistic contraband." The politicization of art had turned it into propaganda purely in service to a personality cult.
But if not Stalin what, then, constitutes good Marxist art? "One cannot always go by the principle of Marxism in deciding whether to accept or reject a work of art," the revolutionary leader writes, elaborating certain domains in which a Marxist party leads, others in which it cooperates and still others in which it only orients itself. If he has to give criteria for good art, he suggests that a protest against reality "always forms part of a really creative piece of work." About literature he makes this point: "A literary work is truthful or artistic when the interrelations of the heroes develop, not according to the author's desires, but according to the latent forces of the characters and setting." But ultimately the artist himself is key. "Either the artist will make peace with the darkness or he will perceive the dawn."
This book, which includes a few photos, covers Trotsky's views on art at about the time of World War II, taking in writers such as Jack London, Maxim Gorky and Ferdinand Celine. In Trotsky's various essays readers get a dialectical view of art rather than a schematic treatment of what can or cannot be acceptable to Marxists. I recommend the book for its historical and literary value, which comes to us from an indefatigable perspective.
June 17, 2013
Leon Trotsky was undoubtedly one of the most dynamic thinkers of the Bolshevik revolution and in the Marxist pantheon as a whole. One question -- odd yet prescient -- arises when we think first think of Art & Revolution: why would he care about art in the first place? Here is a man who was the first president of the Petrograd workers' council, leader of the Red Army, a subtle thinker who tirelessly promoted the idea that there were consequences in Russia's combined and uneven development for revolutionaries, a man exiled first from the Communist Party and then Russia as a whole by Stalin only to be hounded and on the run for the remainder of his life until he was finally assassinated. Nonetheless, even while on the run he managed to cobble together a small but impressive international grouping that was able to carry on the Bolshevik legacy uncorrupted by Stalinism and wrote prodigiously, including his own autobiography, a definitive work on the Russian revolution and argued for an understanding of fascism in Italy, Germany and Spain that still arms anti-fascists to this day.
So, again, how in the hell did he have time to write about art? More to the point, why in the hell should he care about art in the first place?
As to the first question, we'll never have a clear cut answer. Some folks are just tireless. We do know, however, that even as he raced across the Russian front during the Civil War he would spend time reading French novels. We also know that during his final years in Mexico he was close friends with Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Andre Breton -- artists who saw an unmistakable link between their art and revolutionary beliefs. Finally, as we see in this book, he often found himself engaging in sharp polemics with artists and other cultural types in the years after the Russian revolution about the role that art plays under socialism.
So, again, how in the hell did he have time to write about art? More to the point, why in the hell should he care about art in the first place?
As to the first question, we'll never have a clear cut answer. Some folks are just tireless. We do know, however, that even as he raced across the Russian front during the Civil War he would spend time reading French novels. We also know that during his final years in Mexico he was close friends with Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Andre Breton -- artists who saw an unmistakable link between their art and revolutionary beliefs. Finally, as we see in this book, he often found himself engaging in sharp polemics with artists and other cultural types in the years after the Russian revolution about the role that art plays under socialism.
April 13, 2020
As a revolutionary, Trotsky never writes in a vacuum, separate from practice. As with Lenin and others, it is important when reading any of his work to understand what was happening in politics at that time, and what he was responding to. Underlying any of his thoughts on art and culture are wider arguments he is carrying forward.
This is a collection of Trotsky's writing on art, literature and culture. Paul N. Siegal does well in his introductions to each piece to explain the context in which they were produced. Here we have everything from articles printed in newspapers whilst he was in exile after the 1905 failed revolution, speeches to Soviet bodies in the 1920s whilst he was a leader of the burgeoning Soviet society, and later, again in exile after failing to oppose Stalin.
At the centre of the most interesting writing is an understanding of how culture will develop from Capitalism through the transition to Socialism, and importantly how there is no short cut to this. Key here is that art is not good simply because it is 'politically pure'. Art has it's own rules, and these are separate to politics. He explains how art and politics interact, and how artists cannot be dictated to as to what they should produce, or what 'good' art is. This was certainly not how Stalin saw it.
A fascinating read, but certainly at times a challenging one. As I say, each piece needs to be read in the context of the time he was writing it, and it can be quite dense trying to understand often minor arguements that underlay this. The second half in particular can be tricky, as he writes about specific writers. Without prior knowledge of them, there is only so much you can take from the pieces. To a degree, sections of the book are really just for completists. However, there is plenty here to work through to understand Trotsky's position and arguments regarding art and culture. Like so much of his work, it remains of vital importance for those who wish to fight for a better world today.
This is a collection of Trotsky's writing on art, literature and culture. Paul N. Siegal does well in his introductions to each piece to explain the context in which they were produced. Here we have everything from articles printed in newspapers whilst he was in exile after the 1905 failed revolution, speeches to Soviet bodies in the 1920s whilst he was a leader of the burgeoning Soviet society, and later, again in exile after failing to oppose Stalin.
At the centre of the most interesting writing is an understanding of how culture will develop from Capitalism through the transition to Socialism, and importantly how there is no short cut to this. Key here is that art is not good simply because it is 'politically pure'. Art has it's own rules, and these are separate to politics. He explains how art and politics interact, and how artists cannot be dictated to as to what they should produce, or what 'good' art is. This was certainly not how Stalin saw it.
A fascinating read, but certainly at times a challenging one. As I say, each piece needs to be read in the context of the time he was writing it, and it can be quite dense trying to understand often minor arguements that underlay this. The second half in particular can be tricky, as he writes about specific writers. Without prior knowledge of them, there is only so much you can take from the pieces. To a degree, sections of the book are really just for completists. However, there is plenty here to work through to understand Trotsky's position and arguments regarding art and culture. Like so much of his work, it remains of vital importance for those who wish to fight for a better world today.
February 4, 2026
Not every article or letter in here, by the very nature of its compilation, is of equal importance - but this is perhaps one of the finest examples of Marxism not being a a dry, narrow philosophy nor just a bread-and-butter call to action, but a holistic philosophy to help us understand even the most far-away and mythologised aspects of human culture. Artistic styles cannot be imposed from above, it has its own laws of development and must be judged on its own terms - equally, conscious beings within a given society at a given point of development are the ones who interact with and create art, and as with everything else has its own class interest.
Trotsky's analysis of art being true to itself gave expression to feelings I'd been feeling to for close to a decade, and I think this is borderline essential reading for anyone interested in not just a world of bread but a world of poetry and art. Trotsky is really in his element here and it shows.
Trotsky's analysis of art being true to itself gave expression to feelings I'd been feeling to for close to a decade, and I think this is borderline essential reading for anyone interested in not just a world of bread but a world of poetry and art. Trotsky is really in his element here and it shows.
November 4, 2025
While Trotsky's wife Natalia Sedova introduced him to the visual arts in Europe, and he got to know Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and other artists in Mexico, Trotsky's real love was for literature. During the Russian Civil War, when Trotsky was commander-in-chief, he relaxed by reading novels, usually French novels.
This book includes a selection from 'Literature and Revolution,' written in 1922-23, and first published in English in 1925. While there is more of that book that is worth reading, most of the authors discussed are relatively unknown to English (and perhaps today even to Russian) audiences. The book is a polemic against revolutionaries who advocated "proletarian culture." Trotsky's view was that the proletariat would only be in power briefly, to usher in the first worldwide, truly human culture, and that the task in the Soviet Union was to develop the culture that already existed. But within a few years, the same book would serve equally useful in combating the Stalinist concept of "Socialist Realism," which was a counterrevolution against most art. There are other essays where Trotsky discusses critical theory in literature.
The rest of the book is essays in literary criticism, including such writers as Tolstoy, Vladimir Mayakovsky, André Malraux, Maxim Gorky, Jack London, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, and Ignazio Silone. There is also a chapter on Churchill as biographer and historian."
The introduction is by Paul N. Siegel, who taught and wrote extensively about Shakespeare, and is also the author of Revolution and the 20th Century Novel.
People interested in this may also be interested in Portraits, Political and Personal.
This book includes a selection from 'Literature and Revolution,' written in 1922-23, and first published in English in 1925. While there is more of that book that is worth reading, most of the authors discussed are relatively unknown to English (and perhaps today even to Russian) audiences. The book is a polemic against revolutionaries who advocated "proletarian culture." Trotsky's view was that the proletariat would only be in power briefly, to usher in the first worldwide, truly human culture, and that the task in the Soviet Union was to develop the culture that already existed. But within a few years, the same book would serve equally useful in combating the Stalinist concept of "Socialist Realism," which was a counterrevolution against most art. There are other essays where Trotsky discusses critical theory in literature.
The rest of the book is essays in literary criticism, including such writers as Tolstoy, Vladimir Mayakovsky, André Malraux, Maxim Gorky, Jack London, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, and Ignazio Silone. There is also a chapter on Churchill as biographer and historian."
The introduction is by Paul N. Siegel, who taught and wrote extensively about Shakespeare, and is also the author of Revolution and the 20th Century Novel.
People interested in this may also be interested in Portraits, Political and Personal.
November 28, 2009
I am reading this book very slowly. Many of his essays are very short, and first appeared in the Partisan Review. His views on art are great. He does not have this political and dogmatic vision of what art should be. He is surprisingly and refreshingly open about art. Of course, he hung out with artists, so maybe his openness shouldn't be surprising.
November 6, 2007
Important topic to me....relates to Sinclair's Guitar Army, as well as Lit and revolution....do it.....grateful dead....John Lennon....
Important Work..........ideas similar to Plato in his political work "The Republic"...
Im bout 80 pages in need to re-borrow and finish
Important Work..........ideas similar to Plato in his political work "The Republic"...
Im bout 80 pages in need to re-borrow and finish
Read
March 27, 2012Trotsky was a profound literary critic before he was a political figure. Just a fantastic book.
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