| Show CALLON BRAINS FOR SUPPORT regimented propaganda Is I 1 modern idea established order bolstered by intellectuals no ko conscientious student of letters ling been inclined Inell ned to take too seriously the alarm that has been felt fell over the future of literature in dussias Rus sias proletarian state after all it was only a natural part of the revolution that the intellectuals should have been regimented for propaganda purposes history shows that it Is the part of the intellectuals during stability to support the established order and when that order becomes insupportable to express in varying ways the ferment that precedes all fundamental shifts in political power thus the writers in russia lone ions ago became revolutionary propagandists and when the revolution came they extolled the new regime more blatantly but not less effectively than the writers in a capitalistic state bend their art toward support of the homely virtues whence capitalism draws its strength writers know this somerset maugham in the preface to east and west takes pains to inform his readers that the editor of the magu maga zine where his stories mostly appeared never told him what to write or what not to write it if it were not at least suspected that writers ere are regimented under whatever political system such declarations declaration of independence would be superfluous but there are degrees of reg regimentation 1 ment atlon as of everything else during a revolution the subtle concealment ceal ment of propaganda under a layer of art disappears and the skilled writer becomes as unscrupulous as any hack back publicity agent that Is what happened in russia when in the phrase of max eastman the artists were put in uniform the russian revolution Is now an accomplished fact the need for obvious propaganda lessens the diehards may still believe that there Is 1 an unlimited distinction between true proletarian writers and bourgeois intellectuals but karl radek one of communists most powerful thinkers realizes that undiluted kropa propaganda nay may eventually defeat its own ends at a congress of all soviet writers in moscow radek said that the bars must be let down and that the old theory of he who Is not with us Is against us would no lie ion longer ioner er rule rula in the arts and and so BO it may soon be that the writers of russia will lay aside their uniforms and the russian artists la in mufti will find new means for expression out of the chaos of revolution may appear the needed security which Is the basis of all art at the same time it may be well to speculate on the theory that the reason why literature has so lagged la in the years of america Is because of its regimentation under such banners as puritanism and materialism the growing glowing determination of our writers to work under different standards and to talk openly of the th place of propaganda in art Is as significant ant as movement in the opposite direction washington post |
