ABSTRACT
The emergence of working-class consciousness in the domain of social life has created a new set of materials for the drama. The struggle between the classes in the form of strikes, lock-outs, political and social conflicts, has also quickened the mentality of the workers. Oppression in industry, the social blackmail of trusts, the smashing of petty industry by large-scale industry, the economic insecurity of the workers and the petty middle class, the commercialization of art and the thwarting of artistic expression, the creation of industrial grime and ugliness - all these manifestations directly affect the human instincts of the sensitive artist. They mould his thoughts and focus his hatreds. An individual can hardly exist within capitalist society without being affected by the strug-
186 Proletkult: a view from the Plebs League: Document gles arising out of the above manifestations. He cannot be indifferent; he must declare either for or against capitalism.In these circumstances the question revolves round the retention of power by the capitalists or the conquest of that power by the workers. The majority of society are unaware of the inner meaning of this struggle. Steadily, greater and greater numbers are declaring for one or the other side. Precursors of the workers’ drama are projecting their consciousness of this struggle on to the stage. They are leading the way to a workers’ drama.An example of this type of drama is R.U.R. (‘Rossum’s Universal Robots’), written by a Czech, Karel Capek. The robots are machine-made men, produced by the thousands, and sold in all parts of the world to perform the work of the world. They are made on the principle that they have no feelings, or desires. They have no souls, the author puts it. As cheap work machines, they replace the working class. In a remarkably short space of time, the world’s birth rate declines in accordance to the economic need of people. A birth during the week becomes a newspaper item; it is so rare. Mankind threatens to disappear through lack of fertility.Then robots are bought by the various governments to build up the armies. These cheap robots are used to wipe out the larger portion of humanity. But as these robots lack national distinctions, and national hatreds, they combine throughout the world. They are the producers of the world’s goods, and the distributors. They have been taught to run the world by the humans. Then they revolt against their masters, and exterminate humanity. The robot revolution is triumphant.It is interesting to note the views of the different classes upon this play. Each class agrees that the robots are the world workers. The bourgeoisie take it as a lecture on the necessity of not grinding the workers’ faces into the dust. Middle-class humanists immediately use it as a text from which they argue that such an international catastrophe can only be avoided by making the workers copartners in industry. Many workers think of it as a dramatization of revolutionary propaganda.The problem of the play is not a personal one; it is a class problem in that it marks a great advance on previous drama. It is not the family or the individual which has to be saved, neither is it only a national section. The robots of the world are made to save themselves by a world-wide revolution. Individual revolts of
the robots are punished by destruction. There was no individual salvation without general salvation. That in itself is a valuable dramatic lesson for the workers.But the play, despite its excellent points, has a number of shortcomings from our point of view. Its end is exceedingly disappointing. If it had sounded on a note of revolutionary triumph, say a speech from the leading robot, or a massed declamation, promising the regeneration of the world in a condition of economic freedom, its message to the workers would have been more real and powerful. While the form of the play stresses the revolutionary side of the robots, it does not provide any justification for revolution. Like the robot, the revolution is mechanical. No one with any aversion for revolution would come from the play with that aversion lessened. Again, the revolution seems quite meaningless except for the saying of one robot who declares that he wants to be a master over others. That is not a characteristic of the proletarian revolution. However, this play assists in developing the workers’ drama, provided its mistakes are avoided, and its deficiencies repaired.Ernst Toller, the German revolutionary poet, while in prison after taking part in the Bavarian revolt, wrote the play called Masses and Man. This play has considerable interest for the workers, not only for its subject matter, but for its method of presentation. Here again the problem is one of the struggle for the conquest of power by the workers. So little is it a personal problem that the author labels his characters as types: ‘The Nameless One’, ‘An Officer’, ‘A Priest’, ‘The Woman’, ‘Her Husband’, working men and working women, bankers, and the ‘People’s Sentries’. Here the problem is a class problem, and the characters are personifications of class types.Representatives of the ruling class are placed upon the stage and exposed most bitterly. War finance is the subject of a most cruel satire, and the morality of the financiers is placed on the lowest order.Throughout this part, the revolutionary spirit is growing. Revolt is decided upon, and a middle-class woman is put in to show the weakness of the middle class in such situations. The revolt is crushed and the rebels are thrown into prison, and gloom and despair grips the rest of the play.Then arises the mental conflict within the artist. He has not
188 Proletkult: a view from the Plebs League: Document squared his philosophy with the facts of working-class life. Toller projects this unripeness into the mouths of two characters - ‘The Nameless One’ and ‘The Woman’. They debate the right of the workers to use force. The woman revolts against freedom at the price of killing the guard. She is ultimately shot by the officers of the rulers. ‘The Nameless One’ disappears. This psychological conflict continues without finality, no solution being offered to the points raised. The message of the play is weakened thereby, and indicates that the author has not saturated himself with a truly working-class spirit.But this dramatization of the doubts within the working class is all very well in its way if it would help the workers to decisions. The hall mark of a real worker dramatist’s play is that he has been able to square the action with the conscience. His intellect, his actions, and feelings are then at peace with each other.Masses and Man is the dramatic projection, through the genius of Toller, of the experiences of the workers in the Bavarian revolt of 1919. This revolt, as elsewhere in Germany, failed largely because the doubtings and indecision o f ‘The Woman’ character in the play possessed the consciousness of the social democrats who held the leading positions. This failing in ‘The Woman’ however, has been regarded as a matter which troubles many individuals. Rather we should ascribe these weaknesses to the middle-class humanitarians who want to help the workers, but are not prepared to go the length of revolution. If the duel between ‘The Nameless One’ and ‘The Woman’ is a dramatization of individual emotions, perhaps the end of ‘The Woman’ will clear away any doubt as to which is the right point of view. In this sense the play shows up a serious weakness, and assists in its dispersion.The other play by Toller which has considerable significance for the new movement is The Machine Wreckers. It opens with a prologue in which Lord Byron attacks a Bill which is before the House of Lords, which makes the destruction of machinery punishable by death. His attack upon the Bill was a defence of those workers who, in the early 1880s, regarded the machines as destroyers of their livelihood. These workers, known to history as the Luddites, saw the machines discarding adult labour and increasing the employment of child and female labour. Suppleness of fingers took the place of the craftsmanship of men.The revolt of the workers against this innovation is brilliantly
portrayed, and one gathers the general impression that the workers faced a problem too large for their understanding and experience. The follies and ignorance of the workers is explained in terms of bestial oppression and callous conditions.The overriding theme of the play is indicated in the following lines, put in the mouth of Jimmy Cobbett, who is the only character in the play who possesses any understanding of the role of machines in human society:
A rich man - Golden Belly was his name - With several castles all as big and fine As Mr Ure’s new house up on the hill,Lived with an only daughter he called Joy.She wore a golden frock, and played all day With golden playthings in a golden garden. The man was rich, his child called Joy.And not far from their castle lived a weaver Who also had an only child, called Sorrow,A meagre boy with puny chest and legs Like sally-rods - a starveling such as thou.
