ABSTRACT
The slightest hint or glimmer of artistic independence, of some strong native way of seeing or creating—a way of seeing or creating distinct from that dictated by the temporary expediencies of the political power. “The agents of the class enemy,” shouts the literary Gazette in giant letters, “are disguising themselves with the fig-leaf of apolitism, with the slogan of the neutrality of art. The task of soviet literary sociality is to expose ruthlessly all neutralism, all apolitism in its midst. Since Trotsky represents, in all essentials, merely a more intelligent, more instructed, more resolute, more honest and drastic application of the principles upon which Stalin professes to be acting, the effect of this campaign in the world of ideas is peculiar. “Such terms,” says Trotsky, “as ‘proletarian literature’ and ‘proletarian culture’ are dangerous, because they erroneously compress the culture of the future into the narrow limits of the present day.
