ABSTRACT
Literature is touched upon obliquely in a note on Hertzen, and the article Party Organizationand Party Literature. Recognizing the gigantic power of art, Lenin thought that it ought to be an art not for a few, but for all. The enjoyment experienced by him personally must be made accessible to all humanity till now deprived of these high experiences. Lenin’s adverse attitude to the talk about proletarian culture stood in close relation to his very deep realism which had seen the vanity and futility and sometimes even danger in empty blab and babble. The broad and attractive intelligibility of the old literature also explains Lenin’s partiality for the classics. Lenin’s analysis of Tolstoy refutes the cheap and wooden application of Marxism. For them “collective labor, solidarity and brotherhood in struggle” meant for the most part loyal obedience to the political machine.
