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Articulations of (Socialist) Realism: Lukács, Platonov, Shklovsky

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Articulations of (Socialist) Realism: Lukács, Platonov, Shklovsky Two puzzles dominate recent discussions of Soviet literature and Marxist aesthetics in the 1930s. The first is how the official Soviet system tolerated and even at times celebrated such an idiosyncratic writer as Andrei Platonov, who in the last twenty-five years has emerged as the central literary artist of the time. The second 01/17 puzzle is how socialist realism, a literature wholly focused on the future, came to model itself on nineteenth-century realism, with the result that the bulk of socialist realist novels (and works in other literary genres and artistic mediums) read like tedious exercises in nostalgia, while artists who really anticipate the future, like Platonov, became marginalized. Robert Bird ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThese two puzzles have brought close attention to the circle around the journal Literaturnyi kritik (Literary Critic), which had Articulations of been created in 1934 as a locus for theorizing socialist realism, became closely allied with (Socialist) Mikhail Lifshits and other progressive Marxist philosophers, and also published the bulk of Realism: Platonov’s critical writings. In August 1936 Literaturnyi kritik broke with its charter to publish two stories by Andrei Platonov, Lukcs, “Immortality” and “Among Animals and Plants,” in the same issue that Georg Lukcs published Platonov, “Narrate or Describe?,” a foundational work in the theories of narrative and of realism. In this essay I propose to read Platonov’s “Immortality” Shklovsky together with Lukcs’s “Narrate or Describe?” and Lukcs’s review of “Immortality,” as part of a y k s wide-ranging dialogue that also involved Viktor v o l Shklovsky, about realism in general and the k h method of socialist realism in particular. This S , v dialogue suggests that, far from legislating an o n o outmoded style for the novel, Lukcs derives t a l from Platonov’s fiction a portable model of P , d s r socialist realist method that will ensure the dual i c B k t agency of the artist – as composer and medium r u e L b : of history – while allowing literary form to adapt o m R s Ê to continual changes in the structure of history. i l 8 a 1 e Recovering the ambition of Lukcs’s essay not 0 R 2 ) only clarifies its historical context, but also t y s a i l suggests how the realism in question then might m a i c — be the realism with which we still contend in our o 1 S ( 1 9 own day. f # o l s a n n r o i 1. “Immortality” and Socialist Realism u t o a j l “Immortality” was commissioned from Platonov x u c u i l t f under the auspices of a large project called r - e A “People of the Railway Empire,” initiated by the Union of Soviet Writers and the railway newspaper Gudok (Horn) in late 1935. In line with the new Stakhanovite movement, which showcased particularly productive individual workers in each major industry, on July 30, 1935 Stalin gathered the most illustrious railway workers for an awards ceremony at the Kremlin. By August 17, working at a Stakhanovite pace, 05.11.18 / 18:21:06 EDT 02/17 The agit-trainÊOctober Revolution included aÊcarÊspecificallyÊoutfitted for propaganda purposes.ÊPhoto:ÊVertov-Collection, Austrian Film Museum 05.11.18 / 18:21:06 EDT the publishing arm of the rail industry prepared the difficulty of its path, its steep inclines and published a commemorative volume, Liudi and hard hills. But we have managed to velikoi chesti (People of Great Honor), which lead the locomotive of history through all featured brief biographies of the sixty-seven inclines and hills, through all turns and award-winning railway workers. Sometime that bends, because we have had great train autumn a decision was made to commission engineers, capable of driving the literary works about them. Platonov was locomotive of history. We have conquered assigned two Stakhanovites of the rails: 03/17 because our locomotive has been steered pointsman Ivan Alekseevich Fyodorov of by the dual brigade of the great Lenin and Medvezh’ia gora station, and stationmaster Stalin.3 Emmanuil Grigor’evich Tseitlin of Krasnyi (Red) Liman station. Fyodorov became the protagonist Tropes unexpectedly spawn real imperatives. of “Among Animals and Plants,” in which he is Though Platonov had been marginalized since his maimed while trying to stop a runaway train, is stories attracted Stalin’s personal ire in 1929 and honored at a ceremony in Moscow, and promoted 1931, the railway commission promised a way to the position of coupler. Tseitlin was back into print. fictionalized in “Immortality” as Emmanuil ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ“Among Animals and Plants” was accepted Semyonovich Levin, the indefatigably caring by the journals Oktiabr’ (October) and Novyi mir chief of Red Peregon station. (The New World), but Platonov refused to make ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊPlatonov (1899–1951) was a natural choice the changes they demanded. Both “Among for the project. Born in the family of a railway Animals and Plants” and “Immortality” were then engineer, he had frequently set his stories in and rejected by the prestigious almanac God around rail yards. He explained his railway Deviatnadtsatyi (The Nineteenth Year), before obsession in a text later published by his widow being accepted by the journal Kolkhoznye rebiata Mariia: (Kolkhoz Kids), where they appeared in abbreviated adaptation for children.4 The Before the revolution I was a boy, but after decision by the editors of Literaturnyi kritik to it happened there was no time to be young, publish Platonov’s stories as the first and last no time to grow; I immediately had to put on ever works of fiction ever included in the journal a frown and start fighting [i.e., in the Civil demonstrates both their high regard for Platonov War] É Without finishing technical college I and their determination, despite his difficulty in was hurriedly put on a locomotive to help finding outlets for his work, to see him in print. y k the engineer. For me the saying that the s ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊGiven the political tenor of the moment – v o revolution was the locomotive of history l August 1936 also witnessed the first Moscow k turned into a strange and good feeling: h show trial of Stalin’s rivals – it was an act of no S , recalling it, I worked assiduously on the v little boldness. In an extended but unsigned o n locomotive É Later the words about the o preface, the editors explained their decision as t a revolution as a locomotive turned the l dictated by the timidity of literary journals’ P , d s locomotive for me into a sense r editorial boards, which prefer safe “routine” and i c B 2 k [oshchushchenie] of the revolution. t “cliché” to a realism that reveals contradictions r u e L b : and incites reflection: o m R s A revolutionary fact gives rise to a feeling and Ê i l 8 a 1 organizes labor, but then returns to a metaphor e We categorically reject the formula 0 R 2 that rapidly accelerates out of control. This ) “talented, but politically false.” A truly t y s a i literal belief in metaphor animated socialist l talented work reflects reality with m a i c realism, the official aesthetic system of the — maximum objectivity, and an objective o 1 S ( 9 Soviet Union beginning in 1932, and Stalin relied reflection of reality cannot be hostile to the f # o l heavily upon the mobilizing power of metaphor s working class and its cause. In Soviet a n n r o when, in 1935, he placed the rail industry at the i conditions a work that is false in its ideas u t o a j 5 l center of public discourse, as seen in railway cannot be genuinely talented. x u c u i l t commissar Lazar Kaganovich’s speech at the f r - celebration of July 30, 1935: e A What sounds like pure casuistry reflects the journal’s consistent position that literary In The Class Struggle in France Marx wrote narrative possesses a degree of autonomy, i.e., that “revolutions are the locomotives of means of efficacy that cannot be mapped history.” On Marx’s timetable Lenin and directly onto ideology: “Vigilance is necessary. In Stalin have set the locomotive of history order that it be real, actual, Bolshevik vigilance, onto its track and led it forward. The however, and not just a bureaucrat’s fear of enemies of revolution prophesied crashes ‘unpleasantness,’ it is necessary first of all to for our locomotive, trying to frighten us with know literature.”6 05.11.18 / 18:21:06 EDT ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊGeorg Lukcs was a leading light of the oscillation between documentary source and journal, and the unnamed editors’ opposition fictional invention. Traveling to Krasnyi Liman between “literature” and “bureaucracy” calls to only after finishing the story, Platonov found mind Lukcs’s 1939 essay “Tribune or Tseitlin “intelligent (true, I’ve only spoken to him Bureaucrat?” In fact the entire project “People of for ten minutes so far) and very similar to his the Railway Empire” had been conceived along image in my story.”11 Publishing the story in roughly Lukcsian lines, considering his Literaturnyi kritik, Platonov attached an opposition to pure factography in the 1932 essay 04/17 enigmatic note: “In this story there are no facts “Reportage or Portrayal?” The project was to be that fail to correspond to reality at least in a rooted in close study of Soviet life, specifically small degree, and there are no facts copying through an archive of transcripts of worker reality.”12 Platonov strives for realism, but interviews that were commissioned especially realism excludes the “copying” of reality.
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