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    Discussion in the Meeting with the Creative Intellectuals (1946); Original Russian text here

    Question: How dangerous ideologically are the avantgarde tendencies in music and the abstract school in art and sculpture?

    Stalin: Today under the guise of innovation formalism is being induced in Soviet music and abstraction in painting. Once in a while a question can be heard ‘is it necessary for such great people as Bolsheviks and Leninists to be engaged in such petty things and spend time criticizing abstract painting and formalism. Let the psychiatrists deal with it’.

    In these types of questions misunderstanding of the role of ideological sabotage against our country and especially against our youth is clearly discernible. It is with their help that attempts are being made against socialist realism in art and literature. It is impossible to do so openly. In these so-called abstract painting there is no real face of those people, whom people would have liked to imitate in the fight for their peoples’ happiness, for communism and for the path on which they want progress. This portrayal is substituted by the abstract mysticism clouding the issue of socialist class struggle against capitalism. During the war how many people came to the statue of Minin and Pozharsky in Red Square to instill in us the feelings of victory? To what can a bust of twisted iron representing ‘innovation’ as an art inspire us? To what can an abstract painting inspire?

    This is the reason why modern American financial magnates are propagating modernism, paying for this type of work huge royalties which the great masters of realism may not ever see.

    There is an underlying idea of class struggle in the so-called western popular music, in the so-called formalist tendencies. This music, if one can call it such, is created from the sect of ‘shakers’ – dance that induces people to ecstasy, trance and makes them into wild animals ready for any wild action. This type of music is created with the help of psychiatrists so as to influence the brain and psychology of the people. This is one type of musical narcotics under whose influence a person cannot think of fresh ideas and are turned into a herd. It is useless to invite such people for revolution, for building communism. As you see music can also fight.

    In 1944, I had an opportunity to read the instruction written by an officer of British intelligence, with the title: how to use formalist music for corrupting the enemy army.

    Question: What concretely are the subversive activities of the agents of foreign intelligence in the sphere of art and literature?

    Stalin: While talking about the future development of Soviet art and literature it must be taken into consideration that it is developing in a condition of an unprecedented secret war, a war that has been unleashed on us and our art and literature by the world imperialist circles. The job of foreign agents in our country is to penetrate Soviet organizations dealing with culture, to capture the editorships of major newspapers and journals, to influence decisively the repertoire of theatres and movies and in the publication of fiction and poetry. To stop by any means the publication of revolutionary works which awaken patriotism and lead the Soviet people towards creating communism. They support and publish works where the failure of communism is preached. They are ecstatic in their support and propaganda of the capitalist method of production and the bourgeois life style.

    At the same time foreign agents are asked to popularise in art and literature the feelings of pessimism, decadence and demoralisation.

    One popular American senator said, ‘If we were able to show Bolshevik Russia our horror films it most probably will be able to destroy communist construction’. Not for nothing did Lev Tolstoi say that art and literature is a strong form of indoctrination.

    We must seriously ponder over who and what is inspiring us today with the help of literature and art so that we can put an end to ideological subversion. We must understand and accept that culture is one of the integral parts of social ideology, of class and is used for safeguarding the interest of the ruling class. For us it is to safeguard the interest of the working class, of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

    There is no art for art’s sake. There are no, and cannot be, ‘free’ artists, writers, poets, dramatists, directors, and journalists, standing above the society. Nobody needs them. Such people don’t and can’t exist.

    For those who don’t want to serve the Soviet people as a result of old traditions of the counter revolutionary bourgeoisie, or are antagonistic towards the power of the working class dedicated to serving the Soviet people we give the permission to leave the country and stay abroad. Let them be convinced of the meaning of ‘free creativity’ in the notorious bourgeois society, where everything can be brought and sold, and the creative intelligentsia is completely dependent on the monetary support of the financial magnates in their creative endeavours.