1967/08/01 by Hafeez Malik · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Aesthetics #Art #Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies #Communism #Doctrine #Indian History and Philosophy #Law #Literature #Marxist philosophy #Political science #Politics #Realism #South Asian Studies and Diaspora #Soviet union
paper · doi:10.2307/2051241
openalex publication_date 1967/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
The conflict between the theory of art for art's sake and the theory of purposive art is not of recent origin. In modern times however the Soviet Union has made a comprehensive experiment with the theory of purposive art, subordinating all artistic endeavors to socialist realism and partiinost —the party spirit. This experiment began when the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party passed a resolution on April 23, 1932 creating a single Union of Soviet Writers (actually organized in 1934) and inviting the authors to join this Union while adhering to the doctrine of socialist realism in literature. Western literary critics have maintained that while the appreciable part of literature produced during the last thirty-five years “possesses artistic qualities of high worth” in its postwar development Soviet literature in general has simply become a “perfect propaganda instrument.”