Lunacharsky -Revolutionary Theater (Response to Comrade Bukharin)

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Revolutionary Theater (Response to Comrade Bukharin)

First published in The Theater Bulletin, 1919, No. 47, p. 3–4.

Published according to the book: Lunacharsky A. V. Theater and Revolution. - M., 1924, p. 36–42.

Published on the site according to the book: Efimov V.V.A.V. Lunacharsky and communist totalitarianism. - Dushanbe: "Sino". - 1993. - 290 pages.

Iam very sorry that comrades who are quite far from the theatre, who are not aware of the systematic work that is being carried out in this area with all the necessary caution, are taking the liberty of attacking our theatrical politics.

Perhaps it would be most rational to respond to the most impetuous of such attacks, Comrade Bukharin's article in one of the recent issues of Pravda, ibid. But since my answer must necessarily be detailed, I prefer to answer in the columns of the Herald of the Theatre, sending out this issue of the magazine, obviously little read by our political and leading personnel, to the comrades people's commissars - especially Comrade. Bukharin.

What is being done in the theatre? Here we are far from the categorical program of Comrade. Bukharin: we must break the bourgeois theater, who does not understand this - does not understand anything. This slogan, extended a little further, would lead to the slogan: bourgeois libraries must be destroyed, bourgeois physics cabinets must be destroyed, bourgeois museums must be destroyed.

We are of a different opinion. We think that libraries, physical studies and museums should be made the property of the proletariat. T. Bukharin thinks that acquaintance with the entire past of mankind through the great works of the geniuses of all peoples and all epochs, of which very, very much, and only the ignoramus can squeeze into the framework of “bourgeoisness,” means a “captivity” of bourgeois culture. But we believe that this is called education, that this is called mastery of the culture of the past, including the bourgeois past as part of the cultural past in general.

We think that the proletariat not only has the right, but even to some extent is obliged, as the heir to all this past, to be familiar with it. In view of this, we preserve theatrical traditions, theatrical skills and are proud that we have raised the repertoire of Moscow theaters to the highest possible level.

One has only to look at the repertoire supplements published by Vestnik Theater to be convinced of this. There are days when there are six Shakespearean performances in Moscow at the same time. Recently we had such a series of them: "The Merchant of Venice" - at the Maly Theater, "Measure for Measure" - at the Demonstration Theater, "Windsor Gossips" - at the New, "12th Night" - the Art Theater, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" - at Korsh, "Hamlet" - in the Colosseum.

However, this is the most unconvincing thing for Comrade Bukharin. All this: "Paros, Lesbos and Propylaea". True, Karl Marx knew Shakespeare almost by heart, but he was Karl Marx. It is not good for the proletarian to imitate Karl Marx. Give the proletarian a quantum satis of agitation and let him be satisfied.

I boldly assert that never in any cultural city has there been such a highly artistic, such an impeccable repertoire. You will find a maximum of 1-2 somewhat dubious plays in the repertoire of Moscow theaters every day. The game, admittedly, has risen significantly, the theaters are catching up, because they feel the control of the Central Theatre, because they know that they can be deprived of state subsidies and patronage if they do not stand at a sufficient cultural height.

Do people go to these theatres?

Yes, we sell a huge number of tickets to workers' organizations and Red Army units. But, generally speaking, theaters located in the city center, in the absence of trams, will never attract audiences from the districts, so we went to the districts ourselves. Of course, hack work has also flooded into the districts, usually, by the way, carrying with it beautiful plays, but often in a primitive and tarnished performance. But now we have begun a systematic struggle against it, and none other than the Maly Theater showed the way. The Maly Theater gives three performances every evening: one at home and two in the workers' districts, and Yermolova, Yuzhin, Sadovsky, etc., perform here and there, that is, plays are performed here and there with first-class artists.

Representatives of workers often come to me with various theatrical demands. Tov. Bukharin would probably have been surprised by the fact that not once did the workers demand from me to increase access to them for the revolutionary theater, but on the other hand, endlessly often they demand opera and ... ballet. Maybe Comrade. Would Bukharin be upset by this? - It doesn't bother me a bit. I know that propaganda and agitation go on as usual, but if you take your whole life with propaganda and agitation, then it will get boring. I know that then the ominous cries that can be heard sometimes will become more frequent: "Heard, tired, talk."

It must be remembered that the proletarian, having mastered his country, also wants a little pleasure, he wants to admire a beautiful spectacle, he wants, and in this he is a thousand times right, to live with different sides of his heart and his soul, he wants to touch those eternal questions to the variety of passions and positions that are reflected in the works of the great geniuses of mankind. And he cannot exchange it not for sporadic even from time to time, but for the continuous transfer of a rally phrase and loud, caustic, disturbing moments of the civil war to the stage for all of us.

Further work must be done in this direction, care must be taken to ensure that the best works of world literature reach the proletariat with a well-known commentary. There is an infinite amount of cultural work to be done here, the same work that we do by teaching the history of literature, the history of culture, and so on.

As long as I remain People's Commissar for Education, this matter of bringing the proletariat into the possession of all human culture remains my first concern, and no primitive communism will personally alienate me from this task.

Does it follow from this that we should not be concerned about the development of our own proletarian revolutionary theater?

For more than ten years I have been talking and writing about this theatre, and a good half of the leaders of Proletkult are my students.

Tov. Bukharin did not even dream of the question of proletarian culture when I raised it to its full height, and it is unlikely that Comrade Bukharin will suspect me of having renounced my former programs. The point is only that I take proletarian culture for something serious and do not want to compromise it by inflating those still small, almost childish manifestations that we have into quantitatively grandiose forms that would lead to unnecessary childhood illnesses.

The first decisive act to be done in this respect is the organization of an exemplary revolutionary theatre.

When in Leningrad there was a hint of an established troupe, the so-called Revolutionary Heroic Theater under the direction of the proletarian poet Bessalko and director-actor Mgebrov, when he had something like a repertoire, that is, 2-3 plays, I immediately, despite very well-founded protests of M. F. Andreeva, insisted on the transfer of a large central theater hall (Palace Theater) to them. In order to create a revolutionary theater, you need to have a troupe. I do not in the least deny that the artists of the best theaters, who are fully capable of bringing the worker to the workshops the performance of the pearl of fiction of the past, would react without understanding, and perhaps with hidden hostility, to the revolutionary repertoire. If a magnificent revolutionary play were to appear now, we would entrust it not without trepidation to the people of today's life, fearing that some mixture of conscious and semi-conscious sabotage, on the one hand, and complete alienation from revolutionary psychology, on the other hand, would compromise this play.

So, first of all, you need to create a suitable troupe. Secondly, the theater needs a repertoire. You can't go far on one "Avenger" and on one "Krasnaya Pravda". In order for the theater to be able to exist, to give performances and not to be disgraced by the fact that, being called a revolutionary theater, it will be empty among other full ones, one must in any case have at least 5-6 good plays. At present, it is almost impossible to create such a repertoire. As a result of my love for this idea and desire for it to be realized, I would very, very much postpone it even more. But it would be better to accuse me of having had the weakness to yield to Comrade Bukharin and his associates, than of not wanting to go in time to meet that theater which I consider the most important and most desirable. And so I immediately begin negotiations with Proletkult to find out, first of all, his desire in this direction, whether he now has such elements of the troupe and repertoire that would give him the opportunity to take on permanent productions in one of the central theaters.


From my point of view, of course, studio theaters are much more important in this respect. Putting The Avenger in front of three hundred comrades, definitely disposed, with the help of semi-amateur artists who put a little art into this business, but a lot of revolutionary flame and sincerity, is a wonderful thing. Another thing is to stage it as a finished performance with unwilling professionals - actors for the hall, in which two thousand spectators should be recruited every day. There is no need to delude ourselves about the alleged hunger of the proletariat and the Red Army units for precisely such a revolutionary theater. Insofar as they put on these plays with their own efforts, they give them pleasure, and similar work is carried out on all fronts. On the contrary, when they are presented with the same thing with professional artists, they express displeasure. I myself saw a letter from Kronstadt sailors to the Leningrad Theater Department, where, just during the acute siege against Kronstadt, they asked: “Just don’t send us anything instructive,” and were completely satisfied when they were given, in the opinion of Comrade. Bukharin, probably the "bourgeois" "Inspector General".

The center of gravity, I repeated this many times, now for a beginning revolutionary theater should lie in the studios. It is necessary to create a new actor and it is possible to create him, in view of already two years of work, maybe not for years, but for months. We need to create a new repertoire. Before me lie heaps of plays written by various comrades. They are very good as propaganda material, but my hand does not rise to put them on any stage as an example of the new proletarian creativity. They are too weak for that. These are experiences; such authors must be written off, appropriate instructions must be given to them, they must work and develop, and they can develop into very talented and brilliant playwrights.


We do it. Shortly before the appearance of Comrade Bukharin's letter, the Central Theater specially reviewed the relevant bodies of the TEO and its work in instructing in this direction.

Thus, we will continue, firstly, to preserve, ennoble and bring closer to the masses the theaters of the past in its best characteristic, psychically and historically rich forms; secondly, we will help in every way to multiply and elevate the studios that create a new revolutionary artist and a new revolutionary apparatus, we will see to it that these studios, insensitively turning into dramatic amateurism, capture as many active forces as possible on the fronts, among the proletarians and peasants. .

All real front-line theater workers note that only plays performed by the Red Army soldiers themselves have real success among them, outside of this, only excellent troupes and beautiful plays, which, of course, do not often get close to the front, have success.

Finally, in the very near future, if Proletkult is able to do so, then this season, we will set about organizing a revolutionary theater and will try to use for it those elements among the artists, new and old, and the revolutionary repertoire that can be found at the present time.

Finally, we will also continue the work of translating or rewriting, creating again such plays that, being full of content, which is in an internal connection with the moods we experience, would at the same time be artistically acceptable for the artists of the old theater, which we have at our disposal, the great masters which the purely proletarian public will never deny, but on which the nihilists of the intelligentsia are inclined to wave their hands.

I do not know how successful my personal experience in this direction will be, but I have written the play Oliver Cromwell, which was accepted for production at the Maly Theater and which will be one modest experience in a series of such experiments in general.

We work in a planned manner, we work in such a way that the proletariat does not later throw a reproach at us that we have spoiled and destroyed enormous values ​​without asking it at a moment when, under all the conditions of its life, it could not pronounce its own judgment about them. We are working in such a way as not to compromise the coming proletarian art, uplifting it by means of official patronage and giving it too large dimensions to its detriment, at a time when it has only just begun to grope for its content and its basic forms of expression.

Such is the policy both in the theater and in art, which, of course, can be carried out not without rough edges, because the number of people around me who understand it and surrender to it is not so large, but such is the policy from which, in conscience, I cannot deviate for a single one step. If the leading circles of the Russian revolution wished to embark on another path, then a people's commissar for education should be appointed, who could ride on a white ... however, on a red horse, abolish the universities and silence the unfortunate bourgeois Beethoven, Schubert and Tchaikovsky at all concerts, ordering to play only one "anthem" everywhere (not "God Save the Tsar", but "The Internationale", of course), perhaps with variations 1 .

With regard to this article, I have to state with regret that the extreme cuts in funds allocated for the theater in general (from actors to Proletkult) have greatly hampered the implementation of this program, which remains true to this day. The article refers to the end of 20