The Avant-Garde and Politics Author(s): Renato Poggioli Reviewed work(s): Source: Yale French Studies, No.

39, Literature and Revolution (1967), pp. 180-187 Published by: Yale University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2929491 . Accessed: 06/03/2012 16:41
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Renato Poggioli and The avant-garde politics*

and fashion,its public, The problemof the relationsof avant-garde of and culturaldestinyleads naturally the intelligentsia, its artistic and between avant-garde politics.Many the to a studyof the relation critics establishthisrelationship such a way thatthe politicalterm in the is the condition,and the artistic-cultural conditioned.There is no doubt that a certainpolitical situationcan exercise a given inart fluenceon art in general,on avant-garde in particular.All the same, that influenceis almost exclusivelynegative: a regime or conditionwhich it the culturalor artistic societycan easily destroy bringto life.For example,it is easy to see thatthe cannot,of itself, gave to Futurism(which was almostdead support Fascism originally as an avant-garde Platonic, and short-lived. anyway) was hesitant, thatsupport less than the supportgiventhe was noticeably Certainly movementwhen it denied its own heritage and turned into an withwhichthat less than the disfavor academy,infinitely efficacious Nazism did movement. regime had to ward offany otheravant-garde not tolerate,indeed it succeeded in abolishing,what it sometimes called "Jewishart," sometimes"degenerateart" (withoutrecalling that it was a Jew,Max Nordau, who transferred conceptfrom the happenedin medicalpathology the sphereof art). The same thing to always showed an Soviet Russia, where Lenin, as againstTrotsky, died in unreserved to antipathy extremism art, where avant-gardism of Mayawiththe suicideof Esenin and was buriedwiththe suicide were the life and work of the kovsky.Everyoneknowshow difficult one Russian artist our own day who was not part of the crowdor of an epigone,the greatpoet Boris Pasternak.
*Trans. Gerald Fitzgerald from Teoria dell'arte d'ai'anguardia (Bologna, Il Mulino, 1962), to be publishedby Harvard University Press (Cambridge, 1968) as The A vant-Garde, in Mr. Fitzgerald's translation.

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Renato Poggioli examples seem to lead us to recognizea The above-mentioned and at betweenavant-gardism the to validity least relative therapport in the following chapter, capitalistbourgeoisie;this we shall study rather thanideologicalor political. in though practicaland social terms Here the connectionto be establishedis, instead,thatbetweenthe like avant-gardeand democracy.This means that the avant-garde, triin any culture, can only flower a climatewhere politicalliberty umphs,even if it oftenassumes a hostile pose toward democratic art and liberalsociety.Avant-garde is by its natureincapable of suror but vivingnot onlythepersecution even the protection the official whereasthe state and a collectivesociety, patronageof a totalitarian this, hostility public opinioncan be usefulto it. Having admitted of that the relationbetweenavant-garde we must deny the hypothesis art (or art generally)and politicscan be establisheda priori.Such a fromthe viewa connectioncan only be determined posteriori, own political opinions and convictions. point of the avant-garde's and regime,are oftenmerelya necessary These, undera persecuting theyare almostalwaysquestionsof genuinesenopportunistic affair; boils frequently regimes, even if the sentiment timent libertarian in it thinking caprice. Furthermore, is in the or down to mere wishful more oftenaccepts, sphereof politicalopinion that the avant-garde or submitsto, a fashioninstead of creatingor imposingone. Pre(really only an analogy or a ciselyon this account,the hypothesis symbol) that aestheticradicalismand social radicalism,revolutionaries in art and revolutionaries politics,are allied, which empiriin erroneous.This is and cally seems valid, is theoretically historically between further to at demonstrated, some extent least,by the relation Futurismand Fascism, or again by the prevalenceof reactionary movements the end of the at opinionswithinso many avant-garde of century. last and the beginning thepresent At issue,ifanything, notso muchan alliance as a coincidence, is whichfurthermore could naturally have workedin an oppositeideowas also nationalFrom the start, Italian Futurism logical direction. in ism, as was all thecultureof the younggeneration thatepoch; the was mere opportunism. Fascism of the epigones of that movement
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Yale French Studies The same thing happenedin theultimate phase of Russian Futurism, whichat its beginning was subversive and radical in politics,on the left extreme as the Italian movement was on the extreme right. Such coincidencesand analogues of a spiritualkind also determined the Communism the Surrealists. the predominantly of But politicalphase of Surrealism not last long,as may be seen fromthebrieflifeof did the reviewLe Surrealisme la revolution. therewere among the et If followers themovement of some like Aragonwho abandonedSurrealism for Communism, therewere otherswho resolvedthe dissension by abandoningCommunismand remaining faithful Surrealism. to We mustnotforget thatItalian Futurists and FrenchSurrealists embraced Fascism and Communism, respectively, least partlyout of at love of adventure by attraction the nihilistic or to elements contained within thosepoliticaltendencies. fact, In everyavant-garde movement, in one of itsphases at least,aspiresto realizewhatthe Dadaists called "the demolition job," an ideal of the tabula rasa which spilled over fromthe individualand artisticlevel to that of the collectivelife. There is the reason why the coincidingof the ideology of a given avant-garde movement and a givenpoliticalparty onlyfleeting is and contingent. Only in the case of those avant-gardes in flowering a climate of continuousagitation,as, for example, modern Mexican painting(which one might hesitateto call avant-garde without reservation), does such a coinciding seem to make itself permanent. In otherwords,the identification artistic withthe of revolution an social revolution now no more than purelyrhetorical, empty is commonplace(as seen at the startof thisessay). Sometimesit may, though ephemeral, sincere,a sentimental be as illusion, in the case of Blok proclaiming thatthe new art oughtto express"the musicof the revolution," he himself as had attempted do in The Twelve. But to as moreoften are dealingwithan extremist we pose or fashion, in the case of Mayakovsky'sdeclaringhimself"on the left of the 'Left Front'" in orderto oppose the groupand the reviewso named. The and politicalrevoof of equivocal survival the myth a parallel artistic lutionwas also favored the modernconceptof cultureas spiritual by civil war: hence Mayakovsky's postulatethatthe pen should be put
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Renato Poggioli on equal footing withthe sword.Besides, fromsuch conceptsderive all thoseterms, often hostile, whichaim to delineatethetypicalpsyche of the modernartist, positionand attitude disdain: rebel and his of revolutionary, outcastand outlaw,bohemianand deracine,expatriate and emigre,fugitive poete maudit and (why not?) beatnik.It is or significant these pseudo-definitions used indiscriminately that are by rightist and leftist criticism. is no less suggestive It that the same pseudo-definitions come to be applied,especiallyin rightist work,to the intelligentsia too; here we must notice that the seriousnessand of sincerity the avant-garde's political orientation in directprois portion a givengroup'spersonalinvolvement a genuineintellecto in cannotbe of merely tual elite.That does notmean thattheorientation and collateral marginal importance hence the difficulty impossior of which movements thoseculturalcurrents bility callingavant-garde withform),such are purely ideologicalor idea-oriented (unconcerned currents the French called unaninisme as and populisme. Actually,as the above termsdemonstrate, only omnipresent the or recurring within avant-garde theleastpolitiis the politicalideology cal or the most antipolitical all: libertarianism of and anarchism. These we see in thevery beginnings theAmericanleft-wing of literary and in the revivalsof more recenttimes afterthe disavant-garde The individualillusionment Communist Trotskyite of or sympathies. isticmoment neverabsentfromavant-gardism, it is even though does not destroy groupor sectarianpsychology. Sometimesconscious, the it producesin such cases the egocentricity doctrinaire and egotismof certain works, organs,or groups.Enough to recallthetitles reviews of like The Egoist,thenamesof movements theRussian Severyanin's like the egofuturism, personalismdear to the English cenacle of poets underHenryTreece's leadership, workcalled I by the poet who the dedicatedthe tragedyVladimirMayakovskyto himself. Sometimes such individualism onlybiographicaland psychological, whichexis plainsthe D'Annunzianism Marinetti, example,only an avantof for garde caricatureof D'Annunzianismproperlyso called. Sometimes politicalorthodoxy forcesthis sentiment expressitselfin spurious to and forms, syncretic mixed up, as in the Mayakovskypoem, "To a
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Yale French Studies Cut-Throat," where the poet's personal pride,his certainty that he will personallysurvivebeyond death even into the distantfuture, fuseswiththe cultof the anonymous multitude, future the masses. It is preciselyas a function this theoretical of and practicalindividualism thatthe recent movement existentialism of shows itself to be avant-garde, even though appeals to ancientand eternalcultural it sourcesand demonstrates relative a indifference revolutions the to in field form of and technique. From theliterary viewpoint immediate its is precedent naturalism; from ideologicalviewpoint, the expressionism. More mysticalthan the first, more philosophicalthan the second, its existentialism reveals its avant-garde character preciselythrough agonisticand nihilistic tendenciesand by its own awarenessof how difficult is forindividualistic anarchistic it and nostalgiato coexistor within collectivism modernlife. survive the of This difficulty derivesfrom whatwe mightcall the untimeliness of anarchistic ideology within contemporary civilization: untimeliness, oftenfelicitously emphasizedby leftistcritics,who have also best sensed the connection between"culture"and "anarchy"in our time (usingthatformulation quite another in wayfrom Matthew Arnold's). Caudwell defines Surrealist, the that Perhapsthisis whyChristopher is, the avant-garde artist mostpreoccupiedwiththe ego, as "the ultiAfterthe rhetorical mate bourgeoisrevolutionary." question,"And what is the ultimate bourgeoisrevolutionary politicalterms?"he in "an anarchist." whichwe answerslapidarily, From thisuntimeliness, shall later call "historical alienation,"and which at least apparently contradicts cultof theZeitgeist, mayderivetheconclusionthat the we in as Sartre,surelya leftist philosophy in art, has alreadyreached: in the avant-garde unconsciously functions a reactionary way. Analowe withequal facility deduce thatthe gously,and conversely, might reactionary ideologists be met oftenenough in certainzones of to avant-gardism nothingbut anarchists, are withoutknowingit. But the problemof the avant-garde's historical function, much metaas as metapolitically, would call fora too lengthy discussion. culturally Apropos of this,and in the limitsof this essay, our only remaining

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Renato Poggioli task is the sufficiently modestone of resolving some of the contradicand anarchy. tionsthatseem to derivefrom linkbetweenculture the We recognizethatthe avant-garde more oftenconsciouslyadheresto,and superficially sympathizes with, leftist ideologies;we affirm But thatthe anarchistic ideal is congenialto avant-garde psychology. neither one nor the otherserves to denywhat was said above concerning eminently the aristocratic natureof avant-gardism a nature not, in turn,belied by its displaysof the plebeian spirit.Thus the withdrawals into individualsolitudeor into a circleof the few elect, into the quasi-ritualist postureof aristocratic protest,are, like the gestures plebeian,anarchistic, terroristic of and revolt, equally owing to thetortured awarenessof theartist's situation modem societyin a situation shall describelater as "alienation."In the same way, we the the prevalenceof the anarchistic mentality does not contradict precedingclaim that the Communistexperiment continuesto exercise a particular fascination the avant-garde for mind,even though this experiment par excellence, totalitarian is, and antilibertarian, hostileto anyindividual exceptionor idiosyncracy. Besides, as Caudwell succeededin proving means of an examination the reason by of behind the adherenceof many English poets in his generationto Communism, attraction Church of Moscow exercisesfor so the the manyartists, writers, intellectuals due precisely the ambivaand is to lenceof an unwittingly anarchistic mentality: one hand, the desire on to see realized,in the historical and social dimensions the present, of a destructive impulse;on theother hand,theoppositedesire,by which thatdestruction servesfuture construction. otherwords,this adIn herenceis owed to the extensionof antagonistic and nihilistic tendenciesintothepoliticalfield, thesetendencies beingturned againstthe whole of bourgeoissocietyratherthan againstculturealone. In the sameway,theactivist impulseleads theartist, and writer, intellectualist of theavant-garde militate a party actionand agitation, in to of while the agonistic and Futurist impulsesinduce him to accept the idea of sacrificing own person,his own movement, his and his own mission to the social palingenesis the future. otherwords,avant-garde of In

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Yale French Studies Communism the fruit an eschatologicalstate of mind, simulis of psychologitaneously messianicand apocalyptic, thingcompatible, a spirit. The forceof these callyifnotideologically, withtheanarchistic are capable of proimpulsesand the attraction that fascination of ducinga morbidconditionof mysticalecstasy,which preventsthe the avant-garde artist from realizing thathe wouldhave neither reason society.That condition prenor thechance to existin a Communistic ventsself-criticism self-knowledge. Only a few of those avantand garde artistswho, deluded by Moscow, embraced the Trotskyite doctrine permanent of revolution have taken into account that their new,or old, adherenceto more or less orthodoxsocialistideals was ratherthan by clear motivated an obscure anarchistic sentiment by Marxistthinking. Be that as it may, it remainsalways true that,while ideological of spirit sympathies a Fascist natureseemto negatetheavant-garde or to preventits growingand developingin any social or political can ambienceat all - Communist sympathies favorit, or at least not hurtit, only within bourgeoisand capitalistsociety.Adherenceto a Communist ideologydoes not impede Picasso fromfreelyrealizing, with the enthusiastic approbationof a select public, his needs as a him as an artist creator and innovator:stillit is not enoughto justify in the eyes of thatSoviet societyto which avant-garde is anathart ema, a societythat forbidsthe showingin its own public galleries of those works by the young Picasso which are now state-owned, far-sighted acquisitionsof certain collectorsof the ancien regime. A totalitarian order opposes avant-gardeart not only by official and concrete acts, for example, preventing the import of foreign productsof that art or the exhibitionof a rare or accidental inalmostunwillingly, digenousproduct, but also by first all creating, of a culturaland spiritualatmospherewhich makes the flowering of that art, even when restricted marginaland private forms,unto thinkable even more thanmaterially impossible.When Fascism and Nazism fell, no avant-gardework created in secret and silence, through yearswhenthespiritual of twogreatEuropean nations the life was suffocated the tyranny oppressionof those two regimes, by and
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Renato Poggioli came to light.From now on we cannot believe that other masterpieces exist,unlessperhapsthose once visibleand misunderstood. It has beensaid thatevery but is in manuscript a letter a bottle, thatonly in meansitsfateis entrusted timeand fortune. to Actually, themodern world we cannot help doubting closed the existenceof manuscripts in chests, paintings hiddenin attics,statuesstashedaway in kitchens. This negative at art truth, least as far as avant-garde is concerned, is even moreabsolutein thecase of SovietRussia thanit was in Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany. What characterizes totalitarian a stateis, in fact,an almostnatural incapacityto permitevasions or to admit exceptions;it is not paradoxical to maintain that in Russia today, the Russia of the artistic "thaw,"1 than moral conconformity even more mandatory is even more than ideological. Aestheticand formal formity, perhaps transgression certainly is more arduous there,ifnot morehazardous, than political or ethical transgression. The realityof this state of affairs was fullyproved in the exemplarycase of Doctor Zhivago. Withthatnovel,Boris Pasternak,who up untilthen,especiallyas a poet, was the last avant-garde artistsurviving Soviet Russia, rein turned traditional to literary artistic and forms, even prerevolutionary ones, to expressa conscientious objectionwhichwas not thatof an artist of a man. The only country but behindthe curtainwhereresidues of aestheticprotestare still displayedis Poland, preciselybecause that "people's democracy,"more than any other,has been constrained accept compromises to with the national and religious If spirit. avant-garde is notyettotally art dead in Poland, thisis solely because thereculture, least to some extent, affected thatpluat is by ralismwhichdistinguishes moderncultureof the bourgeoisworld the - a pluralism thatsuffices make theneworderless totalitarian to and monolithic.

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