Pervye dekadniki “Litkritika” [1934] - [D147]

Concise description of the directive:

The text provides a detailed account of the first “dekadnik” (ten-day seminar cycle) of “Literaturniy kritik”, dedicated to the study of the ideology and literary criticism of fascism. The centrepiece of the meeting was Franz Shiller’s paper on the historical-literary conception of fascism, followed by numerous speeches made by influential critics and collaborators of the journal.

Georg Lukács
Lukács emphasises the importance of not isolating fascism from the historical context of the ideological development of the imperialist bourgeoisie. He criticises two common errors: considering fascists only as bandits and adventurers, independent of the bourgeoisie; and regarding any bourgeois ideology close to fascism as already fascist.
Lukács insists on the need of analysing fascism as the last stage in the ideological evolution of the German bourgeoisie and warns against disguised forms of demagogy that masquerade as ‘realism’ to attack Marxist materialism.

Andor Gábor
Gábor engages in “self-criticism”: Marxist criticism started late to study fascist ideology, despite its strategic importance in the international class struggle. He calls for closing this gap, centralising documentation on fascist literature in a single library, and strengthening the theoretical tools for understanding and combating fascist ideology.

[Tamara?] Motyleva
Motyleva highlights the opportunistic nature of Fascist cultural policy, capable of adapting to circumstances: from early Italian Futurism to German “people’s art”, used to justify artistic mediocrity under the Third Reich. She also emphasises the new Nazi strategy of cultural legitimisation through the organisation “Kraft durch Freude” (Strength through Joy), with which fascism seeks to regain cultural prestige after the book burnings.

L. Filatova
Filatova analyses the situation in England, where fascist criticism is still in its infancy but expanding after Hitler’s rise to power. She cites the fascist weekly “The Blackshirt” and the growing role of figures such as the politician Oswald Mosley and the writer H.G. Wells, promoter of an ideology of ‘”liberal fascism”. She underlines the ideological confusion of the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, oscillating between fascism and communism, and calls for a struggle to win this social group over to the revolutionary cause.

Anna Zaprovskaya
Zaprovskaya denounces the decadence of bourgeois culture under fascism, exposing the crudity and racism of the ‘literary ideology’ of figures such as Adolf Bartels, theorist of the ‘racial criterion’ in literature. She criticises the rhetoric of natural spontaneity, ‘primitive heroism’ and Nietzsche’s aesthetics (e.g. Thus Spoke Zarathustra), used as an ideological justification for violence and repression. She also cites fascist propaganda literature, full of sadism, kitsch and nationalism (Ewers, Jost), as well as the transformation of old workers’ songs into fascist hymns.

The first “dekadnik” closed with a strong appeal: it is not enough to generically denounce the ‘decadence’ of fascist culture. One must analyse its mechanisms, genres, production and dissemination processes, and counterpose a revolutionary, realist and living literature.
The second “dekadnik” was devoted instead to reading and discussing the political short story Valerik by the young writer Vitkovich, set in Dagestan. The report was later published in “Literaturnaya gazeta”.

Ilaria Aletto