“Literatura mirovoj revoljucii”, 1, 1934 - [S027]

In the 1920s, many words acquired new lexical values, especially in response to new ideological demands. These are usually new metaphors not yet in use or newly coined concepts. The expressions containing the adjective ‘bourgeois‘, for instance, are ideologically charged terms, actively used in Marxist literary criticism in the 1920s and 1930s. The expression ‘bourgeois art‘, in particular, is marked by a negative connotation in the Marxist context of the 1920s-1930s, as it serves to designate art that reflects the interests, values and worldview of the bourgeois class as opposed to the working class. Art is criticised for failing to contribute to societal change in order to achieve social equality, and instead justifying the existing order in capitalist countries. The old meaning of the adjective ‘bourgeois‘, i.e., ‘belonging to a certain social group’, is replaced by the new meaning ‘proper to the bourgeoisie’, i.e., according to the interpretation of Tolkovyj slovar’ russkogo jazyka [Dictionary of the Russian Language] by D.N. Ushakov, that of the exploiting class that holds a monopoly on the means of production and derives surplus value by exploiting the labour of the workers. Therefore, the object it refers to (art, society, literature, painting, ideology, morals, intellectuals, artists, writers, publishers) is no longer important, as the emphasis shifts from the noun to the adjective, which becomes the bearer of the main semantic value. The series of synonyms also changes; the old “bourgeois” (citizen, petty bourgeois) is replaced by the new “bourgeois” (reactionary, capitalist).