Proletarian Literature and the John Reed Clubs

1986 ◽  
pp. 119-140
Author(s):  
Eric Homberger
Keyword(s):  
Proletarian Literature ◽  
John Reed

Proletarian Literature and the John Reed Clubs 1929–1935

1979 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Homberger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Potential ◽  
Proletarian Literature ◽  
Industrial Worker ◽  
Class Culture ◽  
John Reed ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Proletarian Art

In February 1921 Irwin Granich, not yet transformed into “ Michael Gold,” published “ Towards Proletarian Art” in The Liberator. This essay has been described as “ the first significant call in this country [the United States] for the creation of a distinctly and militantly working-class culture.” What Gold meant by “ proletarian art” remains unclear. He uses “ proletarian” interchangeably with “ masses,” and suggests that Walt Whitman was the discoverer, without quite realizing it, of proletarian art in America. The proletariat for Gold were nothing less than heroic possessors of Life — “ The masses know what Life is, and they live on in gusto and joy ” — who have been thwarted by society from the full realization of their artistic and cultural heritage. Gold's thought was dominated by a lyrical and mystical celebration of the modern industrial worker, tinged by frustration at the bitter waste of human potential under capitalism.

Malygina, N. (2018). Andrey Platonov and literary Moscow: А. К. Voronsky, A. M. Gorky, В. А. Pilnyak, B. L. Pasternak, Artyom Vesyoly, S. F. Budantsev, V. S. Grossman. Moscow; St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoriya. (In Russ.)

2020 ◽  
pp. 290-293
Author(s):  
E. V. Sharygina (Novikova) ◽  
V. I. Novikov
Keyword(s):  
Complex Structure ◽  
Proletarian Literature ◽  
Progressive Ideal ◽  
History Of ◽  
Literary Period

Malygina’s book portrays Andrey Platonov in the context of the literary period in which he was active. Malygina also summarizes the history of the journal Krasnaya Nov, the Krug Publishers, and the Pereval Group. While depicted as particularly close to Pilnyak due to his expressionist tendencies, Platonov, however, remained faithful to the utopian ideal of ‘proletarian literature’ and reserved tongue-incheek comments for Soviet literary aristocrats. Although a fi   ce critic of Soviet reality, Platonov cherished his own ‘Soviet project’ – he envisaged a truly revolutionary, progressive ideal of a genuinely democratic nature. The literary period in question is shown to have a complex structure, unyielding to ideological abstractions.

scholarly journals John Reed and the Russian Revolution

2017 ◽  
pp. 30-43
Author(s):  
William Benton Whisenhunt ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Russian Revolution ◽  
John Reed

Roads to and from Revolution

2021 ◽  
pp. 65-88
Author(s):  
Doris Kadish
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Richard Wright ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
Soviet Policy ◽  
Meridel Le Sueur ◽  
John Reed ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Attention To Diversity ◽  
Personal Reflections ◽  
Political Radicalism

This chapter traces Rahv’s forays into and retreats from political radicalism. Letters to Ethel Richman and essays published in the early 1930s (“An Open Letter to Young Writers”, “The Literary Class War”) reveal his deep-seated faith in Marxism and ambivalent commitment to Communism. It describes the founding of Partisan Review, sponsored by the Communist John Reed Club. It considers the magazine’s attention to diversity and social justice and the modern feminist theory of intersectionality, through which interconnected categories of race, class, and gender create overlapping systems of discrimination. The chapter focuses on Partisan Review’s publication of works by proletarian writers including Richard Wright and several women writers: Meridel Le Sueur, Tillie Lerner (Olsen), Grace Lumpkin. It explains Rahv’s break with communism after 1934, in response to the Soviet policy of the Popular Front and Stalin’s infamous Moscow Trials. The “Personal Reflections” sections shows how Communism touched my life.

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