[Dimitri Shostakovitch, who has probably enjoyed the greatest…]

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Dimitri Shostakovitch, who has probably enjoyed the greatest international reputation of any composer in the last forty years, chose to spend the whole of his working career in a non-capitalist country.

He saw himself as a communist composer. Since the Revolution, many composers in the Soviet Union have enjoyed certain advantages which would not be available in other countries. They can devote themselves entirely to their creative work, without needing to teach, farther art work, in order to live. "

write STATE But in return, the State has made certain demands, which conflict with the artist's own inclinations.

Trotsky expressed the dangers of the State meddling in the sphere of artistic creativity. In his Manifesto Towards a Free Revolutionary Art (Autumn, 1938) he wrote:

"If, for the better development of the forces of material producition, the revolution must build a (socialist regime with centralised control, to develop intellectual creation an anarchist regime of 'individual liberty should first be established.

No authority, no dictation, not the last trace of orders from above! Only on a base of friendly cooperation, without constraint from outside, will it be possible for scholars and artists to carry out their tasks, which will be more far-reaching ¡than ever before in history."

Earlier, in 1924, Trotsky formulated a policy towards the various artistic groups and tendencies: there should be complete freedom in the sphere of artistic self-determination, the only criterion being that the artist should be for the revolution and not against it.

EXPERIMENTATION

Soon after the Revolution there was an explosion of artistic activity and experimentation. This reflected the fact that, in Trotsky's words: quivering in every fibre, and were thinking aloud for the first time in a thousand years."

Nevertheless, he pointed out (in a speech on Class and Art in 1924) that by its very nature, artistic creativity lags behind other modes of expression and still more behind the spirit of a class - it is one thing to understand a thing and express it logically: it is quite another to assimilate it organically.

Shostakovitch's First Symphony written in 1926 illustrates this point. Its clear and simple style and early mastery of orchestration gave the work an immediate and lasting impact.

NO REFLECTION Nevertheless, it could have been the product of any competent composer from any country in the western capitalist world: in no way did it reflect the society to which its composer belonged.

Trotsky pointed out that a workers' state has a strictly transitional character; culture will stifl be tied to the past.

The dictatorship of the proletariat will, of necessity, lay severe limitations upon all forms of activity and he explained that in the programme of the revolution these limitations were regarded as a temporary evil.

If the main factors making this First Symphony a success - its simple themes and style - were to be a "temporary evil" : they were certainly a necessity in imposing discipline and order.

It was natural that the youthful Shostakovitch would reflect the vigour and aspirations of the Revolution, and in his Second Symphony (performed in 1927) those aspirations were there. The final chorus begins:

"We marched, we asked for work and bread - our hearts gripped by pain and grief - The factory chimneys were stretched to the sky - Like hands too weak to clench a fist ...Lenin! Our destiny is FIGHT".

And the work ended with the chorus, not singing but declaiming:

"October, The Commune, Lenin".

A Third Symphony, 'The First of May" ", followed in which the composer endeavoured to express the joy of May Day experienced by the world-wide working class. However Shostakovitch was not yet able to do justice to the grandeur of the events he was describing.

Partly this was an example of Trotsky's observation that:

"The political writing of a class hastens ahead on stilts, while its artistic creativity hobbles along behind on crutches"

But already the Stalinist venom had entered the cultural bloodsstream of the Soviet Union.

Trotsky had argued that the bourgeois culture should be replaced by a socialist, not a proletarian one, which retains traces of class oppression.

Stalin and Bukharin, however, countered that the progress towards cultural socialism would develop with a "tortoise pace" and that the proletariat would have decades in which to develop its own class his Fourth Symphony he said: culture.

ROUTINE As a result, routine marches, futile". songs and dances written by members of the Association of Proletarian Musicians were the only styles to enjoy official favour.

Trotsky commented:

"The present ruling stratum product of bourgeois decadence considers itself called not only to control spiritual creation politically but also to prescribe its roads of development. The method of command without appeal extends in like measure to the concentration camps, to scientific agriculture and to music.

The central organ of the party produced. prints anonymous directive editorials, having the character of military orders, in architecture, literature, dramatic art, the ballet, wrote: to say nothing of philosophy, natural science and history.

The bureaucracy superstitiously fears whatever does not serve it times more vividly." directly as well as whatever it does not understand."

Official edicts became ever more ludictous, until even I chalkovsky was denigrated as a deplorable Leskov's original tale." bourgeois deviation. Eventually, however, in a new twist of policy, the pathetic attempts of the proletarian art movements came to an end by 1932, when it was claimed that the country had already entered socialism. *Socialist realism" became the only acceptahle artistir ctvle Her moron husband learns next of the affair and is killed by Sergei in a fight.

The couple are arrested and. whilst on the road to Siberia, Sergei begins a flirtation with another prisoner. Humiliated and in despair; Katerina pushes her rival into a lake and follows her.

In his modified version of the story Shostakovitch decided to transform Katerina from Leskoy's squalid, selfish criminal into a much softer, sympathetic character, a victim of her environment and of the people surrounding her.

Using only musical means to bring this about, the transformation completely successful; as he wrote later, "the musical language of the whole opera is intended to exonerate Katerina" "It was my problem as a composer to lay bare the inner workings of every character.

PRETENCE The lyrics of Sergei are insincere and theatrical; his sufferings are all pretence. Through his air of slick haberdasher oozes the future kulak who, if he had not been sentenced to hard labour, would have become a merchant exploiter."

Each of the unsympathetic characters is caricatured in the music in his own particular way to be as much a victim of his own circumstances as would be his victim - the whole opera spotlighting the corruption of an idle, overrich bourgeois household.

Only one character, Katerina, is given sincere, and as the opera proceeds, increasingly sympathetic and warm music.

Stalin and Bukharin Audiences in the Soviet Union and abroad appreciated Lady Macbeth Mtsensk in packed houses, and it was a complete and immediate success.

The influential critic Boris Asafiev wrote: "The character of Katerina is drawn with great sympathy * it adds valuable quality to Shostakovitch's music of warmth, femininity and tenderness"; and it was hailed as a model of the new Soviet art - one to be studied and imitated by other composers.

In 1936, a year in which Stalin's campaien of political terror reached new extremes, the government issued a famous decree condemning formalism and individualsim in music.

Its content was much like earlier instructions from the Party but its language had a new virulent tone.

The opera Lady Macbeth in particular, was savagely attacked and was banished from the stage for nearly thirty years.

The question has often been asked - why this particular work?

It particularly offended the bureauShostakovitch's musical development during this growth of bureau- cracy by its oppositon to the oppression-of women. The bureaucratic repression IS interesting.

Sometimes, he struggled, as did most other notable Russian composers, to follow the official line, but inspiration and individuality in a genuine artist are difficult to suppress. In 1935, in a press interview given while working on *I am not afraid of difficulties.

It is perhaps easier, and certainly safer, to follow a beaten path, but it is also dull, uninteresting and His battle with the official hierarchy had already begun in 1930 when his satirical opera The Nose was the subject of a carping attack in the newspapers - described as a performances of it were suppressed.

OPERATIC cracy in its struggle to enforce its 1934 Lady Macbeth of power sought to restore the Mtsensk, the first of a projected bourgeois family, in which women operatic tetralogy dealing with endured a subordinate position.

It was for this reason that many Russian woman in a number of of the gains, like the right. to free historical and social situations, was abortion, which women enjoyed immediately after the October The opera was based on a story by Leskov, of which Shostakovitch revolution were withdrawn.

As Trotsky wrote: "The most compelling motive "Perhaps there is not in the for the present cult of the family is whole of Russian literature another work portraying the position of a undoubtedly the • need of the bureaucracy for a stable hierarchy woman in the pre-revolutionary of relations and for the disciplining of youth by means of 40 million Nevertheless, he decided to points of support for authority and subject from the Soviet point of modify it "in order to treat the power." view, while keeping the strength of From this time onward:

Shostakovitch was in continuou:

In this amended version of the conflict with the bureaucracy. Hi story, the heroine, Katerina great sprawling Fourth Symphon Ismailova, a merchant's wife, is was withdrawn before receiving it first performance and he was forcer attracted out of boredom to Sergei, a brutal employee of her husband's. into an abject compromise with thi Fifth Symphony with its shov father-in-law discovers the affair Her lecherous and gluttonous trial worded subtitle "A Sovie Artist's Reply to Just Criticism". and flogs Sergei to unconsciousness.

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The Seventh Symphony was