Where is its wealth appreciated? Naturally, anyone in the least familiar with Trotsky’s life’s work will know that within his wide range of concerns the literary-artistic occupied a prominent place, as they will know also the power and quality of his best writing. Upon reading them, it is quickly evident, even from the accessible fraction of a much larger output belonging to the years before the October Revolution, that here is one rich source. And above this ridge new peaks will rise.A re we sensible enough of all the sources of our own literary heritage? The question is suggested to me by some of the writings of the young Trotsky. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser and subtler his body will become more harmonized, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. More correctly, the shell in which the cultural construction and self-education of Communist man will be enclosed, will develop all the vital elements of contemporary art to the highest point. All the arts-literature, drama, painting, music and architecture will lend this process beautiful form.
Social construction and psycho-physical self-education will become two aspects of one and the same process. “It is difficult to predict the extent of self-government which the man of the future may reach or the heights to which he may carry his technique. In the book, Trotsky also explains that since the dawn of civilisation art had always borne the stamp of the ruling class and was primarily a vehicle that expressed its tastes and its sensibilities. By discussing the various literary trends that were around in Russia between the revolutions of 19, Trotsky analyses the concrete forces in society, both progressive as well as reactionary, that helped shape the consciousness of writers at the time. This book is a classic work of literary criticism from the Marxist standpoint.
Literature and Revolution, written by the founder and commander of the Red Army, Leon Trotsky, in 1924 and first published in 1925, represents a compilation of essays that Trotsky drafted during the summers of 19.
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