From this follows of necessity an increasingly manifest degradation not only of the work of art but also of the specifically “artistic” personality.

In the contemporary world we must recognize the ever more widespread destruction of those conditions under which intellectual creation is possible.

Specifically, we cannot remain indifferent to the intellectual conditions under which creative activity takes place, nor should we fail to pay all respect to those particular laws which govern intellectual creation. Such creations cannot be slighted, whether from the standpoint of general knowledge (which interprets the existing world), or of revolutionary knowledge (which, the better to change the world, requires an exact analysis of the laws which govern its movement). Insofar as it originates with an individual, insofar as it brings into play subjective talents to create something which brings about an objective enriching of culture, any philosophical, sociological, scientific or artistic discovery seems to be the fruit of a precious chance, that is to say, the manifestation, more or less spontaneous, of necessity. Even in times of “peace” the position of art and science has become absolutely intolerable. We are by no means thinking only of the world war that draws near. But today we see world civilization, united in its historic destiny, reeling under the blows of reactionary forces armed with the entire arsenal of modern technology. The Vandals, with instruments which were barbarous, and so comparatively ineffective, blotted out the culture of antiquity in one corner of Europe. We can say without exaggeration that never has civilization been menaced so seriously as today. The excerpt is from “Manifesto: Towards a Free Revolutionary Art.” Trotsky drafted most of it in Mexico in 1938 in collaboration with Andre Breton, the best-known leader of the Surrealist movement, and Mexican muralist Diego Rivera.

Lenin’s death, he continued Lenin’s fight for proletarian internationalism in the face of a bloody political counterrevolution led by Joseph Stalin. Trotsky was a central leader of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the early Communist International. Art and Revolution: Writings on Literature, Politics, and Culture by Leon Trotsky is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for December.

Trotsky art and revolution