The writer and communism

Under Stalin, the writer and the literary work played a vital role in Communist strategy. Literature was being honored.

Writers have always been aware of their special position in Communist ideology. They have taken Communism seriously because it has taken them seriously. Thus a history of the relations between Communism and modem literature is, in certain vital respects, a history of both.

There is hardly a major writer in 20th century who has not been touched at some stage in his life and art by Communism.

The alliance between literature and Communism remains both intimate. Literature is indeed the most dangerous of trades.

A withdrawal from Marxism leaving the imagination of the writer bruised.

In the lives of such writers as Camus, Steinbeck, or Silone, Marxism has played a liberating role.

The deep influence of Marxist ideas on Western aesthetics and literary theory. 'Whether explicitly or unconsciously, our whole contemporary view of art is penetrated with a Marxist awareness of social context and historical dynamism. Even the most Alexandrine of ''new critics" owes to the Marxist tradition some realization of the economic or social milieu that lies behind poetic style. Indeed, it may well be in aesthetics, rather than in actual literature, that Marxism has made its most solid contribution.

The Marxist or Communist element in the work of art is a code to express a personal radicalism.