New Left, Local Control, and Fascism

44,
same thing with B flat major. Variation XVI is a some- French Revolution, as Shelley points out in his "Dewhat
raucous "take-off" in addition to other things on fense of Poetry." Poets and philosophers who would
the banality of the original theme. This aspect of satire, have in a reactionary period manifested the greatest
for Beethoven only the most obvious, is the only kind philistinism, under the stress of a massive upheaval
known to Frank Zappa, whose lack of compositional which promised to change the productive forces on the
ability prevents him from realizing even this limited largest scale possible were driven to express the
kind of satire musically. Imagine to yourself the first revolutionary spirit of their time. The socialist revoluthree
measures of this variation repeated over and over tion will hopefully sweep away the artistic trash which
again for the duration of an entire evening and you have has accumulated since the 19th century and the present
some idea of what a Zappa concert is like. The widespread popular mongoloidism that even antiwritten-out
improvisation that occurs so often in Beet- intellectual Marxists opportunistically accept.
hoven is all the more remarkable when it appears in a In a period of rapid social decay like our own there is
variation whose underlying harmonic structure has a tendency for art to sympathize with that decay. A
already been made familiar by the theme and nineteen genuine artist, like the revolutionary, speaks a lansubsequent
variations. Yet this is achieved in Variation guage which is needed by his contemporaries but which
XX where, instead of submitting the listener to hours of they are prevented from understanding by the quality
real time in which only a few events occur, Beethoven of their social existence. But the fact that they cannot at
collapses real time into a few moments, thus simul- present understand him does not mean that he doesn't
taneously abstracting the process of improvisation and continue to speak that language, despite the fact that
reflecting on that process by resolving the contra- this language is regarded by most people in their
dictions that certain harmonic leaps impose on the present state as irrelevant. Only in this way will both
variation as a whole. The haunting and somewhat the artist and revolutionary be able to offer a positive
elusive quality of this variation is the clue to this alternative to the philistinism with which he and
process of condensation that occurs, everyone else is surrounded. Ceasing to tail after
popular consciousness, he will be ready for the time
It is clear that the social turmoil during Beethoven's when a drastic change in social life brings about its
time is reflected in an abstract, not in a literal way in his equally drastic change in consciousness and an undermusic,
a point which having mastered should enable us standing of ideas which in the present remain to be
to throw over all the bunk on the subject of Beethoven fully realized.
as a revolutionary composer that parades under the The idea of a group of revolutionary cadre delibername
of Marxism. The cramming of many musical ately fostering the production of workers' songs and
events within a short time span was the musical poems, to deliberately create a popular art, was
idealization of the paradox demonstrated socially that incomprehensible to Rosa Luxemburg. As Nettl points
few events can occur over a long stretch of time and out in his biography, art for her was a genre of its own.
many compressed into a relatively short time-span. The "It had above all to reflect the realities of its time, at
latter was the reality of a revolutionary period. That is most foreshadow the immediate future but never
the meaning of the strange harmonic leaps in Beet- extrapolate into the distance; what made art timeless
hoven's late work; they are the product of elisions, i.e., was not vision but quality."
harmonies left out, in order to accelerate the rate of
harmonic change. The problematical character of modern art is already
Relation of Art and Revolution noted by Marx in his observation that capitalist
production is hostile to certain aspects of spiritual
It is art of this caliber, not popular culture, that production, such as art and poetry. This hostility has
should be of concern to the revolutionary. Popular advanced to a point today where it is almost impossible
culture is hegemonic in periods of the most utter phili- to produce anything in this sphere at all. The contrastinism
and vulgarity, a level of existence which it is the diction facing the modern artist is concisely stated by
revolutioanry leader's task to destroy. The artist does Lukacs in his essay "Correspondence between Schiller
not pander to this consciousness any more than the and Goethe." Either a system of artistic laws can be
revolutionary does. All forms of parochialism, including derived from a study of past forms for the purpose of
cultural "dialects" of militant national self-determi- expressing the specific character of modern life, e.g.
nation, or black cultural nationalism is inimical to a Bartok's string quartets in relation to Beethoven's; or a
revolutionary movement. Just as under conditions of
study of the past leads to the creation of timeless laws
vast social upheaval, such as the mass strike, the ideas which lead to the creation of a classical art which must
of a relatively tiny handful of intellectuals (which up to
out of self-preservation exclude any reality that is
that point had appeared esoteric and even irrelevant) hostile to such expression.
suddenly are comprehended and begin to draw larger
numbers of the population into the process, so too the The dangers of the former are that making the reality
artistic expression of those ideas begins to reach layers which is hostile to art the subject matter of art destroys
of the population to whom under conditions of capitalist the forms needed to give this reality coherence. The
hegemony these artistic expressions would have been dangers of the latter are that in the interest of art reality
inaccessible. This was the case during the period of the must be held at a distance, as the central concerns of