RAPM (Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians), Ideological Platform. 1929

Translated from the Russian by Nicolas Slonimsky

RAPM—the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians—claimed hegemony for proletarian art within Soviet culture and held sway for three years, during which it marginalized classical, avant-garde, folk, and jazz music as non-proletarian. This third and final formulation of its platform was adopted in 1929; RAPM was dissolved by government decree on April 23, 1932.

Original Source: Sovetskaia muzyka, January 1937.

Music and the Classes

(Reflecting the general evolution of class society, the music of the past evolved along two main paths: on the one hand the music of the toilers, the exploited, and the oppressed classes (the so-called folk music), on the other hand the feudal bourgeois music, which comprises virtually the entire bulk of written "cultured" music.

The position of this or that class at a given historical moment determines the development of these two musical cultures.

The brilliant spread of the musical culture of the ruling classes was determined by its possession of the tools of material, technical culture in the domain of everyday life as in that of the special musical field (complicated musical instruments, special technique of their manufacture, special educational institutes, music printing, etc.).

On the contrary, the music of the oppressed and exploited classes, despite its deep musical significance, remains at a primitive stage as far as cultural, technical and material means are concerned.

The above conditions give the ruling classes the possibility of utilizing the creative forces of the exploited masses. At certain moments of history musicians of the ruling classes address themselves to the art of the oppressed classes and, taking their most valuable possession, nourish their own music entirely with the vitalizing juice of folk music.

The bourgeoisie of the period of well-developed capitalism exerts, as a ruling class, profound moral influence on all strata and classes of the population, systematically poisoning the worker's mind. This influence is shown in the ideology of a certain fraction of the working masses and in their everyday life, as a result of which we find tendencies of degeneration and disintegration in the artistic tastes of some of its members. In the field of music this degeneration follows on the one hand the line of urban romance, on the other that of religious petty bourgeois estheticism, and very recently, the erotic dance of the contemporary capitalist city (foxtrot, Charleston, jazz music, etc.).

Since the emergence of social differentiation and stratification in the country, similar tendencies may be noted in folk music; having undergone the influence mentioned above, it becomes contaminated with songs alien to its nature (all sorts of "patriotic," "religious" songs and also those mentioned above), and, inasmuch as it reflects the psychology of different social strata in the country (on the one hand that of toilers, workers, on the other hand that of the exploiting parasitical elements), it ceases to be uniform.

While defining the class nature of one or another musical composition, it is imperative to consider its ideological emotional content expressed by corresponding sonorous material.

Musical Culture of the Past

During the bourgeois revolution and its struggle with remnants of feudal society, the bourgeoisie appeared as the bearer of economic and cultural progress, and its ideologists, among them composers, expressed the aspirations of a great majority of the population. At that time the bounds of cultural intercourse among men were comparatively wide and the bourgeois artists reflected the views of this wide community. This could not but affect in a beneficial way the artistic output of the bourgeois artists, inasmuch as inspiration, enthusiasm, and creative power increase in the direct ratio to the number of recipients among the popular masses.

The creative production of composers reflecting active and heroic sentiments of the revolutionary bourgeoisie, compared to the rest of the musical legacy, appears nearest to the psychology and world outlook of the contemporary proletariat, inasmuch as it possesses a more realistic, a more objective attitude.

This musical legacy representing the best in musical culture of the past, has also evolved the highest type of musical form. The creative production of Beethoven and Mussorgskii may be cited as specimens of this highly developed culture.

Bourgeois music in its latest period (that of the entrance of capitalism into its highest stage, financial capitalism) has reflected the process of general decay and disintegration of bourgeois culture. During this period music begins to cultivate decadent moods, and engages in the following pursuits:

a. Cultivation of sensual and pathologically erotic moods emerging as a result of narrowing interests of a bourgeoisie degenerating morally and physically; cultivation of musical materials reflecting primitive psychology of the nations whose cultural evolution has stopped at early stages ("barbarism," specific "colonial" exotic music, etc.).

b. Mysticism, feeling of oppressiveness as a premonition on the part of the bourgeoisie of the impending social catastrophe and the end of bourgeois rule.

c. Reproduction in a musical work of the movement of the contemporary capitalist city with its milling humanity and industry. This naturalistic streak in contemporary music is a symptom of its decay and of the inner devastation of the bourgeoisie, the inadequacy of its ideological-emotional world to serve as a "means of communication among men" and inspiration for composers. Hence, the so-called "emotionalist" trends in music and, specifically, urbanist music that reduces itself to a more or less successful reproduction of noises.

d. Cultivation of primitive coarse subjects as a means, on the part of the bourgeoisie, to slow up the process of degeneration and to fight the proletariat that threatens "anarchy" for the bourgeoisie after the Revolution.

The decadent subject-matter of bourgeois music determines its form. Under the influence of decadent moods the inner meaning of music becomes diluted; technical elements gain ascendancy and music splits into factions according to its formal elements. In contemporary decadent bourgeois music the most characteristic elements are:

a. Hypertrophy of harmonic, vertical concepts, resulting in utter monotony and poverty of metrical, rhythmical design, which leads towards distortion of the musical phrase and loss of dynamic power, and disappearance of melos that causes the vocal crisis of bourgeois opera.

b. Hypertrophy of the polyphonic principle, accompanied by complete negation of the modal groundwork of music (so-called linear music).

c. The pursuance of alogical spasmodic rhythms.

d. The striving towards so-called absolute self-dependent "constructivist" music, mechanistically built, and claiming to produce an emotional response of a predetermined nature. The school of composition inculcating this attitude (the so-called theory of "manufacture" of musical compositions) contributes to the complete disappearance of creative urge, replaced by dead mechanical schematicism.

During this last period the bourgeoisie, disguising its class interests under convenient slogans, makes claim to "objective," formal, technical "attainments," rejects the legacy of the classical past, and promotes "novelty," "contemporaneity" and "progress" in a narrow, formal, technical sense. These trends in contemporary bourgeois music, symptomatic of the psychological distress of the bourgeoisie, are a direct result of its decay and degeneration.

The Proletarian Revolution and the Contemporary Situation on the Musical-Ideological Front

A long chain of circumstances prevents the proletariat from mastering the fine arts, music and literature, and from producing their own protagonists in the arts, and specifically in music. These circumstances are:

First, the proletariat has begun the social revolution not waiting for the complete development of its culture within the framework of capitalistic society (despite the fact chat the process of cultural development has started long before the acquisition of power by the p proletariat, and that in certain fields proletarian culture has attained great heights).

Second, the social revolution of the proletariat has started in a land whose working class was at a very low cultural level.

Third, a great deal of creative power has been spent during a long civil war, and an industrial build-up accompanied by the greatest difficulties.

In view of this and many other circumstances the proletariat which exercises hegemony in social policy and general economy, does not exercise this hegemony in cultural pursuits, and, in particular, in the arts.

The absence, at this moment of the hegemony of the proletariat in the arts gives the opportunity to ideologists of intermediate and even openly inimical social strata to pursue their artistic aims along bourgeois lines and even influence the policies of proletarian institutions by foisting their ideology on them. The NEP (New Economical Policy] and the numerous bureaucratic distortions of the Soviet State apparatus contribute to the process of this insidious penetration. Besides, a great majority of proletarian artistic groups, in contrast with the proletariat which openly proclaims the class character of its artistic organizations, strives to conceal this affiliation under the guise of societies "scientific," "interpretative," "creative" and such, while actually serving enemy ideology. In music, for instance, the reactionary character of the right wing of musical society and its connection with the bureaucratic circles of the old regime force this group to maintain secret solidarity without forming any open organizations.

Social organizations and trends existing in music reflect on the one hand the general class differentiation and the existence of social stratification among these classes, on the other hand the various peripatetic of class struggle, uniting and disuniting, as they do, the heterogeneous social formations.

At the present time there exist among musicians the following trends reflecting the ideology of fundamental social groups:

a. A group of musicians that has been formed under the influence of the bureaucratic circles of the old regime, sponsors of art and music.

At the present time this group, in view of absence of all connection with living art in all fields, has completely degenerated into a dead and retrograde epigonism incapable of contributing anything vital to music. Members of this group have managed, however, to entrench themselves in several important educational institutions.

b. A comparatively significant force, represented by a so-called group of "contemporaries" that reflects the ideology of the one-time "vanguard" young Russian bourgeoisie and bourgeois intelligentsia and that defends the tenets of modern decadent bourgeois art.

The vitality and significance of this group stand in on deniable connection with the presence in the economy of our land, along with a socialistic section, of a comparatively strong capitalist current productive of bourgeois ideology. In some measure the ideology of this group is sustained by the penetration into the USSR of bourgeois influences from the capitalist countries.

c. In the course of the next few years there must be expected a rise of the intermediate strata and classes, the village and city intelligentsia. Being a motley conglomeration of heterogeneous phenomena, this grouping requires that we discriminate in passing judgment on them. Along with sincere and honest companion-of-the-road citizenry striving to understand the proletariat and reflect its world outlook in its creative production and musical activity, there exist here certain grossly adaptationist trends that do not go beyond outward exhibitionistic "revolutionariness," and are essentially alien or even inimical to the proletariat.

d. In the course of the last five years there has been considerable progress of proletarian art contributing to penetration of proletarian influence among the artistic intelligentsia. This proletarian group of musicians is potentially strong, thanks to its connection with a class now in the vanguard of history.

RAPM

The non-enforcement of hegemony of the proletariat in the divers ideological fields and specifically in the domain of art cannot, of course, continue for any considerable time. After the very first successes in the task of economic recuperation, the proletariat will assemble and solidify its cultural powers to repel the petty-bourgeois influences and heighten the cultural level of the masses, in which there is observable a huge growth of independent activity, not solely in the political and economical fields but also in general culture. Voluntary proletarian organizations have contributed to this growth in no small measure and are at the same time a determining factor in this growth. Such are, in the domain of the arts, the Associations of Proletarian Artists, organizations historically given to the proletariat as conscious expressions of the historical process.

The fundamental task of the Proletarian Artistic Associations is to establish the hegemony of the proletariat in various fields of the arts.

In the domain of music, such an organization is embodied in the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM) which unites musicians active in the proletarian advance-guards on the various sections of the front of class war, among them on the musical-ideological section.

The ultimate aim of the RAPM is extension of the hegemony of the Proletariat to the music field. At present 'it sets the following concrete tasks:

a. Extension of the proletarian Communist influence to the musical masses, re-education and reorganization of these masses in order to direct their work and creative talents towards Socialist build-up.

b. Creation of Marxist musicology and Marxist musical criticism, critical absorption of the musical culture of the past and of contemporary musical literature from the viewpoint of the proletariat.

c. Demonstration of proletarian musical creative productions and creation of necessary conditions for complete development and growth of proletarian music.

Toward the accomplishment of these tasks the RAPM

a. poses at its open meetings the most urgent problems in the domain of creative work, Marxist musicology, mass action and pedagogical musical work;

b. expounds, through the medium of the Soviet professional and party press, and also the organs of the RAPM, its fundamental ideas, heightens the social, scientific- musical and artistic level of the musical masses, analyzes and gives a musical-sociological evaluation of musical literature, pointing out the path of new musical work in city and country;

c. while helping the working and peasant masses to create their own music, organizes musical education of these masses for which purpose it encourages proletarianization of music schools and formation of music-teaching cadres in the conservatories, and also discusses in special conferences, problems of method in musical work among the masses and the individual circles in workers' clubs;

d. poses and discusses the problems of formation of new interpretative ways and begins the work of sanitation of our concert masses, organizing its own exemplary choral and orchestral collectives, and also groups of individual performers.

In its interrelations with various groupings of musicians, the RAPM is guided by the general policy of the proletariat and the party in relation toward various social categories. Neither the circumstance that the working class has already acquired power, nor the special character of musical problems deters the proletariat from fighting against ideological influences opposed to the proletariat on the musical front. As to the intermediate, the so-called com pan ion-of- the- road groupings, the RAPM deems it necessary and useful to attract these groups unquestioningly into creative, scientific and educational work in the domain of music and to utilize them in practical work.

"While weeding out the anti-proletarian and the counter-revolutionary elements and fighting the ideology of the new bourgeoisie among some of the companions-of-the-road, it is imperative to exercise tolerance towards the intermediate ideological forms, patiently helping them to form comradely relationship with the powers of Communism." (From the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist party on the party policy in literature.)

In their creative work, composers, members of the Association of Proletarian Musicians, strive above all to reflect the rich, full-blooded psychology of the proletariat, as historically the most advanced, and dialectically the most sensitive and understanding class.

Following the dialectical and not the mechanistic laws of evolution, composers, members of the RAPM, strive to create gradually new musical forms and a new style born of its artistic subject matter.

The interrelation of content and form is regarded by the RAPM as a dialectical unity.

Thus, while not accepting any form of contemporary bourgeois music that in its content is opposed to the proletariat, the RAPM proclaims the slogan of learning the craft first of all from those among composers of the past who reflected in their creative output the subject matter close to the revolutionary ideas of the proletariat.

New musical forms are created and will be created by the proletariat. Proletarian music must "penetrate into the innermost masses of workmen and peasants, unite the thought and the will of these masses and raise them" for further struggle and construction, organizing their class consciousness in the direction of the ultimate victory of the proletariat as builder of Communist society.

Source: Nicolas Slonimsky, ed., Music since 1900 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1937), pp. 1052-1055.