With razor-sharp insight and wit, Trotsky points to the necessity for art to exist free from political and social agendas, as well as from the shackles, the stereotypes, the dark ignorance of reactionary class rule. These are not at all contradictory goals. Trotsky declares boldly in these articles that artistic truth must be based not on any particular literary school or dogma but on "the immutable faith of the artist in his own inner self." In this collection Trotsky debates Stalinists, appreciates Tolstoy, Essenin, Gorky, and Jack London, and slam-dunks Winston Churchill's pretentious writings. Must reading for activists who seek to advance their understanding of the arts as well as for writers and artists seeking to understand how their work relates to society.

This is a marvelous book which brings out the deep humanistic sensibility that lay at the heart of one of the twentieth century's great socialist revolutionaries. Trotsky's writings show that Marxism is far from being a sterile set of formulas which relegate art, literature, music, love, and our emotional lives to the sidelines, in favor of economics. No, the book shows that Marxist ideas are so powerful because they can illuminate the complex connections between economic structures and the varied human creativity expressed in all forms of art. It also takes a strong stand against censorship and for freedom, not only in capitalist societies, but in post-capitalist ones, such as the Soviet Union, where Stalinists had made a mockery of artistic freedom in the name of socialism. These ideas are illustarted by a fascinating set of writings, including literary reviews, correspondence with artists like Andre Breton and analysis of the challenges facing artists and writers in the Soviet Union.

Throw out all the misconceptions that you have drawn from Stalinism the worst antiMarxism there is, about Marxists and culture. This is the real deal. This collection gives the real Marxist view of culture, particularly in the major excerpts of Trotsky's Literature and Revolution, a book edited by Lenin. Culture cannot be judged simply as propaganda, but as an organic expression of society, of humans struggling to depict reality. Culture needs freedom. This book contains not only works from the 20s, but works from the 1930s when Trotsky joined with Diego Rivera, the great Mexican muralist, and Andre Breton, the master of surrealism, in a revolutionary defense of modern culture against Stalinist and capitalism.

Famous novels, which, over time have been elevated to classic status, written by well known novelists Solzhenitsyn, George Orwell, Norman Mailer, Arnold Bennett, Jack London, Boris Pasternak, Ignazio Silone and others get the once over by Marxist Shakespearean scholar and critic Paul N. Siegal.

Siegal concerns himself with how these novels shape up as works of art and dissects the political ideas in them. War, reaction and revolution has marked the 20th century and is the starting point for this book. Siegal meticulously looks at these novels through the eyes of those interested in the fight for social change. The book gives the reader a broader understanding of these novels as expressions of radical intellectual middle class thought .

I'm one of those who avoided English and literature classes like the plague when I was in school, but I found this work engaging and stimulating. I had already read half of the novels Siegel discusses, (1984, Man's fate, The Naked and the Dead, The Iron Heel, Darkness at noon) and I found I gained a deeper understanding and appreciation of the authors' intentions and their literary technique as I read this book. And I now want to track down and read a few more of the works Siegel covers (Fontamara, Native Son, Cancer Ward, The Old Wives Tale, Doctor Zhivago.)

Siegel, a noted Shakespearean scholar and literary critic, starts with discussion of the big political and social developments of the 20th century and how intellectuals responded to them: World Wars I and II, the Russian Revolution, Fascism, and Stalinism. He examines the political ideas the authors seek to portray through their novels, some more overtly than others. And he gives a reasoned assessment of the results, both as an expression of political ideas and as a literary work. It should get you thinking more about the complex relations between the economic underpinnings of human society and the evolution of ideas, art, and literature.

Two related book I'd also recommend: Art and Revolution, by Leon Trotsky and works by George Novack, especially Pragmatism vs. Marxism and Understanding History.

This is a skillful discussion of novels by London, Malraux, Silone, Koestler, Solzhenitsyn, Orwell and others from a revolutionary Marxist point of view. His chief concern is how the social and political ideas in these books reflect ideas about revolution in the 20tjh Century. What is dissected is not only these novels but also the various alternatives and expressions of revolutionary politics in the US and Europe throughout the 20th Century. Siegel ranges from late Victorian Fabians to the upsurges of the thirties, to the postwar petit bourgeois fall from anti-Stalinism to anticommunism. As such he contributes to the political education of revolutionists about these currents of middle class thought.
What is outstanding in these essays is that Siegel never confuses political evaluation of the ideas of these texts with evaluation of these texts as novels. His introduction is an interesting example of how as Terry Eagleton has stressed, a real Marxist critic of literature does not discard the tools and ideas that "bourgeois" literary studies have offered us, but uses them to advance our understanding of both literature and politics.