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John Reed Club Artists and the New Deal: Radical Responses to Roosevelt's “Peaceful Revolution”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2009

Helen A. Harrison
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Extract

In the early 1930s, a significant number of American artists who were aligned, either practically or theoretically, with the Communist Party became supporters of the New Deal. Artist members of the John Reed Club, a Party-directed cultural organization, were enjoined to develop “revolutionary art” as a vehicle for the type of social change that had transformed tsarist Russia into the Soviet Union. Yet many of them found Roosevelt's “peaceful revolution” worthy of the highest accolade they could bestow on a subject: its inclusion as an affirmative theme in their work. In so viewing it, they ran counter to the Party's stated policy in opposition to socioeconomic reform—a policy that was later reversed to accommodate the New Deal and thus vindicate the artists's position. From its inception, the New Deal seemed to offer artists an attractive alternative to the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions predicted by Marx and promulgated by the Communists.

Type
Research Article
Information
Prospects , Volume 5 , October 1980 , pp. 241 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

NOTES

1. See James, C. Vaughan, Soviet Socialist Realism: Origins and Theory (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973), pp. 49–51, 112–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a discussion of Proletcult policy and Lenin's criticism, which led to the movement's dissolution by the early 1930s.

2. Minor, Robert, “Art Is a Weapon in the Class Struggle,” Daily Worker, 09 22, 1925, p. 5.Google Scholar

3. Taped interview with Anton Refregier, January 2, 1975. He recalls that founding artist members were Hugo Gellert, William Gropper, Fred Ellis, Louis Lozowick, Joseph Pass, and himself. I am grateful to Mr. Refregier for hi s comments and advice on this paper.

4. Reprinted in full in Leftward 1 (Boston, 11 1932), 1.Google Scholar

5. Hughes, Arthur, “Proletarian Art and the John Reed Club Artists, 1928–35,” unpublished M.A. thesis, Hunter College, 1970, p. 32.Google Scholar

6. Ibid., p. 59.

7. “The Charkov [sic] Conference of Revolutionary Writers,” New Masses, 02 1931, p. 6.Google Scholar

8. “Resolution on the work of New Masses for 1931 as formulated by the Secretariat of the IURW relating to the fulfillment of the decisions of the Kharkov Conference,” New Masses, 09 1932, p. 21.Google Scholar

9. Kwait, John, “John Reed Club Art Exhibition,” New Masses, 02 1933, p. 23.Google Scholar

10. Kainen, Jacob, “Revolutionary Art at the John Reed Club,” Art Front, 01 1935, p. 6.Google Scholar

11. Duroc, Margaret, “Critique From the Left,” Art Front, 01 1936, pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

12. While the Daily Worker was calling for a “united front” against capitalism and inviting the Socialist party and the A.F. of L. to join (May Day Supplement, May 1, 1933, p. 7), the Party's official attitude was that Roosevelt was “carrying out more thoroughly and brutally than even Hoover the capitalist attack against the living standards of the masses.” The Party held this position for more than two years after the initiation of the New Deal. See Howe, Irving and Coser, Lewis, The American Communist Party: A Critical History 1919–1957 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957), pp. 232–33.Google Scholar

13. From the manifesto of the Artists Group of the Emergency Work Bureau (forerunner of the Artists Union), quoted in Monroe, Gerald, “The Artists Union of New York,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, New York Univ., 1971, p. 39.Google Scholar

14. Meltsner, Paul to FDR, 12 17, 1933Google Scholar, National Archives Record Group 121, Entry 108, Box 2, folder M.

15. “Another Round in Art Duel over New Deal Goes to F.D.R.,” New York Post 09 1, 1934Google Scholar, clipping in National Archives Record Group 121, Entry 108, Box 3, folder S.

16. “‘Daily Worker’ Cartoonist Has CWA Art Job,” New York Herald Tribune, 03 16, 1934Google Scholar, clipping in National Archives Record Group 121, Entry 111, Box 2, folder: Region 2.

17. Advertisements appeared in Art Front, the magazine of the Artists Union.

18. “The Critic Takes a Glance Around the Galleries,” New York Post, 09 26, 1936Google Scholar, Cronbach papers, Archives of American Art, microfilm roll D260, frame 1218.

19. Evergood, Philip, “Building a New Art School,” Art Front, 04–05 1937, p. 21.Google Scholar

20. Shahn, Ben to Bruce, Edward, 11 7, 1940Google Scholar, National Archives Record Group 121, Entry 133, Box 416, folder: Social Security Bldg.—re: Ben Shahn.

21. Refregier interview.

22. From an unpublished history of the ACA Gallery by its director, Herman Baron, ACA Gallery papers, Archives of American Art, microfilm roll D304, frames 673–74.

23. A summary of Congressional opposition to the WPA is found in McKinzie, Richard, The New Deal for Artists (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1973), pp. 155–65.Google Scholar

24. Howe, and Coser, , American Communist Party, pp. 233–34.Google Scholar

25. Ibid., 331.

26. From an undated conversation with Klara Zetkin, quoted in Kurt London, The Seven Soviet Arts (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1938), p. 66.Google Scholar

27. Officially, the John Reed Club refused to participate because Rivera allegedly requested that their speaker “refrain from stating the Club's attitude toward him in the field of revolutionary action.” See “Why the John Reed Club Has No Speaker at This Meeting,” undated broadside, Tamiment Labor Library (New York Univ.), folder: OF John Reed Club; cf. New York Times, 05 15, 1933, p. 9Google Scholar, where it was reported that a John Reed Club artist attending the rally pointedly insisted on addressing Rivera as “Mister” instead of “Comrade.”

28. Monroe, , “Artists Union of New York,” p. 138.Google Scholar

29. Taped interview with Max Spivak, December 19, 1974.

30. Ibid.

31. Interview with Frances Avery, August 13, 1972.

32. Monroe, , “Artists Union of New York,” p. 137.Google Scholar

33. Quoted in O'Connor, Francis V., Federal Support for the Visual Arts: The New Deal and Now (Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1969), p. 96.Google Scholar