Leon Trotsky: Hauptmann's last drama and Struve's comments to it

[My own translation of the Russian text in "Eastern Outlook", Nr. 99, 102, May 5, 9, 1901, reprinted in Sochineniya, Vol. 20, Moscow-Leningrad 1926, p. 170-181, compared to the German translation. Corrections by English native speakers would be extremely welcome]

In the second issue of "Zhizn" (Life) of the current year there is an extremely poor translation of the last drama by G. Hauptmann "Michael Kramer". In the first issue of “Mir Bozhy” (Peace of God), Mr. Struve's pretentious feuilleton “On Various Subjects” is published, which, among other things, deals with the same drama. I will allow myself to draw the attention of the reader on these two, of course, absolutely unequal literary phenomena,.

I'm not able to say what Mr. Struve actually wants at the present moment, and I console myself with the fact that this is not entirely clear to him himself, although he repeats proud phrases about religion, religious dreams, religious consciousness, trying in vain to warm up the remnants of his social enthusiasm on mysticism and idealistic metaphysics.

We can only establish with certainty the fact that Mr. Struve agrees with Schäffle in a profound definition of the social question "Die soziale Frage ist eine Magenfrage¹" (the social question is a stomach question).

“The social struggle of our time is set by the liberation of man from slavish subjection to the material conditions of his existence, liberation from hunger, cold and every kind of want. If this is happiness,” he continues with a note of obvious doubt, “then, of course, the social struggle is a struggle for happiness. The conditions that we combine under the name "prosperity," says Mr. Struve further, "are absolutely necessary as a means for the further advancement of man and mankind; bourgeoisness begins only where this means becomes an object of worship, turns into the supreme goal and the highest value, in a word, fills the religious consciousness of people. Unfortunately, this cultural bourgeoisness is the most characteristic feature, as it were, the spiritual essence of modern man ... Both those satisfied and those dissatisfied with modernity are equally affected by it. And these latter need to be reminded that prosperity is a means, and not a goal, that the goal lies further, much further "... ("Mir bozhy ", I, 14.)

In this seemingly very decent reasoning, so many-sided falsehood is concentrated that you find it difficult from which side to approach it.

The desire to get rid of "hunger, cold and every kind of want", even if it was not resolved by anything else, completely shutting itself up in itself, cannot be called bourgeois if only because genetically it preceded the very emergence of the bourgeois system. This aspiration is universal, moreover, it is inherent in animals. It takes on bourgeois forms when it is cast into a gravitation towards rent, towards profit on capital; but those “dissatisfied,” of whom Mr. Struve speaks, as a social group with definite historical tendencies, are not infected with the desire for rent. To say about these dissatisfied that they are "bourgeois in spirit" is to play frivolously with words: the term "bourgeoisness" has a definite historical meaning, and Struve empties this concept from its socio-historical content and, expanding it to the dimensions of a purely logical, universal category, seeks to drown modern reality in it, all, without a trace.

Moreover, Mr. Struve's assertion that material prosperity (even if not in the bourgeois form of guaranteed rent) is the "highest point of desires," "the supreme goal," "an object of worship" for the dissatisfied, is decisively false. I think there is no need to prove this to people, from whose eyes the thick fog of metaphysics does not hide real socio-historical perspectives ...

Yes, undoubtedly, man does not live by bread alone, this is a holy truth; But has Mr. Struve really hastened to forget for what purpose and by whom exactly are such statements being exploited under modern social conditions?!

Yes, if the "dissatisfied" had already been satisfied in their most urgent demands in terms of supposedly bourgeois "prosperity" and, having calmed down on this, would have fallen into social quietism - oh, then we would have been ready to call for help both Fichte, and Nietzsche, and Mr. Struve himself with all his archaic rabble of moldy dogmas! But as long as a stubborn, fierce struggle is going on in life over the smallest components of this very prosperity, Mr. Struve's reproaches have the character of an extremely false, unforgivable note, the character of gross social tactlessness, not the first and, one must think, not the last in Mr. Struve's literary formulation ... It was at this point that Mr. Struve would not have made a mistake if he had returned ... to Lassalle, to that very Ferdinand Lassalle, to whom he now unsuccessfully urges us to return: it is Lassalle who never tired of repeating that the Germans (those among whom he worked) must be stirred and stirred up so that they learn to recognise their lack of "prosperity", but Mr. Struve is in a hurry to remind that "happiness" is not in prosperity ...

So, Mr. Struve, apparently, became disillusioned with the old methods of fighting "bourgeoisness" and urges us to follow new leaders: first of all, Nietzsche, "who has no equal among the fighters against cultural bourgeoisness," and then Hauptmann, in whom, however, "is much less force and content than in Nietzsche."

We already had to speak about Nietzsche in these columns, if the benevolent reader remembers; let's see what Hauptmann gives us in terms of the struggle against the bourgeoisie in his latest drama.

But before that, in a nutshell, the content of the drama itself. The artist Michael Kramer has a son Arnold and a daughter Michaline; both, like his father, are artists. The daughter is by nature quite like the father: like him, she takes more in persistence than in talent. The son is ugly, both physically and morally; he has a great talent, which, according to his sister, he does not deserve, and a gentle, painfully impressionable, but quite weak-willed mental organisation.

The father, a strong and domineering person by nature, subordinating to his influence everyone he comes across, is unable, however, to take possession of the soul of his son. The rift between father and son, their mutual misunderstanding and alienation are to a certain extent the central moment of the drama.

Arnold Kramer, who quite rightly considers himself immeasurably higher than the crowd of vulgar bon vivants from the golden bourgeois youth, is subjected, however, to their constant ridicule because of his unfortunate appearance and no less unfortunate poverty, which, moreover, does not give him the opportunity to satisfy his thirst for life .. All this embitters him against everything in the world, including his own family.

He falls in love with an innkeeper's daughter, but she has little inclination to give her attention to the poor humpbacked youth, who takes revenge with evil caricatures to the tavern-goers for their rude mockery of him.

On one particularly ill-fated day, after a difficult argument with his father, again rejected by the innkeeper's daughter Liese, ridiculed and even beaten by a company of drunken good-for-nothings, one of whom, Liese's fiancé, shows the unfortunate artist his bride's garter, Arnold Kramer runs out of the tavern and is freed from life through suicide.

The father reads on the face of the dead son (how exactly, I cannot say) those best features of his character, which during his life were hidden in him unnoticed, and now are caused by death outward, - he reads them and is reconciled with his son ... This is the skeleton of the drama.

Hauptmann atributes to the artist Kramer a certain moral greatness. But greatness is recognisable only when it is resolved by corresonding actions. In the drama of Hauptmann, Kramer does not commit any actions that would characterise him from the side of his exceptional spirit, and instead, other characters characterise Kramer in their speeches. They, these other persons, are also helped by Kramer himself, who constantly teaches others to morals, equipping his speeches with words such as: "do you hear", "you understand", "you know", which, apparently, have the goal of nailing the attention of listeners to the depth of the old artist's speeches. And there is no need, of course, to say that such a technique, by virtue of which the main character, who gives his name to the whole drama, does not act, but deliberates and clarifies his moral physiognomy before the audience mainly with the help of the speeches of other persons, is extremely invaluable and even anti-artistic and taken by itself is capable of ruining a drama.

But let us leave aside this major artistic defect and see how Michael Kramer appears to the reader, as a result of common efforts to outline his spiritual appearance.

This is how his former student, the artist Lachmann, characterises the old artist in a conversation with Michaline: "In general, you know, if I am still not completely stuck in the swamp ... it is mainly thanks to your father. What he says, and how he says it, you will never forget. There is no other teacher like him. I am convinced that whoever your father influences will never completely vulgarise ... He has mashed us all, his students so thoroughly and brought out all the innermost. He squeezed out all the bourgeois out of us. As long as you live, you can rely on this foundation ...". "The great, serious spirit of my father," says Michaline, "has become my best asset. He makes an impression on the most vulgar fools."

You see, in a word, that in the person of Kramer you are not dealing with an ordinary person. The author diligently emphasises this even with his description of Kramer's appearance, which he ends with these words: "In general, he is a special, outstanding phenomenon, at first glance more repulsive than attractive."

And so, in this image of an artist, a remarkable, "special, outstanding" person, Hauptmann, according to Mr. Struve's interpretation, embodied his protest against the "cultural bourgeoisness", durch und durch (through and through) that pervades modern society.

Ah! It's interesting and instructive to hear! ..

It is possible to successfully fight against the spirit of "cultural bourgeoisness" only when an organised struggle is directed against the social foundations of this "spirit". Isolated outbursts of lyrical protest are very effective, but fruitless. The vitality of the bourgeois social organism is amazing, its adaptability is unparalleled. The isolated striving for personal self-liberation from the clutches of the bourgeois system, no matter what dramatic accessories it may be accompanied by, always recalls the funny story of Baron Münchhausen, dragging himself out of the swamp by his hair.

Michael Kramer stands alone. Both Hauptmann, and Mr. Struve, and, of course, Kramer himself think that this is his strength. We do not doubt for a moment that this is his greatest weakness.

When the mountain did not want to come to Mohammed, then Mohammed came to the mountain. The same happens with isolated "fighters against the cultural bourgeoisness", even the most sincere and talented. They cannot live outside the society they deny, and since bourgeois society does not obey them, they often have to, unconsciously, submit to bourgeois society. All this is wonderful, although contrary to the obvious intention of the author and the commentary of Mr. Struve, illustrated by Michael Kramer himself.

Let's start with his family. The structure it purely philistine. The father is the sovereign, more or less an unlimited sovereign. According to the mother: "We all suffer under the oppression of our father." Father beat his son when he was already fifteen years old, perhaps, "knocking out of him”, in the figurative expression of Lachmann, “everything petty-bourgeois."

The mother of the family, a "restless, anxious woman", busy, as befits, with constant chores around the house. She is good-hearted, stands for family and virtue, the protection of which, according to her worldview, should lie with the police. “The police put up with everything here!” She complains bitterly, pointing to general licentiousness, and threatens her son: “if I find out that some such woman is involved here, I swear to you, and God is my witness that I will hand her over to the police!"

Hauptmann seems to find it difficult to portray the relationship that exists between Kramer and his wife: it's remarkable that he never brings them together throughout the drama.

Apparently, this kind of family should give such an exceptional, outstanding person as, according to the author's intention, Kramer is, very few reasons for idealising the "family principle." Nonetheless, Kramer says to Lachmann: "A man should have a family; that's very good, and it should be." Why this is so very good and why it befits, Kramer does not say, and his own family life can serve as only a negative illustration of this statement. And the reader, of necessity, has the impression that Kramer is simply repeating bourgeois maxims on the topic of the beneficialness of family ties. But how then, oh, Mr. Struve! to see here a struggle against cultural bourgeoisness?

Other teachings (Kramer always teaches) of the old artist are no better: "Oh, listen, people sin too much! .." "We must work, constantly work, work, Lachmann! .. Listen, we must work, Lachmann! Otherwise, we are alive mold ... Work is life, do you hear, Lachmann? Without work, I'm worthless rubbish. Only work makes me a man "..." If my son became a shoemaker and, like a shoemaker, would do his duty, I, you see, I would treat him with the same respect. " (Italics mine. LT) "Responsibilities! Responsibilities! This is the main thing. Only they make you a real person, do you hear? .. Today's idlers imagine that the world is the bed of a harlot. A person must recognise responsibilities, do you hear?" Finally, Michaline Kramer, who has absorbed all the moral philosophy of her father, says, referring to her father's authority: "To reconcile, mother, is the lot of all people. It is everyone's duty to control oneself and fight his way to the highest."

Excuse me, excuse me! All of this is very well-meaning and deserves every encouragement. But where is the struggle against the "cultural bourgeoisness" here, where is the "knocking out everything petty-bourgeois"?

All these speeches we have heard, heard, heard ...

Isn't it Smiles, the verbose, dull, cloyingly virtuous, well-meaning musty oracle of shopkeepers, an inspired prophet of a grocery, haberdashery and muscling audience, isn't he talking for thousands of pages about the sacred, great, invaluable benefit of labour, constant labour? .. it is not he who teaches with the help of convincing examples, analogies, comparisons, texts, arguments from the bourgeois reason, arguments from a philistine heart, that every person who has reached a certain age should start a family, because "it is proper"? .. Is not the same Smiles with noble civic enthusiasm demanding respect for the shoemaker - yes, even for the shoemaker, if he is "honestly doing his duty"? Or maybe you dare to assert that he, Smiles, did not always proclaim that "people sin too much," and did not invite them to immediately reform? Or did he not call them to fulfill duties, sacred duties in relation to themselves, family, neighbours, state and God? Or did he not recommend that they tirelessly put up with the blows of fate, "keep themselves in hand" and with honest (certainly honest!) labour "fight their way to the highest"? ..

True, maybe Smiles and his numerous spiritual flock put a lot of purely philistine hypocrisy into such speeches, while Kramer speaks them with full and deep sincerity, but his scope of thought is not at all wider, and his speeches are old, all too familiar speeches, and believe me, Mr. Struve! - they sound extremely wild on the lips of a "fighter against the cultural bourgeoisness".

What a clumsy promise to respect even a shoemaker, so long as he "honestly fulfils his duty"! Is it really impossible to leave the shoemaker alone and not pester him, ostensibly in the name of the highest morality, with vulgar demands for the honest performance of his duty? One can, it would seem, remain calm on this score: the structure of the modern cultural-bourgeois society, by the laws of supply and demand, by inexorable competition, purely automatically and therefore unmistakably ensures that the shoemaker "honestly fulfils his duty," that is, for the minimum payment he spent the maximum energy, and for the failure to fulfill this "duty" society knows a measure of repression that is magnificent in its reality: death by starvation. The question is, is the "cultural bourgeoisness" society honestly fulfilling its duty towards the shoemaker?

But old Kramer, in addition to his penchant for the solemn proclamation of speeches that have long been sore, has another interesting feature for us, which we have already noted in passing and, apparently, is more suitable for attesting him as a fighter against the cultural bourgeoisie.

Kramer, as we said, is lonely. He does not belong to those artists who are happy in their well-fed lack of ideas, who are ready for an appropriate reward to depict with their brush everything that is required: all kinds of nakedness for respectable fathers of the family, moralising pictures for their children, battle scenes - during periodic tides of bourgeois chauvinism, religious - in moment of fits of bourgeois hypocrisy. No, old Kramer is incapable of that! He treats the "crowd", in which he includes the bourgeoisie, with aristocratic contempt. "The best," he says, "have to stand aside." "The place you are standing on is sacred ground! This is what you need to tell yourself while working. You others, stay outside, do you understand? There is enough room for the fair bustle. Art is religion." "Everything special, true, deep and strong will be born only in solitude. A true artist is always a hermit." (Italics mine. L. T.) This is the symbol of faith of Michael Kramer as an artist. Is it not here, in the sphere of art, that its struggle against the all-pervading spirit of the bourgeoisness unfolds?

But above all, what is the origin of the Kramer creed? How does art, a purely social category, strive, in the person of Kramer, to emancipate itself from the society that gave life to it?

Pure "art" took possession of the field as a result of very diverse socio-historical conditions, but the formation of it, to which Kramer should be attributed, grew out of the disillusionment of the intellectual aristocracy with the results of bourgeois rule.

The intelligentsia, bound by ideological ties with the bourgeoisie at the time of the birth of bourgeois society, subsequently recoiled from it with their best part. But throughout the rest of the social field, it could not stop her eyes with joy and hope: the classes that were antagonistic to the bourgeoisie were too uncivilised, too far from art, science, philosophy, so that the intelligentsia could merge their own with their historical destinies. There was only one thing left: to get away from the "fair bustle", to withdraw into the sphere of "pure" art. Of course, this is also a protest against an all-pervasive cultural bourgeoisness, but is it not condemned to complete sterility?

All these "hermits" of art need the means of subsistence, which can only come to them from the so-called funds of "national surplus value", and these funds are uncontrollably disposed of by the bourgeoisie.

The whole tragedy of the position of the Kramers lies in the fact that, while despising the bourgeoisie, they must at the same time submit to the demands of its market. The vulgar, unprincipled philistinism indirectly and directly imposes its tastes on them, and they cannot get away from submission to the philistine, for historical fate has tightly drawn these priests of "pure art" to the bourgeoisie in a deadly noose of economic dependence.

Listen to what Lachmann says to Michaline at the sight of a group of revelry bon vivants: "And even if you would fly on the wings of the morning dawn, you will not leave people of this sort ... Heavens! How well it all started! And now you are pounding water for these gentlemen. No not a single thing that we would think of the same way as they. Everything pure, clean, is thrown into the mud. The nastiest rags, the dirtiest shell, the most pitiful rags are declared saints. And people like us has to be silent and slave away for this gang!".

What, then, is art-religion free from unnatural connection with the "crowd" resolved into? Into fiction, into illusion, into self-deception.

Like a kite, it can rise to such heights from which all earthly affairs are drowned in one gray indifference, but, even twisted in the kingdom of clouds, this poor "free" art always remains tied to a strong twine, the "earthly" end of which is tightly clamped in the bourgeois fist.

But one more curious consideration of Mr. Struve awaits us. “We imagine,” he says, “that Hauptmann is God knows how popular in Germany, but meanwhile his new play failed at the first performance, and at the second the small Deutsches Theater was not even full. Hauptmann is becoming (becoming! L. T.) uninteresting to the local public. I think that this is a bad sign for the public, and not for Hauptmann, - the critic thoughtfully remarks and explains: “this respectable public is apparently too dull for such things." (Italics mine.L.T.)

It cannot be said that the explanation for the play's failure by the stupidity of the audience was distinguished by great critical acuteness: in this explanation, one can see the trick of Mr. Struve's own wounded pride: the modern Russian "public", apparently, little inclined to follow Mr. Struve, who has lost the steering wheel and is rushing about from side to side from Marx - to Kant, from Kant - to Lassalle and Fichte, from Fichte - to Nietzsche, too, of course, from this point of view, will be guilty of stupidity. But this oversimplified critical technique, so flattering for the wounded author's pride, is quite fruitless in the sense of clarifying the fate of literary works.

No, it is not the stupidity of the public that is the reason for the failure of Mr. Hauptmann's drama, as well as the new words of Mr. Struve.

The public has its own reasons: the venerable philistinism, of course, does not harbour special affection for the highly talented dramatic writer, who in his "Weavers" gave such a stunning picture of capitalist accumulation in the 40s of the past century, a picture that has not lost its vital significance for the present day, and the public from "dissatisfied" social groups cannot and should not forgive Hauptmann for having left the glorious path on which he once entered with the play in question.

"The audience has such magnificent coarse teeth

and cracks in its silliness hard nuts.

God bless stupidity, it's so brave, so fearless,

it does not allow itself to be intimidated

of high latitudes, but treats mountains

as if they were hills, and places

a little grain of sand so insanely stupid, that the genius stumbles

and makes a somersault."

(T. Hedberg, "Gerhard Grimm". Publishing house "Beginning", 1899, III, 182.)²

When Hauptmann created his "Weavers", his heart beat sympathetically to the best feelings of the working masses. Then he, apparently, was disappointed with this mass, turned his back on it and began to delve into the moments of the spiritual drama of the hero, incomprehensible to the crowd ("The Sunken Bell", "Michael Kramer"), and came in the person of old Kramer to the conviction that "a true artist is always a hermit. "

At the beginning of his still short literary career, Mr. Struve was looking for the fields of application of his writing activity approximately in the same place as Hauptmann, but at an extremely accelerated pace he came to the discovery that even the "dissatisfied" are infected with the "cult of prosperity," "cultural bourgeoisness."

Hauptmann seeks mental rest in the "art-religion", which requires complete hermitism from the poet. Mr. Struve found a calm, perhaps temporary, in the upland spheres of idealistic metaphysics.

This, however, is where the similarities end. Hauptmann is an exceptional artistic force, and the inner drama he experiences, which is embodied in his works, is capable of capturing the reader's attention at times.^*

We will not seek a field for the struggle against the "cultural bourgeois" neither in the sphere of art, renounced from reality, like Hauptmann, nor in the sphere of metaphysics of the transcendent, where Mr. Struve's disenchanted soul found a temporary peace in the society of several gray-haired absolutes. We will find this field within society itself, and we will not stock up on weapons in metaphysical arsenals.