point of existing world), or of revolutionary (which, the better to change the world, requires an exact analysis of the laws which govern its moveSpecifically, we cannot remain indifferent to ment). the intellectual conditions activity takes place, nor should we fail to pay all respect LO those particular laws intellectual creation. In the contemporary world we must recognize the ever more widespread destruction of those conditions under which intellectual creation is possible. this follows of necessity degradation not only of the work of the specifically artistic" personality.
for liberty, however superficial, has reduced those who still consent to take up status of domestic servants of the régime, whose task it is to glorify it on order, according to the worst possible aesthetic conventions. believed it is the same in the Soviet Union, where Thermidorean reaction is now reaching its climax.
without saying that we do not identify ourselves with the currently fashionable catchword: It goes • Neither fascism nor communism!' which suits the temperament of the Philistine, conservative and frightened, remnants of the 'democratic' past. is not content to play models but rather insists on expressing the inner needs of man and of mankind in its time-true art is unable not to be revolutionary, not to aspire to a complete and radical reconstruction of society.
creation from the chains which bind it, and to allow it must do, were it only to all mankind to raise itself to those heights which only isolated geniuses have achieved in the past.
recognize that only the social revolution can sweep reject all solidarity with the bureaucracy now in clean the path for a new culture.
control of the Soviet Union, it is precisely because, in our eyes, it represents, not communism, but its most treacherous and dangerous enemy.
The totalitarian régime of the USSR, through the so-called 'cultural' organization it controls in other countries, has spread over the entire spiritual value. world a deep twilight hostile to every A twilight of filth and blood in which, disguised as intellectuals and artists, those men steep themselves who have made of servility a of lying for pay a custom, and of the palliation of crime a source of pleasure. career, art of Stalinism mirrors with a blatancy unexampled in history their efforts to put a good face on their mercenary profession. The repugnance which this shameful negation of of art inspires in the artistic world—a negation which even slave states have never dared principles to carry so far—should give rise to an active, uncompromising condemnation.
and artists is one of the forces which can usefully contribute to the discrediting and régimes which are destroying, along with the right of knowledge Вложим which creative which govern From of art but also The régime И СДЕЛАЕМ.
ВЫВЕРЕНpen or brush to the НУЮ If reports may be shibboleth clinging to the tattered activity.
True art, which variations on ready-made of State', the themes of art.
This deliver intellectual pretext allow itself to be placed under bonds. We those who urge us, If, however, we complete freedom for art. working sort The official material production, Liberty should from the first be established.
from above! Only on The opposition of writers before in history. overthrow of message and the material advantages.
-АМЕРИКИ genius.
РАБОТУ the КАК ХРОНО METP Marxists Joseph Stalin Early Soviet poster Oliver. Russia, unite ith to ste pulse the Relation in Savio it to the pulse of American life, and do our work like a chronometer!'] It is more than ever fitting to use this statement against those who would regiment intellectual activity in the direction of ends foreign to sidies. itself, and prescribe, in the guise of so-called reasons by fascism as The free choice of these themes and the absence of all restrictions on the range of his exploitations — these are possessions which the artist has a right to claim as inalienable. In the realm of artistic creation, the imagination must escape from all constraint and must under no To whether for today or for tomorrow, to consent that art should submit to a discipline which we hold to be radically incompatible with its nature, we give a flat refusal and we repeat our deliberate intention of standing by the formula once.
We recognize, of course, that the revolutionary publications State has the right to defend itself against the participate counter-attack of the bourgeoisie, even when this drapes itself in the flag of science or art. But there of action. is an abyss between these enforced and temporary measures of revolutionary self-defence and the pretension to lay commands on intellectual creation. If, for the better development of the forces of the revolution must build a socialist régime with centralized control, to develop intellectual creation an anarchist régime of individual national Federation.
No authority, no dictation, not the least trace of orders Our aims:
La base of friendly cooperation, without constraint from outside, will it be possible for scholars and artists to carry out their tasks, which will be more far-reaching than ever It should be clear by now that in defending freedom of thought we have no intention of justifying degrading servility which these organizations exact from him in exchange for certain He must understand that his place is elsewhere, not among those who betray the cause of the revolution and mankind, but among those who with unshaken fidelity bear witness to the revolution, among those who, for this reason, are alone able to bring it to fruition, and along with it the ultimate free expression of all forms of human The aim of this appeal is to find a common ground on which may be reunited all revolutionary writers and artists, the better to serve the revolution by their art and to defend the liberty of that art itself against aesthetic, philosophical and political tendencies of usurpers of the revolution. We believe that the most varied sort can find here a common ground.
can march here hand in hand with anarchists, provided both parties uncompromisingly reject the reactionary police patrol spirit represented and by his benchman Garcia We know very well that thousands on thousands of isolated thinkers and artists are today scattered throughout the world, their voices drowned out by the loud choruses of well-disciplined liars. Hundreds of small local magazines are trying to gather youthful forces about them, seeking new paths and not subEvery progressive tendency in art is destroyed "degenerate'. Every free creation is called "fascist' by the Stalinists. Independent revolutionary art must now gather its forces for the struggle against reactionary persecution. It must' proclaim aloud the right to exist. Such a union of forces is the aim of the International Federation o Independent Revolutionary Art which we believe it is now necessary to form.
We by no means insist on every idea put forth in this manifesto, which we ourselves consider only a first step in the new direction. We urge every friend and defender of art, who cannot but realize the necessity for this appeal, to make himself heard at We address the same appeal to all those of the left wing which are ready to in the creation of the International Federation and to consider its task and its methods When a preliminary international contact has been established through the press and by correspondence we will proceed to the organization of local and national congresses on a modest scale. The final step will be the assembly of a world congress which will officially mark the foundation of the InterThe independence of art-for the revolution.
- The revolution-for the complete liberation of art!
ANDRE BRETON DIEGO RIVERA
DWARF LORD MAYOR'S MESSAGE FOR THE DECADE A piece of drivel from Sir Ian Bowater, Lord Mayor of London since last November:
"In an era when the word "permissive" is on the lips of so many people, when newspapers delivered into this Mansion House (the Lord Mayor's multi-million-pound residence/ print on their front pages in disgusting detail some sordid affair; when liberty as we understand it turns in favour of license:
"When the stage is bastardised and cheapened by the introduction of plays which, in the pretence of being works of art, are in fact nothing more than a seduction of people's morals in favour of money; when books can be written. on subjects which should never be discussed outside the clinic-and then a mental clinic at that:
"When all these things happen, when the thugs can go easily and now without any fear of any ultimate sanction and slash people down in the streets-people who are completely defenceVon Moos at home, the Boss of the Swiss Dept of Justice and Police enjoys a typically Swiss working day with his family and their narrow anti-Semitic prejudices.
Councillor Morris, Tory Chairman of Islington Council told a meeting of angry people who were demanding that the public baths in Essex Road should not be closed down that there were other baths within a bus-ride or two, and DWARF The Black Dwarf 30th January 1970 The bourgeoisie love Switzerland. Clean, decent, healthy, hardworking, it is a living advertise. ment for capitalism. It is indeed. Switzerland is small, mean, and anti-Semitic. It lives off ill. paid foreign labour, housed in vile conditions, and from the gold and dollars that criminals and gangsters pile up in the Zurich vaults.
Anti-Semitic?
The Zurich review Neutralitat has recently revealed that Ludwig von Moos, head of the Department of Justice and Police of Switzerland, and ex-President (a rotating post), was editor of the Obwaldner Volksfreund when it was publishing anti-Semitic articles during the war. Among other things, the Volksfreund wrote: "In Germany the Jews had such a disastrous influence on the country's political, eco nomic and spiritual life that the persecutions must be considered as a reaction against this un desirable activity." The accusations are precise -and have not been denied. The government has claimed that "the quotations give a deformed picture of the truth. They have to be put in their context of the time" (sic). But what about now? Switzerland is still governed by a racist ruling class. This is the context of our time.
Marxist Youth Journal (Youth Bulletin of IMG). 2nd issue. Articles on the Worker-Student mics. Price 1don N.7.
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of Hitler, now that it has rid Germany of all those artists whose work expressed the slightest sympathy
КИЗА an increasingly manifest