Art and Literature

Robert Burns - Man, poet and revolutionary

Robert Burns (1759-1796) the poet needs no further introduction. But Robert Burns the revolutionary democrat is another matter. It is a matter of great regret that nowadays it seems to have become the fashion among certain left circles in Scotland to renounce Burns. To some degree this is understandable. After his death, Burns was hijacked by the Scottish Establishment, who turned him into a harmless icon. On Burns' night each January, upper class Scotsmen in kilts (!) make use of the great man's anniversary to eat and drink to excess, declaim poems to the haggis, and generally make fools of themselves. This grotesque parody would, of course, have had Rabbie Burns splitting his sides with laughter. His poems, his politics, his philosophy, his life and his death - all bear witness against these stage Scotsmen and hypocritical Pharisees.

‘A slice of bloody cake for all! ...That’s what Brian Clough says!’

A review of The Damned United by David Peace

Why would socialists be interested in this book? Because it is a fictionalised account of a period in the life of one of Englands’ greatest football managers – the man destined to be England manager, but who never was.But not only was ‘Cloughie’ (Brian Clough) a great football manager, he was also a man who constantly challenged and criticised the footballing establishment; the club directors and chairmen, the FA and the powers that be generally.

Capitalism and Art, or they know the price, but not the value!

A contribution by Mordachai Peargut.

Capitalist fetishism and the decay of art

Someone has said that one of the criteria for winning the Turner Prize is not to be understood. The philosophy behind this is: the less I am understood, the better the art.Yet the kind of art that wins the Turner competition also has merit. They have the merit of holding up a mirror to the society that produced them, and saying: “This is what you are, and this is all you are capable of producing.” These works point out to us that beneath the sleek, comfortable bourgeois surface of modern society, horrors are lurking: dead vermin, murder, death and decay.

Art and Politics In Our Epoch

“Art can neither escape the crisis nor partition itself off. Art cannot save itself. It will rot away inevitably — as Grecian art rotted beneath the ruins of a culture founded on slavery — unless present-day society is able to rebuild itself. This task is essentially revolutionary in character. For these reasons the function of art in our epoch is determined by its relation to the revolution.” Leon Trotsky, 1938.

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