A response to “Protests mount in Germany and internationally against boycott of Russian artists and culture” by Sybille Fuchs:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/04/30/ekif-a30.html

“Contrary to their deep roots in mankind’s yearning for peaceful and humane social relations, art and culture as a whole are being turned into weapons of war by those responsible for cultural policy.”

The pacifism of the WSWS puts it into opposition against the Marxist movement, since Marxism has always sided with the revolutionary violence of the working class in its pursuit of freedom from slavery under capitalism. Lenin called for turning the imperialist war into a revolutionary war, and Marx supported the Paris Commune in its destruction of French architecture in Paris. This destruction of priceless of art had a specific purpose, the saving of priceless political leadership from inhumane conditions, unjust arrests, and torture in prison, as well as the policy of extermination of the supporters of the new government using artillery, mass shootings, etc. The organization of the masses for revolution is a priceless asset which the state destroys without mercy. The torture and murder of political leaders, too, deprives the working class of priceless progressive content and talent, to which they have a legal and moral right. Marxism, basing itself on scientific rather than utopian principles, argues that the working class must destroy potentially priceless works of art as a means of balancing the power against the reaction and the army.

Only then can they even begin to negotiate with the old leadership of the old state, since only then do they have enough power to overcome the immediate solution that comes to the minds of the state and ruling class: arrest and torture their leaders and exterminate the people involved. The moralizing over this issue gives the power to the ruling class, who then tramples on the very morals that protected them by boycotting Russian artists, even friends of the Tsar like Tchaikovsky. The WSWS must abandon this pacifism, which they want to use against the workers of course while excusing the capitalists, and turn these cultural weapons into the cultural weapons of the revolutionary army. The blacklisting by Hollywood and its political plagiarism of socialist artists shows that the bourgeoisie has sided with their own privileges and “rights” against the peaceful, gradual development of art advocated by WSWS utopianism. Only a socialist program to fund the arts will arm the working class with the cultural weapons they need to defend the revolution and establish a society based on majority control over the means of production, including the means of creative production.

The defense of culture depends first of all on the defense of revolutionary leadership. Without revolutionary leaders, the people will not have a choice over whether to remain with the current state or switch over to a state that better fits their needs. Deprived of this choice, they suffer under slavery until they destroy the old system which keeps them in chains. Allowing art to decorate those chains will not make them unbreakable, and the WSWS should not contribute to any illusion that they might. This will only make the destruction far greater when the people realize that it is a legitimate means by which to control the illegitimate behavior of the ruling class and the state.

Furthermore, we should not see art which decorates chains as “free” while art made by men in chains is “weapons.” Free art would not appeal to an oppressive minority but to the capacity of the majority to rule themselves. All art under capitalism will either openly work towards the end of capitalism and thus appear as a weapon to the state, or it will function as a weapon of the ruling class with which to conceal and orchestrate the chains and the weapons of the bourgeoisie.