Lev Trockij and Boris Arvatov: a Marxist Formalism?

Abstract

In July 1923, Lev Davidovich Trotsky published an essay in the pages of “Pravda” titled “The Formalist School of Poetry and Marxism” in which he stated that “leaving out of account the weak echoes of prerevolutionary ideological systems, the only theory which has opposed Marxism in Soviet Russia these years is the Formalist theory of Art”.
Trotsky’s text analyzed formalism in a meticulous and detailed manner, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses. While acknowledging the undeniable merits of the formalists in developing a scientific approach to literature, Trotsky identified certain aspects of their theoretical proposal that severely limited its development, including the very idea of art as a phenomenon separate and independent from socioeconomic factors. The formalist method thus appeared in Trotsky’s view as a fundamentally provisional phenomenon.
Trotsky’s critique of formalism thus reveals a common ground with the positions expressed by one of the leading critics of the Levyj Front Iskusstv, Boris Arvatov, in his article “About the Socio-Formal Method”. The constructivist critic presents his proposal for an original method of literary analysis, in which formalist analytical tools are combined with a socio-economic reflection that is firmly grounded in Marxism.
Trotsky and Arvatov’s approach to formalism is strongly influenced by their different conceptual worlds. For this reason, a comparative analysis of their positions cannot ignore an examination of their worldviews. Our first task in this article is to provide a brief overview of Trotsky and Arvatov’s respective Weltanschauung, emphasizing the crucial issue of proletarian culture. Subsequently, we will proceed with the analysis and commentary on their critique of the formalist method, with the aim of observing the clash between Marxism and formalism from a new perspective.