Marxist Theory and Constructivism

馬克思理論與結構主義
方裕民 于 Tempe, Arizona. 1993

This paper focuses on the discussion about the success and failure of
Constructivism, which was mainly influenced by Marxist theory. The furniture
design is also the main point of this paper, but inevitably the concept of art or the
role of artist is largely studied to support the discussion of the furniture design.

In this paper, socio-economic determinism and dialectical process of Marxism are

studied and Constructivism are introduced. The design of worker's club, as an
example of the implementation of Constructivism, are discussed to examine the
theory of Marxism. Finally, the success and failure of Constructivism is stated.

I. Marxist Theory

1.1 Progress and Class struggle

Munro described the Marxist theory about the explanation of progress and
class struggle:

....there is something in the nature of man - his persistent desire for

wealth and power, and his intelligent brain, ever seeking better
ways to secure them - which drives him inevitably to evolve and
progress.... Conditions never remain static; ruling classes weaken
through their own success and luxury; the oppressed rise up to
take their place. There is persistent pressure on rulers and
administrators to improve the techniques of production, war,
government, and education. This results, whether the rulers so
intend it or not, in expanding and strengthening the class of skilled
technicians, intellectuals, and administers, thus eventually
undermining the power of the owners and oppressors:.
 Consequently, the persistent conflicts in history between social classes result
in the progress of the world.

1.2 New Rising Bourgeoisie and Proletarians

The Marxist model of cultural evolution was based upon Hegel's "dialectic," in which

each new thesis gives rise to an antithesis which invariably clash to form a synthesis

(itself a new thesis)(Fig. 1). According to Marxism, the apparently irreconcilable

opposition between two classes, such as a slave and noble class under feudalism, is

eventually settled by absorption of both into a rising bourgeoisie. As the new rulers

become more grasping and try to narrow their circle, a new exploited, propertyless

class of proletarians is produced. Both of these will eventually disappear, according to

the theory, in the classless, communist society of the future. This presumed that the

endlessly repeating dialectic would be interrupted by a revolution of the proletariat

(Fig 2).

Thesis 1 Rulling Class

Antithesis 1 Oppressed Class

Antithesis 2 New class

Synthesis 1

Synthesis 2 Revolt of Proletariat

Fig. 2
Fig. 1
Caotion about Marx's notion of stopping
Caotion about Hegel the cycle through Revolution

In October 1917 came the Russia Revolution which in some degree was
stimulated by Marxism. This revolution was regarded as triumph of the
Russian proletarians. After the revolution, the environment provided the
opportunity to implement Constructivism in art, architecture, and design, all of
which would be in the service of the state.

1.3 Marxist Theory about Art and Culture

Marxist theory about art and culture, as part of a general theory of social
history, was a major influence on Constructivism. It professes a belief in
cultural evolution and progress, as stated in the previous section. Munro's
description of a strictly Marxist aesthetics involves: (a) a strong reliance on
socio-economic explanations; a somewhat monistic approach along
materialistic lines; (b) the acceptance of certain other Marxist principles,
especially the dialectical theory of history and the importance of the class
struggle therein.

Marx's followers applied this approach to the following cultural phenomena:

1. Expression of the interests of class

Aesthetic theories, rules, and principles of art express the interests of one
class or another, usually the ruling one, whether consciously or not. The rise
and fall of competing styles in art and theories in aesthetics are all parts of the
inclusive dialectical process.

2. Healthy art

When there is a new economic basis, with a new class in power, new types of
art develop from it as a superstructure, instead of evolving directly out of a
previous artistic style. If the culture is prosperous and dynamic, a new ideology
will emerge and find new forms of expression in art. Old forms of art, handed
down from a previous or dying economic system, tend to become perfunctory,
formalistic, and lifeless.

The "healthy art", according to Marx's followers, is always derived from basic
utilitarian concerns and other realities of social life; it serves wide human
needs. Hence the artist is respected and self-respecting in a socialist state as
one who fulfills a valuable social function. This is the reason why Russian
Constructivism avoided the traditional use of art materials such as oil and
canvas or pre-revolutionary iconography and tried to construct a new reality for
the new culture.

On the other hand, contemporary Marxists insist that Capitalist art is decadent
and only a worker's revolution can produce a new healthy rebirth of vigor.

3. Secular Materialism
Marx's theory about art was materialistic, not only in its metaphysical basis, but
in regarding the struggle for material, economic wealth and power as the
fundamental determinant of social cultural history. This assertion stimulated
the Constructivist artists to form the concept of "Objectivism" and
"Counter-Objectivism".

II Constructivism

2.1 The Background of Constructivism

Julier has identified Constructivism as "an artistic movement that emerged in

Russia immediately after the Revolution in 1917 and lasted until approximately
1922". To progressive Russia artists, the Revolution was the signal for the
extermination of the hated old order and the introduction of a new one based
on industrialization. According to Gray, these 'leftist' artists:

"leapt to the cause of the Bolshevik Revolution, releasing their frustrated

energies in a nation-wide propaganda war for the new world which they felt to
be imminent. So anxious were they to prove themselves useful contributing
members of this new society...."

Julier has given the definition of Constructivism:

Given its anti-art standpoint, Russian Constructivism avoided the traditional

use of art materials (e.g., oil and canvas) or pre-revolutionary iconography.
Thus, art objects might be constructed out of ready-made materials (e.g.,
woods, metals, photographs or paper). The artists' work is often viewed as a
system of reduction or abstraction, yet in all areas of cultural activity, from
graphic design to film and theater, their aim was to construct a reality by
bringing different elements together.

2.2 The Direction of Constructivism

Although all shared a common enthusiasm, avant-garde Russia artists had

differing points of view about the role of the artist and art in the new
Communist society. Passionate debate, which stimulated the emergence of
the Constructivist ideology, was their main occupation in the early
post-Revolution period. Gray described the two sides of their debate:
"On the one side stood Malevich, Kandinsky and the Pevsner brothers. They
argued that art was essentially a spiritual activity, that its business was to order
man's vision of the world. To organize life practically as an artist-engineer, they
claimed, was to descend to the level of a craftsman, and a primitive one at that.
Art, they claimed, is inevitably, by its very nature, useless, superfluous, over
and above workmanlike functional design. In becoming useful, art ceases to
exist. In becoming a utilitarian design, the artist ceases to provide the source
for new design....

Malevich in particular claimed that industrial design was inevitably dependent

on abstract creation. And it was "a second-hand activity, which drew its being
from idealized studies of the 'contemporary environment' ". To the Marxists,
this assertion led to the disconnection with the real life of society because of
the artist's disagreement with the Productivist view. It was no wonder that this
side of activities were turned down by a majority vote in Inkhuk in 1920.
Following this came an agreement that "pure art" and easel painting were no
longer valid preoccupation.

Opposing the "purist" view, said Gray, were Tatlin and the ardently Communist
Rodchenko who:

"insisted that the artist must become a technician; that he must learn to use the
tools and materials of modern production in order to offer his energies directly
for the benefit of the Proletariat. The artist-engineer must build harmony in life
itself, transforming work into art, and art into work. 'Art into life!' was his slogan,
and that of all the future Constructivists....

This side of opinion became the mainstream idea of Constructivists, who

adopted the slogan "Art into life."

2.3 The Content of Constructivism

Marxist theories about art and culture determined the content of

Constructivism. Discussions revolved around three topics: political motivation,
counter-objectivism (Materialism), and style.

1. Political motivation
Constructivist asserted that all artists should now "go into the factory, where
the real body of life is made". Thus, the traditional concept of art providing an
exalting experience was to be discarded; instead it was linked with mass
production and industry and subsequently identified with a new social and
political order. Constructivism, according Julier, therefore had a clear political
motivation, since:

"it was about putting art to the service of constructing a new society. It is easy
in retrospect to interpret their aims as being those of artists wanting to become
'design' in its modern sense had fully emerged, their activities took on different
terms, the most common one being 'production art'.

This clear political motivation led to implementation of the Marxist theory. Tatlin,
for instance, devised and built several variants of a particular form of oven,
which was intended to combine maximum heat output with minimum fuel
consumption. Economics was a Marxist concern.

Another demonstration of Marxist ideology in design was Rodchenko's

Workers' Club designed and installed in the Russian Pavilion at the Exposition
Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925
(Figs 3, 4). This was one of the earliest attempts to design an entire
Constructivism interior environment. The concept of a workers' club emerged
in the 1920s as a "center of the communist way of life" which was not to be
devoted exclusively to political activities. It must also provide amusement and
relaxation. The club must, if it can, show how the new life must be built. It is
this ideological concept which underlies Rodchenko's practical demonstration
of just how such a club should be organized in accordance with Constructivist
principles."

The design of the club was based on real and existing as opposed too
hypothetical or potential material conditions. Hence its organization, and the
design of the furniture it contained was based on two principles: Economy in
the use of the floor of the club room and of the space which the object
occupied with its maximum usability. This involved devising wooden furniture
for simplicity of the use, standardization and the necessity of being able to
expand or contact the numbers of its parts. This was achieved by making
many of the items collapsible so that they could be removed and easily stored
when not in use, such as for example the tribune, folding screen, display board
and bench. Intended to cater for every type of activity and all aspects of club
life, the club contained chairs and tables, cabinets for exhibiting books and
journals, storage space for current literature, display windows for posters,
maps and newspapers, and a Lenin corner. For talks, meetings and
demonstrations of the' living newspapers' there was an orator's tribune (tribune
dlya oratora) with movable screens for films and slides.

Fig 3 Alexander Rodchenko. Worker's Club, Fig 4 Alexander Rodchenko. Multi-purpose

Russian Pavilion, Paris, 1925 ed. furniture.

2. Counter-Objectivism (Materialism)

Marxist Materialism leads to the emphasis on the concept of "object". And the
dialectic process about object forms one of the basic concept of
Constructivism.

The 'object' might equally well be a poem, a house or a pair of shoes. An

'object' was the result of an organized pursuit towards a utilitarian end, of the
aesthetic, physical and functional qualities of the materials involved, whose
form would emerge in the process of this pursuit.

Gray indicated that "no sooner had 'The Object' become defined as an
ideology than a reaction arose against it." This 'Counter-Object' movement
became known as Constructivism. It represented the change-over from the
'laboratory' stage to a program for active production based on the experiments
of the last four years after the Russia Revolution, such as Tatlin's oven designs
and Rodchenko's Workers' Club.

3. The fundamentals of style

Lissitzky denounced the bourgeois solution to the design of mass-produced

objects because it consisted, at that time, merely of applying a style in the form
of classic, gothic or rococo patterns. Artists do not need the external artistic
qualities of "fashion', but the realizations of the profound bases of style.

Rejecting the application of ornamentation, Lissitzky defined these

fundamentals of style by examining a series of objects and concluding that
there were five qualities which produced their expressive qualities:

1. They represent themselves, they do not depict something completely

different - THEY ARE HONEST.

2. The eye takes them in as a whole - THEY ARE PRECISE.

3. They are simple, not from any poverty of formative energy or imaginative
fantasy, but from richness, striving towards laconism - THEY ARE
ELEMENTARY.

4. Their forms, as a whole and in detail, could be made from circles and lines -
THEY ARE GEOMETRICAL.

5. They were made by man's hands by means of the working parts of the
modern machine - THEY ARE INDUSTRIAL.

El Lissitzky also concluded that the above qualities for furniture design: It
comprised the expressivity of its structure, volume, the combination of volumes
and spatial profiles, scale, proportions, modules and rhythms. These factors
operate within an examination of the artistic factors, the properties of a
material, texture and color, always with ultimate reference to the function.
Working in this way the designer could produce objects which would be
expressive of new Soviet life.

The example for executing this principle was the furniture design of the
Rodchenko's Workers' Club. His furniture consisted of strictly rectilinear
combinations of Euclidean geometric forms and the honest use of materials.
An open skeletal framework - evident in many of the pieces demonstrated -
made them exceeding light and the jointing permitted folding. The furniture
was made of wood so that their simple forms could be produced in the small
low-tech woodshops formed all over the U.S.S.R and not requiring an
expensive mass-production line. These reflected his rethinking of structure,
strict economy in the use of materials, functionalism both of use and of
production and the elaboration of space-saving devices. The furniture was
painted in four colors, white, red, gray, black, either alone or on combination,
and this scheme seems to have become a kind of color-canon within
Constructivism.

2.4 The Ending of Constructivism

The successful infusion of the Marxist theory into Constructivism has been
stated in the previous sections. The major factors that led to the ending of
Constructivism were:

1. The lack of practical activities of Constructivism

The Constructivists failed to put their theories fully into practice. According to
Marxist theory, the artists should take good models which have been realized
in the world of furniture, and should learn to make them accurately and firmly
from the standpoint of the material used, its overall finish and its durability, If
the artists have become good humble carpenters.

Lissitzky reviewing his own activity in 1940, he criticized himself and other
artists for having approached the problem of furniture design too theoretically,
paying more attention to drawing designs than to the practical activity of
actually making furniture:

"We approached the work problematically and we ignored the concrete reality
of carpentry. If we did spend money, then it was on lectures and designs and
not on building prototypes... True some artists and architects talked about the
'question' of furniture in the first years of the Revolution. But I know of none
who actually made a chair or a table...

The Constructivists produced many projects, drawings, and models,

nevertheless, these were never put into mass production, not even
Rodchenko's Worker's Club. The idea of contributing to the new society was
never fully accomplished in Russian industrial design during their early period.

2. The control over the artists

Ironically, the implementation of Marxist theory by artists not only led to the
emergence of Constructivism, but the strict execution of Marxism by the
Communist Party also resulted in the ending of Constructivism.

Bogdanov, the chief theorist of the Proletariat movement, proclaimed the

proletarian artists to be an autonomous body, independent of the Party. But
this ideological thinking was turn down by Lenin, who insisted that all
organizations should be under the central Party administration. This control
could also avoid the emergence of new independent non-productive class of
artists. Since the conflicts increased, Constructivism was progressively
superseded in Russia by Social Realism in the graphic arts. It was officially
decided that the workers could only understand and respond to a sort of
realistic calendar art.

3. The abstraction of Constructivist works

Bogdanov claimed that and "The Proletariat must have its own "class" art in
order to organize its forces in the struggle for socialism". Contradictorily, by
following the Marxist theory the Constructivists produced many art works
which the workers could not understand or appreciate because of the
abstraction of the works. Even the furniture in the Worker's Club, the pursuit of
strictly rectilinear combinations of Euclidean geometric forms and the honest
use of materials, seemed to be too abstract to the proletariat. It is no doubt that
the experiments in pure visual form have been denounced as "decadent
formalism" and "escape form social reality." It is also reported that Lenin said
that such a official Proletarian art was both ideologically and practically harmful.
All these ideological and political factors led to the failure of Constructivism.

III Conclusions

Marxist theory stimulated the emergence of Constructivism. It also established

the strong motivation of artists and designers to work with and the new concept
toward the materials and structure. The Worker's Club is an excellent example.
The ideological thinking about "the expression of the interests of class", the
dialectic process about "Object", "Art into life!" are also the successful
experiments. But in the other hand, the censorship toward the artists, the
excessive abstraction, and the lack of practical activities, resulted in the
eventual rejection of Constructivism by the leader of communism.

Ironically, Constructivist influence on the Modern Movement in the West was

purely aesthetic and lost its holistic political edge upon reception in the West.
The term Constructivism was subsequently used to refer to any design that
showed geometry ,structure, abstraction, logic or order. It is eventually the
style created by the Constructivists was sold to the West and consumed by the
Marxist's enemy- Capitalists.

References

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Baltimore, Maryland. 1972.

Bideleux, Robert. Communism and Development. Methuen & Co. New York,
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Gray, Camilla. The Russian Experiment In Art 1863-1922. Thames And

Hudson. 1962.

Hauser, Arnold. The Social History of Art. Volume 4. Vintage Books. 1951.

Julier, Guy. 20th Century Design And Designers. The Thames And Hudson.
1993.

Lodder, Christina. Russian Constructivism. Yale University Press. New Haven

And London. 1983.

Munro, Thomas. Chapter VII, The Marxist Theory of Art History -

Socio-Economic Determinism and the Dialectical Process. Evolution In The
Arts - and Other Theories of Culture History. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York.
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