Party-mindedness

Socialist Realism was, above all, a political-aesthetic doctrine based upon certain principles of the artistic method , such as ideological commitment ideinost ), party-mindedness partiinost ), popular spirit narodnosf), historicism , and typicality . 

Party-mindedness is the basis for any art because art is social, it is necessarily class-oriented and thus it participates in class struggle on the side of one party or another. Communist party-mindedness lies at the foundation of Soviet art. In other words, art must openly follow party leadership, be directed by the party, and serve the party s political goals. And since the Communist party expresses the interests of the progressive class , adherence to it means adherence to the only true historical legitimacy . At the same time, the interpretation of this legitimacy is exclusively controlled by the main party priest - the party leader. 

Socialist Realist novels are also like the classic epic in terms of their social functions and the dynamic of the tradition s evolution. Central to the Roman epic tradition is, as Franco Moretti writes, its very solid link between epic and power ." In the case of the Socialist Realist novel, this link with power was mandated to be more than just very solid , but actually ineluctable (this is in effect the meaning of its base principle of party-mindedness [partiinost ]). Christopher Phillips identifies the epic impulse, the drive to thrust oneself into a tradition of canonical authors for the purpose of using that tradition s cultural capital to forward a career, a political viewpoint, an aesthetic credo, or an act of devotion ." The Socialist Realist novelist, in producing a variant on the masterplot, was forwarding all four. 

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