The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 13, 1929, Page 4

D Josephson’s Book on Zola hew Com- ZOLA AND HIS TIME, by Josephson. The Macaulay pany. $5. Reviewed by SOL AUERBACH. | MILE ZOLA, born of a bourgeois | family, at the age of eight saw] the workers in Marseilles revolt | against the bourgeois republic of 1848 they themselves had helped to create. He lived in the period of the expansion of the French bour- geoisie and its imperialism, a period punctuated by sporadic uprisings of workers, marked by the growth of the socialist party and the trade unions. He lived through the war with Germany and the Paris Com-| mune. He took a leading part in the Dreyfus affair, which developed into a fight between reactionaries and radicals. Throughout this whole veriod, Zola, as a writer and public fighter, was a bourgeois liberal, at- taining the highest point which lib- cralism could reach in his famous document on the Dreyfus affair, “I Aceuse.” © otk Biography to a great extent has developed into well erary expression of what was hap- | | pening in society. While Josephson | can disengage the literary move-| ments and give their qualities, he cannot give their social significance. | He does not see that Hugo died a} ratural death when the French revo- lution had played out its initial im- petus, when the bourgeoisie had al- | |ready ensconced itself as the master class, when its struggle against the former ruler was over and it no longer pulsated with the roman- ticism that marked the revolution- | ary era and its struggle against in- itial difficulties. That individual | bourgeois romanticist was to appear in the future only as a decadent, in the form.of a Baudelaire, who could | find no solace for his individual idealism in the era of individual ma- terialism and ran from the scene al- | together. The romanticism gave | way to the realistic bourgeois nov- | els and stories of Balzac, Flaubert | and Maupassant. The Mourgaciste | had won its position and now it was to be treated as an accomplished fact. Its institutions, mannerisms, | morals had become “life” and the AILY WORKER. NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1929 ] The New Plays | “THE CAMEL THROUGH THE NEEDLE’S EYE,” by Frantisek | Langer, will be presented by t Martin Beck Theater. Moeller. Westley, , Claude Rains, Cat! nedy, and Norman Williams. | | head the cast. ® The play was adapted and staged by Philip | The cast includes: Miriam Hopkins, Elliot Cabot, Helen| Henry Travers, Joseph Kilgour, Albert Bruning, Morris | “THE LOVE DUEL,” by Lili Hatvany, at the Ethel Barrymore Theater | Monday evening, with Ethel Barrymore as the star. | porting cast are Louis Calhern, Henry Stephenson, Ferdinand Got-| tschalk, Dorothy Hall, and Martin Burton. “BEFORE YOU’RE 25,” a comedy by Kenyon Nicholson, will open Tuesday night at Maxine Elliott’s Theater. 1 Glendinning, Mildred McCoy, Josephine Hull, and Fritz Williams, Nobility in ‘ | “Bird In Hand,” John Drink- |water’s comedy now playing at the | Booth Theatre after a year’s run in London, is frankly a glorification of the British nobility. Handled with a dexterity to be expected from a man so accustomed to the dramatic | medium, the play has its periods of | | hoiste: mirth, while the facile} | |and witty conversation adds to the | lexcellence of the production. he Theater Guild on Monday at the | herine Calhoun Doucet, Mary Ken- In the sup- Eric Dressler, Ernest | The writing of this play was a big leap for Drinkwater, from bio- |graphical tragedy to petty comedy, but his familiarity with his medium Cy Chinese Student Poems Give Voice to Revolt Poems of the Chinese Revolution by Hsi-Tseng Tsiang. Published by the Author, Columbia Uni- versity, N. Y. $0.25. Every worker interested aspirations of the Chinese masses should read Poems of the Chinese Revolution by Hsi-Tseng Tsiang, published by the author, Columbia -written gossip,/sveat French novelists of the 19th | University. full of interesting moments and| century accepted it and wrote about | ‘The poems in this small book are facts, sidelights on personality, quips, pranks, eccentricities. Bio- graphers embroider bourgeois litera- ture today by spinning all facts they can find into a finely worked lace : * Naturalism was a third develop- ment which marked the birth of present day liberalism, and runs * * filled with the spirit of class strug- gle. From a purely technical point, the poems leeve much to be desired in the way of rhythm and rhyme, but are very readable and hold one’s devoid of that essential quality that Parallel with reformism as a social | attention from first to last. makes biography great, as consis: phijosophy, The petty bourgeoisie, of The poem “Chinaman Laundry- tent and worked-out a point of view|Which Zola was the intellectual rep-! man” perhaps is the best of the col- as is necessary for the writing of resentative, was caught between | lection. The “White Terror” also history. To take a figure like Zola|two fires; on one hand the growing |j, a masterpiece of proletarian out of the nineteenth century, with- out showing the social base of his greatness, without discussing his naturalism as a social phenomenon, | leaves him hanging in the air. | While Josephson does in a sense add something to the understanding of the man by his tremendous collec- | tion of facts and imaginative organ- | ization, his book still remains very refined gossip. It is interesting and | enlightening to read this massive organization of incidents in the life | cf Zola if you discount the bourgeois interpretation of the individual. There are many significant facts re- corded as, for instance, that after | the Paris Commune had been de- Zeated in a hell of bloodshed Zola had remarked: “I am sorry all the imbeciles were not killed.” That as a result of the Dreyfus Affair his honesty and sincerity in his partial | struggle against the reactionaries | had roused the workers to such a pitch that at his funeral they sang the “International,” and were imme- | diately ridden down by the police of the government whose very of- ficials were at the funeral. The various dramatic incidents of his life, his trials, persecution by the government, his method of writ- ing’and working out his noveis, are | also treated more from the point of | view of color and making good read- | ing than from the point of view of | understanding Zola in relation to his | times. It is in a: somewhat flippant manner that Josephson heads _ his chapters and pokes fun at Zola} without ever fully understanding him. He dismisses naturalism sum- marily without trying to explain its | power of big capital, on the other, the proletarian’ masses. It would rather become the helpmates of the former than be wiped out by the latter. It wanted peace and order at all costs, which meant the pro- longation of the status quo. In or- der to obtain its much beloved peace and order it would grant the prole- tariat reforms, it would attempt to pacify it by giving it relief. It would be the arbitrator between its mas- ters and the working class. It would keep all the forms of bourgeois democracy and justice and defend the principles of “justice and truth” se as to prolong the bourgeois legal institutions. In literature this was expressed | by naturalism. Zola, the trath- | seeking bourgeois, smells out all the | sores of the social order, presents them in all their horrible details through the carbon-paper of bour- | weois ideology, He does not know details that he has observed. them down in a passive way. would like to see them changed, but changed within the old shell. That | is as far as his truth-seeking goes. | In his later books he develops a mild sort of socialism which proposes so- cial peace by a series of reforms, by class-collaboration. * * In the case of Dreyfus he played a similar role. A member of his | own class, a Jew, had been made roots, its death and the movement |the scapegoat in order to protect in literature which followed it. The |the “integrity” of the army. Later bourgeois reading public—its more |the case developed into a struggle serious section—cannot face an-|between royalist,-militarist and re- alysis; it demands “light” stuff,|actionary elements against minori- pleasant reading, cynicism, pessimis- | ties, political and racial, Zola knew tically veneered surfaces and lace Dreyfus to be innocent. He fought | yeality covers. The liberal writers, | ever aware of the “needs” cf the enoch, trying to keep abreast with the “currents,” themselves a part of this class, give what is wanted. | ee eS Take one point—his evaluation of | Naturalism. Josephson fails to see | its vast significance in the bourgeois | world of the 19th century and its | effect on the literature of today. | While Zola’s great contemporary, Tolstoy, was withdrawing from the reality of tsarist tyranny and the exploitation of the masses into,a thaven cf passive resistance and “brotherly love” for fear of what the masses could no in concerted ac- tion, and insofar as this view al- lowed giving the reality of the Rus- sian scene. Zola had been more open to the sccial influences. Greatly af- fected by the wonders of science and by Taine who in a confused way recognized the imnortance of the so- cial environment, he had a program stion in writing. Zola felt con- | ed ef the important role her- edity and environment played on the petions of an individual as pre- feribed by the confused pyscho- | sociolory of the bourgeois scholars, ond he set out to rive things “as they are” in all their minutest de- tails. Followed the development of the+ method known as “naturalism.” In pursuit of his “details” Zola stopped at nothine—the cruel hor- revs of war. sex life, slavery in the mines, nrostitutes, corruption, pov- erty, all the evils of capitalist so- siety. He wrote a novel a year, ‘pending most of the vear “investi- eating,” by visiting the scenes of his books. observing people in all walks of life and taking notes. He would then build un his novel full of micrescopic details. ‘The result was a novel, not alto- ether representing things “as they | sre” but as seen by the “searcher | for truth” who had viewed from the | outside and left the organization of | his novel to his imagination. These novels shocked the bourgeoisie, and the whole life of Zola was a life of literary and court feuds, in which brought his sharp pen into ser- | with eftect, _Zola’s books were the best sellers the century. He came as an anti- te to the romanticism of Hugo! the insipid romanticists who fol- him. But the coming of na- lism on the field was the lit- jinal script. the case to save the honor of the man and the honor of France—in other words, to give the army and the capitalist state the quality of | integrity which it does not have. Jean Jaures, the socialist, also fought on the side of Dreyfus, but he used the opportunity to educate | the workers into class-consciousness, | No one can say that Zola did not fight for his principles, although they were the principles of a bour- | geois liberal; although not fighting | with the workers, he fought the re- action. Zola remains, however, as a great French novelist, who has had a tre- mendous influence on contemporary literature. Josephson does not give him that credit, for he does not see | that his art has opened the way for the revolutionary realism of today. Not content with a passive accept- | ance of detail, the revolutionary writer today will mold his facts into an expressive whole. Naturalism in the hands of a class-conscious worker becomes a new realism—the realism of the class struggle which tekes the “details” of a Zola and| wilfully uses them to express the struggle and ideal of a class. “Prisoners of the Sea”. In Premiere at 5th Ave. Playhouse Sovkino’s latest release, a sister picture to “Potemkin,” entitled “Prisoners of the Sea,” will receive its first presentation in this country at the Fifth Avenue Playhouse be- ginning today. Like “Potemkin,” this film deals with the navy and its personnel. In “Prisoners of the Sea,” however, special phase of the Soviet navy is dramatized. This phase is the submarine, The film reaches its climax when a submarine of the Soviet navy sinks to the bottom of the sea with all hands on board en- trapped in the manner of the ill- fated S-4, “Prisoners of the Sea” was pro- duced by H. Werner from an orig- It is enacted by O. Knipper-Tchechow, I Strauch, N. Kutusow, and A. Kramow. munist Mai poetry. Upton Sinclair in his introduction states, “What he has written is not perfect poetry, but is a perfect voice. of Young China, protesting against the lot of the under-dog.” This a correct statement of the poems. I have found them an in- spiration, for they are filled with the determination of the Chinese revolution, which in spite of its be- trayers, its Chiang Kai-Sheks, is advancing against imperialist rule. Under the leadership of the Com- munists, a new day dawns for China. With revolutionists who have | the spirit shown in these poems, one |last concert of the season an all- | cannot be pessimistic as to China’s/ Russian evening. future. —PAUL CROUCH. HANS WIENER TO APPEAR AT PEOPLE'S SYMPHONY On account of Michio Ito’s west- \the life of the masses, he knows only |«tn tour being extended, it will be He impossible for him to get back to ‘does not feel the blind impetus of | New York in time to appear for the the working class towards doing People’s Symphony Artists’ Course | away with its exploitation by over- on Friday evening, April 26, at the |No. 6, throwing the system. He has caught | Washington ' 0 |details of this exploitation and puts The performance that evening will|sky; Arias from the Snow Maiden He |take place with the following ar- Irving High School. tists: Hans Wiener and Vera Mil- cinovic, who have prepared an in- teresting program. The program will be announced at a later date. in the | enabled him to make the leap not enly safely but with great success, Except for the tedious length of the play, which the author insists on dragging out until the hero and} heroine are in each others’ arms, alone on the stage, embracing in} eighteenth century fashion, there are few faults to be found in the production, |“Krassin” Film at the 55th Street Playhouse “Krassin: The Rescue Ship,” the official motion-picture of the Soviet Expedition depicting in actual and authentic detail the Polar drama which recently held the attention of | the world, is to be the feature at the 55th Street Playhouse this Satur-| But it is significant to note that day. The film tells in graphic form | whereas all the characters are con- all that took place from the moment | torted and lampooned a bit out of that the chunky Sovict ice-breaker | real life, the character of the lord left Leningrad until she picked up|is idealized to the same proportion every living survivor of the ill-|#s the others are made grotesque. | fated Italia and nosed her way back | Outside of the physical limitations through hazardous ice-floes to Len- | of the actor who plays the part (he ingrad where her crew with Profes-|is a little florid-faced pudgy man), | sor Samoilovich, the leader of the the lord is made to appear more expedition, and Pilot Tschuchnowski, human, more modern and more “lib- | the “Red Tagle” were given a heroic eral” than all the rest. And. this and enthusiastic reception. idealization on Drinkwater’s part | “Krassin” was produced by Sov- | !udicrously makes the lord the cham- kino and photographed by Wilhelm |Pion of the cause of alliance be-| Bluystein, Ignati Valentsy and Eu- | tween the nobility and the peasantry | gene Borgorov, cameramen on board |in England, the more ludicrous to of the ice-breaker Krassin, Maly-| those who are in any way familiar ghin and Persous. The editorial! with the rigid caste system in Great | supervision for the American ver- | Britain. : ; sions was handled by Vilhjalmur | Old Mr. Greenleaf, owner of a Stefansson, noted explorer. j Small inn situated in the country The same program includes aj °Utside of London, is a foolish man, | Charlie Bowers comedy: “Pleasure |/@ss-conscious in a negative way, | Hunting,” a scenic; and “Movies of jextremely conservative, believing the Olden Days” a novelty film, {that the world was created in a set | fashion and can never change. When | CONDUCTORLESS ORCHESTRA. | is daughter, a young thing of about | & 5 twenty, begins cavorting around | | The American Symphonic En- |with the lord’s son, old, Greenleaf is | semble (conductorless symphony or-/ stirred almost to violence, In or- |chestra) has decided to make its cep io keep his daughter from going jout driving with the lord’s son, he | |brings up the fact that a century | | Madame Kurenko will sing an;or more previous a male ancestor | aria from the Snow Maiden, by |of the lord had gone out riding with | |Rimsky-Korsakoff, instead of Mo-|a female ancestor of the girl, and zart’s Alleluja. Two numbers have the latter had “got into trouble.” | been substituted for the Russian|But the girl evidently knows her Easter Overture, namely, Moussorg-| mind and goes driving. What fol-| sky’s Prelude to Rhovantchina and lows is the most boisterous part of Glinka’s Overture to Russlan and |the comedy. The young people are Ludmilla. |caught in a storm two miles away The program follows: Symphony |from the Greenleaf hostelry, and old Pathetique, Tchaikovsky; | Greenleaf goes out after them, rant- | ing with rage. | Then comes a long burlesqued scene in one of the Greenleaf “guest” bedrooms, and the next morning, the happy ending, in which the lord plays the part of godfather and. says words that never have Prelude to Khovantchina, Moussorg- land the Bride of the Czar, Rimsky- Korsakoff; Aria from “Dumka Pa- rase,” from Sorotschinskaja Jar-| |morke, Moussorgsky; Overture, | “Russlan and Ludmilla,” Glinka. | LECTURES AND FORUMS LABOR TEMPLE 14th St. and Second Ave. SUNDAY, APRIL 14 5:00 p. m.: — ‘ DR. G. F. BECK An Outline History of the Drama “Character Comedy (Mollere)” 7:15 p, m.c— EDMUND B. CHAFFEE “The Social Gospel” 38:30 p. m.: FORUM HARRY F. WARD “Sacco-Vanzetti Still Speak” —ALL WELCOME— EAST SIDE OPEN FORUM CHURCH OF ALL NATIONS (9 Second Ave. N. ¥. C.) SUNDAY, APRIL 14, AT 8 P. M. OMAR P. GOSLEN “The World Tomorrow” Admission Free—Hveryone Invited INGERSOLL FORUM Guild Hall, Steinway RBallding, 113 Went 57th St. N. Y. C. SUNDAY EVENINGS April 14 DR. WOLF ADLER ‘Religion and Education” ADMISSION 25 CENTS |come out of the mouths of any one jof the British propertied class. Drinkwater makes the lord convince old Greenleaf that marriage is not enly desirable between the two | youngsters, but an inevitable thing | | The People’s Institute AT COOPER UNION (8th St, and ASTOR PLACE) At 8 o'Clock SUNDAY, APRIL 14 PROF. WM. P. MONTAGUE “Democracy at Bay—the Challenge of the Dictatorships” TUESDAY, APRIL 16 DR. WILLIAM CROCKER “Plant Research and Feeding the World” FRIDAY, APRIL 19 MR. EVERETT DEAN MARTIN A HISTORY OF LIBERTY “Crimes Committed in the Name of Liberty” ADMISSION FREE Open Forum Discussion. | = = ane | Dusolina Giannini will make her \only local appearance at Carnegie |Hall on Wednesday evening, The |program includes six Gypsy songs |by Dvorak, a group of Italian songs, |English songs and a group of Ital- lian folk songs. Madeleine Monnier, French cel- |liste, appears at Steinway Hall this |Sunday evening. Aeolian Waldon, soprano, will give \her recital at Town Hall Friday eve- (ning. Tomorrow! Author of “LABOR “Rationalization In to be Questions and Discussion. WOMEN’S BATTALION AT WORK (moving pictures) Tomorrow! ROBERT DUNN AND AUTOMOBILES” on the Auto Industry” at the Workers School Forum, 26-28 Union Square, 8 p, m. Admission 25c. seen at ANNUAL CONCERT AND BALL of the UNITED COUNCIL OF WORKING WOMEN at MANHATTAN LYCEUM, 66 E. 4th St. TONIGHT AT 8:30 P. M. The Well-Known Dorsha Dancers Dee Remar & Alice Wazgeiser in Waltzes by Strauss; Le Cid, and Levitzis — Revolutionary Dances ROSE WAYNER will give Dramatic Recitations Dancing until 3 A. M. — Admission 50c in advance; at door 75¢ Get your Tickets at the Council Office, 80 E. 11th St., Room 533. Refreshments Prepared by Council Members. | “MUSIC AND CONCERTS | PhilharmonicSymphony CLEMENT KRAUSS Guest Conductor | Carnegie Hall, This Sunday After- noon at 3:00 | Last Concert of the Season BRAHMS-STRAUSS Program Arthur Judson, Mgr. Steinway | Last Concert This Season | CONDUCTORLESS, SYMPHONY, ORCHESTRA Carnegie Hall, Thurs. Eve, April 18, | at 8:45 ALL-RUSSIAN Program Soloist: MARIA KURENKO Soprano Tickets: $1.00 to $3.00 at Box Office Mat. Beckhard & Macfarlane, Inc. FRIDAY EVE. APRIL 26 AT 8115 ing High School, Dance Recital People’s Symphony Artists Course Re ADMISSION AT DOO: | John Drinkwater Glorifies ‘Bird in Hand”, IN THEATRE GUILD PLAY . | Miriam Hopkins, who will play an | important role in the latest Theatre Guild production, “The Camel | Through the Needle’s Eye,” open- | ing at the Martin Beck Theatre Monday night, in the present stage of human prog- ress. Drinkwater’s partisanship and foolish belief in “progress coming from above” is definitely proved by the fact that the lord is drawn to be | the only serious character in the play. Well-acted, with several finely drawn character parts, especially the litle Londoner (Ivor Barnard), who | “travels in sardines,” the play is an enjoyable one. But one must re- alize, when seeing it, that th entire premise of the production is false and reactionary. EDWIN ROLFE. NOW! Madison Sq. Garden, 49th-50th St, at Sth Ave. Short Season—Twice Daily at 2 & S P. M.—Doors Open at t and 7 Special Entertainment each Sunday .., Afternoon and Night Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey CIRCUS 1,000 Foreign Features including Featuring HUGO ZACCHINI “The Human Projectile” | A Living Person Shot Through Space | with Violent Velocity from the Mouth of a Monster Cannon! SENSATION of the CENTURY! | IATH” The Mammoth Sea Ele- | phant—1000 New Foreign Features S60 Cireus Stars—Vast Menagerie— | Congress of Freaks ADMISSION to All (incl. Seats) 81 to 83,50—6000 SEATS at every per- | formance at $1.00.—Children under | 12 Half Price at All Matinees except | Saturday & Sunday, — Tickets at Garden Box Offices, Gimbel Bros., Macy's and Usual Ticket Agenc' COMEDY Theatre, 41st St. EB. of | Broadway. Eves., incl. Sun. at 8.50. — Mats. Thurs. & Sat. RUTH Draper Chanin’s MAJESTIC Theatre 44th St, West of Broadway | Eves, 8:30; Mats.: Wed. & Sat. 2:30 The Greatest and Funniest Revue | Pleasure Bound civic REPERTORY 50c; $1.00; $1.50 Mats, Wed.&Sa EVA LE GALLIENNE, Director Today Mat., “Peter Pan.” Tonight, “Lady from Alfaqueque.” | 148t.,6thAv. | Eves, 8:30 | TUDOR INN Restaurant 113 East 14th Street For good and wholesome food, don’t fail to visit us We serve special luncheon - plates from 11:30-3 p. m. TRY OUR SPECIAL DINNER! Reasonable Prices | SUNDAY’ SOVKINO’S TREMENDOUS SISTER PICTURE TO “POTEMKIN” AMERICAN 66 Fifth Avenue Cor. 12th “KRA OFFICIAL MOTION SOVIET 55TH Continuous from 2 to Midnight. ¢-— the first 10 pu; cy for regular 85,60 R. DRAKE, 218 W. 15th ‘all Saturday 12 to 5 P. M.s Sunday 5TH AVENUE pLAYHOUSE —-THE POLAR DRAMA THE RESCUE SHIP EXPEDITION STREET PLAYHOUSE $5.00 MUSIC LESSONS 50 CENTS! . JUST MOVED TO NEW YORK, STARTING TODAY! “Prisoners of the Sea” A Great Drama of the Soviet Navy PREMIERE Midnight Daily St, Continuous 2°P, M. WHICH SHOOK TEE UNIVERSE! SSIN” PICTURE OF THE Just East of 7th Ave. Popular Prices, in order to start n paying-claxw at to obtain good lessons cheaply, it 5Oe, the xecond 10 pupils at | | All branches taught from Ele- pt vocal). Street. — Chelsea 9350 10 A. M. to Noon, or After 6 P. M. nl THEATRE GUILD PRODUCTIONS: MAN’S ESTATE By BEATRICE BLACKMAR and BRUCE GOULD BILTMOR THE, . 47th St. Ww, Matinees Thursday of B'way. Eves, 8:50 & Saturday at 2:40 A COMEDY BY SIL-VARA CAFRICE GUIL THEA. West 8:50 Sharp Mat. Wed, Thurs., 0 Sharp LAST wr : EUGENE O’NEILL’S STRANGE INTERLUDE JOHN GOLDEN THEA,, 58th St., B. of Broadway Evenings only at 5:30 sharp. “A success of the first order.” —New York Times. “A joyous revel in which there was much sprightly froth, some vivid characters in a seriously interesting romance, and a cast of players remarkable for the excellence of their acting.” —Percy Hammond, Herald Tribune, ARTHUR HOPKINS presents PHILIP BARRY’S New Comedy with settings by ROBERT FDMOND JONES. PLYMOUTH Thea., W. 45th St., Eves. 8:50 Mats. Thurs. and Sat. 2:35 FIRST ANNUAL BALL given by. Cloak and Dress Cutters Local 6 (Formerly Cutters Welfare League) (Affiliated with the N. T. W. I. U. of U.S. TONIGHT at PARK PALACE, 110th St. and 5th Ave., New York SMITH’S NEGRO BAND will entertain, TICKETS 50c — HAT CHECK 25¢ to 1 Farewell PERFORMANCE a Isadora 4 Duncan Dancers. IN A PROGRAM oF Revolutionary Songs and Dances 18,19 April 20, 21 Manhattan Opera House TICKETS ON SALE AT DAILY WORKER OFFICE, ROOM 201, 26 Union Sq., New York City and at Box Office. — Popular Prices. routed from the ruins not done ‘ormn of isele to pl of old onex——Karl Marx (Communist Manifesto). Marx (Communist Manifesto).