they are many—­of the Soviet regime.  To force such a man, however, to turn his talent only against Denikin, Yudenitch and Kolchak, or the leaders of the Entente, is momentarily good for Communism, but it is discouraging to the artist, and may prove in the long run bad for art, and possibly for Communism also.  It is plain from the religious nature of Communism in Russia, that such controlling of the impulse to artistic creation is inevitable, and that propaganda art alone can flourish in such an atmosphere.  For example, no poetry or literature that is not orthodox will reach the printing press.  It is so easy to make the excuse of lack of paper and the urgent need for manifestoes.  Thus there may well come to be a repetition of the attitude of the mediaeval Church to the sagas and legends of the people, except that, in this case, it is the folk tales which will be preserved, and the more sensitive and civilized products banned.  The only poet who seems to be much spoken of at present in Russia is one who writes rough popular songs.  There are revolutionary odes, but one may hazard a guess that they resemble our patriotic war poetry.

I said that this state of affairs may in the long run be bad for art, but the contrary may equally well prove to be the truth.  It is of course discouraging and paralysing to the old-style artist, and it is death to the old individual art which depended on subtlety and oddity of temperament, and arose very largely from the complicated psychology of the idle.  There it stands, this old art, the purest monument to the nullity of the art-for-art’s-sake doctrine, like a rich exotic plant of exquisite beauty, still apparently in its glory, till one perceives that the roots are cut, and that leaf by leaf it is gradually fading away.

But, unlike the Puritans in this respect, the Bolsheviks have not sought to dig up the roots, and there are signs that the paralysis is merely temporary.  Moreover, individual art is not the only form, and in particular the plastic arts have shown that they can live by mass action, and flourish under an intolerant faith.  Communist artists of the future may erect public buildings surpassing in beauty the mediaeval churches, they may paint frescoes, organize pageants, make Homeric songs about their heroes.  Communist art will begin, and is beginning now, in the propaganda pictures, and stories such as those designed for peasants and children.  There is, for instance, a kind of Rake’s Progress or “How she became a Communist,” in which the Entente leaders make a sorry and grotesque appearance.  Lenin and Trotsky already figure in woodcuts as Moses and Aaron, deliverers of their people, while the mother and child who illustrate the statistics of the maternity exhibition have the grace and beauty of mediaeval madonnas.  Russia is only now emerging from the middle ages, and the Church tradition in painting is passing with incredible smoothness into the service of Communist doctrine.  These