The next generation in Russia will have to consist of practical hard-working men, the old-style artists will die off and successors will not readily arise.  A State which is struggling with economic difficulties is bound to be slow to admit an artistic vocation, since this involves exemption from practical work.  Moreover the majority of minds always turn instinctively to the real need of the moment.  A man therefore who is adapted by talent and temperament to becoming an opera singer, will under the pressure of Communist enthusiasm and Government encouragement turn his attention to economics. (I am here quoting an actual instance.) The whole Russian people at this stage in their development strike one as being forced by the logic of their situation to make a similar choice.

It may be all to the good that there should be fewer professional artists, since some of the finest work has been done by men and groups of men to whom artistic expression was only a pastime.  They were not hampered by the solemnity and reverence for art which too often destroy the spontaneity of the professional.  Indeed a revival of this attitude to art is one of the good results which may be hoped for from a Communist revolution in a more advanced industrial community.  There the problem of education will be to stimulate the creative impulses towards art and science so that men may know how to employ their leisure hours.  Work in the factory can never be made to provide an adequate outlet.  The only hope, if men are to remain human beings under industrialism, is to reduce hours to the minimum.  But this is only possible when production and organization are highly efficient, which will not be the case for a long time in Russia.  Hence not only does it appear that the number of artists will grow less, but that the number of people undamaged in their artistic impulses and on that account able to create or appreciate as amateurs is likely to be deplorably small.  It is in this damaging effect of industry on human instinct that the immediate danger to art in Russia lies.

The effect of industry on the crafts is quite obvious.  A craftsman who is accustomed to work with his hands, following the tradition developed by his ancestors, is useless when brought face to face with a machine.  And the man who can handle the machine will only be concerned with quantity and utility in the first instance.  Only gradually do the claims of beauty come to be recognized.  Compare the modern motor car with the first of its species, or even, since the same law seems to operate in nature, the prehistoric animal with its modern descendant.  The same relation exists between them as between man and the ape, or the horse and the hipparion.  The movement of life seems to be towards ever greater delicacy and complexity, and man carries it forward in the articles that he makes and the society that he develops.  Industry is a new tool, difficult to handle, but it will produce just as beautiful objects as did the mediaeval builder and craftsman, though not until it has been in being for a long time and belongs to tradition.