SOURCE: "Lenin as a Literary Theorist," in Science and Society, Vol. XXIX, No. 1, Winter, 1965, pp. 2-25.

In the following essay, Morawski explicates Lenin's writings on art and literature.

Lenin's statements on literature do not constitute a system. We know that Lenin was not an esthetician, and that he never concerned himself for any long period with literary theory and criticism. Like Marx, however, he was very much interested in literature and art. Lunacharsky's reminiscences contain the following typical story. One night in 1905, at a colleague's house, Lenin picked up some popular books on the history of art. The next morning he told Lunacharsky that he had been up all night reading those books, and sighed: "What a wonderful field for a Marxist! Alas, I shall never be able to go into it."

Lenin was not an esthetician, but that does not mean that there is no Leninist esthetics...