Amiri Baraka: The Politics and Art of a Black Intellectual

Chapter 15: The Artist as Marxist / The Marxist as Artist

15 The Artist as Marxist / The Marxist as Artist MARXIST PLAYWRIGHT No consideration of Baraka the Marxist would be complete without a discussion of his Marxist-influenced art. Shortly after his 1974 conversion to Marxism, Baraka began to write a series of Marxist-influenced plays, the best known of which are The Motion of History, S-1, and What Was the Relationship of the Lone Ranger to the Means of Production. In the William Morrow edition of his collection of plays, The Motion of History and Other Plays, is an epigraph from the Peking Review which serves as an ideological preview of the plays: The emergence of Marxism brought to light for the first time the objective laws governing the development of mankind’s history; it scientifically proved the great truth that history is made by the slaves. Reversing the history the exploiting classes have reversed, Marxism thus brought about the utter bankruptcy of the idealist conception of history and uprooted the theoretical basis of thousands of years of reactionary rule by exploiting classes. Chairman Mao in leading the Chinese revolution has from time to time educated all Party members and cadres,the proletariat and other working people in the basic viewpoint of historical materialism, i.e., the masses are the makers of history.1 Baraka’s belief that “the masses are the makers of history” meant that his Marxist plays would focus on the lives of the exploited, particularly the working class. No longer would he write plays about the identity crises of bourgeois black Americans, as he had done with Clay in Dutchman and Walker Vessels in The Slave. In accordance with his belief in the scientific nature of Marxism, all significant human dilemmas were collapsed into a teleological struggle between capitalists and workers that would inevitably result in the workers’ victory. Baraka’s understanding of Marxism pre444 vented him from exploring the interior lives of the working classes except in relationship to economic exploitation. Instead, Baraka’s Marxist drama tried both to affirm the workers’ recognition of their own exploitation and to inspire them to realize their human destiny by joining the class struggle. Much like a black preacher who instilled hope in his congregation by asserting that God was on their side, Baraka marketed a secularized form of divine intervention.2 In this instance, Baraka’s gospel was scientific Marxism. THE MOTION OF HISTORY (1975–1976) The Motion of History is composed of thirty scenes, each of which depicts a certain historical event in which blacks and/or whites are involved in political actions opposing different forms of repression. The events are not chronological. The play’s first scene begins with a dialogue between a bourgeois Negro man and a 1960s white male hippie. While they talk, a screen behind them shows film clips of the political repression of liberation struggles. White American police are seen beating black civil rights demonstrators; Third World people are being beaten by the police and military forces of repressive regimes; and striking white European workers are being clobbered by their own policemen. Commenting on the events in the film, the white fellow appears to be slightly sexually aroused by the intense energy of the clashes. The black guy, somewhat disengaged or perhaps even jaded, appears not to feel any direct connection to the struggles on the screen. In the next scene, the same black character is seated at his desk in a posh office. He has a look and demeanor indicating that he is, as he claims, a professional Negro on his way “to the top.” The white fellow is now seen sharing a joint with a counterculture white woman. His comments repeatedly reinforce his attraction to the energy on the screen. Quite excited by the scenes of white police clubbing black and white demonstrators, the white fellow refers to them as a choreographed dance. Several scenes later, we are situated in Rev. Chaney’s house or church. He is obviously a southern black minister living in a town gripped by Civil Rights movement activities. He is praying to God and asking why it is that heathens run the world. A younger man, the minister’s son (played by the same actor who was the “bourgeois Negro”), questions his dad’s belief in God’s justice. Opposed to metaphysical invocations of God, the son advocates a materialist understanding of social change. THE ARTIST AS MARXIST / THE MARXIST AS ARTIST 445 [18.218.38.125] Project MUSE...