A document for the First National Workers Theatre Conference and Spartakiade geld in New York City in April, 1932.

‘Prospects, and Tasks of the Workers Theatre in the United States’ from Workers Theatre. Vol. 2 No. 2. May, 1932.

First National Workers Theatre Conference on the Development, Prospects, and Tasks of the Workers Theatre in the United States

The Political, Economic and Cultural Background.

1. The First National Workers Theatre Conference takes place in a period of the most severe economic crisis that American capitalism has ever undergone. Thirteen million American workers are unemployed. Millions of small farmers are ruined. Production in every industry, except the war industry, is being sharply curtailed, in the face of the tremendous needs and growing misery of the workers and farmers. At the same time, American imperialism works imperialist powers to prepare an immediate war against the only country where the workers and farmers rule, the only country that steadily raises the economic and cultural level of its toilers–the Soviet Union!

2. In the present period, the bourgeois theatre (like all bourgeois culture) is also experiencing the sharpest crisis it has ever known. More than half of its actors, artists, and musicians are admitted to be unemployed. Wages of those still employed are being slashed. The bourgeois cinema has great mass influence, but the bourgeois theatre in the United states has never reached the great masses, except to a limited extent in a few big cities. And now all but a few theatres are unoccupied. Soup kitchens and the proceeds of charity concerts are all our American bourgeois society has to offer those theatre workers and artists who serve it. At the same time, the leaders of the Actors’ Equity Association, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, have not raised a finger to resist the worsening of the conditions of its members, but have gone ahead and increased the initiation fee and annual dues. “Little Theatre Movement”, which under the false banner of “Art for Art’s Sake” set out to reform and rescue the bourgeois theatre, has collapsed under the strain of the economic and ideological crisis of capitalism.

3. At the same time, the reformist Socialist Party leadership suddenly sets up a so-called “Workers Theatre” demagogically repeating the revolutionary slogan of “Art is a Weapon” and even speaking of “Class War”. But its true nature came out in its very first production, which ends up with old unemployed workers finding their only way out by turning on the gas and committing suicide. As a further demagogic trick with the approach of the First National Workers Theatre Spartakiade and Conference, the “socialist” fakers announce, on one day’s notice in the bourgeois press, a “First Workers Theatre Conference” to discuss forming a national organization. That this so-called conference was a demagogic stage trick is shown by the fact that it had a total attendance of nine people, of whom four were paid functionaries of the Socialist Party’s Rand School.

This activity of the cultural fakers is a frantic attempt to counteract the rising influence of the revolutionary workers theatre.

4. The growth of the revolutionary workers theatre in America is an accompaniment of the intensifying crisis of capitalism, which results on the one hand in a rising wave of revolutionary struggle on all fronts by the workers and farmers, and on the other hand in the increasing radicalization of petty-bourgeois theatre workers, artists, and students.

5. The rise of the revolutionary workers theatre, whose high spot in this country is marked by the present National Spartakiade and Conference, is an international phenomenon. Its increasing effectiveness as a weapon of the working class is shown by the attempts of the bourgeoisie and their “socialist’ henchmen to suppress the agitprop theatre troupes in Germany, Japan, Czechoslovakia, and other lands, attempts which will also be made soon in the United States. In fact, the police in Los Angeles, California, already seek to smash up all performances by the “Rebel Players”, a revolutionary workers theatre of that city.

6. The tremendous growth of the revolutionary workers theatre in the United States dates back a year and a half ago to the letter of the International Workers Dramatic Union to the Cultural Department of the Workers International Relief, to the establishment of the Workers Theatre Magazine by the Workers Laboratory Theatre of the Workers International Relief in April, 1931, and its rapid growth of influence under the joined editorship of the Workers Laboratory Theatre of the W. I. R. and the Prolet-Buehne, German Agitrop Troupe of New York.

Agitprop Theatre and Stationary Theatre.

7. With the development of the workers theatre movement, there is taking place a sharp turn towards agitprop work. Workers theatres in all languages in the United States are coming to realize more and more that this form of theatre, with its forcefulness, mobility, and political timeliness, is the basic form of workers theatre in the present stage of the class struggle. But we must be careful to see that our agitprop plays have good entertainment value.

8. At the same time, there is a growing understanding of the proper role of the stationary workers theatre, which should be as highly political in content as the agitprop type, but which has possibilities for more thorough and more impressive treatment of the most important subjects.

Basic Tasks.

9. The basic tasks of the workers theatre now are to spread the idea of the class struggle, to participate actively in the class struggle by raising funds for campaigns and for the revolutionary press and by recruiting workers into the revolutionary unions and mass organizations, and especially to arouse the workers for the defense of the Soviet Union, against the coming imperialist attack.

Short-Comings.

10. The main shortcomings of the workers theatre in America today are:
–that there are not enough contacts between groups;
–that there are not enough plays being written to meet the growing need;
–that the more developed groups outside New York City do not assist the weaker groups in their locality;
–that the groups underestimate the necessity for cooperation;
–that there is no systematic attempt to build theatre groups in the revolutionary unions and in most of the mass organizations;
–that international contacts are very weak.

Tasks General.

11. To overcome its weakness and to accomplish its important tasks, the workers theatre must undertake the systematic political and artistic training of its members. It must increase and improve its agitprop work. It must go out to the masses into the streets, to the factory gates, to the farms. It must reach the rank and file of the American Federation of Labor and the Socialist Party.

It must build and make use of the stationary workers theatre wherever there are possibilities for its effective utilization.

It must experiment with forms in order to find the most effective methods of presenting its subject matter. It must use music and the dance and all other cultural forms, in order to make its material more attractive. It must take over from the bourgeois theatre whatever can be used for revolutionary aims.

It must expose and fight anti-working class propaganda of the bourgeois theatre and its “Socialist” stepchild. It must expose the deception of the slogan, “Art for Art’s Sake”.

It must draw in large numbers of workers and farmers. It must draw in sympathetic artists and intellectuals.

Tasks Reportory.

12. It must more quickly catch up with and dramatize the day-to-day struggles of the American working class.

It must present the most important developments of the class struggle in other countries.

It must popularize the tremendous achievement of the workers and farmers of the Soviet Union.

It must make clear that the great vitality of the Soviet

Theatre to-day was only made possible by the proletarian revolution in that country.

It must win workers and farmers, including those in the armed forces, for the tactic of turning the coming imperialist war against the Soviet Union into a civil war against the imperialists.

Tasks Organizational.

13. To correct serious short-comings in its organizational work:

–it must establish the closest contact with and help build agitprop troupes in the revolutionary unions and mass organizations;
–It must stimulate the growth of the workers theatre in the important industrial sectors and in the rural districts;
–it must establish closer contact with the organizations of revolutionary writers, particularly to help solve the problem of adequate repertory;
–it must establish a National Workers Theatre Organization as the United States’ section of the International Workers Dramatic Union.

The National organization must include federations of all workers theatres in the various languages, building federations where they do not exist. The National Workers Theatre Organization will be a tremendous stimulus to the further growth of the revolutionary workers theatre.

The Workers Theatre Magazine.

14. All workers theatre groups should support and build the official organ of the National Workers Theatre Organization. The Workers Theatre Magazine is one of the most important instruments for the building of the revolutionary workers theatre movement.

Revolutionary Competition.

15. The experience of the workers theatres in other countries shows that one of the most effective methods of stimulating and improving the activity of the workers theatre groups is the method of revolutionary competition. The workers theatre in the United States must adopt this method and must organize such competitions between the various groups and districts, including as an annual event the revolutionary competition of the National Workers Theatre Spartakiade.

The Workers Theatre and its Relation to the General Revolutionary Movement.

16. Every workers theatre group must realize that its existence is closely tied up with that of the entire revolutionary movement that its aims are the same that its slogans are the same that only under the closest guidance of and cooperation with the revolutionary organizations can the workers theatre in the United States, as in the other lands, march forward as an important factor in the overthrow of the capitalist system, in the emancipation of the working class, to the glorious building of the classless society.

The New Theater continued Workers Theater. Workers Theater began in New York City in 1931 as the publication of The Workers Laboratory Theater collective, an agitprop group associated with Workers International Relief, becoming the League of Workers Theaters, section of the International Union of Revolutionary Theater of the Comintern. The rough production values of the first years were replaced by a color magazine as it became primarily associated with the New Theater. It contains a wealth of left cultural history and ideas. Published roughly monthly were Workers Theater from April 1931-July/Aug 1933, New Theater from Sept/Oct 1933-November 1937, New Theater and Film from April and March of 1937, (only two issues).

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/workers-theatre/v2n2-may-1932-Workers-Theatre-NYPL-mfilm.pdf