Inspired by Meyerhold, Michael Gold pens a mass recitation. It was performed several times in early 1927; the Lenin Memorial at Chicago’s Ashland Auditorium, the Daily Worker anniversary celebrations in New York, and a few later occasions.

‘Strike! A Mass Recitation’ by Michael Gold from New Masses. Vol. 1 No. 3. July, 1926.

Foreword

The writer witnessed several examples of the Mass Recitation in Soviet Russia, where, as in Germany, it is greatly popular with the workers. Immense and dramatic as the revolution itself. Mass Recitation is one of the most powerful and original forms developed in the struggle for proletarian culture. It is art that has grown out of the workers’ life and needs; it is useful art.

Mass Recitation is like great oratory; it is a valuable weapon for propaganda and solidarity. I have tried to write a Mass Recitation here for the needs of American workers, and I hope other proletarian writers will experiment in the form, and workers’ dramatic groups produce their experiments.

I will describe one, using my own effort as the most available example for discussion. Let it be remembered, however, that Mass Recitations are meant to be acted, not read; like most plays, the dramatic values come out in the acting, not in the reading.

To begin with, no tinsel stage or stage settings are necessary; the rough bare platform of any ordinary union hall or meeting hall is enough, is the most fitting stage, in fact.

About thirty men and women are needed in the following Mass Recitation. As indicated, they are scattered in groups or as individuals through the audience. Except for those who take the parts of Capitalists, Police, etc., they are dressed in their usual street clothes; they have no make-up on, there is nothing to distinguish them from their fellow-workers in the audience.

This is what makes a Mass Recitation so thrilling and real. The action in my recitation commences on the platform, with Poverty speaking; suddenly from the midst of the audience a group of men workers chant; then a woman stands up and shouts something; then a group of girls in another part of the house.

The audience is taken by surprise; they cannot guess who may be sitting next to them; they are kept on the qui vive as from this corner and that corner, perhaps from the quiet person next to them dramatic voices are lifted and workers like themselves rise to shout passionate slogans or to storm the platform. The audience is swept more and more into the excitement all around them; they become one with the actors, a real mass; before the recitation is over, everyone in the hall should be shouting: Strike! Strike!

A Mass Recitation needs a good director, very careful rehearsals, and an exact sense of spacing and rhythm. The lines must be chanted, not spoken; in clear full sculptured tones, each word as sharply defined as a rifle shot. What Maierhold calls “poster-declamation.” No hurry; the vowels strongly emphasized. Mass recitations are delivered in the heroic style.

Above all, no individualism; the director must find the rhythm of the whole recitation and discipline each word and each actor to the general plan.

It means hard work, but it is well worth it, from the revolutionary standpoint. For here is a form that is probably the purest example yet evolved of what is meant by that still emerging and indefinable thing called “proletarian art.”

Mass recitation is group art; any outcropping of individualism would ruin it in production. It is proletarian; because only revolutionary themes are intense and effective enough to be used; and because only proletarians can deliver a mass recitation; professional actors would seem silly in one.

I hope that others will experiment in this heroic form for American workers. Let us write Mass Recitations, let us use this fine weapon for workers’ solidarity!

Strike! A Mass Recitation.

Scene: A platform with a long table and chairs.

Poverty, a gaunt woman in rags, with a strange white face of hunger, comes slowly on the platform. She sits down in one of the chairs.

Wealth enters next, pompously, a fat gross figure like a capitalist, with a sensual mask.

Music may accompany each of these figures as they enter.

Wealth (gruffly): Who are you?
Were you invited?

Poverty (calmly): I was not invited.

Wealth: Why present then?
Go, ragged woman.

Poverty: I am Poverty, your sister.
I go where you go.

Wealth (furiously): Lie, lie, lie!
Poverty is not my sister.

Poverty (calmly): Greed is our father.

Wealth (shouting): Go, ragged woman.
I will call my dogs.

POVERTY (coldly): So have you always answered me.
With your soldiers and police.

A Man from the Mass (solemnly): We are suffering.

A Woman: Our children hunger.

Chorus: Give us bread.

(No response from Wealth. He has turned to greet four Directors, capitalists, fat and rubbing their hands. They come and stand about the table.)

Directors (skipping gaily and clasping hands in a childish dance around Wealth): Good morning good morning, good morning!
God’s in his heaven.
Dollars on earth. All’s right with the world!
All’s well, all’s well!

WEALTH: Let us pray, gentlemen. (They pray with folded hands, and lifted faces.)

Directors: Give us this day our daily cake, our daily lobsters and champagne, our nightly chorus girls and cabarets. For ours is the power and glory on earth. Forever and ever. Amen.

1st Director (frowning heavily): But who is this ragged woman?

2nd Director: She is positively not a member of our Board of Directors.

Directors: No, no!

1st Director: In rags.

2nd: Common.

3rd: Needs food.

4th: A failure.

1st: Who is she?

Wealth: She is Poverty.
She wishes to speak
To the Board of Directors.

Directors (angrily): Poverty? Can’t be!

1st Director: Imposter.

2nd Director: Illegal in America.

3rd Director: Her own fault.

4th Director: She should save her wages.
Thrift.

1st Director: To the hoosegow.
Poverty is criminal.
We are respectable.

Wealth (sneering): You have your answer, Poverty.
Go, not a word here!

(Poverty rises with dignity, and goes to other part of platform, where she stands with folded arms.)

Man in the Mass (deeply): We are suffering.

Woman: Our children are cold.

Girl: We cannot live.

Another Man: Our sun has set.

Another Woman: Who will listen to us?

Chorus of Bassos: Night on the workers, night on their houses.

Chorus of Sopranos: Yet we must live.

Tenors: We must live.

Contraltos: We must.

Bassos: We must.

Chorus of All: We must, we must, the workers must live!

(The Directors pretend not to have heard. They fuss with papers and documents they take from their pockets, and sit down at the table in unison.)

Wealth (standing as chairman): Gentlemen, as chairman of this annual meeting of the Board of Directors
I beg to report our corporation has had a most profitable year.

Directors (pulling out little American flags and waving them): Hurrah!
A most profitable year!

Chorus (solemnly): We live in darkness.

Wealth: We can report an increase in profits
Of twelve million, seven hundred thousand
Eight-hundred forty dollars and nine cents.

Directors (as before): Banzai! Banzai!
Eight-hundred forty dollars.
And nine cents.

Chorus: Who will listen to us?

Wealth: Many new machines were installed.
Many improvements made.
We glitter with efficiency for the new fiscal year.
Our engineers are modern heroes.

Directors: Viva! Viva! Modern heroes!

Chorus: Our children have no bread.

Wealth: And we look to an even more successful year.
The nation is booming, booming, gentlemen.
We have captured many foreign markets,
America is king of the world.

Directors: Hoch, hoch! Viva.
Banzai.
Hurrah.
King of the world.

Chorus of Women: But the toilers cannot live.

Chorus of Men: Night on the toilers, night on their houses.

Wealth: And in conclusion, in order to insure even greater profits,
I would seriously recommend, gentlemen.
That we cut the wages of our workers
Ten Per Cent.
All in favor say Aye.

Directors (leaping to their feet, and prancing and shouting in a delirium of joy): Aye, aye, aye.
Hurrah!
Ten Per Cent! Ten Per Cent!
Yachts, strings of pearls!
Chorus girls,
Florida holidays!
Ten Per Cent! Ten Per Cent!
Champagne! Charity! Rolls-Royce!

WEALTH (shouting): The vote is carried. (They go out, embracing each other in drunken joy.)

WEALTH (a last triumphant shout): The world is ours!

Directors: Ten per cent. Hooray! (There is a dead silence after they leave. Poverty steps slowly to centre of platform.)

Poverty (solemnly): Ten Per Cent.
Words of fate.
Words of hunger and death. (Pause.)

A Woman (tearfully): A cut in wages is a cut at our lives.
I work in the mills by night, my husband by day.
Yet we cannot live.

Chorus: We cannot live.

A Man (bitterly): Cheap shoes, cheap clothes, cheap houses.
Cheap common food our lot.
A straw on a stormy sea
We have clutched at our wages.
Now the bosses unclasp our fingers.
We will drown!

Chorus: We will drown. (Pause.)

Man (desperately): Can we bear it?
I cannot bear it.
Suffering is heaped up in me like gunpowder.
Bring no match near.
I cannot bear it! (Pause.)

Chorus: We cannot bear it. (Pause.)

Poverty: Ten per cent.
Scorpion draining the breasts of mothers.
Leech sucking men’s blood.
Ten per cent—bread for workers.
Now diamonds for bosses. (Pause.)

Man: I will not bear it.
I came to America for freedom.
But I am slave to a machine.

A Woman: My baby is ill.
And no one cares.

An Old Worker: After a life of toil,
I die tomorrow
In the poorhouse.
So shall you all end.

Chorus of Sopranos: Is there no joy for us.
No spring for youth?

Chorus of Tenors: Is the blue sky for bosses,
The world for the rich?

Chorus of Bassos: Something must be done.

A Man: Our hour has come.

Chorus of Contraltos: Something must be done.

Chorus of All (with deep conviction): For the workers must live. (Pause.)

(A woman rises.)

Poverty: Defeated woman worker.
Speak!

Woman (feebly): We are so weak, we workers.
Too huge our fate.
What can be done?
Let us submit.

Chorus of Women: Shame!

(A man rises.)

Poverty: Defeated man worker.
Speak!

Man (feebly): Old and defeated,
I shall die in the poor-house.
How can I struggle?
Let us submit.

Woman (fearfully): For bosses have judges.

Man: Bosses have police.

Chorus: Shame. (Pause.)

Woman: Bosses have wealth.

Man: Bosses have church.

Chorus: Shame. (Pause.)

Woman: Bosses have newspapers.

Man: Bosses have government.

Chorus: Shame. (Pause.)

Woman: And we have nothing.

Man: And we are so weak.

Woman: We are life’s victims.

Man: Yes, let us submit. (Pause).

Chorus: Shame, shame!

Poverty: For the workers must live. (Pause.)

Chorus: We must, we must, the workers must live!

(Defeated man and woman come to platform, stumbling and pitiful, and moaning like lost sheep.)

Man and Woman: Defeated, defeated!
Lost, lost, let us submit!
Who can help the workers?
Only God can help.
Let us pray.

(One is at each end of platform, and they kneel.)

Man and Woman: Our Father, which art in heaven, give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, for

A Young Leader in the Mass: Shame!

Man and Woman (timidly): For Thine is the power

Young Leader: Shame! Ours the power!

Bassos: Ours the power!

A Girl: And ours the glory.

Sopranos: Ours the glory.

(Pause. Defeated man and woman look about them timidly. They start to mumble their prayer again, but are interrupted.)

Man and Woman: Forever and ever

Young Leader (rushing to platform, and shouting in powerful tones): Up from your knees.
He will not help us.
We must help ourselves.

(Man and Woman rise from their knees.)

Man: Then what’s to be done?

Woman: Are we not weak?

Chorus: Something must be done.

Young Leader (springing on platform): Strike!

Chorus: (repeating confusedly): Strike? Strike?

Defeated Woman: But bosses have police.

Young Leader (sternly): Strike! We fought in their war.
Workers have no fear.
Strike! Strike!

Man and Woman (leaving platform): But bosses have judges.
Bosses have wealth.
Bosses have all.
We have nothing.

Young Leader: Strike!
Workers have each other.
Who moves the wheels?

Chorus: We move the wheels.

Young Leader: Strike!
Stop the wheels
And profits stop.
Who are the masses?

Chorus: We are the masses.

Young Leader: Strike!
Stand together in masses.
In solidarity.
And the bosses are beaten.
Who owns the world?

Chorus: We own the world!

Young Leader: Strike!
Strike for the world.
Strike for the new.
Strike for the future.
Strike, strike!

Chorus (at full power): Strike! Strike! Strike!

(Wealth appears, puffing and angry.)

Wealth (screaming): Sedition!
Who shouts Strike!

Chorus: We shout Strike!

Wealth: You were contented till he came.
Mad dog, traitor.
Do you know who he is?

Chorus: He is a worker.

Wealth (screaming): He is an Agitator!

Chorus (greeting this with ribald laughter): Ho, ho, ho! Strike! Strike!

Wealth: Arrest that man. (He whistles and police appear.) Arrest that Bolshevik! (Four burlesque policemen surround the young leader. Pause.)

Young Leader (boldly): Arrest me, but hunger is not arrested.
Arrest, me, but low wages are not arrested.
Strike, strike!

Wealth: Take him to prison.

(Four young men and four young women come up to platform, while chorus chants—)

Chorus: No, no!

Eight Young Workers (coming on platform and speaking with deep menace): He is our leader.
Do not attack him.
Bone of our bone.
Son of the masses.

A Young Worker: Release him at once.

(The police stand back.)

Chorus: This is our leader.
Voice of the masses.
Bone of our bone.

Wealth: Do you defy the law?

Eight Young Workers: Yes.

(Close in around the leader with joined hands, leaving the cops outside the circle.)

1st Cop (moving off): G — d —, no law and order!

2nd Cop: G — d —, too many to be clubbed!

3rd Cop: G — d —, the country is ruined!

4th Cop: G — d —, let’s git the tear gas!

Chorus (jeering): Boo-oo-oo!
Scabs! (The cops disappear.)

Wealth (mad with rage): Our judges will jail you.
Our papers revile you.

Chorus: Strike!

Wealth: Your women will weep.
Your children starve.
We will teach you, we will teach you,
America is mine!

Chorus: Boo-oo-oo! Scab, scab, scab! (Wealth escapes amid the booing with grotesque gestures of rage. Pause.)

Poverty (taking leader’s hand): Voice of the toilers.
Son of the masses.
Lead us to victory.
Too long have we suffered.

Young Leader (solemnly): Here is my heart’s blood.
My dreams and my manhood.
Faithful I march with you.
Into the new.

Four Young Men (on platform): The masses follow you.

Four Young Women: The masses love you.

Chorus: The masses arise.

Young Leader: The masses will be free. (Pause). Strike!

Chorus: Strike!
On to victory.

Man’s Voice (angrily): Too long have we suffered.

Woman (fiercely): Ten per cent is death.

Bassos (triumphantly): Dawn for the workers.

Sopranos (heroically): Struggle and victory!

Poverty (joyously): Strike, strike!

Young Leader: Strike!

Eight Young Workers: Strike!

Chorus: Strike, strike, strike, strike, strike!

(They shout this to a climax, but while the male section is shouting this rhythmically, the women break into the last part of the chorus of the Internationale.)

’Tis the final conflict.
Let each stand in his place.
The Internationale Party
Shall be the human race.

(The whole audience rises, and the male part of the chorus starts the beginning of the Internationale:) Arise, ye prisoners of starvation—

(There are rhythmic shouts of Strike, Strike scattered all through the singing, and timed dramatically.)

The End

The New Masses was the continuation of Workers Monthly which began publishing in 1924 as a merger of the ‘Liberator’, the Trade Union Educational League magazine ‘Labor Herald’, and Friends of Soviet Russia’s monthly ‘Soviet Russia Pictorial’ as an explicitly Communist Party publication, but drawing in a wide range of contributors and sympathizers. In 1927 Workers Monthly ceased and The New Masses began. A major left cultural magazine of the late 1920s and early 1940s, the early editors of The New Masses included Hugo Gellert, John F. Sloan, Max Eastman, Mike Gold, and Joseph Freeman. Writers included William Carlos Williams, Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos, Upton Sinclair, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Day, John Breecher, Langston Hughes, Eugene O’Neill, Rex Stout and Ernest Hemingway. Artists included Hugo Gellert, Stuart Davis, Boardman Robinson, Wanda Gag, William Gropper and Otto Soglow. Over time, the New Masses became narrower politically and the articles more commentary than comment. However, particularly in it first years, New Masses was the epitome of the era’s finest revolutionary cultural and artistic traditions.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1926/v01n03-jul-1926-New-Masses-5th-rev.pdf