your militant and political support. revolution is won by workers and peasants in the country.
Often the question is raised of what To whom do I address myself in my you can attain with a work of art, with plays? Is my audience made up of a book, a poem, a painting, a play; and the bourgeoisie rather than the proyou ask yourself the question, if it letarians? could eVeT have ine effect machine guns in the hills. Often I see Of course, this differs from one case the superiority of the guerrilla fighter to another, as my plays have been over intellectual who is content played in both capitalist and socialist with voicing his solidarity. In capitalist society, the theatre is mostly a form of the bourBut as the war is fought on many geois world, the working class does fronts, every front on which you fight not regard the theatre as its own form the enemy can be a strategic point. art. They feel alienated in front There might arise which of the stage. This turns out to compel you to change your attitude be entirely different in socialist coun and become directly militant In many tries, where a quite new audience countries this is the only solution. attending the theatre, and where the In Western European countries there is still great value attached to writing theatre Hear the theatre is duly appreciated, populace As far as I am concerned, writing the theatre belongs to the populace; it has been a process in which I became is not an institution which has been conscious of myself and of the world I built up by a privileged class for the am living in. By writing I educated pleasure of the privileged class. myself, polical thinking. By developing myself, DV writina I develoned my 1, as a writer, secure the possibility of As a dramatist, 1 have the possibilty of reaching both the population of a influencing others.
society, and of a hourecois In most of Europe, I see a great ob- society, reaching it by being aggressive with it, by being provocative. Of course stacle for revolution in the passive my goal is to address myself to a conattitude of the workers. We do not reach the powerful masses the scious audience, an audience which is groups of militant intellectuals, workers. we are only in touch with and tical standpoint and who wish to under- made up of people who share my politake a political analysis of their times, that is not enouch This we felt ver the times they are living in. strongly: the lack of a revolutionary attitude on the part of the workers in the capitalist society, the lack of 1 do not know how it is for other writers. There are good plays which their direct protest, their direct par- ticipation in the struggle of the revolu- should be comprehensible for tionary world. Too often we see that societies, for everybody. But I am sure that I would write in a different way the workers in the conasilist sociery if 1 lived in a socialist seciety, where anhu fight for their own immediate my writing would be part of a common cconomic development. constructive work, where I should deal Yes, they are fighting too; they are with the problems and conflicts underIving a new attitude towards life. fohtine to chonde their citation. they are not fighting to change their society. The plays I have written until now are nor do the speak about the change the result of my milieu, the result of of the entire world, in which all socie the world in which I have grown up ties would have to change. They are The situation of a present-day socialstill limited in their consciousness of ist writer differs from that of the time it is very difficult to change one the necessity of giobal revolution. in which Brecht lived. The fight going The recent events in France should on then between fascism and comnot let us become over-optimistic!) was more simple than the in which the As long as the intellectuals make up hoht aning an todays small elites without direct collaboration socialist world is a very complex with the working masses the result of word and contains mona dierent their work will be limited. EVERY aspects. There is the question of the
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Friendship; you have to show them | REVOLUTOSARY KNOWS THAT A REVO- necessity of world revolution, there is from the corruption cort on i by The masses of they deloped cn it sect ally