Artists in Uniform: A Study of Literature and Bureaucratism

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1934. Collection of essays discussing the effect on art of its being identified with a political movement and use as propaganda, the scarcer of two collections by Eastman on the same theme published that year by Knopf. Eastman was a sympathizer with Socialist causes who traveled to the Soviet Union in the 1920s, where, witnessing the power struggle between Stalin and Trotsky, he became critical of Stalin's tactics, here decrying the effects of Stalin's policies on writers and artists. Also included are two essays describing how proletarian art became party propaganda, and several essays criticising Hegel's dialectical materialism and its role in this conversion process. Writers commented on include Yessenin, Maiakowsky, Zamyatin, Romanov, Babyel, Pilnyak, Voronsky, Polonsky. Small hardcover in the scarce jacket, as pictured; stated first edition (first printing), with a terse note on the jacket saying (I paraphrase) there will be no cheap reprint until 1936, and maybe not then, unless initial sales are adequate. Light wear to book, minor bumping to spine ends; price-clipped jacket rubbed, tanned, and chipped, spine badly darkened; some smudging to page edges, top edge greyed. . First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Good. Duodecimo.