I want to address the theme of Proletarian and Revolutionary Art in the United States between 1928 and 1935; that is to say in the years of the so-called Third Period line in the tactics of the international Communist movement. Although the terms “Proletarian Art” and “Revolutionary Art” were often used seemingly interchangeably at this time — or even used in combination — they are not synonymous, and I will argue that the distinction points up tensions between different forms of art practice produced in the Communist Party’s orbit and to important intellectual confusions.

Before analyzing the theory and practice of this art and the reasons for its emergence and decline, something needs to be said about its genealogy.