dieser beitrag wurde verfasst in: englisch (eng/en)
verfasserin/verfasser: Ramón Alva Guadarrama, Germán Cueto, Xavier Guerrero, Carlos Mérida, José Clemente Orozco, Fermín Revueltas Sánchez, Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros
titel: Manifesto del Sindicato de Obreros Tecnicos, Pintores y Escultores, 1922
+: Manifesto issued by the Union of Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculptors, 1922
David Siqueiros, et al., originally published as a broadside in Mexico City, 1922. Published again in El Machete, no. 7 (Barcelona, June 1924).
«To the indigenous people who have been humiliated for centuries; to the soldiers who became executioners under the Praetorians; to the laborers and peasants who were flogged by the greed of the rich; to the intellectals who have not become degraded by the bourgeoisie.
Comrades: The military coup led by Enrique Estrada and Guadalupe Sánchez (the two most significant obstacles to the ambitions of Mexican peasants and workers) has had the supremely important result of precipitating and clarifying the social situation in our country which, over and above any minor political incidents and factors, is as follows:
What we have is, on the one hand, the most ideologically organized social revolution ever and, on the other, an armed bourgeoisie: soldiers of the people, armed peasants and workers, defending their human rights against soldiers of the people swept away by deceit of pressed into service by military-political leaders who have sold out to the bourgeoisie.
On their side, there are those who exploit the people, those who are in cahoots with the turncoats who would sell the blood of the soldiers of the people who were entrusted with the Revolution.
On ours, there are those who clamor for the overthrow of an old, cruel order in which you who labor in the fields, fertilize the land so that its fruit can feed the greedy landowners and politicians while you die of starvation; in which you, the city worker, make the factories hum, thread the looms, and build with your bare hands the modern comforts enjoyed by prostitutes and idlers while your flesh rots away; an order in which you, the Indian soldier who, of your own heroic free will, has now given up the fields you have worked forever and are ready to give your life to end the misery that you and your class have endured for centuries, so that a Sánchez or an Estrada might squander the gift of your blood to benefit the bourgeois bloodsuckers that leech your childern's happiness and rob you of your livelihood and your land. Noble work and virtue are not the only gifts of our people (especially of our natives). The fact is that our people are the root of even the smallest expression of the physical and spiritual existence of our race as an ethnic force and, what's more, of its admirable and most particular ability to create beauty: the art of the people of Mexico is the greatest, healthies spiritual expression in the whole world, and its indigenous tradition is simply the best of them all. The reason for its greatness is that, being a popular expression, it is collective. And this is why our basic aesthetic goal must be to socialize these individual artistic expressions that are in grave danger of vanishing completely under the influence of the bourgeoisie. We comdemn as aristocratic all the so-called easel painting and art of the ultra-intellectual clique, and extol the expressions of monumental art as being of real use to the general public. We proclaim that any aesthetic expression that is alien or opposed to popular feeling is bourgeois and must therefore disappear, because it contributes to a steady curruption of our people's taste, as has almost happened in the cities already. We proclaim that, during this transition from an old social order to a new one, the creators of beauty must strive to express themselves in such a way as to promote an ideological focus from which the people can profit, making art – which these days is nothing more than an expression of individualistic masturbation – into a thing of beauty for everyone, and stressing the themes of education and struggle.
We know all too well that, should a bourgeois government take power in Mexico, it would seek to inhibit the popular indigenous aesthetic of our people, which these days really only exists among the our lower classes, but which was already beginning to have a purifying effect in intellectual circles. We will fight to avoid this because we know, all too well, that the rise of the lower classes will lead to improvements in the social order of our coutry, as well as a widespread flowering of an ethnic, cosmic, and historicaly transcendental art in the life of our people, such as existed during the time of our most outstanding indigenious civilizations. We will fight tirelessly to achieve these goals.
From an aesthetic or social perspective, the success of [President Adolfo] De la Huerta, Estrada, or Sánchez would represent a triumph of typists' tastes: the all-corrupting creole and bourgeois acceptance of popular music, painting, and literature, the rise of the 'picturesque' and the American 'Kewpie,' and the official endorsement of the notion that 'l'amore è come zucchero' [love is like sugar].
As a result, the Mexican counterrevolution will prolong the suffering of the people and crush its splendid spirit.
We, the members of the Painters and Sculptors Union, had already pledged our support to the candidacy of General Plutarco Elías Calles, since we believed that his singularly revolutionary character guaranteed, to a greater extent than any other candidate, a government that would benefit the productive classes of Mexico. We hereby reaffirm that commitment, which we feel even more strongly after the recent military-political events, and offer our unconditional services to General Calles's cause, which is the cause of the people.
We call on all Mexican intellectual revolutionaries to set aside the proverbial sentimentality and laziness they have embraced for the past century or so, and join us in the social and aesthetic-educational struggle we are undertaking.
In the name of the blood that our people have shed in this ten-year struggle, and faced with this reactionary military uprising, we urgently appeal to all Mexican revolutionary peasants, workers, and soldiers to understand the vital importance of the coming battle, set aside our tactical differences, and join together in one united front to fight our common enemy.
The rank and file among country soldiers should realize that, unaware of recent events and misled by your traitorous leaders, you are about to spill the blood of your racial and class brothers. We ask you to consider that these manipulators want you to use your weapons to take the very land and lives that the Revolution, with those same weapons, had already guaranteed.
'For the world proletariat.' Secretary-general, David Alfaro Siqueiros. First member, Diego Rivera. Second members, Xavier Guerrero, Fermín Revueltas, José Clemente Orozco, Ramón Alva Guadarrama, Germán Cueto, Carlos Mérida.»