Politica Jazzului si Rockului in Europa Comunista

[Acest post contine o lucrare pe care am scris-o pentru un curs de engleza&muzica semestrul trecut. Este in Engleza. Am si adaugat imagini. Enjoy.]

We are building a new world, a new republic, and for this purpose we need new people. This is not easy. It is far easier to supply new techniques or new weapons than new brains.

Zdenek Nejedly, Czecholslovak Minister of Education, 1952

The artist is the engineer of the human soul.

I.V. Stalin

Maybe Socialist artists stood a chance to engineer the “new man” necessary for the everlasting success of communism if they would have not faced the constant bombardment of appealing music from the West. First jazz threatened to “poison the consciousness of the masses” as Andrei A. Zhdanov, Stalin’s chief architect for new man, claimed. Similarly, Beattlemania spread “faster than the epidemic of the Asian flu” across the Eastern Block and changed the sound of Eastern Block music forever. Later, Iron Maiden’s 1984 “World Slavery Tour” freed Polish youth as the authorities failed to react when the fans unveiled Solidarity banners during the concerts (Ryback, p.180). Such outside influences could only work against the creation of the new man for they espoused individualism, freedom, and nonconformism, values directly contradictory to those worthy of a communist society. These intrinsic qualities made music politically valuable and this is why communist ideologues tried to eradicate jazz and rock from their lands and instead replace them with carefully crafted ideologically appropriate music. And when such efforts flopped, the communist regimes either sought to incorporate favorable political messages into rock or jazz, or liberalized the music scene in order to prevent domestic music from turning overtly political and to provide a politically safe avenue for the opposition to channel the discontent arising from failed economic policies. For the “engineers of human soul,” music was just another political weapon to be wielded accordingly.

On the surface, picking an ideological fight over music seems petty and politically counterproductive as it risks antagonizing youth, a significant demographic category of the post-war Eastern European population — nobody likes surrendering control to the state of something as personal as musical preference. In the context of the tense moments of the early Cold War, such a battle might have seem worth fighting. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, strategists viewed music as a potentially effective way to undermine each other’s ideology and dedication. For example, an East German general argued that American music served as preparation for war as it eroded the troops’ will to fight (p. 12). At the same time, NATO military journals boasted the importance of music for demoralizing enemy troops and populations (p.18). Both the Truman and Eisenhower administrations considered “psychological warfare” through propaganda to be an effective way of eventually breaking up the Soviet empire and consequently, they directed radio Voice of America to subvert communist ideology within the Warsaw pact countries through music and news programming (Hixson, p.58). The Soviet and Eastern European leadership reacted by not only jamming Western radio broadcasts but also by waging their own war domestically.

Western music such as jazz and rock threatened communist regimes in two ways. First, it was American, and thus its popularity offered the United States a propaganda victory in the Cold War. Second, and more importantly, jazz and rock offered their listeners a taste of freedom, individualism, and nonconformism — a dangerous experience for any person that was to voluntarily give up self-interest and become the ideal selfless socialist man wholly dedicated to his or her community. Freedom entailed the ability for one to chose where to live, what to study, where to work, and what to think. Such abilities could cripple the state’s ability to achieve prosperity and maximal equality through a centrally planned economy. Additionally, freedom implicitly granted the individual the right to “freedom from communism” which went contrary to the Marxist-Leninist theoretical requirement for a “dictatorship of the proletariat” to establish communism. Individualism meant that one’s personal wishes lied above the community’s needs; nonconformism allowed someone to be different and therefore not equal to their peers. Consequently, to consolidate communism by creating the selfless new man, it was necessary to discredit freedom, individualism, and nonconformism in the eyes of the future new man. And if jazz and rock were to promote such ideas, then, jazz and rock were to be eradicated. While jazz and rock did not necessarily seek to exude ideologically toxic messages, through their musical definition, they inadvertently did.

Take jazz for example. Jazz is an improvisational and soloist-oriented genre whose music often defies classical theoretical conventions. To play a jazz tune, the musicians agree on a common theme, structure, and the order in which they trade solos. Within this framework, the jazz musician is free to play anything. Moreover, jazz music often disregards traditional harmonies and is instead constructed on relatively more dissonant 7^th chords, often cycled in a tense II-V-I cadence (Rawlins and Bahha, p.11-13). Melodically, not only do jazz soloists frequently employ colorful scales such as the harmonic and melodic minor scales and their exotic modes, but they also  parse their solos with chromatic passing tones — notes that do not belong to the key in which the song is played in (Spitzer, p.30). These musical features project a world view inherently closer to democratic capitalism than to communism. The liberal song structures of jazz, as well as its wilder melodic traits, reflect unabridged liberty; the solo-centered nature of many jazz pieces implies the importance of the uniqueness of the individual; the dissonance of its harmonic structured as well as the use of chromatic passing tones and of exotic scales suggest nonconforism with the accepted status-quo.

To the horror of the communist ideological watchdogs, jazz seemed to have functioned as a persuasive advocate for anti-communist values. After the end of WWII, despite censorship, jazz reemerged strongly in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and in the Soviet Union’s major cities such as  Moscow and Leningrad (Ryback, p.13-14). Furthermore, many jazz enthusiasts appeared to have perceived jazz as the music of freedom and as an anti-thesis to communism. Dave Brubeck, after returning from State Department sponsored world tour declared to the New York Times that a frequent toast he often heard at jazz parties in Poland intoned: “…now that you have been with us this long . . . perhaps you will take back with you the knowledge that we Poles love freedom as much as you Americans. (Crist, p.158).”

Soon after, though, rock, and later punk-rock and heavy metal, dwarfed jazz as an ideological threat to communism. In 1954, Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” stormed the Eastern Block and redefined how the youth dressed, acted, and danced (Ryback, p.20) and ten years later, The Beatles overpowered Eastern Block audiences (p.51). If the two events weren’t already enough for the communist cultural warriors, in the late 70s, in Hungary, Poland, and to an extent in the Soviet Union, punk rockers challenged all the accepted aesthetic, moral, and cultural norms (p. 167, 181, 214). Three factors made the rock and punk rock issues especially problematic. First, the music was extremely popular and inspired the creation of local scenes (p.56). Second, like jazz, the music disseminated anti-communistic values, but, more importantly, it made such values easier to comprehend for the audiences. And third, in the case of punk-rock, it found fertile socio-economic conditions for acquiring a lasting and politically significant fan base (p. 171).

Rock and punk-rock boasted aggressive rhythms, distorted guitar sounds laden with unconventional effects, lyrics that either were politically charged or dealt with social taboos such as love, sex, or open protest (p.34). In the case of punk-rock, the music even ceased being melodic as the guitars repeated the same two or three riffs throughout the song while the vocalists screamed obscenities (p174). The aggressive rhythms and the distorted songs as well as the often frank lyrics of rock portrayed the music so many Eastern Europeans loved as a byproduct of freedom. Similarly, the complete disregard for the audience and for the censors of the music’s  lyrics and vocals conveyed through their vulgarity and dissonance, highlighted the artists’ ambivalence towards the group and, hence, their emphasis on individualism as well as on their nonconformism. More importantly, the messages suggested by these musical traits were easier for the listener to grasp than those suggested by jazz — a distorted guitar and a scream cannot be hidden in the liberal, though complex, structure and sound of jazz.

The authorities’ response soon followed. The cultural apparatchiks, at first, adopted a strategy seeking to completely eliminate jazz and rock and thus focused on banning and discrediting the new genres. Since 1946 up till Stalin’s death in 1953, jazz and rock were officially forbidden on the airwaves, in clubs, or in private. Musicians had their instruments confiscated, and those who caused problems for the communist government were deported to Siberia (p11-15). Although after Stalin’s death official controls were eased, jazz and rock tunes rarely got played on the radio and were never recorded on the state’s label (p.17). Simultaneously, Eastern Block newspapers blasted the new music genres. For example, in 1952, Contemporanul, a Romanian daily, begged the censors to “rid our music of the influence of the hysterical and cacophonous American jazz, (Ryback, p. 17)” while in 1956, Sovietskaia Muzyka, in response to the growing popularity of rock, urged officials “not to let rubbish instead of pure water through the sluices that have been opened (p. 35).”

To replace the perceived dangerous influences, cultural functionaries sought to create and promote adequate music that espoused communist values. Such music was intended to be perfectly formal and not break any accepted theoretical musical convention — for symphonic composers, the use of chromatic passing tones and of counterpoint were strictly forbidden and enforced by the censors at least in the Soviet Union and Romania (Frolova-Walker, p.103, 105). Paradoxically, Romanian cultural officials urged Romanian composers to find new and appealing ways to promote communism (Crotty, p.9). The result of this campaign by Romanian authorities produced several flops like Sabin Drǎgoi’s symphonic poem “In Memory of a Woman-Comrade Who Fell in the Underground Struggle.”

When this strategy to cleanse the Eastern Block of ideologically unsound music failed, officials tried to then exploit rock music’s popularity to their own political advantage. In Romania the regime offered musicians access to state studios, provided them with high-end Western equipment, and creative freedom if they agreed to not criticize the regime, promote certain political messages, and preserve a certain degree of formality in their behavior on stage (Ryback, p. 127). The most successful Romanian rock band of the late 60s and early 70s, The Phoenix started as a The Beatles inspired act with politically neutral lyrics that profited from the cultural thaw of the early Ceausescu regime. However, as a result of a brief crackdown of the authorities after the audience got out of hand at a concert in Timisoara in 1969, the band negotiated its reemergence by offering to adopt a nationalistic tone. Its subsequent two albums drew strong influences from Romanian folk music and sung about traditional Romanian myths as well as about the feats of popular heroes who resisted Ottoman invasions in the Middle Ages. Another example of the Romanian authorities’ attempt to use jazz and rock music for political gain is Cenaclul Flacara, a regular forum that assembled Romania’s most famous musicians to sing patriotic songs or praises to Lenin and Ceausescu (Ryback, p. 127). This embrace of jazz and rock music served the regime politically two-fold. First, this relative liberalization of the ideologically unsound music promoted both abroad and domestically Romania’s image a maverick of the Soviet block that asserted that each socialist country is to find its own path to communism independent of Moscow’s orders. At this time, the Brezhnev regime maintained a fairly tight grip on jazz and rock in the Soviet Union. Second, as a result of this bargain with the youth music scene, rock music started offering the regime public support, thus alleviating concerns regarding the ideological salience of the instrumentation itself.

Meanwhile, Hungary’s strategy centered on preventing the development of overtly critical music by winning the hearts of the musicians by liberalizing both the music scene and the music market. Jazz artists were allowed to perform anywhere in Budapest, including on the streets, without restriction (Byback, p. 85). Rock bands like Locomotiv GT and Beatrice not only enjoyed artistic freedom but also enjoyed economic freedom — they were allowed to retain most of the profits from selling records and touring and were also allowed to tour abroad. Such liberties were unprecedented for an Eastern Block country and earned Janos Kadar’s regime the musicians’ goodwill which insulated the regime from open criticism from mainstream bands (Ryback, p. 169). This freedom also allowed the development of a thriving rock scene from which superstars emerged and overshadowed and kept the dangerous punk bands out of the spotlight. For example, Coitus Punk Group, a hardcore punk band that delivered withering criticism both to the Kadar regime as well as to the Soviet Union’s foreign policy was not banned until the lead singer tore apart a live chicken on stage (p. 178). By allowing the band to discredit itself in such a manner, the regime allowed the band to legitimize the regime’s claim that hardcore punk was only music for hooligans.

Another example of a tolerant attitude towards jazz and rock music was, surprisingly, Poland’s Jaruzelski regime, a military dictatorship. As soon as General Jaruzelski took power in late 1981, he instated martial law and cracked down on the Solidarity movement as the government did not have the economic resources to either address the demands of the protesters nor the ability to carry meaningful reforms without risking a Soviet military intervention in the style of Prague Spring a decade and a half earlier (Kalisky, p. 127). In order to win over Poland’s youth — or at least keep them off the streets — Jaruzelski eased censorship on rock and punk  rock music (Ryback, p. 183). This way, Jaruzelski offered Polish youth with a distraction from the day-to-day economic struggles and with a means to channel their frustration that did not risk sparking street fighting and a revolution.

Throughout the Cold War, Eastern Block communist regimes treated music as merely a means to a political end. In a restrictive society, music gained political value by conveying the audience emotions and values that its members could not experience by interacting within society as a result of the political status-quo. As communist idealists tried to establish  formal, collectivist, and uniform societies, they sought to eradicate anything that would convey the opposing values of freedom, individualism, and nonconformism. This is why they initially cracked down on jazz and rock. And when these genres, despite the harshest efforts of the authorities, became institutionalized even into communist societies, the regimes tried to protect themselves by infusing their own talking points into rock music as it was in the case in Romania, or by manifesting good will towards the artists through musical liberalization as it was the case in Hungary and Poland. Neither the initial censorship strategy nor the eventual relaxation succeeded in creating new republics inhabited by the ideal selfless socialist new man; communism and totalitarian regimes are now gone from the face of Europe. Perhaps the artist is not “the engineer of human soul,” but just an entertainer trying to live making music freely.