Art called ‘Portrait of a Young Sailor Clown’ by Forrest (Forrester) Sievers

https://thestalinera.substack.com/p/clown-communism?r=n9ikk&triedRedirect=true

Bread and circuses

Red Circuses

One surprising symbol of the USSR’s communist vision was the unlikely figure of the circus clown. The early Soviet state aimed to promote popular participation within socialist culture and treated clowning as an aesthetic form well suited to its revolutionary state-building project, one predicated upon a vision of collective working-class power. While, at first glance, this may seem bizarre, the circus (and its clowns) had distinctive characteristics that aligned closely with Soviet ideals:

The jubilant, collective spirit of the circus was supposed to mirror the joy of everyday socialist life; its daring physical feats and acrobatics were supposed to showcase the state’s utopian ambition to conquer all human limits; its use of various mechanical marvels, such as electric lighting and the incorporation of automobiles and mechanized flight in performances, was supposed to demonstrate the Promethean drive of Soviet modernization. These elements elevated the circus to a prominent art form with significant political and cultural resonance in Soviet society. Above all, this was a form of “mass” entertainment that reflected the state’s desire for collective participation in a politico-aesthetic project aimed at sharpening the revolutionary consciousness of its citizens. Of course, the figure of the clown itself long predates the Soviet state, and its Soviet incarnation both carried forward and departed from earlier traditions in distinct ways.

Proto-clown entertainers, as early pioneers of combined physical performance with comedy, were seen as far back as ancient times in the mighty civilizations of Rome and Egypt. In the popular conception, the historical clown is perhaps most closely associated with the medieval jester, who, as a court subject, was expected to entertain his noble betters while navigating the delicate balance of mockery and obedience. Eventually escaping the confines of pure political subservience, the figure of the clown shifted into the commercial entertainment world of the 18th century.

The modern circus began to take shape during this time, marked by Philip Astley, an Englishman, who established the first permanent equestrian ring show featuring spectacles of acrobatics and riding in 1768. Astley’s pioneering theatrical framework set the stage for the father of modern-day clowning, Joseph Grimaldi, also English, who, performing as “Joey,” defined the archetypal traits of the modern clown through his exaggerated makeup and comic persona. Grimaldi mainstreamed the clown as a beloved form of entertainment, whose electric physical performances proved to be popular with a broad audience, bringing the wealthy and the working class alike to the circus, and transcending class boundaries.

In this light, it is not totally surprising, then, that the Soviet state took an interest in clowning as a form of “mass” art, enfolding it within its broader project of worker-backed social transformation. The Soviet clown evolved out of a synthesis of traditions of Russian folk performance and the circus of Western Europe. Early circus-like shows in Russia were horse-riding spectacles consciously modeled after equestrian shows popular in Western Europe. Miriam Neirick (2012), in When Pigs Could Fly and Bears Could Dance: A History of the Soviet Circus, writes:

[Early circuses likely used open-air venues or portable tents with audiences seated on wooden benches, and documentation suggests these travelling shows resembled collections of amateur acts and sideshows rather than professional troupes. The circus did not become a stationary, permanent institution until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.]

The Soviet circus also traces its roots to the skomorokhi, itinerant performers in medieval Russia skilled in various performative arts, such as dance, miming, acrobatics, comedy, theatrical sketches, and even training wild animals, primarily bears, to appear in their performances. Russia’s proto-clowns are perhaps best known for incorporating social commentary into their acts; they used their many talents to deliver biting critiques against local elites and powerful landowners. The skomorokh’s subversive edge was also likely related to their vagrant lifestyle, as they traveled from town to town to perform comedy for the common man.

Their political, anti-elite orientation was indicative of their relatively unique status among travelling performers in Europe, distinguishing them from the dominant “Shakespearean jester” in service of societal elites. This was undoubtedly shaped by the environment of political repression in Russia at the time. Tsar Alexander III’s autocratic power reached unprecedented heights through his eager embrace of state surveillance and censorship—cracking down on all perceived revolutionary activity, and laying down the foundation for a subversive Russian clown culture.

The Ciniselli Circus in St. Petersburg was the most significant example of a pre-Bolshevik circus. It brought together performance and politics in a way that had a decisive influence on the development of modern Soviet entertainment spectacle. Despite emerging under the patronage of the Romanov regime, which saw the utility of hosting pro-regime spectacles as vehicles of mass mobilization, the circus became a contested political space with the rise of revolutionary activity in the late 19th century, as these emerging theatrical practices created opportunities to subvert existing hierarchies and subject the powers that be to new kinds of humour-laced critique. Neirick (2012) writes:

[Politically, Ciniselli Circus became a venue for revolutionary engagement. During 1917, both the Ciniselli Circus and the competing Cirque Moderne hosted rallies and women’s demonstrations organized by Bolshevik activists, focusing on labor, war, and social policy. These events drew thousands of participants and exemplified the circus’s transition from a space of cultural entertainment to a politically mobilizing center. By prioritizing the needs of workers and actively excluding rival political factions such as the Mensheviks or Social Revolutionaries, the circus aligned itself with revolutionary ideology, demonstrating how performance spaces could be transformed into instruments of political persuasion and social discipline.]

In 1918, Lunacharsky, the Commissar of Enlightenment, opened the Circus House, a forum for discussing how circus performance could be made consonant with the broader governing communist ideology, inviting relevant stakeholders, such as directors, performers, or members of the public, to contribute ideas for this major project of political-aesthetic reform. It must be emphasized that the Soviet project represented a novel experiment that sought to remake society according to a unitary aesthetic vision, which, in turn, was to reflect the new economic reality of the Soviet state. This was based on Marx’s description of the base–superstructure dynamic, where the economic conditions of a society directly reflected cultural and social forms. Lunacharsky’s view of the state as playing a key role in shaping revolutionary consciousness through cultural and aesthetic institutions can be considered a precursor to Stalin’s eventual mandating of strict aesthetic guidelines for all art in the 1930s (“Socialist Realism,” the official Soviet artistic style that idealized socialist life and promoted Communist values).

The Soviet aesthetic project was largely unprecedented in the sense that the leading institution, the Communist Party, was, under Stalin’s direction, “transformed into a kind of artist whose material was the entire world,” filtering the social reality of Soviet life through the parameters of Socialist Realism (Groys, 1992). Officially mandated in 1934, it sought to portray reality in a way that had concrete political implications, educating and inspiring the masses. The Soviet state was driven by a strong Promethean impulse, a desire to bring everyday life under rationalized, organized, and centralized control, which was contrasted with the anarchic and backward old way of life. The eventual omnipresence of Socialist Realism was a means through which social reality itself could be rationalized and made harmonious with the unitary ideological vision of Soviet communism. This collective “total artwork”—the totality of painting, books, theatre, film, and, yes, circuses—was simultaneously an idealized reflection of what was supposed to be the actually existing state of affairs in the USSR, and a call to action, mobilizing the masses to carry forward the struggle to realize the promised future of total communism. Thus, representation became reality, blurring the line between life and the aesthetic depictions of life commissioned by the state.

The circus was to play an important role in this aesthetic-social transformation. And while the circus was ripe with potential as a tool of social transformation, Lunacharsky believed that it needed to be modified in order to reach its true potential as an authentically socialist art form. The traditional circus, unlike the theatre production, tended to consist of various independent acts, which was not entirely conducive to ideological messaging. In the socialist circus, Lunacharsky sought to have these acts structured into cohesive narratives with overarching plots. This transformed the production into something more akin to a traditional play without sacrificing the circus genre’s fundamental features.

Additionally, the Clown itself needed to be updated as well. Lunacharsky writes: “Their jests are the favorites of the people, and that is esthetically pleasing… but we demand more from a clown. In the ‘renewed circus,’ the clown must have an extensive repertoire. The clown must dare to be a publicist. The [stance] of the clown, of [his] national character, must be totally believable, and deeply democratic” (Abel, 2009). This entailed recasting the Clown as a deeply proletarian figure who was one with the masses, a representation that had continuity with the travelling itinerant Russian performer of times past. Clowns, after the October Revolution, abandoned the flamboyant costumes typical of European clowning for something more simple as a way of better relating to the everyday people in the audience:

[Lazarenko abandoned Ryzhii’s red wig and exaggerated face paint in favor of a sanitized costume … therefore, more appropriate to the serious work of cleansing the enemy from the hearts and minds of the Soviet people. (Neirick, 2012)]

Indeed, “proletarianizing” the circus by breaking down the barrier between performer and spectator created a kind of social intimacy with working-class audiences:

[I did not set for myself the goal of studying political propaganda. But insofar as I was strongly connected to my viewers and not only was not ashamed of being a gallery ryzhii, but even took pride in this, then naturally, I began to live by the ideas and interests of my viewers, and these were the ideas and interests of the masses, the interests and ideas of the working people (Neirick, 2012)]

The Soviet clown’s proletarian ethos was embodied in performers like Lazarenko, who exemplified an unwavering commitment to socialist performance. Prior to the revolution, Lazarenko had spent his career traveling between different provincial circuses and had always ridden in the third class with other ordinary citizens; here,

[End of free trial lol] I’m not planning on spending additional money any time soon, much as I’d like to for his writing.