Steal Like artist Communist

Oleg Kleonov

Oleg Kleonov is an artist and poet, author of the collection "newspaper Pravda in our days", "departure of darkness", "proletarian poem". In January 2020, in his blog, he formulated the rules of revolutionary creativity, which instantly made him famous. Labor & drawing translated this Manifesto about life, work, the Internet, communication, and creativity.

The protests in America that we deserve

1. Steal like Communist

Every artist has to answer the question of where they get their ideas from. The revolutionary artist will reply :" I steal them from the rich and give them to the poor." That's all there is to say about it.

Nothing comes out of nowhere and nothing goes anywhere. This means that there are prerequisites for everything, and our task is to develop what is available with talent.

Everything has prerequisites. This was stated in Lenin:

"The prerequisites for the revolution in Russia were the global crisis of capitalism. Our revolution is a prerequisite for the world domination of communism on the entire planet"

(PSS, volume 13, page 666).

Any new project mixes elements of old ideas or just changes one of them. Art schools always show one trick. Draw two parallel lines on a piece of paper:

How many lines are there in the drawing? The first line is visible, the second, but there is also a dark line between them. See? 1 + 1 = 3.

An artist is a collector. Not a speculator, not a dirty merchant who collects everything indiscriminately for profit, but a collector-who purposefully collects only those things that he really loves.

Capitalists say: "Garbage at the entrance – garbage at the exit". This is true, but not always. For example, there is recycling of garbage and waste. From a capitalist trash cheap movie to a more acceptable socialist film of the genre "science fiction trash Thriller with elements of social fiction".

Our task is to learn from the mistakes of capitalists, from their ideas and experience. The best way to do this is to read. Read, read, read, read, read. Textbooks, articles, pictures, diagrams. The more you read, the wider the choice of what will affect you.

Nothing prevents to imitate the bourgeois writers. Look at his works, find out what he read. And read it all. Get to the best in the logical chain that was driven by the Creator when creating his work.

Steal ideas and save them for the future. Carry a notebook everywhere. Write in books. Rip pages out of magazines and create collages from them in your sketchbook. Steal like an artist a Communist.

2. You are what you do

This was stated by Che Guevara in his book " Revolution on a motorcycle»:

«Yesterday's orphans are now our soldiers. They grew up without fathers, so they found them on the streets, in history. To some extent, this was a gift for us, because they saw all the horrors of capitalism.

In fact, a person is what they let into their life. You are the sum of what affects you. As Marx said, "we are created and shaped by what we love, what we hope for, and what we sincerely desire"

They had to choose the role models that children usually find in their parents. Cruelty filled their ideas about the ideal world that we were going to build for everyone…».

Last year, there was a video on the Internet of a Korean artist-designer who was responsible for the design of the stadium in the city of Pyongyang and its decoration during the state holiday of sports.

Speaking about creativity, she said exactly what allows so many people to postpone their projects: "If you don't know who you are and what you live for or what you believe in, then you don't live, you exist. Your life has no meaning, and you are not valued by yourself, your neighbors, or the state."

If I had been waiting to understand "who I am" and "who we are", I would not have been" creative", I would still be sitting around trying to find myself, instead of just starting to do something. I know from experience that it is in the process of work that we understand who we are.

You're ready. Start working.

Maybe you're scared. This is a biological mechanism, the same is in technology. It's called "protection against the fool". TV-type equipment is specially designed so that a stupid person does not break it. It's the same with you. You are deliberately afraid to do something strange, because nature does not know whether you are a fool or not. That's why the defense mechanism sends out fear so that you think 10 times before doing something strange, new, and potentially dangerous.

Confidence in success and a clear plan can overcome fear. Help from your friends will give you more courage. But there is another way.

Namely, the game. Let drawing be like football or chess for you. You draw, it may be bad, it may be weak. But no one will judge you. And you like it, you're having fun. What if you do something right? And then everyone will praise you.

Patti Smith's book "Just kids" is indicative. This is the story of how two friends came to new York to learn how to draw as professional artists.

Faced with the horrors of capitalism, mob violence, lynching of blacks, unemployment and starvation, they still tried to change the world for the better through their drawings. Do you know how they did it? They behaved like artists. The humorous moment of the book – Patty and her friend, dressed as tramps, went to Washington Square, where there are always a lot of people. One old lady stared at them and said to her husband: "Take a picture of them. I think they are artists." "No – "he said, shaking his head," they're just little dweebs."

The whole world is a field for experiments. For creativity, you also need a laboratory, a suit, and knowledge. The lab is your workspace. It can be a Studio, a Desk, or a sketchbook. A suit is your work clothes – special pants that make you feel comfortable, house Slippers that you write in, or that funny hat that inspires you. And knowledge is power. Time is also important. An hour here, an hour there.

Play until you love it so much that you are ready to give years of your life to this cause.

3. Write a book that you want to read

I'll tell you a short story. In 2013, like many modern Communists, I was a conservative and patriot of my country. I have read many books on the topic of Russia's war with America. I even wanted to write my own book about how Crimea and Eastern Ukraine became part of Russia. And then there was a coup d'etat in Ukraine and something happened that I wanted to write in my book.

The moral of the story is this. It's better to write your own book. And even better, write it in real life, making yourself the main character, performing feats.

An aspiring socialist writer always wonders what he should write about. The Trotskyists tell him: "Write about what you like." The result is often a horror story where nothing interesting happens. Trotskyists are shot, and people are repressed.

Therefore, the best advice is not to write about what you like, but to write about what you should. Write a story that will help you deal with capitalism, hunger, and injustice. We are engaged in creativity, because it helps both the Creator and every good person to live. All fiction is, in fact, advice for people how to live.

The best way to decide what to do is to think about what you should do as a parent to a child, as a relative to a relative, as a soldier to a fellow soldier. Create a picture, looking at which a person will be ashamed of cowardice, hate laziness, respect heroes, glorify science.

In art, comrade, you must love your work. And every picture that you draw should want to see as a spectator, every article should want to read as a reader, every movie should be watched and every song should be listened to.

If what you need to draw and what you want – diverge, it's a disaster. And the trouble is not in the world, but in you. You must love not what you don't need, but what you need. What you like should be useful to you and the working people.

4. Automate automation

It's no secret that the process of writing an article in a notebook and in a computer is very different. Indeed, when we write in Word, we have little time to think about it and there is no opportunity to draw something in the margins, a sort of diagram. Moreover, the text written with a pen in a notebook cannot be erased or removed. This disciplines the writer.

However, computers are needed. We need automation, we need technology. Conservative capitalists believe that Microsoft Word is their enemy. I use it all the time at work, so I save my time.

It's the same with drawing. You can draw on paper, then take photos. But why? This has its own charm, but for most jobs, it's better to draw on a graphics tablet. In addition, digital paints are free and available to the user in infinite quantities.

The main thing in the use of technology = the ability to automate part of the artist's work. The computer draws smoother lines and allows you to calculate their trajectory using formulas. I'm not talking about animation, where you need to draw frame-by-frame. Since this is death, and guaranteed.

5. At least a little-know everything

To know everything in the world is unrealistic, but I cherish my dream solved the problem brilliantly. I connect Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, GalileOoo, Galileo.

It is not necessary to know everything in detail, but it is very good when a person roughly understands how different things work in the world. Because he can use knowledge as an example as an analogy.

In art, this is especially important, since an artist needs to take ideas, analogies, and use allusions and hints. And this requires knowledge about different things from different topics.

And in order not to be a laughing stock-you need to consult with specialists. And in order to know what you need to ask – you need to roughly understand the question.

This way you save a lot of brain resources. At the same time, you get access to a huge amount of knowledge. And you should use the released computing resources to analyze and use the available information. For the benefit of the working people and world happiness-communism.

6. Formula for winning: normally do – normally will be

I get a lot of emails from young artists who ask how they can find their audience. "How do I get someone to open me up?"

I understand them very well. After graduating from military school, I had a similar question. The classroom is a beautiful, if artificial, place to work. Teachers are paid to take care of you, and your friends are interested in your development. Never in your life will you have such attentive viewers as teachers and friends.

However, you will soon learn that the world as a whole does not care about your ideas. No one wants your stories, your scribbles on canvas, your screams to music, and so on. It sounds harsh, but it is.

As Stepan Presnukhin said, "this does not mean that people are uneducated or cruel, they just sell their labor force and therefore they do not have time for your creativity." If there was a secret formula for enslaving the audience, I would use it to stop wars and build communism. But I know only one is not really the original formula, "I do – will be fine".

This process takes place in 2 stages:

Step 1: "do the project Normally" – it is incredibly difficult to make sure that there are no mistakes. But this is where masteroff's skill lies.

Practice your idea every day. Fail, do better and better with each new time.

Step 2: "it will be Fine, some will see and tell others" – it was difficult to spread the information 10 years ago. Now everything is very simple – "put the project on the Internet". And if it's good, everyone will see it and tell others.

7. Geography is not necessary

I grew up in a Gulag, in the middle of the hills and Arctic desert of the Murmansk District. When I was a child, the only thing I wanted was to get into the friendly company of bear artists. I wanted to be free of the polar night, to go South from the damned hell and find myself somewhere where there is at least something beautiful.

Ruins of plant No. 1937 in Severogorsk

Now I live in St. Petersburg. Overall, a cool place. There are a lot of military personnel, programmers, artists, animators and other creative people everywhere.

And you know what? 90% of my mentors and colleagues do not live in St. Petersburg. They live on the Internet. Most of my projects, conversations, and creative acquaintances take place online. Instead of real communication in art studios, I made friends in Vkontakte (Rus fasebook that better fasebook) and discord.

I am happy that I was born in Russia, where there was communism and even when it was destroyed, there were huge remnants of it in my country. Life is not random, but fate is not. Take care of yourself and your loved ones.

Native Gulag is the dearest of all

8. Work brothers (the world is big factory)

I will say this briefly. That's the only reason I'm here – to build communism.

Colonel Kurtz put it much better:

«I only know one rule: you have to be angry, damn it. You need to work. The Bible says, am I my brother's Keeper? Definitely Yes.

You need to be correct and consistent in everyday life – this will allow you to be passionate in our difficult and dangerous business».

I'm a boring guy who works from 9 to 17 and lives in an industrial residential area with my wife and kids.

This whole capitalist image of an artist who uses drugs, loafs around, makes jokes, fights, even though it's all the same – it's completely made up. Of course there are such characters. But mostly they are the children of the bourgeoisie, who were enriched by colonization, slavery, and both world wars. This means that their wealth is spilled human blood. So their kids go crazy. They have money and a genuine hatred of people.

Therefore, this way of life wants to die young. The truth is that art requires a lot of energy. And there will be no energy if you spend it on other things.

Here are some tips that have benefited me personally:

Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Family is very important.

Don't just drink coffee. Only when you really need it

Start the day like in the army. Have Breakfast, do 30 push-UPS and 10 pull-UPS, sleep normally, 8 hours minimum. A healthy body has a healthy mind.

If you are a girl, at least do exercises. And remember that your skeleton will not be taken as an Archer because of scoliosis. And you will be skeletal infantry. No one needs consumables.

Don't cry don't be afraid don't ask.

Live simply. You don't need to save on every penny, but you don't need to spend money on any nonsense. Freedom from financial stress means freedom in art.

Divide the process of your life into 5 types of activities.

Necessary. At this time, you sleep, eat, and so on.

the Main work. Draw, work in a factory, or whatever your main job is that gives you a living.

Your work. Do what you like. And you should like what you and the working people need. Draw, sing, and so on.

Mental and physical development.

This is different. Various events, emergencies, and so on.

And then note the important thing. You won't get away from your main job. Whether you want to or not, you can't skip a shift at the factory, otherwise you'll go to the Gulag in Kolyma. The same goes for events. You certainly don't have to go to the wedding of a second cousin, but it is better not to do it.

But when you draw and nothing comes to mind, you can change the type of activity. Go to the gym or read a book. Or get some sleep.

In Soviet rush there is a saying "morning is wiser than evening"

And most important. DRAW DIAGRAMS, take notes

Diagrams, pictures and illustrations are the basis for a creative understanding of the subject. Not only do you know formally how to do it, but you can also visually show and explain it to others

Instead of learning it from a dry text – I drew it and now I'm happy.

9. Image as a bullet, the song is like a grenade

During the great Patriotic war, many artists went to the front. Many musicians, actors, and scientists also became soldiers. But not all of them.

There was a heavy war, soldiers were killed, the fascist gang plundered Soviet Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic States. The Motherland needed men to protect women, the elderly, and children. But not just soldiers. The same artists never ceased to be needed.

Many art people wanted to go to the front. But their homeland did not let them go. The poster, song, film, and verse were needed by soldiers at the front and civilians in the rear. And it's one thing to write poems and songs of front-line soldiers that could be written, read and sung right in the trenches. Films and posters are another matter.

Agitation and propaganda are also weapons. This was the case before the creation of nuclear weapons. After its creation and use by the Americans on peaceful cities in Japan, information weapons became the most important weapon after nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately the capitalists have won in the information race. However much is changing now and the Communists are again popular with young people

10. Art is selection.

The amount of time in the movie is limited. The number of words and time of the song is limited. The artist has a limited amount of space on the canvas.

Question. Whether to show unnecessary things that do not develop the plot, do not move motivation, or reflect historical events. It doesn't matter in a book or a song, in a movie or a picture. Answer. Of course not.

Art consists in taking what is necessary from life, showing what is important, paying attention to problems, teaching good things, and warning against mistakes.