There can be no music without ideology. The old composers, whether they knew it or not, were upholding a political theory. Most of them, of course, were bolstering the rule of the upper classes.

I live in the USSR, work actively and count naturally on the worker and peasant spectator. If I am not comprehensible to them I should be deported.

What can be considered human emotions? Surely not only lyricism, sadness, tragedy? Doesn't laughter also have a claim to that lofty title? I want to fight for …

If they cut off both hands, I will compose music anyway holding the pen in my teeth.

If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in thei…

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

What life means to me is to put the content of Shelley into the form of Zola. The proletarian writer is a writer with a purpose; he thinks no more of 'art for …