The question of how music and politics interact has always aroused passionate debate, and it looms large in this study of the Soviet proletarian music movement. The proletarian music movement was the driving force behind many of the developments in early Soviet musical life, and its influence was felt long after the groups that belonged to it disbanded in 1932. It consisted of politicians, composers, musicologists, performers and educators who were united by their desire to create a dictatorship of the proletariat in musical life, and develop musical forms that responded to the needs of their...