Realism in the balance

In its day the revolutionary bourgeoisie conducted a violent struggle in the interests of its own class; it made use of every means at its disposal, including those of imaginative literature. What was it that made the vestiges of chivalry the object of universal ridicule? Cervantes' Don Quixote. Don Quixote was the most powerful weapon in the arsenal of the bourgeoisie in its war against feudalism and aristocracy. The revolutionary proletariat could do with at least one little Cervantes to arm it with a similar weapon.


Georgi Dimitrov, Speech given during an anti-Fascist evening in the Writers' Club in Moscow
Found in "Realism in the Balance," Gyorgy Lukacs, 1938