Trotsky's book summarizes Marxist thought on issues of art, as it had developed over three-quarters of a century, particularly in the writings of Franz Mehring, G.W. Plekhanov, and Antonio Labriola. Additionally, it was part of the struggle against the bureaucracy that was set to stifle Soviet intellectual life within the next decade. In other words, by further developing the genuine Marxist tradition of literary criticism in relation to the contemporary cultural issues, Trotsky sought to provide an alternative to the suffocating atmosphere propagated by the ruling group. Although "Literature and Revolution" explicitly engages with the views of the Futurists, Formalists, and Proletkult, each formulation simultaneously rejects narrow-mindedness.