On the other side of the fence were the writers and intellectuals who sided with Trotsky in favor of his proposition that, as Daniel Aaron puts it in the classic "Writers on the Left", "the revolution was less a subject for a new art than a molding force that would create a new classless art." The magazine that circulated these ideas was the Partisan Review. The most prominent defender, Gold's major adversary, was James T. Farrell who applied for membership in the SWP but was told he'd be more effective outside the party. Farrell's answer to Gold on these questions is a classic. It is important to understand that Studs Lonigan is everything that a proletarian hero should not be. He is a bum and a reactionary. The final pages of the novel depict a May Day demonstration and Lonigan on his death bed says that the cops should beat in their heads.
Gold was cultural commissar for the CP and made sure to keep writers in line, just as Alvah Bessie did in Hollywood. Bessie's screenplays always depicted stalwart workers and red screenwriters who injected some complexity got their wrists slapped. All of the Communist cultural workers considered their art to be akin to propaganda.
I am not sure that Michael Moore has figured out where he stands in relation to all this. I have a strong sense that he has the highmindedness of people like Alvah Bessie but the brutal honesty of James T. Farrell.
Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)