The 1st Congress of Soviet Writers has passed. 1st Congress of Soviet Writers

The First All-Union Congress of Writers was held from August 17 to September 1, 1934. During this time, 26 meetings were held, at which the reports of A.M. Gorky about Soviet literature, S.Ya. Marshak about children's literature, K. Radek about contemporary world literature and the tasks of proletarian art, V.Ya. Kirpotina, N.F. Pogodin, V.M. Kirshon on Soviet drama, N.I. Bukharin on poetry, poetics and the tasks of poetry in the USSR, V.P. Stavsky about the literary youth of the country, K.Ya. Gorbunov on the work of publishing houses with novice writers, P.F. Yudin on the charter of the union Soviet writers... The state of literature in the national republics was analyzed.

The genre composition of the forum participants was diverse: there were about 33% of prose writers, 19.2% of poets, 4.7% of playwrights, 12.7% of literary critics, 2% of essayists, 1.8% of journalists, and 1.8% of children's writers. - 1.3%, etc. 12

Writers and poets of 52 nationalities of the country were represented at the congress, including Russians - 201 people, Jews - 113 people, Georgians - 28, Ukrainians - 25, Armenians - 19, Tatars - 19, Belarusians - 17, Uzbeks - 12, Tajiks - 10, etc. The most representative were the writers' delegations from Moscow - 175 people, Leningrad - 45, Ukraine - 42, Belarus - 26, Georgia - 30, Armenia - 18, Azerbaijan - 17, Uzbekistan - 16, Tajikistan - 14.

The congress was attended by 40 foreign writers, including Louis Aragon, Martin Andersen Nexe, Jean-Richard Blok, Willie Bredel and others. Some of them took part in the debate. Thus, the authorities could hope for predictable decisions corresponding to the then ideology and politics of the writers' congress.

The beginning of the congress of writers was remarkable. It was discovered by A.M. Bitter. Among the problems raised by Gorky in his report, a significant place was assigned to the tasks Soviet literature... In particular, he stressed that she cannot boast of the ability to be creative in the analysis of life. The stock of impressions, the amount of knowledge of the writers is not great, and there is no particular concern for expanding, deepening it. A man of labor should become the main hero of Soviet literature... Writers should to pay more attention children, Soviet women, history of your country, etc. Speaking about the writers' union, Gorky stressed that he (union) must set the task not only to protect the professional interests of writers, but also the interests of literature in general. The union should, to some extent, take over the leadership of the army of novice writers, should organize it, teach it to work with literary material etc. This explains Gorky's thesis that Soviet literature should be organized as a single collective whole, as a powerful instrument of socialist culture.

Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) A. Zhdanov. He urged writers to master the so-called technique of literary work, to collect, study, critically master literary heritage past, fight for language culture, for the high quality of the works. The available literature did not yet meet the requirements of the era. However, all these instructions and assessments of Soviet literature were elementary, non-specific and had the same directive character.

Ehrenburg posed literary criticism question... The latter, in his opinion, puts writers either on a red or black board, while easily changing the position of writers. "It should not be allowed," asserts Ehrenburg, "so that the literary analysis of works immediately affects social status writers. The question of the distribution of benefits should not depend on the opinion of the critic. It is impossible ... to consider the failures and breakdowns of the artist of the word as crimes, and successes as rehabilitation. ”The thought was sharply expressed that writers are not consumer goods, there is no such machine that would allow making writers in series. Thus, Ehrenburg dealt a blow to the popular belief that anyone who mastered the technique of writing. In his opinion, the creation of a work of art is an individual matter, ... intimate, and literary brigades will remain in the history of Soviet literature as a picturesque but brief detail of the youthful years.

L. Seifullina remarked: " Soviet authority cherishes writers like nowhere else and they've gotten used to it. The writer is not averse to entrusting the proofs of his works to the Politburo. We are accustomed to addressing the party and government with every little detail and waiting for help. We are not looking for new names ... We have no criticism at all... Writers must create responsible criticism for themselves, must defend themselves if it is irresponsible. Writers should not talk about this in quiet behind-the-scenes conversations, but in a loud voice to achieve it. ... In the writers' environment, there are still rappian habits. We need smart, sensible leaders of the writers' union, not officials. "

There was no literary criticism as such. Everything was subordinated to ideology.

The main criterion of criticism in evaluating works, which was adopted at the Congress: adherence to the method of socialist realism.

As the only artistic method at the Congress was recognized socialist realism, the principles of which were first formulated in the "Charter Writers' Union USSR "(1934).

The main tenet of socialist realism was partisanship, socialist ideology (subordination of literature and art to the principles of ideology and politics, emasculation of the very content of art).

Socialist realism was universal method prescribed, in addition to literature, music, cinema, fine arts and even ballet. An entire era in Russian culture has passed under his flag.

Many artists whose work did not fit into Procrustean bed socialist realism, at best they were excommunicated from literature and art, at worst they were subjected to repression (Mandelstam, Meyerhold, Pilnyak, Babel, Kharms, Pavel Vasiliev, etc.).

The "development" of the method led to the fact that in the 1960s - 1980s the official authorities chose the most loyal from the huge mass of socialist realism singers, shower them with prizes and titles in abundance, even the term "secretarial literature" appeared (this was the name of the works of writers published in millions of copies.

Despite the fact that the official criticism and literary criticism ranked among the outstanding representatives of socialist realism such writers as A.N. Tolstoy, M.A.Sholokhov, A.A.Fadeev, L.M. Leonov, they did not pure form as such (although some of their works fully met the requirements of the main method). The strength of their talent, original talent pushed the limited framework of socialist realism, the truly talented books of these writers entered the treasury of great Russian literature.

Chapter 11.

FIRST CONGRESS OF WRITERS

Zhdanov's Sochi vacation was short - one of the most significant public events of the 1930s awaited him. On August 17, 1934, in Moscow, in the Column Hall of the House of Unions, a meeting of the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers opened. There was all the color of literature - all the names known then and now were located in the hall, there is simply no point in listing them.

582 delegates represented all genres of literature and all regions of a large country. Among them there were about two hundred Russians (as they still wrote at that time - Great Russians), about a hundred Jews and thirty Georgians, 25 Ukrainians, about twenty Tatars and Belarusians, 12 Uzbeks. Another 43 nationalities represented from ten to one delegate. Even Chinese, Italians, Greeks and Persians were represented. Many eminent foreign writers were present as guests of the congress.

Almost all are men, only a few women. Average age participants - 36 years, average literary experience - 13 years. Half are communists and Komsomol members. By origin of the delegates, the first place comes from peasants - a little less than half of them. A quarter of the workers, a tenth of the intelligentsia. There are only a few noblemen and clergymen. Almost half of those present will not survive the next decade - they will fall under the roller of repression or die on the fronts of an already imminent war ...

In the center of the presidium are two main figures of the congress - the patriarch of Russian literature, the living classic Maxim Gorky and the secretary of the Central Committee Andrei Zhdanov. Replenished, with a round, shaved head, in a jacket over a blouse.

Design this event emerged in the Stalinist Politburo back in 1932. Initially, the congress of writers was scheduled for the spring of 1933, but the task of uniting all the writers of the USSR was not easy. First, the literary figures themselves, as in all times, did not favor each other too much. Secondly, the "proletarian" writers united in the RAPP, who felt themselves on horseback throughout the 1920s, actively did not want to lose their political monopoly in the field of literature. However, the indicative class struggle in literature, according to the party, should have ended. The time has come for the ideological consolidation of society, from now on creative potential The party intended to use all the literary forces to mobilize the people to fulfill the tasks of state building.

Therefore, the summer of 1934 passed for the new secretary of the Central Committee in the trouble of preparing and holding the Congress of Writers Soviet Union... In the top leadership of the CPSU (b), the newcomer Zhdanov was known as an "intellectual". Some of the flatterers (and for a person at this level, such appear inevitably) will soon even call him “the second Lunacharsky”. This, of course, is flattery, but our hero really stood out against the background of other members of the top Soviet leadership with an increased, even demonstrative interest in culture and art in general and in the role of the creative intelligentsia in the new society in particular.

Having a good humanitarian education by those standards, Zhdanov was not only interested in all the novelties of literature, music, cinema of those years, but also tried to theoretically comprehend the questions of the role and place of the intelligentsia in a socialist state. Let us recall his first articles on this topic in the Shadrinsk newspaper Iset or Tverskoy Pravda. Stalin, who paid much attention to the issues of the new Soviet culture, directed the interests of Zhdanov in a practical direction.

The first writers' congress built a fairly effective system of state and party administration in this area. At the same time, the goal was not only totalitarian control over the writing fraternity - first of all, it was required to bring literature and the still illiterate masses of the people closer together. In the new Stalinist state, literature (by the way, like all art) was to become not a refined entertainment for the jaded "elitists", but a means of educating and enhancing the culture of the entire people. Applied means - for further more effective development country.

Stalin spoke with bitterness about the past: "Russia was beaten for military backwardness, for cultural backwardness ..." The new secretary of the Central Committee, Zhdanov, was to take up the task of overcoming cultural backwardness.

In the 1930s-1940s, our hero will demand from creative personalities both tension and self-restraint of unbridled talents - it is clear that not all "geniuses" liked it: after all, it is much easier to poke around in your own muddy "I", pulling something out of it for the amusement of the generous bourgeois public.

It is from here - from the pressure of Zhdanov on creative talents, justified by national and state interests - that the origins of that hatred towards him during the years of Gorbachev's perestroika and the origins of the "black legend" about Zhdanov as the main persecutor of the creative intelligentsia originate.

The first congress of writers not only shaped the literary policy of "socialist realism" for decades to come. It was conceived and became an effective propaganda action for outside world... At that time, the intelligentsia of the entire planet closely followed the events in the USSR, and events like the Writers' Congress did not previously have even close precedents in world practice. This side of the congress was also organized by Comrade Zhdanov.

On August 15, 1934, under the leadership of Zhdanov, a meeting of the party group of the organizing committee of the future Union of Writers was held, dedicated to solving the last nuances in the preparation of the congress. It was Zhdanov who identified general outline the personal composition of the presidium, credentials committee and other organs of the congress. The transcript preserved his words: "The congress is obviously opened by Aleksey Maksimovich" (177).

Maxim Gorky and Andrei Zhdanov, as we remember, had known each other since 1928, when famous writer visited his homeland and the young leader of the region was a guide to the famous Nizhny Novgorod citizen. It was under Zhdanov that they renamed Nizhny Novgorod to Gorky. So a good personal relationship with a very difficult person who knew his own worth was another reason for Zhdanov's appointment as responsible for the successful holding of the First Congress of USSR Writers.

One of Zhdanov's tasks was to prevent the congress from turning into a demonstration and opposition of writers' ambitions and groups. Zhdanov demanded, for example, from the Rappovites that literary discussions at the congress should not turn, as they used to, into the area of ​​political accusations. There were also those who were formally apolitical, in the words of Zhdanov himself, "incorrigible skeptics and ironists, of whom there are so many in the literary environment."

Sketching the program of the congress, Zhdanov made special mention of the “poetic” moments: “Two reports on poetry. We devote one day to this question. By the way, there will probably be quite a few fights over poetry ... ”(178)

Our hero persistently advised writers to discuss creative issues "with passion and ardor" and not get bogged down in organizational issues, quarrelsome issues ... According to Zhdanov, the congress will give "a clear analysis of Soviet literature in all its branches", while the task of the future union will be to educate many thousands of new writers. According to Zhdanov's estimates, the Writers' Union should have 30-40 thousand members.

Opening the event on August 17, 1934, Zhdanov addressed the audience with greetings from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Three days later, his speech will be published in Pravda under the title "Soviet Literature - the Most Ideological, Most Advanced Literature in the World."

Against the background of the subsequent discussions about poetics and romance, Zhdanov's speech was very businesslike and frank: “Our Soviet literature is not afraid of accusations of tendentiousness. Yes, Soviet literature is tendentious, because in the era of class struggle there is no literature that is not class, not tendentious, allegedly apolitical ... ”(179)

In fact, it was the quintessence of the Soviet approach to literature both in form and in content: “In our country, the main characters literary work- these are active builders of a new life: workers and workers, collective farmers and collective farmers, party members, business executives, engineers, Komsomol members, pioneers. Our literature is full of enthusiasm and heroism. It is optimistic because it is the literature of the rising class - the proletariat. Our Soviet literature is strong in that it serves a new cause - the cause of socialist construction. "

In his report, Zhdanov, on behalf of the party and the government, explained the essence of one of the main issues of the congress: “... Truthfulness and historical concreteness artistic image must be combined with the task of ideological remaking and educating the working people in the spirit of socialism. This method fiction and literary criticism there is what we call the method of socialist realism. "

According to the opinion of the Central Committee of the party voiced by Zhdanov, Soviet literature should combine "the most sober practical work with the greatest heroism and grandiose prospects."

Refuting in advance possible objections about the incompatibility of literary romance with realism, especially socialist, the Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars broadcast through Zhdanov: practical work with the greatest heroism and grandiose prospects. This will not be a utopia, for our tomorrow is being prepared by systematic, conscious work today. "

As if complementing famous expression Stalin, Comrade Zhdanov explained: “To be engineers human souls- it means actively fighting for the culture of the language, for the quality of works. That is why tireless work on oneself and on one's ideological armament in the spirit of socialism is the indispensable condition without which Soviet writers cannot alter the minds of their readers and thus be engineers of human souls. " It is necessary to “know life, be able to portray it truthfully in works of art, to portray not scholastic, not dead, not simply as an objective reality, but to portray reality in its revolutionary development. "

Not without the turns characteristic of the style of the era: “Comrade Stalin to the end revealed the roots of our difficulties and shortcomings. They follow from the backlog of organizational and practical work from the demands of the political line of the party and the requests put forward by the implementation of the second five-year plan ”(180).

Also characteristic are the words that “our writer draws his material from the heroic epic of the Chelyuskinites”, that “all conditions have been created for our writer”, that “only in our country literature and the writer have been raised to such a height”, a call to master the “technique of "Etc. And, of course, the words about" the banner of Marx - Engels - Lenin - Stalin ", whose victory made it possible to convene this congress. “If this victory hadn’t been, there would have been no your congress,” Zhdanov said to friendly applause, completing this party directive to Soviet writers.

With all the "proletarian" enthusiasm, who sincerely loved the Russian classic literature our hero urged writers not to forget the literary heritage of the Russian past when creating "socialist realism". As for Soviet literature of the 1930s-1940s, an indicative fact is that Zhdanov at the congress and later was supported by writers who did not find a place in today's Russia, in which the history of literature of that era is mainly represented by those who are now perceived as anti-Soviet. The books and names of Zhdanov's comrades-in-arms on the "literary front" - for example, Leonid Sobolev or Pyotr Pavlenko - are essentially inaccessible to modern readers.

Again, I recall the words of our hero at the writers' congress - "there is no and cannot be in the era of class struggle literature that is not class, not tendentious, allegedly apolitical ...". Only now, in this class struggle, the class of "effective owners" has won.

The first All-Union Congress of Writers lasted two weeks. Naturally, the main participants and speakers were literary men. But besides Zhdanov, two more famous politicians of those years spoke at the congress - Nikolai Bukharin and Karl Radek. Both represented the political factions at the helm in the 1920s. Both were talented and fruitful publicists, during the years of their political rise they tried to actively influence the writers Soviet Russia.

In contrast to Zhdanov's dry and purely businesslike, in fact, directive speech, a former member of the Central Committee Bukharin at the congress read an extensive report on the topic "On poetry, poetics and the tasks of poetry in the USSR" sages. Bukharin actively promoted Pasternak to the best Soviet poets, spread rot against Yesenin and criticized Mayakovsky, whom Stalin predicted to be the best Soviet poets.

The presence of Bukharin and Radek at the writers' congress was echoes on the "literary front" of the political struggle that had been going on at the top of the USSR all the years after Lenin's death. Supervision over this undercover fuss was also one of Zhdanov's delicate tasks at the congress. Many of the delegates, not without inner gloating, watched the literary exercises of Bukharin, who was falling from Olympus.

On the eve of the end of the congress, on the last summer morning of 1934, a telephone call rang in the office of the deputy head of the department of leading party bodies of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. The owner of the office, 33-year-old Alexander Shcherbakov, picking up the receiver, heard a strange voice: "Who is on the phone?"

Who's asking? - Shcherbakov, already accustomed to the commanding power, was a little surprised.

But who is on the phone? - did not appease the strange voice.

Finally, the owner of the office heard the familiar voice of Kaganovich in the receiver, which cheerfully informed someone, probably sitting next to him: “He doesn’t speak and thinks what an impudent man is talking to me so impudently”.

Is that you, Shcherbakov? - Kaganovich continued into the phone.

I am Lazar Moiseevich.

So he recognized me?

Well, come to me now.

In Kaganovich's office, Shcherbakov saw a laughing Zhdanov: "What, did I play you?" It was the new secretary of the Central Committee who, having changed his voice, called his old acquaintance. Everyone chuckled at the simple joke and immediately switched to a business-like tone. “This is the matter,” Zhdanov turned to Shcherbakov, “we want to entrust you with work, extremely important and difficult, you will probably be stunned when I tell you what kind of work it is. We went over dozens of people before settling on your candidacy ”(181).

In the 1920s, Shcherbakov worked for many years in the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Committee under the leadership of Zhdanov and now listened to an old acquaintance, trying to figure out where he could be sent. As deputy head of the department of leading party bodies of the Central Committee, he knew perfectly well where the strengthening of personnel was required - East Kazakhstan, the Urals, or even the Council of People's Commissars. Having joined the ranks of the Bolsheviks as a seventeen-year-old youth, Shcherbakov was ready, without hesitation, to carry out any order of the party. But the proposal to become the secretary of the Writers' Union seemed to the young official of the Central Committee to be a joke that was cleaner than a telephone one.

“For a few minutes I figured out what that meant,” Shcherbakov writes in his diary, “and then burst out in a cascade of“ against ”... Now I was asked to go to the congress, start getting to know the writers' public.”

Shcherbakov disciplinedly carried out the order of the party bosses and went to Column Hall House of unions. The writers did not inspire him, a note appeared in his diary: “I was at the congress for half an hour. Gone. Nauseous ”(182).

The upset Shcherbakov was immediately summoned to the office of another all-powerful Politburo member, Molotov. "I am engaged in literature only as a reader," - Shcherbakov was worried in response to the persuasions of his superiors. By joint efforts Zhdanov, Molotov and Kaganovich "persuaded" the younger comrade. In the evening Zhdanov took the doomed Shcherbakov to Gorky's dacha. The living classic liked the future nomenklatura secretary of the Union of Writers of the USSR - and above all precisely because of the lack of literary ambitions.

This whole story shows that the relations at the very top of power were then still far from the hardened bureaucracy, and the young, even the most ambitious leaders of those years were not unprincipled careerists who did not care where to lead.

A handwritten letter from Zhdanov, sent to Stalin on the same day, August 31, 1934 (183), has survived. Our hero prepared it carefully, in fact, as an informal report on his work. The draft of the letter, which Zhdanov began to sketch back on August 28, also remained in the archives (184), so it is interesting to compare it with the finished version of the letter.

“At the congress of writers there is now a debate on reports on drama,” Zhdanov wrote in a draft. - In the evening Bukharin's lecture on poetry. We think the congress will end on the 31st. The people were already getting tired. The mood of the delegates is very good. The congress is praised by everyone, including the incorrigible skeptics and ironists, of whom there are so many in the literary environment.

During the first two days, when the reports on the first issue were read, there were serious concerns about the congress. People wandered the sidelines, the congress somehow did not find itself. On the other hand, the debate on both Gorky's report and Radek's report was very lively. The Column Hall was bursting with the audience. The climb was such that we sat for 4 hours without a break and the delegates did not go almost. The crowded audience, overcrowded parallel halls, bright greetings, especially from the pioneers, collective farmers Smirnova from the Moscow region had a great effect on the writers. The general unanimous impression was that the congress was a success. "

The final version of the letter of August 31 began as follows: “The business with the Congress of Soviet Writers is over. Yesterday, the list of the Presidium and the Secretariat of the Board was very unanimously elected ... Gorky, before the plenum yesterday, once again tried to be capricious and criticize the lists that had been agreed with him more than once ... He did not want to go to the plenum, to preside at the plenum. Humanly, it was a pity for him, as he was very tired, talking about a trip to the Crimea on vacation. I had to push him pretty hard, and the plenum was held in such a way that the old man admired the unanimity in the leadership.

The congress went well. it general review all our and foreign writers, both of them, are delighted with the congress.

The most incorrigible skeptics, who prophesied the failure of the congress, are now forced to admit its colossal success ...

Most of all the noise was around Bukharin's speech, and especially around closing remarks... Due to the fact that the communist poets Demyan Bedny, Bezymensky and others gathered to criticize his report, Bukharin in panic asked to intervene and prevent political attacks. We came to his aid in this matter, having gathered the leading workers of the Congress and gave instructions that Comrade. the communists did not allow any political generalizations against Bukharin in their criticism. The criticism, however, came out pretty strong. In his concluding speech, Bukharin dealt with his opponents in a simple areal manner ... The formalist made his mark in Bukharin here as well. In his concluding remarks, he deepened the formalistic mistakes that were made in the lecture ... I am sending you an uncorrected transcript of Bukharin's concluding words, which highlights individual attacks that he had no right to make at the congress. Therefore, we obliged him to make a statement at the congress and, in addition, proposed to revise the transcript, which he did. "

On this occasion, there is a note from Bukharin to Zhdanov, made on the letterhead of Izvestia (the former leader of the opposition was then the editor of this second newspaper in the USSR). In his note, Bukharin is very respectful to the new secretary of the Central Committee: “Dear AA! For God's sake, read it quickly ... I straightened everything harsh places... I ask you very much to read the noci opee, so that you can definitely give it to the newspaper today. Otherwise, it is just a scandal. Hi. Your Bukharin "(185). As a result of this appeal to Zhdanov, on September 3, 1934, in Pravda, Bukharin's concluding speech at the congress of Soviet writers was published "according to the transcript processed and shortened by the author."

But back to our hero's letter to Stalin dated August 31. “Most of the work was with Gorky,” Zhdanov tells his senior comrade. - In the middle of the congress, he again applied for his resignation. I was instructed to convince him to withdraw the statement, which I did ... All the time he was encouraged, in my deepest conviction, to all kinds of speeches, such as resignations, his own lists of leadership, etc. movement, wrong attitudes towards Averbakh, etc. At the end of the congress, the general upsurge took hold of him, giving way to streaks of decline and skepticism and the desire to get away from the "squabblers" in literary work. "

From literary issues Zhdanov immediately turns to a purely businesslike description of the problems of the People's Commissariat of Trade and the People's Commissariat Food Industry: “We have developed a project for the structure of NKTorg and NKPishcheprom and proposals for the composition of the heads of departments. In addition, we transferred to NKTorg from NKSnab Soyuzplodovosch, that is, all the preparations for vegetables. As for the People's Commissariat for Food Industry, the main subject of the dispute here was the transfer of a number of enterprises of the confectionery, fat, perfumery and brewing industries to the People's Commissariat for Food Industry, which were still under the jurisdiction of the localities ... "

It is noteworthy that some researchers of the cultural policy of that time, who flourished in the 1990s, even tried to insert another hairpin into the Soviet leadership on this occasion - “Zhdanov, in a letter to Stalin, talks about writers and trade without taking a breath” (186). It is unlikely that the authors of such maxims themselves talk about literature exclusively while standing and in a tuxedo, with a sincere conviction that rolls and vegetables grow in the city market. Soyuzplodovosch, Brynzotrest and Soyuzvintrest, which appear in Zhdanov's letter immediately after Gorky and other writers, reflect only the complexity and tension of the time when a developed modern state... By the way, it was Brynzotrest, that is, the Union Trust of the Dairy-Cheese-Making Industry, that in those years for the first time in our history established the mass production of ice cream, previously available only in expensive restaurants - it was then that most urban children in our country were able to learn for the first time its taste.

In a short postscript to a letter related to the "historical" conversations at Stalin's dacha, Zhdanov reports: new history and the history of the USSR is being remade and will be presented the other day. "

Stalin replied to Zhdanov with a short note six days later: “Thank you for the letter. On the whole, the congress went well. True: 1) Gorky's report turned out to be somewhat pale from the point of view of Soviet literature; 2) Bukharin screwed up by introducing elements of hysteria into the discussion (D. Poorny rejected him well and venomously); and for some reason the speakers did not use known solution The Central Committee on the liquidation of the RAPP in order to expose the mistakes of the latter - but, despite these three undesirable phenomena, the congress nevertheless turned out to be good ”(187). In the second paragraph of the note, Stalin approved Zhdanov's proposals on reforming the structure of the people's commissariats of trade and the food industry, advising that consumer cooperation and public canteens should be subordinated to the People's Commissariat of Internal Trade.

Thus, the authorities considered the past literary event quite successful. The result of the congress, which ended on September 1, 1934, was not only the organizational subordination of literature to the party authorities and the formation of a writers' community throughout the country - the Union of Soviet Writers. The congress showed the democratization of the Soviet state at home and abroad - instead of a country split into irreconcilable classes by the Civil War, there was a monolithic society united in a single impulse of socialist construction. The apogee of this external democratization and consolidation will be the Stalinist Constitution of 1936 ...

The Union of Writers of the USSR replaced all the associations and organizations of writers that had existed before. The union was headed by Maxim Gorky, but the direct political leadership was carried out by "Zhdanov's man" - Central Committee employee Alexander Shcherbakov.

In his diary, Shcherbakov mentions a conversation at Zhdanov's dacha, which took place on October 30, 1934, about work in the Writers' Union and relations with writers. Shcherbakov cites the following typical phrases of our hero: "Bourgeois culture must be mastered and reworked"; "Gorky's desire to become a literary leader, his" peasant "cunning - must also be taken into account" (188).

Having successfully completed the congress of writers, Andrei Zhdanov is again pulling a huge load of current work in the Politburo. So, it was to him that on September 4, 1934, the first deputy prosecutor of the USSR, Andrei Yanuarevich Vyshinsky, applied to the arbitrariness of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Genrikh Grigorievich Yagoda in the work of the courts at the NKVD camps. A month later, on October 4, Zhdanov is a member of the secret commission of the Politburo to check complaints against the actions of the NKVD. Until November, he examines the departmental squabble of the prosecutor's office and the formidable People's Commissariat, as a result, the new decree of the Politburo somewhat limits the powers of the "bodies" in the judicial sphere.

It was Zhdanov in October of that year that Stalin addressed short notes with a request to extend his vacation: “T-shu Zhdanov. For more than a week I had a runny nose and then the flu. Now I'm getting better and trying to make up for the lost ... How are you? Hey! I. Stalin "(189).

Recall that, among other things, Zhdanov was also responsible for agriculture in the Central Committee. Working documents of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) have preserved a lot of evidence hard work our hero in this industry. They are too extensive and professionally specific, but it is worth citing several excerpts from them to illustrate this work of Zhdanov.

So, on November 26, 1934, during a report at a plenum of the Central Committee on the development of animal husbandry, Zhdanov unexpectedly touches on the following topic: “One of the most difficult and serious questions is the question of a harvester and a combine harvester. The experience of the current year shows that the combine is an irreplaceable machine in the most difficult area of ​​agricultural work - harvesting grain. After all, if the state farms this year got out mainly without the help of the collective farms, then in this case the main reason is the saturation of the state farms with combines. Without this, the state farms would be at a dead anchor. Collective farms are also vitally interested in getting out as soon as possible and without losses. That is why we must make the combine harvester the most important machine in agriculture, along with the tractor, and maybe even more important.

... It is necessary to make the combine operator a permanent worker of the MTS, enroll him in a permanent staff, give him a salary much higher than at present, and give him a second qualification so that he has a job all year round. If he is a combine operator, and therefore a driver, then he must be qualified as either a locksmith or a turner, to provide him with a sufficient salary both during the harvesting period and in the winter. It is necessary to reward the best combine harvesters in order to create a craving for people to work on the harvester ... "(190)

By the way, already in 1935, a movement of Stakhanovists-combiners will appear in the USSR, and their first all-Union meeting will be held in the Kremlin.

On December 7, 1935, at a meeting in the Central Committee on agriculture in the non-black earth zone, Zhdanov notes one of the fundamental points for this particular region: fertilizers - to use manure, peat litter in the introduction of crop rotation, increase the yield of flax, and increase the yield of ear crops. Since the best remedy is clover ... the question of introducing clover crops is of exceptional importance, and we take it very seriously ”(191).

These are just two excerpts taken almost at random from Zhdanov's impressive documentary heritage as the head of the agricultural department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks - of all the spheres of his versatile activity, not the most famous, but the most important for the life of the country.

Zhdanov's work in the top leadership was associated with a formal violation of the Charter of the CPSU (b). So, not even being elected a candidate for membership in the Politburo, Zhdanov began to take part in all meetings of this party body and vote on all decisions on an equal footing. Moreover, in the absence of Stalin and Kaganovich, he has to manage the current work of the Politburo and sign the originals of its resolutions. However, under the conditions of the 1930s, this formal violation of the party's charter did not raise open objections.

The external political calm at the heights of the Kremlin power, which replaced the noisy and open political battles of the late 1920s, would collapse on one evening on December 1, 1934. In the corridor of Smolny, the first secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee and the City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks Sergei Kirov will be shot in the back of the head.

Somewhere between five and six o'clock in the evening, closer to six, from Kirov's office in Smolny to Moscow, an old acquaintance of our hero from the Tver days of 1919, the second secretary of the Leningrad regional committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b.) ... At this time, Stalin with three o'clock there is a meeting - Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov and Zhdanov are present. Kaganovich approaches the special communications apparatus. Having heard the message about the murder, he, an experienced "courtier", immediately ends the conversation, only saying that he will now inform Stalin and they themselves will contact Smolny.

Stalin's call follows literally a minute later. At this moment, Kirov's corpse lies next to the telephone on the table in his office, at the table are six urgently assembled Leningrad medical professors who pronounced death. Stalin speaks with Chudov, he lists the doctors, among them is the Georgian surgeon Justin Javanadze. Stalin asks him to the apparatus, they begin to speak Russian, then, as is usually the case with fellow tribesmen in emergency moments, they switch to their native Georgian ... All this unfolds before the eyes of our hero, Andrei Zhdanov, whose son four months ago collected blackberries from the murdered ... Just three days ago, on November 28, after the plenum of the Central Committee, before Kirov's departure for Leningrad, all three from under the “Mamvriisky oak” watched Bulgakov’s play “The Days of the Turbins” at the Moscow Art Theater.

The death of Kirov shocked the top authorities, and not only them. Despite its turbulent and militant history, the Bolshevik Party has not known such murders since August 1918, when, at the height of the Civil War, a series of assassinations of Lenin and its other top leaders took place in Moscow and St. Petersburg. All the internal political struggle before that was limited to exile to the provinces, honorary sinecurae or, in extreme cases, expulsion from the country, as was the case with Trotsky.

Early in the morning of December 2, Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov and Zhdanov were already in Leningrad. With them a large retinue - People's Commissar of the NKVD Yagoda, Yezhov, Khrushchev, Vyshinsky and others. In the corridors of Smolny, in front of the Moscow delegation, demonstratively covering Stalin with himself, Genrikh Yagoda walks with a revolver in his hand, nervously commanding the oncoming: “Face to the wall! Hands at the seams! "

Here, in Smolny, Zhdanov is present during Stalin's interrogation of Kirov's killer, the mentally unstable Nikolaev. On the same day, our hero was included in the commission for organizing the funeral and collecting the archive with the documents of the murdered comrade.

According to the speculative version, Kirov was "killed" by Stalin - firstly, because he was a monster and killed everyone; secondly, because Kirov was allegedly his potential rival. All serious, claiming to be scientific researchers of that period or Kirov's biography, even of anti-Stalinist orientation, consider such a legend unlikely and unfounded. The murdered head of Leningrad was Stalin's closest associate, one of those on whom he relied and could rely both in state building and in the internal political struggle. It was Kirov who “conquered” Leningrad for Stalin in a very tough struggle with the long-term head of the Petrograd Soviet, the “political heavyweight” of the 1920s, Zinoviev. Kirov was one of the main "engines" of industrialization, in which the developed industry of the city on the Neva was of great importance for the country. All the "conflicts" of Stalin and Kirov were of a purely working and friendly character - as is the case in real life in living people. In addition, Kirov was and was extremely necessary for Stalin in the near future. Therefore, the shock of the leader by the death of a comrade-in-arms does not at all look feigned.

Nevertheless, the circumstances of this murder are so confusing that any speculation can be made. The direct killer was a mentally unstable person, quite capable of an individual terrorist attack based on psychiatric rather than political reasons. At the same time, his connections reached out to Zinoviev's supporters, who were still numerous in Leningrad, and even to foreign embassies. The activities of the NKVD bodies also raise questions - they knew about the suspicious "interest" of the future murderer to Kirov. The murder itself immediately gave rise to a heap of testimonies, denunciations and gossip, which further confused the situation. Death in car accident the guard of Kirov, summoned for interrogation by Stalin on December 2, - it looks like a sophisticated murder even in the representation of a person who is not at all paranoid. So the real circumstances of the death of Sergei Kirov will remain a mystery, obviously, forever.

The reaction to the death of Kirov, Andrei Zhdanov, reached us through third hands. According to his son, after 1945, in a conversation with his wife, when they once again spoke about the death of Kirov, to the question: "What was that?" - Zhdanov "harshly and passionately" replied: "Provocation of the NKVD!" (192)

The first version of the murder, which immediately arose in the Kremlin on the evening of December 1, was associated with the recent Civil War. Moreover, there was every reason for this - at the end of the 1920s and in the summer of 1934, agents of the ROVS and NTS acted in Leningrad and the region, one of whose goals was the assassination of Kirov. This information was confirmed by the documents of the NTS already in the 90s. of the last century... In the summer of 1934, the special services of the USSR knew about the illegal immigrants, but failed to arrest them.

However, the first interrogations of the killer made it clear that his connections were not drawn to whites. Regardless of the versions, all researchers agree on one thing - Stalin made full use of the high-profile political assassination for the final liquidation of the numerous remnants of the Zinoviev and Trotskyist opposition.

On December 4, 1934, Zhdanov, in the retinue of the leader of the USSR, returned to Moscow. The next day, he is in the group of the country's top leaders, headed by Stalin, in honor guard at the coffin in the Column Hall of the House of the Unions. More than a million Muscovites came to say goodbye to Kirov; a delegation of over a thousand people arrived from Leningrad.

Maria Svanidze, a relative of Stalin, who knew the leader of the USSR closely, leaves in personal diary entry about the farewell ceremony: “Joseph rises to the steps of the coffin, his face is mournful, he bends down and kisses the forehead of the dead ... The picture tears the soul apart, knowing how close they were, and the whole hall is crying, I hear the sobbing of men through my own sobs. Also, weeping warmly, Sergo, his close comrade-in-arms, says goodbye, then the whole pale chalk Molotov rises, plump Zhdanov climbs up ridiculously ... ”(193)

Throughout the week until December 10, Zhdanov spends every day, sometimes several times, for many hours in Stalin's Kremlin office. It was on these days that the decision was made to unleash repressions on the Zinovievites, and then the thought arises that it is Zhdanov who will be able to replace the late Kirov.

On December 11, our hero leaves for Leningrad again, for a long time. On December 15, 1934, a joint plenum of the Leningrad Regional Committee and the City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks opened, where Zhdanov made a report. Formally, this is a report on the plenum of the Central Committee of the party held in November, in fact - a speech by the new head of the city and region. In his report, Zhdanov quite unequivocally links the former opposition leaders to Kirov's assassination. As an eyewitness writes, “the atmosphere at the plenum was more than tense, there was deathly silence in the hall - not a whisper, not a rustle, and only the voices of the speaking comrades were heard” (194).

Zhdanov himself, regarding his new appointment at the plenum, will express himself as follows: “I must declare here that the trust that the Party Central Committee and the Leningrad organization have shown me ... I will try to justify and make every effort to replace at least some part of the late comrade Kirov, for I cannot replace him at all, comrades ”(195). From the book Journalism the author Platonov Andrey Platonovich

Questionnaire ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF PROLETARIAN WRITERS 1. Surname, name, patronymic Platonov (Klimentov) Andrey Platonovich 2. Age 21 years 3. Nationality Great Russian 4. Where do you currently live (exact address) Voronezh, Koltsovskaya, 25. Place of birth-registration: provinces,