The Union of Writers of the USSR was created in. Union of Writers of the USSR. Joining the Writers' Union

The Ukrainian National Union - Ukrainian National State Union - continued on the 24th of June brought the UNSoyuz the first practical result: "Six representatives of the UNS (Us - members of the UPSF) were sent to the warehouse for Radi Ministers: Minister of Justice A. Vyazlov, Minister of Justice A. Vyazlov, Minister of Justice

Fiscal union - transfer union If we compare the situation in the region financial policy in the euro area or across the EU with the situation in federal states such as the US, Germany or Switzerland, a central difference is striking: – Although the budget of the European Union

LETTER TO THE USSR SP

Many circumstances, historical cataclysms, institutions and persons contributed to the destruction of great Russian literature, and in their list, together with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the State Security Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Union of Writers plays a responsible role.

The emergence of a literary empire with a huge apparatus of legislators, executors, judges and executioners was inevitable and happened at the same time and for the same reasons for which the mass destruction of the 1930s was organized. The Union of Writers of the USSR was created in 1934, from which the chronicle of Soviet self-destruction begins: it begins with the murder of Kirov, which made it possible to kill everyone. It was necessary to destroy everything that bore the splendor of the gift, for the gift is intolerant of evil. The country was imposed gravest evil: the reign of mediocrity. The Writers' Union was invented in order to manage literature (which has finally become "part of the general proletarian cause"), that is, to get from it what the ruthless and intolerant, ignorant, all-devouring power needs. The authorities needed to educate vicious and devoted cattle, ready to unleash wars, kill dissidents and like-minded people, blow into the solemn fanfare of the glory of a wonderful man who managed to exterminate the largest number of people on earth.

I never wrote a line that was required of a well-intentioned Soviet writer, and I never considered myself a loyal subject of a state of liars, tyrants, criminals and freedom-stranglers.

The Writers' Union is an institution of the police state, the same as all its other institutions, no worse and no better than the police or the fire brigade.

I do not share the views of the Soviet police state, its police, fire brigade and other institutions, including the Writers' Union.

I think that my stay in the writers' organization is completely unnatural. I just have nothing to do there. Drink cognac in a restaurant central house writers (in the society of Kochetov and Fedin)? Thank you. I am a non-drinker.

I have never indulged in illusions and hopes that the Soviet government can improve. But since the arrival of the latter - the most stupid, most insignificant, most unintellectual government of Soviet power, it has become clear that a confident and inevitable restoration of Stalinism has come, that Stalinist leaders, slightly pinched in sensitive places, straighten their shoulders, roll up their sleeves and spit in their palms, waiting for their time. The return of Stalin-Beria-Zhdanov ideas began; stagnant revenge-seekers line up in columns and check lists of enemies. I think the time has come when this needs to be said out loud.

Soviet power is incorrigible, incurable.

Its meaning and goal is in undivided and unrestrained domination over people, and therefore it received its full and perfect expression in tyrants, of which Lenin could not do everything, because he did not have time to destroy the opposition, and Stalin could do everything, because he destroyed the opposition.

Stalin became the purest, highest and most expressive embodiment of Soviet power. He is her symbol, portrait, banner. And therefore, everything that happens and will happen in Russia will always turn out to be connected with a greater or lesser amount of Stalinism released into public life. The Soviet authorities could not discover anything better than Stalin in their bowels, because in him there was an exhaustive combination of the needs of a dictatorial state and the personal qualities of a villain. Therefore, everything that happened after it was connected only with a weakening or strengthening of the magnetic field, which then let go a little, then again pulled towards courts and reprisals, cave censorship, unbridled lies and Zamoskvoretsky complacency. And therefore, the heaviest blow of this powerful and predatory power fell on the person who was the first to take aim at the purest embodiment of the Soviet ideal.

Vengeful hatred for Khrushchev was based on the adoration of the best examples of Soviet power. best sample was Stalin. Khrushchev spat in the soul of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the police and the crowd, showing that their selfless love, feverish devotion and fitful adoration were given to a gloomy Marxist, stupid maniac, cunning intriguer, jailer, poisoner and possible employee of the tsarist secret police - the true and complete embodiment of Soviet power , its symbol, portrait and banner.

Country excommunicated from political life. A handful of political conspirators who have seized power decide the fate of the people crushed and deafened by the propaganda trumpet.

Only people who have not sold out, who have not been seduced, who have not been corrupted and who have not been intimidated in this class, hierarchical, estate, full of subordinate prejudice society, which has been declared "socialist", only people who have understood that the time has come again to destroy the remnants of physical and spiritual freedom, resist . The unstoppable war of the free intelligentsia with the cruel, unchoosing state began, and the state, severely wounded by the revelations of 1956-1962, realized that if it did not win this battle immediately, then it could lose it forever. And it began to win this battle. The methods were old, tested on Chaliapin and Gumilyov, Bulgakov and Platonov, Meyerhold and Falk, Babel, Mandelstam, Zabolotsky, Pasternak, Zoshchenko and Akhmatova. Knowing the former infallibility of the method, the state imprisoned professional writers and young writers who had just begun to work - Brodsky, Sinyavsky and Daniel, Khaustov, Bukovsky, Ginzburg, Galanskov and many others, put poetess Inna Lisnyanskaya, mathematician Yesenin-Volpin, general Grigorenko, the writer Naritsa and many others, forbade composer Andrei Volkonsky from performing their works, expelled Pavel Litvinov from work, expelled from the party and expelled film critic N. Zorkaya, Karyakin, Pajitnov, Shragin, Zolotukhin and many others, dumped sets of books by Kardin and Kopelev and many others, sent out a blacklist of authors who were forbidden to publish to publishing houses and editorial offices, expelled Boris Birger from the Union of Artists, Alexei Kosterin, G. Svirsky from the Union of Writers, released him with another robbery speech (he is no good for more) " former writer, awarded with prestige and becoming a scarecrow, a Vendean, a Cossack, a drabant, a city of Russian literature ”-Mikhail Sholokhov (I am proud that these words are printed in my book“ Yuri Tynyanov ”, ed. 2nd,“ Soviet Writer ”, Moscow, 1965, pp. 56-57), published a three-volume Kochetov, a one-volume Gribachev, prepared and neatly put in a warehouse to wait in the wings two-volume selected works of his luminary and teacher, best friend Soviet fiction of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.

For four years there has been a massacre due to the publication of the story “ cancer corps”and the novel“ In the First Circle ”by the great Russian writer Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn. This fight is not won, and I am not sure that the writer will win it in the Soviet publishing field. But there are great manuscripts - and it is no longer possible to destroy them. They are immortal and undeniable, in contrast to the frightened tyrannical power that the Nuremberg trials are inexorably waiting for.

How much has been done to destroy Russian culture, human dignity, physical and spiritual freedom! But the plan has not yet been fulfilled, the battle has not been won, the free intelligentsia has not yet been completely destroyed. Planted, expelled, removed, expelled, published, not published. Does not help. Why did it help so well in the old days, under Stalin, and help so poorly with this miserable, most unpopular government even in Russia, where cool power has always been adored since Ivan the Terrible? (Even Russia, which is used to all kinds of governments, God forgive me, did not know such a mediocre and hopeless government. Except under Alexander III. Only, they say, they found in historical sources that there were more potatoes. Per capita.) Does not help. Does not help. Why doesn't it help? Because few. They plant little. And they are afraid to plant as much as necessary. Here is the former chairman of the State Security Committee Semichastny at a meeting of the Ideological Commission under the Central Committee of the CPSU (November 1960), when they discussed how the Soviet state (area 22.4 million square meters, population 208,827,000 people in 1959) should to organize a systematic struggle with the rhymes of the beginning poet, begged to be given to plant 1200 (1200 in total!) renegades, lackeys of the West and Jews, who are defiling our basically healthy society and corrupting its mostly healthy youth. But they didn't give it to him. He was “given” a little later: under a tender and overgrown place in a responsible Soviet service.

Fear. They are afraid of the smart young man Khaustov, who dared to tell the draconian and wild Soviet judges that he rejects the Soviet faith (Marxism-Leninism), they are afraid of the wonderful Russian artist Alexander Solzhenitsyn, they are afraid of America, they are afraid of China, they are afraid of Polish students and Czechoslovak non-rumors, they are afraid of the Yugoslav revisionists, Albanian dogmatists, Romanian nationalists, Cuban extremists, East German dullards, North Korean cunning, revolted and executed workers of Novocherkassk, revolted and shot Vorkuta prisoners from airplanes and Ekibastuz prisoners crushed by tanks, Crimean Tatars expelled from their lands, and Jewish physicists, expelled from their laboratories, are afraid of hungry collective farmers and overdressed workers, they are afraid of each other, themselves, all together, each separately.

The hair on the back of the secretaries of the Central Committee stands on end. The chairmen of the Councils of Ministers of the Union republics squat on their hind legs. Fear shakes them. And if these lowly organized animals understood and remembered anything, it was how they were turned inside out from fear under Stalin. They look inquisitively at each other and ask themselves with horror: “What if this (Shelepin? Polyansky? Rustle?) is Stalin?” Need strong personality in order to finally curb these eternal enemies of the police state - these boys, artists, poets, Jews. And a strong personality really always starts by curbing them. And ends up killing everyone. Their predecessors also wanted to curb the opposition and called for this strong personality. A strong personality came and curbed. And having curbed, she began to destroy everything. And now they already know what a strong personality is. But there are such difficult times when a strong personality is better than boys, artists, poets and Jews.

Everything that I am writing now, my dear brothers from the Moscow branch of the Union of Writers of the USSR and sisters from the Peredelkino House of Creativity, is no different from what I wrote before. However, there is a difference. It lies in the fact that in my works published by Soviet publishing houses, when there was no other possibility, I called villainy Ivan the Terrible or Paul I, and now I call him by your name. From hundreds of letters I learned that my readers understand well who Ivan the Terrible is.

But Paul I and Ivan IV are not only allegories, analogies, associations and allusions. They are your source and root, your origin, your past, the soil in which you grew up, and the blood that flows in your vessels. I wrote about them because history and the people that have produced and tolerated villains have innate qualities that are ready to give birth to villains again. And so the history of this country and this people did what it could do: it replaced the most reactionary monarchy in Europe with the most reactionary dictatorship in the world.

I write so little about the mighty Union of Writers of the USSR and consumptive Soviet literature, because why write about secondary evil when you need to write about the main thing? The main evil is the bestial fascism of the Soviet socialist ideology.

The post-Khrushchev government, rehabilitating Stalin with growing bitterness, inevitably found itself forced to intensify repressions with growing bitterness. And Stalin's renaissance had this goal among the main ones. By birth and profession, I belong to the circle of people who are constantly attacked by the Soviet government, that is, to the intelligentsia, which does not tolerate violation of its sovereignty. Like many other intellectuals, I hear in various variations one and the same question: “Why should the most powerful state persecute people who do not agree with its ideology, a state that knows very well that these persecutions irritate the public opinion of the whole world most of all?” I have never understood this confusion.

The beings at the head of the Soviet state strangle freedom, trample on human dignity and destroy national culture, not only because they are bad politicians, but also because they are doomed to strangle, trample and destroy. And if they do not choke, trample and destroy, then even in this country, with its gravest historical heredity and constant inclination towards absolutism, normal social relations can arise, that is, such that people who think no-one will not be able to destroy people who think differently. And then it will inevitably turn out that people who think differently are infinitely higher and more significant than the rulers, and this will inevitably lead first to a violent political struggle, and then because of tragic features Russian historical development, Asiatic dislike of democracy, the traditional habit of cruelty and sharply continental properties of the national character - to the civil war. And therefore, it is catastrophic not only that this cruel and arrogant slave-owning state is headed by bad politicians who are strangling freedom, trampling on human dignity and destroying national culture, but also the fact that others cannot stand in a state that has the form of Soviet power. And this is not a historical transient particularity, this is the regularity of the Soviet and any other fascist concept. And what happens in China or Spain, Albania or Egypt, Poland or South Africa differs from the Soviet norm only in the national character of the absurdity and the amount of rapacity used.

Soviet power is incorrigible, incurable; she can only be what she is - vindictive, intolerant, capricious, arrogant and noisy.

I reject the prevailing middle-liberal opinion: we are for Soviet power, plus the electrification of the entire country, minus the completely unnecessary and even harmful petty guardianship of the creative intelligentsia. I affirm that Soviet power is incorrigible and must be fought against. With its ideology and politics, methodology and way of thinking. But the most dangerous thing is to forget her own terrible experience: to resort to methods (in the name of the "higher goal") in which there is at least a shadow of immorality and a shade of violence.

Now for the Soviet intelligentsia, that is, for that circle of it that does not serve destructive power, after the expulsions, arrests, reprisals and violence that began by decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU immediately after the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution, the possibility of resistance was significantly limited. The adored government triumphs over its eternal enemy - the thinking part of humanity. With narrowed eyes, it follows the history of persecution and is again convinced of the tried and tested fidelity of its method: to crush all resistance, while it has not yet realized its strength.

It crushes resistance from state and personal motives, which, as you know, can never be separated in a truly Soviet person.

And so it happened with two truly Soviet people - Konstantin Aleksandrovich Fedin, the acting classic of Soviet literature, and Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, a simple Soviet man and metallurgist.

A simple Soviet man and a metallurgist, having planted, killed as much as he could in the good Stalinist times (damn them), in liberal days (damn them), after exhausting training for a humane attitude towards people (training was carried out on six South Russian shepherd dogs), decided to become wise statesman. Therefore, in the furious quarrels at the Presidium of the Central Committee (collective leadership and democracy!) after the arrest of Sinyavsky and Daniel, he defended the advantages of quietly strangling all anti-Sovietists compared to a loud trial of only two of them.

In order to strengthen his decision and bring the people as proof, Leonid Ilyich decided to arrange a historic meeting.

Konstantin Alexandrovich also attached great importance to the historic meeting. But the hero of Sinyavsky-Tertz's story "Graphomaniacs" Konstantin Aleksandrovich Fedin groaned in his sleep from the desire to gnaw out an eye (and then another, and then another!) with his own false teeth from the vile anti-Soviet slanderer and, in his insane blindness, did not realize why he had come to him a man with a metallurgical soul of truly Soviet production.

Konstantin Aleksandrovich, who to some extent managed to remain calm when discussing the question of imperialism and even found the physical and moral strength in himself to restrain himself when discussing urgent measures to sharply increase popular anti-Semitism, having heard the name of a renegade and slanderer, a former member of the USSR Writers' Union, in a rage jumped out of his own pants and, spitting at the First Secretary of the Central Committee, dentures of a girlish pale pink-white color, began to shout rabid words, repeating more and more such words as “rack”, “bonfire”, “wheeling”, “quartering ”, “acetic acid” and “sharks of imperialism”.

Then he came to his senses a little, got into his pants, stuck in artificial limbs and immediately became Chairman of the Society of Soviet-German Friendship and a classic.

So the first secretaries sat opposite each other in the literary drifts of the Peredelkino station. And the secretary who had no idea for a long time, persistently and convincingly proved to the secretary who had already realized everything the most urgent need in the era of imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism, the end of colonialism and the onset of revisionism, when discrimination in his face of Soviet literature is especially intolerable, in which the party and the people are entrusted to him difficult but honorable post of a classic, as soon as possible and as severe as possible reprisals against two vile anti-Soviet and renegades.

The trial postponed the day before was scheduled for February 10, 1966. On this day, one hundred and twenty-nine years ago, Pushkin was assassinated and Pasternak was born seventy-five years ago.

The Soviet government has always been mortally afraid of any overshadowing complications at the hour of its triumph. It hates those who can ruin its holiday. Therefore, in Stalin's times, on the eve of holidays, it stuffed prisons to the point of frenzy, and in the present, it has arranged trials in Leningrad at which people were tried who allegedly plotted on anniversary days Act of terrorism against him.

The Soviet government, having won (as it believes) over the intelligentsia, is celebrating the hour of its triumph. I think that just at this time it is best to spoil the bright Soviet holiday.

I am writing this letter to prove that the intelligentsia of Russia is alive, fighting, not for sale, not giving up, that it has the strength.

I am not in your party. I do not enjoy more privileges than those enjoyed by every working person in your state. I don't have your ranks and I don't have your awards. Do not shame me with higher education, an apartment and a clinic, augustly bestowed by your government. Do not reproach me with the bread that I eat and the fat that I do not like. I worked out your bread, your shelter for 13 years in prisons and camps, number 1-B-860, which you awarded me. In order to study, to receive shelter and bread, it is not necessary to have Soviet power with prisons and censorship. Even the peoples groaning under the yoke of imperialism have all this. But you cannot help boasting, reproaching, judging, destroying. You burned my old books and do not publish new ones. But even you, even now, in the articles that blurted out in the first lines of my last book(one title of which makes you cramp - the book is called "Surrender and death of the Soviet intellectual. Yuri Olesha"), you never said that I write badly or frivolously, or mediocre. You always said something else: "In your books," you said, "there is too much misplaced aversion to violence, intolerance to fanaticism." And you also asked, poking at the page about the Inquisition: “Is this a hint? Yes? this is about us? Yes?" A country of slaves, a country of masters... It is terrible to live next to you, to read your books, to walk along your streets. Fortunately, the only connection that exists between you and me is being in a shameless organization - the Union of Writers of the USSR, which, together with your party bishops, your secret police, your army, unleashing wars and enslaving countries, poisoned the poor, unfortunate, miserable obedient people. This connection, this only contact with you, disgusts me, and I leave you to admire unheard-of victories, unseen successes, invisible harvests, amazing achievements, amazing accomplishments and mind-blowing decisions - without me, without me. Separation will not bring bitterness and sadness to you or me. And you will have time to deal with me this night.

I am returning you the ticket of a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR, because I consider it unworthy of an honest person to stay in an organization that, with dogish devotion, serves the most cruel, inhuman and merciless political regime of all centuries of human history.

Artists and scientists of this tormented, tormented country, all who have retained dignity and decency, come to your senses, remember that you are writers of great literature, and not waiters of a rotten regime, throw your writer's cards in their faces, take your manuscripts from their publishing houses, stop participating in the planned and malicious destruction of the personality, despise them, despise their mediocre and noisy, fruitless and merciless state, beating the incessant drum of victories and successes.

20.6.68, Tallinn - Moscow

Dear readers! We ask you to take a couple of minutes and leave your feedback about the material you read or about the web project as a whole on special page in LiveJournal. There you can also participate in discussions with other visitors. We will be very grateful for your help in the development of the portal!

SOVIET LITERARY CRITICISM 1930 - MIDDLE 1950s

Features of the new literary era.- Creation of Soyufor Soviet writers. Party resolution "On the transferconstruction of literary and artistic organizations. First Congress of Soviet Writers. The role of M. Gorky in the literarylife in the 1930s.-Party literary kritika.- Writer's literary criticism: A.A. Fadeev,A. N. Tolstoy, A. P. Platonov.- Cree literary typologytic performances.-A. P. Selivanovsky. D. P. Mirsky.- Literary criticism in the light of party decisions.- V.V. Ermilov.-The Crisis of Literary Criticism.

The diversity of literary life in the 1920s, the pluralism of ideological and aesthetic attitudes, the activity of numerous schools and trends turns into its opposite in the new socio-literary circumstances. If in the 1920s it was literary criticism that shaped and determined the literary situation, then, starting from 1929, literary life, like life in the country as a whole, proceeded in the harsh grip of Stalinist ideology.

With the rooting and hardening of totalitarianism, literature constantly found itself in the zone of close attention of the party leadership. The role of literary critics was played by such prominent figures of Bolshevism as Trotsky, Lunacharsky, Bukharin, but their literary critical assessments in the 1920s were not the only possible ones, as it will happen in the 1930s-50s with Stalin's literary judgments.

The creation and implementation of the concept of socialist realism, which led to the unification of our culture, was carried out simultaneously with other campaigns that were called upon to commemorate the gains of socialism.

Already at the end of the 1920s, the search began for a term that could designate that big and unified thing that was to become common for

all Soviet writers as a creative platform. It is still unknown who was the first to propose how unconvincing in terms of the phrase and so successful in terms of longevity the concept of "socialist realism". However, it was this term and the ideas embedded in it that determined the long years the fate of Russian literature, giving literary critics the right to either extend it to all works that have grown on Soviet soil - up to M. Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita", or to reject writers who failed to fit into the strict canons of socialist realism.

Returning from emigration at the insistence of Stalin, M. Gorky managed to fulfill the social function entrusted to him by the leader, and together with a whole group of developers, among whom the Rappovites occupied a predominant place, he helped to think through to the smallest detail the process of “reunification” of Soviet writers who were members of different groups and associations . This is how the plan to create the Union of Soviet Writers was conceived and implemented. It should be emphasized that the Union was created not in spite of, but in accordance with the aspirations of many, many Soviet writers. Majority literary groups It was close to self-dissolution, a wave of studies by E. Zamyatin, B. Pilnyak, M. Bulgakov passed, the most prominent literary critics of the era - A. Voronsky and V. Polonsky - were removed from their editorial posts. Rapp publications (in 1931, another magazine appeared - RAPP) print articles with such titles: “Not everything is left that screams”, “Homeless”, “Bouquet of rat love”, “Class enemy in literature”. Naturally, the writers assessed such a situation as a manifestation of lack of freedom and sought to get rid of the RAPP's forcible guardianship. It is enough to read the feuilleton by I. Ilf and E. Petrov “Give him the italics” (1932) to imagine why many Soviet writers enthusiastically reacted to the idea of ​​the Union.

On April 23, 1932, the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations” was adopted. By this resolution, all existing organizations were dissolved, and the Union of Soviet Writers was created. Among the writers, the attitude towards the resolution was the most enthusiastic, the future members of the Union did not yet guess that instead of the RAPP, a literary organization of unprecedented power and unheard-of leveling opportunities was coming. The congress of Soviet writers was to be held very soon, but due to Gorky's family circumstances this event was postponed.

The first congress of Soviet writers opened on August 17, 1934 and lasted two weeks. The congress was held as a great all-Union holiday, the main character of which was M. Gorky. Presidio table-298

ma towered against the backdrop of a huge portrait of Gorky, M. Gorky opened the congress, made a report on it "On Socialist Realism", spoke with brief summaries, and concluded the work of the congress.

The festive atmosphere that prevailed at the congress was reinforced by numerous speeches by writers whose names had been unequivocally negatively assessed until relatively recently. I. Ehrenburg and V. Shklovsky, K. Chukovsky and L. Leonov, L. Seifullina and S. Kirsanov made bright speeches. General feelings were expressed by B. Pasternak: “For twelve days, from behind the table of the presidium, together with my comrades, I had a silent conversation with all of you. We exchanged glances and tears of emotion, made signs and exchanged flowers. For twelve days we were united by the overwhelming happiness of the fact that this high poetic language is born of itself in a conversation with our modernity.

The pathos of delight was interrupted when it came to literary criticism. Writers complained about the fact that critics have a red and black board and writers' reputations often depend on critical self-will: "We must not allow a literary analysis of the author's work to immediately affect his social position" (I. Ehrenburg). It was about the complete and hopeless absence of serious criticism, about Rapp's manners preserved in criticism. And the satirist Mikh. Koltsov proposed an amusing project: “introduce a form for members of the writers' union<...>Writers will wear uniforms, and it will be divided into genres. Approximately: red edging is for prose, blue is for poetry, and black is for critics. And introduce badges: for prose - an inkwell, for poetry - a lyre, and for critics - a small club. A critic walks down the street with four clubs in his buttonhole, and all the writers on the street stand in front.

Gorky's report and co-reports on world literature, dramaturgy, prose, and children's literature were of an ascertaining nature. The turning point in the official solemn course of the congress came after the report of N. Bukharin, who spoke of the need to revise literary reputations, in connection with which Pasternak was named the leader of the new poetic era. Bukharin's report was unexpected and therefore explosive. During the discussion of the report, the congress participants demonstrated both the difference in views on the history and future of Soviet literature, and the difference in temperaments. Sharp polemical speeches succeeded each other, general calm and a sense of belonging to a single union for a while

"The First Congress of Soviet Writers: Transcript. M., 1934. S. 548.

me disappeared. But the excitement in the hall soon passed, because everyone understood what a significant and solemn finale the congress was approaching.

The final words that were spoken at the congress and belonged to Gorky determined the literary life of the country for several decades: “In what way do I see the victory of Bolshevism at the congress of writers? In the fact that those of them who were considered non-Party, "wavering", admitted - with sincerity, the fullness of which I do not dare to doubt - recognized Bolshevism as the only militant guiding idea in creativity, in word painting.

On September 2, 1934, the First Plenum of the Board of the Union of Soviet Writers, elected at the All-Union Congress, took place. M. Gorky became the chairman of the board of the Union. Until the death of the writer in 1936, the literary life in the country passed under the sign of M. Gorky, who did extremely much to root the proletarian ideology in literature, to increase the prestige of Soviet literature in the world. Even before the final move to Moscow, M. Gorky becomes the initiator of the publication and editor of the magazine "Our Achievements", the yearbooks "Year XVI", "Year XVII", etc. (the year from the beginning of the revolution), large-scale publications "The History of Factories and Plants" , "Story civil war"- with the involvement of a large number of authors who had no relation to the writing profession.

M. Gorky also publishes the journal "Literary Study", designed to conduct elementary consultations for new writers. Since M. Gorky attached great importance to children's literature, in parallel with the already existing children's magazines "Hedgehog", "Chizh", "Murzilka", "Pioneer", "Friendly Guys", "Bonfire", the magazine "Children's Literature" is also published, where literary critical articles are published, there are discussions about the books of A. Gaidar, L. Panteleev, B. Zhitkov, S. Marshak, K. Chukovsky.

Realizing himself as the organizer and inspirer of the new literary policy, M. Gorky actively participates in the literary-critical process. At the end of the 1920s, Gorky’s articles were devoted to the study of his own writing experience: “To the Worker’s Correspondents of Pravda”, “Reader’s Notes”, “On How I Learned to Write”, etc. In the 1930s, M. Gorky reflects on the specifics of the literary business ( "On Literature", "On Literature and Other Things", "On Prose", "On Language", "On Plays"), the newly discovered artistic method of proletarian literature ("On artistic method Soviet Literature”, “On the Union of Writers”, “On Preparations for the Congress”) and, finally, emphasizes the connection between cultural construction and the fierce class struggle (“Who are you with, masters of culture?”, “About anecdotes and something else”) . 300

M. Gorky enthusiastically follows the new things that are revealed to him in the Soviet country.

Absolutely confident that the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal is a socialist "reforging" of yesterday's thieves and bandits, M. Gorky organizes a large landing of writers who, under the editorship of a humanist writer, created a huge tome - a book about the White Sea-Baltic Canal, in which the work of the valiant employees of the GPU (Main Political Directorate, later known as the NKVD, MGB, KGB), re-educating the "canal army" was sung. M. Gorky, probably, had no idea about the force with which the machine for the suppression of dissent in the Soviet country was being spun. The Gorky Museum (in Moscow) stores the only newspaper issues published for Gorky, in which materials about the political processes that were blazing with might and main in the country were replaced by neutral journalistic reports about the latest successes in industry. Meanwhile, the all-round support that M. Gorky provided to Stalin was connected not only with the fact that M. Gorky was protected from real life in Moscow and in the country. The fact is that M. Gorky believed in the need for a radical improvement of man.

M. Gorky more than once said and wrote that he did not feel pity for suffering, and it seemed to him that the state built in Russia would be able to raise people who were not burdened with complexes of sympathy and mental confusion. M. Gorky publicly repented that in 1918-21 he helped the intelligentsia not to die of hunger. He liked to feel like a Soviet person involved in great and unprecedented achievements. That is why he found high-flown words, characterizing Stalin and considering him a "powerful figure." Probably, not everything in the words and deeds of Stalin and his associates suited Gorky, however, in the epistolary and journalistic confessions that have come down to us, negative assessments of the activities of the party and state structures are not presented.

So, after the union of writers into a single Union, after rallying them around a common aesthetic methodology, a literary era begins, in which writers were well aware that they must obey a certain program of creative and human behavior.

The rigid framework of the writer's life was regulated by vouchers to the Houses of Creativity, apartments in prestigious writers' houses, extraordinary publications in major publications and publishing houses, literary awards, career advancement in writers' organizations and - most importantly - trust, trust

parties and governments. Not to enter the Union or leave it, to be expelled from the Writers' Union - meant to lose the right to publish their works. The literary and literary hierarchy was erected on the model of the party-government hierarchy. What is socialist realism, knew literary theorists and literary critics, who created a huge number of works on this topic. When Stalin was asked what the essence of socialist realism was, he replied: "Write the truth, this will be socialist realism." Stalin's most famous literary-critical judgments were distinguished by such concise and peremptory formulations: "This thing is stronger than Goethe's Faust (love conquers death)" - about Gorky's fairy tale "The Girl and Death", "Mayakovsky was and remains the best, most talented poet of our Soviet era". Stalin met with writers more than once, giving guidance and evaluating novelties in literature, he saturated his speech with quotations and images from world classics. Stalin, in the role of a literary critic and critic, assumes the functions of a literary court in the last instance. Since the 1930s, a process of canonization of Lenin's literary ideas has also been outlined.

♦ * ♦

For twenty years - from the beginning of the 1930s to the beginning of the 1950s, Soviet literary criticism was represented mainly by reports and speeches, party resolutions and decrees. Literary criticism had the opportunity to realize its creative potential in the intervals from one party resolution to another, and therefore can rightly be called partyliterary criticism. Its essence and methodology were forged in speeches, speeches, articles and official documents, the authors of which were I. Stalin, A. Zhdanov, literary functionaries A. Shcherbakov, D. Polikarpov, A. Andreev and others. The main features of such literary criticism are rigid certainty and indisputable unambiguity of judgments, genre and style monotony, rejection of a “different” point of view - in other words, an ideological and aesthetic monologism.

Even writers' literary criticism, usually marked by traits of bright individuality, presents in these years examples of speeches and speeches that correspond to the general spirit of the times. Alecsandr alexandrovich fadeev(1901-1956), who worked in 1939-1944 as secretary of the Presidium of the Union of Soviet Writers, and from

1946 to 1953 general secretary Union, he devoted his literary-critical speeches, as a rule, to the connections of literature and Soviet reality: “Literature and life”, “Learn from life”, “Go straight into life - love life!” "In the study of life - the key to success." This uniformity of titles was dictated by the needs Stalin era: it was necessary to write and speak about the social role of literature. Declarativity was considered a necessary attribute of journalistic literary criticism.

Actively engaged in literary criticism and returned from exile Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy(1882-1945). Having defended in previous years the principle of apolitical art, Tolstoy began to speak and write actively about the partisan nature of literature. His articles are devoted to the innovative role of Soviet literature, the establishment of the principle of socialist realism.

Another type of literary-critical reflections is presented in the works Andrei Platonovich Platonov (Klimentov)(1899-1951). It still remains a mystery why such a subtle artist, an outstanding writer of the 20th century, the author of "The Pit" and "Chevengur", presented a number of examples of literary critical articles in which Pushkin is treated as "our comrade" in the meaningless rhetoric of Soviet prose. features of artistic romance are distinguished, and the work of Gogol and Dostoevsky is interpreted as "bourgeois" and "backward". V. Perkhin believes that the specificity of Platonov's criticism lies in his secret writing - part of Russian secret speech and opposition to censorship conditions 1 . The true literary and critical abilities of the writer can be judged by his deep interpretation of the poetry of A. Akhmatova.

This is probably just one of the explanations. Another, obviously, lies in the peculiarities of Platonic writing in general. The original tongue-tiedness of the heroes of Plato's prose, passed through the author's irony and creating an explosive mixture of a dangerous literary game, could not but influence Plato's critical prose. One more thing should be remembered: Platonov resorts to literary criticism during the years of "non-printing", and his "reflections of the reader" become critical assessments of one of the many proletarian readers who have become familiar with great literature. And the fact that he is one of many, “a man from the masses,” Platonov constantly emphasizes, conducting literary reviews as if on behalf of one of his literary heroes.

"See about it: Perkin V. Russian literary criticism of the 1930s: Criticism and public consciousness of the era. SPb., 1997.

Literary criticism itself has often been at the center of attention of literary criticism. At one of the plenums of the Board of the Writers' Union in 1935, a well-known representative of this profession, I. M. Bespalov, spoke about criticism. In this and subsequent reports on similar topics, one can find the same structural components, the same clichés and formulas. The reports on the state and tasks of Soviet literary criticism clearly define the following key problems: the question of criticism is more relevant than ever; literary criticism - component socialist culture; it is necessary to fight against the remnants of capitalism in the minds of people; it is necessary to rally around the party and avoid groupism; literature still lags behind life, and criticism behind literature; literary criticism must emphasize the partisanship and class character of literature.

A remarkable chronicler of literary life, V. Kaverin gives a fragment of the shorthand report "Dispute on Criticism". The meeting took place in the House of Writers. Mayakovsky in March 1939. Eternal competitors, writers from Moscow and Leningrad, gathered here to discuss the “critical section of Soviet literature” (K. Fedin). And again - general phrases about the high purpose of criticism, about courage and fantasy in literary critical work.

Keeping the general concept of speeches and articles devoted to the tasks of Soviet literary criticism, the authors made an adjustment for time. So, in the 1930s, they wrote about such an obligatory quality of literary criticism as revolutionary vigilance.

In the literary criticism of the 1930-40s, the most notable were the speeches of I. Bespalov, I. Troisky, B. Usievich, D. Lukach, N. Lesyuchevsky, A. Tarasenkov, L. Skorino, V. Ermilov, Z. Kedrina, B. .Brainina, I. Altman, V. Goffenschefer, M. Lifshitz, E. Mustangova. Their articles and reviews determined the real state of literary life.

Literary criticism of the Stalin era, in its summary form, was an inexpressive ideological appendage to great literature, although against the general bleak background one could distinguish both interesting findings and accurate judgments.

Alexey Pavlovich Selivanovsky(1900-1938) began his literary-critical activity in the 1920s. He was one of the leaders of the RAPP, collaborated in the magazines "At the Literary Post" and "October". In the 1930s, Selivanovsky published the books Essays on the History of Russian Soviet Poetry (1936) and In Literary Battles (1936), and was published in the journal Literary Critic. Like other former Rappovites, Selivanovsky emphasized: “We

straightened out and is straightening out by the Party. His most famous works are “The Thirst for a New Man” (about A. Fadeev’s “Defeat”), “Cunning and Love of Zand” (about Y. Olesha), “The Laughter of Ilf and Petrov”, as well as articles about D. Bedny, N. Tikhonov, I. Selvinsky, V. Lugovsky. These and other works are written from the standpoint of socialist partisanship, the literary text is considered in them in the context of vulgar sociological convergence with reality. So, for example, the critic calls on the creators of Ostap Bender to strengthen the features of a class enemy in him, and Selivanovsky sees the pathos of Soviet literature in "the artistic affirmation of the system of socialist relations on earth." At the same time, Selivanovskii's literary-critical works reflect tendencies that are not characteristic of the era: this applies to articles on poetry.

Selivanovskii's assessments here run counter to generally accepted ones. He tries to understand the rhythm and phonetic neoplasms of Khlebnikov, seeks to understand the essence of acmeism (while naming the name of Gumilyov), wading through the terminological tie of the era (“poetry of late bourgeois classicism”, “imperialist poetry”, “poetry of political generalizations”), the critic expands the poetic field at the expense of names seemingly hopelessly lost by the era of the 1930s. Selivanovsky was repressed. Rehabilitated posthumously.

Worthy of attention and Soviet period activities of a former émigré writer Dmitry Petrovich Mirsky (Svyatopol-ka)(1890-1939). V Soviet Russia In the 1930s, Mirsky published a number of articles and prefaces on foreign literature. He also owns articles about M. Sholokhov, N. Zabolotsky, E. Bagritsky, P. Vasiliev. Mirsky's articles and books stood out noticeably against the general literary-critical background: he was uninhibited in his judgments and often allowed himself assessments that did not coincide with those of official criticism. Thus, Mirsky was convinced of the unity of Russian literature of the post-revolutionary period 2 . Despite the fact that the creative individuality of criticism absorbed a variety of currents and trends, the element of vulgar sociological reading of texts was quite strong in Mirsky's works. Mirsky was repressed. Rehabilitated posthumously.

Intervention and control of party bodies led, as a rule, to a deterioration in the literary and social situation. WITH

Selivanovsky A. in literary battles. M., 1959. S. 452. 2 See about this: Perkin V. Dmitry Svyatopolk-Mirsky // Russian literary criticism of the 1930s: Criticism and public consciousness of the era. SPb., 1997. S. 205-228.

In 1933, the monthly journal Literary Critic began to appear in the country, edited by P. F. Yudin, and later by M. M. Rozental. Of course, this magazine was also a publication of its era, far from always meeting the title. And yet, to a large extent, he filled the gaps in literary critical thought, since operational criticism - reviews, reviews, discussion articles - side by side here with more or less serious literary historical and literary theoretical works. As a result, the party decree of December 2, 1940 "On Literary Criticism and Bibliography" discontinued the publication of a one-of-a-kind magazine.

Even more sad in its consequences was the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of August 14, 1946 “On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad”. This document, which preceded its appearance, the discussion of the topic at the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and especially the report of A. Zhdanov at a meeting of writers in Leningrad, not only stopped the publication of the Leningrad magazine, but also contained shameless, insulting statements addressed to A. Akhmatova and M. Zoshchenko. After the publication of the Decree, both Akhmatova and Zoshchenko were essentially excommunicated from the literary and publishing process; they had to print only literary translations.

It was party literary criticism in its primordial, clearly unilinear expression. Party decisions were made about I. Selvinsky's play "Umka - the Polar Bear" (1937) and the play "House" by V. Kataev (1940), about the play "Snowstorm" by L. Leonov (1940), and "vol. Fadeev A.A.” (1940), about the magazine "October" (1943) and the magazine "Znamya" (1944). Vigilant party control over literature took the place of literary criticism. Proof of this is a relatively recently published collection of documents testifying to rampant party censorship 1 .

Literary controversy in these conditions seemed out of place. However, the rudiments of literary discussions survived. Thus, for example, between 1935 and 1940 there were discussions about formalism and vulgar sociologism. In fact, these turned out to be echoes of the disputes of the 1920s, and the main actors- supporters of the formal school and representatives of sociological literary criticism - was given another, this time - the last - battle. Considering that 90% of writers who joined the Union of Soviet Writers in 1934, by 1937-1938. was repressed, one can understand that the discussions of the late 1930s were organized from above and proceeded

The Literary Front: A History of Political Censorship: 1932-1946 M., 1994.306

extremely sluggish. If in the 1920s a “guilty” critic could lose the trust of his party comrades, then in the 1930s he lost his life. On this occasion, the character of Bulgakov's novel Azazello said to Margarita: "It's one thing to hit Latunsky's critic with a hammer and quite another thing - in his heart."

After the end of the publication of The Quiet Flows the Don by M. Sholokhov, literary criticism suddenly stirred up, and there were responses in which Sholokhov was reproached for the wrong end of the epic, that the writer crushed the image of Melekhov. There were short discussions about historical romance, about the prose of N. Ostrovsky and D. Furmanov.

During the Great Patriotic War, the attention of the party and government to literary criticism was weakened, and it did not give its own bright shoots. Another effort to "improve the quality" of literary criticism was made in 1947, when A. A. Fadeev spoke and wrote about its state and tasks. To general discussions, Fadeev added the idea that socialist realism may well include romantic elements. Fadeev supported Vladimir Vladimirovich Ermilov(1904-1965), the author of a phrase that was remembered by contemporaries, in which N. Chernyshevsky’s formula was only “slightly” altered: “beautiful is our a life".

Written with catchy brilliance and increased expressiveness, V. Yermilov, a literary scholar and literary critic, began his performances as early as the 1920s and became infamous in the 1930s and 1940s. Yermilov has always remained one of the most notable odious figures in Soviet literary life. He was an indispensable active participant in all literary and party discussions of different decades. A long-liver of Soviet literary criticism, V. Yermilov has come a long way in journalism. In 1926-29, he edited the Rappov magazine "Young Guard", in 1932-38 he headed the editorial office of Krasnaya Nov, in 1946-50, Literaturnaya Gazeta was published under his leadership. Despite the fact that Ermilov was a member of the Rappov leadership, he easily abandoned the ideological aspirations of this organization and in the 1930s focused on monographic studies of the work of M. Koltsov, M. Gorky, V. Mayakovsky. In different years, from a opportunistic-dogmatic position, he spoke sharply about the prose of I. Ilf and Evg. Petrov, K. Paustovsky, about the poetry of A. Tvardovsky and L. Martynov, about the dramaturgy of V. Grossman.

In] 936, in the book "Gorky's Dream", written immediately after the writer's death, Yermilov proved the absolute connection between M. Gorky's work and the ideas of victorious socialism. At the end of the book, the critic analyzed in detail the merits of the Stalinist constitution, which, according to Yermilov, became a kind of apotheosis of Gorky's ideas.

In the 1940s, Yermilov was the author of a number of articles in which the idea of ​​the writer's and critic's party responsibility was rigidly declared. According to Yermilov, the literature of socialist realism can be considered the most democratic literature in the world. The suspicious "trends" that emerged in the work of Zoshchenko and Akhmatova are, of course, "deeply hostile to Soviet democracy."

Yermilov fought tirelessly against "political irresponsibility" and "decadence", against "mystical distortion of reality" and "pessimism", against "rotten scholasticism" and "theorists", "preaching Tolstoy's self-improvement". He was one of the creators of the tendentious and crackling literary-critical phraseology, diligently replicated in the 1930s and 50s. From the titles of Ermilov’s works alone, one can easily imagine what prohibitive pathos they were permeated with: “Against Menshevism in Literary Criticism”, “Against Reactionary Ideas in the Works of F. M. Dostoevsky”, “On a False Understanding of Traditions”, “A Harmful Play”, “The slanderous story of A. Platonov”, etc. Yermilov proclaimed literary works as a weapon necessary to protect “genuine partisanship” in art.

Yermilov enthusiastically supported the idea of ​​A. Zhdanov, expressed by him at the First Congress of Writers, that socialist realism should be a method not only of Soviet literature, but also of Soviet criticism. Yermilov played his part in the fight against "cosmopolitanism" - in the ruthless state action of the late 1940s. He announced the names of "cosmopolitan" writers who allowed themselves to perceive in Russian literature the artistic influences of world classics.

In the 1950s and 60s, Ermilov focused on historical and literary research, most of which he devoted to A. Chekho-

Cm.: Ermilov V, The World's Most Democratic Literature: Articles 1946-1947. M., 1947.

woo. Meanwhile, Yermilov attached considerable importance to literary and critical work. After the 20th Party Congress, in accordance with new trends, the critic began to write more freely, more relaxed, he approached the artistic text and began to pay attention to its poetic structure. 1 However, Yermilov remained true to himself and introduced endless references to party documents into the corpus of his articles, trusting, first of all, a timely expressed political idea, and not a literary and artistic discovery. In the 1960s, Yermilov the critic lost his former influence, and his articles were perceived as ordinary phenomena of a turbulent literary process that attracted the attention of readers with completely different names and artistic ideas.

V. Mayakovsky forever “introduced” Yermilov into the history of literature, having mentioned the critic with an unkind word in his suicide letter, and before that he composed one of the slogans for the play “Banya”:

do not evaporate

swarm of bureaucrats. Not enough baths

and no soap for you. And also

bureaucrats

helps pen critics -

like Ermilov ...

In 1949, a "struggle against cosmopolitanism" began in the country. In the sections of the Writers' Union, another wave of severe studies took place. The writers, of necessity, repented, and literary critics concentrated around the next "positive" facts, which manifested themselves in defiantly semi-official, reptilian literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Soviet literary criticism was dying. She was forced to “take into service” the theory of non-conflict known for its demagogic frankness. Criticism, like literature, went around sharp corners, joyfully, with cloying jubilation, welcoming the appearance of literary works, the very name of which was intended to inspire pride and optimism. The writers painfully agreed to the alteration of what was written. class

"See, for example: Ermilov V. Connection of Times: On the Traditions of Soviet Literature. M., 1964.

A classic example of tragic lack of will is A. Fadeev's reworking of the novel The Young Guard. Literary critics hostilely accepted honest literature - books that ran counter to the general mood. Negative reviews appeared about the poems of A. Tvardovsky, the novels of V. Grossman "For a Just Cause" and V. Nekrasov "In the Trenches of Stalingrad", novels and stories by V. Panova. In the 1940s and early 1950s, Soviet literary criticism was going through a severe crisis.

M. Gorky

M. Gorky. Collected works in thirty volumes M., GIHL, 1953 Volume 27. Articles, reports, speeches, greetings (1933-1936) So - the first general congress of writers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and regions finished their work. This work turned out to be so significant and varied that now, in closing remarks, I can only outwardly outline its deep meaning, I can note only the most significant of what it discovered. Before the congress and at the beginning of it, some and even, it seems, many writers did not understand the meaning of organizing the congress. "What is he for?" these people asked. These are very strange people, and at the congress they were rightly called indifferent. Their eyes see that in our reality something still remains “as it was,” but their indifference does not allow them to realize that it remains only because the proletariat, the master of the country, does not have enough time to finally destroy, destroy these remnants. These people are quite satisfied with what has already been done, which has helped them move forward into comfortable positions, and which has strengthened their natural indifference of individualists. They do not understand that we are all very small people compared to the great things that are happening in the world, they do not understand that we live and work at the beginning of the first act. last tragedy working humanity. They have become accustomed to living without a sense of pride in the meaning of personal existence and are only concerned about preserving the dull lordship, the dull radiance of their small, poorly polished talents. They do not understand that the meaning of personal existence is to deepen and expand the meaning of existence of the many millions of working people. But these vast masses sent their representatives to the congress: workers in various fields of production, inventors, collective farmers, pioneers. The whole country stood up before the writers of the Union of Socialist Soviets, stood up and made high demands on them - for their talents, for their work. These people are the great present and future of the Land of the Soviets. Interrupting our conversations, Blinding with the brilliance of unseen deeds, They brought their victories - Bread, planes, metal - themselves, - They brought themselves as a theme, As their work, love, life. And each of them sounded like a poem, Because Bolshevism thundered in each. Raw, hastily made lines of poetry Viktor Gusev correctly note the meaning of the event: once again the thunder of Bolshevism, the fundamental reformer of the world and the harbinger of terrible events throughout the world, thundered triumphantly. Where do I see the victory of Bolshevism at the Congress of Writers? In the fact that those of them who were considered non-Party, "waverers", admitted - with sincerity, in the fullness of which I do not dare to doubt - recognized Bolshevism as the only militant guiding idea in creativity, in word painting. I highly appreciate this victory, because I, a writer, know from my own experience how arbitrary the thought and feeling of a writer who tries to find freedom of creativity outside the strict instructions of history, outside its basic, organizing idea. Deviations from the mathematically straight line worked out bloody history working humanity and brightly illuminated by the doctrine that establishes that the world can be changed only by the proletariat and only through a revolutionary blow, and then through the socialist organized labor of workers and peasants - deviations from the mathematical straight line are explained by the fact that our emotions are older than our intellect , by the fact that in our emotions there is a lot of inheritance and this inheritance hostilely contradicts the testimony of reason. We were born in a class society, where everyone needs to defend themselves against everyone, and many enter a classless society as people from whom trust in each other has been etched out, in whom the sense of respect and love for working humanity, the creator of all values, has been killed by the age-old struggle for a convenient place in life. . We lack the sincerity necessary for self-criticism, we show too much petty bourgeois anger when we criticize each other. It still seems to us that we are criticizing a competitor for our piece of bread, and not a comrade in work, which is taking on an ever deeper significance as the stimulus of all the best revolutionary forces in the world. We writers, workers in the art of the most individual, are mistaken in considering our experience as the sole property, while it is the suggestion of reality and - in the past - a very heavy gift from it. In the past, comrades, for we all have already seen and see that the new reality, created by the Bolshevik Party, embodying the mind and will of the masses, the new reality offers us a wonderful gift, an unprecedented gift of the intellectual flowering of many millions of working people. I will recall a wonderful speech Vsevolod Ivanov, this speech should remain in our memory as an example of sincere self-criticism of a politically minded artist. The speeches deserve the same attention. Y. Olesha, L. Seifullina and many others. About two years ago Joseph Stalin, Concerned about raising the quality of literature, he told communist writers: "Learn to write from non-party people." Without speaking of whether the Communists learned anything from the non-Party artists, I must say that the non-Party did not learn badly from the proletariat how to think. (Applause.) Once, in a fit of hungover pessimism, Leonid Andreev said: “A confectioner is happier than a writer, he knows that children and young ladies love cake. And a writer is a bad person who does a good thing, not knowing for whom and doubting that this business is generally necessary That is why most writers have no desire to please someone, and want to offend everyone. The writers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics see for whom they are working. The reader himself comes to them, the reader calls them "engineers of souls" and demands that they organize in simple terms in good, truthful images of his sensations, feelings, thoughts, his heroic work. There has never been such a close, direct unity between the reader and the writer, and in this fact lies the difficulty that we must overcome, but in this fact lies our happiness, which we have not yet learned to appreciate. Just as the cultures of our fraternal republics, which are national in form, remain and must be socialist in essence, our creativity must remain individual in form and be socialist-Leninist in the sense of its basic, guiding idea. This meaning is the liberation of people from the remnants of the past, from the suggestion of a criminal class history that distorts thought and feeling, a history that educates working people as slaves, intellectuals as double-minded or indifferent, anarchists or renegades, skeptics and critics or conciliators of the irreconcilable . In the end, the Congress gives the right to hope that henceforth the concept of "non-Party writer" will remain only formal concept But inwardly each of us will feel like a real member of the Leninist Party, which so beautifully and timely proved its confidence in the honor and work of non-Party writers by the permission of the All-Union Congress. At this congress we issued large bills of exchange to the multi-million reader and the government, and, of course, now we are obliged to pay the bills with honest, good work. We will do this if we do not forget what our readers, including our children, have suggested to us, if we do not forget how enormous the importance of literature is in our country, what variously high demands are placed on us. We will not forget this if we immediately exterminate in our midst all remnants of group relations, relations that are ridiculously and disgustingly similar to the struggle of the Moscow boyars for parochialism - for places in the boyar duma and at the banquets of the tsar closer to him. We should well remember the smart words of Comrade Seifullina, who rightly said, That "we were too soon and willingly made writers." And do not forget the instructions of a friend Nakoryakov, that in the years 1928-1931 we produced 75 per cent of the books that did not have the right to second editions, that is, very bad books. “You understand how much we have published superfluous, how much extra costs we have made, not only material, but also spiritual costs of our people, our creators of socialism, who read a gray, bad, and sometimes hacky book. This is not only a mistake of the writing team, but it is also one of the worst mistakes in publishing." I consider the end of Comrade Nakoryakov's last sentence to be too soft and amiable. With everything that has been said, I addressed the writers of the entire congress and, therefore, the representatives of the fraternal republics. I have no reason or desire to single them out in a special place, because they work not only each for their own people, but each for all the peoples of the Union of Socialist Republics and autonomous regions. History places on them the same responsibility for their work as on the Russians. Due to lack of time, I read little of the books written by the writers of the Union republics, but even the little that I have read inspires me with firm confidence that we will soon receive from them a book remarkable for the novelty of the material and the power of the image. Let me remind you that the number of people does not affect the quality of talent. Little Norway created huge figures of Hamsun, Ibsen. The Jews recently died almost brilliant poet Bialik was an exceptionally talented satirist and humorist Sholom Aleichem, Latvians created a powerful poet Rainis, Finland - Eino-Leino - there is no such small country that would not give great artists of the word. I have named only the largest and far from all, and I have named writers who were born in the conditions of a capitalist society. In the republics of nations that are fraternal to us, writers are born from the proletariat, and on the example of our country we see what talented children the proletariat has created in a short time and how continuously it creates them. But I am addressing friendly advice, which can be understood as a request, to representatives of the nationalities of the Caucasus and Central Asia. On me, and - I know - not only on me, the ashug Suleiman Stalsky. I saw how this old man, illiterate but wise, sitting in the podium, whispered, creating his poems, then he, Homer of the 20th century, amazingly read them. (Applause.) Take care of people who are able to create such pearls of poetry as Suleiman creates. I repeat: the beginning of the art of the word is in folklore. Collect your folklore, learn from it, process it. He gives a lot of material to you and to us, poets and prose writers of the Union. The better we know the past, the easier, the more deeply and joyfully we will understand the great significance of the present we are creating. The speeches at the meetings of the congress and conversations outside the meeting room revealed the unity of our feelings and desires, the unity of purposefulness, and revealed our unacceptably little acquaintance with art and, in general, with the culture of the fraternal republics. If we do not want the fire that has flared up at the congress to be extinguished, we must take all measures to make it flare up even brighter. It is necessary to begin mutual and broad acquaintance with the cultures of the fraternal republics. To begin with, it would be necessary to organize an "All-Union Theater" in Moscow, which would show on stage, in drama and comedy, the life and way of life of the national republics in their historical past and heroic present. (Applause.) Further: it is necessary to publish in Russian collections of current prose and poetry of the national republics and regions, in good translations. (Applause.) Literature for children also needs to be translated. The writers and scholars of the national republics must write the histories of their countries and states, stories that would acquaint the peoples of all the republics with each other. These histories of the peoples of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics will serve as a very good means of mutual understanding and internal, ideological cohesion of all the people of the seven republics. This mutual understanding, this unity of forces is necessary not only for all the people of the Union of Republics, they are necessary as a lesson and an example for the entire working people of the earth, against whom their old enemy, capitalism, is organized under a new guise - fascism. good practical method lighting cultural ties and business interdependence of the Union of our republics can serve as a collective work on the creation of the book "Cases and people of two five-year plans." This book should show the labor force of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the form of essays and stories the results of their work and the facts of the cultural and educational influence of labor on people, on the growth of reason, etc. the will of a few, to liberate them from the narrow boundaries of the petty-bourgeois individualism of owners, to educate a new, socialist individuality under the conditions of collective labor, to show the spiral along which we are moving forward and ascending ever higher. Participation in this work is absolutely essential for writers of all fraternal republics and all regions. We are still at that stage of development when we must convince ourselves of our cultural growth. Of all that was said at the congress, the most significant and important thing is that for the first time many young writers felt their importance and responsibility to the country and realized their insufficient preparation for work. Collective work on the creation of books covering the processes of grandiose labor that is changing the world and people will serve us as an excellent means of self-education and self-strengthening. In the absence of serious, philosophical criticism, so sadly shown by the fact of the muteness of professional critics at the congress, we must ourselves take up self-criticism not in words, but in deeds, directly in the work on the material. On the method of collective labor of writers, comrade Ehrenburg was skeptical, fearing that the method of such work could harmfully limit the development of the individual, abilities of the work unit. Comrades Vsevolod Ivanov and Lidia Seifullina, by objecting to him, it seems to me, dispelled his fears. It seems to Comrade Ehrenburg that the method of collective work is the method of brigade work. These techniques have no other resemblance to each other, except for the physical: in both cases, groups, collectives work. But the team works with reinforced concrete, wood, metal, etc., always with a definitely uniform material that needs to be given a predetermined shape. In the brigade, individuality can reveal itself only by the strength of the tension of its work. Collective work on the material of social phenomena, work on reflection, depiction of the processes of life - among which, in particular, the actions of shock brigades have their place - this is work on infinitely diverse facts, and each individual unit, each writer has the right to choose for himself this or that series of facts according to his gravitation, his interests and abilities. The collective work of writers on the phenomena of life in the past and present for the most vivid illumination of the paths to the future bears some resemblance to the work of laboratories scientifically and experimentally investigating certain phenomena of organic life. It is known that the basis of any method is an experiment - research, study - and this method, in turn, indicates further paths of study. I have the courage to think that it is the method of collective work with material that will help us best to understand what socialist realism should be. Comrades, in our country the logic of actions overtakes the logic of concepts, that's what we must feel. My confidence that this method of collective creativity can produce completely original, unprecedentedly interesting books is such that I take the liberty of offering such work to our guests, excellent masters of European literature. (Applause.) Will they not try to give a book that would depict the day of the bourgeois world? I mean any day: September 25th, October 7th or December 15th, it doesn't matter. We need to take a weekday the way it was reflected in the world press on its pages. It is necessary to show all the motley chaos of modern life in Paris and Grenoble, in London and Shanghai, in San Francisco, Geneva, Rome, Dublin, etc., etc., in cities, villages, on water and on land. It is necessary to give the holidays of the rich and the suicides of the poor, the meetings of the academies, learned societies and the facts of wild illiteracy, superstitions, crimes reflected in the chronicle of newspapers, the facts of the refinement of a refined culture, the strikes of workers, anecdotes and everyday dramas - impudent cries of luxury, exploits of swindlers, lies of political leaders, - it is necessary, I repeat, to give an ordinary, everyday day with all the crazy, fantastic diversity of its phenomena. It is the work of scissors much more than the work of a pen. Of course comments are inevitable, but I think they should be as brief as they are brilliant. But facts must be commented on by facts, and on these tatters, on this rag of the day, the commentary of a writer must shine like a spark kindling the flame of thought. In general, it is necessary to show the "artistic" creativity of history within one day. No one has ever done this, but it should! And if a group of our guests undertake such work, they, of course, will give the world something unprecedented, unusually interesting, dazzlingly bright and deeply instructive. (Applause.) The organizing idea of ​​fascism is the racial theory, a theory that erects the Germanic, Romanesque, Latin or Anglo-Saxon race as the only force supposedly capable of continuing the further development of culture, a "purebred" racial culture based, as it is known, on a merciless and increasingly cynical exploitation of the vast majority of people by a numerically insignificant minority. This numerically insignificant minority is also insignificant in terms of their intellectual power, wasted on inventing methods of exploiting working people and the treasures of nature belonging to working people. From all the talents of capitalism, which once played a positive role as an organizer of civilization and material culture, modern capitalism has retained only a mystical certainty in its right to power over the proletariat and the peasantry. But against this mysticism of the capitalists, history has put forward a real fact - the strength of the revolutionary proletariat, organized by the invincible and inextinguishable, historically justified, formidable truth of the doctrine Marx-- Lenin, brought forward the fact of a "united front" in France and an even more physically tangible fact - the union of the proletariat of the Soviet Socialist Republics. In the face of the force of these facts, the poisonous, but light and thin fog of fascism will inevitably and soon dissipate. This fog, as we see, poisons and seduces only adventurers, only unprincipled, indifferent people, people for whom "everything is all the same" and who do not care who they kill, people who are products of the degeneration of bourgeois society and mercenaries of capitalism for its most vile, vile and bloody deeds. The main strength of the feudal lords of capitalism is the weapons that the working class manufactures for them—guns, machine guns, cannons, poison gases, and everything else that at any moment can be and is being used by the capitalists against the workers. But the time is not far off when the revolutionary legal consciousness of the workers will destroy the mysticism of the capitalists. However, they are preparing a new worldwide slaughter, organizing the mass extermination of the proletarians of the whole world on the fields of national-capitalist battles, the purpose of which is to profit, enslave small nationalities, turn them into slaves of Africa - half-starved animals who are obliged to work hard labor and buy bad, rotten goods. only for the kings of industry to accumulate fat gold - the curse of the working people - gold, with insignificant grains of which the capitalists pay the workers for forging chains for themselves, for making weapons against themselves. It was in the face of such acute class relations that our all-union congress, on the eve of what a catastrophe we, the writers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, will continue our work! In this work there cannot be and should not be any place for personal trifles. Revolutionary internationalism against bourgeois nationalism, racism, fascism—that is the historical meaning of our day. What we can do? We have already done something. We are doing a good job of uniting all the forces of the radical, anti-fascist intelligentsia, and we are calling to life proletarian, revolutionary literature in all countries of the world. In our midst there are representatives of almost all the literatures of Europe. The magnet that attracted them to our country is not only the wise work of the Party, the mind of the country, the heroic energy of the proletariat of the republics, but also our work. To some extent, every writer is the leader of his readers - I think this can be said. Roman Rolland, André Gide have the most legitimate right to call themselves "engineers of souls". Jean Richard Block, André Malraux, Plivier, Aragon, Toller, Becher, Some- I will not list all - these are bright names exclusively talented people and all these are stern judges of the bourgeoisie of their countries, all these are people who know how to hate, but who also know how to love. (Applause.) We did not know how to invite many more, who also possess in all their strength the wonderful human gift of love and hatred, we did not know how to invite them, and this is our considerable fault before them. But I am sure that the second congress of Soviet writers will be adorned by dozens of writers from the West and the East, writers from China and India, and there is no doubt that we are on the eve of uniting around the Third International all the best and most honest people of art, science and technology. (Applause.) A small and - for me personally - not entirely clear disagreement arose between foreigners and us on the question of assessing the position of the individual in a classless society ... This question is predominantly academic, philosophical, and, of course, it could not be well covered on one or two meetings or in one conversation ... The essence of the matter is that in Europe and everywhere in the world a writer who cherishes centuries-old cultural conquests and who sees that in the eyes of the capitalist bourgeoisie these cultural conquests have lost their value, that any day a book any honest writer can be burned publicly - in Europe, the writer feels more and more strongly the pain of the oppression of the bourgeoisie, fears the revival of medieval barbarism, which, probably, would not exclude the institution of the Inquisition for heretical thinkers. In Europe, the bourgeoisie and its governments are increasingly hostile to the honest writer. We have no bourgeoisie, and our government is our teachers and our comrades, comrades in the full sense of the word. The conditions of the moment sometimes call for protest against the willfulness of individualistic thought, but the country and the government are deeply interested in the need for the free growth of individuality and provide all the means for this, as far as possible in the conditions of a country that is forced to spend a huge amount of money in self-defense against the new barbarian - the European bourgeoisie, armed from teeth to toes. Our congress worked on the high notes of a sincere passion for our art and under the slogan: Raise the quality of work! Needless to say, the more perfect the weapon, the better it ensures victory. The book is the most important and powerful tool of socialist culture. Books of high quality are demanded by the proletariat, our main, multi-million reader; books of high quality are indispensable for hundreds of novice writers who enter literature from among the proletariat, from factories and collective farms in all the republics and regions of our country. We must carefully, continuously and lovingly help these young people on the difficult path they have chosen, but, as Seifullina rightly said, we should not rush to “make them writers” and we should remember Comrade Nakoryakoz’s instruction about fruitless, unprofitable waste folk remedies for the production of book marriage. For this marriage, we must be responsible collectively. All our playwrights spoke passionately and convincingly about the need to improve the quality of our dramaturgy. I am sure that the organization of the "All-Union Theater" and the "Theatre of Classics" will greatly help us to assimilate the high technique of ancient and medieval playwrights, and the dramaturgy of the fraternal republics will expand the limits of the subject, point out new original conflicts. in the report Bukharin There is one point that requires an objection. Speaking of poetry Mayakovsky, N. I. Bukharin did not note the harmful - in my opinion - "hyperbolism" characteristic of this very influential and original poet. As an example of such an influence, I take the poems of a very gifted poet Prokofiev,- it seems that he edited the novel Molchanova"The Peasant" - a novel, which was mentioned in "Literary Amusements", in which the fist-like peasant was glorified as our contemporary Mikula Selyaninovich. Prokofiev depicts in verse a certain Pavel Gromov, a "great hero", also Mikula. Pavel Gromov is an amazing monster. The world song is sung about him, How he walked, fierce with sword and fire. He -- shoulders that doors- thundered on the Don. And the dust from the campaign eclipsed the moon. He -- mouth like a cellar- went through everything. So the wolf does not pass and the lynx does not run. He -- cheekbones like boards and a mouth like a coffin- He was a complete master of clearings and paths. In another poem, Prokofiev depicts such a terrible one: The eldest son knows no equal, Legs-- logs, chest-- mountain. He is alone stands like a laurel Along the paved courtyard. ...Him mustache-- what reins, Beard-- what a harrow....Seven desired loves suddenly. What a goat! By the way, a lavra is a rich, crowded monastery, almost a town, like, for example, the Kiev and Trinity-Sergius lavras. This is what Mayakovsky's hyperbolism leads to! In Prokofiev, it seems to be complicated by hyperbolism Klyuev, singer of the mystical essence of the peasantry and even more mystical "power of the earth." I do not deny Prokofiev's giftedness; his desire for epic imagery is even commendable. However, the desire for epic requires knowledge of the epic, and on the way to it it is no longer possible to write such verses: Glory flew across the fields, Thunderbolt owned fate. If the storms went to the right - Thunderbolt went to the left. Storms again breathed anger, Strong cold of all latitudes (?). If the storms went to the left, Thunderbolt - on the contrary. I don't think this is epic anymore. It looks like a rehash of an old poem that wanted to be funny: Two friends lived in Kiev - Amazing people. The first homeland was from the south, And the second - on the contrary. The first was a terrible glutton, And the second was an idiot, The first died of constipation, And the second - on the contrary. Our Soviet poetry in the short period of its life has achieved very significant successes, but just like prose, it contains a very fair amount of empty flowers, chaff and straw. In the struggle for the high quality of prose and poetry, we must update and deepen the themes, the purity and sonority of the language. History has pushed us forward as builders of a new culture, and this obliges us to strive even further forward and higher, so that the whole world of working people can see us and hear our voices. The world would very well and gratefully hear the voices of poets if they, together with musicians, tried to create new songs, new ones that the world does not have, but which it must have. It is far from true that the melodies of the old songs of Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians are full of grief and sadness, probably the Tatars and Armenians also have songs of marching, round dance, comic, dance, labor rhythms, but I only speak about what I know. Old Russian, Georgian, Ukrainian songs have an endless variety of musicality, and our poets should familiarize themselves with such collections of songs as, for example, "Velikoross" Shane, like a compilation Drahomanov and Kulish and others of this type. I am sure that such an acquaintance would serve as a source of inspiration for poets and musicians and that the working people would receive beautiful new songs - a gift they have long deserved. It must be taken into account that an old melody, even slightly changed, but filled with new words, creates a song that will be learned easily and quickly. You just need to understand the meaning of the rhythm: the chorus of "Dubinushka" can be stretched for the length of a minute, but you can also sing to the dance rhythm. Our young poets should not disdain the creation of folk songs. Forward and higher is the path for all of us, comrades, it is the only path worthy of the people of our country, of our era. What does higher mean? This means: we must rise above petty, personal squabbles, above pride, above the struggle for first place, above the desire to command others - above everything that we have inherited from the vulgarity and stupidity of the past. We are involved in a great cause, a cause of world significance, and we must personally be worthy to take part in it. We are entering an era full of the greatest tragedy, and we must prepare ourselves, learn to transform this tragedy in those perfect forms, as the ancient tragedians were able to portray it. We must not for a moment forget what the whole world of the working people thinks about us, listening to us, that we are working before the reader and viewer, which has never happened before in the entire history of mankind. I urge you, comrades, to learn - to learn to think, to work, to learn to respect and appreciate each other, as fighters on the battlefield appreciate each other, and not to waste strength in fighting each other for trifles, at a time when history called you to relentless struggle with the old world. The Japanese spoke at the congress Hijikato, Chinese Hu Lan-chi and Chinese Amy Xiao. These comrades, as it were verbally, shook hands with each other, signifying the unity of purpose of the revolutionary proletariat of the country whose bourgeoisie was infected by Europe with the sharp and deadly fit of the madness of imperialism, and the country whose bourgeoisie not only betrays its people as a sacrifice to the robber imperialists, but also exterminates them themselves. to please the imperialism of foreigners, just as the Russian landlords and manufacturers did in 1918-1922, with the cynical help of the shopkeepers of Europe, America and Japan. The congress did not clearly enough note the speeches of the representatives of the revolutionary proletariat of the two countries of the East, which can only be explained by the extreme fatigue caused by two weeks of work, which demanded an enormous strain of attention and, finally, exhausted attention. Having finished its work, the All-Union Congress of Writers unanimously expresses its sincere gratitude to the government for allowing the congress and extensive assistance to its work. The All-Union Congress of Writers notes that the successes of the internal, ideological association of writers, clearly and solidly revealed at the meetings of the congress, are the result of the decision of the Central Committee of the Lenin-Stalin Party of April 23, 1932, a decision that condemned groups of writers for motives that have nothing in common with the great tasks of our Soviet literature as a whole, but by no means denying associations technical matters varied creative work. The Congress of Writers is deeply pleased and proud of the attention generously accorded to it by numerous delegations of readers. The writers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics will not forget the lofty demands placed on them by their readers and will honestly try to meet these demands. The majority of writers, judging by the structure of their speeches, perfectly understood how enormous the significance of literature as a whole in our homeland, understood what they were obligated to do by the impressive, uninterrupted demonstration of a strict, but love relationship readers to literature. We have the right to believe that this love is due to merit, the work of our young literature. The reader has given us the right to be proud of the attitude of the reader and Lenin's party towards us, but we must not exaggerate the significance of our work, which is still far from being completed. Self-education through self-criticism, the continuous struggle for the quality of books, the planned work - as far as it is permissible in our craft - the understanding of literature as a process created collectively and placing on us mutual responsibility for each other's work, responsibility to the reader - these are the conclusions, which we must make of the demonstration of the readers at the congress. These conclusions oblige us to immediately begin practical work—the organization of all-Union literature as a whole. We must process the enormous and most valuable material of speeches at the Congress, so that it may serve us. temporary-- I emphasize the word "temporary" -- guidance in our further work, should in every possible way strengthen and expand the connection formed at the congress with the literatures of the fraternal republics. At the congress, before the representatives of the revolutionary literature of Europe, sadly and unworthy of our literature, our poor knowledge or complete ignorance of European languages ​​was revealed. In view of the fact that our connections with the writers of Europe will inevitably expand, we must introduce our own study of European languages. This is also necessary because it will open before us the possibility of reading in the original greatest works painting with a word. No less important is our knowledge of the languages ​​of the Armenians, Georgians, Tatars, Turks, etc. We need to work out a general program for classes with beginning writers, a program that would exclude subjectivism from this work, which is extremely harmful to young people. To do this, it is necessary to combine the journals "Growth" and "Literary Study" into one journal of a literary and pedagogical nature and cancel the little successful studies of individual writers with beginners. There is a lot of work, all this is an absolutely necessary thing. In our country it is unacceptable for the growth of literature to develop by itself, we must prepare a replacement for ourselves, ourselves to expand the number of workers of the word. Then we must ask the government to discuss the question of the need to organize an “All-Union Theater” in Moscow, in which artists of all nationalities of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would have the opportunity to acquaint us Russians with their dramatic art and through it with their past and present. cultural life. The main, permanent troupe of this theater should be Russian, which would play the plays of Azerbaijan, Armenians, Belarusians, Georgians, Tatars and all other nationalities of Central Asia, the Caucasus, Siberia - in Russian, in exemplary translations. The rapid growth of the literature of the fraternal republics obliges us to seriously follow the growth of these literatures and can significantly contribute to the growth of Russian dramaturgy. It is necessary to discuss the question of organizing in Moscow a "Theatre of Classics" in which plays of the classical repertoire would be performed exclusively. They, acquainting the viewer to the writers with examples of the dramatic creativity of the ancient Greeks, Spaniards and Englishmen of the Middle Ages, would raise the viewer's demands on the theater, writers - on themselves. We need to pay attention to the literature of the regions, especially Eastern and Western Siberia, draw it into the circle of our attention, publish it in the magazines of the center, take into account its significance as an organizer of culture. We must ask the government to allow the union of writers to erect a monument to the pioneer hero Pavel Morozov, who was killed by his relatives because, having understood the wrecking activities of his blood relatives, he preferred the interests of the working people to kinship with them. It is necessary to allow the publication of almanacs of the current fiction of the fraternal national republics, at least four books a year, and give the almanacs the title "Union" or "Brotherhood" with the subtitle: "Collections of modern fiction of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics." Dear comrades! Before us is a huge, varied work for the good of our country, which we are creating as the motherland of the proletariat of all countries. Get to work, comrades! Friendly, slender, fiery-- for work! Long live the friendly, strong unity of workers and fighters, in a word, long live the All-Union Red Army of Writers! And long live the all-Union proletariat, our reader,-- a reader-friend, whom the honest writers of Russia so passionately waited forXIXcentury and who has appeared, lovingly surrounds us and teaches us to work! Long live the party of Lenin-- leader of the proletariat, long live the leader of the party, Joseph Stalin! (Stormy, long-lasting applause, turning into an ovation. Everyone rises and sings the "Internationale".)

NOTES

The twenty-seventh volume includes articles, reports, speeches, greetings written and delivered by M. Gorky in 1933-1936. Some of them were included in authorized collections of journalistic and literary-critical works ("Publicistic Articles", edition 2nd - 1933; "On Literature", edition 1st - 1933, edition 2nd - 1935, as well as in the 3rd edition - 1937, prepared for publication during the life of the author) and were repeatedly edited by M. Gorky. Most of the articles, reports, speeches, and greetings included in the volume were published in periodicals and were not included in authorized collections. Articles, reports, speeches, greetings of M. Gorky are included in the collection of works for the first time.

First published in the newspapers Pravda, 1934, No 242, September 2, Izvestia of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, 1934, No 206, September 2, Literaturnaya Gazeta, 1934, No 117, September 2, and Literary Leningrad , 1934, No. 45, September 3, as well as in the publications: "The First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers", Verbatim report, M. 1934; M. Gorky, Soviet Literature, Goslitizdat, M. 1934. Included in the second and third editions of M. Gorky's collection of articles "On Literature". Published with a slight reduction according to the text of the second edition of the specified collection, checked with manuscripts and typescripts (Archive of A. M. Gorky).

Plan:

Introduction

• 1 Organization of the joint venture of the USSR
• 2 Membership
• 3 Leaders
• 4 SP USSR after the collapse of the USSR
• 5 USSR joint venture in art
Notes

Introduction

Union of Writers of the USSR- the organization of professional writers of the USSR.

Created in 1934 at the First Congress of Writers of the USSR, convened in accordance with the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of April 23, 1932.

The union replaced all the organizations of writers that existed before: both united on some ideological or aesthetic platform (RAPP, "Pass"), and performing the function of writers' trade unions (All-Russian Union of Writers), Vseroskomdram.

According to the charter of the Writers' Union of the USSR as amended in 1971 (the charter was edited several times) - "... a voluntary public creative organization that unites professional writers of the Soviet Union, participating with their creativity in the struggle for the construction of communism, for social progress, for peace and friendship between peoples ".

II...7. The Union of Soviet Writers sets as its general goal the creation of works of high artistic value, saturated with the heroic struggle of the international proletariat, the pathos of the victory of socialism, reflecting the great wisdom and heroism of the Communist Party. The Union of Soviet Writers aims to create works of art worthy of the great era of socialism. (From the charter of 1934)

The charter gave a definition of socialist realism as the main method of Soviet literature and literary criticism, following which was a prerequisite for the membership of the SP.

1. Organization of the joint venture of the USSR

The highest body of the Writers' Union of the USSR was the congress of writers (between 1934 and 1954, contrary to the Charter, it was not convened), which elected the Board of the USSR Writers' Union (150 people in 1986), which, in turn, elected the chairman of the board (since 1977, the first secretary) and formed the secretariat of the board (36 people in 1986), who managed the affairs of the joint venture between congresses. The Board of Directors of the Joint Venture met at least once a year. The Board, according to the Charter of 1971, also elected a bureau of the secretariat, which included about 10 people, while the actual leadership was in the hands of the working secretariat group (about 10 full-time positions, occupied more by administrative workers than by writers). Yu. N. Verchenko was appointed head of this group in 1986 (until 1991).

The structural subdivisions of the Writers' Union of the USSR were regional writers' organizations: the joint ventures of the union and autonomous republics, the writers' organizations of the regions, territories, cities of Moscow and Leningrad, with the structure of a similar central organization.

In the system of the Writers' Union of the USSR, Literaturnaya Gazeta, the magazines Novy Mir, Znamya, Friendship of Peoples, Questions of Literature, Literary Review, Children's Literature, Foreign Literature, Youth, Soviet Literature" (published in foreign languages), "Theater", "Soviet Motherland" (in Yiddish), "Star", "Bonfire".

All trips abroad by members of the SP were subject to approval by the foreign commission of the SP of the USSR.

Under the jurisdiction of the Board of the Writers' Union of the USSR was the publishing house "Soviet Writer", the Literary Institute. M. Gorky, Literary consultation for novice authors, All-Union Bureau of Fiction Propaganda, Central House of Writers. A. A. Fadeev in Moscow and others.

Under the board of the Writers' Union of the USSR, the Literary Fund operated, and regional writers' organizations also had their own literary funds. The task of the literary funds was to provide members of the joint venture with material support (according to the "rank" of the writer) in the form of housing, construction and maintenance of "writers'" summer cottages, medical and sanatorium services, the provision of vouchers to the "houses of creativity of writers", the provision of household services, supplies of scarce commodities and foodstuffs.

2. Membership

Admission to the members of the joint venture was carried out on the basis of an application, in addition to which recommendations were to be attached three members SP. A writer wishing to join the SP was required to have two published books and submit reviews of them. The application was considered at a meeting of the local branch of the USSR Writers' Union and had to receive at least two-thirds of the votes when voting, then it was considered by the secretariat or the board of the USSR Writers' Union, and at least half of their votes were required for admission to membership.

The numerical composition of the SP of the USSR by years (according to the organizing committees of the congresses of the SP):

• 1934 - 1500 members
• 1954 - 3695
• 1959 - 4801
• 1967 - 6608
• 1971 - 7290
• 1976 - 7942
• 1981 - 8773
• 1986 - 9584
• 1989 - 9920

In 1976, it was reported that out of the total number of members of the joint venture, 3665 write in Russian.

The writer could be expelled from the joint venture "for misconduct, dropping the honor and dignity of the Soviet writer" and for "departure from the principles and tasks formulated in the Charter of the Writers' Union of the USSR." In practice, the following could serve as a reason for exclusion:

• Criticism of the writer from the highest party authorities. An example is the exclusion of M. M. Zoshchenko and A. A. Akhmatova, which followed the report of Zhdanov in August 1946 and the party resolution “On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad”.
• Publication abroad of works not published in the USSR. B. L. Pasternak was the first to be excluded for this reason for the publication in Italy of his novel Doctor Zhivago in 1957.
• Publication in "Samizdat"
• Openly expressed disagreement with the policy of the CPSU and the Soviet state.
• Participation in public speeches (signing open letters) protesting against the persecution of dissidents.

Those expelled from the SP were denied the publication of their books and publication in journals subordinate to the SP, they were practically deprived of the opportunity to earn money by literary work. With the exception of the joint venture, an exclusion from the Literary Fund followed, entailing tangible financial difficulties. Exclusion from the joint venture for political reasons, as a rule, was widely publicized, sometimes turning into real persecution. In a number of cases, the exclusion was accompanied by criminal prosecution under the articles “Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda” and “Dissemination of knowingly false fabrications discrediting the Soviet state and social system”, deprivation of citizenship of the USSR, and forced emigration.

For political reasons, A. Sinyavsky, Yu. Daniel, N. Korzhavin, G. Vladimov, L. Chukovskaya, A. Solzhenitsyn, V. Maksimov, V. Nekrasov, A. Galich, E. Etkind, V. Voinovich, I. Dziuba, N. Lukash, Viktor Erofeev, E. Popov, F. Svetov.

In protest against the exclusion of Popov and Erofeev from the joint venture, in December 1979 V. Aksyonov, I. Lisnyanskaya and S. Lipkin announced their withdrawal from the Writers' Union of the USSR.

3. Leaders

According to the Charter of 1934, the head of the USSR Writers' Union was the chairman of the board, and since 1977, the first secretary of the board.

Conversation of I. V. Stalin with Gorky

The first chairman (1934-1936) of the Board of the Writers' Union of the USSR was Maxim Gorky. (At the same time, the actual management of the activities of the joint venture was carried out by the 1st secretary of the joint venture Alexander Shcherbakov).

Subsequently, this position was held by:

• Alexei Tolstoy (from 1936 to 1938); the actual leadership until 1941 was carried out by general secretary SP USSR Vladimir Stavsky
• Alexander Fadeev (from 1938 to 1944 and from 1946 to 1954)
• Nikolai Tikhonov (from 1944 to 1946)
• Alexey Surkov (from 1954 to 1959)
• Konstantin Fedin (from 1959 to 1977)

• Georgy Markov (from 1977 to 1986)
• Vladimir Karpov (since 1986; resigned in November 1990, but continued to conduct business until August 1991)
• Timur Pulatov (1991)

4. SP of the USSR after the collapse of the USSR

After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the Union of Writers of the USSR was divided into many organizations in various countries of the post-Soviet space.

The main successors of the SP of the USSR in Russia are the Union of Writers of Russia and the Union of Russian Writers.

5. SP USSR in art

Soviet writers and cinematographers in their work repeatedly turned to the theme of the SP of the USSR.

• In the novel "The Master and Margarita" by M. A. Bulgakov, under the fictitious name "Massolit", the Soviet writers' organization is depicted as an association of opportunists.
• The play by V. Voinovich and G. Gorin "A domestic cat, medium fluffy" is dedicated to the behind-the-scenes side of the activity of the joint venture. Based on the play by K. Voinov, he made the film "Hat"
• V essays on literary life“A calf butted with an oak” A. I. Solzhenitsyn characterizes the SP of the USSR as one of the main instruments of total party-state control over literary activity in the USSR.

Notes

1. Charter of the Union of Writers of the USSR, see "Information Bulletin of the Secretariat of the Board of the Writers' Union of the USSR", 1971, No. 7(55), p. 9]