Fateh Vergasov. Union of Writers

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K: Organizations closed in 1991

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

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

From the Charter of the Union of Writers in the edition of 1934 (the charter was repeatedly edited and changed): “Union Soviet writers sets the general goal of creating works of high artistic value filled 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 great era socialism".

According to the charter as amended in 1971, the Union of Writers of the USSR is "a voluntary public creative organization that unites professional writers of the Soviet Union, participating with their creativity in the struggle for building communism, for social progress, for peace and friendship between peoples."

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

Organization of the joint venture of the USSR

Under the jurisdiction of the Board of the Writers' Union of the USSR was the publishing house "Soviet Writer", Literary Consultation for Beginning Authors, the All-Union Bureau of Propaganda of Fiction, the Central House of Writers. A. A. Fadeev in Moscow and others.

Also in the structure of the joint venture there were various divisions that performed the functions of management and control. Thus, all foreign trips of members of the Union were subject to approval by the foreign commission of the USSR Writers' Union.

Under the rule of the USSR Writers' Union, the Literary Fund operated, and regional writers' organizations also had their own literary funds. The task of the literary funds was to provide material support to the members of the joint venture (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.

Membership

Admission to the Writers' Union was made on the basis of an application, to which the recommendations of three members of the Writers' Union were to be attached. A writer wishing to join the Union had 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 number of members of the Union of Writers of the USSR by years (according to the organizing committees of the congresses of the Union of Writers):

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 Union, 3,665 write in Russian.

The writer could be expelled from the Writers' Union "for misdeeds that damage 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 Zhdanov's report 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 speaking(signing open letters) with protests against the persecution of dissidents .

Those expelled from the Union of Writers were denied the publication of books and publication in journals subordinate to the joint venture; they were practically deprived of the opportunity to earn money by literary work. With the exception of the Union, 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 expulsion was accompanied by criminal prosecution under the articles “Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda” and “Dissemination of deliberately false fabrications discrediting the Soviet state and social system”, deprivation of citizenship of the USSR, 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 Union of Writers of the USSR.

Leaders

According to the Charter of 1934, the head of the USSR Writers' Union was the Chairman of the Board.
The first chairman (1934-) 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 Union was carried out by the 1st secretary of the joint venture Alexander Shcherbakov.

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

According to the Charter of 1977, the leadership of the Writers' Union was carried out by the First Secretary of the Board. This position was held by:

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

Control by the CPSU

Awards

On May 20, 1967 he was awarded the Order of Lenin.
On September 25, 1984 he was awarded the Order of Friendship of Peoples.

SP 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 USSR SP in Russia and the CIS are the International Commonwealth of Writers' Unions (led for a long time by Sergei Mikhalkov), the Writers' Union of Russia, and the Union of Russian Writers.

The ground for dividing the united community of writers of the USSR into two wings (the Union of Writers of Russia (SPR) and the Union Russian writers(SWP)) served as the "Letter of the 74s". The SWP included those who were in solidarity with the authors of the "Letter of the 74's", while the SWP included writers, as a rule, of liberal views.

USSR joint venture in art

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

In the novel "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 “Domestic cat, medium fluffiness” is dedicated to the behind-the-scenes side of the joint venture. Based on the play by K. Voinov, he made the film "Hat"
AT essays on literary life 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.
In the literary novel The Goat in Milk by Yu. M. Polyakov, events unfold against the backdrop of the activities of the Soviet writers' organization. The idea of the novel is that an organization can make a name for a writer without delving into his work. As for the identification of characters with reality, according to the author, he did his best to keep future readers of the novel from false identifications.

Criticism. Quotes

Vladimir Bogomolov:

Terrarium of Companions.

The Writers' Union of the USSR meant a lot to me. Firstly, this is communication with high-class masters, one might say, with the classics of Soviet literature. This communication was possible because the Writers' Union organized joint trips around the country, and there were trips abroad. I remember one of those trips. This is 1972, when I was just starting out in literature and found myself in a large group of writers in the Altai Territory. For me it was not only an honor, but also a study and a certain experience. I have interacted with many famous masters, including with his countryman Pavel Nilin. Soon Georgy Mokeevich Markov gathered a large delegation, and we went to Czechoslovakia. And also meetings, and it was also interesting. Well, and then every time plenums, congresses, when I myself went. This, of course, is study, acquaintance and entry into great literature. After all, they enter into literature not only with their own words, but also with a certain brotherhood. This was the brotherhood. It was later in the Writers' Union of Russia. And it was always a joy to go there. At that time, the Union of Writers of the Soviet Union was undoubtedly needed.

I caught the time when Pushkin's "My friends, our union is beautiful!" resurrected with renewed vigor and in a new way in the mansion on Povarskaya. Discussions of the "seditious" story by Anatoly Pristavkin, problematic essays and sharp journalism by Yuri Chernichenko, Yuri Nagibin, Ales Adamovich, Sergei Zalygin, Yuri Karyakin, Arkady Vaksberg, Nikolai Shmelev, Vasily Selyunin, Daniil Granin, Alexei Kondratovich, and other authors took place in crowded auditoriums . These disputes met the creative interests of like-minded writers, received a wide response, formed public opinion on the fundamental questions of the life of the people ...

Andrey Malgin, "Letter to a literary friend":

There is an iron rule that knows no exceptions. The more famous you are, the more actively you participate in literary process, the more difficult it will be for you to join the Writers' Union. And there will always be an excuse, if not at the creative bureau, then at the selection committee, if not at the selection committee, then at the secretariat someone will stand up and say: “Ah, one book? Let him publish the second one first”, or: “Oh, two books? Let's wait for the third." The recommendation was given famous people- protectionism, group action. They gave the unknown - let them give the known. And so on.<…>It is curious to get acquainted with the list of members of this selection committee. Consists there, for example, animal trainer Natalya Durova. Qualified judge, right? And who are Vladimir Bogatyrev, Yuri Galkin, Viktor Ilyin, Vladimir Semyonov? You do not know? And I don't know. And nobody knows.

Address

The Board of the Writers' Union of the USSR was located at 52/55 Povarskaya Street ("Sollogub's Estate" or "City Estate of Princes Dolgorukovs").

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Notes

An excerpt characterizing the Writers' Union of the USSR

“I don't know what's wrong with me today. Don't listen to me, forget what I told you.
All Pierre's gaiety vanished. He anxiously questioned the princess, asked her to express everything, to confide her grief to him; but she only repeated that she asked him to forget what she said, that she did not remember what she said, and that she had no grief, except for what he knows - grief that the marriage of Prince Andrei threatened to quarrel her father with son.
Have you heard about the Rostovs? she asked to change the conversation. “I was told that they would be coming soon. I also wait for Andre every day. I would like them to meet here.
How does he look at the matter now? asked Pierre, by which he meant the old prince. Princess Mary shook her head.
– But what to do? The year is only a few months away. And it can't be. I would only wish to spare my brother the first few minutes. I wish they would come sooner. I hope to get along with her. You have known them for a long time, - said Princess Marya, - tell me, hand on heart, the whole true truth, what kind of girl is this and how do you find her? But the whole truth; because, you understand, Andrei risks so much by doing this against the will of his father that I would like to know ...
An obscure instinct told Pierre that in these reservations and repeated requests to tell the whole truth, Princess Mary's hostility towards her future daughter-in-law was expressed, that she wanted Pierre not to approve of Prince Andrei's choice; but Pierre said what he felt rather than thought.
"I don't know how to answer your question," he said, blushing, not knowing why. “I definitely don’t know what kind of girl this is; I can't analyze it at all. She is charming. And why, I do not know: that's all that can be said about her. - Princess Mary sighed and the expression on her face said: "Yes, I expected this and was afraid."
- Is she smart? asked Princess Mary. Pierre considered.
“I think not,” he said, “but yes. She does not deign to be smart ... No, she is charming, and nothing more. Princess Mary again shook her head disapprovingly.
“Oh, I so desire to love her!” Tell her that if you see her before me.
“I heard that they will be in the next few days,” said Pierre.
Princess Marya told Pierre her plan of how, as soon as the Rostovs arrived, she would get close to her future daughter-in-law and try to accustom the old prince to her.

Marrying a rich bride in St. Petersburg did not work out for Boris and he came to Moscow for the same purpose. In Moscow, Boris was in indecision between the two richest brides - Julie and Princess Mary. Although Princess Mary, despite her ugliness, seemed to him more attractive than Julie, for some reason he was embarrassed to look after Bolkonskaya. On her last meeting with her, on the old prince's name day, to all his attempts to talk to her about feelings, she answered him inappropriately and obviously did not listen to him.
Julie, on the contrary, although in a special way, peculiar to her alone, but willingly accepted his courtship.
Julie was 27 years old. After the death of her brothers, she became very rich. She was now completely ugly; but I thought that she was not only just as good, but much more attractive than she had been before. She was supported in this delusion by the fact that, firstly, she became a very rich bride, and, secondly, that the older she became, the safer she was for men, the freer it was for men to treat her and, without assuming any obligations, enjoy her dinners, evenings and lively society, gathering with her. A man who ten years ago would have been afraid to go every day to the house where there was a 17-year-old young lady, so as not to compromise her and not to tie himself up, now went to her boldly every day and treated her not as a young lady, but as a a friend who has no gender.
The Karagins' house was the most pleasant and hospitable house in Moscow that winter. In addition to parties and dinners, every day a large company gathered at the Karagins, especially men who had dinner at 12 o'clock in the morning and stayed up until 3 o'clock. There was no ball, festivities, theater that Julie would miss. Her toilets were always the most fashionable. But, despite this, Julie seemed disappointed in everything, told everyone that she did not believe in friendship, or in love, or in any joys of life, and expected peace only there. She adopted the tone of a girl who has suffered great disappointment, a girl who seems to have lost a loved one or was cruelly deceived by him. Although nothing like this happened to her, they looked at her as such, and she herself even believed that she had suffered a lot in life. This melancholy, which did not prevent her from having fun, did not prevent the young people who visited her from having a good time. Each guest, coming to them, gave his debt to the melancholy mood of the hostess and then engaged in secular conversations, and dances, and mental games, and burime tournaments, which were in vogue with the Karagins. Only some young people, including Boris, went deeper into Julie's melancholy mood, and with these young people she had longer and more solitary conversations about the futility of everything worldly, and to them she opened her albums covered with sad images, sayings and poems.
Julie was especially affectionate towards Boris: she regretted his early disappointment in life, offered him those consolations of friendship that she could offer, having suffered so much in her life herself, and opened her album to him. Boris drew two trees for her in an album and wrote: Arbres rustiques, vos sombres rameaux secouent sur moi les tenebres et la melancolie. [Rural trees, your dark boughs shake off gloom and melancholy on me.]
Elsewhere he drew a tomb and wrote:
"La mort est secourable et la mort est tranquille
Ah! contre les douleurs il n "y a pas d" autre asile.
[Death is saving and death is calm;
O! there is no other refuge against suffering.]
Julie said it was lovely.
- II y a quelque chose de si ravissant dans le sourire de la melancolie, [There is something infinitely charming in a smile of melancholy,] - she said to Boris word for word the passage written out from the book.
- C "est un rayon de lumiere dans l" ombre, une nuance entre la douleur et le desespoir, qui montre la consolation possible. [This is a ray of light in the shadows, a shade between sadness and despair, which indicates the possibility of consolation.] - To this, Boris wrote poetry to her:
"Aliment de poison d" une ame trop sensible,
"Toi, sans qui le bonheur me serait impossible,
"Tendre melancolie, ah, viens me consoler,
Viens calmer les tourments de ma sombre retraite
"Et mele une douceur secrete
"A ces pleurs, que je sens couler."
[Poisonous food of a too sensitive soul,
You, without whom happiness would be impossible for me,
Gentle melancholy, oh come comfort me
Come, calm the torments of my gloomy solitude
And join the secret sweetness
To these tears that I feel flowing.]
Julie played Boris the saddest nocturnes on the harp. Boris read Poor Liza aloud to her and interrupted the reading more than once from excitement, which took his breath away. Meeting in a large society, Julie and Boris looked at each other as the only people in the world who were indifferent, who understood each other.
Anna Mikhailovna, who often traveled to the Karagins, making up her mother's party, meanwhile made accurate inquiries about what was given for Julie (both Penza estates and Nizhny Novgorod forests were given). Anna Mikhailovna, with devotion to the will of Providence and tenderness, looked at the refined sadness that connected her son with rich Julie.
- Toujours charmante et melancolique, cette chere Julieie, [She is still charming and melancholic, this dear Julie.] - she said to her daughter. - Boris says that he rests his soul in your house. He has suffered so many disappointments and is so sensitive,” she told her mother.
- Oh, my friend, how I became attached to Julie recent times, - she said to her son, - I can’t describe it to you! And who can't love her? This is such an unearthly creature! Oh Boris, Boris! She was silent for a minute. “And how I feel sorry for her maman,” she continued, “today she showed me reports and letters from Penza (they have a huge estate) and she is poor and all alone: she is so deceived!
Boris smiled slightly, listening to his mother. He meekly laughed at her ingenuous cunning, but he listened and sometimes asked her attentively about the Penza and Nizhny Novgorod estates.
Julie had long been expecting an offer from her melancholic admirer and was ready to accept it; but some secret feeling of disgust for her, for her passionate desire to get married, for her unnaturalness, and a feeling of horror at the renunciation of the possibility true love still stopped Boris. His vacation was already over. Whole days and every single day he spent with the Karagins, and every day, reasoning with himself, Boris told himself that he would propose tomorrow. But in the presence of Julie, looking at her red face and chin, almost always strewn with powder, at her moist eyes and at the expression on her face, which always showed readiness to immediately move from melancholy to the unnatural rapture of marital happiness, Boris could not utter a decisive word: despite the fact that for a long time in his imagination he considered himself the owner of the Penza and Nizhny Novgorod estates and distributed the use of income from them. Julie saw Boris's indecisiveness and sometimes the thought came to her that she was disgusting to him; but immediately a woman's self-delusion offered her consolation, and she told herself that he was shy only out of love. Her melancholy, however, began to turn into irritability, and not long before Boris left, she undertook a decisive plan. At the same time that Boris' vacation was coming to an end, Anatole Kuragin appeared in Moscow and, of course, in the Karagins' living room, and Julie, suddenly leaving her melancholy, became very cheerful and attentive to Kuragin.
“Mon cher,” Anna Mikhailovna said to her son, “je sais de bonne source que le Prince Basile envoie son fils a Moscou pour lui faire epouser Julieie.” [My dear, I know from reliable sources that Prince Vasily is sending his son to Moscow in order to marry him to Julie.] I love Julie so much that I should feel sorry for her. What do you think, my friend? Anna Mikhailovna said.
The idea of being fooled and losing for nothing this whole month of hard melancholic service under Julie and seeing all the income from the Penza estates already planned and used properly in his imagination in the hands of another - especially in the hands of stupid Anatole, offended Boris. He went to the Karagins with the firm intention of making an offer. Julie greeted him with a cheerful and carefree air, casually talking about how fun she had been at the ball yesterday, and asking when he was coming. Despite the fact that Boris came with the intention of talking about his love and therefore intended to be gentle, he irritably began to talk about female inconstancy: about how women can easily move from sadness to joy and that their mood depends only on who looks after them. Julie was offended and said that it was true that a woman needed variety, that everyone would get tired of the same thing.
“For this I would advise you ...” Boris began, wanting to taunt her; but at that very moment the insulting thought came to him that he might leave Moscow without achieving his goal and losing his labors in vain (which had never happened to him). He stopped in the middle of her speech, lowered his eyes so as not to see her unpleasantly irritated and indecisive face, and said: “I didn’t come here at all to quarrel with you. On the contrary…” He glanced at her to see if he could continue. All her irritation suddenly disappeared, and restless, pleading eyes were fixed on him with greedy expectation. "I can always arrange myself so that I rarely see her," thought Boris. “But the work has begun and must be done!” He blushed, looked up at her, and said to her, “You know how I feel about you!” There was no more need to speak: Julie's face shone with triumph and self-satisfaction; but she forced Boris to tell her everything that is said in such cases, to say that he loves her, and never loved a single woman more than her. She knew that for the Penza estates and Nizhny Novgorod forests she could demand this, and she got what she demanded.
The bride and groom, no longer remembering the trees that showered them with darkness and melancholy, made plans for the future arrangement of a brilliant house in St. Petersburg, made visits and prepared everything for a brilliant wedding.

Count Ilya Andreich arrived in Moscow at the end of January with Natasha and Sonya. The countess was still unwell, and could not go, but it was impossible to wait for her recovery: Prince Andrei was expected to Moscow every day; besides, it was necessary to buy a dowry; The Rostovs' house in Moscow was not heated; besides, they came to a short time, the countess was not with them, and therefore Ilya Andreich decided to stay in Moscow with Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, who had long offered her hospitality to the count.
Late in the evening, four carts of the Rostovs drove into the courtyard of Marya Dmitrievna in the old Konyushennaya. Marya Dmitrievna lived alone. She has already married her daughter. Her sons were all in the service.
She kept herself as straight as ever, spoke her opinion directly, loudly and decisively to everyone, and with her whole being seemed to reproach other people for all sorts of weaknesses, passions and hobbies, of which she did not recognize the possibility. FROM early morning in Kutsaveyka, she did housework, then went: on holidays to mass and from mass to jails and prisons, where she had affairs that she did not tell anyone about, and on weekdays, dressed, at home she received petitioners of different classes, who each day came to her, and then dined; at a hearty and tasty dinner there were always three or four guests, after dinner she made a party to Boston; at night she forced herself to read newspapers and new books, while she knitted. Rarely did she make exceptions for trips, and if she went out, she went only to the most important persons in the city.
She had not yet gone to bed when the Rostovs arrived, and the door on the block squealed in the hall, letting in the Rostovs and their servants who were coming in from the cold. Marya Dmitrievna, with spectacles pulled down on her nose, her head thrown back, stood at the door of the hall and looked at the incoming people with a stern, angry look. One would have thought that she was embittered against the newcomers and would now kick them out if she did not give careful orders to people at that time about how to accommodate the guests and their things.
- Counts? “Bring it here,” she said, pointing to the suitcases and not greeting anyone. - Ladies, this way to the left. Well, what are you kidding! she shouted at the girls. - Samovar to warm up! “I’ve gotten fatter, prettier,” she said, pulling Natasha, flushed from the cold, by the hood. - Ugh, cold! Get undressed quickly, - she shouted at the count, who wanted to approach her hand. - Freeze, please. Serve rum for tea! Sonyushka, bonjour,” she said to Sonya, emphasizing her slightly contemptuous and affectionate attitude towards Sonya with this French greeting.
When everyone, having undressed and recovered from the journey, came to tea, Marya Dmitrievna kissed everyone in order.
“I’m glad in my soul that they came and that they stopped at my place,” she said. “It’s high time,” she said, glancing significantly at Natasha ... “the old man is here and her son is expected from day to day. You need to get to know him. Well, let's talk about that later," she added, looking around Sonya with a look that showed that she didn't want to talk about it in front of her. “Now listen,” she turned to the count, “tomorrow, what do you want?” Who will you send for? Shinshin? – she bent one finger; - crybaby Anna Mikhailovna? - two. She is here with her son. The son is getting married! Then Bezukhov chtol? And he's here with his wife. He ran away from her, and she jumped after him. He dined with me on Wednesday. Well, and them - she pointed to the young ladies - tomorrow I'll take them to Iverskaya, and then we'll drop by to Ober Shelme. After all, I suppose you will do everything new? Don't take it from me, now the sleeves, that's what! The other day Princess Irina Vasilievna, young, came to me: she was afraid to look, as if she had put two barrels on her hands. After all, today that day is a new fashion. Yes, what do you have to do? she turned sternly to the count.
“Everything suddenly came up,” answered the count. - Buy rags, and then there is a buyer for the Moscow region and for the house. Well, if your grace is, I will choose a time, I will go to Marinskoye for a day, I will estimate my girls for you.
- All right, all right, I'll be safe. I have as in the Board of Trustees. I’ll take them where they need to be, and scold them, and caress them,” said Marya Dmitrievna, touching the cheek of her favorite and goddaughter Natasha with her big hand.

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 either to 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 exile at the insistence of Stalin, M. Gorky managed to fulfill social function entrusted to him by the leader, and together with whole group developers, among whom the predominant place was occupied by the Rappovites, helped to think over 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 that critics have a red and black board and that writers' reputations often depend on critical self-will: "We must not allow a literary analysis of an 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, "waverers", admitted - with sincerity, the fullness of which I do not dare to doubt - recognized Bolshevism as the only militant guiding idea in creativity, in painting in a word.

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 journal Our Achievements, the yearbooks Year XVI, Year XVII, etc. (the year from the beginning of the revolution), large-scale publications History of Factories and Plants , "History of the 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 newly-minted 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 Workers' 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 the Artistic Method of Soviet Literature”, “On the Union of Writers”, “On the preparation 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 that is revealed to him in 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 numerous 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." Such monotony of titles was dictated by the needs of the Stalin era: it was necessary to write and talk about the social role of literature. Declarativity was considered a necessary attribute of journalistic literary criticism.

Actively engaged literary criticism and returning 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). In 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. FROM

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 - were 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 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.

Plan:

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

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 SP of the USSR, "Literaturnaya Gazeta", magazines " New world”, “Banner”, “Friendship of Peoples”, “Questions of Literature”, “Literary Review”, “Children's Literature”, “Foreign Literature”, “Youth”, “Soviet Literature” (came out on 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 the recommendations of three members of the joint venture were to be attached. 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 the Secretary General of the Writers' Union of the 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)

first secretaries

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"
AT essays on literary life“A calf butted an oak tree” 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

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]

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This abstract is based on an article from the Russian Wikipedia. Synchronization completed on 07/09/11 18:42:40
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The organization is incomparably more massive than the notorious RAAP - Russian Association of Proletarian Writers, dispersed in 1932. RAPP divided all writers into proletarians and fellow travelers, assigning the latter a purely technical role: they can teach the proletarians formal skills and go either to be melted down, that is, to production, or to be reforged, that is, to labor camps. Stalin focused precisely on fellow travelers, because the course towards the restoration of the empire - with the oblivion of all international and ultra-revolutionary slogans of the twenties - was already obvious. Travel companions - writers old school Those who recognized the Bolsheviks precisely because they were the only ones able to keep Russia from disintegration and save it from occupation, perked up.

A new writers' union was required - on the one hand, something like a trade union dealing with apartments, cars, dachas, treatment, resorts, and on the other, an intermediary between an ordinary writer and a party customer. Gorky was organizing this union throughout 1933.

From August 17 to 31, in the Hall of Columns of the former Assembly of the Nobility, and now the House of Unions, his first congress was held. The main speaker was Bukharin, whose attitude towards culture, technology and some pluralism was well known; his appointment as the main speaker of the congress indicated a clear liberalization of literary policy. Gorky took the floor several times, mainly in order to emphasize again and again: we still do not know how to show a new person, he is not convincing with us, we do not know how to talk about achievements! He was particularly delighted by the presence at the congress of the national poet Suleiman Stalsky, a Dagestan ashug in a worn robe, in a gray shabby hat. Gorky took a picture with him - he and Stalsky were the same age; in general, during the congress, Gorky very intensively filmed with his guests, old workers, young paratroopers, metro builders (almost did not pose with the writers, there was his own principled installation).

Separately, it is worth mentioning the attacks on Mayakovsky, which sounded in Gorky's speech: he condemned the already dead Mayakovsky for his dangerous influence, for the lack of realism, the excess of hyperbole - apparently, Gorky's enmity towards him was not personal, but ideological.

The first congress of writers was widely and enthusiastically covered in the press, and Gorky had every reason to be proud of his long-standing plan - to create a writers' organization that would tell writers how and what to do, and along the way would provide for their life. In Gorky's own letters during these years, there is a sea of plans, advice that he distributes with the generosity of a sower: write a book about how people make the weather! The history of religions and the church's predatory attitude towards the flock! The history of the literature of small peoples! Few, few writers rejoice, it is necessary to be more cheerful, brighter, more reckless! This constant call to joy can be understood in two ways. Maybe he was talking about his own horror of what was happening - but in none of his essays of this time there is a shadow of horror, not even doubts about the unconditional triumph of justice in the vastness of the Union of Soviets. One delight. So another reason, probably, is that the literature of the thirties never learned to lie with talent - and if it did, then it was very mediocre; Gorky was sincerely perplexed when he saw this. He was, oddly enough, extremely far from the life that most Russian writers lived, not to mention the people they wrote about; his ideas about this life were drawn mainly from newspapers, and his mail, apparently, was strictly controlled by the secretary we already knew

80 years ago, on April 23, 1932, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution "On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations." The document contained a directive according to which all writers' organizations that existed in the early years Soviet power were subject to dissolution. In their place, a single Union of Soviet Writers was created.

RAPP AND RAPPOVTS

The new economic policy pursued by the Bolsheviks from the spring of 1921 allowed some freedom and relative pluralism in all spheres of society, with the exception of politics. In the 1920s, unlike later times, different artistic methods and styles. In the literary environment, various directions, currents and schools coexisted. But squabbles did not stop in relations between the groups. Which is not surprising: creative people have always been arrogant, vulnerable and envious.

While the people were reading Yesenin's poems (judging by the requests in the libraries), organizations that preached a narrow-class, sociological approach to the tasks of literature began to take over in the intergroup struggle. All-Union Association of Proletarian Writers (VAPP) and Russian Association proletarian writers (RAPP) claimed to be the spokesman for the position of power. Rappovtsy, not embarrassed in expressions, criticized all writers who, in their opinion, did not meet the criteria of a Soviet writer.

The claim to become an ideological taskmaster over writers was expressed by Rappov's journal On Post. Already in its first issue (1923) many famous writers and poets. G. Lelevich (pseudonym of Labori Kalmanson) stated: “Along with the gap social connections characteristic of Mayakovsky is some kind of special sensitivity of the nervous system. Not healthy, even furious anger, not ferocious malice, but some kind of nervousness, neurasthenia, hysteria. Boris Volin was indignant at the fact that in the book “The Life and Death of Nikolai Kurbov” Ilya Ehrenburg “smeares the gates of the revolution with tar not only with large strokes, he splashes them with small splashes.” Lev Sosnovsky kicked Gorky, who lived abroad: “So, the revolution, and its most acute manifestation - Civil War- for Maxim Gorky - a fight of big animals. According to Gorky, one should not write about this fight, because one will have to write a lot of rude and cruel ... Let's read and re-read the old (i.e., more correctly young) Gorky, with his battle songs, full of courage and daring, and we will try to forget about the new Gorky, who has become sweet for the bourgeois circles of Europe, and who toothlessly dreams of serene life and about the time when all people will eat ... only one semolina". However, it was not possible to forget Gorky. But more on that below.

In 1926, the magazine "On the Post" became known as "On the Literary Post". At the same time, a very colorful character, critic and publicist Leopold Averbakh, became its executive editor. It deserves special mention.

Averbakh was lucky (for the time being) to have family ties that provided the young man with a comfortable life under the tsarist regime and a career under the Soviet regime. The future ideologist of the RAPP was the son of a major Volga manufacturer and nephew of the Bolshevik Yakov Sverdlov, then he became the son-in-law of a longtime Leninist ally, Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, and the brother-in-law of the all-powerful Heinrich Yagoda.

Averbakh turned out to be a brazen, energetic, ambitious young man and not without the talent of an organizer. Shoulder to shoulder with Averbakh, the RAPP ideologists and activists, writers Dmitry Furmanov, Vladimir Kirshon, Alexander Fadeev, Vladimir Stavsky, playwright Alexander Afinogenov, and critic Vladimir Ermilov fought against an alien ideology. Kirshon later writes: “It was in the journal Na Literary Post that the ideologists of bourgeois, kulak literature, the Trotskyites, the Vorontsy, Pereverzevism, leftist vulgarism, etc., were rebuffed.” Got it for many writers. In particular, Mikhail Bulgakov. They say that the unforgettable image of the house manager Shvonder was inspired by the author “ dog heart”Napostovtsy (from “At the post”).

Meanwhile, the curtailment of the NEP, which began in the late 1920s at the initiative of Stalin, was not limited to complete collectivization. Agriculture and the course towards socialist industrialization. It was also decided to place the activities of the creative intelligentsia under closer organizational, ideological and political control of the sole ruling party. In addition, the RAPP's claim to become the ideological organizer of Soviet literature was clearly not justified. Its leaders were not authoritative for the rest of the writers, who were called "sympathizers" and "fellow travelers."

THE RETURN OF THE “PRODICATED” GENIUS AND THE DEATH OF RAPP

The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks knew a lot about literature and cinema, which he treated more than carefully. Despite his busy schedule, he read a lot and attended the theater regularly. I watched Bulgakov's play "Days of the Turbins" 15 times. Like Nicholas I, in dealing with some writers, Stalin preferred personal censorship. The consequence of which was the emergence of such a genre as a letter to the leader from a writer.

In the early 1930s, the country's leadership had an understanding that it was time to end the confusion and grouping on the "literary front". To centralize management, a consolidating figure was required. Such, according to Stalin, was to be the great Russian writer Alexei Maksimovich Gorky. It was his return to the USSR that was the final point in the history of the RAPP.

Fate played a cruel joke with Averbakh. Thanks to Yagoda, he took an active part in the operation to lure Gorky out of Italy. The writer liked the distant relative, who wrote to Stalin on January 25, 1932: Need to study". In 1937, when Gorky had already died and Yagoda had been arrested, Averbakh was also arrested. In a statement to the new People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, Nikolai Yezhov, the “well-gifted man” admitted that he “especially hurried Gorky’s move from Sorrento,” since Yagoda “asked me to systematically convince Alexei Maksimovich of an early full departure from Italy.”

So, the RAPP activists were surprised to learn that their organization, which gossips called "Stalin's club", Stalin no longer needs. In the Kremlin "kitchen" a "dish" was already being prepared, which became known as the decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks "On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations." In the course of preparation, the document was redone more than once at the very top. It was also amended by a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee, the first secretary of the Moscow Committee and the Moscow City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Lazar Kaganovich.

On April 23, 1932, the resolution was adopted. It said that the framework of the proletarian literary and artistic organizations became a brake on the growth of artistic creativity. There was a “danger of turning these organizations from the means of the greatest mobilization of Soviet writers and artists around the tasks of socialist construction into a means of cultivating circle isolation, separation from the political tasks of our time and from significant groups writers and artists who sympathize with socialist construction. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, recognizing the need to liquidate the organizations of the Proletkult, decided “to unite all writers who support the platform of Soviet power and strive to participate in socialist construction into a single union of Soviet writers with a communist faction in it.” And “to carry out similar changes in the line of other types of art (association of musicians, composers, artists, architects, etc. organizations)”.

And although the document did not bring joy to all writers, many of them accepted the idea of creating a single union of writers with approval. The idea of holding the All-Union Congress of Writers, put forward by the authorities, also inspired hope.

“I ASKED STALIN...”

The reaction to the decision of the Central Committee in the Rappov camp can be judged from Fadeev's letter to Kaganovich dated May 10, 1932. Fadeev lamented: eight years of his “mature party life was spent not on fighting for socialism, on the literary sector of this struggle, it was spent not on fighting for the party and its Central Committee against the class enemy, but on some kind of group and circle ".

After the Presidium of the Organizing Committee of the All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers held its first meeting on May 26, Kirshon addressed Stalin and Kaganovich with a letter. This is a very daring message to the leaders for that time, worthy of a detailed quotation. The author of the poem “I asked the ash tree...” (a song written by Mikael Tariverdiev) was indignant:

“It was decided to change the editions of all literary newspapers and magazines. This change, as is clear from the attached protocol, is aimed at the complete elimination of the former leadership of the RAPP and the writers and critics who shared its positions. Not only were the editors Averbakh, Fadeev, Selivanovsky, Kirshon removed, but the editorial boards were composed in such a way that only vols. Fadeev and Afinogenov were introduced into the editorial offices, where, in addition to them, 8-10 people each, comrade. Averbakh was left a member of the editorial board of the Literary Heritage, and the rest of the comrades - Makaryev, Karavaeva, Yermilov, Sutyrin, Buachidze, Shushkanov, Libedinsky, Gorbunov, Serebryansky, Illesh, Selivanovsky, Troshchenko, Gidash, Luzgin, Yasensky, Mikitenko, Kirshon and others were withdrawn from everywhere and are not included in this resolution in any edition.

I believed that by such a massive elimination from everywhere of a group of communist writers who for several years had defended, albeit with mistakes, the line of the party on the literary front, it would not be possible to achieve the consolidation of the communists in united union. It seems to me that this is not a consolidation, but a liquidation...

Tov. Stalin spoke of the need to put us on "equal conditions." But in such a situation, not a “level playing field”, but a rout may result. The resolution of the Organizing Committee does not leave us a single magazine. Comrades from the philosophical leadership, who fiercely fought against us and supported the Panferov group, were approved as executive editors of the Organizing Committee ...

I did not think that communist writers had so discredited themselves before the party that they could not be trusted with editing a single literary journal, and that comrades from another sector of the ideological front, philosophers, should be invited to lead literature. It seems to me that the intended comrades, who did not conduct any literary work and are unaware of its practice, will manage journals worse in the new and difficult conditions than communist writers.

Kirshon was especially outraged by the fact that he could not “express his views” at a meeting of the Communist faction of the Organizing Committee: “The decision was made as follows: the bureau of the faction (comrades Gronsky, Kirpotin and Panferov) made all these decisions without any discussion whatsoever with communist writers, at least with members of the Organizing Committee, and then brought to the Presidium with non-party writers, where it was approved.

Concluding the letter, Kirshon asked: “We want to actively and energetically fight for the implementation of the decision of the Central Committee. We want to publish Bolshevik works. We ask you to give us the opportunity to work on the literary front, correct the mistakes we have made, and reorganize ourselves in the new conditions. In particular, we ask the Central Committee to leave us the journal At the Literary Post. Under the leadership of the Party, we created this journal in 1926, which for 6 years, on the whole, correctly fought for the line of the Party.”

The Stalin Secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks this time again unpleasantly surprised the Rappovites. Decree of June 22 “On literary magazines"prescribed" to combine the journals "At the Literary Post", "For Marxist-Leninist Art Studies" and "Proletarian Literature" into one monthly magazine." The members of its editorial board were appointed “T.T. Dinamov, Yudin, Kirshon, Bela Illesh, Zelinsky K., Gronsky, Serafimovich, Sutyrin and Kirpotin”. Fadeev became a member of the editorial board of the Krasnaya Nov magazine.

The share of Averbakh fell to another responsible assignment. In 1933, he became a member of the famous excursion of writers to the White Sea Canal (in 1931, the canal was transferred to the OGPU and its acting head, Yagoda). The fellow travelers were Alexei Tolstoy, Vsevolod Ivanov, Leonid Leonov, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Lev Nikulin, Boris Pilnyak, Valentin Kataev, Viktor Shklovsky, Marietta Shaginyan, Vera Inber, Ilf and Petrov and others. Then the writers created a collective work - “The White Sea-Baltic Canal named after Stalin." Averbakh, who wrote only a few pages, had the dubious honor of editing the edition. His name as a co-editor appears on the title page of the book, along with the names of Gorky and Semyon Firin, the head of the Belomoro-Baltic corrective labor camp.

THE FIRST CONGRESS OF WRITERS: THE FACE AND THE INSIDE

Preparations for the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers dragged on for more than two years. The writers continued to sort things out and complain to Stalin about Gorky and each other. So, Fedor Panferov said “ to the best friend Soviet writers”: “Averbakh wants to break my back with Gorky’s hands.” Pravda published Gorky's article "On Language" (03/18/1934). About Panferov, he writes that he uses “meaningless and ugly words that litter the Russian language,” although “he is at the head of the journal (“Oktyabr”. - O.N.) and teaches young writers, himself, apparently being incapable or wanting to learn." Panferov turned to Stalin for support. And he, considering that the discussion had crossed the permissible limits, put an end to it.

The first congress of the Union of Soviet Writers, which began on August 17, 1934, became a major event in the life of the country. Gorky greeted the delegates (377 with a decisive vote, 220 with an advisory vote): “With pride and joy I open the first congress of writers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the history of the world, embracing 170 million people within its borders (stormy, prolonged applause).”

The guests of the congress were Louis Aragon, Andre Malraux, Friedrich Wolf, Yakub Kadri and other foreign writers. It took 26 meetings to discuss all issues. Gorky made a report on Soviet literature, Marshak - on children's literature, Radek - on modern world literature, Bukharin - on poetry, poetics and tasks poetic creativity in the USSR. There were four speakers on dramaturgy - Valery Kirpotin, Alexei Tolstoy, Vladimir Kirshon and Nikolai Pogodin. There were also presentations on more specific issues. Nikolai Tikhonov spoke about Leningrad poets, and Kuzma Gorbunov spoke about the work of publishing houses with young writers. Representatives of all the union republics made presentations on the state of affairs in their literature (I wonder where and to whom they speak today?).

However, the "organs" were not left without work either. They found an anonymous anti-Soviet letter criticizing Stalin, and also recorded the words of Isaac Babel: “Look at Gorky and Demyan Poor. They hate each other, and at the convention they sit side by side like doves. I imagine with what delight they would each lead their own group into battle at this congress. Alexander Zharov reacted to Bukharin's critical statements about poets with an epigram:

Our congress was joyful

And bright

And this day was terribly sweet -

Old man Bukharin noticed us

And, descending into the coffin, he blessed.

The words turned out to be prophetic: four years later, the “old man” Bukharin, who did not live to be 50, was shot ...

On September 1, closing the writers' forum, Gorky proclaimed the victory of "Bolshevism at the congress." Socialist realism was declared the method of artistic knowledge of the world.

However, from the inside, the work of the congress did not look so rosy. Gorky's behavior caused serious discontent in the Politburo of the Central Committee. The fact that Stalin was not enthusiastic about his report is confirmed by a telegram received on August 30 from the General Secretary, who was on vacation in Sochi: “Gorky acted disloyally towards the party by silencing the decision of the Central Committee on the RAPP in the report. The result was a report not about Soviet literature, but about something else.”

In a report to Stalin on the results of the congress, Zhdanov wrote:

“Things with the Congress of Soviet Writers are over. Yesterday the list of the Presidium and the Secretariat of the Board was unanimously elected... Most of the noise was around Bukharin's report, and especially around the concluding speech. Due to the fact that the communist poets Demyan Bedny, Bezymensky and others gathered to criticize his report, Bukharin in a panic asked to intervene and prevent political attacks. We came to his aid in this matter by gathering the leading workers of the congress and giving instructions that comrade. the communists did not allow any political generalizations against Bukharin in their criticism. Criticism, however, came out quite strong ...

Most of the work was with Gorky. In the middle of the congress, he once again applied for his resignation. I was instructed to convince him to withdraw the application, which I did. The statement about the role of the decision of the Central Committee on RAPP, which he made in his closing speech, Gorky reluctantly made, orally, that he did not painfully agree with this decision, but it was necessary - that means it was necessary. All the time he was incited, in my deepest conviction, to all sorts of speeches, such as resignations, his own leadership lists, etc. All the time he talked about the inability of the communist writers to lead literary movement, about the wrong attitude towards Averbakh (he was not at the congress. - O.N.), etc. At the end of the congress, a general upsurge seized him too, giving way to streaks of decline and skepticism and the desire to get away from the "squabbling" literary work”.

Numerous letters and appeals of writers to Stalin testified that the "storm petrel" could not fully "get away from the" squabblers "into literary work" even after the congress. However, this was already Gorky's personal problem. The “Leader of the Peoples” achieved his goal: the Union of Soviet Writers, created on his initiative, became an important and reliable element of the Stalinist system of power.

Oleg NAZAROV, Doctor of History

Direct speech

From the speech of Andrei Zhdanov, Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, at the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers on August 17, 1934:

Comrade Stalin called our writers engineers of human souls. What does it mean? What responsibilities does this title impose on you?

This means, firstly, to know life in order to be able to portray it truthfully in works of art, to depict not scholastically, not deadly, not simply as “objective reality”, but to depict reality in its revolutionary development.

At the same time, truthfulness and historical concreteness artistic image must be combined with the task of ideologically reshaping and educating the working people in the spirit of socialism. This method of fiction and literary criticism is what we call the method of socialist realism.

Our Soviet literature is not afraid of accusations of tendentiousness. Yes, Soviet literature is tendentious, for there is not and cannot be, in an era of class struggle, literature that is not class-oriented, non-tendentious, supposedly apolitical (applause).

Document

“On the situation in the Union of Soviet Writers”

To the Secretaries of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks - vol. STALIN, KAGANOVICH, ANDREEV, ZHDANOV, EZHOV

The current state of the Union of Soviet Writers is extremely alarming. Creative association of writers, designed to politically and organizationally rally the mass of writers and fight for the high ideological and artistic quality of Soviet literature, through the efforts of its current leaders, is increasingly turning into a kind of bureaucratic department for literary affairs.

The decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of April 23, 1932 has been virtually ignored by the leadership of the Union for the past two years. The Union does not conduct any serious work with writers. The focus of his attention is not the writer and his activities, but mainly only various economic affairs and near-literary squabbles.

The Union has turned into some kind of huge chancellery, in the depths of which there are endless meetings. The writers who do not want to break away from the Union, as a result of the incessant hustle and bustle of the meetings, in fact, have no time to write. Things, for example, came to the point that at one of the meetings of the secretariat of comrade. Stavsky offered to give the writer Vishnevsky a sabbatical. Vishnevsky, as you know, does not work in any institution and, therefore, "sabbatical leave" means for him a vacation from endless meetings in the Union.

As a result similar organization affairs in the Union, real writers are faced with a dilemma: either they must “work” in the Union, i.e. sit or write...

The Party organization is not united, it contains incessant squabbles and bickering. Not trying or not being able to find a correct approach to non-Party writers, individual communist writers, in essence resurrecting Rappovism, are trying to take the path of indiscriminate slandering of non-Party people ...

Head Department of Press and Publishing of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks

A. NIKITIN

Fateh Vergasov. Union of Writers

Organization of the joint venture of the USSR

Membership

Leaders

Control by the CPSU

Awards

SP USSR after the collapse of the USSR

USSR joint venture in art

Criticism. Quotes

Address

Write a review on the article "Union of Writers of the USSR"

Notes

see also

Links

An excerpt characterizing the Writers' Union of the USSR

Plan:

Introduction

1. Organization of the joint venture of the USSR

2. Membership

3. Leaders

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

5. SP USSR in art

Notes