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BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 58-1-42
TITLE:             Pasternak and the Dilemma of Literary Policy
BY:                r.r.g.
DATE:              1960-5-31
COUNTRY:           Soviet Union
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  USSR

--- Begin ---

Radio Free Europe/Munich
Evaluation and Analysis Department
Background information USSR
31 May 1960

PASTERNAK AND THE DILEMMA OF LITERARY POLICY

I. INTRODUCTION

II. Art vs. Ideology - The Dilemma of Soviet
Literary Policy	p..1

III. Reports and Commentaries - The Third USSR
Writers' Congress
(Soviet Studies, Volume XI, No. 3, January
1960)	p. 12

IV. Soviet Literature Toes the Line
(Bulletin of the Institute of the USSR,
November 1959
by A. Gaev)	p. 27

V. The Soviet Writers Congress - Along the
Middle Road
(Soviet Survey, No. 29, July-September 1959
by Ronald Hingley)	p. 34

VI. The Third Soviet Writers Congress: An
Appraisal
(New York, 31 May 1959
by Maurice Friedberg)	p. 41

VII. Party and Writers: 1956-1958 (Extracts)
(Soviet Studies,, April 1959
by Alfred Dressier)	p. 52

VIII. Organizational Changes in the Executive Organs
of the Soviet Writers0 Union (1954-1959)
(DIB, Radio Liberation, 22 May 1959)	p. 61

IX. Literature and the Peasant
(Problems of Communism, November-December 1959
by Tom Scriven)	p. 64

X. Soviet Youth in Life and Literature
(Problems of Communism, July-August 1959
by Vera Alexandrova)	p. 77

XI. Reflections on Soviet Novels
(World Politics, January I960
by Alexander Gerschenkron)	p. 88

XII. The Voltaire of October
(The New Leader, March 14, 1960
by Giovanni Radicati) p. 108

XIII. The Party Secretary in the Post-War Soviet
Novel
(Soviet Survey, January-March, l958
by Philip Bruce Cook)	p. 113

INTRODUCTION

The death of Pasternak, at a time when his best-known
work remains unpublished in his own country, recalls the
dilemma in which Khrushchev finds himself in the field of
literature. The fact that Pasternak died at his home,
instead of in a labor camp as might have been the case only
ten years ago, cannot obscure the continuing lack of
artistic freedom symbolized by the fate of "Dr. Zhivago."

The present Khrushchev policy is to attempt to persuade,
rather than force, his writers to maintain the framework of
socialist realism, even if this means a more tolerant
attitude on the part of literary critics than the neo-Zhdanovites
in the USSR think advisable. Yet in the case of "Dr Zhivago,"
perhaps because its merits were first recognized abroad,
Khrushchev's attitude has been as obstinate in continuing to
prevent publication as the worst of the dogmatists could have
hoped.

When Pasternak was expelled from the Union of Soviet
Writers in October 1958, the resolution claimed that his
work was "incompatible with the name of a Soviet writer,
directed against the traditions of Russian literature, against
the people, against peace and socialism." But in fact there
are not more than half a dozen pages in the 700 of the book
to which the literary censors could take exception, and
consequently it seems certain that the real reason for the
blinkered official attitude is the apolitical nature of the
work as a whole.

The realistic treatment by Pasternak of the early years
of the revolution, for instance, forms a considerable
contrast with the official propaganda on the period, which
suggests only heroism and self-sacrifice. It must have been of
some such discrepancy that Khrushchev was thinking when at
the Central Committee plenary session last June he exclaimed:

"We have individuals among the writers who ask what
sort of guidance is the Party guidance of literature?
We reply, you there, don't you recognize the Party's
guidance? But what is it? It is the will of millions,
the will of millions of minds, the collective wisdom of
millions. But one writer sits in his dacha somewhere,
once in a while produces some puny work, and hopes that
it will be recognized as an expression of the spirit of
the people of our time, of the entire people. Isn't
this a real cult of one's own personality which, as you
see, is unwilling to put up with the guidance of a
Party which expresses the will of millions...Such a
fellow wants to put himself above the Party, above the
people."

In other words, Khrushchev saw Pasternak as an
individualist who refused to accept the First Secretary's
instructions on what to write ("contemporaneity") and how to write

[Page ii]

-ii-

it ("socialist realism"). The exceedingly narrow limits of
the "thaw," after its initial warmth had ebbed away, have
seldom been more clearly revealed. Moreover Khrushchev's
words put an end to the somewhat naive speculation which had
been circulating in the West, crediting Khrushchev with a
liberal desire to rehabilitate the writer, or to have "Dr.
Zhivago" published in a limited edition.

Khrushchev and the Party remain more interested in
ideological propaganda in a literary wrapping than in
literature which would pass any objective critical test.
Therefore the tension between them and the liberal intellectuals
within the USSR will inevitably continue. These writers,
like Pasternak in the recent past, together with Ehrenburg[1],
Yevtushenko and the others today who attempt to make the
Soviet literary climate less stifling and oppressive, are
not likely to affect the Party's policies in the near future.
But, despite this tragic thinning of their ranks, they are
maintaining the long drawn-out fight for greater artistic
freedom.

A fortnight before Pasternak died, the editor of Oktyabr,
Fyedor Panferov, published his personal reply to the
neo-Zhdanovites. in Soviet literature. Writing in Literary
Gazette[2], he told of the pressures to which he is subjected by
the literary bureaucrats of the old school:

"We editors of Oktyabr are sometimes asked by those who
are quick to criticize, and even by some naive leaders
of the Union of Writers:

�What are you doing? You print novels by Bubennov,
Sholokhov, Konovalov, but beside them you also
print Paustovsky, Kazakov and Yevtushenko. That is
not consolidation, but lack of principle,
all-embracing Christian forgiveness (vsyeproshcheniye). What
is your program?'"

And Panferov's reply is firm as well as comprehensive.
"On the question of consolidation, I answer: our
program is to help all kinds of writers to work together
with the party and the people; do not turn the writers
into a regiment of soldiers all dressed in uniform, but
call on them to work for the life of today and tomorrow,
and let everyone use his own voice, provided only that
it is to the advantage of the Soviet people and all
honest people throughout the world -- here lies the
true meaning of real consolidation."

-----------------------------

1 For Ehrenburg's personal attitude to the Pasternak case,
see p. 108 below.

2 14 May 1960.

[page iii]

-iii-

Panferov, like Ehrenburg, is therefore probably one of
the many intellectuals who believe that "Dr. Zhivago" should
have been published in the USSR, It is to the Party's
eternal discredit that seven years after Stalin's death, the
official attitude to Pasternak should still be essentially the
bigotry shown by Semichastny[3] rather than even the carefully
muted liberalism of Panferov.

r.r.g.

-----------------------------

3 The ex-Komsomol official who once called Pasternak a pig.
N.B. For the documents of the Pasternak case, see Background
Information, 25 Nov. 1958, "Novy Mir 1956 and 1958, The Cases
of Polnyak and Pasternak."

[page 1]

ART vs.IDEOLOGY

THE DILEMMA OF SOVIET LITERARY POLICY

In order to gain the sympathies and support of Soviet
writers the Soviet regime has continued its policy of
moderation and restraint in the affairs of literature,
which has been particularly noticeable since the Third
Writers' Congress last May. It is clear from recent
events that literary criticism is expected to be carried
out in a "comradely fashion" and is intended to be a
responsible tool for instruction rather than a punishment
for past errors. The Party demands both esthetic value
and ideological conformity of Soviet writers; consequently
those who defend mediocre works solely for ideological
considerations have been criticized in the name of the
Party and of Khrushchev personally.

The works of several formerly criticized poets have
appeared, and a new novel by Dudintsev may be published
next year. Khrushchev has publicly praised the writer
Mikhail Sholokhov and has evidently resolved a dispute
between the writer and Party critics over the
publication of his novel. But despite these moderating trends,
there has been no recent evidence that the Party has
opened up a new era of freedom for Soviet literature.
The Party still maintains the sole right to criticize
socialist society.

Differences of opinion in ranks of Soviet writers
continue to be evident, as do differences between the two
main literary newspapers. Ilya Ehrenburg remains in the
forefront of those who espouse the freedom of creativity,
but his ideas are challenged in the name of "socialist
realism." Several collections of poems published in the
past few months suggest that, at least in the genre of
poetry, Party esthetic restrictions may have been eased.

Events in the past few months indicate that the
Soviet regime is continuing its moderate policy in the sphere
of literature. The Soviet leaders have always faced the
dual problem of encouraging writers and other artists to
produce good cultural works while at the same time
insuring the ideological content of these works. At the
present time, it seems clear that the regime is
soft-pedalling ideological conformity in favor of winning the
creative support of Soviet men of letters.

Removing the Sting of Criticism

An important aspect of this policy of moderation has
been the attempt to remove the sting from literary
criticism, to make it a tool of instruction instead of a weapon
of retribution for past errors. At the Third Writers'
Congress in May of this year, Khrushchev made it clear
that literary criticism was necessary for the further
development of good literature but counseled that it be
carried out in a "comradely" fashion. Since Khrushchev's

[page 2]

speech steps have been taken to prevent literary
criticism from being used in a manner which might antagonize
and discourage Soviet writers in their support of the
regime.

The editor of Literaturnaya Gazeta, S. S. Smirnov,
in the August 8 issue of that literary newspaper discussed
this new attitude toward literary criticism. He first
attacked those unsavory aspects of literary criticism. which
he felt were the result of the "cult of personality" --
the standardization of literary appraisals and the
transformation of the critics' opinions into sentences from
which there was no "court of appeal." He declared that
the situation is vastly different now. When writers
today are nervous about criticism directed at their works
or when editors consider criticism as a "signal to deal
violently with a book," these, Smirnov indicated, are only
"vestiges of the past literary life." He was obviously
arguing for a new concilitary attitude on the part of
writers, editors, and critics.

In the same article Smirnov appealed for less direct
Party interference in the affairs of literature. While he
did not dispute the principle of Party guidance in
literature, he claimed that it consisted "not in having Party
organs direct the work of writers, in prompting them as
to what and how to write, but in the fact that we Soviet
writers in all our work are consciously guided by the
ideas of communism." Consequently, he said, the Party
must carry out "constant ideological-educational work"
among writers as the basis of its guidance.

It is significant that this appeal for moderation
in literary criticism and for less Party interference was
voiced by Smirnov in his capacity as Literaturnaya
Gazeta's editor. During the early months of this year the
entire editorial board of this newspaper was replaced,
Smirnov taking the chief position from V. Kochetov,
arch-defender of conformist literature. At the Third Writers'
Congress Smirnov promised that his paper, which had in the
past treated writers with undue harshness, would mend its
ways and practice toleration.

These efforts to moderate literary criticism have
resulted in at least one rebuttal of a long-standing
attack on a literary work. The September 5 Literaturnaya
Gazeta printed an account of an interview with Valentin
Ovechkin, the author of "Against the Wind," a play which
received harsh treatment from the critics after its
publication in the March 1958 Novyi Mir. The interviewer
remarked that though this play had its defects as well as
its merits, some of it had been incorrectly evaluated by
the critics when it first appeared. He singled out a
Literaturnaya Gazeta article by Dorofeev for its "unjustly
harsh criticism." The latter critique, which appeared on
May 7, 1958, had Attacked Ovechkin, among other things,

[page 3]

for basing his play on "every sort of disorder in our
Soviet communisty life." Thus this severe denunciation
of Ovechkin, which stood unchallenged for a year and a
half, has now been met with criticism. It is clear that
under the present Party policy literary critics will be
as accountable for their words as the creative writers
are for theirs.

During the past year and a half Alexander
Tvardovsky, editor in chief of Novyi Mir, has written two
humorous poems ridiculing certain aspects of Soviet
literary controls and criticism. In a verse entitled "To My
Critics," which appeared in the July 1958 Novyi Mir,
Tvardovsky made fun of critics who instruct writers so
that they "can sing without hearing and seeing," and
then years later ask them. "Where have you been all this
time?" At the time of its publication this poem aroused
objections because of its "scornful and unjust attitude"
toward literary critics. In the March 1959 edition of
Novyi Mir Tvardovsky satirized editors who read works
from right to left in search of hidden meanings. Both
these poems received praise in an August edition of
Savetskaya Rossiya. It is perhaps an indication of the
present atmosphere that these two jibes at literary
criticism and controls, one of which evoked a negative
response in the past, now have been openly praised in the
press.

Stress on Quality and Ideology

When Khrushchev spoke out at the Third Writers'
Congress against those literary works that "cause your
eyelids to droop," he made it clear that the Party expected
literature with both a high artistic quality and a firm
ideological basis. Khrushchev, like many in the Soviet
literary world, does not acknowledge any conflict between
artistic perfection and ideological conformity. However,
in the past two months several writers have alluded to
such a conflict and have expressed different views as to
its resolution. The dominant Party policy at the present
time, nonetheless, seems to be to promote high-quality
literature without diminishing ideological demands.

In an August 16 Literatura i Zhizn interview article,
Ilya Ehrenburg once again identified himself as one of
those who feel that ideological conformity does interfere
with the achievement of artistic quality. He claimed that
the destruction of literature lay not in "the passion of
the writers" but rather in a neglect of the "truth of
life," He suggested that many contemporary works are weak
because their authors do not know what to write even if
they know how to write.

Ehrenburg proceeded to attack some of the most
common ingredients of "socialist realistic" literature. He

[page 4]

counseled creative writers to leave the description of
productive processes to engineers and technicians, not
to feel impelled to describe great events or important
eras, and not to attempt to instruct the reader. He
said the only area in which the writer was especially
competent was in the "secrets of the human heart," and
this was the only proper domain of literature.

Ehrenburg aroused comment from the proponents of
orthodoxy in literature. An article in the August 29
Literatura i Zhizn declared that Ehrenburg's views part
company with the trend of Soviet literature and "do not
correspond to the esthetic principles of socialist
realism." It seems clear that Ehrenburg's remarks do,
indeed, conflict with the goals which the Party has set
for Soviet literature. But there is evidence that the
Party agrees with Ehrenburg in a least one regard, the
elimination of descriptions of productive processes from
Soviet literature. In October Literaturnaya Gazeta
printed an open litter, supposedly reflecting the
opinions of 19,000 collective farmers, asking Soviet writers
to write more about man's "inner world" and less about
the "square method of raising potatoes" and other
productive processes. The letter declared that the farmers
said in the letter that they wanted to find human
beings in the literature they read. The letter implied
that while the description of productive processes may
have been necessary at one time, now the new generation
has different needs which must be reflected in
literature. Since Soviet literature, according to communist
ideology, is supposed to reflect the desires of the
people, this alleged expression of mass opinion is
tantamount to a directive to Soviet writers to dispense with
descriptions of productive processes in belles-lettres.

If writers like Ehrenburg are ready to support
artistic quality when ideological restrictions interfere,
there are those who openly support ideological
considerations at the expense of esthetic value. V. Druzin and
B. Dyakov in the September 6 edition of Literatura i
Zhizn argued that because the "mastery of writers"
varies, it is wrong for some publishing houses to reject
manuscripts "which in the opinion of the editors are not
outstanding." What is important, they said, is "that the
author should occupy correct ideological-political
positions in his work, clearly reflecting in his works the
great struggle of our people for communism." If this is
not so, the works harm "the cause of the nation's
political education and become shoddy literary goods."

This emphasis on ideological correctness in
literature to the detriment of artistic quality has in turn met
with criticism. Alexander Tvardovsky noted that
Khrushchev's speeches and the resolutions of the last two CPSU

[page 5]

congresses supported the "ideological-artistic"
development of literature. He stated that while there was no
point in calling Druzin and Dyakov "conscious opponents
of the Party's resolutions on the questions of literature,"
it was necessary to "elucideate the absurdity and
harmfulness of their brazen preaching of mediocrity and
dullness in art."

Literatura i Zhizn on September 18 countered with
two letters taking issue with Tvardovsky's stand on this
subject, one by Druzin and Dyakov and the other by a V.
Andreyev. Literaturnaya Gazeta in turn answered with an
editorial on September 22 supporting Tvardovsky's plea
for good artistic literature. The editorial criticizes
Andreyev's remark, "I think Comrade Tvardovsky is wrong,"
by printing a statement of Khrushchev's at the Third
Writers' Congress: "I think that Alexander Tvardovsky is
right when he announced in his speech at the Congress that
quality is of primary importance in literary work."

It is certainly unique on the Soviet literary scene
for men such as Tvardovsky., who in the past have been
known for their unorthodox views, to invoke the Party and
Khrushchev personally in support of their stand on
literature. However, present Party policy does emphasize both
artistic quality and ideological conformity, thus being
somewhere between the views of Ehrenburg and those of
Druzin and Dyakov. It is possible, therefore, for those who
desire higher quality literature to make use of the name
of the Party to condemn those who emphasize ideological
conformity above all else.

Division in the Literary World

This recent berbal clash over the subject of esthetic
quality versus ideological content points up once again
the basic division in the ranks of Soviet writers. At the
same time, it illustrates what appear to be basic
differences between the editorial policies of the two most
important literary newspapers, Literatura i Zhizn and
Literaturnaya Gazeta. As was pointed out above,
Literaturnaya Gazeta has been in the forefront of those urging a
policy of moderate freedom for Soviet literature. On the
other hand, Literatura i Zhizn has been the main platform
for those who wish to hold firmly the ideological line in
literature. Interestingly enough, it has been the former
members of the Literaturnaya Gazeta editorial board who
have been using Literatura i Zhizn as means to publicize
their views. V. Kochetov, the former chief editor, used
Literatura i Zhizn to attack a speech by Konstantin
Paustovsky given at the Third Writers5 Congress and all but
accused him of expressing "revisionist" ideas.
Paustovsky had stated that "perhaps we shout so much and so
ludly about truth in literature precisely because we lack
it." Another example is V. Druzin, who had been Kochetov's

[page 6]

deputy on the Literaturnaya Gazeta editorial board. His
recent articles in partnership with B. Dyakov illustrate
his use of Literatura i Zhizn to support ideological
conformity in literature at the expense of esthetic
considerations.

Literatura i Zhizn is the organ of the RSFSR Writers'
Union, which was created in 1957 to counterbalance the
outbreak of dissidence in the USSR Writers' Union and in
the Moscow writers' group. It now appears that the
newspaper is fulfilling the function assigned to it two years
ago -- that of providing an ideologically conservative
brake on the more progressive members in the Soviet
literary world. Under the present Party policy to encourage
the production of good literature, however, the editorial
board of Literatura i Zhizn and those who support its
views and practices may be dragging their feet more than
the Party would hope.

Writers Reappear in Print

Another aspect of the Party's current literary policy
has been illustrated by the reappearance in print of
several writers formerly in disrepute with the Party cities.
It has been clear in the past two years that criticism of
a writer's works does not necessarily ban the publication
of his future works. However, during this past summer
there has been such a noticeable reappearance of writers
formerly attacked by the Party that it clearly reflects
some basic policy changes. Presumably there have been
some directives from above concerning these publications.
At any rate, whatever has made the editors of the
literary press feel free at last to publish these writers'
works, their reappearance in print will certainly not go
unnoticed in Soviet literary circles and may help thaw
the "cold war" maintained by some writers against Party
cultural policies.

One of those who again has been found on the pages
of literary press is Margarita Aliger. This poetess had
been a member of the editorial board of the "infamous"
1956 almanac Literaturnaya Moskva II, which drew heavy
Party criticism for its inclusion of a number of
unorthodox works. It has been reported that after persistent and
harsh pressure, even from Khrushchev personally, Aliger
was forced privately to recant her sins. As far as is
known, Aliger's works have not appeared in print since
that time. In recent months, however, poems written by
her have been printed in at least three publications: in
the July 31 Izvestiya, the July issue of Oktyabr, and the
September edition of Novyi Mir.

One of Aliger's poems printed in Oktyabr expresses
not only her restiveness with the restrictions imposed on

[page 7]

Soviet literature but also her impatience with those
particular writers, "the grumblers," who use these
restrictions as an excuse for not creating. In this poem,
entitled "Write," Aliger implores other writers to write
courageously according to their own feelings and not to
worry about meeting publication requirements or about
being personally accepted. If you are your own
"honorable" law and your own "strict judge" and you commit your
"life to paper," Aliger said, you will sooner or later
hear "many good words" of approval. That Aliger is now
telling her fellow writers to create in spite of the
controls is particularly interesting because in the past few
years she herself has been considered by some observers
as one of those who maintained a "conspiracy of silence"
against the Party's cultural controls. Aliger's verse
in Izvestiya expressed a similar line exhorting writers
not to waste their time railing against hack works
written for the moment's purposes, but to save their energy
for creative work. Both these poems seem to carry the
optimistic message that, though there are restrictions
in the cultural world, there is still good reason for
artists to continue to create.

Of even more importance has been the appearance in
print of two other formerly criticized poets, Alexander
Yashin in the August Neva and Evgeny Eutushenko in the
September Oktyabr. The most unusual aspect of these
collections is the fact that some of the verses are far from
what could be called "socialist realism" intended for the
masses. The poetry is marked by its obscurity and vague
metaphors and is obviously intended for a rather limited
sophisticated audience. It is clearly not the type of
poetry that would have been allowed in literary magazines
a year ago.

As a poet, Yashin received the Stalin prize in 1950,
but later in 1956, his short story, "Levers," was harshly
criticized after its appearance in the Literaturnaya
Moskva II. One dominant theme seems to show through the
obscurity of his words, his present inability to deceive
the people any longer in his works. In one poem,
entitled "Dreams."[1] he affirms his loyalty but suggests that

-----------------------------

1 Excerpts from "Dreams":

I was, as it were, born anew.
It is easier to breathy I won't lie.
I cannot now deceive anyone
Either in one thing or in another,
Even if I wanted to, I could not.
The world in all its dimensions
For me is now on my shoulders:
Thus free are my movements
As if for the first time since birth
I shall fly in my orbit.
(continued on next page)

[page 8]

because he has "grown up" he is no longer able to
sacrifice the truth for the "hundred-mouthed glory." One
gets the feeling that Yashin is attempting to make amends
for his earlier works which won him praise and a Stalin
Prize.

Evtushenko's poems are even more obscure than
those of Yashin. In addition, they are marked by a lack
of the kind of optimism usually associated with
"socialist realism." The first four lines of a poem called
"Salesgirl of Ties" clearly conveys the tenor of his
work:

"When work is finished/
Pale from stifling fuss/
With the face of an exhausted child/
You leave the store."

This is scarcely a picture of the happy Soviet worker
finishing a glorious day at work. In this same poem
Evtushenko affirms his loyalty to the revolution and to
communism but finishes with a line which smacks of
disillusions "And what now, what now?"

The recent publication of Yashin's and Ebtushenko's
works suggest that the editors of Neva and Oktyabr have
felt bold enough to print a type of writing which is
clearly out of line with the main tenets of socialist
realism. So far there has been no press comment on these
works. However, if the publication of works similar to
these continues, it would suggest that at least in the
genre of poetry certain restrictions have been removed.

-----------------------------

(Footnote continued)

I am not a soothsayer
Nor am I old in my view.
Thus I don't take pride in righteous men
Nor in former times,
But I take pride in that
I don't envy successful ones,
For the unrecognized ones I don't fear.

More and more I feel a strange pain.
I cannot get drunk without wine.
And I study silence like an art.
I am not tempted by hundred-mouthed glory
Because it is useless for people.

My soul does not partake of faithlessness and doubt
Only my view has become keener.
My generation has grown up
And I have grown up with them.

[page 9]

Dudintesev's name has once again appeared before the
Soviet public, and there is a possibility that a new
novel by him will be published next year. At the Writers'
Congress last May Khrushchev clearly removed much of the
stigma of past criticism from Dudintsev's name when he
stated that this writer "has never been our enemy or
opponent of the Soviet order." In Pravda on July 5 a
letter in praise of Khrushchev's speech said that while
Dudintsev's book was marked with thoughtlessness, it
also had "a timely, fresh breeze," On August 1 Radio
Moscow carried an interview with Dudintsev, who announced
his plans for a new novel entitled The Unknown Soldier,
And, on a back-page subscription advertisement of the
September Oktyabr, this novel was listed among those
works which may be published in next year's issues of
that magazine.

Praise and Publication for Sholokhov

In late August Khrushchev visited the out-of-the way
village of Veshenskaya, home of the Soviet writer Mikhail
A. Sholokhov, and invited Sholokhov, to accompany him on
his US visit. In a speech there on August 30 Khrushchev
praised Sholokhov for the "party-mindedness" of his works
and for his depiction of the "most important and decisive
stages in the history of Soviet society." The meeting of
the two and Khrushchev's speech were hailed by the
cultural press in early September as though they marked the
dawn of a bright new day for Soviet literature and the
other arts. The pages of the cultural newspapers were
filled with letters of writers, artists, and composers
who had seen the great importance of Khrushchev's remarks
for the further development of Soviet culture.

It is difficult to say what Khrushchev's bow to
Sholokhov portends for Soviet literature as a whole. But
at any rate personal intervention by Khrushchev in the
affairs of literature, it appears, has brought about a
rapprochement between Sholokhov and Party critics
concerning the publication of the second part of his novel
Virgin Soil Upturned, During the past year there have
been rumors that Sholokhov had completed this second
book, which is about the collectivation of agriculture,
but certain Party critics, in particular A. Surkov,
prevented its publication because of its "pessimistic"
ending. Portions of the book have appeared in print at
various times since 1955, and in July of this year both
the magazines Neva and Don published the first half of
this second book. During his trip in the United States
Sholokhov announced to newsmen that he had completed his
novel and that it would be published soon.

That there had, indeed, been a controversy
concerning the ending of this navel seems to be borne out by an
article in an August 29 interview article in Sovetskaya

[page 10]

Kultura. The interviewer, obviously cognizant of the
dispute, asked Sholokhov how the novel ends. Sholokhov
answered: "Happy endings are not in my nature. It must
be written as life prompts it." This remark suggests
that Sholokhov has won out over the Party critics and that
his novel will be printed as he first wrote it.

If Khrushchev did actually intervene in the literary
world to bring about the publication of this novel, he
had good reasons to do so. There have been reports that
Khrushchev was greatly disturbed by the propaganda debacle
caused by the Doctor Zhivago incident last year and hoped
to avoid similar negative publicity in regard to
Sholokhov's novel. In addition, it has been also reported that
Sholokhov was greatly incensed over Pasternak's winning
of the Nobel Prize. He purportedly felt that because the
Soviet Government prevented him from publishing his novel,
both in the Soviet Union and abroad, he was greatly
handicapped in the, consideration for this honor. The impending
publication of his novel and his inclusion in Khriashchev's
entourage in the US may well be an attempt by the regime
to increase Sholokhov's chances for the Nobel Prize in the
future. If such an honor was bestowed upon a Soviet
writer whom the Soviet Goernment and Party praised, the
negative aspects of the Pasternak case could be substantially
countered. The regime could no longer be accused of
suppressing great literature and socialist society could be
pictured as proudly wearing the Nobel Prize.

Limitations to the Policy of Restraint

The foregoing comment has illustrated how the Party's
literary policy has been tempered in an attempt to win the
respect of Soviet writers. It is perhaps too early to
tell the full significance of these events, which have
happened in the main only since the Writers' Congress in
May of this year. However, the following seems to be clear.
Despite the regime's conciliatory moves, Soviet writers
have not been given license to write as they wish. At the
Writers' Congress Khrushchev criticized those who would
portray the darker aspects of Soviet life and asserted that
if anyone criticized, it would be the Central Committee.
Nothing has occurred in the past few months that would
suggest any change in this basic policy. If the Party is
allowing writers to declare openly their desire for truth in
literature, it is not allowing application of this
principle.

This policy of moderation may have within itself the
seeds of its own destruction. Writers may be encouraged
by the Party's policy of restraint to test the limits of
cultural controls. Editors and censors under the present
policy toward literary criticism may be unwilling to
condemn works of obvious literary merit even though they
contain ideologically unorthodox views. Under these circum-

[page 11]

stances the Party would be obliged to violate its present
policy. Despite the Party's desires to win approval among
writers, it has shown beyond doubt that it will sacrifice
popularity to protect those things it considers more 
important.

Thus the maintenance of a policy of moderation will
depend in a large measure on how sensitive the writers and
editors are to the desires of the regime. Restraint on
the part of writers and the editors is the only thing that
can now protect the few freedoms writers have been given.
it is likely that this restraint will be practiced by most
Soviet men of letters in an effort to defend what Alexander
Tvardovsky recently called the "new era of creativity."
However, it is more difficult to predict the actions of
those Soviet writers who in the past have been prone to
express unorthodox views.

[page 12]

REPORTS AND COMMENTARIES
The Third USSR Writers' Congress

Soviet Studies
Volume XI, No. 3
January i960

Thaw literature of "exposure" is a matter of the past as are the specific
historical conditions that gave rise to it. But the moral and artistic impetus
of the literary thaw has survived. The collapse of the anti-revisionist campaign
in the Writers' Union and the continued liberalization of Soviet life have made a
new modus vivendi for literature at once more necessary and more feasible.

Not everybody, either in the Writers' Union or the Communist Party, has
as yet recognized or accepted the need for further changes, and those who have
differ widely about ways and means. Outdated concepts and conventions, mistaken
suspicions, misunderstood motive, and a quaintly euphemistic terminology made
for indecision and confusion, often conceal basic conflicts and distort genuine
dilemmas. The clear-cut lines of the past between party authority and erring or
recalcitrant writer are blurred as a result of the easing of party controls and
the emergence of opposed groupings within the Union none of which can claim the
party's undivided support. The party itself vacillates and prevaricates in its
policy on literature -- if, indeed, it has such a policy.

In this situation the more permanent impulses of the Thaw are beginning
to take effect: creative writers have begun to explore new subjects and techniques;
in articles and speeches new issues are raised and discussed freely (often, it
is true, under the guise of disconcertingly stale formulas); the first steps are
being taken to adapt the activities and the structure of the Writers' Union to
new purposes and tasks.

The initial, tentative stages of this process, the issues involved and
the emerging alignments are reflected in the discussions prior to and during the
Third USSR Writers' Congress.

I

The announcement that the long-delayed Congress would be held in May was
made in the first editorial article on problems of Soviet literature to be
published by Kommunist since July 1957.[1] This article, together with E. A. Furtseva's
report on ideological work at the XXI Party Congress,[2] must be assumed to have
represented the official view on the state of Soviet literature and on its
ideological tasks.

The article begins by stressing that the transition from socialism to
communism initiated by the decisions of the XXI Congress requires not only the
creation of a "material and technological basis" but also the "all-embracing
development of the human personality." In well-worn clich�s, but with a new
intonation of urgency born of the growing conviction that the relaxation of
discipline and compulsion has enhanced the ideological and educative value of

[page 13]

literature, Kommunist appeals to writers to

make an even greater effort ... to educate the working masses in the
spirit of loyalty to the cause of socialism, of passionate love for
their socialist Fatherland, in the spirit of proletarian internationalism
and friendship between nations, and of hatred for the enemies of socialism.[3]

The article then goes on to formulate the "pre-conditions" which alone
will enable literature to keep abreast with its tasks:

1. The writer must be closely linked with the life of the nation, and
he must, in Khrushchev's words, "overcome his outdated ideas about our people,"
Only "direct participation in the nation's great creative experience" can forge
this link; writers are therefore enjoined to go forth

more boldly to the construction sites, into the factories, mines,
collective farms, laboratories, into the masses! There ... the writer will
find his source of inspiration, the themes and subjects for his creative
work....[4]

Writers' doubts about the artistic relevance of this procedure are countered
with references to past experience which, Kommunist claims, has shown that such
direct links with the nation can produce "great works of art" and not merely
"material for reportage" as our "ideological opponents" assert.

2. Soviet literature must draw its true, "positive"[5] hero -- the
traditional hero of Russian literature -- from the people, the builders of communism.
This "main character of Soviet literature" reflects "our socialist reality" and
the "true traits of the new man." Insistence on the positive hero must not be
taken, however, to be an oblique demand for the return to "varnished" and
"conflict-less" literature:

There are still quite a few bad people, burdened with the survivals
of the accursed past... The "theory of conflictlessness" was harmful
precisely because it ignored the negative phenomena in our life and
hindered the struggle against them... If a work criticizes short-comings
in our life, it also serves...the cause of communism because it clears
the way of everything that impedes our movement forward... If the author
castigates shortcomings by way of affirming communism, he also follows
the main line of our literature...[6]

3. The main task of Soviet literature -- to be affirmed byCongress - is
to "orientate itself towards contemporaneity." For Khrushchev in 1957 (and for
Sobolev in December 1958 at the RSFSR Writers' Congress) the term sovremennost had
meant no more than "close links with contemporary life": writers were expected to
"study life" and to write about topical subjects. Kommunist now introduces a
somewhat confused and artificial distinction the purpose of which, however, seems
clear. In the first place, there was the danger of Khrushchev's formula
encouraging writers to adopt (as some clearly had done recently) neo-realist methods in
dealing with "life", the "people" and their problems. Secondly, it was obviously
absurd to expect all writers to "go to the people." Lastly, "contemporary" bias
had been a distinctive but unwelcome feature of Erenburg's Thaw, Dudintsev's Not
by Bread Alone, Yashin's Levers, and of other works in 1956. An ideological
"directive" had to be devised which would discourage the first, provide a niche
in Soviet literature for the second, and re-emphasize the party-propagandist aspect
of Soviet literature:

[page 14]

Writers are called upon to apprehend and express in artistic terms the
greatness of the seven-year plan, to show that its fulfillment is the most
important pre-condition for the transition to communism, and that its
realization is an important revolutionary step in the development of our
society.

The distinction Kommunist wishes to make is further underlined by assigning
to the "main task of Soviet literature" -- i.e. the expression of sovremennost -- extra-literary
and purely journalistic genres. Earlier in the article writers had
been assured that "closer links with the people" could produce not only "reportage'
out "great works of art"; they are now told that the "most operative genres for
this purpose [i.e. sovremennost] are forms of artistic journalism": namely, the
sketch (ocherk)[8], the feature-story, and the "militant publicist poem."

4. A subject of special concern for the forthcoming Congress must be the
raising of "artistic skill and craftsmanship (masterstvo)". Higher artistic
standards are called for because "the nation expects great art"[9] and because

if a work is weak artistically even the most noble, the most progressive
ideological conception perishes; the idea of a work of art is inseparable
from its form...and without an appropriate form cannot be assimilated by
the reader and cannot influence him.[10]

The low artistic standards of works recently accepted by periodicals and
publishing houses are regretted; writers are once more invited to experiment
boldly in their search for more vivid and striking means of expression. "Formalism
is still to be condemned if it means the "primacy of sterile form" -- but it will
be welcomed if the search for new forms serves to "reveal more strikingly a lofty
ideological content."

The hollowness of Kommunist's championship of higher artistic standards is
revealed in the same article, Kommunist is prepared to make allowances for low
artistic standards provided the work is "contemporary" and, presumably, to
exonerate periodicals and publishing houses for printing such work0 Referring to some
"recent controversial works," it is granted that "artistically they were not
completely satisfactory", and yet

in spite of these shortcomings such novels arouse keen interest precise
because they portray our contemporaries ... in their daily struggles and
clashes... In these works the author's sympathies and antipathies are
clearly expressed although mere tendentiousness is avoided....[11]

The Kommunist editorial points to the desire of at least a section of the
party to nullify the writers" relative freedom by persuading them to confine
their work voluntarily to "contemporary" subjects and "operative" genres for the
popularization of the party's current policy and immediate aims. No marginal
qualifications about the "raising of artistic standards" can hide the fact that
Kommunist is indifferent to literary quality and anxious to win the support of the
Writers" Congress for a narrowly-circumscribed formula which would open the doors
of literature again to "literary bureaucracy" and the political hack-writer. At
any rate, this is how leading party officials - in their cruder and less guarded
comments -- interpreted the party line:

Speaking at the IV Congress of Belorussian Writers, and addressing himself
in particular to the dramatists, the First Secretary of the CC of the CP of
Belorussia, K. Mazurov, had this to say:

[page 15]

I think the point is not so much that some writers lack dramatic
skill but that they -- because of their poor knowledge of contemporary
life and of the problems that agitate our people -- are simply afraid
of writing plays about sovermennost; they are afraid to face the criticism
of their audiences... Comrades! Don't try to retire from the battle; be
so good as to fulfill your party command (zakaz) -- give us contemporary
plays....[12]

And I. Zhelagin, the First Secretary of the Stalingrad District Committee
of the CP, complains:

Stalingrad writers, although they have begun to write more often on local
themes, are still powerfully attracted to their native city's past history
Of course, the past should also be written about ... but the present must
not be forgotten. Some writers, however, shun contemporary themes and
rarely publish sketches about the heroes of our time.[13]

These official utterances also betray the growing concern felt over writers'
refusal to write according to old "prescriptions" spelled out in contemporary
slogans. As recently as the RSFSR Writers' Congress it had seemed that as a result of
the anti-revisionist campaign[14] little resistance was being offered to the
imposition on the Union of a new rigidity and conformity under the slogan of the "portrayal
of contemporary life." This had been reflected in the Congress resolution[15] and in
the fact that only one speaker, Fedin, had ignored the demand for sovremennost and
had emphasized Khrushchev's comments on masterstvo [16] (craftsmanship, virtuosity).
(Fedin complained that although everybody was paying lip-service to artistic
standards, in practice the prevalent tendency was the dangerous one of judging literature
only on the merit of contents.) But at the XXI Party Congress it became clear that
even writers who had backed Khrushchev in his destalinization campaign, and who
supported his reforms, were not prepared to sacrifice again their artistic and
professional integrity, and rejected the new line about themes, subjects and genres.

A. Tvardovski was the only writer to speak at the XXI Congress although
A. E. Korneichuk, A. A. Surkov, V. T. Latsis and M. N. Sholokhov also attended as
delegates. Ture literature, Tvardovski said,[17] can "confirm" only the "truth and
essence" of life: dogmas and preconceived schemes superimposed on life are alien
o the spirit of art. Khrushchev's call to writers to write about real life
releases them from the prescriptive dogmas of the Stalin era. But there is too
much talk about "contemporaneity", he complains -- in an obvious reference to
Furtseva's report. Any indifferent, hurriedly-produced piece of writing with a
"contemporary" or topical title is accepted by editors, publishers and critics. This
impedes and distorts the progress of Soviet literature and causes grave misgivings
to the writers in whose name Tvardovski claims to speak:

I am bound to say that many of our best writers -- some already
well-established, others as yet unknown to the reader -- are deeply and anxiously
aware of this deplorable position; in our everyday contacts we discuss
this often and passionately. But as soon as we take the, platform at our
writers' meetings and congresses, we change to a completely different
language rather like priests ... who in their domestic and everyday life
speak colloquial Russian but in the pulpit change to Church Slavonic,
the obligatory language of their ritual.[18]

[page 16]

In conclusion Tvardovski expresses "our (i.e. the best writers')" hope that, in
contrast to the official desire to see sovremennost as the main theme, the Third
Congress would concentrate on problems of form and masterstvo.

In their contributions to the discussions preceding the III Congress many
writers took their cue from Tvardovski and endorsed or further elaborated his views.

Of some importance is the statement made by L. Leonov[19] on the eve of the
III Congress, both for what he said (he supported Fedin and Tvardovski by suggesting
that Congress should discuss the "writer's craft -- this would really be a
discussion on the main theme") and for the fact that Leonov, one of the most outstanding
of Soviet writers and a member of the Board of Management of the USW for many years,
has in the past avoided all direct participation in literary controversies.[20]

M. Shaginyan in an article in Oktyabr[21] referred tothenineteenth-century
writer Boborykin as a "topical" writer whose work had been "useless" to his
contemporaries and who is completely forgot ton now. Only a writer who deeply understands,
feels and experiences his age can be truly "contemporary". But such a writer's
work will not "trail behind the topical event", he will "blaze a trail through ??
virgin soil of life, he will participate in the creative processes of life itself."

In an interesting contribution to the debate Abdulla Kakhkhar[22] expressed
the views of many of his fellow-writers in the Republican Unions:[23]

Unfortunately, problems of artistic craftsmanship are still pushed into
the background. If our central organs from time to time -- although also
rarely and, as it were, stealthily - discuss masterstvo, our Republican
publications remain stubbornly silent on the subject of the quality of
our literature and the secret of our craft. The time has come -- and after
the III Congress this general desire is bound to be fulfilled -- eradicate
the evil which allows critics to take under their protection obviously
unsuitable works. For some critics it is sufficient for a book to be.
about a topical theme; the rest neither interests nor concerns them.[24]

II

The Third Congress was to be demonstration of the restored unity of Soviet
writers, the "Congress of Consolidation" around the kind of program enunciated by
the Kommunist editorial. "Consolidation" been one of the themes of Khrushchev's
speeches as early as June 1957:

We want consolidation, unity of all the forces of literature and art on a
principled basis, and not by concessions and deviations from the principles
of Marxism-Leninism. In the interests of this consolidation principled
criticism and self-criticism is being unfolded... Every man can make
mistakes, but it is necessary to see not only what the man did yesterday, but
also what he is capable of doing tomorrow, and that is the most important
thing; we must help such a man to realize shortcomings and as quickly as
possible eliminate them and rectify mistakes.[25]

Surkov, on the eve of the RSFSR Writers' Congress, had proclaimed his
belief that thanks to Khrushchev's intervention the split in the USSR Writers'
Union had already been healed:

[page 17]

The party document became the basis on which progressively -- not without
great difficulties and much effort to overcome the survivals of cliquishness
and the reluctance of some erring writers to re-appraise their false
revisionist positions -- there was. erected the structure of that ideological
and creative consolidation without which the flowering of Soviet literature
in this new stage of our struggle for communism would have been unthinkable.[26]

Neither the results of the RSFSR Congress nor the renewed controversy after
the party's XXI Congress confirmed Surkov's optimism. Old issues, it is true, were
no longer fiercely debated, and even terminology was changing ("revisionists" were
turning into "neo-realists" and "varnishers" into "followers of the Dovzhenko
school")[26] but the Union remained deeply divided about the place of literature in
Soviet, society, its character and its function. In his report to the Third Congress
Surkov made no secret of the failure to achieve the unity that six months earlier
he had proclaimed as accomplished.

After enumerating all the dangers against which Soviet writers still have
to remain on their guard (such ass revisionism, dogmatism, vulgar sociologism,
sectarianism, manifestations of bourgeois nationalism and of all forms of cliquishness),
added abruptly and sternly that

conditions are now favorable, comrades, to achieve a broad consolidation
of all our forces. This is one of the most important conditions for
successful creative work in the service of communism.[28]

Khrushchev himself, addressing Congress on 22 May, confirms that his appeals
for unity had fallen, so far, on at least some deaf ears:

The aftermath of the struggle which not so long ago was of a quite sharp
nature is still making itself felt in your midst.

But unlike Surkov, he claims that

now this struggle is a past stage. The carriers of revisionist views and
sentiments have suffered total ideological defeat. The struggle is over
and now, as they say, "conciliation angels" are already flying in the air.
A process of healing the wounds, if we can put it that way, is going on at
present....[29]

Concolidation on the conditions offered by Kommunist and faithfully echoed by
Surkov had proved unacceptable. Attempts at re-imposing controls through
ideological manipulation threatened to perpetuate the deadlock between the party and
what Tvardovski called the "best writers" whose own terms were stated by
K.Paustovski in an article that has attracted much attention in the West:

The writers' congress is approaching. Will it affirm that free and daring
scope for writers which is the one thing that will make of Soviet literature
the greatest literature of our time? Or will the congress rather take up
matters of petty tutelage and long-term quarrels? If it does, it will be
useless. We must at last cause calling friends enemies simply because they
tell us unpleasant truths, are not hypocritical, and, while giving their
selfless devotion to the people and their country, do not demand a monopoly
of such devotion, or a reward for it.

There are two paths open to the Congress, the noble path of
Consolidation, and the other, the destructive path of disagreement.[30]
[page 18]

III

Congress was attended by 497 delegates representing 4,8O1 members, an increase
of 1,100 over 1954.[31] In the debate 59 delegates are reported to have participated
some 37 guest speakers (including the Minister of Culture, the secretary of the
Komsomol, and Khrushchev) also addressed the Congress.[32]

Although Congress debates in general continued -- in a minor key -- the
controversies begun earlier and although, clearly, the unity desired by Kommunist
and Surkov was not achieved, some form of consolidation, probably unforeseen and
unplanned,[33] did emerge. Congress proceedings confirm that, at least within the
Union, the initiative has passed from the revisionist-baiters and "literary official
dom" to the creative writers. V. Druzin, the Deputy Editor, and V. Kochetov, the
Editor-in-Chief, of Literaturnaya gazeta had resigned in March; Congress confirmed
the appointment of S. S. Smirnov as Kochetov's successor; A. Surkov was replaced
by K. Fedin as General Secretary of the Union: these personal changes and even,
it would appear, the changes in the Union's constitution, ratified this shift in
the control of the Writers' Union.[34]

Surkov's report, which was largely ignored by speakers in the discussion,
was a more than usually longwinded hotchpotch of commonplaces and the kind of
reasoning that had been employed in the 1956-7 Thaw, but was felt to be irrelevant
to the problems and dilemmas writers faced in 1959. The main lines of the debate
have already been indicated; the following quotations and brief summaries are
intended to illustrate some typical reactions to the two most important aspects
of official policy - "close links" and sovremennost.[35]

Khrushchev's slogan "Closer links with the people", implying the
much-resented suggestion that the Soviet intelligentsia forty years after the
revolution was still alienated from the masses, had led in late 1958 and early 1959 to
the revival of "creative assignments" undertaken by members of the Union either
on behalf of the Union or at the instruction of literary journals and periodicals.
For a period most of these featured prominently articles, travel-notes and
writers' diaries dealing with the impressions these roving reporters had gathered
in their more or less fleeting visits to the "construction sites of the seven
year plan"[36] The overtly and often crudely propagandist character of these
assignments and the attempt at proclaiming journalistic techniques as the Soviet
writers' most operative contribution, provoked some of the strongest comments at
the Congress. That writers could argue against the line laid down by Khrushchev
himself in 1957 confirms convincingly that the anti-revisionist campaign has
failed to put the clock back, and that persuasion and reasoning have largely
replaced "petty tutelage" and intimidation in the party's relations with the
writers.

K. Paustovski

A rather strange concept of the tie connecting the writer with the people is
current among us today. This bond obviously cannot be created artificially. No
special writers' expedition will help to do this, if those taking part intend to
use it merely to play an "observer's" role, to study the life of the people with
due deliberation, asking all the proper questions about their activities and
jobs, sitting in at their meetings, and doing the rest of the things the other
"amateurs" and tourists do, so as to gather copy....

At all times and in all lands true and genuine writers have learned from
the people and been linked to them organically... Try naming even a dozen writers
of the 19th and 20th centuries who had no ties at all with the people. I am
speaking of writers in general, not dividing them into "our" and "alien" writers,
into positive and negative. Is there one of them that has no shred of his roots

[page 19]

in the people, "no feeling of social responsibility" as they called it in the
last century?

There are almost no such writers. And if in recent years there has been
talk about the complete divorce of writers from the people, we should clear up
the question as to whether such individuals were really writers at all.[37]

M. Rylski

...to be able to write about miners, blacksmiths, gold-prospectors,
gardeners, etc. it is not at all necessary for the author to be himself a miner,
blacksmith, etc. Moreover, even a thorough and detailed knowledge of a trade, or of
the way of life of a certain milieu will not help one to do more than portray
petty details, external features of a way of life and not life in its complexity.

Rylski goes on to remind his colleagues that Tolstoy created not only the
characters of Natasha, Levin, Anna Karenina but also the horse Kholstomer and the dog
Laska. A writer in addition to personal experience needs powers of observation,
and "creative imagination." "Knowledge of life" is necessary but a true work of
?rt cannot do without "deep love for life."[38]

Anver Bikchentayev

...Our writers, it is said, have insufficient knowledge of life... I must
confess that all Azerbaidzhani and Bashkir writers who describe e.g. the life of
workers in the oil industry, have a remarkable insight into production processes...
they are quite capable of presenting dissertations on the subject...what we lack
is a deep, fundamental knowledge of people's psychology, of what our classics used
to call simply and accurately -- the human soul.[39]

M. Dudin reminded his colleagues of Leskov's words:
"I have never understood, and still cannot understand those journalistic
sermons that the people must be studied. The people one must simply know, as one
knows one's own life by living it...that is how I knew the people -- from
childhood without effort and strain; and if I sometimes failed to recreate the people
in my works, then this was due solely to my lack of ability."[40]

Rasul Gamzatov

...The very fact that we talk so much about the writers' link with life
proves that not all the members of our Union are genuine writers... Many
comrades are only now beginning to find it necessary to study life and to "invade
it actively" during long months of creative assignments... To share the life
of one's nation ought not to be an obligation but an inner need for us...[41]

V. Soloukhin

For a writer it is vitally important to live in a highly intellectual
milieu...and the greater the intellectual culture of his milieu, the better the
chance for the writer to develop his own powers...[42]

Khrushchev's own comment on this subject in his reply to the debate was
light-heartedly flexible, and double-edged to a degree that must have caused surprise
and consternation to many delegates:

Why shouldn't a writer who wants to write about workers go where workers
live and work, to study how they work? Shouldn't he live with them? Is
that bad? Then he needn't waste time of "author's trips."

Comrades, naturally I am not suggesting that writers from the capital
be settled all over the Soviet Union at mines, factories and collective

[page 20]

farms. That would be unreasonable. What I do want to say is that writers
must invade life more deeply, study it, translate into artistic images all
that is new in the life of the land of the Soviets, to get greater depth
into their portrayal of man, the creator of all material and spiritual
values of our society.

Khrushchev then went on to relate to the delegates a pre-war incident when he had
refused help in procuring a flat in Kiev for a "woman poet, a poet from the people,
a peasant woman". He preceded his narration with remarks which were directed
against the transplantation of young writers from their "natural milieu" into
metropolitan "hot-house" conditions but which could be read as a refutation of
Kommunist and even as support for Soloukhin's definition of the writer's
"natural milieu":

Is it really of any benefit to uproot people from the
environment -- collective farm, factory, office -- in which they have grown up and live
and which nurtures them, and to transplant them into artificialhot-house
conditions? If that is done, the ground can slip from under their feet,
they will be deprived of their life blood and feel as plants torn out of
the ground...in time they may strike root, get on their feet, but they
may also wilt.[43]

Lack of support for Kommunist's line on sovremennost is the most noteworthy
feature of Congress debates. In fact only Surkov, Mikhailov (Minister of Culture)
and L. Sobolev (Chairman of the RSFSR Writers' Union) back what appeared to be
official policy. The writers in their message to the Central Committee -- and
Khrushchev in his speech -- studiously avoid even the term sovremennost:[44]

N. A. Mikhailov

Speaking about the contemporary theme from the point of view of the
international obligations of Soviet literature, it must be pointed out that Soviet writers
are called upon to tell mankind -- using the means characteristic of literature, i.e
artistic images -- about the construction of a new world in our Soviet country. In
this manner the demand for the contemporary theme in literature is the expression
of ideinost and partiinost in literature... To write about contemporaneity or, in
other words, about the historic and universal struggle of our people, means to
work for communism, to realize in practice the principle of linking literature with
life, to helping the party, by means of artistic works, in the construction of
communist society.[45]

L. Sobolev

...why then is it that talk about the need for contemporaneity in literature
provokes some writers in the way in which a red rag provokes a bull? One can
understand why the party's call to write about sovremennost worries and irritates
writers of the older generation for whom it is really difficult to enter fully
into the new life...but it is completely incomprehensible why some young writers
should run away from contemporaneity.

He goes on to attack Paustovski for praising the young prose-writer Yu.
Kazakov who instead of following the true path "writes about cruel and stupid
lads who leave the villages and their girl-friends in search of a sports career
in town." Kazakov had recently been admitted to a Seminar held for young writers
by the RSFSR Writers' Union in the hope that he would produce a story on a
"contemporary theme." "This was a sine qua non for admission to the Seminar." Instead
Kazakov shocked his tutors by presenting a story on a nineteenth-century theme.[46]

[page 21]

N. N. Mesyatev

The secretary of the Komsomol is more cautious than other official speakers
in demanding that writers should focus their attention on "contemporary" themes.
Soviet youth must not be allowed to grow complacent and to feel that there is
nothing left to do but "to reap the fruits of the labor of past generations."
Although he wants writers to "reflect the participation of youth in social labor,
and to show that their work is essentially part of the process of revolutionary
action," he insists that "one of the important problems [i.e. for literature] is
the education of young people in the revolutionary traditions of the past.[47]

K. Paustovski

The arbitrary and vulgar interpretation which criticism has given to the
simple concept of "the contemporary" does not allow our literature the diversity
and breadth it needs.

I am profoundly convinced that the contemporary in literature and in the
arts as a whole includes everything that serves to form and develop man in
communist society. This is a crystal-clear formula. But opposing this all-embracing
interpretation is another one, which holds that only what is linked to today and
??s aims, only the topical is, in actual fact, contemporary.

This approach to the contemporary in literature discards all the age-old
-- and especially the revolutionary -- history of our land, consigns to oblivion
its great culture, one of the bases for the erection of a culture new and purely
socialist.

In any accurate conception of the contemporary Taras Bulba exists
alongside The Silent Don, and War and Peace by the side of The People Are Immortal by
Vasili Grossman, with the same immediate impact on people's minds.

If the writer is really persuaded to substitute the topical for the
contemporary, we shall no longer have a literature in the full sense of the word.
We shall have news reports, efficient journalism, a newspaper with literary touches,
hurriedly written stories, or a novel ripened fast and so spoiling soon thereafter.
Have we really such a dearth of writers, and are we so helpless that our literature
lacks the strength to produce numbers of excellent books in all genres and dealing
with all periods but at the same time contemporary in spirit and ideas? Why
should we consciously act to impoverish our literature?[48]

O. Gonchar

The "contemporary" theme ... cannot be treated narrowly, it cannot be
reduced to the topicality of a feature-article... The concept includes everything
that is of interest to our contemporary, all the important problems of our age,
the whole of our Soviet period and its heroic feats...[49]

V. Luks

...some go so far as to date contemporaneity -- or, at least, its
beginnings -- from 1956, others have decided on even later dates... Sovremennost is
not a short interval of time framed between calendar dates, it is our age in its
movement and development...[50]

D. Granin

...our Congress, it seems to me, is beginning to show a deeper and more creative
understanding of contemporaneity -- a concept which fetters the writer neither by
insisting on ... topicality nor by narrowing his thematic choice... It is an
insult to Soviet writers if their efforts are suddenly to be classified as
second-rate by the application of merely chronological criteria... Such a vulgar
interpretation of sovremennost only serves the hack-writer.[51]

[page 22]

A. Tvardovski

That Tvardovski in his contribution should mock at the statistical approach
to literature which measures its progress in quantities published during a "given
period", caused no surprise. That he should brush aside the demand for sovremennost
and assert that in literature "quality is first and foremost in importance", was to
be expected. His conclusions, however -- if not startingly new -- imply an emphatic
challenge to traditional Soviet concepts of the writer's responsibilities and duties
and of the ideological malleability of literature through "organizational methods":

The task of the literary education and creative development of our writers
stems directly from the great overall task which is the main theme of our
Congress: the task of improving the quality of our literature. I shall
not dwell on how imperfect and even harmful at times the various
organizational methods taken toward this end seem to me personally.

In our work as writers it is obviously not "organizational methods"
that are of decisive significance, but examples, specific examples of high
artistry. The example is indispensable and of primary significance...

The reason I have stressed the necessity of a profoundly individual
understanding of the task facing literature on the threshold of communism
is that I thereby wish to underline an even more emphatic assertion.

We frequently speak of collective responsibility for the fate of
literature, about the responsibility of each of us for "literature as a
whole", etc.

I should like to say here -- I have already spoken of this in part --
that no matter how paradoxical it may seem at first glance, the highest
form of collective responsibility in our work is a genuine awareness of
one's responsibility for oneself, and not "for literature as a whole."
Let us note that there are not so many among us who cope with this kind
of responsibility. There are probably more who quite readily offer to
answer for "literature as a whole," to guide it, to manage it, and direct
it...

A writer can produce genuine literature only if it is not external
considerations that compel him, but his whole inner being -- (even if my
book should have no success, that is how I want to write it, that is how
it should be written) -- only then can his work be worth anything... I
want to speak of the personal, moral obligations and standards of a writer
work and how these are to be brought closer to the concept of communist
labor.

We will, naturally, take these moral and ethical standards from the
experience of the great masters of the past, our compatriots and others.
These lived in different times, set themselves different tasks, had
different world outlooks, in keeping with their times, but their selflessness
and noble dedication to great art still serve us as the highest example
and standard...

Write as your conscience dictates, as your knowledge of any given
sector of life permits you to write, and do not be afraid in advance of
editors and critics...[52]

If Tvardovski's views are shared -- as they probably are -- by many of his
colleagues in the new leadership of the Union, further changes in the status and
the activities of the Union will soon follow. Such changes cannot fail to uphold
and enlarge the already wide range of choice and experiment typical of a good
deal of recent Soviet writing.[53]

University of Leeds
Alfred Dressier

[page 23]

1. Kommunist 1959 no.6, p. 13.

2. Vneocherednoi XXI s'ezd KPSS. Stenograficheski otchet (Moscow, 1959) vol. I
pp. 262-275. Furtseva, in contract to Kommunist's conciliatory tone, calls in
question the writers' ideological reliability. In a reference to the demand for
"complete non-interference" by the party in literary affairs, contained in the
Draft Program of the Yugoslav League of Communists (Cp. the English translation,
London, 1959 PP. 191-192), she says: "But such non-interference amounts to
lending direct support to positions in literature and art that are hostile to
the working class and the peasantry" (ibid. p. 268.)

3. Kommunist 1959, no. 6, p. 13.

4. Ibid.

5. A terminological distinction is now often made between the post-Stalin
"positive" hero and the "ideal" (i.e. "varnished") hero of pre-1956 literature. Cf.
ibid. p. 18; also N. Maslin, "0 geroye v literature i zhizni", Moskva 1959 no. 2.

6. Kommunist 1959 no. 6, p. 18.

7. Ibid. p. 19.

8. In an interview published in Literaturnaya gazeta 5 September 1919, V. Ovechkin,
whose own Sketches are often quotea as models for this type of literature, draws
a distinction between what he calls the "documentary sketch" and the
"explorative sketch", which permits "free rein to the creative imagination."

9. The claim that" the [Soviet] reader is always right" and, by implication that
the party correctly interprets the reader's (or the nation's) mind, goes
unchallenged no longer. Many voices have recently been raised against the "cult of the
reader": the young poet A. Volkov (Literaturnaya gazata 25 April 1959) has suggested
that "the people love those works best which have been thoroughly premasticated for
them by the author..." (According to a note in Literaturnaya gazeta 30 September
1959 many letters both for and against Volkov had been received by the editor.)
V. Inber (ibid. 16 May 1959) is disturbed about readers' "Primitive approach to
literature" and their "lack of a sense of humor". G. Gulia (ibid. 14 July 1959)
complains that the development of literature is impeded by readers who "dislike
complexity and demand primitive simplicity", and who identify "truth" with the
"accuracy of a protocol." A. Makarov in a review of Ivanov's "Poviteli" praises
the novel as a "positive and outstanding contribution to our literature" but
expects that it will be received unfavorably by many readers (Znamya 1959 no. 3).

10. Kommunist 1959, no. 6, p. 19.

11. Ibid, p. 15.

12. Literarturnaya gazeta 17 February 1959.

13. Literatura i Zhizn 6 March 1959.

14. Attempts are now clearly being made to revise the results of the
"antirevisionist" campaign in literature and to remove misunderstandings and confusions.
Some writers had preferred to keep silent or to absent themselves from public
debates, others had paid lip-service (cf. Tvardovski's remark about writers'
"ritual language", infra) to what they believed to be the obligatory party line
because they either failed to understand or refused to believe in Khrushchev's
proclaimed willingness to permit changes in "party-control and leadership in literature".
This deadlock can only be resolved by convincing the writers that the party is no
longer dispensing instructions which is not an easy task in view of the statements
quoted above. But, as will be seen, progress has been made at the Congress and,
more recently, the subject has been discussed in a frank statement by the Editor
of Literaturnaya gazeta, S. S. Smirnov ("Zametki O kritike", 8 August 1959); in
the key passage he defines the character of party leadership in literature as
"constant ideological-educative work... amongst writers' and goes on to asks "Is it
really necessary to prove to anyone that the well-known party-document 'For closer

[page 24]

links....' was by no means a directive but an educative pronouncement?"

15. Literaturnaya gazeta 14 December 1958.

16. Ibid. 12 December 1958.

17. Vneocherednoi XXI s'ezd KPSS. Stenografichesko otchet (Moscow, 1959) vol. I,
PP. 558-565; cf. also Soviet Literature 1959 no. 4.

18. Vneocherednoi XXI s'ezd KPSS....vol. I, p. 564. The translation of this
passage in Soviet Literature (p. 150) differs slightly from my own.

19. Literaturnaya gazeta 7 May 1959.

20. However, in a little-noticed essay "Talarit i true" (Okyabr 1956, no. 3,
p. 166) Leonov had anticipated many of the propositions advanced in the present
controversy. Cf. also: A. Yugov and L. Leonov, "Dumy o yazyke", Literatura i
zhizn 26 April 1959. Many other writers have expressed their concern at the effect
on literature of the progressive debasement of the language.

21. Oktyabr 1959, no. 5, p. 136.

22. Literaturnaya gazeta 12 May 1959.

23. Even the scanty reports of Republican Writers' Congress published in
Literaturnaya gazeta indicate widespread articulate opposition to sovremennost. Cf.
Literaturnaya gazeta 15 January 1959 (Armenian Congress); 5 February 195
(Lithuanian); 17 February 1959 (Belorussian); 28 February 1959 (Tadzhik); 5 March 195?
(Kirgiz); 14 and 17 March 1959 (Ukrainian); 21 March 1959 (Turkmenian).

A central problem discussed at these Congresses was the difficulty of writing
on "contemporary" Soviet themes while preserving national and local literary
traditions and forms. Cf., for example, "[Uzbek writers] sometimes say: Is it
really necessary to search for and to emphasize distinctive national features in
the portrayal of contemporary life when all the nationalities in the USSR live in
identical social conditions..." (Askad Mukhtar, "Sovremennaya tema-eto i problema
masterstva", Druzhba narodov 1959. no. 2). Similar points were made but not
pursued very far at the III Congress; the composition of the new Secretariat (cf.
Note 34 infira) will probably ensure greater attention for the problems of national
literatures.

24. Cf, also e.g. V. Ketlinskaya's article in Literaturnaya gazeta 9 April 1959
and I. Erenburg's "Re-reading Chekhov" in Novy mir 1959 no. 5, P. 193.

25. Kommunist 1957, no. 12, p. 27. The translation is from Soviet Literature
1957, no. 10, p. 19.

26. Literaturnaya gazeta 19 May 1959.

27. The charge of "neo-realism" has been made e.g. against V. Panova for her r?el
A Sentimental. Affair "Lenizdat, 1958) and G. Baklanov for his story "An Inch ??
(Novy mir 1959, nos. 5,6). A. Dovzhenko (1894-1956) was posthumously awarded a 1959
Lenin Prize for his film-script "Pesnya o more" ("Poem of an Inland Sea", Soviet
Literature 1957, no. 6).

28. Literaturnaya gazeta 19 May 1959.

29. Ibid. 24 May 1959. The quotation is from Soviet Literature 1959, no. 8, p. 95.

30. Literurnaya gazeta 20 May 1959. Cf. also Mainstream 1959, no. 9, p. 43.
(Some slight changes have been made in the passages quoted from this translation.)

31. Literaturnaya gazeta 21 May 1959. The report of the credentials committee
claims that most of the new members are young writers; but only three delegates
were under 30, and sixty-nine under 40 (352 delegates were over 50); twenty-three
had joined the Union since the II Congress; all had started publishing before 1954.

32. Among writers who, apparently, made no contributions were: Sholokov, Simonov,
Erenburg, Leonov, Kochetov, Aliger, Ovechkim, Panova, Shaginyan, Pogodin, Korneichuk
and Tendryakov.

[page 25]

33. One wonders whether this is the reason why Khrushchev discarded his prepared
brief. The many self-contradictory passages in his improvised statement lead one
to believe that he was taken by surprise by the views expressed by many delegates.
That Kommunist failed to print the speech is probably less significant than
Khrushchev's much-publicized post-Congress pilgrimage to Sholokhov (reported in
Literaturnaya gazeta 1 September 1959). This visit to the author of "The Pate of
a Man" (Molodaya gvardiya 1957; translated in Soviet Literature 1957, no. 5) and
"They Fought for Their Fatherland" (Molodaya gvardiya 1959; Soviet Literature 1959,
nos. 7, 8) -- war-time stories written without undue haste -- may be regarded as a
belated gesture of support and encouragement for the policy of greater artistic
independence pursued by Fedin, Tvardovski, etc. This seems to be confirmed by the
uninhibited attack by Tvardovski and the Editor of Literaturnaya gazeta on
V. Druzin (the paper's former Deputy Editor) and B. Dyakov who in Literatura i
zhizn defended, as Kommunist had done, poor artistic work if it was ideologically
"correct", and who criticized editors and publishing houses for insisting on high
artistic standards (cf. Literatura i zhizn 6 and 19 September 1959; Literaturnaya
gazeta 10 and 22 September 1959).

Other commentators on the Congress unanimously disagree with this assessment.
Mr. R. Hingley, writing in Soviet Survey 1959 July-September, considers
Khrushchev's speech to have been "the second most important event of the
Conference" (i.e. the other was the change in the secretaryship of the Union) while
speakers who preceded him "took trouble to conform to the ritual of servility".
Mr. M. Hayward in Problems of Communism 1959, no. 4 thinks that "apart from
Khrushchev's address, the only other notable contribution to the Congress came in
the shape of an article by K. Paustovski".

Mr. J. Lindsay who attended the Congress suggests in Mainstream 1959, no. 9
that "Khrushchev's long impromptu speech in many ways made the Congress, gave" it
its distinctive note....it may be taken to represent both a personal victory and
a defeat for the cliques. Many of the older writers have opposed him for his
revelations; one of these at least was moved to tears by his speech and went
afterwards to him, saying 'I make my peace with you'."
34. A number of verbal changes and amendments were made, the most important of
which seems to have been the re-insertion in the Rules of the "demand" for the
"historically concrete portrayal of reality." More significant are the changes
in the organization of the Union: the presidium has been abolished, and the
Board of Management (144 members) has been given the right to re-elect the
secretariat (27 members, including representatives from all Republican Writers'
Unions) biennially. The right to confirm enrolment of new members and expulsions
will now devolve on Republican Unions (Literaturnaya gazeta 22 May 1959).

It may be worth recording that S. S. Smirnov reported to Congress
(Literaturnaya gazeta 26 May 1959) that under his predecessor the paper had "lost a
considerable part of its subscribers and contributors." Mr. J. Lindsay in
Mainstream 1959, no. 9, p. 22 adds that "all remarks to the discredit of Kochetov
evoked applause." Some literary periodicals seem to have fared not much better
than Literaturnaya gazeta: Partiinaya zhizn 1959, no. 20, p. 33 discloses that
official subscriptions, i.e. by party and state organs (excluding libraries,
clubs etc.) account for 40-50% of the circulation figures of the following
periodicals s Zvezda, Znarnya, Oktyabr, Novy mir, Inostrannaya literatura, Druzhba
narodov. Publication figures for three of the most important literary periodicals
are as follows:

	Novy mir	Znamya	Oktyabr
1957 no. 12	140,000	130,000	130,000
1959 no. 1	140,000	100,000	168,100
1959 no. 5	140,000	102,000	173,200
1959 no. 10	140,000	99,000	169,100

[page 26]

35. Only two or three speakers dwelt on the theme of the "positive" hero.

36. This is not to deny, of course, that "creative assignments" did produce a
few interesting and informative reports. Cf. e.g. A. Zlobin, "Na sibirskoi
magistral", Novy mir 1959� no. 1.

37. Literaturnaya gazata 20 May 1959; Mainstream 1959, no. 9, pp. 37-38.
38. Literaturnaya gazeta 22 May 1959.
39. Ibid. 26 May 1959.
40. Ibid. 22 May 1959.
41. IMA. 26 May 1959.
42. Ibid. 23 May 1959.
43. Ibid. 24 May 1959; Soviet Literature 1959, no. 8, pp. 102-103.
44. Literaturnaya gazeta 24 May 1959; also in Soviet Literature 1959, no. 8,
p. 109. A resolution on Surkov's report was adopted but appears not to have
been published.
45. Literaturnaya gazeta 23 May 1959.
46. Ibid. 28 May 1959; L. Nikulin, one of the tutors at the Seminar, had
condemned this principle for selecting young writers (in ibid. 16 May 1959): "To
me, a writer of the older generation there was something unnatural and
farfetched in the way the Seminar was organized... Let us assume a no less (and
maybe, even more) gifted young author had written his first atory about the
Civil War or the construction of Magnitogorsk, what then? In any case, can we
rear a new generation of writers 'classified according to theme'?" Cf. also
his post-Congress article, ibid. 30 June 1959.
47. Ibid. 23 May 1959.
48. Ibid. 20 May 1959; Mainstream 1959, no. 9, PP. 39-4O.
49. Literaturnaya gazeta 20 May 1959.
50. Ibid. Alexander Chakovski, for instance, has very precise ideas about the
character and "calendar dates" of the "contemporary" novel (cf. his article,
"Sovremennost -- eto glavnoye", ibid. 19 March 1959); it should be "about Soviet
man of the period between the XX and XXI Congresses. About his complex, often
excruciating reflections related to the exposure of the cult of the personality.
About his faith in the party's strength and wisdom. About his hatred for those
who tried to use the decisions of the XX Congress to harm our regime...and about
how this Soviet man -- grown in understanding and matured by experience 
welcomes the XXI Congress of the Builders of Communism enthusiastically, imbued with
deep faith in the future, and ready to continue the struggle."
51. Ibid. 28 May 1959.
52. Ibid.; Mainstream 1959, no. 9, pp. 32-36.
53. E. g. Panova's "Sentimentalny roman" and Bakalov's "Pyad zemli"(cf. Note 25
supra); A. Kalinin's "Surovoye pole" (Molodaya gvardiya 1958, no. 2); A. Ivanov's
"Peviteli" (Sibirskiye ogni 1958, nos. 2-4); Yu. Kazakov's "Otshchepenets"(Oktyabr
1959, no. 7). It is hoped to discuss these, amongst other works, in a further
article.

[page 27]

SOVIET LITERATURE TOES THE LINE

Bulletin of the
Institute of the USSR
November 1959
by A. Gaev

In the six months that have passed since the Third Congress
of Soviet Writers there have been unmistakable signs that, in
spite of the marked demonstrations of democracy on the part of
the present Soviet leaders, the subjection of art to policy is one
of the Party's foremost aims. The narrow limits of the official
role played by art exclude any manifestations whosoever of free
thought or deviations from the directive contained in Khrushchev's
article "For a Close Link Between Literature, Art and Human Living".
The Third Congress itself passed quietly along the lines expected
by the Party without any surprises. The three postponements
had apparently been utilized to work out every little detail,
assign the roles, and fix the conclusions. The few awkward moments
took place minaly behind the scenes. Even the replacement of the
reads of the Union of Soviet Writers passed without the normal
Tuss and criticism. At the previous congress, for example, the
Union's heads had been subjected to charges of following an
incorrect line. The replacement of A. Surkov as head of the Union
of Soviet Writers had been decided in beforehand. He read the
main report, but did not make the final speech.

Presumably the problem of the provocative literature of the
younger generation had been examined in detail; writers under the
age of thirty were hardly represented at all at the Congress, only
three delegates out of 497. This remarkably low figure is explained
by the fact that most young writers are regarded as "seditious
free-thinkers", engaged in the search for new forms and new subject
matter. Some thorny problems arose during the Congress; but here
again action took place behind the scenes. There was, for example,
the case of Konstantin Simonov. On May 23, Radio Moscow reported
during the Congress' last session that "Konstantin Simonov is on
the tribune. He is reading out the greeting from the Congress
participants to the Party Central Committee." Apparently Simonov's
earlier mistakes had not yet been forgotten and it was decided
not to mention him in connection with the publication of such an
important document.

As far as purely literary problems are concerned, special
artention must be paid to a statement made by the writer Konstantin
Puastovsky, not at the Congress itself, but in the newspaper
Literaturnaya gazeta during the course of the Congress. Entitled
"Undebatable and Debatable Thoughts", it by no means paid lip
service to the Party line.[1] The article ended by pointing to
the two paths open to the Congress:

The writers' Congress is being held. Will it affirm for
writers the free and courageous sweep of creation which alone
will create the most important of the literature of our
century, Soviet literature. Or will the Congress busy itself
with petty supervision of writers and with old discords.
In the latter case it will have served no purpose.

-----------------------------

[1]Literaturnaya gazeta. May 20, 1959.

[page 28]

Speaking of the unfavorable situation on the literary from
he indignantly asked:

Why are persons admitted to literature and even accept
into the Writers' Union who do not know the Russian language
and are completely indifferent to it? Why are we content with
the monotony of a bureaucratic and philistine language, with
its beggarliness and phonetic ugliness? What right have we got
to cast the classic and powerful speech created by a
generation of our great predecessors into the backyard?

This appeal for a struggle for the purity of the Russian
language ought, in Paustovsky's opinion, to find some expressions
in the decisions of the Congress, In spite of the situation 
prevailing at the Congress as regards young writers, Paustovsky for
the courage to say in his article:

There is a (young generation). And a fine one at that.
There are Yury Kazakov, Sergei Nikitin, Nataliya Tarasanko
Vladimir Tendraykov, Yury Trifonov, Richy Dostyan, Yu?
Bondarev, Iosif Dyk, and many more young writers.

Not only did he mention names, he even emphasized that one
should not be alarmed by the militant enthusiasm of young write
"Youthful enthusiasm is useful."

Ilya Ehrenburg's appearance in the press was just as 
unexpected and out of tune with the spirit of the Congress. His article
in Novy mir, entitled "Rereading Chekhov," appeared shortly before
the Congress, Apart from the fact that Marx, Engels and Lenin are
not mentioned, the article advances numerous extremely "independence
concepts. Ehrenburg writes, for example, that love for writers
"is primarily dependent on their proximity to the spiritual work
of the reader":

A witness in court who relates what everybody knows is
no use to anybody, neither to the prosecution nor to the
defense. Any writer deserving of the name sees things that
escape the eye of the average observer. Isn't it time
repudiate observation as the main quality of a writer?

Developing his thought further, Ehrenburg quotes Chekhov
on the basic demand of art:

Art is unique and admirable in that one cannot lie in
it...One can lie in love, in politics, in medicine, one c?
deceive people and even God himself - there were such case
but one cannot deceive in art.

Ehrenburg lists various critical remarks about Chekhov in
his time, remarks which could easily apply today. There is the
astonished cry, "Why this decadence?"; the remark that Chekhov
is not as great as many people believe; and so on. An excerpt
from a letter of Chekhov's written at the time of his trip to
Sakhalin also has a meaning for the present: "We are letting
millions of people rot in prisons, now for nothing, without
reason, barbarously...And all this is dumped on the red nosed
prison warders." Finally, touching upon the basic principle of
art, Ehrenburg emphasizes that contemporary works contain "an

[page 29]

assiduous blend of colors, a variety of nuances. The world 'realism'
means nothing in itself..."

A further article which appeared at the time of the Congress
was V. Nekrasoy's critical review of A. Dovzhenko's motion picture
A Poem of the Sea, which was awarded a Lenin prize three weeks prior
to the opening of the Congress. Although the article only
discusses the motion picture, it broaches questions directly related
to Soviet art as a whole and, of course, to literature. Nekrasov
writes:

...against a background of gigantic construction work
conventional persons symbolizing particular ideas move about, not
doing very much and talking garrulously, or rather thinking
alound in conventional journalistic...language...Pathetic...

One must bear in mind that A Poem of the Sea is build around
the creation of the Kakhova Water Reservoir, when dozens of villages
ere submerged and their inhabitants compelled to leave their homes.
Nekrasov is disturbed not so much by this fact as by the
stereotyped characters. He is, for instances, indignant about the
character known as General Fedorchenko who says of himself in the motion
picture: "I'm a famous, happy chap and what I feel and do is fine."

Nekrasov writes bitterly about this:

But do you have the right to talk like this, Comrade General?
You arrived at your kolkhoz after the war. And you arrived
as though you were on holiday. But had you been there earlier?
In the difficult postwar years? Oh, Comrade General, is every
thing you feel and do really so wonderful?

Such thoughts about this motion picture can be applied to many
literary works in which cheap pathos takes the place of truth.

The Soviet leaders carefully noted all the signs of dissent
and took steps to "reestablish order in the literary household. "The
congress decisions were intended to root out all undesirable
elements in literary life and to subject writers to the Party, They
were put into effect immediately after the Congress. Khrushchev's
speech at the June Party Central Committee plenary session
contained an additional directive. In the concluding section of the
speech he stated: "We must, comrades, put more effort into the
attainment of planned goals, criticize more boldly, display a
Bolshevist implacability toward evident faults." Further one
the implacability and just what is meant by failings are expressed
more concretely:

We have individuals among the writers who ask what
sort of guidance is Party guidance of literature? We reply,
you there, don't you recognize the Party's guidance? But
what is Party guidance? It is the will of millions of people,
the will of millions of minds, the collective wisdom of
millions of people. But one writer sits in his dacha somewhere,
once in a while produces some puny work, and hopes that it
will be recognized as an expression of the spirit of the
people of our time, of the entire people. Isn't this a real
cult of one's own personality, which, as you see, is unwilling
to put up with the guidance of a Party which expresses the will
of millions...Such a fellow...wants to put himself above
the Party, above the people.

[page 30]

It is quite obvious who is meant: Khrushchev is attacking
Pasternak as a warning to other would-be rebels.

The line given was immediately adopted. The June issue of
the magazine Inoatrannaya literatura contained an article by E.
Trushchenko on a review of Doctor Zhivago published in the
Parisian journal Nouvelles Critiques. Trushchenko quotes the remarks
made by the journal about Pasternak:

"Soviet literature has advanced, moving in step with the
people. Pasternak has remained alone. His books cannot be
considered the books of a Soviet writer.

...Pasternak has betrayed the society in which he lives
and as a result has alienated himself from the people, the
(Parisian) review concludes,, Neither the talent nor the formal master
of such a writer can create respect for him."

The literary critic V. Shcherbina ttacked Nekrasov's censure
of A Poem of the Sea in the newspaper Sovetskaya kultura:

All of Nekrasov's judgements on Dovzhenko's motion
picture are intended to show that what is called romance,
inspiration,...opathos is nothing more than lifeless convention

Shcherbina accuses Nekrasov of an inability to believe in the
sincerity of romantic pathos, and compares Dovzhenko's work with
Nekrasov's criticism as follows? "One can also say that Dovzhenko
has created the romantic and heroic image of Soviet man at war,
while .V. Nekrasov (is) deliberately earthbound and uninspiredo"
Earlier the magazine Iskusstvo kino had carried an article by Y?
Varshavky entitled "One Must Look Into Things," which alleged the
Nekrasov "belongs to a particular artistic school" and that he
has no right to maintain that his is the only school. In the s?
issue, the Ukrainian poet M. Rylsky accused Nekrasov of ignoring
the national factor in A Poem of the Sea.[2]

The Soviet press set about Konstantin Paustovsky for his
above-mentioned article. It was represented on this occasion by
a former editor of Literaturnaya gazeta, the author of the novel,
The Brothers Ershov, V. Kochetovo His lengthy article "On Truth
and Untruth" was published in Literatura i zhizn, the official
organ of the Union of Writers of the RSFSR.[3] First, he expressed
his amazement at the fact that there had been no objections to
Paustovsky's article. Addressing Paustvosky, he exclaimed:

So, "we lack the truth". In the fall this thesis will
be 42 years oldo Earlier we became extremely agitated when
Our literature was accused of untruth. In 1956 and 1957,
Soviet writers mercilessly fought against this thesis which
keeps on popping up, fought since international revisionism
attempted to use it as its weapon for attacks on us.

Thus, Paustovsky is tagged with the label of revisionism.
Kochetov then endeavors to prove that Paustovsky's assertion that

-----------------------------

[2]Iskusstvo i kino, No. 5 (1959).

[3]Literatura i zhizn, June 19, 1959.

[page 31]

Soviet writers lack the truth is a "complete falsehoods " In
particular, sharp attacks are provoked by Paustovsky's reproach that
writers portray straightforward, primitive persons and drag
colorless, stereotyped personalities into their works.

Next in line for attack was Ilya Ehrenburg for his article
"The Laws of Art" which appeared in Literatura i zhizn of
August 16, 1959. In this essay he had asserted that a society
which is only interested in technical progress and neglects arts
can never resemble the society which is anxious to create. A.
Dymshchits, a member of the editorial board of the magazine
Zvezda and one of the foremost antirevisionists, countered":
"Ehrenburg's (work) contains, alongside some correct
observations, incorrect thoughts which bewilder the reader. The advcie
which he gives to writers cannot but give rise to objections."
The objections, or more exactly accusations, made by Dymshchits
are; [1] The tasks of literature are being interpreted far too
narrowly; [2] nothing has been said of the positive experience
of Soviet literature; [3] Ehrenburg does not examine the faults
? Soviet literature objectively; [4] he regrets that the word
"inspiration" has been buried to no purposeo The following
accusation is indicative of the general approach of the attack on
Ehrenburg:

He sees the main task of literature as the training of
his feelings, and considers the "management of the heart"
to be the writer's main field of activity. "There is only
one field," asserts I. Ehrenburg, "in which the writer is
mote informed than the politician, the engineer, the
physicist, the astronomer, or the agronomist, this is the secret
of the human hearts the sphere of the feelints..."However,
the experience of our country's history does not
substantiate this judgments politicians, builders of (gigantic)
industrial (enterprises) are more informed in psychology
than writers.

The critic cannot understand how Ehrenburg cany deny that
?y work can be written to order. To prove his point, Dymshchits
citizens of works which, in his opinion, are exemplary, although
written to order. These includes Mother by Gorky; the Iron Torrent, by
Serafimovich; Chapayev by Furmanov; Seeds of Tomorrow[+] by Sholokhov;
That's How Steel was tempered by N. Ostrovsky; The Young Guard,
by jfadeev; Je brule Paris by Jasienski; and, surprisingly enough,
The Second Day and The Fall of Paris by Ehrenburg. Then, the view
that art must have a particular line is discussed and Ehrenburg's
opinions on the subjects simply dismissed as unclear. There have
been numerous signs that Soviet writers are taking note of
Khrushchev's directives on art. Sholokhov has recently revised his
Seeds of Tomorrow and They fought For Their Country; Leonov has
revised his novel The Thief; while Valentin Kataev has reported
in Literaturnaya gazeta that he is revising the novel Jot the Power

-----------------------------

[+]Also known as Virgin Soil Upturned.
[Page 32]

of the Soviets, which is apparently to be retitled In the
Catacomb. Referring to this work, Kataev asserted that the
revision is "proceeding well and gives him real artistic pleasure"[4]

From time to time the Party theoretical organs Kommunist
has something to say about art. A recent issue contained the
article "What is Abstractionism in Art?" by Y. Kolpinsky and
F. Kaloshin.[5] Although it discussed mainly painting and
sculpture, it touched on all forms of art. All formalistic
tendencies came under fire as the work of "decadent intellectuals".
The political tone of the article is revealed by the very first
sentences "The main aspect of contemporary history is the
competition of the two systems, the capitalist and the socialist."
In general, the article is another milestone in present policy
in the field of art; it issues a strict warnings artists and
writers must avoid abstract creation. A propaganda campaign
in support of the decisions of the Third Congress of Soviet
Writers is also being waged by the magazine Literaturnaya gazeta.
Almost every issue contains a section entitled "Writers' Diary"
in place of an editorial. Extracts from this "Diary" are
extremely revealing:

The conept "modern writer" signifies not only that the
writer responds to the basic themes of the present, but
also how he responds (V. Lidin)

Contact with the people is one of the chief and
constant features of Soviet literature. (Y. Lebedinsky)

Now the writer has no need to walk about with a
notebook and to note down questionnaire data on outstanding
workers. They go to him. . . He is happy, seeing, in this,
his own civil contribution to the great life of the people.
(S. Grakhovsky)

These are the main thoughts found in the statements of
writers and they are in full accord with the aims of the Congress
or rather of the Party leaders.

An event such as Khrushchev's visit to Mikhail Sholokhov in
the village of Veshenskaya and his invitation to the writer to
accompany him to the United States must not be overlooked.
Although various writers accompanied Khrushchev to the United State
the invitation to Sholokhov is of special importance. There can
be no doubt that the Kremlin is extremely anxious to have a Nobel
Prize won by a Soviet writer who is a Communist. With this aim
in mind, Sholokhov was sent on a mission to Scandinavia shortly
before the 1958 awards were made. However, the prize for
literature went to Boris Pasternak for a work which was rejected by
Soviet publishers and has been harshly condemned in the USSR.
These facts explain Khrushchev's efforts to put Sholokhov in a
position to gain a Nobel Prize. The fact that the writer has
not produced any important work in recent years is immaterial
in the eyes of the Soviet leaders. Khrushchev set out to
advertise a really great writer irrespective of his current literary
efforts. The Soviet press treated the visit to Veshenskaya as an

-------------------

(4) Literaturnaya gazeta, July 18, 1959.

(5) Kommunist, No. 10, 1959.

[Page 33]

an event of unusual importance and produced the usual Soviet
propaganda falsification. At a meeting held in Veshenskaya Khrushchev
told the villagers: "We are meeting you today in Veshenskaya, to
which I have come at the invitation of your countryman." Of course,
the affair was not quite so simple. Sholokhov could not invite
Khrushchev under normal circumstances as a good friend. The visit
was specially organized. Khrushchev did not spare the compliments
when speaking of the writer and the Soviet press echoed him. The
writer Sergei Voronin wrote in an editorial in Literaturnaya gazeta:

In these days the attention of the Soviet people is focused
on the important event which took place in the village of
Veshenskaya. The head of the government Nikita Sergeevich
Khrushchev was there as a guest of the favorite writer of our land,
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov.[6]

The article went on that the meeting had become a national
holiday and that Veshenskaya would henceforth be known as the
"literary village". Literaturnaya gazeta of September 5 mentioned
Sholokhov in an editorial blatantly entitled "An Artist who
Enriches the World" and five days later published a further
editorial entitled "The Master." A week after the visit Khrushchev's
speech at Veshenskaya was issued in pamphlet-form. However, the
publicity about Sholokhov did not gain him a Nobel Prize.

While Khrushchev was visiting Sholokhov, another important
event was taking place in the Soviet literary world - the Swedish
writer Henrik Birnbaum visited Pasternak. The meeting was rather
unusual. At first the visitor had difficulty gaining admission
to the disgraced writer, but finally Pasternak appeared and
spent several minutes with the visitor in his garden. When
Birnbaum was leaving, Pasternak said to him: "...don't forget, I beg
you, that you weren't with me long. You know they don't like me
to receive foreigners now." All sorts of assumptions can be made
on the basis of such a brief meeting, but this remark in itself
gives a good idea of the present circumstances of the fall writer.

There are thus enough facts available to illustrate the
position of writers in the Soviet Union and Party policy in the field
of art. The short period of the "thaw" is long past. One can only
reminisce oil it like Ilya Ehrenburg in his poem, Northern Spring,
which appeared in Literaturnaya gazeta 2 months after the
Congress and is clearly symbolic in character.[7] The author of the
Thaw wrote: "What does it mean in the March frost,/ When gripped
with desperation,/ To wiat and wiat /Until the awkward massive
ice begins to move. / But we have known such winters,/ Have endured
such cold./ That there was not even sorrow,/But only pride and
misfortune./ And with firm, icy malice,/Dazzled by a dry blizzard/
We saw, while not seeing,/ The gree eyes of Spring." Yet the
works which are cultivated are those which fit in with the program
proposed for the Congress by the Central Committee greeting.
One example is a poem by Konstantin Simonov who has "slipped" so
often in the past: "Prize our peaceful efforts,/ I was in the
wars - but I live by belief in peace./ May the wind of peace
bear the head of our state/ To you on its wings."

-------------------

(6) Literaturnaya gazeta, September 8, 1959.
[Page 34]
 
THE SOVIET WRITERS CONGRESS

Along the Middle of the Road

Soviet Survey
No. 29
July-September 1959
Ronald Hingley

The most important event of the Third Congress of the
Union of Soviet Writers (Moscow, 18 to 23 May) was the removal
of Alexey Surkov from the powerful post of First Secretary and
his relegation to the relatively obscure position of Secretary
so that he is now no more exalted in rank than twenty-five ot[??]
equal-ranking Secretaries. Surkov is an energetic and forcef[??]
man whose name has become identified with the practice of
planning too much emphasis on committee work and administration, o[??]
interfering with authors' manuscripts and allotting them
'creative assignments' (tvorcheskie Kommandirovki). This latter
phrase--not surprisingly--has acquired an ironical flavour am[??]
Soviet writers.

To those who have kept their ear close to ghe ground,
Surkov's demotion will have come as no great surprise. For some
time there have been indications that he has made powerful
enemies among his fellow-writers and that these have been
intri[??]ing to accomplish his downfall. Since Surkov took a leading [??]
in the recent campaign against Pasternak, some Western observers
have interpreted his demotion as part of a move to reinstate
Pasternak in the Union. But it is unlikely that this motive [??]
been a factor. Among the people who have got rid of the First
Secretary it is probable that only a minority--if any--hold an
active brief for Dr. Zhivago. The rest have just got tired o[??]
being pushed around.

Fedin, who succeeds Surkov, will certainly push them around
a great deal less. Like Leonid Sobolev, who heals the RSFSR
branch of the Union, he is not a Party member. What is more
important, he is not by temperament a leader or
organiser--probably this is the very reason why he has been chosen. As
one of the most distinguished living Soviet novelists he bring
great literary prestige to his new office, while as an
intellectual (and leading chronicler of the Soviet intelligentsia's
evaluation) he offers a striking contrast to his predecessor. Su[??]

[Page 35]

is by no means a negligible poet, but in recent years
everyone has come to regard him as a literary apparatchik.

The manner of Surkov's removal has been interesting. He
has not been in any way disgraced and the whole matter has
been handled with the greatest possible decorum. During the
proceedings of the Congress we had hardly any hints that he
was about to go. He was simply voted out of office when the
Congress was over. On the first day he had presented a long
report: "The tasks of Soviet literature in the building of
Communism." This report formed in theory the theme of the
majority of the speeches which followed during the next five days.
But very few of the speakers referred to Surkov by name. By
those who did mention him he was not greatly abused, but he
got absolutely no bouquets--in contrast, for example, with
Tvardovsky and Sholokhov.

This report of Surkov's was long, boring, and heavily
larded with Soviet literary cliches. That was to be expected.
What was surprising was that some of the later speakers
criticised it precisely because it was boring, thus introducing a
dangerous new principle into the conduct of Soviet congresses
and one which, if it became established, might ultimately prove
entirely fatal to them. For example, Valentin Katayev, after
mentioning the names of three promising young prose-writers,
went on to say: "I could also mention a lot of other names,
but I don't want to turn my speech into the monotonous reading
of the traditional litany which has already become so painfully
boring to everyone." This was a back-handed reference to the
enormous catalogues in Surkov's report--catalogues of authors
who, he claimed, had served Soviet literature in various ways.

One of the more outspoken attacks on Surkov was made in
an interesting speech by Anatoly Kalinin from Rostov-on-Don.
He complained that the Union had "caught a disease" which caused
many writers to spend most of their time in committee meetings
instead of at their own desks--a theme which was echoed by many
other speakers. He also said that: "The poet Alexey Surkov
is in some sense a victim of the Secretary of the Union Alexey
Surkov. If one half of all those emotions which he has
scattered with lavish hand on committee tables had gone to the
building of his poetical strophes, then perhaps today readers might
be enjoying more than one long poem produced by his pen."

Kalinin's speech contains several lyrical and almost
sycophantic references to Sholokhov, and raises some interesting
questions. Why did Sholokhov himself not speak at the Congress?
He had made a memorable contribution to the Second Congress in
1954 with his vicious attack on Simonov. He is everywhere
acknowledged as Soviet Russia's greatest writer, so that his
failure to perform at the Third Congress could not fail to excite
comment. Was he even in Moscow? Or sulking in his stanitsa?
He is probably no friend of Surkov, and it seems to me quite
possible that he "put up" Kalinin to make this speech. In an
unpolemical conference it was one of the most polemical
contributions and may well reflect His Master's Voice.

[Page 36]

A speech by the Moscow poet Nikolay Gribachov contained
an even more outspoken condemnation of Surkov's opening report.
He said that such reports "degrade our literature, insult and
oppress our writers. At the First Congress of Writers of the
USSR Leonid Sobolev said that the Party and the Government
had given us all rights and had taken from us only one
right--that of writing badly. It would have been a good thing if
we had at the same time been deprived of the right to such
reports as that with which our Third Congress began."

Gribachov speaks with satisfaction of the atmosphere of
businesslike calm in which the Third Congress is proceeding
"after a serious ideological struggle, complicated by the
unprincipled racket and unhealthy hullabaloo kicked up by
little-talented and para-literary (okololiteraturny) persons."
This is rather tantalising. Gribachov may of course be
referring to the well-known series of rows about Dudintsev's Not
By Bread Alone and the two Literary Moscow compilations." But
it seems possible that he is referring to much more recent
squabbles which preceded the Congress, of which we have little
knowledge and which have hardly been allowed to erupt into
its decorous atmosphere or into the rather less decorous
atmosphere of the preliminary Congresses of Republican Unions.

This atmosphere of decorum forms a strong contrast between
the present Congress and its more hard-hitting predecessor
in 1954, when many harsh words were exchanged. It is perhaps
the price which writers have had to pay for the removal of
Surkov. It is not often that the Party permits a leading
figure to be removed in this way from below, and the procedure
has been entirely different from that of more familiar Soviet
demotions. Surkov has not been humiliated. In fact he is
still waiting in the wings. If necessary he can be reinstated
He may even become more useful to the Party as a threat than
he was as a boss.

However this may be, the replacement of Surkov by Fedin
remains a step away from illiberalism in the affairs of the
Union. An element of greater tolerance is also to be found
in what I judge to be the second most important event of the
conference--Khrushchev's address which took place on the last
day and has been interpreted by some commentators as offering
an "olive-branch" to the writers. It certainly offered them
a respite from boredom. He spoke impromptu. Although his
speech, as reported in Pravda, may have been doctored after
the event, it still makes very lively reading. It appears to
especial advantage after the dull and incantational harangues
which had preceded it.

This was of course far from being Khrushchev's first
irruption into the literary world. He took a vigorous part in
suppressing the 1956 movement of writers towards greater
freedom of expression. Having handled these freedom-writers
somewhat roughly, and having successfully stamped out the
"revisionist" heresy for which they stood, he has now slightly shifted
his position to one of armed benevolence. He spoke almost with
approval of Dudintsev's Not by Bread Alone. Although "certain

[Page 37]

ill-wishers abroad" (a common formula at the Congress) had
been wrong in claiming that Not by Bread Alone was very nearly
the greatest work of Russian literature, it did contain
"certain pages deserving of attention." Indeed, Mikoyan had once
remarked that in places Dudintsev's arguments were an exact
repetition of Khrushchev's own. Dudintsev's error had been
to exaggerate and to generalise. "But he was never our enemy
and was not an opponent of the Soviet System." This drew
applause from the delegates.

Does this graciousness imply that Khrushchev is now
prepared to allow greater latitude to writers? Scarcely. He
compared the present status of the heretics of 1956 with that
of a reformed thief--they had better not lapse into crime again.
"There is a correct proverb" (another typical turn of phrase)
"one doesn't kick a man when he's down." Khrushchev made it
quite clear that these writers had been kicked into a posture
of submission, and that they would be well advised to remain
prone. Otherwise they would get kicked again.

One abiding feature in Khrushchev's attitude to the writers
is the ingrained contempt for intellectuals felt by the "worker"
or practical man with mud on his boots or machine-oil on his
hands. He revealed this in the genially patronising manner of
his whole address, and also in his preamble, where he was
careful to put writers in the same class not merely as composers
and artists, but also as film executives and other "equally
remarkable branches of the Soviet creative intelligentsia."
And he went on to point out that "life is always incomparably
richer, deeper, and more full-blooded than the very best
artistic production."

Perhaps Russian writers particularly need this douche of
cold water, since when given the slightest chance, they tend
to adopt the postures of major prophets or arbiters of destiny
no less easily than they adopt the postures of servility. In
particular, Khrushchev is anxious that they should not usurp
the function of the Central Committee by taking too seriously
their role as critics of Soviet society. "Listen, friends, if
there's anyone who reveals and lays bare deficiencies and vices,
whose hand will not tremble when doing this--these matters (I
have retained Khrushchev's "impromptu" syntax in my translation)
are the affairs of the Party, they're handled by its Central
Committee." One feels that Khrushchev's ideal of a writer is
a man who devotes his days to some man-sized job with lathe or
tractor, and spends his evenings helping to compile a collective
illustrated brochure about youth in the Virgin Lands. Even the
most pliable of Soviet writers will not quite stand for this.
As a reasonable man, Khrushchev is prepared to humour his
writers to some extent. But he feels that they need to be
repeatedly reminded of their true place.

Few of the preceding speakers at the Congress needed such
reminders, to judge from the trouble they took to conform with
the ritual of Servility. But at least four senior figures did
not speak at all. Apart from Sholokhov, whom I have already
mentioned, these were Leonov, Ehrenburg, and Simonov. These
four had all taken a prominent part in the Second Writers
Congress. Is their failure to speak at the Third Congress to be

[Page 38]

interpreted as an example of "the heroic feat of silence" (the
form of passive resistance often adopted by disgruntled Soviet
authors) or are they in disgrace? Of the four Leonov, at least
cannot be much in disgrace, since he has been elected to the
Secretariat.

Of the remaining speeches at the Congress (which had 89
speakers in all) there is on the whole not very much that need
be said, owing to their conformist character. Not surprisingly
the most independent and interesting contribution was that of
Tvardovsky. Tvardovsky complained that "we still seem to be
paying a certain tribute to the inertia of our existence of
yesterday." He criticised the "lifeless phraseology" of
certain speeches and their preoccupation with boring statistics.
As any visitor to the USSR knows to his cost, Soviet citizens
in all walks of life are obsessed with figures, the recital of
which obviously has on them some mysterious therapeutic effect
Nowhere is this obsession more ridiculous than in the sphere
of literature, where, as Tvardovsky points out, quality me[??]s
everything and quantity nothing. He said that he would rather
have seven decent plays which he would like to see again and
again than seven hundred plays "written in the period under
review." The important task was the raising of quality. There
were all too many writers willing to take responsibility for
"literature as a whole." It was time some of them began to
think more of taking personal responsibility for their own
individual work. The most provocative sentence in his speech
was a blow against the self-congratulatory complacency of many
other speakers: "We must say to our literary Yesterday, and
even to our Today. "We can't go on living like this and we
shan't go on living like this."

Tvardovsky's speech was not calculated to set the Moskva
River on fire, but it was a healthy sign. As some of his
previous escapades show, he is a loyal but liberal-minded Party
member who believes that the Party can afford to allow writers
more latitude than it at present contemplates. He recently
published an interesting poem in Novy Mir in which he complain
against an act of censorship carried out against hiw work in
Pravda. He is a loyal communist, but one whose fortunes serve
as a useful barometer of the state of Soviet letters.

No Russian public function is complete without some sort
of skandal. The skandal in this instance was provided by
Paustovsky. He did not speak at the Congress, probably because wh[??]
he had to say struck too violently against the predetermined
atmosphere of decorum. But he published an article in the
Literary Gazette of 20 May, one of an otherwise undistinguished
collection by various authors issued "a propos of the Congress
This takes a position far in advance of Tvardovsky and shows
Paustovsky as a courageous and unrepentant rebel. It says much
for the relative state of freedom of Soviet letters, when
compared with their darker days, that such an article was printed
at all.

Paustovsky gives a warning to those writers (including man
of the speakers at the Congress) who take it upon themselves

[Page 39]

to speak in the name of the people. He warns them that readers
are very well able to distingusih sincerity from an ability to
adapt oneself (prisposoblenchestvo) and that they can
differentiate a genuine from a merely "shouting" link with the people.
He speaks with distaste of various literary "isms," and though
he does not mention Socialist Realism among these, he was
writing for people trained to read between the lines. He deplored
the tradition that novels must always have a falsely happy
ending and a balance between light and dark colours nicely
calculated in favour of the former. Thank goodness Anna Karenina
had been written before the appearance of this tradition. He
wondered why, in the forty-first year of the existence of the
Soviet system, it was still necessary to give the appearance
of proving its superiority to the capitalist system "as if we
ourselves doubt this and marvel at it as at some incredible
miracle."

Paustovsky's most outspoken sentence reads: "Perhaps the
reason why we shout so much and so loudly about truth in
literature is because truth is what we haven't got enough of." He
also made an eloquent plea for the use of good Russian and the
abandonment of jargon. "The language is being bureaucratised
from top to bottom, beginning with the newspapers and radio and
ending with our ordinary everyday speech." Would the Congress,
secure freedom for the writers? Or would it occupy itself with
submitting them to petty-minded interference and raking up old
quarrels? It was time to stop calling one's friends enemies
just because they spoke unpleasant truths and did not play the
hypocrite.

One or two of the later speakers at the Congress took
Paustovsky to task for writing this article, but considering its
explosive quality he got off very lightly. The criticisms
levelled against him were vague and half-hearted.

The appearance of Paustovsky's article raises an
interesting and mildly comforting speculation. We tend all too easily
to think of recent Soviet literature as divided into two quite
distinct and opposing categories: (a) run-of-the-mill
"Socialist Realism" of a drearily conformist type; (b) protest
literature such as that associated with the year 1956. In fact,
however, a third type of writing has been quietly gaining ground.
This consists of works which either avoid politics altogether,
or at least dodge the sharper implications of politics. They
naturally make fewer headlines in the West, but they include
much interesting writing nevertheless. To this "neutral"
category belongs some of Paustovsky's own work, the stories of
Antonov and such works as Nilin's Cruelty and Panova's Sentimental
Novel. The appearance of such works would have been almost
unthinkable under Stalin. What hopes does the Third Writers
Congress offer for their future?

The other two categories have had their fates settled
decisvely. Run-of-the-mill Socialist Realism will continue to
struggle on. Protest literature is out. As for "neutral"
writing--that too has been under attack. But the attack has

[Page 40]

taken a very devious form. The opponents of the "neutral"
school have framed their attack on it as a plea for greater
"contemporaneity." It so happens that the "neutral" writers
are more at home describing either pre-revolutionary events
or dealing with Soviet society of the twenties, for which the[??]
now seems to "be a general feeling of nostalgia. The supporter
of "contemporaneity" attack this approach under the label of
the "theory of distance," that is, the idea that a writer can
most effectively treat events with which he is not in too
direct contact. Many words were spilled on this subject at the
Congress. But these fulminations remained abstract.
Individual practitioners of "neutral" writing were not pilloried.