SOURCE: "Literary Policy in Stalin's Last Year," in Soviet Studies, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3, July, 1976, pp. 391-405.

In recent years Western scholars have been deeply interested in determining the nature and degree of change which has taken place in the Soviet Union since Stalin's death. Numerous works have analysed and assessed the transformation of post-Stalin Russia: changes in economic policy, in the effectiveness of group pressures on policy-making, in the use and role of terror, and in the area of public discourse, debate, and cultural creativity. But relatively little effort has been made to establish a reliable gauge with which to measure change. Studies of what was happening in specific areas of interest during the late Stalin years—studies in detail—have been few and far between, so that comparisons have often been based on well-documented research covering recent years but on generalizations about the Stalin era. One exception has been Marshall Shulman's study of Stalin's foreign policy,¹ which emphasized its complexity and broad range of options. It is the purpose of this brief study to investigate another specific field—literature—within a highly limited time span (the last year of Stalin's life) in order to examine the degree of uniformity prevailing at that time. Was the totalitarian regime as monochromatic as is often assumed? Or was the literary field, too, of a complex nature?

The general view of internal Soviet politics in the early 1950s is that the increasing repression and pre-purge tension were irreconcilable with a loosening of literary bonds. And yet an examination of the period shows that both trends—a policy of mounting intimidation by the state and an officially sanctioned 'liberalization' in the literary sphere—co-existed in 1952.

Soviet internal policy at this time was characterized by the renewed attack on bourgeois nationalism, the instigation of the Doctors' Plot and the proliferation of the vigilance campaign. On the other hand, foreign policy provided a contrast—the broad alliance policy and the development of the peace movement after 1949 represented a 'rightist' approach.² A similar absence of consistent correlation between all phases of Soviet policy had been seen at other times: in the mid-1930s, for example, the beginning of the Great Purge was coupled with an official veneration of law and order, with propaganda for the new Constitution and, in foreign affairs, with the pursuit of the Popular Front.

In 1952 the contrast was not limited to an emphasis 'on "peaceful co-existence" in foreign policy and strict ideological conformity at home'.³ A moderated policy was also to be seen in the field of literature. For approximately ten months an atmosphere of relaxation, albeit strictly limited, was felt in the literary world.

This modification in the firm attitude of the party to literature was first felt as early as February 1952.⁴ Although prose was the object of some of the reforming criticism, the main brunt of the campaign was felt by drama. There ensued a series of articles condemning the so-called no-conflict theory which had dominated postwar Soviet drama. The single most famous—and most outspoken—statement on the subject was made by the playwright Nikolai Virta in March of that year.⁵ In it he tried to explain his own role in the development of the 'theory'.

. . . It arose as a consequence of 'cold observations of the mind' on the manner in which those of our plays which contain sharp life conflicts passed through the barbed-wire obstacles of the agencies in charge of the repertoire . . . everything living, true to life, sharp, fresh and unstereotyped was combed out and smoothed over to the point where it was no longer recognizable. Every bold, unstereotyped word in a play had to be defended at the cost of the playwright's nerves and the play's quality . . . each of us [has] accumulated a great deal of bitter experience in ten years about which, for some reason, it has been the custom to keep quiet. . . .

Virta placed much of the blame on those people who killed plays and who were guided 'not by the interests of Soviet art but by a wild rabbit fear of the hypothetical possibility of a mistake, mortal fear of taking any risk or responsibility for risk'. His own initial adherence to the no-cdnflict theory had been the result of his search for 'a creative way out'. Perhaps, he had thought, the period of sharp conflicts in drama really had passed. But,

no, this stupid and spurious theory did not arise because 'everything was fine'! It is not because 'everything is fine' that Pogodin writes a play about the beginning of the century, while Virta, who spent two years in a Russian village, wrote a play about peasants of the people's democracies!

Although, of course, the atmosphere of suppression which Virta here described does not surprise us, what is notable is that he expressed his views publicly—and in the way that he did. His candid remarks during what was assuredly an extraordinarily repressive period, his attack on problems of censorship and publication policy, and the fact that his statement was not a unique utterance but part of a concerted campaign in the press to revise established literary doctrine, all make this a most noteworthy article. What is interesting is not that a writer in the Soviet Union in the early 1950s should have felt bitterness and helplessness at his plight, nor necessarily that he should have committed these thoughts to paper, but that a publication such as Sovetskoe iskusstvo, of conservative leanings and quite orthodox editorial policy, should have taken it upon itself to publish them. One can only assume that the editors—and there had been no recent significant changes of the board—deemed the article appropriate to the current literary mood.

Although Virta's article, and others, were subsequently attacked in the Soviet press,⁶ the crusade against the no-conflict theory continued throughout the summer and into the autumn, with the concomitant demands for the portrayal of more well-delineated negative characters and for more and better comedies. It proceeded with varying degrees of fervour beyond the XIX Party Congress and extended to include not only drama but other prose forms as well. Malenkov's speech at the XIX Party Congress in October did little to clarify the literary situation.⁷ Nothing really new was said in the few paragraphs devoted to the subject. One thing that his speech did not do, however, was to put any further brake on the dim process of innovation which had been emergent since the spring. Literary events were apparently to proceed along their course without a strong directive from the top at this point.

In January 1953—on the same day that the Doctors' Plot was announced in the press—I. Pitlyar published an article demanding that more attention be paid to the material details of life: 'What enormous artistic and editorial possibilities open up before the writer who is not afraid to be truthful in portraying the material conditions of people's existence. . . . Those writers who wave aside the socalled "details of life" are sinning against the truth of life.'⁸ This sentiment, uttered here at the beginning of a repressive swing in Soviet literature, would later be a central theme in the literary criticism of the early 'thaw'.

A situation in which articles calling for conflict, for innovation, for a description of negative characteristics of Soviet life appeared simultaneously with attacks on nationalism in literature, with Great-Russian chauvinism, with virulent anti-semitism and a campaign to induce mass paranoia, was clearly anomalous. There was a buildup of fear and distrust, but there existed the other side of the coin which cannot be ignored. Explaining it is by no means simple.

There are a number of possible explanations and there is probably some truth in each. First was the state of drama itself. It is certainly plausible that the attack on the no-conflict technique was nothing more than an attempt to cure the ills which had beset the theatre for some time. Evidence of the low level of dramatic endeavour (half-empty theatres and the popularity of the classics in contrast to contemporary plays) is overwhelming and it is not unlikely that a main goal was to raise the theatre to the point where it could at least be a meaningful instrument of education or propaganda. Demands for more constructive criticism, for a re-organization of responsible committees, and attacks on dull insipid plays all point in this direction.

If, however, one considers the period preceding Stalin's death as a whole, and not just in terms of literary development, one perceives other possibilities. Seeing the build-up of insecurity and tension throughout the year 1952, reaching a frenzy early in 1953, one is struck by a certain similarity between the vigilance campaign and the attack on the 'no-conflict' theory. The vigilance campaign, in essence, warned that no one was to be trusted, that all sorts of subversive elements lurked in the background of Soviet society, that one should be on guard against every conceivable danger, whether from doctors, embezzlers, bourgeois nationalists or petty criminals. Implied in the campaign against the doctrine of no-conflict was the assertion that it was wrong to assume that Soviet society had reached that point of development where there was no socio-political danger left. Drama could not yet be written so that the only opposition present in a play was that between good and better. Evil remained in society and ought to be presented in the theatre, with the aim of rooting it out. In other words, in order to expose enemies the Soviet citizen had to know how to recognize them.

There is, finally, the possibility which we cannot entirely discount, that this 'liberal' swing was simply to be used as a bait to draw out what Anatolii Surov had referred to as the 'keepers of silence'⁹ from their lairs, with the ultimate intention of repression. It is widely held that a major purge was in the offing on the eve of Stalin's death; perhaps this campaign was simply to be used as a mouse trap.

Whatever the ulterior motives may have been, the fact is that in 1952 writers and editors did find that they had somewhat more scope, more 'elbow room', limited though it still was. This became evident not only in the remarkable candour of some writers, but also in the demands made on the writers as a whole. The attack on the no-conflict theory permitted a less stereotyped publication policy. In order to demonstrate this point, let us look at the output of the literary journal Novyi mir, the most experimental journal in the fifties and the one quickest to reflect a change of policy.

Two major works appeared in its pages in the summer and early autumn of 1952—as well as some lesser items—which distinguished that literary season and differentiated it from the Stalinist model. Almost predictably, Novyi mir was to be the object of a severe concerted attack launched against it by the party press and the Writers' Union several months later.

In the July 1952 issue of Novyi mir the first instalment of Vasilii Grossman's Za pravoe delo (For the Just Cause) appeared.¹⁰ This was a lengthy novel which centred on the Battle of Stalingrad and followed the thread of a number of individuals and families whose lives were caught up in the war and whose fates were interrelated. Long sections of the book were devoted to discussions of a philosophical nature among the participants—soldiers, professors, students—on the causes of the war.

It is indicative of the indecisive official attitude—and the amount of permissiveness—that the novel received some excellent, or at worst mixed, reviews at the end of 1952. Indeed, Za pravoe delo was virtually ignored in the beginning. Ilya Ehrenburg noted this fact in his memoirs, recalling that he considered this a positive development. 'I have been looking through the files of Literaturnaya gazeta [for 1952],' he wrote. 'Everything appeared most satisfactory. The paper noted that Grossman's novel Za pravoe delo . . . had appeared in Novyi mir, but the reviewers ignored it.'¹¹

In fact—as Ehrenburg clearly understood—the novel did contain sections which could well have been alarming to the Soviet reviewer. The following two excerpts are from a passage in which an academic, Chepyzhin—one of the central characters—propounded his views in a conversation with Professor Shtrum.¹²

Look, imagine that in some little town there are people known for their learning, honour, humanity, goodness. And they were well known to every old person and child there. They enriched the town life, enlarged it—they taught in the schools, in the universities, wrote books and wrote in the workers' newspapers and in scientific journals; they worked and struggled for the freedom of labour. . . . But when night fell, out onto the streets came other people whom few in the town knew, whose life and affairs were dirty and secret. They feared the light, walked stealthily in the darkness, in the shadow of buildings. But there came a time when the coarse dark power of Hitler burst into life, with the intention of changing its most fundamental law. They started to throw cultured people, who had illuminated life into camps, into prisons. Others fell in the struggle, others went into hiding. They were no longer to be seen during the day on the streets, at factories, at schools, at workers' meetings. The books they had written blazed. But those who had been hidden by the night came out noisily into the light and filled the world with themselves and their terrible deeds. And it seemed that wisdom, science, humanity, honour had died, disappeared, had been destroyed. It seemed that the people had been transformed, had become a people of evil and dishonour. But look here, it isn't so! Understand that it isn't so! The energy contained in a people's wisdom, in a people's moral sense, in a people's goodness is eternal, whatever fascism might do to destroy it. [It continues to live, temporarily dispersed. It accumulates in nodes. It gathers around itself indestructible microscopic diamond crystals which can cut both steel and glass. And those popular champions who were killed transmitted their spiritual strength, their energy to others, teaching them how to live and how to die. And their strength was not destroyed together with the corpses of the dead, but continues to live in the living. I am convinced that the Nazi evil is powerless to kill the energy of the people. It only disappeared from view, but its quantity in the people has not diminished. Do you understand me? Do you follow my line of thought?]

Chepyzhin then went on to discuss the psychology of social change:

You see, all sorts of things are mixed in man, many of which are unconscious, hidden, secret, false.

Often, a man, living under normal social conditions, doesn't himself know of the vaults and cellars of his soul. But a social catastrophe occurred, and out of the cellar came every evil spirit, they rustled and ran out through the clean, light rooms. [The flour fell and the chaff rose outside. It wasn't the relationship of things that changed, but the position of the parts of the moral, spiritual structure of man which was altered.]

It is not at all surprising that, when the attack finally came, the critics singled out these passages. Chepyzhin, wrote one, taught an 'idealist philosophy', which the author himself obviously espoused.¹³

It does not require great imagination to see Grossman-Chepyzhin's description of the coming of Hitlerism as a commentary on Stalinist Russia. Especially in the light of his later work Vse techet (Everything Flows),¹⁴ it is clear that Grossman was highly sensitive to, and understandably obsessed with, the evils which had been committed in Soviet Russia during his lifetime. His concentration in this section on the intelligentsia and their difficult fate was at least as applicable to the Soviet as to the German situation. This is a striking example of the not infrequent practice of political criticism by analogy in which the dissenting writer attacks a feature of his own contemporary society through reference to tsarist times or to foreign and hostile countries. Of course, the official critics could not directly expose this type of invidious comparison, for to do so would be to admit that they themselves had recognized the forbidden parallel.

The critics in general—and the February article in Literaturnaya gazeta was in this typical—had therefore to confine their criticism within safe ideological bounds. Specifically, in the case of Grossman, they concentrated most of their fire on his universalistic moralism, his apparent indifference to Marxist dialectics and his preference for a class-free, science-based philosophy. 'It adds up,' said Literaturnaya gazeta,

to the idea that there is an eternal struggle of good and evil, and good is the personification of perpetual energy—whether the cosmic energy of the stars or the spiritual energy of the people. It is completely clear that these ideological, unhistoric fumblings of reasoning can in no way explain the existence of social phenomena.¹⁵

Chepyzhin, the article went on, talks abstractly, and unhistorically, about fascism and the idea of war. He measures everything according to his 'unhistoric categories' of the struggle of light and darkness, of good and evil. Shtrum, it continued, nods his agreement, and not one of the main characters replies to this argument with a Marxist-Leninist explanation of the war and the nature of things. So one may assume that Grossman did not want Chepyzhin's reactionary philosophy refuted. Grossman, through Chepyzhin, seemed to follow the idea of the Pythagoreans that there is an eternal rotation of events, that '. . . there is an eternal circulation of the very same beginnings, conditions, events'.¹⁶

It should be noted here that when the novel was published in book form, as it was after Stalin's death and again in the 1960s, the two passages quoted above had been considerably altered. Moreover, the entire dialogue between Chepyzhin and Shtrum had been transformed. Although Chepyzhin's views had not been essentially changed—only toned down and attenuated—Shtrum now emerged as an advocate of Soviet Marxist orthodoxy. For example, he now objected vigorously to the idea that Nazism was to be explained as the work of 'a handful of evil men with Hitler at their head', arguing instead that it was the result 'of the specific peculiarities of German imperialism. . . . '¹⁷ Again, Shtrum now pointed out that Chepyzhin's theory of science and history if applied 'not to fascism . . . but to progressive phenomena, to liberating revolutions, . . . [implies that] the revolutionary struggle of the working class also cannot change society, also cannot raise man to a higher level. . . . '¹⁸

Besides the criticism of the excerpts quoted here, many general features of Grossman's novel were attacked. Grossman had not 'succeeded in creating a single, major, vivid, typical portrait of a hero of the battle of Stalingrad, a hero in a grey greatcoat, weapons in hand'.¹⁹ He 'had not shown the Communist Party as the true organizer of victory. . . . '²⁰ A feeling of doom pervaded the work.²¹

The campaign continued unabated until a month after Stalin's death.²² In fact, pressure became so great that several members of Novyi mir's editorial board—Tvardovsky, Tarasenkov, Kataev, Fedin and Smirnov—publicly apologized for their 'error' in publishing Grossman's novel.²³ It was a vain attempt to stem the tide of criticism directed at the journal. The climax of the letter was the admission by the editors that the fault lay with the editorial board—that is, with themselves—for not having gone into the work more thoroughly, for having failed to ferret out its ideological-artistic faults. They asked the Secretariat of the Writers' Union as soon as possible to 'take measures towards strengthening the composition of the editorial board of Novyi mir' As for Grossman, he never made any kind of apology.²⁴

The last major attack on Grossman's novel—and on the journal which had published it—was made by Fadeev at the end of March.²⁵ The focus of his criticism did not differ sharply from that which had preceded it, except for a rather pointedly anti-semitic undertone, but what is especially significant in terms of history is his account of the publication process through which the novel had passed.

According to Fadeev,²⁶ the novel had been discussed for a number of years before its appearance in print, and there had been numerous objections to it. But the discussion did not reach the broad public. 'It was conducted in the narrow circle of the editorial board and the Secretariat [of the Writers' Union], and only after the novel was printed did it creep into the Presidium of the Union of Soviet Writers—the body which should have decided these matters of principle.'

Evidently, when the novel first came to the editorial offices of Novyi mir it had been strongly criticized by B. Agapov, then a member of the board.²⁷ As we know that Agapov left the editorial board of Novyi mir in February 1950, it is clear that the novel must have been under discussion for a minimum of two-and-a-half years, and probably for much longer. It was when the new editorial board was appointed that discussion of the novel flared up again. The new editorial board, which brought out its first issue in March 1950, had been significantly changed. Tvardovsky took the place of Simonov as editor-in-chief. Agapov and Aleksandr Krivitsky were replaced by three new members: M. S. Bubennov (an abject conformist under Stalin—and afterwards), S. S. Smirnov, and A. K. Tarasenkov.²⁸

When the manuscript of Za pravoe delo was submitted for examination to the new board, Bubennov brought the issue to the Secretariat of the Union of Writers. Fadeev reported: 'The novel was changed many times. Discussion once more developed in the Secretariat and the above-mentioned comrades²⁹ held to their point of view.' Fadeev then asked why the novel had been published despite all the adverse criticism.

Because a situation has risen in the Union of Soviet Writers and in editorial boards in which the solution of many ideological questions—the evaluation of works, the formulation of one or another serious problem—very often depends on the opinion of a few leaders. We rarely apply the normal collegium principle in our work.

It must be assumed that, in the face of a good deal of opposition, someone on the Novyi mir board was keen on seeing Za pravoe delo published. The likelihood is—in view of his reputation and courage—that that man was Tvardovsky. Had he, as editor-in-chief, been unfavourably inclined towards the novel there would never have been a struggle to have it printed.

One cannot ignore the basic facts of the Grossman affair. First, the author was not an unknown. On the contrary, he had a reputation and, by the official standards, a dubious one. Born in Berdichev in 1904, Grossman had been a war correspondent during World War II for both Krasnaya zvezda and for Einekeit, the Yiddish-language journal of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. His story 'Narod bessmerten' (The People are Immortal), which appeared in Krasnaya zvezda in 1942, was one of the earlier, more powerful works on the war. However, his play Esli verit' pifagoreitsam (If We Believe the Pythagoreans)—written before the war, but not published until 1946—had been severely criticized by the press. After the war he had collected materials on heroic and tragic facts concerning Jewish victims of the Nazis. They were to have been published in what was to be called the Black Book, as a tribute to the Jews who had suffered during the war. The book, although set in type, was never published in the Soviet Union, and the plates were destroyed in 1949, when the Soviet Jewish cultural community was closed down.³⁰ Grossman was hamstrung by Soviet criticism during the postwar Stalin years. Disliked by Stalin³¹ and dogged by hack critics, Grossman never won the acclaim he deserved.

Second is the undeniable fact that, as the novel had been under consideration for so long, the Novyi mir editorial board, members of the Writers' Union and of the literary—and censoring—community must have been well aware of the objections to it. It was thus a deliberate and not a random, decision to publish that particular novel by that particular author during the summer of 1952. It is quite clear that Tvardovsky took the step of publishing the novel then because he felt—correctly—that this was an opportune time, that the literary atmosphere warranted it.

Indeed, another remarkable aspect of this case is that Za pravoe delo, published during a period of mounting fear, under the unyielding influence of the Zhdanov tradition, was never republished in its original form in Russia. As has been noted above, passages published under Stalin were considered unfit to print in later years.³² Nor did Part II of the book ever appear at all, even in the 'best' of literary periods to follow. Grossman died in 1964, some six months after the manuscript of the second part had been confiscated by the secret police.³³

All this indicates that the literary situation during 1952 was in a state of flux. The Virta statement provided one example of the subtle change which was evident and Novyi mir's publication of Za pravoe delo another. Whatever the motivation behind the anti-'no-conflict' campaign, the end result had been a different publishing policy.

One of the outstanding literary events of the whole decade was the publication in 1952 of Valentin Ovechkin's 'Raionnye budni', the first of a series of sketches on contemporary kolkhoz life.³⁴ It was concerned primarily with party work in a rural area and specifically attacked the complacent attitude of the district secretary, Borzov, whose sole aim was to see that the plan was fulfilled. Ovechkin contrasted him with the second-in-command, who was interested in the long-term goal of achieving communism and in treating fairly those kolkhozniki who did manage to fulfil their quota. He supported the principle of incentive, if this would encourage the kolkhozniki to work harder and more effectively.³⁵ Ovechkin emphasized the fact that these characters were not products of his imagination, but real people. The implication was that the Borzov approach was not uncommon and that the political direction of rural work was a real problem which the party must solve.

It is significant that the sketch, far from being passively accepted, was warmly received in spite of the fact that it incisively censured the work of party officials in the rural areas.³⁶

Tvardovsky would later note the innovative nature of Ovechkin's sketch. In his article on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of Novyi' mir he called the appearance of 'Raionnye budni' a literary turning point.³⁷ Noting that it had been published before the September Plenum of the Central Committee in 1953 (which had dealt with problems of agriculture), Tvardovsky said that its truthfulness and ideological orientation were only fully appreciated afterwards. He pointed out that until then criticism had tenaciously attacked the slightest deviations of prose writers from 'conventional and legitimized norms, as it were, of interpreting rural life in literature. It seemed that maintaining these norms of well-being in the reflected picture was more important than reality'.³⁸ The fact is that 'Raionnye budni' was to serve as a model for works on the rural scene throughout the mid-fifties and became symbolic of the 'new approach' of thaw writing. Tvardovsky's other mention of 'Raionnye budni' was in a letter to Fedin about Cancer Ward.³⁹ The letter, written in January 1968, came after the refusal to publish Solzhenitsyn's novel. Tvardovsky wrote: 'Solzhenitsyn, incidentally, outstanding as he is, is not unique or unprecedented in our literature. We should not forget the courage of Ovechkin's ['Raionnye budni'], which appeared in Novyi mir as early as 1952 and marked a turning point.'⁴⁰

All indications—Tvardovsky's remarks, Malenkov's discussion of agriculture at the XIX Party Congress, the very fact of the publication of Ovechkin's sketch, and an assertion that Stalin himself had called for it⁴¹—point to the fact that the ruling group had recognized the serious weaknesses of the agricultural situation and was seeking remedies. The coincidence of Ovechkin's first sketch and Malenkov's speech in the autumn of 1952 indicate a coordinated introduction of forthcoming changes in agricultural policy. (In fact, however, agricultural problems and a corrective programme were to be dealt with only six months after Stalin's death, in September 1953.)

There were other items published in Novyi mir during the last year of Stalin's life which contributed to the general atmosphere of moderation in publishing policy.⁴² Thus, the combination of the Virta statement, along with the concerted attack on the no-conflict theory, the publication of Vasilii Grossman's novel and of Ovechkin's first sketch in the series, as well as the appearance of some lesser articles in Novyi mir, establishes a view of the Soviet literary scene clearly redolent of variety, limited experimentation, and of chance-taking on the part of the editors. Whatever was in the offing—and, by January 1953 attacks on Novyi mir had already begun—the fact remains that an atmosphere of some give-and-take had existed in 1952.⁴³ In literature (as well as in the field of foreign affairs) official policy did not on the surface proceed in consonance with the obviously repressive environment.

We are thus confronted by some curious but, I submit, not random, facts. The events described do present a cumulative image of literary life in 1952 which is far more variegated than is usually recognized. The year selected for examination was one that is generally assessed as oppressive to a degree at least typical of Stalin's postwar years. And there is no reason to doubt this overall judgement. On the contrary, indications do point to a vicious situation in the internal life of the Soviet Union, one headed towards a new phase of mass terror. But our recognition of this fact should not lead us to the conclusion that there was complete uniformity in all aspects of Soviet life. Comparative studies which cover both the Stalinist and post-Stalinist years—Ploss's work on agriculture, for instance, or Conquest's on politics⁴⁴—have shown in specific cases the intricacies and contrasts present within the monolithic Stalinist system, thus providing a realistic basis on which to assess the actual changes which subsequently took place. Certainly, the literary life in the one year examined here suggests that there, too, complexity was the norm.

There is often an assumption in Western writing, encouraged by the image of the totalitarian model, that the Stalin period must have been monochromatic. Thus, whenever one meets a clash of opinion, or an indication of variety or innovation in the post-Stalin period, the natural tendency is to assume that it is 'new'. But the presence of terror did not necessarily mean an absence of variety. People willing to take a chance—and the risks were far greater then—could still manage, as Tvardovsky did with Grossman's novel, to find the means of publishing a particular work. And men like Grossman could still refuse to bow to official criticism, though his bravery could well have been suicidal had Stalin not died when he did. The examples provided were from the last year of Stalin's life, but detailed studies of other years would probably yield similar 'anachronisms'.

It is generally accepted that the 'thaw' began in the late autumn of 1953—after the September Plenum and after the Fourteenth Plenary Session of the Board of the Writers' Union in October—and that the period was marked by a sharp break with previous literary life. In fact, signs of the post-Stalin relaxation were already evident earlier. Ovechkin's third sketch in the series was published in Pravda in July 1953;⁴⁵ Tvardovsky's attack on literary restrictions in his poem 'Za dal'yu dal' ' (Horizon beyond Horizon) came out in Novyi mir the month before.⁴⁶ In September Mikhail Lifshits published an outspoken book review in Novyi mir.⁴⁷ The truth is that, while the atmosphere of the 'thaw' period was markedly different from the Stalinist era, many of its roots can be traced—despite the hiatus produced by the attacks on Novyi mir during the first months of 1953—directly to the preceding era.

Let there be no misunderstanding. The absence of arbitrary terror in the post-Stalin years made an enormous difference in the lives of people in all spheres—the difference between night and day, between madness and a measure of normality. But the absence of terror no more signals the existence of a 'pluralistic' society than the fact of a 'totalitarian' regime implies complete uniformity. Certain people in certain fields were able on occasion to publish or say what was important to them even at the worst of times. The abandonment of the mass purge as a method of attaining compliance has not put an end to the coercive pressure enforcing conformity on the writer (or scientist, or lawyer). He is not at an opposite pole from his colleague of Stalinist times; he must still toe the line if he wishes to be published and paid. The writer who 'sticks his neck out' is still taking a grave chance, even if this is not usually a chance of life or death. In the literary sphere, as in many other areas of Soviet life, the dichotomy between the Stalinist and post-Stalinist periods should not be taken for granted, but analysed and measured.

NOTES

¹ Marshall Shulman, Stalin's Foreign Policy Reappraised (Cambridge, Mass., 1963).

² This is a theme to which Shulman devoted his book. He points out that, in order to find means of dividing its foreign adversaries and maximizing its own influence, 'the Soviet Union reintroduced tactical and ideological formulations that had been associated with earlier periods identified as "Right" in Soviet terminology' (ibid., p. 7).

³Ibid., p. 6.

⁴ A literary review criticized an author who 'writes in only two colours—black and white. Her positive characters are good unto holiness, while from the bad character's very first appearance in the story he is completely unmotivated and a scoundrel' (G. Kalinin, 'Zhurnal i sovremennost' ',Pravda, 4 February 1952, p. 2).

⁵Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 29 March 1952, p. 2, translated in The Current Digest of the Soviet Press (CDSP), vol. IV, no. II, pp. 6-7.

⁶ The first significant attack came in a Pravda editorial. It discussed the crisis in drama, but cautioned against overcorrecting the situation, and then went on to criticize Sovetskoe iskusstvo for not taking a solid stand on the issue; see 'Preodolet' otstavanie dramaturgii', Pravda, 7 April 1952, pp. 2-3.

⁷Ibid., 6 October 1952.

⁸ I. Pitlyar, 'About the "Details" of Life as Handled in Literature—Let Us Discuss Questions of Craftsmanship', Literaturnaya gazeta, 13 January 1953, p. 3, translated in CDSP, vol. V, no. 14, pp. 13-14.

⁹Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 12 March, 1952, p. 12.

¹⁰ Part I of the novel was published in four instalments from July to October 1952.

¹¹ Ilya Ehrenburg, Post-War Years: 1945-54 (Cleveland and New York, 1967), p. 293.

¹²Novyi mir, 1952, no. 7, p. 102. The lines within square brackets were omitted in later editions.

¹³ 'Na lozhnom puti—O romane V. Grossmana, "Za pravoe delo" ', Literaturnaya gazeta, 21 February 1953, pp. 3-4. See also A. Lektorsky, 'Roman, iskazhayushchii obrazy sovetskikh lyudei', Kommunist, 1953, no. 3, pp. 106-15. Lektorsky wrote: 'He sees the whole history of culture, all social phenomena, the history of peoples, through the anti-scientific understanding of the idealistic-mechanistic philosophy of "energetics" and the Freudian theory of the dark, subconscious instincts. . . . '

¹⁴Vasilii Grossman, Everything Flows (New York, 1972).

¹⁵Literaturnaya gazeta, 21 February 1953, p. 3.

¹⁶Ibid.

¹⁷ V. Grossman, Za pravoe delo (M., 1955), p. 137.

¹⁸Ibid., pp. 139-40.

¹⁹ Mikhail Bubennov, 'O romane V. Grossmana "Za pravoe delo" ', Pravda, 13 February 1953, pp. 3-4.

²⁰Ibid. This criticism echoed the notorious attack on Fadeev's novel The Young Guard. The fact is that during the early fifties Fadeev was rewriting the entire novel in order to give credit to the party leadership which, according to official doctrine, had been responsible for the war effort in the Krasnodon area. Grossman does not appear to have heeded the warning issued to his colleague.

²¹ A. Fadeev, 'Nekotorye voprosy raboty Soyuza pisatelei', Literaturnaya gazeta, 28 March 1953, pp. 2-4.

²² See also Marietta Shaginyan, 'Korni oshibok', Izvestiya, 26 March 1953, pp. 2-3.

²³ 'O romane V. Grossmana "Za pravoe delo" ', Literaturnaya gazeta, 3 March 1953, p. 3. In this letter the editors were also apologizing for other articles the journal had published which had been severely criticized.

²⁴ Grossman was criticized at least twice for having failed to own up to his errors. See, for example, Literaturnaya gazeta, 21 February 1953, p. 3, which reported that at a meeting held at the Novyi mir offices on 2 February 1953 Grossman had responded 'scornfully' to the 'completely justified' criticism made by various literary representatives. See also 'V Soyuze sovetskikh pisatelei', Literaturnaya gazeta, 28 March 1953, p. 3, in which A. Perventsev expressed 'general indignation' that Grossman had not replied to criticism.

²⁵ The end of the campaign against Novyi mir—and against Za pravoe delo—was not simultaneous with the death of Stalin. Indeed, it is interesting to note that the literary campaign extended longer than other facets of the repressive onslaught characteristic of the last months of Stalin's life. Even after the official halt of the Doctors' Plot, articles criticizing Novyi mir works continued to appear. Ehrenburg discussed Fadeev's role in the publication of, and later in the attack on, Grossman's novel:

In March 1953, soon after"Stalin's death, I came across an article in Literaturnaya gazeta in which Fadeev sharply attacked Grossman's Za pravoe delo. This puzzled me because I had several times heard him speak well of this novel which he had managed to get published. It had aroused Stalin's displeasure and there had been some scathing reviews of it. But Fadeev had continued to defend it. . . . And now suddenly Fadeev had come out with his article.

Only by mid-April had the attacks on Novyi mir finally stopped. Ehrenburg mentioned the continuation of the literary campaign in his memoirs:

The announcement about the rehabilitation of the doctors appeared; changes were obviously in the air. Fadeev came to me without ringing the bell, sat down on my bed and said: 'Don't be too hard on me .. . I was frightened.' 'But why after his death?' I asked. 'I thought the worst was still to come', he replied (Ehrenburg, op. cit., p. 166, emphasis added).

²⁶Literaturnaya gazeta, 28 March 1953, pp. 2-4.

²⁷Agapov was a Simonov associate who followed him on and off a number of editorial boards—including a return to Novyi mir in the mid-fifties.

²⁸ The only members remaining from the old board were the well-known writers Valentin Kataev, Konstantin Fedin, and Mikhail Sholokhov. But these three members were figure-heads (or, as Soviet critics chose to call them, 'wedding generals'), and did not perform active roles on the journal.

²⁹ Bubennov and Kataev objected to the novel, and Kozhevnikov joined them.

³⁰ See Yehoshua A. Gilboa, The Black Years of Soviet Jewry 1939-1955 (Boston, 1971).

³¹See Ehrenburg, op. cit., p. 165.

³² See footnote 12 above.

³³See, for example, Svetlana Alliluyeva, Only One Year (London, 1969), p. 44: 'In the U.S.S.R. one could expect anything: the search of one's home by warrant, the confiscation of books from one's shelves, of manuscripts from one's desk. In this way the government had confiscated the second part of Vasily Grossman's novel. . . . ' Other sources report that the KGB confiscated the manuscripts after the author's death. One copy at least was preserved by friends. Although Part II has never been published in Russia, excerpts of the novel have begun to appear in the West. See, for example, Posev, no. 7, 1975, pp. 53-55, Grani, no. 97, 1975, pp. 3-31, and Kontinent, nos. 4, 5.

³⁴Novyi mir, 1952, no. 9, pp. 204-21. (Amongst possible translations are 'District Routine' and 'The Daily Round in a Rural District'.) Ovechkin's series continued, in Novyi mir and Pravda, until 1956.

³⁵Ovechkin's sketches have been described frequently in Western studies. See, for example, Harold Swayze, Political Control of Literature in the U.S.S.R. (Cambridge, Mass.), pp. 95-97. Ovechkin's sketch was partially translated in Soviet Studies, vol. IV, no. 4 (April 1953), pp. 448-66. The subsequent instalments in the series were also translated or summarized in Soviet Studies.

³⁶ See, for example, Marietta Shaginyan, 'Kritika i bibliografiya—"Raionnye budni" ', Izvestiya, 26 October 1952, p. 2; 'Shirit' front boevoi publitsistiki!—V sektsii publitsistiki i nauchno-khudozhestvennoi literatury Soyuza sovetskikh pisatelei', Literaturnaya gazeta, 17 January 1953, p. 2; 'Chitatel'skaya konferentsiya ob ocherkakh V. Ovechkina', ibid,, 19 February 1953, p. 3.

³⁷A. Tvardovsky, 'Po sluchayu yubileya', Novyi mir, 1965, no. 1, pp. 3-18.

³⁸Ibid., p. 6.

³⁹Survey, vol. LXIX (October 1968), pp. 112-21.

⁴⁰Ibid., p. 113. For further discussion of the innovativeness of Ovechkin's 'District Routine' see B. Platonov, 'Novoe v nashei zhizni i literature', Zvezda, 1954, no. 5, pp. 160-74 and Gennadii Fish, 'Na perednem krae', Novyi mir, 1957, no. 4, pp. 203-4. Fish wrote: 'Already in 1952, in the days preceding the XIX Congress, when the adverse situation in agriculture, the disastrous condition of many kolkhozy and kolkhozniki was hidden under the froth of official reports of "unprecedented" successes—the writer bravely, with precise, spare lines, showed the true picture of life of one artistically generalized agricultural region of Central Russia' (p. 203).

⁴¹ See Arkadii Belinkov's statement in 'The Soviet Censorship', Studies on the Soviet Union (Munich), vol. XI (new series), no. 2, 1971, p. 17.

⁴² See, for example, V. Komissarzhevsky, 'Chelovek na stsene', Novyi mir, 1952, no. 10, pp. 210-24, in which the author was relatively outspoken in extending the general lines of the attack on the no-conflict theory; N. K. Gudzy and V. A. Zhdanov, 'Voprosy tekstologii', Novyi mir, 1953, no. 3, pp. 232-42, which discussed the censor's arbitrary destruction of texts in nineteenth-century Russia—a veiled comparison between that censor and his Soviet counterpart; V. Ognev, 'Yasnosti!', ibid., 1953, no. 1, pp. 263-7; E. Kazakevich, 'Serdtse druga', ibid., 1953, no. 1, pp. 3-125. Much of the criticism launched against Grossman was applied to Kazakevich as well, although the works were distinctly different and the Kazakevich story was far less ideologically interesting.

⁴³ See, for example, reports of a conference on Mayakovsky in 'Osnovnye voprosy izucheniya tvorchestva V. V. Mayakovskogo (Soveshchanie v Soyuze sovetskikh pisatelei SSSR)', Literaturnaya gazeta, 22, 24, 27, 29 January 1953 (p. 3 in all cases). What is striking about the record of the meeting is the atmosphere of pro-and-con discussion which seems to have prevailed there. Ognev, for example, who was criticized there a number of times for his Novyi mir article and for oral statements he had made, was quoted in Literaturnaya gazeta—both his own statements and his attacks on others present.

⁴⁴ Sidney Ploss, Conflict and Decision-Making in Soviet Russia (Princeton, N.J., 1965); Robert Conquest, Power and Policy in the U.S.S.R. (London, 1962).

⁴⁵ Valentin Ovechkin, 'Na perednem krae', Pravda, 20, 23 July 1953, pp. 2-3.

⁴⁶ Aleksandr Tvardovsky, 'Za dal'yu dal' ', Novyi mir, 1953, no. 6, pp. 59-83.

⁴⁷ M. Lifshits, 'Krepostnye mastera', ibid., 1953, no. 9, pp. 220-6.