The Writers' Union of the USSR was created in the year. Letter to the SP USSR

Writers' Union

The Writers' Union of the USSR is an organization of professional writers of the USSR. It was created in 1934 at the First Congress of Writers of the USSR, convened in accordance with the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of April 23, 1932. This Union replaced all the previously existing organizations of writers: both united on some ideological or aesthetic platform (RAPP, “Pereval”), and those performing the function of writers’ trade unions (All-Russian Union of Writers, All-Roskomdram).

The Charter of the Writers' Union, as amended in 1934, stated: “The Union of Soviet Writers sets the general goal of creating works of high artistic significance, saturated with the heroic struggle of the international proletariat, the pathos of the victory of socialism, reflecting the great wisdom and heroism of the Communist Party. The Union of Soviet Writers aims to create works of art worthy of the great era of socialism.” The charter has been edited and changed several times. As amended in 1971, the Union of Writers of the USSR is “a voluntary public creative organization uniting professional writers of the Soviet Union, participating with their creativity in the struggle for the construction of communism, for social progress, for peace and friendship between peoples.”

The charter defined socialist realism as the main method of Soviet literature and literary criticism, adherence to which was a mandatory condition for membership of the SP.

The highest body of the USSR Writers' Union was the Congress of Writers (between 1934 and 1954, contrary to the Charter, it was not convened).

According to the 1934 Charter, the head of the USSR Joint Venture was the Chairman of the Board. The first chairman of the board of the Union of Writers of the USSR in 1934–1936 was Maxim Gorky. At the same time, the actual management of the activities of the Union was carried out by the 1st Secretary of the Union, Alexander Shcherbakov. Then the chairmen were Alexei Tolstoy (1936–1938); Alexander Fadeev (1938–1944 and 1946–1954); Nikolai Tikhonov (1944–1946); Alexey Surkov (1954–1959); Konstantin Fedin (1959–1977). According to the 1977 Charter, the leadership of the Writers' Union was carried out by the First Secretary of the Board. This position was held by: Georgy Markov (1977–1986); Vladimir Karpov (since 1986, resigned in November 1990, but continued to conduct business until August 1991); Timur Pulatov (1991).

The structural divisions of the USSR Writers' Union were regional writers' organizations with a structure similar to the central organization: the Writers' Union of the Union and Autonomous Republics, writers' organizations of regions, territories, and the cities of Moscow and Leningrad.

The printed organs of the USSR Writers' Union were "Literary Gazette", the magazines "New World", "Znamya", "Friendship of Peoples", "Questions of Literature", "Literary Review", "Children's Literature", "Foreign Literature", "Youth", " Soviet Literature" (published in foreign languages), "Theater", "Sovietish Heyland" (in Yiddish), "Star", "Bonfire".

The board of the USSR Union of Writers was in charge of the publishing house “Soviet Writer”, the Literary Institute named after. M. Gorky, Literary consultation for beginning authors, All-Union Bureau for the Promotion of Fiction, Central House of Writers named after. A. A. Fadeeva in Moscow.

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

Under the rule of the USSR Writers' Union, the Literary Fund operated; regional writers' organizations also had their own literary funds. The task of the literary funds was to provide members of the joint venture with material support (according to the “rank” of the writer) in the form of housing, construction and maintenance of “writer’s” holiday villages, medical and sanatorium-resort services, provision of vouchers to “houses of creativity of writers”, provision of personal services, supply of scarce goods and food products.

Admission to membership in the Writers' Union was carried out on the basis of an application, to which the recommendations of three members of the joint venture were to be attached. A writer wishing to join the Union had to have two published books and submit reviews of them. The application was considered at a meeting of the local branch of the USSR SP and had to receive at least two-thirds of the votes when voting, then it was considered by the secretariat or the board of the USSR SP and at least half of their votes were required for admission to membership. In 1934, the Union had 1,500 members, in 1989 – 9,920.

In 1976, it was reported that out of the total number of Union members, 3,665 write in Russian.

The writer could be expelled from the Writers' Union. Reasons for exclusion could include:

- criticism of the writer from the highest party authorities. An example is the exclusion of M. M. Zoshchenko and A. A. Akhmatova, which followed Zhdanov’s report in August 1946 and the party resolution “On the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad”;

– publication abroad of works not published in the USSR. B. L. Pasternak was the first to be expelled for this reason for publishing his novel Doctor Zhivago in Italy in 1957;

– publication in “samizdat”;

– openly expressed disagreement with the policies of the CPSU and the Soviet state;

– participation in public speeches (signing open letters) protesting against the persecution of dissidents.

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

For political reasons, A. Sinyavsky, Y. Daniel, N. Korzhavin, G. Vladimov, L. Chukovskaya, A. Solzhenitsyn, V. Maksimov, V. Nekrasov, A. Galich, E. Etkind, V. were excluded from the Writers' Union. Voinovich, I. Dzyuba, N. Lukash, Viktor Erofeev, E. Popov, F. Svetov. In protest against the exclusion of Popov and Erofeev from the joint venture in December 1979, V. Aksenov, I. Lisnyanskaya and S. Lipkin announced their withdrawal from the Union of Writers of the USSR.

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

The main successors of the USSR Writers' Union in Russia are the International Commonwealth of Writers' Unions, which was led by Sergei Mikhalkov for a long time, the Union of Writers of Russia and the Union of Russian Writers.

The basis for dividing the single community of writers of the USSR, which consisted of about 11,000 people, into two wings: the Union of Writers of Russia (SPR) and the Union of Russian Writers (SWP) - was the so-called “Letter of the 74”. The first included those who were in solidarity with the authors of the “Letter of the 74’s”, the second included writers, as a rule, of liberal views. It also served as an indicator of the mood that prevailed at that time among a number of literary figures. The most famous, most talented writers in Russia started talking about the danger of Russophobia, about the infidelity of the chosen “perestroika” path, about the importance of patriotism for the revival of Russia.

The Writers' Union of Russia is an all-Russian public organization that unites a number of Russian and foreign writers. It was formed in 1991 on the basis of the unified Union of Writers of the USSR. The first chairman is Yuri Bondarev. As of 2004, the Union consisted of 93 regional organizations and united 6,991 people. In 2004, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the death of A.P. Chekhov, the A.P. Chekhov Memorial Medal was established. Awarded to persons awarded the A.P. Chekhov Literary Prize “for their contribution to Russian modern literature.”

The Union of Russian Writers is an all-Russian public organization uniting Russian and foreign writers. The Union of Russian Writers was formed in 1991 during the collapse of the Union of Writers of the USSR. At the origins of its creation were Dmitry Likhachev, Sergei Zalygin, Viktor Astafiev, Yuri Nagibin, Anatoly Zhigulin, Vladimir Sokolov, Roman Solntsev. First Secretary of the Union of Russian Writers: Svetlana Vasilenko.

The Union of Russian Writers is a co-founder and organizer of the Voloshin Prize, the Voloshin Competition and the Voloshin Festival in Koktebel, All-Russian Meetings of Young Writers, and is a member of the Organizing Committee for the celebration of the anniversaries of M. A. Sholokhov, N. V. Gogol, A. T. Tvardovsky and other outstanding writers , on the jury of the International Literary Prize. Yuri Dolgoruky, conducts “Provincial Literary Evenings” in Moscow, was the initiator of the construction of a monument to O. E. Mandelstam in Voronezh in 2008, participates in international and Russian book fairs, together with the Union of Journalists of Russia holds conferences of women writers, creative evenings, literary readings in libraries, schools and universities, round tables on translation issues, regional seminars on prose, poetry and criticism.

The publishing house “Union of Russian Writers” was opened under the Union of Russian Writers.

A major event in the literary life of our country was the creation of the Union of Soviet Writers, in the organization and work of which Gorky took a large part.

So, at the end of April 1932, a meeting of writers takes place at the apartment of Gorky, who had just arrived from Sorrento. The resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted on April 23 on the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations and the creation of the Union of Soviet Writers is discussed. Another meeting of writers on Malaya Nikitskaya took place in October.

The creation of a single all-Union writers' organization instead of various literary groups that were at war with each other was an important step in the development of Soviet literature. In the 20s, the struggle of literary groups included not only a principled struggle for the party line in art, a difficult search for ways to develop Soviet literature, a fight against relapses of bourgeois ideology, and the involvement of the broad masses in literary creativity, but also unhealthy tendencies - arrogance, intrigue, squabbles , settling personal scores, a suspicious attitude towards any critical remarks, endless organizational fuss that distracted writers from creative work, from their direct business - writing.

And Gorky did not like groupism - the sweeping denial of everything that was created by writers who were not members of one or another literary group, and, on the contrary, the immense praise of any work written by any member of the group. Gorky evaluated works without regard to which literary group the author belonged to, and, for example, severely condemned some of the works of his comrades in Znanie. He was in favor of creative competition in literature of different writing personalities and trends, and did not recognize the right of some writers (including himself) to dictate their opinions to others, to command them. Gorky rejoiced at the diversity of writers' personalities and artistic forms different from his. Thus, he recognized the individual achievements of writers of the decadent camp, which was generally alien to him. Gorky called the novel “The Petty Demon” by F. Sologub, a writer about whom he has more than once spoken with condemnation, “a good, valuable book.” Gorky participated in the literary struggle - by approving those works that seemed worthy of praise to him, condemning those that he considered harmful and bad, but he never approved of group struggle, groupism in literature, "harmful isolation in narrow squares of group interests, striving for whatever no matter how to get into the “commanders of the heights”.

“I consider circleism, fragmentation into groups, mutual squabbling, hesitation and vacillation a disaster on the literary front...” - he wrote in 1930, without giving preference to any of the literary groups, without interfering in group discord.

The existence of various literary organizations no longer corresponded to the prevailing situation in the country. The ideological and political unity of the Soviet people, including the artistic intelligentsia, required the creation of a single writers' union.

Elected chairman of the Organizing Committee for the preparation of the congress, Gorky with great energy set about creating a unified all-Union writers' organization; he was helped by A.A. Fadeev, A.A. Surkov, A.S. Shcherbakov.

On August 17, 1934, the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers opens. It was attended by about 600 delegates from more than 50 nationalities.

The congress took place during a period of enormous achievements of the Soviet country in building socialism. New plants, factories, cities arose, and the collective farm system won victory in the countryside. A new man, formed by a decade and a half of the Soviet system, worked in all areas of socialist construction - a man of new morality, a new worldview.

Soviet literature played a major role in the formation of this new man. The elimination of illiteracy, the cultural revolution in the country, and the unprecedented thirst for knowledge and art of the broadest masses made literature a powerful force in the cause of socialist construction. Unprecedented circulations of books clearly evidenced this: by 1934, 8 million copies of Gorky’s novel “Mother” were published, about 4 million of “Quiet Don” by M. Sholokhov, 1 million of “Tsushima” by A.S. Novikov-Priboy.

The Writers' Congress became a great event in the life of the entire country, the entire Soviet people. And it was not without reason that the congress was talked about at workers’ meetings, in college classrooms, in Red Army units, and in pioneer camps.

The congress lasted for sixteen days, and all these hot August days Gorky, unanimously elected chairman of the congress, sat on the presidium at long meetings, listened attentively to speeches, during breaks and after meetings he talked with guests and delegates, received foreign writers and writers from the allied countries who arrived at the congress. republics

The writer gave an opening speech and made a report.

“The height of the demands placed on fiction by the rapidly renewed reality and cultural revolutionary work of Lenin’s party - the height of these demands is explained by the height of the assessment of the importance that the party attaches to the art of painting with words. There was and is not a state in the world in which science and literature were used if only for such comradely help, such concern for improving the professional qualifications of workers in art and science...

The state of the proletarians must educate thousands of excellent “masters of culture”, “engineers of souls”. This is necessary in order to return to the entire mass of the working people the right to develop their minds, talents, abilities that was taken from them everywhere in the world...” - Gorky said at the congress.

The congress showed that Soviet literature is faithful to the Communist Party, its struggle for art that serves the people, the art of socialist realism. He played a big role in the history of Soviet literature. In the seven years between the First Congress of Soviet Writers and the Great Patriotic War (1934-1941), “Quiet Don” by M.A. Sholokhov, “Walking through the Torments” by A.N. Tolstoy were completed, and “The Road to the Ocean” by L. Leonov received reader recognition , “People from the Outback” by A. Malyshkin, “The Country of Ant” by A. Tvardovsky, “Tanker “Derbent” by Y. Krymov, “Pushkin” by Y. Tynyanov, “The Last of the Udege” by A. Fadeev, “The Lonely Sail Is White” by V. Kataeva, “Tanya” by A. Arbuzova, “Man with a Gun” by N. Pogodin and many other works that make up the golden fund of Soviet literature.

The congress resolution noted the “outstanding role ... of the great proletarian writer Maxim Gorky” in uniting the country’s literary forces. Gorky was elected chairman of the board of the Writers' Union.

Always extremely sensitive and attentive to literary matters (he did not read sent manuscripts if he felt a little unwell, fearing that a bad mood would affect his assessment of what he read), Gorky was aware of the enormous responsibility of his post.

In the field of literature and culture in general, Gorky enjoyed enormous authority, but he always listened to the opinions of others, never considered his judgment to be the “ultimate truth,” and in his articles and speeches he expressed concepts developed by Soviet literature of those years as a whole. He considered the work of literature to be a collective matter; shouts, orders, commands in literature seemed unacceptable to Gorky. “...I am not a quarterly supervisor and not a “boss” at all, but a Russian writer like you,” he wrote to B. Lavrenev back in 1927.

The central figure of Soviet literature of those years, a world-famous artist, Gorky did not approve of the hype and endless praise created around him and wrote, for example, that the publication of a memoir about him, “a man still living,” was not to his liking: “Wait a little! "

On the manuscript of one critic, who, wanting to convince the reader of the correctness of his judgments, often quoted Gorky, Alexey Maksimovich wrote: “I consider it necessary to note that M. Gorky for us is not an indisputable authority, but - like everything from the past - is subject to careful study, the most serious criticism."

Gorky was well aware of the authority his word enjoyed, and therefore he was very cautious in his assessments of current literary life, generous in praise, but very careful in censure. In his public speeches and newspaper articles of recent years, words condemning specifically this or that writer are not very often found - this is what Gorky preferred to do in letters and conversations.

“If I praise him, you will praise him, if I scold him, you will bite him to death,” Gorky said at an art exhibition to a reporter who was annoyingly extorting the writer’s opinion about this or that artist.

“Aleksei Maksimovich’s manner of speaking, especially publicly, from the podium or the chairman’s seat at a meeting, reflected that shy awkwardness and caution that is felt in the movements and general demeanor of a very strong person who carefully measures his gestures, fearing to offend someone,” recalls L. Kassil - Yes, a true hero of words, Gorky, when he spoke in public, tried not to accidentally kill anyone with his powerful words. And to an unobservant listener this might even seem like verbal clumsiness. But what a heroic power of influence, what heartfelt depth was felt behind every word of Gorky!

The greatest writer of his time, Gorky did not consider art as a personal, individual matter. He considered his work, like the work of other writers - old and young, famous and little-known, - part of the enormous cause of all Soviet literature, the entire Soviet people. Gorky was equally kind and equally strict towards both the writer, who deserved honor and recognition, and the author of the first book in his life: “... one should not think that we, writers, received only letters of praise from him. To evaluate our literary works he had the only firm criterion: the interests of Soviet readers, and if it seemed to him that we were causing damage to these interests, he felt forced to tell us the most cruel truth,” writes K. Chukovsky.

It was surprising that writers were not sufficiently attracted to the theme of labor, the theme of the Soviet working class: “For three thousand writers registered in the Union (Union of Soviet Writers - I.N.), the favorite hero is still the intellectual, the son of an intellectual and his dramatic fuss with himself myself."

Gorky paid great attention to the military theme in literature: “We are on the eve of the war...” he wrote in March 1935. “Our literature should take an active part in organizing defense.”

In the thirties, Gorky spoke a lot on issues of the theory of Soviet literature.

He tirelessly repeats that a writer must understand the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the class character of literature: “Literature was never the personal matter of Stendhal or Leo Tolstoy, it is always a matter of the era, country, class... The writer is the eyes, ears and voice of the class... .he is always and inevitably the organ of the class, its sensitivity. He perceives, forms, depicts the moods, desires, anxieties, hopes, passions, interests, vices and virtues of his class, his group... as long as the class state exists, the writer is a man of the environment and era - must serve and serves, whether he wants it or not, with or without reservations, the interests of his era, his environment... The working class says: literature must be one of the instruments of culture in my hands, it must serve my cause, for my cause is a universal cause."

Gorky more than once emphasized that the principle of communist party membership is the main thing in the work of every Soviet writer - regardless of whether he is a member of the party or not. But this partisanship cannot be expressed otherwise than in a high artistic form. Party membership in art was for Gorky an artistic expression of the vital interests of the proletariat, the working masses.

Gorky himself followed the party line both in his works and in his public activities. His work, imbued with passionate, irreconcilable partisanship, was that part of the general proletarian cause, which V.I. Lenin wrote about in the article “Party organization and party literature.”

During these years, Gorky often wrote and spoke a lot about socialist realism - the artistic method of Soviet literature. Gorky considered the main task of socialist realism to be “the stimulation of a socialist, revolutionary worldview and attitude.” He points out that in order to correctly depict and understand today, one must clearly see and imagine tomorrow, the future, based on development prospects, show today's life, because only by knowing and correctly imagining the future can one remake the present.

Socialist realism was not invented by Gorky. No creative method arises overnight or is created by one person. It has been developing over many years in the creative practice of many artists, creatively mastering the heritage of the past. A new method in art appears as a response to the new vital and artistic needs of mankind. Socialist realism was formed simultaneously with the growth of political struggle, with the growth of self-awareness of the revolutionary proletariat, and the development of its aesthetic understanding of the world. The very definition of the creative method of Soviet literature - “socialist realism”, which appeared in 1932, determined an already existing literary phenomenon. This artistic method was generated primarily by the very course of the literary process - and not only in Soviet times - and not by theoretical statements or prescriptions. Of course, the theoretical understanding of literary phenomena should not be underestimated. And here, as in specific artistic practice, the role of M. Gorky was exceptionally great.

The requirement to “look at the present from the future” did not at all mean embellishment of reality, its idealization: “Socialist realism is the art of the strong! Strong enough to fearlessly face life...”

Gorky demanded truth, but truth not of an individual fact, but winged truth, illuminated by the great ideas of a great tomorrow. Socialist realism for him is a realistically accurate depiction of life in its development from the perspective of a Marxist worldview. “Scientific socialism,” Gorky wrote, “has created for us the highest intellectual plateau, from which the past is clearly visible and the direct and only path to the future is indicated...”

He viewed socialist realism as a method that is evolving, forming, and in continuous movement. He did not consider either his own or anyone else’s formulas and “directives” as directive and final. It is no coincidence that he often spoke about socialist realism in the future tense, for example: “Proud, joyful pathos... will give our literature a new tone, help it create new forms, create the new direction we need - socialist realism” (my italics - I. N.).

In socialist realism, Gorky wrote, realistic and romantic principles merge together. According to him, “the fusion of romanticism and realism” is generally characteristic of “great literature”: “in relation to such classic writers as Balzac, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Gogol, Leskov, Chekhov, it is difficult to say with sufficient accuracy who they are, the romantics or realists? In major artists, realism and romanticism always seem to be combined."

Gorky by no means identified his personal writing style with the method of socialist realism, believing that the broad framework of this artistic method contributed to the identification and development of various artistic individuals and styles.

Speaking about the problem of typicality in literature, about the intertwining of class and individual traits in a person and in the artistic image, Gorky pointed out that a person’s class characteristics are not external, “personal characteristics”, but are rooted very deeply, intertwined with individual traits, influencing them in to some extent transform themselves into one or another “individual version” of stinginess, cruelty, hypocrisy, etc. Thus, he noted that “the proletariat by social status... is not always the proletariat by spirit,” draws attention to the need for artistic comprehension of social psychology - the character traits of a person determined by his belonging to a certain social group.

The unity of the ideological aspirations of Soviet writers, socialist realism as a method of Soviet literature, Gorky pointed out, in no case requires writers to have artistic uniformity or renounce creative individuality; he knew well that the writer always chooses the theme, characters, plot, and manner of narration himself, and dictating anything to him here is stupid, harmful and absurd.

In this, Gorky was at one with Lenin, who wrote in 1905 that in literature “it is absolutely necessary to provide greater scope for personal initiative, individual inclinations, scope for thought and imagination, form and content.”

More than once Gorky reminds writers that the decisive force of history is the people, the simple ordinary person. He opposes works in which all the merits in military operations are attributed to commanders (and sometimes even to one person) and ordinary soldiers, the armed people, remain in the shadows. “The main drawback of your story,” he writes to P. Pavlenko (we are talking about the novel “In the East.” - I.N.), “is the complete absence of a heroic unit in it - an ordinary red soldier... You showed only commanders as heroes, but there is not a single page on which you would try to depict the heroism of the masses and the ordinary unit. This is strange, to say the least."

Gorky, one of the founders of Soviet literary scholarship, does a lot to promote and study Russian classical literature. His articles on literary issues amaze with the breadth of the material involved and contain deep assessments of the work of Russian classic writers. A Marxist analysis of art, according to Gorky, will help to correctly understand the writers of the past, to understand their achievements and errors. “The genius of Dostoevsky is undeniable; in terms of the power of depiction, his talent is equal, perhaps, only to Shakespeare,” wrote Gorky, noting the enormous influence of the writer’s ideas on Russian public life. This influence needs to be understood and not ignored.

“...I am against the transformation of legal literature into illegal literature, which is sold under the counter, seduces young people with its “forbiddenness” and makes them expect “inexplicable pleasures” from this literature,” Gorky explained the reasons why he believed , it was necessary to publish “Demons,” Dostoevsky’s novel, in which the revolutionary movement of the 70s was distorted, atypical extremes were presented as the main, defining, typical.

The General Meeting of the USSR Academy of Sciences on March 24, 1934 unanimously elected Gorky as director of the Pushkin House (Institute of Russian Literature) in Leningrad - a scientific institution engaged in the study of Russian and Soviet literature and the publication of academic (the most complete, scientifically verified and commented) collected works of Russian classics; at the Pushkin House there is a Literary Museum, where portraits and editions of the works of major Russian writers, their personal belongings are presented; The rich archives of the institute contain manuscripts of writers.

Modern foreign culture is also constantly in Gorky’s field of vision. The social storms of the twentieth century - the First World War, the October Revolution in Russia, the protests of the proletariat of Europe and America - greatly undermined the rule of the bourgeoisie and accelerated the political decay of the capitalist system. This could not but affect the ideology and culture of the ruling classes, which Gorky correctly and deeply revealed: “The process of decomposition of the bourgeoisie is a comprehensive process, and literature is not excluded from it.”

In the thirties, the writer’s speeches on issues of the language of fiction played an important role. Gorky defended the position that language is a means of national culture and “a writer should write in Russian, and not in Vyatka, not in Balakhon”; he opposed the passion for dialectisms and jargon, which was characteristic of a number of writers in the 30s ( for example, for F. Panferov), against artistically unjustified word creation.

Back in 1926, Gorky wrote that the language of modern literature is “chaotically” clogged with “trash of ‘local sayings,’ which, most often, are distortions of simple and precise words.”

The cultivation of jargon and dialectisms by literature contradicted the movement of life itself. The growth of culture among the broad masses and the elimination of illiteracy dealt a powerful blow to deviations from the literary language, its distortions, jargons and dialects.

For Gorky, the demand for rich, figurative language was part of the struggle for high literary culture.

It turned out, the writer noted, that the men of Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Gleb Uspensky spoke brighter and more expressively than the heroes of modern works about the village, but the horizons of the peasants who made the revolution and went through the civil war were broader, their understanding of life was deeper.

In his first years as a writer, Gorky himself “sinned” through excessive, artistically unjustified use of colloquial and dialect words, but, having become a mature artist, he erased them. Here are examples from Chelkash.

The first publication, in 1895, stated:

“Where is the tackle...? Eh...? - Gavrila suddenly asked suspiciously, darting his eyes around the boat.”

“Oh, if only the rain would fuck me!” whispered Chel-kash.”

Gorky later rewrote these phrases as follows:

“Where is the tackle?” Gavrila suddenly asked, looking around the boat restlessly.

“Oh, if only it would rain!” Chelkash whispered.

Having realized from his own experience the uselessness of the artistically unjustified use of colloquial and dialect words, Gorky convinced Soviet writers of this as well.

Gorky was supported in the discussion that unfolded before the writers' congress by M. Sholokhov, L. Leonov, A. Tolstoy, S. Marshak, Yu. Libedinsky, M. Slonimsky, N. Tikhonov, O. Forsh, V. Shishkov, Vs. Ivanov, A. Makarenko, L. Seifullina, V. Sayanov, L. Sobolev. Publishing Gorky’s article “On Language,” Pravda wrote in an editorial note: “The editors of Pravda fully support A.M. Gorky in his struggle for the quality of literary speech, for the further rise of Soviet literature.”

Gorky struggles a lot and persistently to improve the writing skills of literary youth and their general culture. This work was especially relevant in the years when people from the popular environment who did not have a solid educational base came to literature, and the cultural growth of the reading masses proceeded at an unusually rapid pace. “We are facing a very original, but sad opportunity,” Gorky said with irony, “to see readers more literate than writers.” Therefore, he writes a lot about literary craftsmanship, founded the magazine “Literary Studies”, on the pages of which experienced authors and critics analyzed the works of beginners, talked about how Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Nekrasov, L. Tolstoy, G. Uspensky, wrote, Stendhal, Balzac, Merimee, Zola; K. Fedin, N. Tikhonov, B. Lavrenev, P. Pavlenko, F. Gladkov shared their writing experience; Gorky himself published the articles “How I Studied”, “Conversations about Craft”, “On Literary Technique”, “On Prose”, “On Plays”, “On Socialist Realism”, “Conversations with Young People”, “Literary Fun” and others .

The magazine met the enormous interest in literary creativity among the broad masses, talked about the work of literary circles, about the work of Russian classics - Pushkin, Gogol, Goncharov, Shchedrin, Dostoevsky, Nekrasov, Chekhov.

A world-famous writer, Gorky studied until his last days - both from recognized masters and from young writers, from those who had just begun to work, whose voices sounded strong and fresh in a new way. “I feel younger than my years because I never get tired of learning... Knowledge is an instinct, the same as love and hunger,” he wrote.

Calling for learning from the classics and developing their traditions, Gorky severely condemned imitation, epigonism, and the desire to mechanically follow the stylistic or speech manner of one or another recognized writer.

On Gorky's initiative, the Literary Institute was created - the only educational institution in the world for training writers. The institute still exists today. Since its foundation it has been named after Gorky.

Gorky highly values ​​the title of Soviet writer and calls on writers to remember the responsibility of their work and their behavior, condemns the still unresolved sentiments of groupism, bohemianism, individualism, and moral laxity in the literary community. “The era imperatively demands from the writer participation in the construction of a new world, in the defense of the country, in the fight against the bourgeoisie... - the era demands from literature active participation in class battles... A Soviet writer must educate himself as a cultured person, he must look at literature not as a path to satiety and glory, and as a revolutionary cause, one must develop an attentive, honest attitude towards fellow workers."

When one of the novice authors stated that “it is impossible for a writer to be an encyclopedist,” Gorky replied: “If this is your strong conviction, stop writing, because this conviction says that you are incapable or do not want to learn. A writer should know as much as possible. And You are trying to talk yourself into the right to be illiterate." He wrote sarcastically about “seasoned writers of considerable age, seriously illiterate, incapable of learning”; “They compose fiction from the material of newspaper articles, are very pleased with themselves and jealously guard their face in literature.”

Being very demanding of the “brother writers,” Gorky at the same time protects them from petty supervision, understanding the subtle neuropsychic organization of the artist, and is very sensitive to the personality of the writer. Thus, to the impressionable and easily susceptible to moods of Vs. Ivanov, he gently and friendly advised: “Do not let yourself into the power of the devil of despondency, irritation, laziness and other mortal sins...” Concerned about A.N. Tolstoy’s illness, Gorky wrote to him: “It’s time “You should learn to take care of yourself for the magnificent work that you do so skillfully and confidently.”

Gorky also helped writers financially. When the aspiring poet Pavel Zheleznov, having received from him an amount equal to his earnings for the year, was embarrassed, Gorky said: “Study, work, and when you get out into the world, help some capable young man, and we will be even!”

“An artist especially needs a friend,” he wrote, and Gorky was such a friend—sensitive, attentive, demanding, and when necessary stern and strict—for many writers—pre-revolutionary and Soviet. His exceptional attentiveness, ability to listen and understand his interlocutor were the basis for his ability to suggest to dozens of writers the themes and images of their books, which became the best achievements of Soviet literature. It was on Gorky’s initiative that F. Gladkov wrote autobiographical stories.

Demanding of writers, severely criticizing them for mistakes and mistakes, Gorky was indignant when people who had little knowledge of it began to judge the “difficult matter of literature.” He was very worried that critical speeches addressed to individual writers were conducted in an unacceptable tone; he felt an incomprehensible desire to defame them, to present their searches (sometimes mistakes) as political attacks against the Soviet system: “I find that we are overusing the concepts of “class” enemy", "counter-revolutionary", and that most often this is done by people without talent, people of dubious value, adventurers and "grabbers". As history has shown, unfortunately, the writer's fears were not unfounded.

None of the outstanding works of literature of those years passed by Gorky. “Thank you for “Peter” (the novel “Peter I.” - I.N.),” he writes to A.N. Tolstoy, “I received the book... I read it, I admire it, I envy it. How silver the book sounds, what an amazing abundance subtle, clever details and not a single unnecessary detail!” “Leonov is very talented, talented for life,” he notes, referring to the novel Sot. Gorky praised V. Keene’s novel “On the Other Side” (1928).

As before, Gorky pays a lot of attention to national literatures, edits the collections “Creativity of the Peoples of the USSR” and “Armenian Poetry,” and writes a preface to Adyghe fairy tales. He also highly appreciated the story of the Yukaghir writer Tekki Odulok “The Life of Imteurgin the Elder” (1934) - about the tragic life of the Chukchi in pre-revolutionary times.

Thus, the sixth part of M. Sholokhov’s “Quiet Don” frightened some literary figures of those years, who saw in it a thickening of dark colors.

In "October" they stopped publishing Sholokhov's novel, they demanded that passages that depicted the uprising on the Upper Don as a result of erroneous and sometimes simply criminal actions of individual representatives of Soviet power be excluded. Prejudiced critics - reinsurers even protested against the fact that the author showed Red Army soldiers who rode worse than the Cossacks. “The important thing is not that they rode poorly, but that those who rode poorly defeated those who rode exceptionally well,” Sholokhov wrote to Gorky.

Gorky, having read the sixth part, said to the writer: “The book is written well and it will go without any abbreviations.” This he achieved.

Gorky also contributed to the publication of “The Golden Calf,” the second satirical novel by I. Ilf and E. Petrov, which met many objections from those who believed that satire was generally unnecessary in Soviet literature.

Gorky was the most authoritative figure in Soviet literature of the 30s. But it would be wrong to hold him responsible for everything that happened in her. Firstly, Gorky, aware of the strength of his authority, was careful in his assessments, did not impose his opinions, and took into account the views of others, although he did not always agree with them. Secondly, at the same time as Gorky, other authoritative writers and critics spoke in literature, and lively discussions took place in magazines and newspapers. And not everything that Gorky proposed was implemented.

“I’m not a person, I’m an institution,” Gorky once said jokingly about himself, and there was a lot of truth in this joke. Chairman of the board of the Union of Writers, in addition to his duties as the leader of Soviet writers, he edited magazines, read manuscripts, was the initiator of dozens of publications, wrote articles, works of art... “Yes, I’m tired, but this is not the fatigue of age, but the result of continuous long-term stress.” Samghin "eats me." Gorky was approaching his seventh decade, but his energy was still irrepressible.

Gorky was the initiator of the publication of the magazines: “Our Achievements”, “Collective Farmer”, “Abroad”, “Literary Studies”, the illustrated monthly “USSR at Construction”, literary almanacs, serial publications “History of the Civil War”, “History of Factories and Plants” , "The Poet's Library", "The History of a Young Man of the 19th Century", "The Life of Remarkable People"; he conceives “The History of the Village”, “The History of Cities”, “The History of the Common Man”, “The History of Women” - “the enormous importance of women in the development of Russian culture in the fields of science, literature, painting, pedagogy, and in the development of the art industry.” The writer puts forward the idea of ​​the book “The History of a Bolshevik” or “The Life of a Bolshevik,” seeing in it “the factual, everyday history of the party.”

Having edited many books in the “Life of Remarkable People” series, Gorky points out the need to include in the series the biographies of Lomonosov, Dokuchaev, Lassalle, Mendeleev, Byron, Michurin, biographies of “Bolsheviks, starting with Vladimir Ilyich, ending with the typical rank and file of the party” - like the St. Petersburg Bolshevik, Chairman of the District Council of the Petrograd Side A.K. Skorokhodov, shot by the Petliurists in 1919.

The serial publications that began under Gorky continue to this day: about five hundred books “The Lives of Remarkable People” have already been published (including a biography of Gorky himself; a collection of literary portraits has been published three times). The volume “History of the Civil War”, which appeared during the writer’s lifetime, was supplemented by four more, multi-volume histories of cities - Moscow, Kyiv, Leningrad - were published, and books on the history of factories were published.

More than 400 books were published in the "Poet's Library" founded by Gorky - a fundamental collection of monuments of Russian poetry, starting with folklore and ending with the present day. The series also includes collections of works by the greatest poets of the peoples of the USSR. "The Poet's Library" is still published. It consists of the Large (scientific type) and Small series. Each book has an introductory article and comments (explanations).

The series publishes works not only by major poets and luminaries (such as Pushkin, Nekrasov, Mayakovsky), but also by many lesser-known poets who played their role in the formation of Russian poetic culture (for example, I. Kozlova, I. Surikov, I. Annensky, B. Kornilov).

The magazine "Our Achievements" (1929-1936), founded by Gorky, focused its attention on the successes of the Land of Soviets (the very name of the magazine clearly speaks of this) - the growth of industry, road construction, irrigation, the introduction of technology into agriculture, etc. “Our Achievements” wrote a lot about the collectivization of agriculture; a number of issues were devoted to the achievements of individual republics - Armenia, Chuvashia, North Ossetia.

Gorky attracted leading producers and scientists to cooperate. A.E. Fersman, V.G. Khlopin, M.F. Ivanov, A.F. Ioffe, N.N. Burdenko spoke in the magazine. Thanks to Gorky’s care and help, a galaxy of glorious Soviet writers and journalists grew up in “Our Achievements”: B. Agapov, P. Luknitsky, L. Nikulin, K. Paustovsky, V. Stavsky, M. Prishvin, L. Kassil, Y. Ilyin, T. Tess and others.

The numbers speak eloquently about the extent to which “Our Achievements” met the needs of readers. The circulation of Gorky's magazine reached 75 thousand copies, while the circulation of other monthly publications was much smaller (October - 15 thousand, Zvezda - only 8 thousand).

In four languages ​​- Russian, English, German and French - the magazine "USSR on Construction" (1930-1941) is published, containing photographic documents about the life of the Soviet country, accompanied by short captions (now a magazine of this type is also published - "Soviet Union").

For the magazine "Collective Farmer" (1934-1939), Gorky edited about two hundred manuscripts and rejected about a hundred - while pointing out in detail their shortcomings: the difficulty of presenting the material or the excessive simplification of its presentation, the lack of answers to the questions posed, etc. “On the collective farms, the village ‘peasant’ showed that he knows how to perfectly select a book from the library, and perfectly distinguishes literature from waste paper,” he said. The magazine published Gorky's stories about the old village "Saddler and Fire", "Eagle", "Bull", written in a new artistic manner for the writer, with restrained intonation and sad humor.

The magazine "Abroad" (1930-1938), based on rich factual material, told the reader about life abroad, about the labor movement, showed the moral degradation of the capitalist world, and warned about the preparation by the imperialists of a new world war. Gorky persistently sought to ensure that the magazine's material was accessible, varied, and fascinating. He advised to involve writers who had been abroad in cooperation, recommended to publish cartoons and talk about the oddities of bourgeois life. M. Koltsov, L. Nikulin, Em. Yaroslavsky, D. Zaslavsky, as well as foreign writers - A. Barbusse, R. Rolland, Martin-Andersen Nexe, I. Becher, appeared on the pages of the magazine; drawings by F. Mazereel, A. Deineki, D.Moora.

The book “Day of Peace”, published on Gorky’s initiative, is also associated with the magazine. It tells about one day in the life of our planet - from September 27, 1635, and compares the world of socialism and the world of capitalism.

The manuscript was read by Gorky, but he no longer saw the book.

In 1961, a new book, “Day of Peace,” was published, containing more than 100 printed pages, reflecting the events of September 27, 1960. Currently, the weekly magazine "Abroad" is published - a review of the foreign press.

Gorky paid special attention to the form of articles and essays published in magazines. He demanded accessibility of presentation, combined with respect for the popular reader, sharply opposed the “cloth language”, “verbal self-indulgence”, against a simplified condescending conversation with the reader as a spiritually underdeveloped person. No, Gorky passionately argued, and the illiterate worker has a lot of life experience and the wisdom of generations behind him.

The writer also carefully monitored the appearance of the publications - the clarity of the font, the quality of the paper, the brightness and accessibility of the illustrations. Thus, while looking through materials for the magazine "Collective Farmer", Gorky noticed that reproductions of paintings by I.E. Repin "The Prisoner is Being Carried" and V.D. Polenov "The Right of the Master" without explanations may turn out to be incomprehensible to the reader.

The writer follows the workers' correspondence movement with great attention and shares his rich experience. This is how his brochures “Workers' Correspondents”, “Letter to Village Correspondents”, “To Workers' Correspondents and Military Correspondents. About How I Learned to Write” (1928) appear.

Valuing the essays and notes of workers' correspondents as evidence of direct participants in the great construction projects of socialism, seeing in them an indicator of the cultural growth of the working class of the Soviet country, Gorky did not exaggerate the creative capabilities of their authors. Unlike some literary figures of those years, who believed that the future of literature belonged to worker correspondents and demagogically contrasted them with writers of the older generation, he believed that only a few of the worker correspondents could become real writers. Gorky understood well what talent is, what high demands real - “great” - literature places on its creators.

The successes of the Soviet people deeply pleased the writer, and he regretted that he could no longer travel around the country and see with his own eyes the achievements of the Land of Soviets. “Our wish to Alexei Maksimovich,” Yaroslavl collective farmer N.V. Belousov wrote in the “Peasant Newspaper,” “is to go and see not only economically strong collective farms... but also weak collective farms that need their material and economic strengthening, and, taking two of them, strong and weak, write a book about them showing how to run a social economy..." “If my age had not interfered with me,” the writer answered, “I would, of course, walk for two years around the collective farms.” .

Gorky is an active publicist and often appears in print with articles on various topics. In 1931, Pravda published 40 speeches by the writer, in 1932 - 30, in 1933 - 32, in 1934 - 28, in 1935 - 40.

The thirties were an important and difficult period in the history of the Soviet country. The USSR was the first in the world to build a socialist society on a scientific Marxist basis. First in the world... This means going down a path that no one has ever gone before, overcoming difficulties that practically no one has yet overcome. There was an intense search for ways of socialist development of the country, creative practical application of Marxism to solve specific everyday issues.

Industry is growing rapidly in the USSR, collective farms are being created. Turksib connected Siberia with Central Asia, the Stalingrad tractor railway was launched, the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station was built, Komsomolsk is growing... From an agricultural country, the USSR becomes a powerful industrial power. Everyday work, successes in the economic and social construction of socialism are the subject of the writer’s constant thoughts and reflections, the topics of his oral and printed speeches.

“Life is becoming somehow surprisingly interesting every day...” said Gorky. “The proletariat of the Union of Soviets has proven that there is no obstacle that it cannot overcome, there is no task that it cannot solve, there is no goal that it unable to achieve... - the predictions of scientific socialism are increasingly being realized more widely and deeply by the activities of the party..."

The writer was concerned with the theme of labor, instilling in a person a love of work, an organic need to work: “Everything in the world was created and is being created by labor - this is known, this is understandable, a worker should feel this especially well... In the Land of the Soviets, the goal of labor is to supply the entire population country with all the products of labor that are necessary so that all people are well-fed, well dressed, have comfortable homes, are healthy, and enjoy all the benefits of life; in the Country of Soviets, the goal of labor is the development of culture, the development of reason and the will to live, the creation model state of cultural workers... all work in the Union of Soviets is state necessary and socially useful, not as work that creates “conveniences of life” for the “elect,” but as work that builds a “new world” for the entire mass of workers and peasants, for each of the units of this mass." Gorky was concerned that not everyone was vitally interested in the successes of the Soviet country, that “the poetry of labor processes is still not deeply felt by young people,” that many still do not realize the fundamentally different nature of labor under socialism.

Gorky emphasized the importance of labor as the basis of culture, exposed the hostility of the exploiting classes to progress, and asserted the historical role of the working class and the Communist Party in the creation of socialist culture. “The mind, the best, most active and energetic mind of the working people of the Union of Soviets is embodied in the Bolshevik Party,” he wrote in October 1932, greeting the Dnieper construction workers.

Gorky did not consider the rapid growth of the country’s productive forces an end in itself: “The working class of the Union of Soviets does not consider the development of material culture to be its final goal, and does not limit its work to the goals of enriching its country, that is, self-enrichment. He understood, he knows that material culture is necessary for him as soil and basis for the development of spiritual, intellectual culture."

Gorky rejoices, “seeing and feeling how the small peasant owner is reborn, becoming a real social activist, a conscious Soviet citizen, a fighter for the universal truth of Lenin and the party of his faithful disciples.” The writer regards the decisive turn of the village towards the path of collective farming, towards the path of socialism, as “a great victory for the energy of the proletariat.”

“It is a great joy to build a wonderful, good life on collective farm land” - this is the result of many years of Gorky’s thoughts over the difficult destinies of the Russian peasant.

Gorky highly appreciates the role of science and its people in the construction of socialism: “The party of communist workers and peasants, organized by the teachings of Marx and Lenin, is an energetic and the only disinterested leader of the working people in the whole world - deeply understands the importance of science, technology, art as a tool for building a new world.”

He writes with pain about the fruits of mismanagement - the death of fish, forests, calls for learning to take care of nature, wise use of its wealth, reminds that “a person of socialism is obliged to be a zealous owner, not a predator.”

One of Gorky's last appearances in print was a memoir about academician I.P. Pavlov, written in connection with the death of the great scientist.

The struggle for a new world, the world of socialism, was not only a struggle against the economic backwardness inherited from Tsarist Russia, but also a struggle against the remnants of the past in the minds of people, views and ideas alien to socialist society. And here Gorky’s journalism was a bright and effective weapon. He spoke out more than once against the religious-church dope and believed that it was necessary to publish church books with critical notes. “Why not publish a Bible with critical comments... The Bible is a highly inaccurate and incorrect book. And against each of those texts that can be put forward by the enemy, you can find a good dozen contradictory texts. You need to know the Bible,” said Gorky at the opening of the Second All-Union Congress of Militant Atheists in 1929. In religion, the writer saw not only a hostile ideology, but also a reflection of popular ideas, popular experience, elements of artistic creativity: “I consider religious creativity as artistic: the life of Buddha, Christ, Mohammed - like fantastic novels.”

Gorky was always concerned about the position of a woman in society, her role in life in general, the need for a woman to “raise her role in the world - her sovereignty, cultural - and thereby spiritual - remarkableness”; he wrote about this in “Tales of Italy”, “Mother”, stories, novellas, plays, articles. Gorky rejoiced at the deliverance of women from family and social oppression, and wrote with anger about the shameful remnants of the past in relation to women.

The writer tirelessly called for a fight against philistinism: “The philistinism, blown up economically, is widely scattered by the “blasting” (crushing - I.N.) effect of the explosion and is again very noticeably growing into our reality... A new layer of people is beginning to take shape among us. This is - "A philistine, heroically inclined, capable of attack. He is cunning, he is dangerous, he penetrates into all loopholes. This new layer of philistinism is organized from within much more strongly than before; it is now a more formidable enemy than in the days of my youth."

An important theme of Gorky's journalism of the thirties is humanism, real and imaginary humanism. Himself in the first years of the revolution, who sometimes departed from the class, proletarian point of view in matters of humanism, the writer now persistently emphasizes the social and historical conditionality of the approach to the individual.

“We speak out...” Gorky said in 1934, “as people who affirm the true humanism of the revolutionary proletariat, the humanism of a force called upon by history to liberate the entire world of working people from envy, greed, vulgarity, stupidity - from all the ugliness that throughout history for centuries they have distorted working people."

Gorky's socialist humanism is an active, militant humanism, based on scientific knowledge of the laws of social development. Based primarily on the interests of the proletariat, socialist humanism expresses universal human aspirations, because by liberating itself, the working class creates conditions for the liberation of all people.

Gorky often speaks on international issues.

War can and should be prevented, and this is within the power of the masses - primarily the working class.

The threat to peace, humanism, and culture in those years came primarily from German fascism.

The fascist revolution in Germany stunned Gorky: “You are left alone, you imagine the historical swinishness that is taking place, and, blinded by the bright flowering of human vulgarity, meanness, and arrogance, you begin to dream about how good it would be to break several faces belonging to the “creators” of modern reality. And very you begin to think unkindly about the proletarians of Europe... about the degree of political self-awareness of the majority of German workers." Gorky understood the social nature of fascism, saw in it the striking force of the bourgeoisie, which resorted to the last resort - rabid, bloody terror, in order to try to delay the offensive movement of history, to delay its death.

“The preaching of medieval ideas,” he writes about Western Europe, “takes on an all the more terrible and insane character because it is carried out consistently, persistently, and often with talent.” At the same time, reading about the rampant fascism and its persecution of progressive thought, the writer said: “The more the tyrant suppresses freedom of thought and exterminates the rebellious, the deeper he digs his own grave... The reason and conscience of mankind will not allow a return to the Middle Ages.” .

At a time of growing military danger, Gorky turned to the progressive intelligentsia of the West with a question and appeal - “Who are you with, masters of culture?”: with the world of humanism or with the world of hostility towards everything progressive? He calls on the intelligentsia of Western Europe to support the Soviet Union and the international proletariat in the fight against fascism and the threat of war.

“...If a war breaks out against the class whose forces I live and work with,” Gorky wrote in 1929, “I will also join his army as an ordinary fighter. I will go not because I know that it will be the one who will win, but because, that the great, just cause of the working class of the Union of Soviets is also my legitimate cause, my duty.”

Depth of thought, passion of feeling, mastery of presentation distinguish Gorky's journalism. Before us is a great citizen of a great country, a convinced fighter for peace and socialism, who has an excellent command of the art of journalistic speech. The writer’s speeches were free from the templates and stencils that were emerging in journalism in those years, the annoying repetition of “commonplaces,” and the abundance of quotes.

Journalism, more than any other literary genre, is a direct response to the topic of the day; more closely than other types of literature, it is tied to the demands and needs of the current moment. Journalistic articles of any writer reflect the ideas and concepts that existed in the society of that time, ideas and concepts, some of which undergo changes in the course of history. “The truth of the day” does not always and not in everything coincide with the “truth of the century” and “the truth of history,” and you need to know this when reading the journalism of past years.

Gorky loved children very much. This love was strong and long-standing.

In his youth, on holidays, having gathered children from all over the street, he went with them into the forest for the whole day, and when returning, he often dragged the most tired ones on his shoulders and back - in a specially made chair.

Gorky soulfully portrayed children in his works - the works “Foma Gordeev”, “Three”, “Childhood”, “Tales of Italy”, “Passion-faces”, “Spectators”.

The pioneers of Irkutsk visited Gorky on Malaya Nikitskaya. Members of a literary circle, they wrote a book about their lives - “The Snub-Nosed Base.” A copy was sent to Gorky. He liked the book, and 15 “snub-noses” were awarded a trip to Moscow. They arrived during the days of the Writers' Congress. One of the “snub-noses” spoke from the rostrum of the congress, and then the guys were visiting Gorky*.

* They talked about their meeting with the writer in the book “Visiting Gorky” (both books were republished in Irkutsk in 1962).

The writer was amazed by the education and talent of Soviet children. He recalled: “At their age, even a tenth of what they know was unknown to me.” And once again I remembered the talented children who died before my eyes - this is one of the darkest spots in my memory... Children grow up as collectivists - This is one of the great conquests of our reality."

But Gorky was attentive to children not only as a father, grandfather, participant in their fun, just a person. He was always a writer, a public figure, and always thought a lot about the fate of those who would come to replace his generation.

The writer devotes a lot of effort to the organization and creation of literature for children, defines its principles, makes sure that books for children are written by people who love children, understand their inner world, their needs, desires, interests. “An excellent person and a lover of children, he was put in charge of children’s literature,” Gorky wrote in February 1933 about Marshak, who, on his initiative, was entrusted with the management of the production of children’s books.

The children were Gorky's long-time correspondents, and he answered them in a friendly, often humorous, always kind manner. “I feel great pleasure when corresponding with the children,” the writer admitted. In his treatment of children there was neither sentimentality nor sweetness, but there was interest in them, inner respect, tact, and reasonable demands, taking into account the age and level of development of the children.

“You sent a good letter,” Gorky wrote to the pioneers of distant Igarka, who asked him for advice on how they could write a book about their life and studies. “Your cheerfulness and the clarity of your awareness of the paths to the highest goal of life shine richly in his simple and clear words,” paths to the goal that your fathers and grandfathers set for you and all the working people."

The book “We are from Igarka,” written according to Gorky’s plan, appeared after the writer’s death with the dedication: “We dedicate our work to the memory of the great writer, our teacher and friend Alexei Maksimovich Gorky. Authors.”

But, loving children dearly, the writer was demanding of them and did not forgive laziness or illiteracy. Having published in Pravda the illiterate letter he received from Penza schoolchildren, he wrote: “It’s a shame for 4th grade students to write so illiterately, very shamefully! And it is necessary that you, as well as lively slobs and careless people like you, should be ashamed of your inability to clearly express your thoughts and your ignorance of grammar. You are no longer little, and it’s time for you to understand that your fathers and mothers are not working heroically so that their children grow up ignorant..." At the same time, the writer spared children's pride: "Guys, I am publishing your a letter in the newspapers, but I don’t mention your names because I don’t want your comrades to cruelly ridicule you for your illiteracy.”

The children paid the writer with reciprocal love. Thus, second-grader Kira V., with childish spontaneity, regretted that Gorky did not manage to live as well as she did in childhood: “I would really like you to live in my place for at least one day when you were little.”

From the end of September 1934 (until December) Gorky was again in Tesseli. He continues to work on “The Life of Klim Samgin” and maintains extensive correspondence.

The whole country was shocked by the villainous murder on December 1, 1934 of a prominent figure of the Communist Party S.M. Kirov. “I am completely depressed by the murder of Kirov,” Gorky writes to Fedin, “I feel shattered and generally miserable. I loved and respected this man very much.”

Summer 1935 Gorky lives in Gorki. R. Rolland is visiting him here. The French writer wrote in his diary: “Gorky completely coincides with the image that you created. Very tall, taller than me, significant, ugly, kind face, large duck nose, large mustache, blond, graying eyebrows, gray hair... kind pale blue eyes, in the depths of which one can see sadness..."

At Gorky's dacha, Rolland met with writers, scientists, metro builders, actors, and composers. D. Kabalevsky, G. Neuhaus, L. Knipper, B. Shechter played. Gorky spoke a lot about the nationality of music, drawing the attention of composers to the rich musical folklore of the peoples of the USSR.

“The month I spent in the USSR was full of great lessons for me, rich and fruitful impressions and heartfelt memories; the main one is three weeks of communication with my dear friend Maxim Gorky,” wrote Rolland.

Stalin, Voroshilov and other members of the government, composers and musicians, Soviet and foreign writers (including G. Wells and A. Barbusse, in 1934), Moscow paratroopers, shock workers of the metro construction, Armenian pioneers, pupils of labor communes visited Gorky. , masters of Soviet cinema, whose work Gorky closely followed, speaking approvingly of Chapaev, Pyshka, and The Thunderstorm.

On August 11, the writer travels to Gorky, from where he travels along the Volga with friends and family (daughter-in-law and granddaughters) (he also sailed along the Volga in the summer of 1934).

The writer wanted to admire the Volga for the last time, and those around him felt that he was saying goodbye to the river of his childhood and youth. The trip was difficult for Gorky: he was tormented by heat and stuffiness, constant shaking from the overly powerful engines of the newly built steamship Maxim Gorky (“It could have been done without this,” the writer grumbled when he saw his name on the ship).

Gorky talked with party and Soviet leaders of the cities past which the ship sailed, talked about his youth, about life on the Volga in those years, listened to the latest Chaliapin records, recently brought by Ekaterina Pavlovna from Paris from the great singer.

“Everywhere along the banks of the rivers, in the cities, the tireless work of building a new world is going on, arousing joy and pride,” Gorky summed up his impressions of the trip in a letter to R. Rolland.

At the end of September, Gorky left again for Tesseli.

Tesseli is a Greek word and translated means “silence.” The silence here was truly extraordinary. The dacha with a large neglected park, closed on three sides by mountains, was located away from roads. The one-story, T-shaped house was surrounded by boxwood and juniper.

Gorky occupied two rooms - a bedroom and an office, the rest were for the common use of all residents of the dacha. In the writer's office, facing southeast, there was always a lot of sun; From the window you can see the sea and the park that goes down to it. There is a bird feeder on a pine branch under the office window.

From three to five o'clock in any weather, at any time of the year, Gorky worked in the garden - digging flower beds, uprooting stumps, removing stones, uprooting bushes, sweeping paths, skillfully using natural springs, not allowing them to flow unnecessarily into ravines. Soon the garden was put in order, and Alexey Maksimovich was very proud of it.

“The correct alternation of mental and physical activities will revive humanity, make it healthy, durable, and life joyful...” he said. “Let parents and schools instill in children a love of work, and they will save them from laziness, disobedience and other vices. They will give them the most powerful weapon for life."

In moments of physical work, the writer said, such thoughts come to mind, such images are born that, sitting at the table, you cannot catch for hours.

Vs. Ivanov, A. Tolstoy, Marshak, Pavlenko, Trenev, Babel, a prominent party figure Postyshev, and the French writer A. Malraux came to Tesseli to see Gorky. The famous portrait of Gorky, the petrel of the revolution, is painted here by the artist I.I. Brodsky.

The writer did not like life in Tesseli. He writes to Rolland that, like Chekhov, he is burdened by imprisonment in the Crimea, but is forced to stay here for the winter in order to maintain his ability to work.

“I love all the flowers and all the colors of the earth, and man, the best of it, in all my days has been for me the most wonderful of mysteries, and I am not tired of admiring him,” said the hero of the miniature “The Old Man” in 1906, and this love for life, to man, Gorky preserved until his last days.

And my health is getting worse and worse.

Due to illness, Gorky was unable to go to Paris - to the International Congress in Defense of Culture (his address to the congress was published in Pravda).

“I am beginning to become decrepit. My efficiency is declining... My heart is working lazily and capriciously,” he writes in May 1935. When Gorky was working in the park, there was a car with an oxygen bag nearby - just in case. Such a pillow was also at hand during conversations with guests*.

* Sometimes about three hundred oxygen pillows were prepared for Gorky per day.

Comic verses formed themselves:

I should have lived more modestly, not broken stones in the garden, and not thought at night about retribution on the bastards.

But Gorky could not help but think “about retribution on the bastards.”

“I am afraid of only one thing: my heart will stop before I have time to finish the novel,” Gorky wrote on March 22, 1936. Alas, he turned out to be right - Gorky did not have time to finish “Klima Samgin”: the very last pages remained unfinished.

Devoting a lot of energy and time to organizational, administrative and editorial work, a wide variety of assistance to his fellow writers, and conducting extensive correspondence, Gorky always remembered and said that the main job of a writer is to write. And he wrote... He wrote a lot - "The Life of Klim Samgin", plays, journalistic and critical articles.

Gorky's "farewell" novel "The Life of Klim Samgin"* is an encyclopedia of Russian life of the pre-revolutionary fortieth anniversary.

* The first volume was completed in 1926, the second in 1928, the third in 1930, and the fourth was not finally completed.

The idea of ​​"Samghin" took a long time to mature. At the turn of the century, Gorky began “The Life of Mr. Platon Ilyich Penkin”, then sketched an excerpt “My name is Yakov Ivanovich Petrov...”, then worked on “Notes of Doctor Ryakhin”, wrote the story “All the Same”, conceived “The Diary of a Useless Man” .

But the four-volume history of the “useless” Klim Samgin was not a simple embodiment of a long-standing plan. In the stories about people and events of the past decades, Gorky invested a great meaning that is relevant for our time: “The past fades away with fantastic speed... But it leaves behind poisonous dust, and from this dust souls turn gray, the mind dims. It is necessary to know the past, without "With this knowledge, you will get confused in life and you can again end up in that dirty, bloody swamp from which the wise teaching of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin led us out and put us on a wide, straight path to a great, happy future."

In "The Life of Klim Samgin" Gorky comprehends Russian life in the forty pre-revolutionary years from the position of a great artist and deep thinker, enriched by the experience of the socialist revolution. It is not for nothing that Gorky, Samgin’s senior contemporary, while working on the novel, delved anew into Marxist assessments of the historical process and compiled a list of Lenin’s statements about imperialism and party decisions of 1907-1917.

The writer’s library contains the “Manifesto of the Communist Party” of the 1932 edition and Lenin’s work “State and Revolution” of the 1931 edition with his notes. In the process of his work, Gorky asked historians about the prices of hay, oats and meat in Russia in 1915, studied memoirs and documents. “I need exact dates of deaths, accessions to the throne, coronations, dispersals of the Duma, etc., etc.,” he wrote in 1926 in the USSR and asked to send a book with “the exact chronology of events of the late 19th and early 20th centuries before the war. 14 years."

The novel masterfully depicts the bloody catastrophe during the coronation of Nicholas II - "Khodynka", the Nizhny Novgorod exhibition, the Ninth of January, the 1905 revolution, Bauman's funeral, the Stolypin reaction, the First World War.

Along with the directly named Nicholas II, Kerensky, Chaliapin, Rodzianko, the novel shows, “without naming names,” Savva Morozov (“a man with the face of a Tatar”), the writer N. Zlatovratsky (“a gray-bearded fiction writer”), E. Chirikov (“ a fashionable writer, a rather oaky man"), M. Gorky himself ("red-moustached, looking like a soldier"), etc.

But “Samghin” is not a historical chronicle, not a textbook or anthology on history. The novel does not cover a number of important events; many people who played an important role in Russia in those years are missing. Russia's movement towards the socialist revolution is shown not in historical events, but in spiritual life, philosophical disputes, personal dramas and the fate of heroes. "The Life of Klim Samgin" is, first of all, an ideological novel, showing the country's movement towards revolution through ideological disputes, philosophical movements, books that are read and discussed (the work mentions hundreds of works of literature, music, painting - from the Iliad to Gorky's plays "At the Bottom"). The characters in the novel think and talk more than they act. In addition, life is shown by Gorky as Samghin sees it, but he does not see much or sees it incorrectly.

Before the reader pass the populists, legal Marxists, idealists, decadents, sectarians, Bolsheviks - in the words of the writer, “all classes,” “trends,” “directions,” all the hellish turmoil of the end of the century and the storms of the beginning of the twentieth." "The Life of Klim Samgin " - a novel about Russian pre-revolutionary society, about the complex interweaving of ideological and social forces in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. The writer depicts the collapse of populism, the emergence of legal Marxism and revolutionary Marxism, the emergence and social roots of decadence, its diverse ramifications, the vigorous entrepreneurial activity of the bourgeoisie, revolutionary events 1905-1907, the rampant mysticism, pornography and cynicism at the time of reaction, the growth of the forces of the proletarian party.

Gorky's novel is directed against bourgeois individualism, variously embodied by the writer in the main character - lawyer Klim Ivanovich Samgin.

“Individualism is a contagious and dangerous disease, its roots are in the instinct of property, cultivated over centuries, and as long as private property exists, this disease will inevitably develop, disfiguring and devouring people, like leprosy,” wrote Gorky.

Since childhood, Klim has been convinced of his originality and exclusivity: “I have never seen anyone larger than him.” This desire to be original, not like everyone else, was instilled in him from childhood - by his parents. But soon Klim himself began to “invent himself,” turning into a little old man, alien to children’s games, fun, and pranks.

Klim’s childhood and youth are reminiscent of Pushkin’s lines:

Blessed is he who was young from his youth... or the wise quatrain of Marshak: There was once a proverb, That children do not live, but are preparing to live. But it is unlikely that someone who, while preparing to live, does not live in childhood, will be useful in life.

A child should have a childhood with its joys and pranks, and not childhood old age - Gorky himself spoke about this more than once. He looked with sadness at the “senile experienced” young poor people who came to his Nizhny Novgorod Christmas tree, and in 1909 he wrote to Baku children to be children (“do more pranks”), and not little old men.

Convinced of his exclusivity, Klim Samgin is in fact an “intellectual of average value,” an ordinary person, devoid of both great intelligence and simple humanity.

Samghin lives in troubling pre-revolutionary times. No matter how much he wanted, there was no hiding from the inevitably approaching political upheavals. In his soul, Klim is afraid of the coming revolution, he internally understands that he does not need anything from the revolution, but the more he boasts of selfless service to it, providing some services to the revolutionaries. The Bolsheviks trust Samghin, Klim carries out their instructions - without sympathizing with the revolution at heart. During the mighty revolutionary onslaught of the masses, it is more profitable and safer to be a fellow traveler of the revolution - this is what Samghin thinks. Vanity and the desire to play the role of a prominent public figure prompt him to do this.

Klim is a “rebel against his will”; he helped the revolutionaries not out of faith in the revolution, but out of fear of its inevitability. So he comes to the conclusion: “Revolution is needed in order to destroy revolutionaries.” It is not for nothing that the gendarme colonel, an intelligent man, having become acquainted with Samghin’s notes, is sincerely surprised why he did not side with the government: after all, his soul is for the existing order.

Exposing Klim Samgin, tracing his life path from the cradle to death in the revolutionary days of 1917, the writer was far from fatalism - recognition of the inevitability of fate, the powerlessness of a person to change his life path. Man - Gorky asserted with all his creativity - is not doomed by the circumstances of life, he can and must rise above them. Like Matvey Kozhemyakin, Klim had the opportunity (and more than one!) to leave his path, to truly enter the “big life” - both personally and socially. He is carried away by a woman - and is afraid of passion, runs away from her. The atmosphere of revolutionary upsurge in the country also influences Samghin.

In the novel, Gorky explores how the intelligentsia, who spoke a lot about the people, that the country and power should belong to them, and only to them, after 1917, when the people actually took power into their own hands, found themselves in no small part of the hostile revolution. The writer sees the reason for this in individualism, in “sluggish, but unquenchable and unquenchable conceit.”

Gorky's novel is not a novel about the entire Russian intelligentsia. Quite a few intellectuals accepted October - some earlier, some later, some completely, some to a significant extent. Klim Samgin is an artistic generalization by the writer of those features of the intelligentsia that - taken together - determined the hostility of its part to the socialist revolution.

Samghin completes and summarizes in Gorky’s work the gallery of bourgeois intellectuals shown in “Varenka Olesova” and “Dachniki”, who increasingly moved away from the people, increasingly emptying themselves spiritually (it is not for nothing that the subtitle of the novel is “The History of an Empty Soul”). This image also contains the features of many people who met along Gorky’s life path, but Samghin is not a portrait of any specific person. The writer himself named among those who gave him material for Samgin the writers Mirolyubov, Pyatnitsky, Bunin, Posse - people with different characters and destinies.

Samghin is opposed in the novel by the Bolshevik Kutuzov, a man with a broad outlook who believes in the proletariat. In contrast to the spiritually sick Klima, he is a healthy person in body and spirit, charming, and understanding of art. All the best is concentrated around him - both in the proletariat and in the intelligentsia. No, Klim Samgin is not the entire Russian intelligentsia, although he is a significant part of it. There is Kutuzov - a superbly erudite person, a talented speaker and polemicist, there is Elizaveta Spivak, and Lyubasha Somova, and Evgeniy Yurin and others.

Approaching the camp are Kutuzova and Makarov, Inokov (he has some features of Gorky himself), Tagilsky, Marina Zotova, Lyutov - complex, contradictory, restless people.

Gorky extensively shows in the novel the life of the people, the growth of popular consciousness, the desire of the masses for freedom. Real people - strong mentally and physically, smart - are not to Samghin’s liking. But both the reader and the writer himself see the truth of life through the head of the hero of the novel. The people in "Samgin" are in a complex interweaving of the "damned legacy" of the past and revolutionary, spiritual growth. Both faithful servants of the throne and fighters for the people's cause come from among the people.

In “The Life of Klim Samgin,” written by an old writer, no decline or weakening of talent is visible. Before us is a new powerful rise of genius. The writer's memory is unfadingly fresh, and the artistic power of his book is enormous.

The original artistic device of “mirroring” runs through the entire novel. All of Samghin's traits are reflected - more acutely or less so - in other characters in the novel. This, on the one hand, debunks the “uniqueness” of the novel’s protagonist, and on the other, makes him a generalization of an entire social group. This is the dialectic of the artistic image.

The calm manner of presentation also conceals a deeply critical, ironic attitude towards the world depicted, and admiration for those who are preparing the revolution. Without hiding (in his letters) his sharply negative attitude towards Samghin, Gorky tried in every possible way to avoid the author’s assessments of the hero in the novel, allowing him to expose himself - in words, thoughts, actions.

Very complex artistically, the novel “The Life of Klim Samgin” is not easy to read. It requires great erudition, deep knowledge of the era depicted, and a thoughtful attitude to what is read. No wonder Gorky thought of writing a “shortened” version of the novel.

Samghin is a literary type of global significance, embodying the spiritual impoverishment of the bourgeois individualist intellectual in the era of proletarian revolutions.

How “Manilovism”, “Khlestakovism”, “Oblomovism”, “Belikovism”, “Samginism” became an artistic generalization of a system of views and actions characteristic of a certain social type. Samginshchina - the ideology and psychology of the bourgeoisie - is especially dangerous, because it is difficult to catch and difficult to punish. Samgins infect those around them with indifference, imaginary “smartness”, prepare the ground for evil deeds, hinder the development of life, hate everything bright, unusual, talented, but they themselves remain on the sidelines, not committing legally punishable deeds - moreover, external, visible involvement in the great the case quite reliably shields them from reproaches and accusations.

The image of Klim Samgin is not only the result of the great artist’s observations and reflections on life. He is closely connected with Russian and world literary tradition; It was not for nothing that Gorky emphasized that the individualist intellectual, a person “certainly of average intellectual abilities, devoid of any bright qualities, passes through literature throughout the entire 19th century.” Gorky’s contemporaries also wrote about the bourgeois intellectual of the Samgin type, but they attached unjustified spiritual significance to this figure and were unable to see, like Gorky, the inner dullness and emptiness behind the imaginary uniqueness and originality.

A deep and multifaceted, artistically perfect generalization of the traits of human character, the patterns of social life, inherent in more than one historically specific situation, not only in one generation of people, makes “The Life of Klim Samgin” an important, instructive and interesting book for subsequent generations. In the novel, Gorky explores social and psychological issues that are by no means limited to either Russia or the historical era shown in the novel. The events depicted in Samgin are 50-100 years away from us. But the novel is still relevant today. The Samgins, Dronovs, Tomilins, Zotovs, Lyutovs are heroes of today in capitalist countries. Their doubts, wanderings, and searches reveal a lot about the searches and wanderings of the intelligentsia of bourgeois countries. Yes, and in our country some of the features of Samgaism and bourgeois consciousness have not yet completely become a thing of the past. The critic M. Shcheglov called Gratsiansky, one of the heroes of L. Leonov’s novel “Russian Forest,” “Samginsky seed.”

May 1936 in Crimea was dry and hot; it was also sunny in Moscow, where Gorky went on May 26. The carriage was stuffy and the windows were often opened. The writer had to breathe from an oxygen pillow more than once.

And in Moscow it is also stuffy, but also a strong wind and a merciless sun. On June 1, in Gorki, the writer became seriously ill with the flu, which aggravated his lung and heart disease.

Since June 6, Pravda, Izvestia and other newspapers have been publishing daily reports about the writer’s health, but a special issue of Pravda was printed for him, without this bulletin.

“When the writer fell ill,” recalls L. Kassil, “millions of readers grabbed the newspaper in the morning and first of all looked for a bulletin about his health, as they later looked for a report from the front or before that - the degree of northern latitude where the Chelyuskin ice floe was drifting.”

Party and government leaders visited the patient. From all over the country, from all over the world, there were wishes for a speedy recovery. Moscow pioneers brought him flowers.

Shortness of breath did not allow Gorky to lie down, and he sat in a chair almost all the time. When temporary relief came, Alexey Maksimovich joked, laughed at his helplessness, talked about literature, about life, and several times recalled Lenin. He endured the pain patiently. The last book that Gorky read was the study of the famous Soviet historian E.V. Tarle “Napoleon”; The writer’s notes are preserved on many of its pages, the last of them is on page 316, in the middle of the book.

Gorky was not afraid of death, although he thought about it more than once.

“Several times in my life, willingly or unwillingly, I had to experience the proximity of death, and many good people died before my eyes. This infected me with a feeling of organic disgust towards “dying”, towards death. But I never felt fear of it,” - he admitted in 1926.

But I didn’t want to die: “I wish I could live and live. Every new day brings a miracle. And the future is such that no imagination can foresee...” he said. “Medical science is cunning, but powerful. If only we could hold out a little, there will be diseases on earth.” "They'll hatch and we'll be able to live for about a hundred and fifty years. Otherwise, we're dying early, too early!"

Thoughts about death and the tragic brevity of human life often worried the writer in recent years. They were reflected in the play "Egor Bulychov and Others"; The writer thought of dramatizing Leo Tolstoy's story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich."

Gorky showed great interest in the problem of longevity and did a lot to create the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine, which, among other issues, dealt with the problems of extending human life. One day he asked Professor Speransky whether immortality was feasible. "It is not feasible and cannot be feasible. Biology is biology, and death is its fundamental law."

“But can we deceive her? She’ll knock on the door, and we’ll say, come on in a hundred years?

We can do this.

But I, and the rest of humanity, are unlikely to demand more from you.”

On June 16, the last temporary relief came. Shaking hands with the doctors, Gorky said: “Apparently, I’ll jump out.” But it was not possible to “jump out” of the disease, and at the 11th hour. 10 min. on the morning of June 18, Gorky died at his dacha in Gorki.

When Gorky's hand still held a pencil, he wrote on pieces of paper:

“Two processes are combined: the lethargy of nervous life - as if the cells of the nerves are extinguishing - are covered with ashes, and all thoughts turn gray, at the same time - a stormy onslaught of the desire to speak, and this rises to delirium, I feel that I am speaking incoherently, although the phrases are still meaningful ".

The Soviet people experienced great personal grief over the death of Gorky.

The mountains are crying, the rivers are crying: “Our Gorky has died,” Something has become boring everywhere. In the courtyards, the guys are crying: “Our Gorky has died.” He died, I’m sorry to say goodbye! Died, dear. He died, I feel sorry to say goodbye. My Gorky has died - this is how eight-year-old Svetlana Kinast from the Gornyak state farm in the Azov-Black Sea region expressed her feelings in inept but sincere poetry.

And fifteen-year-old Stepan Perevalov wrote in the book “We are from Igarka”:

“O brave Falcon, you soared high above the earth, breathing the struggle. From cruel battles you brought a heart full of love.

You proudly cast a curse on the greedy, who idly live on the blood of others. You gave your hand to the misfortune of the poor, and the slave saw the path to the light.

For generations moving towards life, you will forever be the shining sun.

You lived a glorious life... We will learn from your life and we will forever breathe the struggle, like you, beloved, like you, our Falcon!

We will remember and praise your cares forever and we will be strong, like you, beloved, - oh brave Falcon.

We bear our loss, the loss of a friend, with sobs in our hearts.

Goodbye teacher! Farewell, beloved!"

The coffin with the writer’s body, and then the urn with his ashes were installed in the House of Unions. Thousands of people passed through the Hall of Columns, paying their last respects to the great son of a great people.

On June 20, a funeral meeting took place on Red Square. Artillery salvos thundered, orchestras played the anthem of the working people of the whole world, “The Internationale”. The urn with the writer's ashes was walled up in the Kremlin wall - where the ashes of outstanding figures of the Communist Party, the Soviet state and the international labor movement rest.

“Great people do not have two dates of their existence in history - birth and death, but only one date: their birth,” Alexei Tolstoy said at the funeral meeting. And he was right. The writer is not with us, but his books “help us build and live,” they teach us truth, fearlessness, and the wisdom of life.

Gorky passed away more than thirty years ago. But all this time - both during the Great Patriotic War and during the years of widespread communist construction - he remained and remains with us. Gorky's stories, novellas, and novels continue to excite the reader today and pose serious and interesting problems for him. Like any truly great artist, new generations see in Gorky not only what their predecessors saw, but also discover something new, little noticed or completely unnoticed, in tune with today.

Gorky's books are still our friends, advisers, and mentors today. He is alive, living that life whose name is immortality. His great creations are alive - his novels, novels, plays, stories. Soviet literature became the first literature in the world, at the cradle of which stood the great, wise mentor and teacher Alexei Maximovich Gorky.

The centenary of Gorky's birth, celebrated in 1968, turned into a nationwide celebration of the great writer in our country. This speaks of the vitality of Gorky’s legacy, of his role in the struggle for the triumph of communism. Years go by, generations change, but the fiery word of the Petrel of the Revolution is always with us in the struggle for Man, for communism.

M. Gorky

M. Gorky. Collected works in thirty volumes M., GIHL, 1953 Volume 27. Articles, reports, speeches, greetings (1933-1936) So - the first general congress of writers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and regions finished its work. This work turned out to be so significant and varied that now, in the final word, I can only outwardly outline its deep meaning, I can only note the most significant of what it discovered. Before the congress and at the beginning of it, some and even, it seems, many writers did not understand the meaning of organizing the congress. “Why is he?” these people asked. “We’ll talk, we’ll go our separate ways, and everything will remain the same.” These are very strange people, and at the congress they were rightly called indifferent. Their eyes see that in our reality some things still remain “as they were,” but their indifference does not allow them to realize that what remains is only because the proletariat, the owner of the country, does not have enough time to completely destroy and destroy these remnants. These people are quite satisfied with what has already been done, which has helped them move forward into comfortable positions, and which has strengthened their natural indifference as individualists. They do not understand that we are all very small people in comparison with the great things that are happening in the world, they do not understand that we live and work at the beginning of the first act of the last tragedy of working humanity. They are already accustomed to living without a sense of pride in the meaning of personal existence and only care about preserving the dull lordship, the dull excellency of their small, poorly polished talents. They do not understand that the meaning of personal existence is to deepen and expand the meaning of existence of the multi-million masses of working humanity. But these millions of people sent their representatives to the congress: workers from various fields of production, inventors, collective farmers, pioneers. The whole country stood up before the writers of the Union of Socialist Soviets, stood up and made high demands on them, their talents, their work. These people are the great present and future of the Land of Soviets. Interrupting our conversations, Blinding with the brilliance of unprecedented deeds, They brought their victories - Bread, airplanes, metal - themselves, - They brought themselves as a theme, Like their work, love, life. And each of them sounded like a poem, Because Bolshevism thundered in each. Raw, hastily made lines of poetry Victor Gusev correctly note the meaning of the event: once again the thunder of Bolshevism, the radical transformer of the world and the harbinger of terrible events throughout the world, thundered victoriously. How do I see the victory of Bolshevism at the Writers' Congress? The fact that those of them who were considered non-party, “hesitant”, admitted - with sincerity, the completeness of which I do not dare to doubt - recognized Bolshevism as the only militant guiding idea in creativity, in painting in a word. I highly value this victory, because I, a writer, know from myself how self-willed the thoughts and feelings of a writer are, who tries to find creative freedom outside the strict instructions of history, outside its basic, organizing idea. Deviations from a mathematically straight line, developed by the bloody history of working humanity and brightly illuminated by the teaching that establishes that the world can be changed only by the proletariat and only through a revolutionary blow, and then through the socialistically organized labor of workers and peasants - deviations from a mathematically straight line are explained by the fact that that our emotions are older than our intellect, in that there is a lot of inheritance in our emotions and this inheritance hostilely contradicts the testimony of reason. We were born in a class society, where everyone needs to defend themselves against everyone else, and many enter a classless society as people from whom trust in each other has been eradicated, from whom the centuries-old struggle for a comfortable place in life has killed the feeling of respect and love for working humanity, the creator of all values. . We lack the sincerity necessary for self-criticism, we show too much petty philistine anger when we criticize each other. It still seems to us that we are criticizing a competitor for our piece of bread, and not a comrade at work, which is taking on an increasingly deeper significance as the motivator of all the best revolutionary forces in the world. We, writers, workers of the most individual art, are mistaken in considering our experience to be our sole property, whereas it is a suggestion of reality and, in the past, a very heavy gift from it. In the past, comrades, for we have all already seen and are seeing that the new reality created by the Bolshevik Party, which embodies the mind and will of the masses, - the new reality offers us a wonderful gift - an unprecedented gift of intellectual flowering of many millions of working people. I will remind you of a wonderful speech Vsevolod Ivanov, this speech should remain in our memory as an example of sincere self-criticism of an artist who thinks politically. Speeches deserve the same attention Y. Olesha, L. Seifullina and many others. About two years ago Joseph Stalin, caring about improving the quality of literature, he told communist writers: “Learn to write from non-party people.” Without speaking about whether the communists learned anything from non-party artists, I must note that the non-party people learned to think quite well from the proletariat. (Applause.) Once, in a fit of hangover pessimism, Leonid Andreev said: “A pastry chef is happier than a writer, he knows that children and young ladies love cake. And a writer is a bad person who does a good job, not knowing for whom and doubting that this work is even necessary "That's why most writers have no desire to please anyone, and want to offend everyone." The writers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics see for whom they work. The reader himself comes to them, the reader calls them “engineers of souls” and demands that they organize in simple words in good, truthful images his sensations, feelings, thoughts, his heroic work. Such a close, direct unity of the reader with the writer has never happened anywhere, and in this fact there is a difficulty that we must overcome, but in this fact is our happiness, which we have not yet learned to appreciate. Just like the cultures of our fraternal republics, national in form, remain and must be socialist in essence, our creativity must remain individual in form and be socialist-Leninist in the sense of its basic, guiding idea. This meaning is the liberation of people from the remnants of the past, from the indoctrination of a criminal and distorting thought and feeling of class history - a history that educates working people as slaves, intellectuals - double-minded or indifferent, anarchists or renegades, skeptics and critics or reconcilers of the irreconcilable . In the end, the congress gives the right to hope that from now on the concept of “non-party writer” will remain only a formal concept, but internally each of us will feel like a real member of the Leninist party, which so beautifully and timely proved its trust in the honor and work of non-party writers with the permission of the All-Union Congress. At this congress, we issued large bills to the multimillion-dollar reader and the government, and, of course, now we are obliged to pay the bills with honest, good work. We will do this if we do not forget what was suggested to us by the speeches of our readers - and among them our children - we do not forget how enormous the importance of literature is in our country, what various high demands are placed on us. We will not forget this if we immediately destroy in our midst all remnants of group relations - relations that are ridiculously and disgustingly similar to the struggle of the Moscow boyars for localism - for places in the boyar duma and at the tsar's feasts closer to him. We should remember well the clever words of Comrade Seifullina, who correctly said that “we were too quickly and willingly made writers.” And don’t forget your friend’s instructions Nakoryakova, that in 1928-1931 we gave 75 percent of books that did not have the right to second editions, that is, very bad books. “You understand how much we have published in excess, how many unnecessary expenses we have made, not only material, but also spiritual expenses of our people, our creators of socialism, who read a gray, bad, and sometimes shoddy book. This is not only a mistake of the writing team, but it is also one of the biggest mistakes in publishing." I think the end of Comrade Nakoryakov’s last sentence is too soft and kind. With all that has been said, I addressed the writers of the entire congress and, therefore, the representatives of the fraternal republics. I have no reason or desire to give them a special place, because they work not only each for their own people, but each for all the peoples of the Union of Socialist Republics and autonomous regions. History holds them as responsible for their work as the Russians. Due to lack of time, I read few books written by writers of the Union republics, but even the little that I have read inspires me with firm confidence that soon we will receive from them a book remarkable for the novelty of the material and the power of the image. Let me remind you that the number of people does not affect the quality of talent. Little Norway created huge figures of Hamsun and Ibsen. The Jews recently died the almost brilliant poet Bialik and had the exceptionally talented satirist and humorist Sholom Aleichem, the Latvians created the powerful poet Rainis, Finland - Eino-Leino - there is no such small country that does not give great artists the word. I named only the largest and not all of them, and I named writers born in a capitalist society. In the republics of our fraternal peoples, writers are born from the proletariat, and from the example of our country we see what talented children the proletariat has created in a short time and how continuously it creates them. But I am addressing friendly advice, which can also be understood as a request, to representatives of the nationalities of the Caucasus and Central Asia. The ashig made an amazing impression on me, and - I know - not only on me. Suleiman Stalsky. I saw how this old man, illiterate but wise, sitting on the podium, whispered, creating his poems, then he, Homer of the 20th century, amazingly read them. (Applause.) Take care of people who are capable of creating such pearls of poetry as Suleiman creates. I repeat: the beginning of the art of words is in folklore. Collect your folklore, learn from it, process it. He gives a lot of material to both you and us, the poets and prose writers of the Union. The better we know the past, the easier, the more deeply and joyfully we will understand the great significance of the present we create. Speeches at the meetings of the congress and conversations outside the meeting hall revealed the unity of our feelings and desires, the unity of purpose and revealed our unacceptably small familiarity with art and, in general, with the culture of the fraternal republics. If we do not want the fire that broke out at the congress to go out, we must take all measures to ensure that it flares up even brighter. It is necessary to begin mutual and widespread acquaintance with the cultures of the fraternal republics. To begin with, it would be necessary to organize an “All-Union Theater” in Moscow, which would show on stage, in drama and comedy, the life and way of life of the national republics in their historical past and heroic present. (Applause.) Next: it is necessary to publish collections of current prose and poetry from national republics and regions in Russian, in good translations. (Applause.) Literature for children also needs to be translated. Writers and scientists of national republics must write histories of their countries and states - histories that would acquaint the peoples of all republics with each other. These stories of the peoples of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics will serve as a very good means of mutual understanding and internal, ideological cohesion of all the people of the seven republics. This mutual understanding, this unity of forces is necessary not only for all the people of the Union of Republics, - they are necessary as a lesson and example for all the working people of the earth, against whom its old enemy, capitalism, is organizing itself under a new guise - fascism. A good, practical method of highlighting the cultural ties and business interdependencies of the Union of our republics can be collective work on the creation of the book “Affairs and People of the Two Five-Year Plans.” This book should show the labor force of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the form of essays and stories the results of their labor and the facts of the cultural and educational influence of labor on people, on the growth of intelligence, etc. the will of individuals, to liberate them from the narrow boundaries of the petty-bourgeois individualism of owners, to educate a new, socialist individuality in the conditions of collective labor - to show the spiral along which we move forward and ascend higher and higher. Participation in this work is absolutely necessary for writers of all fraternal republics, all regions. We are still at that stage of development when we must convince ourselves of our cultural growth. Of all that was said at the congress, the most significant and important thing is that many young writers for the first time felt their importance and responsibility to the country and realized their insufficient preparation for work. Collective work on the creation of books that highlight the processes of grandiose work that changes the world and people will serve as an excellent means of self-education and self-strengthening for us. In the absence of serious, philosophical criticism, so sadly shown by the fact of the muteness of professional critics at the congress, we ourselves need to take up self-criticism, not in words, but in deeds, directly in working on the material. Comrade to the method of collective work of writers Ehrenburg was skeptical, fearing that the method of such work could harmfully limit the development of the individual abilities of the work unit. Comrades Vsevolod Ivanov and Lydia Seifullina, objecting to him, it seems to me, dispelled his fears. It seems to Comrade Ehrenburg that the method of collective work is the method of team work. These techniques have no other similarity with each other, except for the physical: in both cases, groups and teams work. But the team works with reinforced concrete, wood, metal, etc., always with a definitely uniform material that needs to be given a predetermined shape. In a team, individuality can only reveal itself through the intensity of its work. Collective work on the material of social phenomena, work on reflection, depiction of life processes - among which, in particular, the actions of shock brigades have their place - is work on infinitely varied facts, and each individual unit, each writer has the right to choose for himself this or that series of facts in accordance with his gravity, his interests and abilities. The collective work of writers on the phenomena of life in the past and present for the brightest illumination of paths to the future has some similarities with the work of laboratories that scientifically and experimentally study certain phenomena of organic life. It is known that the basis of any method is experiment - research, study - and this method, in turn, indicates further paths of study. I have the courage to think that it is precisely the method of collective work with material that will help us best understand what socialist realism should be. Comrades, in our country the logic of actions is ahead of the logic of concepts, this is what we must feel. My confidence that this method of collective creativity can produce completely original, unprecedentedly interesting books is such that I take the liberty of offering such work to our guests, excellent masters of European literature. (Applause.) Will they try to give a book that would depict the day of the bourgeois world? I mean any day: September 25, October 7 or December 15, it doesn’t matter. We need to take an everyday day as the world press reflected it on its pages. It is necessary to show all the colorful chaos of modern life in Paris and Grenoble, in London and Shanghai, in San Francisco, Geneva, Rome, Dublin, etc., etc., in cities, villages, on water and on land. It is necessary to give holidays of the rich and suicides of the poor, meetings of academies, learned societies and facts reflected in newspaper chronicles of wild illiteracy, superstitions, crimes, facts of the sophistication of refined culture, strikes of workers, anecdotes and everyday dramas - insolent cries of luxury, exploits of swindlers, lies of political leaders, - it is necessary, I repeat, to give an ordinary, everyday day with all the crazy, fantastic diversity of its phenomena. This is the work of scissors much more than the work of a pen. Of course, comments are inevitable, but I think they should be as brief as they are brilliant. But facts must be commented on by facts, and on these rags, on this rags of the day, a writer’s commentary should shine like a spark igniting the flame of thought. In general, you need to show the “artistic” creativity of history during one day. No one has ever done this, but it should be done! And if a group of our guests takes on such work, they, of course, will give the world something unprecedented, unusually interesting, dazzlingly bright and deeply instructive. (Applause.) The organizing idea of ​​fascism is racial theory - a theory that elevates the Germanic, Roman, Latin or Anglo-Saxon race as the only force supposedly capable of continuing the further development of culture - a “pure-blooded” racial culture based, as is well known, on a merciless and the increasingly cynical exploitation of the vast majority of people by a numerically insignificant minority. This numerically insignificant minority is also insignificant in its intellectual strength, wasted on inventing methods of exploiting working people and the treasures of nature that belong to working people. Of all the talents of capitalism, which once played a positive role as the organizer of civilization and material culture, modern capitalism has retained only a mystical confidence in its right to rule over the proletariat and peasantry. But against this mysticism of the capitalists, history has put forward a real fact - the strength of the revolutionary proletariat, organized by the indestructible and unquenchable, historically grounded, formidable truth of the teaching Marx-- Lenin, put forward the fact of the “united front” in France and an even more physically tangible fact - the union of the proletariat of the Soviet Socialist Republics. Faced with the power of these facts, the poisonous, but light and thin fog of fascism will inevitably and soon dissipate. This fog, as we see, poisons and seduces only adventurers, only unprincipled, indifferent people - people for whom “everything is all the same” and who do not care who they kill - people who are products of the degeneration of bourgeois society and mercenaries of capitalism for its most vile, vile and bloody deeds. The main strength of the feudal lords of capitalism is the weapons that the working class makes for them - guns, machine guns, cannons, poison gases and everything else that at any moment can be and is directed by the capitalists against the workers. But the time is not far when the revolutionary legal consciousness of the workers will destroy the mysticism of the capitalists. However, they are preparing a new worldwide massacre, organizing the mass extermination of the proletarians of the whole world on the fields of national capitalist battles, the purpose of which is profit, the enslavement of small nationalities, turning them into slaves of Africa - half-starved animals who are obliged to work hard and buy nasty, rotten goods only so that the kings of industry accumulate rich gold - the curse of the working people - gold, with insignificant specks of dust the capitalists pay the workers for forging chains for themselves, developing weapons against themselves. It is in the face of such acute class relations that our All-Union Congress worked, and on the eve of such a catastrophe we, the writers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, will continue our work! There cannot and should be no place for personal trifles in this work. Revolutionary internationalism against bourgeois nationalism, racism, fascism—that is the historical meaning of our days. What we can do? We've already done some things. We are doing a good job of uniting all the forces of the radical, anti-fascist intelligentsia, and we are bringing to life proletarian, revolutionary literature in all countries of the world. In our midst there are representatives of almost all European literatures. The magnet that attracted them to our country is not only the wise work of the party, the mind of the country, the heroic energy of the proletariat of the republics, but also our work. To some extent, every writer is the leader of his readers - I think this can be said. Roman Rolland, Andre Gide have the legal right to call themselves “engineers of souls.” Jean Richard Bloch, Andre Malraux, Plivier, Aragon, Toller, Becher, Some- I won’t list them all - these are the bright names of exceptionally talented people, and all of these are stern judges of the bourgeoisie of their countries, all of these are people who know how to hate, but also know how to love. (Applause.) We did not know how to invite many more, who also possess in full force the wonderful human gift of love and hatred, we did not know how to invite them, and this is our considerable fault before them. But I am sure that the second congress of Soviet writers will be graced by many dozens of writers from the West and East, writers from China and India, and there is no doubt that we are on the eve of the unification around the Third International of all the best and most honest people of art, science and technology. (Applause.) A small and - for me personally - not entirely clear disagreement arose between the foreigners and us on the issue of assessing the position of the individual in a classless society... This question has a predominantly academic, philosophical character, and, of course, it could not be well illuminated on one or two meetings or in one conversation... The essence of the matter is that in Europe and everywhere in the world a writer who cherishes the centuries-old cultural achievements and who sees that in the eyes of the capitalist bourgeoisie these cultural achievements have lost their value, that any day a book any honest writer can be publicly burned - in Europe, the writer increasingly feels the pain of the oppression of the bourgeoisie, fears the revival of medieval barbarism, which, probably, would not exclude the establishment of the Inquisition for heretical thinkers. In Europe, the bourgeoisie and its governments are increasingly hostile towards the honest writer. We do not have a bourgeoisie, and our government is our teachers and our comrades, comrades in the full sense of the word. The conditions of the moment sometimes prompt one to protest against the willfulness of individualistic thought, but the country and the government are deeply interested in the need for the free growth of individuality and provide for this every means as possible in the conditions of a country which is forced to spend huge amounts of money on self-defense against the new barbarian - the European bourgeoisie, armed from teeth to toes. Our congress worked on high notes of sincere passion for our art and under the slogan: raise the quality of work! Needless to say, the more perfect the weapon, the better it ensures victory. The book is the most important and powerful instrument of socialist culture. Books of high quality are demanded by the proletariat, our main, multimillion-dollar reader; books of high quality are necessary for hundreds of aspiring writers who go into literature from among the proletariat - from factories and collective farms of all republics and regions of our country. We must carefully, continuously and lovingly help these youth on the difficult path they have chosen, but, as Seifullina rightly said, we should not rush to “make them writers” and we should remember the instructions of Comrade Nakoryakoz about the fruitless, unprofitable waste of public funds on the production of book defects. We must be collectively responsible for this marriage. All our playwrights spoke passionately and convincingly about the need to improve the quality of our drama. I am sure that the organization of the “All-Union Theater” and the “Classics Theater” will greatly help us to master the high technique of ancient and medieval playwrights, and the dramaturgy of the fraternal republics will expand the scope of themes and indicate new original collisions. in the report Bukharin There is one point that requires objection. Talking about poetry Mayakovsky, N.I. Bukharin did not note the harmful - in my opinion - “hyperbolism” characteristic of this very influential and original poet. As an example of such influence, I take the poems of a very gifted poet Prokofiev,- it seems he edited the novel Molchanova“The Peasant” is a novel that was discussed in “Literary Amusements”, in which the fist-like peasant was glorified as our contemporary Mikula Selyaninovich. Prokofiev depicts in poetry a certain Pavel Gromov - a “great hero”, also Mikula. Pavel Gromov is an amazing monster. The world song is sung about him, How he walked, fierce with sword and fire. He -- shoulders like doors- thundered on the Don. And the dust from the campaign obscured the moon. He -- mouth like a cellar- he walked, having survived everything. So the wolf does not pass and the lynx does not run. He -- cheekbones like boards and a mouth like a coffin- He was the complete master of the clearings and paths. In another poem, Prokofiev depicts such a terrible thing: The eldest son knows no equal, Legs-- logs, chest-- mountain. He's alone stands like a laurel Along the paved courtyard. ...Him mustache-- that the reins Beard-- what a harrow....Seven desired ones suddenly love. What a goat! By the way, the Lavra is a rich, populous monastery, almost a town, like, for example, the Kiev and Trinity-Sergius Lavra. This is what Mayakovsky's hyperbolism leads to! In Prokofiev, it seems that it is also complicated by hyperbolism Klyueva, singer of the mystical essence of the peasantry and the even more mystical “power of the earth.” I do not deny Prokofiev’s talent; his desire for epic imagery is even commendable. However, the desire for epic requires knowledge of the epic, and on the way to it one can no longer write such poems: Glory flew across the fields, Thunderbolt controlled fate. If the storms went to the right, Thunderbolt went to the left. The storms again breathed anger, a strong cold of all latitudes (?). If the storms went to the left, Thunderbolt went the other way. I think this is no longer epic. This is like a rehash of an old poem that wanted to be funny: Two friends lived in Kyiv - Amazing people. The first was from the south, and the second was the opposite. The first terrible one was a glutton, And the second one was an idiot, The first one died of constipation, And the second one - on the contrary. Our Soviet poetry has achieved very significant successes in the short period of its life, but just like prose, it contains a very fair amount of barren flowers, chaff and straw. In the struggle for high quality prose and poetry, we must renew and deepen the subject matter, purity and sonority of the language. History has brought us forward as builders of a new culture, and this obliges us to strive even further forward and higher, so that the whole working world can see us and hear our voices. The world would very well and gratefully hear the voices of poets if they, together with musicians, tried to create songs - new ones that the world does not have, but which it should have. It is far from true that the melodies of ancient songs of Russians, Ukrainians, and Georgians are filled with grief and sadness; probably, the Tatars and Armenians also have songs of marching, round dance, comic, dance, labor rhythms, but I am only talking about what I know. Old Russian, Georgian, Ukrainian songs have an endless variety of musicality, and our poets should familiarize themselves with such collections of songs as, for example, “Velikoross” Shayna, as a collection Dragomanova And Kulisha and others of this type. I am sure that such an acquaintance would serve as a source of inspiration for poets and musicians and that the working people would receive wonderful new songs - a gift they have long deserved. It must be taken into account that an old melody, even slightly modified, but filled with new words, creates a song that will be learned easily and quickly. You just need to understand the meaning of rhythm: the chorus of “Dubinushka” can be stretched to the length of a minute, but you can also sing it to a dance rhythm. Our young poets should not disdain creating folk songs. Forward and higher is the path for all of us, comrades, this is the only path worthy of the people of our country, of our era. What does higher mean? This means: we must rise above petty, personal squabbles, above pride, above the struggle for first place, above the desire to command others - above everything that we have inherited from the vulgarity and stupidity of the past. We are involved in a huge cause, a cause of world significance, and we must be personally worthy to take part in it. We are entering an era full of the greatest tragedy, and we must prepare, learn to transform this tragedy in those perfect forms, as the ancient tragedians knew how to portray it. We must not forget for a minute that the whole world of working people is thinking about us as they listen to us, that we are working in front of a reader and viewer that has never been seen before in the entire history of mankind. I urge you, comrades, to study - to learn to think, to work, to learn to respect and appreciate each other, as soldiers value each other on the battlefield, and not waste your energy fighting each other over trifles, at a time when history has called you to merciless struggle with the old world. The Japanese spoke at the congress Hijikato, Chinese Hu Lan-chi and Chinese Amy Xiao. These comrades, as it were, verbally shook hands with each other, signifying the unity of purpose of the revolutionary proletariat of a country whose bourgeoisie was infected from Europe by an acute and fatal attack of the madness of imperialism, and a country whose bourgeoisie not only betrays its people as sacrifices to the robber-imperialists, but also exterminates them themselves to please the imperialism of foreigners, just as Russian landowners and factory owners did this in 1918-1922, using the cynical help of shopkeepers in Europe, America, and Japan. The congress did not clearly enough note the speeches of the representatives of the revolutionary proletariat of the two countries of the East, which can only be explained by the extreme fatigue caused by two weeks of work, which required an enormous amount of attention, and finally tired attention. Having completed its work, the All-Union Congress of Writers unanimously expresses sincere gratitude to the government for allowing the congress and broad assistance to its work. The All-Union Congress of Writers notes that the successes of the internal, ideological association of writers, clearly and solidly revealed at the meetings of the congress, are the result of a resolution of the Central Committee of the Lenin-Stalin Party of April 23, 1932, a resolution that condemned groups of writers for reasons that have nothing to do with in common with the great tasks of our Soviet literature as a whole, but by no means denying associations on technical issues of various creative work. The Congress of Writers is deeply pleased and proud of the attention generously shown to it by numerous delegations of readers. The writers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics will not forget the high demands placed on them by readers and will honestly try to satisfy these demands. Most of the writers, judging by the structure of their speeches, perfectly understood how enormous the importance of literature as a whole is in our homeland, they understood what they were obliged to do by the impressive, continuous demonstration of the strict but loving attitude of readers to literature throughout the entire congress. We have the right to believe that this love is caused by the merits and work of our young literature. The reader has given us the right to be proud of the attitude of the reader and Lenin’s party towards us, but we should not exaggerate the importance of our work, which is still far from perfect. Self-education through self-criticism, continuous struggle for the quality of books, planned work - as far as it is permissible in our craft - understanding literature as a process created collectively and imposing on us mutual responsibility for each other’s work, responsibility to the reader - these are the conclusions which we must infer from the demonstration of readers at the convention. These conclusions oblige us to immediately begin practical work—the organization of all-Union literature as a whole. We must process the enormous and most valuable material of the speeches at the congress so that it serves us temporary - I emphasize the word “temporary” - leadership in our further work, we must in every possible way strengthen and expand the connection formed at the congress with the literature of the fraternal republics. At the congress, in the presence of representatives of revolutionary literature in Europe, it was sadly and unworthy of our literature that our poor knowledge or complete ignorance of European languages ​​was revealed. In view of the fact that our connections with the writers of Europe will inevitably expand, we must introduce the study of European languages ​​into our everyday life. This is also necessary because it will open up the possibility of reading the greatest works of painting in words in the originals. No less important is our knowledge of the languages ​​of Armenians, Georgians, Tatars, Turks, etc. We need to develop a general program for classes with beginning writers, a program that would exclude from this work subjectivism, which is extremely harmful for young writers. To do this, it is necessary to combine the magazines "Growth" and "Literary Studies" into one magazine of a literary and pedagogical nature and cancel the less successful classes of individual writers with beginners. There is a lot of work, all of this is absolutely necessary. In our country it is unacceptable for the growth of literature to develop by itself; we are obliged to prepare a replacement for ourselves, to expand the number of literary workers ourselves. Then we must ask the government to discuss the need to organize an “All-Union Theater” in Moscow, in which artists of all nationalities of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would have the opportunity to acquaint us Russians with their dramatic art and, through it, with the past and present of their cultural life . The main, permanent troupe of this theater should be Russian, which would perform plays by Azerbaijan, Armenians, Belarusians, Georgians, Tatars and all other nationalities of Central Asia, the Caucasus, Siberia - in Russian, in exemplary translations. The rapid growth of the literature of the fraternal republics obliges us to seriously monitor the growth of these literatures and can significantly contribute to the growth of Russian drama. It is necessary to discuss the issue of organizing a “Classics Theater” in Moscow, in which exclusively plays from the classical repertoire would be performed. By introducing the viewer to the writers with examples of dramatic creativity of the ancient Greeks, Spaniards and English of the Middle Ages, they would increase the viewer's demands on the theater, and the writers' demands on themselves. We need to pay attention to the literature of the regions, especially Eastern and Western Siberia, to bring it into the circle of our attention, publish it in the journals of the center, and take into account its importance as an organizer of culture. We must ask the government to allow the Union of Writers to erect a monument to the pioneer hero Pavel Morozov, who was killed by his relatives because, having understood the sabotage activities of his blood relatives, he preferred the interests of the working people to kinship with them. It is necessary to allow the publication of almanacs of current fiction of the fraternal national republics, at least four books per year, and give the almanacs the title “Union” or “Brotherhood” with the subtitle: “Collections of modern fiction of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.” Dear comrades! Before us is a huge, varied work for the benefit of our homeland, which we are creating as the homeland of the proletariat of all countries. Get to work, comrades! Friendly, harmonious, fiery-- get to work! Long live the friendly, strong unity of workers and fighters in a word, long live the All-Union Red Army of Writers! And long live the all-Union proletariat, our reader,-- reader-friend, whom the honest writers of Russia were so passionately waiting forXIXcentury and who has appeared, lovingly surrounds us and teaches us to work! Long live Lenin's party-- Leader of the proletariat, long live the leader of the party, Joseph Stalin! (Stormy, long-lasting applause, turning into ovation. Everyone stands up and sings “The Internationale.”)

NOTES

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

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