Soviet Literature: A clearly defined and a Poor quality Literature? Literary policies and their consequences on Soviet Literature, and perceptions of this one

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Soviet Literature: A clearly defined and a Poor quality Literature? Literary policies and their consequences on Soviet Literature, and perceptions of this one

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The Soviet Communist ideology which has ruled everything in the Soviet Union for decades was based on Marx's ideas, concepts as Dialectical Materialism. In this theory the world was in perpetual process of change, this through a dialectical movement which was made of conflict between the oppressed class and the oppressing class, the end of the process being the realization of Communism, a perfect world of freedom, equality….In this theory “only the material world, and particularly economic production, [had] reality, ideas being merely the reflection of things material.” Before considering ‘Soviet Literature', it is important to explain the two connotations of Soviet. Here Soviet would be considered in a territorial sense (a Soviet author is a citizen (or a former citizen) of the Union of Soviet and Socialist Republics). But it will also possess a more ideological connotation, as Soviet can be used to refer to someone or something in accordance with the (Communist) Party official ideology. Literature as any other arts were considered by the Communist Party (which headed the Soviet Government) as the best instrument for propaganda, diffusion of Soviet ideology, values, greatness….For these reasons many attention was paid to literary policies, as to anything linked to literary production. Notions and assumptions of the function of literature, of the arts, and the role of the artist, are quite different from those that are generally accepted in Western countries today.

Introduction.
1. The Soviet Communist ideology.
2. Literature as any other art.
Lenin's heritage and literary movements confrontation.
1. Lenin's legacies and his 1905 article 'On party organization and Party Literature'.
2. Questions that areose after the Revolutions of 1917.
3. This Federation of Soviet Writers.
Censorship.
1. The Soviet Regime.
2. The Chief Administration for Literary Affairs and Publishing.
3. The punitive system.
4. The fact that the worst enemy of the author was maybe the author himself.
The Union of Writers.
1. The Union: not 'officially created' by the Party.
2. The Party's reluctance to be seen as interfering directly on literary creation.
Incentives for members of the Writers' Union.
Socialist Realism.
1. Not just an evolution from Critical Realism
2. The new guiding principle.
3. Partiynost as one among the most important concepts of Socialist Realism.
4. The most negative aspect of Socialist Realism.
Gorky.
1. Association with revolutionaries and outspoken opinion on the existing social order.
2. His return to Russia.
3. A proletarian author with an international audience and huge prestige.
Dissidents, Opponents and Loyalists.
1. The most gifted authors among Custodians.
2. Liberals and dissidents.
The International Scene: Soviet perception of the West.
Westerners' opinions.
Different authors view points.
Foreign opinions.

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[...] Hingley, was: first a liberal, than a dissident, finally an émigré; this pattern being well exemplified by Solzhenitsyn, who lived for years abroad The International Scene: Soviet perception of the West From the Soviet view, literature had an educative role and should be used to shape a new man to build a better society, a communist one, as exemplified by the Writers' Union Statute of 1971, which underlined as many others before that: “Soviet multi-national literature, the literature of a new historical epoch, is struggling for the high ideals of socialism and communism, for the creation on earth of a truly just society, one whose banner will be peace, work freedom, equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of all nations.”[47] Soviet Literature received a clear mandate to take an active part into the anti-Western campaign. [...]

[...] A Kuznetsov's statement is interesting here, because his own attitude is characteristic of the one of many others: “Usually only half of what I submitted for publication was printed, and that was only a third or less of what I would have put to paper if there had been freedom of speech and press.”[18] If the traditional censorship focused on a completed (or nearly completed) work, the strength of Soviet organizations as the Union of Writers was its guidance which worked as a “pervasive control of the writer's total activity, far more extensive than mere censorship”.[19] Literary policies were influencing the creative process from the moment of the author's inspiration. [...]

[...] The same month was created the first Federation of Soviet Writers, its aims being to improve the commitment of all writers in class struggle, and to help young authors to improve the quality of their works, among many other tasks .It was also stated that every federated organizations as well as every single writer retained a complete freedom in their creative searches.[6] This Federation of Soviet Writers was a first and decisive step toward the creation of the Union of Soviet Writers which would come to put an end to this kind of “literary anarchy” having existed for years and that were becoming a real hindrance for the Party (and its will of political centralization). [...]

[...] Even though this might be true and should be kept in mind, Soviet Literature also suffered from a kind of ethnocentrism in the sense that Western critics often applied an analysis according to their own cultural features and criteria. Some spoke about an “individualist approach” which was not adapted to Soviet Literature and did not give the keys to understand it as it should have been. This lack of empathy led to misunderstandings and to a haste judgment. But this cultural clash, fuelled by journalists and Medias, finds its roots in deeper explanations. [...]

[...] As Ronald Hingley said: “There [was] no monopoly of literary excellence, any more than there [was] a literary incompetence, on either side of the barrier formed by ideological acceptability; nor [ ] [was] that barrier itself permanently fixed, for it has been shifted again and again owning to fluctuations in the official ‘line'.”[53] Official hostility was not intrinsically linked to artistic quality, even if works of high literary merit were considered as more dangerous and pervasive due to their “high potency to exert a disquieting and unpredictable influence on their readers.”[54] Nor can writers be split in two groups: on one hand the “good writers,” the ones who have fought against the regime as Solzhenitsyn, and were persecuted for that; against the ones” who have accepted to write respecting the constraints imposed on them by different literary policies. [...]

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