Staraja pesnja na novyj lad (di A. Surkov) [20-11-1937] - [D056]

Concise description of the directive:

Three years ago, Bukharin, using quotations from encyclopaedic dictionaries and primitive theories of literature, aimed at misleading the public with his pseudo-scientific style, propagandised the obsolete Bogdanovan-Menshevik principles of art, supplementing them with the ‘ancient Indian dhvani’ doctrine, which turned out to be a recipe for political cowardice cultivated by Bukharin’s Trotskyist group. Bukharin attacked every kind of poetry organically linked to the revolution and promoted things alien to Soviet poetry. Bukharin’s confusion allowed Mirsky, Tarasenkov, Mustangova etc. to praise the worst features of decadence, aestheticism and formalism in poetry for more than two years while pretending to fight for true poetry against vulgarisation. E. Usievich (in “Literaturniy kritik”) continues Bukharin’s work by harshly criticising all of today’s political poetry and citing Mayakovsky and Bedniy as the only notable examples. She states that she is concerned about the resurgence of the RAPP’s tendency to place political poetry in opposition to non-political poetry, although the debate on this topic proved very useful in unmasking Bukharin’s theories.