Naši zadači [1933] - [D133]

Concise description of the directive:

The editorial that opens the first issue of the influential monthly journal “Literaturniy kritik” – founded in 1933 as an institutional organ and, at the same time, a privileged arena of theoretical debate on socialist realism – clearly outlines the tasks of Soviet literary criticism in a historical phase marked by the advance of socialism and the radical transformation of the USSR on the economic, social and cultural levels. In this text, literature is conceived not as mere artistic expression, but as a powerful ideological tool and means of political education of the masses. Criticism, therefore, cannot limit itself to a secondary or ancillary role: it must become a militant activity capable of analysing literary texts in depth in the light of dialectical materialism and class struggle. The limitations of previous criticism are also denounced, particularly that conducted by RAPP, which was accused of scholasticism, schematism and an inability to grasp the specificity of art. Both the formalist perspective, which isolates aesthetic aspects from ideological content, and the positivist perspective, which lacks theoretical and analytical depth, are rejected. Emphasis is placed on the need for a form of criticism grounded in reality, capable of grasping the ideological and formal meaning of a work and, at the same time, of guiding writers who, although committed to socialism, have not yet fully assimilated the tasks of Soviet art. As the editorial states, ‘such general questions, entirely legitimate and topical, will only find their correct, authentically Marxist solution on the basis of the concrete analysis of literary works and the careful study of all the tendencies that arise in literature, of everything that is configured and grows in it as truly new, alive, interesting and progressive’ (p. 6). Critics must be able to speak to readers and authors, foster the re-education process of the intelligentsia, and be the interpreter and guide of the new cultural course. A profound knowledge of life, combined with mastery of artistic forms, becomes an indispensable condition for exercising this function. Nashi zadachi thus represents a declaration of intent by the journal’s editorial staff and, at the same time, a broader theoretical reflection of seminal importance: literary criticism, placed at the centre of the Soviet cultural project, is officially conferred a strategic function in the construction of the “new” man and socialist society, founded on a world and a culture in conflict with the “old” (p. 4), that is, with cultural and ideological legacies perceived as ‘foreign’ and hostile to the new order (p. 6). Ilaria Aletto