Sovetskaja chudožestvennaja literatura ot XVI do XVII s"ezda (di P. Judin) [1934] - [D142]

Concise description of the directive:

In the three years between the 16th and 17th Party Congresses (1930-1933), the Soviet Union underwent radical transformations, becoming a socialist industrial and agricultural power, with a now literate population and a new technical intelligentsia. In this context, literature too experienced a significant evolution. Yudin points out how literary production increased significantly compared to the previous five-year period, but also how the field suffered from internal conflicts, factionalism and theoretical rigidities in the early 1930s.
The dissolution of the old organisations (such as the RAPP) and the founding of the Union of Soviet Writers marked a decisive step towards the ideological and organisational unification of the literary field. Socialist realism was defined as the guiding principle of Soviet literature, as opposed to formalist or idealist theories. However, Yudin observes that theoretical elaboration remains insufficient and that literature struggles to keep pace with the complexity of Soviet life, which has advanced in political, technical, and social terms. Important novels dealing with industrialisation and collectivisation emerged, such as Time, Forward! (Vremya, vperyod!) by Kataev, Energy (Energiya) by Gladkov, and Virgin Soil Upturned (Podnyataya tselina) by Sholokhov. Yet limitations persist in both the understanding of reality and the quality of style. Poetry, in particular, is judged to be backward in terms of form and content.
Finally, Yudin calls for greater ideological vigilance: the class enemy, he warns, also operates covertly within literature. Writers must strengthen the link with science and with the principles of Marxism-Leninism, contributing with greater political awareness to the construction of socialism.

Ilaria Aletto