“Literatura mirovoj revoljucii”, 2, 1932 - [S035]

The ideas and works characteristic of the OTHERS are contrasted with those that the Soviet authors consider part of US. Taking for example the adjective ‘proletarian‘, which is used as an example in D.N. Ushakov’s Tolkoviy slovar’ russkogo yazyka [Dictionary of the Russian Language]. It refers to the noun ‘proletarian‘, in the sense of ‘lishennyj sredstv proizvodstva naemnyj rabochij v kapitalisticheskom obshhestve’ [wage labourer without means of production in capitalist society], and there is a semantic shift from a simple (neutral) designation of belonging to a particular social group (the proletarians) towards a positive evaluation of any term associated with the term proletarian. In other words, the mere fact of this combination allows the referenced noun to be included in the category of ‘good’, to which WE also belong. Consequently, everything that is defined as ‘proletarian‘ is evaluated positively. It is therefore clear that these expressions, possessing a marked ideological connotation, are widely used in Soviet literary criticism and cultural policy, especially in the 1920s and 1930s. In particular, the concept of the ‘proletarian writer’ is contrasted with that of the ‘bourgeois writer‘ and the phenomenon of ‘proletarian literature’ is portrayed as a necessary tool both to describe the life of the working class and to promote its interests in opposition to those of the bourgeois (‘exploiting’) class. In this way, ‘proletarian‘ acquires a positive connotation and becomes a marker that places the name in a certain semantic field (that of US). At the same time, the synonyms of the term change: from ‘proletarian – worker‘, belonging to a specific social group, to ‘new – progressive, revolutionary‘. The next step towards the demarcation of the image of US is the association of ‘proletarian – revolutionary‘, up to an almost synonymous use of these adjectives in some contexts. In general, ideologically connoted texts make extensive use of strong images that help express the new revolutionary ideas. In other words, a dual way of expressing thoughts is observed: “my opredeljaem ponjatie ili oblekaem mysl’ slovami v prjamom ih smysle, ili zhe inoskazatel’no, obinjakami, namekami, sravnenijami” (Vinokur, O revoljucionnoj frazeologii, 1923: 107) [we define a concept or clothe a thought with words in their direct meaning, or figuratively, periphrastically, through allusions, similes] [On Revolutionary Phraseology].