Otkrytoe pis'mo Knutu Gamsunu, Gerbertu Uėllsu, Romėn Rollanu [09-12-1930] - [D113]

Concise description of the directive:

The article was written by Efim Zosulya based on the results of the International Conference of Proletarian Writers in Kharkov, during which the so-called ‘sabotage’ by capitalist governments against the Land of Soviets was denounced. Similarly, the “literary saboteurs” also obstruct the revolution by any means possible, negatively influencing the cultural landscape. According to Zosulya, these harms manifest themselves through a series of attitudes and literary practices deemed detrimental to the revolutionary cause: aestheticism, individualism, the development of abstract themes, the avoidance of reality and its distortion, irony and ridicule, mysticism, unprincipled writing, sentimental and love fiction, exoticism, idealism in all its forms, and apoliticalism concealing a contempt for the revolution and the working class. In addition to these elements, superficial liberalism, abstract humanism, pacifism, so-called literary idealism, opportunistic adaptation to revolution, insincerity and many other aspects that, according to the author, would be too numerous to list, also continue to hinder progress. Zosulya directly addresses the “great writers, popular in our country”, accusing them of silence in the face of the reactionary plots threatening the Soviet Union: “The reactionary forces of the world tirelessly weave a dark web around the USSR”, he says, wondering how writers can remain silent while the imperialists and interventionists prepare to massacre millions. In particular, the author harshly criticises H. G. Wells for his essay Russia in the Shadows. He wonders if Wells does not feel ashamed for writing such a book and accuses the English author of failing to grasp the extent of the socialist struggle in the Soviet Union: “And the workers, if they read your books, it is only because they do not know Russia in the Shadows. They do not know that in thirteen years of the great struggle of the proletariat of an immense country to build socialism, a great socialist artist wrote nothing but a small, blind and useless booklet about the Soviet country. And now it is shamefully silent while world reaction desperately tries to strangle the only country of workers and peasants”.