Bor'ba za kačestvo [04-03-1934] - [D116]

Concise description of the directive:

The Plenum of the Organising Committee of the Union of Soviet Writers opens on 6 March. The Plenum was to define the concrete goals to be realised by Soviet literature on the basis of the decisions of the 17th Party Congress; to ascertain the level of preparedness of Soviet writers for the May Congress; and to summarise the results of the development of our literature for the period since the Second Plenum (February 1933). The delay in this development is due to left-wing vulgarians who tend to replace literary art with journalistic non-fiction; who neglect the formal element and renounce the appropriation of the cultural heritage of the past. Today we must fight above all for the quality of literature. The issues of language, art and the need to learn raised recently by Gorky are particularly important in this respect.