Klassovaja bor’ba v literature (di E. Usievič) [1934] - [D143]

Concise description of the directive:

According to Usievich, the Central Committee’s decision of 23 April 1932 on the reorganisation of literary and artistic institutions – which led to the liquidation of the RAPP and the creation of the Union of Soviet Writers, with a communist faction – marked a decisive change in the situation of Soviet literature during the reconstruction period.
During the phase of War Communism, the dividing line between petit-bourgeois writers, who had to some extent accepted the revolution, and proletarian writers, lay in the former’s inability to understand the creative and constructive tasks posed by the revolution itself. The class struggle in literature, Usievich observes, still continues today, but it takes on more subtle forms, requiring more refined instruments of analysis and guidance, as well as a much more attentive understanding of the specific nature of artistic activity than has so far been shown by our criticism.

Ilaria Aletto, Maria Zavyalova