¹ Programma Kommunisticheskoy Partii Sovetskogo Soyuza, Moscow, 1961, p. 6.

² Cf. the speech by Mikoyan, , Pravda, October 22, 1961, p. 7.Google Scholar

³ Ibid.

⁴ Stalin, Joseph, Economic Problems of Socialism, New York, 1952, p. 53.Google Scholar

⁵ Ibid., p. 61.

⁶ Khrushchev's speech, Pravda, October 19, 1961, p. 3.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Malenkov, G. M., “Otchetnyi Doklad XIX S'ezdu Partii o rabote Tsentral'nogo Komiteta VKP(b)” (The Report to the Nineteenth Congress of the Party on the Work of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party [Bolsheviks]), Bol'shevik, No. 19 (October 1952), pp. 58 and 60.Google Scholar

⁹ With regard to the “qualitative preconditions,” many a Soviet citizen must have wondered whether the prospect of receiving gratis from the government a variety of things ranging from children's clothing to housing implied an improvement in the standard of living or merely a further limitation of the freedom of choice.

¹⁰ Cf. Mikoyan's speech, loc. cit.

¹¹ Khrushchev's speech, Pravda, October 18, 1961, p. 6.

¹² Cf., e.g., Sovetskaya Belorussiya, July I, 1961, p. 2. It appears that the joint ordinance of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and of the Council of Ministers establishing the regional councils was passed sometime in May 1961. As this manuscript goes to press (March 1962), one must note mat Pravda (February 23, 1962) at length broke its silence on the subject (“in response to readers' inquiries”) and devoted twelve columns and an editorial to a discussion of the reform. Though the Sovnarkhozy are praised as the “most practical form of industrial organization,” they are criticized because of both “localist” tendencies and inability or unwillingness to eliminate excessively long hauls. The paper is obviously anxious to soften the blow. The same issue contains selected replies of functionaries of the Sovnarkhozy to Pravda's questionnaire on the reform. It is noteworthy mat all the replies carefully refrain from answering the question as to how, in the opinion of the respondent, the reform will affect the activities of the Sovnarkhozy. The delay in discussing the reform and the character of the discussion seem to testify rather clearly both to the importance of the change and to the existence of considerable opposition to it.

¹³ Rostow, W. W., Stages of Economic Growth: An Anti-Communist Manifesto, New York, 1960, pp. 93–105.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Kein Augustisch Alter bluehte,

Keines Medizeers Guete

Laechelte der deutschen Kunst.

Sie ward nicht gepflegt vom Ruhme,

Sie entfaltete die Blume

Nicht am Strahl der Fuerstengunst.

Von dem groessten deutschen Sohne,

Von des grossen Friedrichs Throne

Ging sie schutzlos, ungeehrt.

Ruehmend darfs der Deutsche sagen,

Hoeher darf das Herz ihm schlagen:

Selbst erschuf er sich den Wert.

Darum steigt in hoeherm Bogen,

Darum stroemt in vollern Wogen

Deutscher Barden Hochgesang.

Und in eigner Fuelle schwellend

Und aus Herzens Tiefe quellend,

Spottet er der Regeln Zwang.

¹⁵ Pravda, October 20, 1961, p. 2.

¹⁶ Malenkov, , loc.cit., p. 43.Google Scholar

¹⁷ It should be noted that in Russian, which lends itself to Greek-like compounds, the word used is ideologico-artistic; the language itself, as it were, revealing through a forced unnatural union the real crux of the problem.

¹⁸ The reference is to N. V. Gogol (1809–1852) and to M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (1826–1889).

¹⁹ Malenkov, , loc. cit., pp. 43–44.Google Scholar

²⁰ Pravda, October 20, 1961, p. 2.

²¹ Ibid.

²² Cf. Pravda, October 22, 1961, p. 2.

²³ Pravda, October 25, 1961, p. 5.

²⁴ Cf. Sholokhov, M., Podnyataya tselina (Virgin Land Under Plough), Moscow, 1960Google Scholar, Book 11, passim.

²⁵ Pravda, October 25, 1961, p. 7.

²⁶ Pravda, October 26, 1961, p. 3; italics added.

²⁷ Programma Kommunisticheskoy Partii Sovetskogo Soyuza, op.cit., p. 131.

²⁸ Cf., e.g., Pravda, April 24, 1949, p. 1: “Workers in literature, art, and cinematography! Keep increasing the level of your workmanship. Keep creating new highly ideological artistic works, worthy of the great Soviet people.” The 1961 Proclamation, too, invited the writers and the artists to “fight for high ideological character of [their] works and for artistic workmanship, for close inseparable connection of literature and art with the life of the people, with our age.” (Pravda, April 9, 1961, p. 1.) The words “our age,” it may be added, are a somewhat free translation of the Russian term sovremennost', which literally means “contemporaneousness.” It is interesting that the meaning of the term has been discussed in recent Soviet writings. The official interpretation is to regard as “contemporaneous” only novels, plays, films, etc., which depict present-day Soviet life. A broader and freer view includes in the concept “everything that excites us today,” so that, for instance, Othello or The Idiot may make more “contemporary” motion pictures than jejeune scripts dealing with Soviet reality. Cf. Akademiya nauk SSSR, Institut Istorii Iskustva, Yezhegodnik Kino 1959 (Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Institute of History of Art, Cinema Yearbook 1959), Moscow, 1961, p. 11.Google Scholar

²⁹ For the preceding, see the first edition of die novel: Panferov, Fedor, Bol'shoe iskustvo, in Oktyabr', XXVI, No. II (November 1949), pp. 3–143.Google Scholar

³⁰ Cf. Panferov, F., Bol'shoe iskustvo, Moscow, 1954, p. 306Google Scholar; and Panferov, Fedor, Bol'shoe iskustvo, in Sobranie sochinenii (Collected Works), V, Moscow, 1959, p. 314.Google Scholar

³¹ In Oktyabr', XXXVII, Nos. 7 and 8 (July and August 1960).

³² Ibid. (August 1960), p. 11.

³³ Ibid., p. 13.

³⁴ Akhmatova, Anna, Stikhotvoreniya (Poems), Moscow, 1961, p. 10.Google Scholar

³⁵ Il'ya Il'f and Evgenii Petrov, Sobranie Sochinenii (Collected Works), Preface by D. Zaslavskii. Also Galanov, B., Il'ya Il'f i Eygenii Petrov, Zhizn' i tvorchestvo (Life and Work), Moscow, 1961, pp. 132, 191–92.Google Scholar

³⁶ Cf. this writer's “Reflections on Soviet Novels,” Section II, in World Politics, XII (January 1960), pp. 165–85. It might be in order to mention at this point that a parallel process took place in Soviet cinematography. In Soviet writings on the subject, it is freely stressed that the Twentieth Congress (1956) marked a turning point. After that date “attempts to substitute … sham idyls for real conflicts” were abandoned, and interest in “the ordinary common man and his everyday life” became a characteristic feature of motion pictures produced in the second half of the 1950's. Yezhegodnik Kino 1959, op.cit., p. 7.

³⁷ Even a writer like Panferov could not resist the temptation to discuss in his latest novel, Vo imya molodogo, some interesting aspects of feminine anatomy and to report various conversations held in matrimonial and adulterous beds, while still dealing with the pernicious greed for “original accumulation of capital” (a Marxian concept that he revised to include such things as acquisition of a small house) and with the no less pernicious tendencies in abstract art. V. Kochetov, who, among Soviet writers, is the undisputed leader of the back-to-Stalin movement, fully agrees with Panferov on the social evils produced by private home ownership, but refuses to go quite so far in matters of sex. With regard to the latter, he prefers a cautious negative method. Thus he likes to place a high Party functionary in close proximity to an attractive woman (whose charms have been prominently displayed by the author) and then to tell in fair detail all the things which the functionary might have done if not restrained by virtue and position. This unhumorous Soviet version of M. Busch's delightful story, Der heilige Antonius von Padua, has appeared in Kochetov's novel, The Secretary of the Obkom, which is his most recent effort to freeze over the “thaw” in Soviet literature. This novel, which incidentally contains a thinly disguised vituperative caricature of the poet Evtushenko, was published in the summer of 1961; a few months later Kochetov was awarded the Lenin Prize for his contributions to Soviet literature. Cf. Sekretar' Obkoma, in Zvezda, No. 8 (1961), p. 55; also Literaturnaya Gazeta, February 6, 1962, p. 1.

³⁸ Cf. Yabloko, Novaya kniga stikhov (The New Book of Poems), Moscow, 1960, p. 6.

³⁹ Zeleranskii, N. and Larin, B., Mishka, Serega i ya, in Yunost', Nos. 7 and 8 (1959).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ The procedure has a special technical term to describe it—sorvat' urolk—which has been taken over from pre-dictatorial political jargon, where it referred to the deplorable practice of noisily obstructing the mass meetings of political opponents.

⁴¹ Cf., for the preceding, the second novel that suffered official disparagement at the Congress: Vasilii Aksenov, Zvezdny bilet (Ticket to the Stars), in Yunost', No. 6 (1961), pp. 6 and 20, and No. 7 (1961), p. 52. Also Aksenov, Vasilii, Kollegi (The Colleagues), Moscow, 1961, pp. 6Google Scholar, 18. Let us add that it would seem tempting but hardly warranted to relate the fermentation in Soviet Russia to the exploits of the beat generation in the United States. There is no “raggedy madness and riot” about the Soviet youth. They do not seem to include any “holy goofs” of Dean Moriarty's ilk. Nor is there much doubt that the Soviet writers have a sense of touching upon problems that pervade the young generation throughout the country, while Jack Kerouac, for instance, is quite conscious of dealing with peripheral oddities. For the preceding quotations, see Kerouac, Jack, On the Road, New York, 1957, pp. 194 and 254.Google Scholar

⁴² This passage was written in November 1961. As the manuscript goes to press (March 1962), one must note that the character of Yunost' changed perceptibly beginning with the November 1961 issue. Moreover, the editor of the journal, V. Katayev, has been replaced by Boris Polevoy, whose record provides every assurance that the journal will be safely prodded back into the pinfold of Soviet conformity. (Cf. Literaturnaya Gazeta, January 27, 1962.)

⁴³ Pravda, October 29, 1961, p. 7.

⁴⁴ Literally: “His being right”

⁴⁵ Tvardovskii, A. T., Stikhotyoreniya i poemy (Lyrical and Epic Poems), Moscow, 1954, pp. 589–90.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Literally: “His being wrong.”

⁴⁷ Tvardovskii, A. T., Sobraniye Sochinenii (Collected Works), III, Moscow, 1960Google Scholar, pp. 340 et seq.

⁴⁸ David, Joseph E., Mission to Moscow, New York, 1941, p. 357.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Cf. Pravda, October 29, 1961, p. 7.