Proletarians of all countries—unite!

No. 1
March 2007

A Tribute to Maxim Gorky

I. Funeral Orations on the Red Square by V. M. Molotov, Alexei Tolstoy,

Andre Gide & Gyorgy Lukács

II. The Stormy Petrel & Hatred by A. M Gorky

III. Gorky’s Proclamation to the French Workers (1906)

IV. The Socialist Humanism of Maxim Gorky by Eugenia Knipovich

_________________
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Maxim Gorky 1868-1936: beginning in his early childhood. Not a

few times was he thrown to the depths in
Eulogies from his funeral
on the Red Square* which many talented and gifted man has
perished. For the sake of daily bread, he
had to labor much for big and little
Translated from the German by S. D.
capitalists—as painter, baker, clerk,
Kogan
stevedore, hired man.

V. M. Molotov None of the great writers of our country,

ay! and of other countries, knew so
On Behalf of the Council of People’s closely the life of “the depths” of the
Commissars of the USSR and the people under capitalism. None of them
Central Committee of the CPSU personally experienced so much of the
ferocity and infamy of the masters and
Comrades: exploiters. None of them had even seen
with his own eyes so many people
Bidding farewell tortured by slave labor and broken under
today to Maxim the yoke of capital as our Gorky, in
Gorky, we, his whom all this suffering was forged into
friends and irreconcilable and revolutionary hatred
countless towards the capitalist system, and
admiring readers, boundless faith in the liberating power of
feel as if some Communism.
brilliant particle
of our own life That is why the workers, all toilers see in
has departed Gorky themselves, their own man, their
forever into the own life and fate, their future. That is
past. Millions of why Gorky was loved, is loved and will
persons are be loved so much by the toilers of our
experiencing this feeling. From the very own and other countries. Gorky created
depth of his spirit, Gorky stood close to immortal characters—the people of his
us, the people of his epoch, to whom he times.
gave so much in the writings of a genius,
in his boundless love for the toilers and His artistic figures of the capitalist, the
his struggle for the freedom of man and rapacious profiteer, the fusty philistine
by the example of his entire, splendidly of the provincial backwaters, the selfish,
unique life. parasitic bourgeois intellectual and other
gentlemen of old pre-revolutionary
In order to become the great writer we Russia are indelibly stamped in one’s
know, Gorky had during the course of memory. The proletarian writer Maxim
long years to fight a stubborn struggle to Gorky looked into their very souls and
break away from heavy need and sorrow revealed in his works their very nature as
oppressors of the masses of the people.

*
From International Literature, No. 8 August
1936.
 3

He gave many vivid and forceful shining mind, closeness to the people,
examples of the depths of nothingness to self-sacrificing and gigantic labor upon
which the brutal capitalist system had the mastery of the cultural achievements
reduced some “rolling stone” off-spring of human culture made him a supreme
of bourgeois sections of society. At the friend of the toilers and majestic
same time Gorky, as a magnificent artist inspiration in the struggle for the cause
of the proletariat, drew remarkable of Communism.
portraits of freedom-loving and selfless
people who would not accept oppression To his last breath Gorky lived as one in
and the slime of life; he gave the best thought and feeling with those who with
and most expressive pictures of such enthusiasm are now building the
proletarian revolutionaries, picture new socialist society under the
burning with the warmth of the sincere leadership of the Party of Lenin and
feel of an artist-genius. Maxim Gorky Stalin. To the last day of his life his
has millions of admiring readers. Their eyes sparkled with the fire of unyielding
ranks will grow and grow for a long time struggle against enemies of the toilers,
to come. the fascists and all other oppressors, the
assassins of culture and the instigators of
In his powerful influence on Russian war. Every success of the toilers in our
literature, Gorky stands with such giants country, the successes of the
as Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, as the one Stakhanovites, the new forms of activity
who best carried on in our times their among women, the increase of the
great traditions. The influence of harvest and of labor productivity, the
Gorky’s artistic writings on the destinies exposure of sorties and plots on the part
of our Revolution is more direct and of the enemy, the strengthening of the
more forceful than the influence of any defense of the country, and above all, the
other of our writers. Therefore it is cultural growth of the masses, the
precisely Gorky who is the genuine growth of literature and art made him as
begetter of proletarian, socialist happy as an ardent youth and a
literature in our land and in the eyes of venerable sage. Gorky’s example
the toilers of the whole world. teaches us much.

Maxim Gorky came in his own special Gorky was a literary genius. Literary
way as a great artist into the ranks of men, artists in words, may learn from
warriors for Communism. He came into this example the power which words
our ranks even before the revolutionary have when they serve in the struggle for
uplift of 1905, but he came with the the happiness of man and of humanity,
already unfolded banners of a storm when these words reach the hearts of
petrel of the Revolution. Gorky began men and of peoples.
his revolutionary literary life in an epoch
of cumulative revolutionary outburst and Gorky was a great son of a great people.
soon stood completely and organically For simple folk, for toilers, the example
on the platform of the working class, of Gorky shows that our people, like
became a close friend of the great Lenin other peoples, is rich in glorious talents
in the struggle for Communism. It which formerly were able only in
reflects the grandeur of Gorky that his exceptional circumstances to rise from
 4

the depths but for which there is now Song of the Stormy Petrel (1901)
open a free path to full flowering, to
victories and to glory. Gorky was a By A. M. Gorky
supreme friend of the toilers and an
Over dull grey wastes of water
inspirer of the struggle for Communism. winds are massing darkening storm-clouds.
Is any further proof needed that There ‘twixt clouds and surging sea-waves
proudly soars the Stormy Petrel,
humanity’s finest men, those who have darting sheer like jet-black lightening.
reached the heights of culture and of Now he skims the foam with wing-tip,
now—and arrow shooting cloudward,—
deep comprehension of the secret he cries boldly—clouds hear gladness
dreams of the peoples about their in that cry so fierce and daring.
In that crying—thirst for tempest!
happiness, give their energies supremely Mighty of anger, flame of passion,
and without reserve to the cause of certainty of final triumph
hear the storm clouds in that crying.
Communism, and in so doing find their Sea-gulls moan in fear of tempest—
highest satisfaction? This in itself shows moan and whirl above the waters
fain to bury deep their terror
that the cause of Communism is on the underneath the surging billows.
way to its full triumph. Since Lenin, the And the grebes, too, moan in panic,—
They, denied the joys of battle,
death of Gorky is the heaviest loss for fear the raucous blasts of thunder.
our country and for humanity. Our Foolish penguins hide fat bodies
timidly behind cliff-crags...
strength is in this: the people of the And alone the Stormy Petrel
Soviet land to whom Gorky devoted all soars in freedom, proud and dauntless
over foaming grey sea waters.
his tremendous talent and his mighty Ever darker, ever lower
heart has already risen up on powerful sink the clouds down to the sea-waves,
billows wail, toss ever higher
feet, has provided space for the crests to meet the breaking thunder.
development of its own immeasurable Thunder crashes. White with fury
waves are wrangling with the storm-wind.
energies and talents, and by this very But the wind in hatred seizes
fact is triumphantly incarnating the herds of waves in ruthless clutches
crashes them against the cliff-crags
hopes and dream of the best shatters solid emerald masses
representatives of humanity. into foamy dust and spraylets.
Prouder cries the Stormy Petrel,
________________________________ darting sheer like jet-black lightening,
pierces arrow-like the storm clouds,
grazes sea-foam with his pinions.
Now he hovers like a demon,—
black and dauntless tempest-demon,—
he is mocking, he is sobbing...
He is mocking at the storm-clouds
from sheer gladness he is sobbing.
In the thunder,—wary demon,—
Growing weariness he senses,
He is sure, no cloud will ever
hide the sun, no cloud ever.
Winds are whining...thunder crashing...
Blue with flame the clouds are blazing
over dark abysmal waters.
Sea-waves catch swift darts of lightening
quench them in their deeps unfathomed.
Just like writhing fiery serpents,
swift reflections of those lightenings,
disappear into the sea-depths.
Storm! The storm will soon come bursting!
Cries the dauntless Petrel soaring
twixt the sea-roar and the lightening;
cries the harbinger of triumph:
Let it break with greater fury!

Translated from the Russian

by R. Magidoff and Herbert Marshall

From International Literature No. 9,

September 1936
 5

Alexei Tolstoy defense of the injured and insulted. And

so, in the nineties—in those terrible
years of oppression and tense silence—
For the Union of Soviet Writers
this tall, thin, stooping, blue-eyed youth
with a fierce and fiery soul—raised the
The artist who
banner of revolt. Whoever has a living
deeply and truly
heart, he said, must shatter to bits the
reflects
cursed torpor of the philistines, march
revolutionary
out to the open spaces and light the
epochs of
bonfires of a free life! With broad
history—such
strokes of the brush, with the
was Gorky—the
precipitousness of genius, he drew the
creator who
stupid brutal face of the exploiting class.
leads humanity
There you are—the Russian, insatiable
to the realization
mask besmirched with Lenten oil. Feast
of a liberated
your eyes upon it!
world—such
was Lenin—
I was still a boy but I remember the
Great men do
impression of a tremendous explosion
not have two dates of their existence in
echoing through the whole world. In the
history—birth and death, but only one:
mould of bourgeois life, which had
their birth.
seemed so durable, a breach had been
On this ancient square, where the people
forced to which streamed all who had
for thousands of years created for itself a
living hearts. In a year or so, the name
government and where the higher forms
of Gorky traveled throughout the world.
of government were created for all, we
He became a forerunner of the
have gathered to the place in its
Revolution, its storm petrel.
pantheon an urn with the ashes of a
writer of our people and of the world.
Nearness to Lenin crystallized his revolt,
gave his art an impulse towards
The date of birth of
clearly marked and concrete aims.
Gorky the artist was Great men do not
Nearness to Stalin crystallized his work:
in the nineties. The have two dates of
apart from his own creative work
young Peshkov their existence in
he took upon himself the tremendous
gathered in the magic history—birth
and weighty task of the leadership of
focus of his soul all and death, but
Soviet Literature. With undying ardor
the explosive forces only one: their
he led Soviet literature to world heights.
of the pre- birth.
He led Soviet literature along its only
revolutionary epoch;
path—realism, culture, truth, with deep
collected all the wrath of the humiliated
compensation of all the multiformity of
and the exploited, all the wearied
our Soviet life. His guiding idea was
expectations, all the passions for which
Lenin’s formula: ”The very aspiration to
there was no vent. He felt on his own
comprehend all saves us from
shoulders the iron strength of the fists of
stagnation.” Such is the path of Soviet
the merchants, the philistines and the
literature, the aspiraton to comprehend
police. Not a few times did he fight,
as much as possible, as deeply as
madly, alone, against the many, in
 6

possible, as truthfully as possible, our arts was permitted not to the most
complex, creative, flourishing, intelligent, not to the most able but only
unprecedented life. On guard over this to those since childhood had been
striving stood and stands Gorky, sheltered from need. Doubtless it may
deathless. be pointed out that intelligence did not
accompany riches, than in French
Comrades, not with a funeral march but literature a Molière, a Diderot, a
with the triumphant song of life let us Rousseau emerged from the people; but
greet the great artist who lives with us, their readers remained people of leisure.
and continues to help us with his When the great October Revolution
unfading word to carry high and still lifted up the deepest masses of the
higher the torch of Soviet art. Let Gorky people, there were those who said, in the
live eternally in our hearts and in our West, who repeated, who ever believed
works! that this wave from the deeps would
submerge culture. When it ceased to be
Andre Gide a privilege, was not culture in danger?

It is in reply to this question that writers

For the International Association of
of all countries have grouped themselves
Writers for the Defense of Culture
with a very clear feeling of urgent duty:
yes, culture is menaced, but the danger
The death of
for it is by no means from the
Maxim Gorky
revolutionary and liberative forces; it
throws a cloud
comes on the contrary from persons who
of gloom over
try to subjugate these forces and break
not only the
them, to put reason itself under a bushel.
Soviet land but
What menaces culture is the fascism, the
over the entire
narrow and artificial nationalism which
world. That
have nothing in common with true
great voice of
patriotism, profound love of ones
the Russian
country. What menaces culture is the
people which
war to which these hateful nationalisms
Gorky made us
fatally and necessarily lead.
hear found
I had to preside at the International
echoes in the
Conference in Defense of Culture which
most distant
is now being held in London. The
countries. Thus it is not my personal
grievous news of Maxim Gorky’s health
sorrow which I have to express here but
called me hurriedly to Moscow. On Red
that of French literature, of European
Square which has been the scene of so
culture, of the culture of the whole
many glorious and tragic events, in front
universe. Culture has been for a long
of this Lenin Mausoleum towards which
time the appanage of a privileged class.
so many eyes are turned, I take it upon
To be cultured it was necessary to have
myself to declare boldly in the name of
leisure; one class of people labored in
the writers assembled in London and in
order to let a very small number of idlers
my own name: it is the great
enjoy life, educate themselves. The
international revolutionary forces which
garden of culture, of fine letters and the
 7

assume the care and the duty of Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. And
defending, protecting and giving fresh tears came to my eyes as I reflected that
luster to culture. The fate of the culture what for them seemed so natural
is linked in our minds with the very seemed, for me, the Westerner, still so
destiny of the USSR. We shall defend it. extraordinary. And I thought also that
there was here, in the USSR, a very
Just as, apart from the particular interests surprising new phenomenon: up till now
of each people, a great common need in all the countries of the world the
draws the proletarian classes of all lands writer of worth has almost always been
together, so does there arise, apart from more or less a revolutionary, a fighter, in
each national literature, a manner more or less
I saw with sorrow that these
a general culture conscious and more or less
very people in any other
common at the same veiled, he thought and
country than the USSR were
time to all nations; a wrote against something.
those who would have been
culture made of all that He refused to approve. He
forbidden access to this
is truly living and brought to mind and heart a
hall; precisely those who in
human in the particular ferment of insubordination
front of the gardens of
literature of each and revolt. Those in the
culture come up against the
country, “National in seats of the mighty, the
terrible: Private Property,
form, socialist in authorities, tradition, if they
Trespassers Will Be
content” as Stalin has had been more clear-
Prosecuted. And tears came
told us. I have often sighted would not have
to my eyes as I reflected that
written that by being hesitated to designate him
what for them seemed so
most specific that a as the enemy!
natural seemed, for me, the
writer attains the most
Westerner, still so
general interest, Today in the USSR, for the
extraordinary.
because it is in showing first time the situation is
himself most personal quite different: in being a
that he reveals himself, by the very fact, revolutionary the writer is no longer an
as most human. No Russian writer was oppositionist. All to the contrary, he
more Russian than Maxim Gorky. No answers the wishes of the great number,
Russian writer was more universally of the entire people and, what is most
listened to. admirable, of its leaders. There is thus
as it were a disappearance of the
I was present yesterday when the people problem, or rather a transportation so
passed before Gorky’s catafalque. I novel that the mind at first remains
could not cease from contemplating this disconcerted. And this will be not the
number of women, children, toilers of all least of the glories of the USSR and of
kinds for whom Maxim Gorky was a those prodigious days which continue
spokesman and a friend. I saw with still to shake our old world—to have
sorrow that these very people in any made rise in as new sky, along with new
other country than the USSR were those stars, new problems which until now
who would have been forbidden access were not suspected. Maxim Gorky will
to this hall; precisely those who in front have had the singular and glorious
of the gardens of culture come up destiny of linking this new world to the
against the terrible: Private Property, past and binding it to the future. He
 8

knew the oppression of the day before position occupied by Gorky laid a
yesterday, the tragic struggle of unique stamp on his art. Gorky was also
yesterday; he powerfully aided the calm contemporary with a period marked by a
and glittering triumph of today. He lent very profound decline of realism in
his voice to those who had not Western Europe (as in Russia since
before been able to make themselves 1905). The realism of Swift and
heard, those who, thanks to him, will Fielding, Balzac and Stendhal had long
henceforth be heard. Henceforth, since vanished from the scene when
Maxim Gorky belongs to history. He Gorky began his activities as a writer.
takes his place with the greatest. Shallow naturalist and experimental
formalism—an empty “craftsmanship”
Gyorgy Lukács of nonsense—prevailed in literature of
the time. Gorky, however, was not
affected in the least by this decline. He
A Great Proletarian Humanist
continued, unabashed, the traditions of
the old realists and directly those of
The last great
Tolstoy.
writer of the
European
This statement is not to be taken in a
galaxy of
superficial literal sense; however,
realists is
Gorky’s style differs fundamentally from
dead. And
that of Tolstoy. Gorky inherited
with him died
Tolstoy’s broad view of the world, a
the first great
view so thoroughly alive that it wakes to
classic writer
life what seems dead—that “reasonable
of Socialist
view of the world” of which Hegel
realism. The
spoke, and which results in the world
writer whose
also taking a “reasonable view” of such
greatness was
men. Like Tolstoy, Gorky was charged
an
with a tremendous humanistic
adumbration of that magnificent
indignation against the degradation and
development of the art which will be
sophistication of man by feudalism and
ushered in by Socialist society. Such a
capitalism. His was a glowing, un-
fusion of periods in one person could
vacillating and consuming humanistic
take place only in Russia where the
passion for human integrity, for an
bourgeois-democratic Revolutions
ideally well-rounded and fully developed
turned over the torch falling from its
man. Gorky carried this fire to the real
hands to the victory-assured proletarian
leaders of the exploited and oppressed,
Revolution. Only in Russia did one
to the revolutionary proletariat. The
generation experience the failure of 1905
glow of indignation he blew to a
and the triumph of 1917.
Promethean flame of revolution.
Maxim Gorky was contemporary, friend
Gorky’s life and works are vivid
and companion in arms of Tolstoy and
evidence of the fact that the
Chekhov—he was also contemporary,
revolutionary proletariat, that a people
friend and companion in arms of Lenin
freed by the proletarian revolution, is the
and Stalin. This unique historical
 9

real heir to all intense human revolutionary labor movement also frees
indignation, to all revolutions of human the individual who takes part in it
history, heir to humanism and to great wholeheartedly, that it emancipates his
art. His life and works show that this personality and makes a man of him. He
proletariat “masters and adapts could see that with Marxism, with the
everything of value in the more than Bolsheviks, the humanist principle is
2,000 year-old development of human more than an ideal, more than a distant
thought and human culture.” (Lenin) prospect. With them humanism is rather
The word “man” acquires an altogether a direct basis and principle of
new pathos with Gorky. revolutionary practice itself.
His humanism contains at He was the foremost This Bolshevik humanism
once more joy and rage; it defender of human makes Mother a heroic song
is both brighter and full of a culture in general. He of the power of the
more intense hatred of all seemed to feel himself revolutionary labor
degradation than any the rightful heir to all movement to free humanity
previous humanism. The human culture, which and lends this book its unique
joyful brightness of his he was duty bound to power.
humanism has its origin in defend against the
his close ties with the worst forms of Other writers have shown the
revolutionary labor barbarity. He was a struggle of the proletariat for
movement, with great writer because he emancipation. They limited
Bolshevism. To Gorky the was a great man. themselves, however, to a
labor movement, the picture of the political or
proletarian revolution, economic struggles. Their
means primarily the emancipation of humanism remained more or less
man, the breaking of all chains that abstract—when it did not degenerate
hamper the free and all-sided into honeyed sentimental phrases.
development of the human personality. Gorky also showed at the same time—
and emphasized—the already present,
Young Gorky could see the vital human actual effectiveness of humanism in the
powers latent in people. He could see revolutionary labor movement.
these forces rise in rebellion against all The labor movement awakens and
the misery and degradation that develops, gathers and organizes the
hampered their development. He could human forces of each one who takes part
also see how these forces were wasted, in it. It is in and by means of the labor
twisted into senseless, even perverted movement that distorted, crippled men
bestiality by the “Asiatic capitalism” of turn again into human beings. It gives
old Russia. The salvation of the back the power of speech to the dumb,
tremendous human forces of the people sight to the blind. It wrests mankind
lies in the revolutionary labor from the clutches of dullness, through
movement, in an orderly gathering of which can be seen only what is present
forces for the emancipation of mankind. and direct. Inasmuch as it shows men
But not only the distant emancipation of the future, it also illuminates their past
mankind as a whole—a point most and brightens the present, making it full
remarkable and original in the creative of purpose—of conscious struggles. It
vision of Gorky who could see that the shatters the barriers erected by
 10

capitalism to separate man from man and education and the fact that they are
unites them in the most human way, in a chained for life to a specialized activity
common struggle. itself—even when this specialized
activity is merely to do nothing.”
True, Gorky also shows victims, also
shows failures, also shows the breaking Take Gorky’s capitalists—the Foma
of human bonds by the cruel necessities Gordeyev family, the Artamanovs,
of the struggle. But the triumphant song Yegor Bulychev and others. They are
of humanization by participation in the incomparable; there is nothing like them
labor movement, of profound union of in world literature. Balzac shows with
awakened humanity in their new great power what capitalism does to
comradeship sounds out above suffering. man. But in Balzac’s works human
Figures like Nilowna or Rybin only energy deflected, misled and directed
Gorky could create. This revolutionary, into spurious channels by capitalism can
proletarian humanism permeates all of discharge itself in tremendous
Gorky’s works. Whether he is depicting explosions. The setting sun of the heroic
a tavern, or the lodging-house of a night, period of the bourgeois revolution is still
a trading office or a stuffy middle-class throwing its last rays on his work.
home, the light of proletarian humanism Untrammeled human forces still break
penetrates every human fate. Without out or subside in tragic struggle.
the slightest sentimentality, he expresses Vautrin, Gobseck, Nucingen still stand
a warmth of emotion over the people and out like figures larger than life.
their lot such as no other writer could
express. To Gorky the capitalist world is After 1848, the figures in European
a great slaughter-house where thousands literature shrink. The newer realism
of human victims are under the knife at shows only fightless victims, only
any given moment. “products of the capitalist degradation of
man.” They are not deformed by
Gorky, the proletarian humanist, says capitalism before our eyes; they come
what the greatest Marxian thinkers have upon the stage already deformed. One
repeatedly said: not only does capitalism reading the literature of this period might
enslave and exploit the toiler but it also think that people who were not
cripples and robs of human semblance deformed, not depraved, had been
the members of the ruling class itself. In invented in the imagination of the older
Anti-Duhring, Engles says: “Not only writers or in the visions of Utopians. In
the laborers but also the classes directly Gorky’s works although the final result
or indirectly exploiting the laborers are of the struggle is inevitable for those
made subject, through the division of who cannot rise above the confines of
labor, to the tool of their function:—the their class, this result does not occur
empty-minded bourgeois to his own until the end of the struggle. Under the
capital and his own thirst for profits; the surface of bourgeois life a fierce,
lawyer to his fossilized legal sometimes grotesque, sometimes heroic,
conceptions, which dominate him as a conflict goes on. Human energies seek a
power independent of him; the ‘educated way of development. Not only to
classes’ in general to their manifold local capture a place in society; there is also a
limitations and one-sided specialized struggle for the development of human
 11

ability itself. Men are invariably his works. Gorky has no use for the
crippled, deformed, but they fight— schematic simplification, in which the
according to the temperament and newer European literature indulges.
circumstances—for self-preservation and Every one of his characters shows a
are subdued only after a long battle. profound, organic unity of mind and
instinct—even though this is a unity of
This is the inner drama of Gorky’s contradictions. But that which more
works. With this Gorky shows a more then anything else gives Gorky a unique
profound hatred of capitalism than any position in the present day literature is
other writer. To him the world of the fact that the spiritual life of his
capitalism is no cemetery for those born characters is always an organic
dead—murdered humanity falls a victim necessary consequence of their
only after a severe struggle. This is the environment, and just as individual a
humdrum reality of capitalism. A matter as their voices or figures. Gorky
battlefield where thousands of human is never indifferent to their mental life.
souls are murdered every day. This He is always aware of what conditioned
inner drama is an important feature of the attitude of each towards the world,
Gorky’s style. The latter-day realism of and how this attitude, in turn, reacts
both Europe and America vacillates upon life itself. Gorky’s works are a
between two wrong extremes: it either highpoint of literary culture.
sinks to trivialities of everyday existence
or winds itself up to a sort of beastly, Writing is, however, the reflection of
soulless and contentless crudity. Both life. Throughout his life, Gorky was a
are but different phases of one and the fanatic defender of culture. Not only
same thing and often appear together in was he a staunch defender of Socialist
the same work. Gorky needs no crude culture against fascist barbarity in our
effects. He does not need any times, but he also fought constantly for
explosions of beastliness to lend inner the cultural needs and the intellectual
movement to the life shown, to rob development of the oppressed
humdrum reality of its dead banality. He proletariat, and he recognized the
sees the inner tragedies, tragi-comedies tremendous significance of culture for
and farces that are played in the silent the class struggle. He was the foremost
home without any visible explosions. defender of human culture in general.
He seemed to feel himself the rightful
Because this is how he sees and depicts heir to all human culture, which he was
life, his style acquires a stirring duty bound to defend against the worst
simplicity, an inner tenseness. With forms of barbarity. He was a great
simple, unaffected words that come writer because he was a great man. He
naturally with the situation itself, he was our common teacher. At his grave
throws a piercing light on the deepest we must confess, however, that we have
corners of the human soul, revealing not learned enough nor the right way
storms of passion and heartbreaking from him.
tragedy. The inner tenseness of Gorky’s
style gives adequate expression to the Young Gorky was close to Tolstoy—and
world he depicts. The complexity of the what a tremendous heritage he brought
personalities he depicts lends richness to away with him from this association!
 12

We were fortunate enough to live and How frequently is the new man of
work close to the mature Gorky—but did Socialism in our works only a straw
we not foster in his very shadow the figure? True—it is not easy to learn from
most miserable traditions of the decadent Gorky. The “craftsmanship” of decadent
literature of he bourgeoisie? Gorky virtuosos of form is much easier to
could show the bourgeois man deformed emulate.
by capitalism as one inwardly alive.
To learn from Gorky is not a purely and blew it out to the sea, where it was
literary task. One has to learn his woven again into a dense bluish-grey
attitude to life, how and what he came to mass that cast a thick shadow on the rain
love and hate, how he came to his calmed water. In the east the dark sky
thoughtful mastery of life, to the unity of was rent by flashes of lightening while
the proletarian Revolution, humanism the magnificent sun threw its blinding
and realistic style. One must understand light over the island.
his cult of life in order to be able to
fruitfully learn his literary cult. Only Seen from far out at sea the island must
thus can one hope to master his immortal have looked like a rich temple on a feast
works. It is because of this unity of life day; everything so radiantly clean,
and literature that he became the classic decked with bright flowers, and the big
writer of Socialist realism, one to follow raindrops glistening everywhere, like
if one wishes to find the road to Socialist topazes of the yellowish young leaves of
realism. Gorky is dead. But he will the vines, amethysts on the clusters of
always remain not only a classic and an wistaria, rubies on the scarlet geraniums
example —he will also continue to be and like emeralds strewn in rich
our teacher of great literary culture, of profusion over the grass, the green
Socialist realism. underbrush and the leaves of the trees.

Hatred † The world was hushed with the stillness

that comes after rain; the only sound was
the gentle babble of the brook hidden
By A. M. Gorky
amid the rocks and under the rots of the
euphorbia, dewberry and fragrant,
Translated by Rose Prokofieva
twining clematis. Down below, the sea
murmured softly. The golden shafts of
It had been raining
the furze pointed skywards and swayed
heavily since early
gently, weighted with moisture, which
morning but by
they shook noiselessly from their
midday the clouds
fantastic blossoms. Against the lush
had spent
green background, the light-purple
themselves, their
wistaria vied with the blood-red
dark fabric grew
geraniums and roses, the rusty yellow
threadbare, and the
brocade of the clematis blossoms
wind tore it into a
mingled with the dark velvet of the irises
host of filmy shreds
and gily-flowers, and it was all so vivid
and glowing that the flowers seemed to
†
From Tales from Italy, Moscow: Foreign be singing like violins, flutes and
Languages Publishing House: 1964.
 13

passionate ‘cellos. The moist air was about him—his hat, his hairy, coarse-
fragrant and as heady as old wine. featured face, his large hands and his
dark-blue suit spattered with white rock
Under a grey rock, jagged and torn by powder—indicated that he was the one
blasting, the stains of oxidized iron who drilled holes in the mountain side
showing in the cracks, amid grey and for blasting. His three workmates
yellow boulders exuding the sourish listened attentively to what he was
smell of dynamite, four quarrymen, saying; they did not interrupt him but
husky fellows in damp rags and leather looked up at him from time to time as if
sandals, sat partaking of their midday to say “Go on...”
meal. They ate slowly and
heartily out of a large bowl The golden shafts of the And he went on, his grey
filled with the tough meat furze pointed skywards eyebrows moving up and
of the octopus fried in olive and swayed gently, down as he spoke: “That
oil with potatoes and weighted with moisture, man Andrea Grasso, they
tomatoes, and washed it which they shook called him, came to our
down with red wine noiselessly from their village like a thief in the
quaffed in turn from a fantastic blossoms. night; he was dressed in
bottle. Against the lush green rags, his hat was the color
background, the light- of his boots and as
Two of the men were clean- purple wistaria vied with tattered. He was greedy,
shaven and resembled each the blood-red geraniums shameless and cruel. And
other sufficiently to be and roses, the rusty yellow seven years later our
brothers, twins even; the brocade of the clematis elders were doffing their
third was a small, bow- blossoms mingled with the hats to him while he
legged, one-eyed chap with dark velvet of the irises barely gave them a nod.
quick nervous gestures that and gily-flowers, and it And everyone for forty
made him look like a was all so vivid and miles around was in debt
scraggy bird; the fourth was glowing that the flowers to him.”
a broad-shouldered, seemed to be singing like
bearded hook-nosed man of violins, flutes and ”Yes, there are such
middle age with an passionate ‘cellos. The people,” remarked the
abundant sprinkling of grey moist air was fragrant and bowlegged one, sighing
in his hair. Breaking off as heady as old wine. and shaking his head.
chunks of bread, the latter The narrator glanced at
smoothed out his wine-stained whiskers him. “So you’ve met that kind too?” he
and thrust a piece of bread into the dark inquired mockingly. The old man made
cavern of his mouth. “That’s nonsense,” an eloquent gesture, the tow clean-
he was saying, his hairy jaws working shaven men grinned in unison, the hook-
methodically. “It’s a lie. I haven’t done nosed blaster took a draught of wine and
anything wrong...” went on, watching the flight of a falcon
in the blue sky:
His brown eyes under their thick brows
had an unhappy mocking expression. “I was thirteen when he hired me along
His voice was heavy and gruff, his with some others to haul stones for his
speech slow and hesitant. Everything house. He treated us worse than animals
 14

and when my pal Lukino told him so he chuckled softly, while the narrator
said: ‘My ass is mine while you are a heaved a deep sigh: “Yes, of course, it
stranger to me, why should I be kind to was stupid! But youth is honest. Youth
you?’ Those words were like a knife- believes in the power of the word. You
thrust to me, and from that time on I might say that youth is life’s
began to watch him more closely. He conscience...”
was mean and brutal to everybody, even
the old men and women, it made no “Well, and what did he say?” asked the
difference to him, I could see that. And old man.
when decent folk told him he was
behaving badly he laughed in their faces: “He yelled: ‘Let go my horse, you
‘When I was poor,’ he said, ‘no one scoundrels!’ And he pulled out a pistol
treated me any better.’ He took up with and pointed it at us. We said: ‘You have
the priests, carabinieri and policemen, no need to fear us Grasso. And don’t be
the rest of the people saw him only when angry. We were merely giving you a
they were in grave trouble and then he piece of advice!’”
could do what he liked with them.”
“Now that was good!” said one of the
“Yes, there are people like that,” clean-shaven men, and the other nodded
repeated the bowlegged one softly and in agreement; the bow-legged one
all three glanced at him in sympathy: pursed his lips and stared at a stone,
one of the clean-shaven workers silently stroking it with his crooked fingers.
handed him the wine bottle, the old man
took it, held it up to the light and before The, meal was over. One of the men
putting it to his lips, said: “I drink to the amused himself by knocking the
sacred heart of Madonna.!” crystalline raindrops of the blades of
grass with a thin stick, another looked
“He often used to say that the poor have on, picking his teeth with a dry grass
always worked for the rich and the fools stalk. The air grew drier and hotter. The
for the wise, and that is how it must be brief shadows of noon were melting
always.” The story-teller laughed and rapidly. The sea murmured a gentle
stretched out his hand for the bottle. It accompaniment to the solemn tale: “That
was empty. He threw it carelessly on to encounter had unpleasant consequences
the stones alongside the hammers, picks for Lukino. His father and uncle were in
and a coil of fuse. debt to Grasso. Poor Lukino grew thin
and haggard, he ground his teeth and his
“I was a youngster then and I resented eyes lost their brightness that had once
those words deeply. So did my attracted the girls. ‘Ah.’ he said to me
workmates, for they killed our hopes, once, ‘that was a foolish thing we did
our desire for a better life. Late one that day. Words are nothing when
night I and Lukino my friend met him as addressed to a wolf!’ ‘Lukino is ready
he was crossing the field on horseback. for murder,’ I thought to myself. I was
We stopped him and said politely by sorry for the lad and his good family.
firmly: ‘We ask you to be kinder to But I was poor myself and all alone in
folk.” The clean-shaven fellows burst the world, for my mother had died
out laughing and the one-eyed one too shortly before.” The hook-nosed worker
 15

brushed his moustache and beard with morning when I was still in bed the
his lime-stained fingers, and as he did so carabinieri came and took me to the
a heavy silver ring gleamed on the sheriff who was a pal of Grasso’s. ‘You
forefinger of his left hand. are an honest man, Ciro,’ he said, ‘so
you will not deny that you tried to
“I might have done a service to my murder Grasso last night.’ I said that
fellowmen if I had been able to carry the was not exactly the truth, but they have
thing to the end, but I am softhearted. their own way of looking at things. So
One day, meeting Grasso on the street, I they kept me in jail for two months
walked alongside him and speaking as before I was brought to trial and then
humbly as I could, This time I got they sentenced me to a year and eight
said: ‘You are three years and months. ‘Very well,’ I told the judges,
mean greedy nine months ‘but that isn’t the end of it!’”
fellow, it is hard and when my
for folks to live term ended, the He drew a fresh bottle from his cache
with you, you are warden, who among the stones and thrusting it under
liable to push knew the whole his moustache took a long draught of the
someone’s hand story and liked wine; his hairy Adam’s apple moving
and that hand may me, tried hard thirstily up and down and his beard
reach for a knife. to persuade me bristled. Three pair of eyes watched him
My advice to you not to go back in grave silence. “It’s boring to talk
is go away from home. about it,” he said handing the bottle to
here. ‘You’re a his workmates and smoothing his moist
fool young man!’ beard.
he said, but I kept insisting. ‘Listen.’ he
said with a laugh, ‘how much will you ”When I returned to the village I saw
take to leave me in peace? Will a lira be there; everyone was afraid of me.
enough?’ That was an insult but I Lukino told me that things had got
controlled my anger. “Go away from even worse that year. He was sick to
here, I tell you!’ I insisted. Were death of it all, the poor lad. ‘Very well,’
walking shoulder to shoulder, I on his I said to myself and went to see that man
right. When I wasn’t looking he drew Grasso. He was terribly scared when he
out a knife and stuck me with it. You saw me. ‘Well, I’m back,’ I said. ‘Now
can’t do much with your left hand, so it it’s your turn to go away!’ He snatched
went into my chest only one inch deep. up his rifle and fired but it was loaded
Naturally I flung him to the ground and with bird shot and he aimed at my legs.
kicked him the way you would kick a I didn’t even fall. ‘Even if you had
hog.” killed me I would come and haunt you
from the grave,’ I told him. ‘I have
“‘Now perhaps you will take my sworn to the Madonna that I shall get
advice!’ I said as he writhed on the you out of here. You are stubborn, but
ground.” The two clean-shaven fellows so am I.’ We got into a scuffle and
threw an incredulous glance at the before I knew it I had accidentally
speaker and dropped their eyes. The broken his arm. I hadn’t intended to do
bow-legged one bent over to tie the him violence and he attacked me first. A
leather thongs of his sandals. “The next crowd gathered and I was taken away.
 16

This time I got three years and nine rusty, oily cracks in the rock and said:
months and when my term ended, the “Let’s get to work...” The sun was at its
warden, who knew the whole story and zenith and all the shadows had shriveled
liked me, tried hard to persuade me not up and vanished. The clouds on the
to go back home. He offered me a job horizon sank into the sea whose waters
with his son-in-law who had a big plot of had grown calmer and bluer than before.
land and a vineyard in Apulia. But I,
naturally, could not give up what I had
undertaken. Proclamation to the
So I went home, this time firmly French Workers (1906)‡
resolved not to indulge in any useless
chatter, for I had learned by then that Translated by Selma Schwartz
nine words out of ten are superfluous. I
had only one thing to say to him: ‘Get French Workers,
out!’ I arrived in the village on a
Sunday and went straight to Mass. To you, who work all your lives and
Grasso was there. As soon as he saw me allow your masters to make laws for the
he jumped up and yelled all over the protection of property created by labor.
church: To you, who never have enough bread to
‘That man satisfy your hunger, and who are ruled
has come by people glutted with all that you have
here to kill created. To you, workers, the real
me, citizens, owners of the earth, I address myself:
the devil has
sent him for Before you, as well as before the
my soul!’ I workers of the world, is a path of
was struggle for freedom of mankind from
surrounded economic and political slavery, from the
before I had bondage of capital and the state, the
time to sterile agent which supports capital
touch him, against you. This struggle will soon
before I had envelop the whole world and will be a
time to tell struggle of two races: The race of the
him what I poor, who will battle under the banner of
wanted. But it didn’t matter for he fell reason, truth, love and justice, and the
on to the stone floor in a fit and his right race of the rich, who will defend
side and his tongue were paralyzed. He themselves with all their means—greed
died seven weeks later...That’s all. And and hypocrisy, cunning and cruelty.
folks invented a sort of legend abut me.
Very terrible, but a lot of nonsense.” This struggle is as inevitable as death—
and it has begun. The Russian worker,
He chuckled, looked up at the sun and in the first detachment of the universal
said: “Time to get started...” In silence
the other three rose slowly to their feet; ‡
First appeared in Red Banner Magazine No. 4,
the hook-nosed worker stared at the 1906. Transcribed by Red Flag Magazine from
International Literature No. 10, October 1936
 17

army, has marched into combat. His Let them tremble at the foreboding of
victories and his defeats are known to their helplessness. And let our militant,
you. You know how much strength he our sacred slogan, the slogan of the
has expended and what he will expend, brotherhood of mankind, sound the death
you know how abundantly his blood knell of the satiated and dying world of
flowed and will yet flow. He has malice and greed, the world of lies and
already inflicted powerful blows upon cruelty. Proletarians of all countries—
the enemy, but the enemy is still strong unite!
and many combats face the Russians.
Believing that the brotherhood of
The sooner the coming combat breaks mankind is not a dream, that it will be
out, the sooner its thunder will resound realized on earth, I have faith in this
throughout the whole world. And if great holiday of the future because I am
Russian worker is victorious—the a worker. I have worked and lived
workers of Europe, of the whole world, among the working people. I know their
will draw from this victory new nature and I know that only they are
inspiration and strength, and lessons for capable of creating a new life, a life of
themselves...Understand that in speaking brotherhood, a life of joy and reason.
of the working people, one speaks of the
whole world—one family. Only they, because the interests of labor
are the same everywhere, and sooner or
Therefore, I confidently appeal to you to later the workers of the world will
help your Russian comrades, your clearly see their path to happiness,
comrades who are going to battle under freedom, truth. This path is the same
a common banner with you—under the everywhere and for all. All peoples will
red banner of Socialism—with one aim: meet on it, and it will leader to the
the freedom of labor from, the celebration of the idea of universal
oppression of capital. They advanced brotherhood.
first, and you must help them for I
repeat, in this struggle the victory of one The world is ever more sharply dividing
is the victory of all. into two armies—the army of the rich
and feted, and army of the poor who all
The day of general revolt in Russia their lives bend their spines under the
draws near. You will not really permit heavy burden of labor. Gold, that
your comrades to go to battle with empty Yellow Devil, coldly and cruelly
hands. Give them silver for iron and mocking the world, corrupts people,
zinc. I know workers are poor in silver; sowing enmity and envy among them.
only their hearts are rich. But we must Some it gathers around itself to
show the old world of Pharisees and pervert their natures with insatiable
hypocrites that it is in the heart of the greed; other it pushes away into the
worker that the true fire of love for embrace of hunger and labor.
mankind burns, that in him blazes the Disuniting, it unites. Making the rich
flame of faith in the brotherhood of avaricious and stupid, it sharpens the
man. You must show this fire in your mind of the poor, and, dividing all
breast to the blind eyes of the greedy and people into two irreconcilable camps,
sated...
 18

prepares them for battle, one against the The Socialist Humanism
other.
of Maxim Gorky§
The workers of each country are united
in a closely knit family and the day will By Eugenia Knipovich
come when the workers of the world will
unite in one brotherly army of labor. In 1927 Gorky finished article on the
Uniting, they will see clearly how few Tenth Anniversary of the October
are their enemy, and how weak to be Revolution with the words of brotherly
able to rule the lives of hundreds of greeting to “the new Russian man,” to
millions. And they will see that the evil “the builder of a truly new world,” to
of life is god, property. And from that “the most necessary person on earth.”
day there will reign on earth not lies but
truth, not hypocrisy but sincerity, not These words were more than the
greed and envy and evil, but reason, congratulations of a comrade. They
goodness and love. Those who hold this were the words of communion between
belief are bound to serve it with all their he deputy and his electors. The Russian,
strength since it alone will restore the and international, master of culture
world, will free man from the bondage hailed those whose will, passion and
of sorrow and need, will cleanse the hatred molded and reared his
spirit of everything that debases man. incomparable talent.

Each worker who sees a comrade in Gorky’s words embody revolutionary

need and sorrow must help him since all life, underground work, prison, exile,
workers are one family. And the hard labor, the greatest revolution in
workers of one country must help the history, civil war and the heroic
workers of another country. This aid to and victorious struggle for the building
remote and unknown people is truly of a “truly new world.” Gorky
humane and far-seeing. personifies the fearless mind of the “new
Russian man,” who storms all heights of
Help your Russian comrades in their past and present culture. His works stir
bitter struggle against the tsar and gang with that new and formerly unknown
of hangmen, who have drowned all quality which distinguishes the
Russian in blood. Do this. In the name conquests of our aviators, miners, cotton
of solidarity of interests of all workers, pickers, geologists,—all manifestations
you must hold out your hand to help the of the same Socialist culture, based on
Russian workers. When your day of the free labor of free men. That is why
struggle arrives and you also will need Gorky stands in the world of letters not
help—then you will find friends who only as the bearer of the great traditions
will respond to your cry: of Russian culture, but as the first
representative of the universal Socialist
Help, comrades. culture, bringing with him a creative and
liberating knowledge of ancient and
contemporary culture. In the name of

§
From International Literature, No. 10-11, Oct.-
Nov. 1937
 19

millions he can demand the fulfillment “individualistic” romanticism Gorky

of all the promises made by the contrasts another kind, which “springs
humanists of bourgeois revolutions. from man’s consciousness of his bond
with the world and the confidence of
Past culture has nurtured for mankind creative powers which this
many wonderful conceptions, liberty, consciousness evokes.” This type of
harmonious development of personality, romanticism Gorky called “social, or the
the rule of reason, the brotherhood of romanticism of collectivism.” “It is only
peoples, equality, justice. However, in a now being born,” wrote Gorky in the
world founded on private property, on period of the “disgraceful and infamous
wolfish egoism, on forced labor, they decade, and its owner is the class which
remained visions. Loyalty to the great is entering life as the carrier of the
ideals of the past, which penetrates the Socialist idea of liberating mankind from
works of the “prodigal sons” of the clutches of capitalism, as the carrier
bourgeois culture, is accompanied with of the idea of free and brotherly labor—
expressions of agony, bitterness, of the Socialist system.”
impotence and alarm.
Yes, Gorky was both a realist and a
Gorky, in the cultural world, is endowed romanticist. But his romanticism had
with special privileges, as the the same qualities as the romanticism of
“representative” of a many-millioned the creative Soviet people today.
master, a master conscious of his rights,
armed with revolutionary theory, For our pilots and scientists, our
disciplined and educated by free labor. statesmen and workers also dream.
In the possession of this master the great Their visions have created new lakes,
concepts, values, slogans of the past have turned the course of rivers, have
acquire for the first time actual, not opened new airways as important
abstract and hypocritical meanings. And historically as the routes traced by
in the name of this new master Gorky Columbus and Vasco da Gamma, have
has a solution for every problem that had produced new flora and fauna; what is
tormented the lone keepers of the great most important, their dream has remade
cultural treasures. Each reply had been the remaker of the earth—man himself.
brought with their life and blood. And The dreams of a Bolshevik-Leninist, of a
Gorky also paid for them with his own man of Stalin’s epoch, are creative.
blood. Tomorrow the dream becomes a plan,
and the day after countless loving hands
This determines the specific nature of are carrying it out.
Gorky’s humanism.
All of Gorky’s works from the romantic
Gorky was first known as a romanticist, legend to the realistic would confirm this
but his romanticism was born not of orientation to the future, this faith in
disillusionment with the world, not collective labor.
denial or evasion, substituting for the
living reality always accessible to the To the humanism of the masters of
creative hand of a master, picture world, Western culture Gorky contrasted
personal, invented and sterile. To such proletarian revolutionary humanism of
 20

pity the humanism of truth, which is Here is Igosha, the Nizhni-Novgorod

“above pity”; to gentle scorn—the half-wit beggar, hungrier, more hunted
severe demand to respect man; to the than an animal. Here is Panashkina,
cult of “autonomous personality”—the with blue blood rot in her veins, wall-
glorification of the great mass of eyed, dreaming of “an affair with an
individuals, the real creators of cultural officer not lower in rank than a
values. To the imagined superman lieutenant.” Here is the “dog’s mother,”
Gorky contrasts the fighter, who has whom misfortune has crazed, whose
grown to the stature of a titan in the companions are a pack of stray dogs.
revolutionary battles of his class. Gorky, And finally—”mother Kemskikh”—
insisting upon the tie between the artist mad-woman with a fit brood of seven
and the world, exposes the illusory children—cripples and idiots, for whom
nature of art isolated from reality. she sacrifices her life. A starved bitch
who feeds her puppies on garbage is
At the same time—and here, again, the more dignified than this morsel of
deeply proletarian nature of Gorky’s ridiculously suffering womanflesh.
humanism declares itself —every
genuine protest against bourgeois terror, Man’s brutality? What writer has a
every expression of discontent with the more appalling kindergarten of abused
unjust world of private ownership, every children? Jacob (The Three), sweet
act of devotion to the cultural heritage of Bubenchik (Among People), Koska
the world is near and dear to him. Ulyucharev (The Spectators), etc. They
perish not so much from barbed
That testimony of “the death of a inhumanity as from dull indifference.
world” which the great modern Similarly, in women’s lives, Gorky lays
humanitarian artists have left us, in one bare their torment. They are beaten not
form or another, is consummately out for cruelty alone but because on
presented in Gorky’s works. Hatred of them the men folk avenge their own
the capitalist system, which in the work sufferings—the anguish and humiliation
of the best Western writers is often of their degraded and oppressed lives.
feeble and unfocused, has, in Gorky’s Such is the fate of Nilovna (Mother),
writings, a creative function, merges Orlova (The Orlov Family), Nikon’s
with active love of the new society being mother (Summer), etc.
built. Lastly, the charges of the murder
of man, which the humanists of the West To Gorky, however, unlike some
bring against the old world—in Gorky’s Western writers, this world of
works these charges go deeper and wretchedness was not fixed and
further; they force a reckoning with the immutable, not the creation of man but
old world in the name of humanity, in of the bourgeois. It is not the mutilated
the name of the emergent new world. but the mutilators who must answer for
these crimes.
Wretches? Gorky saw and portrayed
wretches more ghastly than any monster Gorky’s protest against injustice began
of the Russian and Western decadence. when as an eight year old child he saw
his stepfather beating his consumptive
mother.
 21

hospital. However, the memory of this

“I heard sounds of the beating, broke chivalrous passerby remained alive in
into the room. I saw my mother, who the village. In 1936, more than forty
had fallen on her knees, lean her back years later, the daughters and
and elbow against the chair; her back granddaughters of women who had
was arched with pain and she was suffered like that tortured one, members
groaning. Her head was thrown back of the Kandybov collective farm, sent
and her eyes glittered with terror and Gorky a warm letter full of love and
fever; and he, neatly dressed in a new gratitude. They described their work,
uniform, kept kicking her in the breast their present life—the life of free and
with his big heavy foot. I grasped a equal Soviet women—and invited him to
knife from the table —it was a bread visit Kandybovka and see the changes
knife with an ivory and silver handle. It with his own eyes.
was the only article of my father’s left to
my mother—I gripped it and with all my Gorky saw the truth in the person of a
might struck my father in the side.” tormented bloodstained woman; and for
her blood he shed his own.
Gorky knew from experience that justice
is not restored, “once and for all,” that Gorky won the treasures of human
“each time the fight begins anew.” culture, reached the highest levels of
humanism through continuous fighting.
One must crush the brothel “bouncer,”
who drags a drunken prostitute by the Gorky with his rich life-experience more
feet, while her head knocks against than any other writer realized that labor
cobble-stones (Among People); one must id the foundation of culture, that every
crush the underworld scum, who great work of art comes from the
perform their vile, blasphemous people. To Gorky a genuine artist was
ceremony on the student at the flop one whose works reflect the deep and
house (My University Days); and one vital processes of society, whose works
must, even at the cost of one’s life, mirror and entire epoch.
attempt to rescue the tortured woman of
whom Gorky writes in The Conclusion. Patiently and lovingly Gorky recreates
the figures of those industrious masters
The Conclusion was founded on an of Russian culture, who were in such
episode during Gorky’s wanderings in close touch with life, those wonderful
Russia in the nineties of the last century people who do honor to the human race
[1890’s]. These barbarities inflicted on by the worth of their lives,.
a woman actually occurred in the village Tolstoy, Chekhov, Korolenko, Karonin,
of Kandybovka. Gorky told what he had Kotsubinsky—in each Gorky marks their
seen but he left unmentioned what he perseverance, these men who helped
had done. A passerby—Alexei Peshkov beautify the earth, by attacking in the
(Gorky) threw himself on the name of life and the dignity of man,
tormentors, was given a beating that stagnancy, ignorance and violence.
almost finished him, was flung into the
bushes, to be picked up by a chance And above all these great men, in
pedestrian who carried him to the Gorky’s memory, towers the huge image
 22

of Leo Tolstoy, the image of a demiurge, feed his wife and grandson, and how the
a universal man, whose creative powers very image of old Grandet shone with
are so immense that “it seems as if he new light and new truth from this
shall rise, wave his hand, and the rocks verification in real life.
will begin to stir, and everything shall
quicken, make itself heard, speak up in The capitalist world not only forces a
different voices, about themselves, about physical half-life upon the worker; it
him, against him.” stultifies him, it fosters ignorance,
superstition and savagery.
How can the world “refuse happiness” to “Consciousness” in a capitalist society is
such a man? He is real, bred on the limited to the few privileged
creative forces of an entire epoch. The “specialists” who in the capitalist
works of such people when taken of by “division of labor” have drawn this
the masses remake man and assignment. And it is against these
consequently the face of the earth. “few,” against the bourgeois
intellectuals, hangers-on of capitalism,
To the cook Smury, one of the best usurpers of cultural treasures, parasites
stepsons of tsarist Russia, “the proper on creative thought, that Gorky directs
book,” the one he looks for, is a weapon his stern on creative thought, that Gorky
in struggle; and in Gorky’s directs his stern and shattering wrath.
understanding it is in truth a formidable The greedy commercial attitude towards
weapon. One who has come into contact cultural values, the fooling around with
with such works of art becomes aware of ideas which the life ferment of a real
his human dignity, of his right to artist has paid for—this, to Gorky, is
happiness and beauty, to a life worthy of sacrilege.
man—and demands them.
The roots of culture are in the creative
Gorky has left us unforgettable pages potentialities of he people, and Gorky
describing his first communion with blasted those who stood between the
great works of art, describing the joy and masses and culture, stole from the
pain of awakening to new levels of people their lawful inheritance, blasted
understanding. Gorky describes his them as imposters and thieves, “empty
introduction to Pushkin, to the musical bags” inflated with other people’s words
lines “so easy to memorize, that festively and ideas. Gorky knew well who these
adorned everything they mentioned; this charlatans were—they were his
made me happy and my life easy and persecutors all his life. They squeaked
pleasant. The poem sounded like chimes about “the end of Gorky” when Mother,
of a new life. How fortunate to be that artistic manifesto of revolutionary
literate!” humanism, appeared, these were the
hysterical advocates of suffering and
Then his discovery of Balzac! Gorky humiliation (for others) who slandered
describes how he found doubles for Gorky when in 1913 he had the courage
every character created by the great to speak frankly about the “truths” of
realist, in the people around him. How Dostoyevsky. It is they, then white
old Grandet helped him understand his émigrés or “mechanical citizens” of the
avaricious grandfather, who refused to Soviet Union, who poured feeble,
 23

insolent libel on the name of the greatest never contradicts, so that nothing need
contemporary fighting artist. And it is be changed, so that one should never
they, who through Radek and the have to make any decisions, never have
Trotskyite traitors, who had penetrated to act by one’s own free will. This
into Soviet literary organizations, paralyzing passivity, actively harmful
attempted to soil with false words the and corrupting, this drag toward
name of the founder of Socialist stagnancy Gorky embodied in Karamor,
literature. the “useless man,” and in the most
loathsome of provocateurs—the
Gorky was tireless in exposing these potential provocateur—Klim Samgin.
people, exposing their cowardice, futility Those with whom Klim Samgin feels
and treachery. Such is Klim Samgin— most compatible, most secure, most
this half-man, ruled by fear and lies, who soothed in his twilight indecision,
shrinks from action, all his life seeking a inevitably turn out to be agents of the
“third way” between revolution and secret police. Samgin is more dangerous
bourgeois counter-revolution. Never in than the provocateur, because he
world literature was bourgeois contrives to make cowardly inertia a
individualism so value, seeks to endow it with tradition,
comprehensively exposed, and stripped decorate it as a preserver of “human
of its pretensions as in The Life of Klim personality.” These seducing in
Samgin. Klim Samgin is a vacuum activities of Samgin’s are more
enclosed in phrases. Cultural values are disintegrating to revolutionary action
phrases to him; those created them, the and consequently more effective than the
people, are nothing to him. As a activities of provocateurs.
characteristic feature of the “critical-
minded” bourgeois intellectual, Gorky in A. A. Lunacharsky was correct when he
the fourth volume of his epic points out wrote: “No, it is not true that we can
the complete indifference of Klim allow the dead to bury the dead. The old
Samgin toward Tolstoy’s death. saying is false, and this is expressed in
another proverb: ‘The dead snatch the
Mental parasitism, emptiness, worship of living.’ Yes, the dead snatch the living;
his own non-existent personality brings the social corpse, the dead class, the
Klim Samgin very near to that offspring dead mode of life, the dead religion have
of decaying capitalism most despised by an after-life of vampires; they are not
Gorky—the provocateur. Klim Samgin still in their graves but return among us.
did not work in the tsarist secret police They rise with the fumes from the
but the atmosphere of the secret chimney of the crematorium and again
police permeates this “critical-minded” settle down on earth and cover it with
individual’s whole life. An empty soul black filth.”
leading an empty life, the provocateur, to
Gorky, was one who could not keep Did not the voice of Klim Samgin’s
from doing evil through the fear that “original personality” echo in the
otherwise his “quite life” might be confessions of the Trotskyite-fascist
disturbed. A provocateur is the conspiracy, this “black filth,” during the
quintessence of the corrupted, whose trials of 1936-37? And Gorky deals
worldly wisdom is shuffled along walls, ruthlessly with another outgrowth of the
 24

same philosophy—passive pity and “We should not paste the class label on a
consolation. Luka (In the Depths), person as we are used to doing,” wrote
Markusha (The Life of Matthew Gorky in his article About Plays; “the
Kozhemyakin), Serafim (The class feature is not a mark, it is
Artomonous Affair), the old apiarist (A something internal, biological, of nerves
Story about the Unusual)—all expose and brain.” This is why Gorky does not
these “consolers,” these “teachers of give us the “capitalist shark” of poster
life.” Gorky himself did not presentations. The awakening of class
immediately understand this cunning and instinct in Ilya Lunin (The Three) or
odious breed of the old world. In the Matthew Kozhemyakin, an awakening
figure of Luka he does not yet that shocks the heart and reason, Gorky
completely reveal that deep contempt of depicts as a dialectic artist, organically
man and his sufferings which make him understanding what “social
console only so as “not to disturb the environment” means. And at the same
rigid peace of an all tolerating frigid time Gorky’s portrayal of capitalists
soul.” (About Plays) This characteristic (Ignat Gordeyev, Ilya Aratamov, Saveli
of “the teacher of life” is impressively Kozhemyakin, Vassa Zheleznova, Yegor
exposed; their hidden aim: to muddy the Bulychev) is far from the weak-minded
soul of man with words, so that he slogan: “Look for good in evil and evil
should become so sluggish for in good,” with which the Trotskyite
discontent and action, is revealed. And “critics” attempted to mislead Soviet
“the consoler” is shown finally in his literature in its struggle against the
inevitable “social function,” as secret enemy.
counter-revolutionary, the underground
agitator against the “restless people”— Gorky does not “sympathize” with the
the Bolsheviks who “demolish life.” merchant Yegor Bulychev or the factory
owner Vassilissa Zheleznova because
The philistine nature’s sluggishness and one of them is an “honest” man and the
disgusting clammy indifference—this is other a “devoted mother.” No, he shows
the core of the “original personality’s” how protery consciousness mangled and
individualism, of the “humanism of pity disgraced splendid human material,
and consolation.” Gorky undresses these perverted wholesome instincts, turned
two fetishes, strips them of their the passion for creation, for beautifying
ceremonial robes, makes them stand the earth into a pursuit of shadowy,
forth in their hideous nakedness as the stolen profits. Yegor and Vassilissa (of
quintessential expressions of philistine the second version) themselves
morbidity. understand that their service to the
“cause” is senseless and unreal. Unreal
Studying the changes in the life of the because in the case of the factory owner
bourgeoisie, Gorky analyzed two Zheleznova her “heir” as well as the
generations of Russian capitalists— merchant Artamonov’s son become
noted the fate of the “fathers”—the Bolsheviks, and Yegor Bulychev, when
plunderers of the period of preliminary revolution breaks out, declares that he
accumulation , and the different destiny had “saddled the wrong horse,” that he,
of the “children.” “the man,” found himself robbed of
money.
 25

Having made the rounds of capitalist journalistic work show with what
society, high and low, in pre- untiring care and devotion he worked to
revolutionary Russia, Gorky through the save from oblivion, from featureless
remorseless witness of his characters, anonymity the protean figure of his
pronounces death sentence on that hero—the man who adorns the earth.
word. But from the outset Gorky The creative personality was to Gorky
understood the Leninist dictum that the the greatest value in the world.
national crisis is the forerunner of the
approaching revolution, that intensified And if the “original personality” of Klim
distress gives intensified force to man’s Samgin, the individualism of emptiness,
protest against his oppressor, that sluggishness and property owning
together with decay of “one world” conceit when in contact with revolution
another is being born; and facing the old turned into “a dirty bag, filled with
world, in struggle, man rises to his own worthless angular things,” then at the
full height. same time the awakening of
revolutionary conscious revealed and
“...On the huge steppe, barren and waste, raised up the millions of human
a huge thousand-handed man moves in personalities, crushed by capitalism.
great circles, ever wider girthing the This transformation of man is not “a
earth, and in his path the dead steppe miracle” for Gorky, no sudden
comes to life, quivering juicy grass transfiguration. In all his works there
shoots forth and everywhere towns and are tributes to the mighty impetus of
villages emerge; and he strides ever on, creative force that seeks liberation, that
farther towards the edge, sowing what is shows even through the scum of
live and human. “swinish filth” of bourgeois society; the
healthy, creative forces break through,
“Then one feels toward people a new good, human things grow, protecting and
tenderness and respect; feels in them an justifying faith in regeneration to a free
inexhaustible vitality that can vanquish and noble life.
death, that eternally transforms what is
dead into life, moving toward Grandmother Akulina Ivanovna, the
immortality by mortal roads—death workers Tsiganok, the boarder
overshadows people, but it cannot engulf “Gooddeed,” the cook Smury, the
them.” bakers, icon painters, typesetters,
stokers, the student Gury Pletnyev, the
At times during his wanderings in Russia Narodnik Romass—imposing is the
Gorky conceived his hero as a folk gallery of wonderful Russian people,
image—Mikula, Ilya, Vassilissa the strong and sweet individuals, who have
Wise, for example—figures in whom the preserved inner beauty, dignity and
toiling people embodied its faith in its courage through the unbearable
own measureless creative power. But to hardships of Russian life, despite the
Gorky this “thousand-handed man” is efforts of the “teachers” and “masters” to
not a featureless incarnation of stormy, blot from man his human countenance.
elemental forces. His novels,
biographical sketches and short stories, Gorky knew that in the brutishness and
his autobiographical writing and ignorance of workers the guilty were
 26

those who had driven them into beastly a “new young eaglet” was born; the
existence Gorky noted how these mother, just up after its birth, gazes at
oppressed and degraded victims of the sea, the forest, the mountains and the
capitalism at the first possibility reveal face of her new-born son, and “her eyes,
creativeness and human dignity. He washed with tears of agony, once more
marked their instinctive esteem for skill become amazingly clear, blossom and
and labor—and he knew these responses burn with the blue flame of inexhaustible
to be the foundation of human culture. love.”

In The Life of Klim Samgin and Foma Countless people, whose paths crossed
Gordeyev, in stories and Gorky’s, who stored up in his soul the
autobiographical narratives (Among “honey” of their experiences and
People) Gorky pictured collective labor, knowledge, also pined for a nobler life,
which—if only for a short time—gives grieved for vainly perishing forces.
him the wonderful release and
contentment of self-fulfillment. All the imperceptibility small, who do
Collective work even under conditions “great things,” all the downtrodden,
of capitalism creates “a legion of labor” oppressed, bitter and furious, all whose
among people which anticipates the time strength and abilities are unused—all
when labor shall be “a thing of honor, shall find the right road, because there is
valor and heroism,” as it is in a Socialist a force—and Gorky always knew of it—
society. which is the touchstone of genuine
human character, which draws out of
These recurrent witnesses of glowing man his best humanity. This force is
humanity, of the transformation of man revolutionary consciousness.
through labor, love, friendship, contact
with works of art, permitted Gorky to In Enemies and Mother Gorky depicts
view the world with elation. the revolutionary movement and
revolutionary ideas first of all as factors
“I passionately want to live—live so that restoring in man what is most human in
the old stones make merry and the white him. The flame of revolution, the
horses of the sea rear and prance still struggle for the building of a new world,
higher; I want to sing a hymn to the burns out in man the petty bourgeois
earth so that, drunk with praise, she dross deposited in him. Man is
should with more abandon unfold her transformed while transforming the
riches, display her beauty, inspired by world. Revolutionary, proletarian,
the love of one of her creatures—man, Bolshevik humanism—this is Gorky’s
who loves the earth like a woman and answer to the “accursed problems”
burns with ardor to impregnate her with which tormented the great humanists of
new beauty.” the West.

On the Ukrainian steppe a peasant “who Not the last feeble offspring of bourgeois
feeds the world” died; an ordinary “little humanism, not a fictive titan and creator,
man” left the world; but thinking of his conjured from the past, are called upon
work “it seems astonishingly great.” But to solve these historical problems as
then, between Sukhum and Ochemagari, inheritors of the great legacies of the
 27

past. There is no need to look for an consciousness borne into the world by
heir—he has appeared and entered his revolutionary youth.
claim. Revolutionary consciousness,
which penetrates into the very thick of In the image of Nilovna, portrayed in
the masses, creates millions of heroes clear and vivid epic form, with stirring
and heirs. Simultaneously the theme of simplicity, Gorky has shown how new
the rupture between the artist and the consciousness, new social feelings do
world becomes an anachronism; for one not fall from the sky, but are dormant in
of the events of the new created world is man himself, are eternal, and only
their reconciliation; liberated humanity change in quality.
thrust forth the artist as the fighter,
toiler, worker for the great common Love of her son, of her flesh and blood,
cause. gradually grows into a love of her son’s
truth, of his comrades, of all the
The tasks of a genuine master of culture oppressed, fighting for their
in the days of great class battles and emancipation; she joins their ranks, for
social upheavals arouse to his aid they have become her children.
millions, who for the first time become
aware of their rights, their human “Children, through truth and reason
dignity, of the revolutionary and bring love to everything and array
humanitarian traditions of the past, of all everything in new colors; they illuminate
that has been accumulated by mankind all things with an imperishable flame—
during the thousands of years of its which comes from the very soul. A new
conscious existence. life is being born, thanks to the
children’s ardent love toward the entire
Unforgettable in Gorky’s works are the world. And who shall extinguish this
figures of men molded in the love? What power is above it, who shall
revolutionary movement and together overcome it? The earth gave birth to it
with it. From Pavel Grachev to Pavel and all life wants its victory—all life!”
Vlassov, Gorky realized in loving
portraiture fighters of the vanguard of Gorky with all his works, all his life
the proletariat, to whom revolutionary served the slogan: “Support the rebel,”
enlightenment brought will, faith, new and his works as well as his life are an
emotions, new ideas. example, a lesson for all.

One of the finest and most beautiful of Gorky not only advocated revolutionary
these figures is Nilovna, “the mother,” humanism, but he is a living memory of
the impersonation of the universal power those battles in which this humanism
and significance of revolutionary was born.
enlightenment. For forty years _________________________________
prevented by the bestial conditions of
capitalist society from the fulfilling the
great resources of active love stored in
her heart, she is reborn when she comes
in contact with revolutionary