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Lunacharsky on Lenin

Lenin and literary criticism

This article was first published in 1932 in the 6th volume of the Literary Encyclopedia.

1. Statement of the problem
Marxism-Leninism is a single and integral system of views, worldview and worldview of the proletariat as a class. Growing out of the total amount of knowledge accumulated by mankind, but being organized on completely new principles, made possible only by virtue of the special social position of the new class, Marxism-Leninism surpasses in scientific terms all previous constructions of the human mind of various epochs and classes. Marxism-Leninism is both a philosophical picture of nature and society, and a theory of knowledge, a general method of scientific research, and at the same time a system of guiding principles underlying the program of the proletariat, the strategy and tactics of overthrowing capitalism and building a new, socialist society by the proletariat.

The basis, powerful and profound development of this worldview was given by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the second half of the 19th century. A close study of bourgeois political economy, the highest forms of utopian socialism, the militant materialism of the bourgeois philosophers of the 18th century, the idealistic dialectics of the German thinkers of the early 19th century, especially Hegel, were combined in Marx and Engels with a comprehensive analysis of all forms of contemporary social reality, substantiation of the practice of a still young movement the proletariat, taking into account the experience of the bourgeois revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries and the first attempts at proletarian coups in 1848 and during the Commune.

“Wrote and sent a large (4-5 sheets) article about Lenin for the Literary Encyclopedia. More or less everything of Lenin that can serve as a basis for Marxist-Leninist literary criticism has been collected and commented on, either directly or semi-directly, because indirectly the whole of Lenin can serve this.

(From a letter from A. V. Lunacharsky to I. A. Satsu)

At the present time, however, there can no longer be any question of any genuine Marxism outside of Leninism. Leninism was a continuation of the work of Marx and Engels on the basis of taking into account the further development of capitalism, up to the era of its decay - imperialism, and the further development of the proletariat, up to the Great October Revolution of 1917 and the experience of socialist construction in recent years. It goes without saying that one cannot be a Leninist without being a Marxist, for the entire theory and practice of Lenin and his party are based on Marxism. But in the same way it is impossible at the present time to be a Marxist without being a Leninist, for Leninism is a natural and necessary stage in Marx's teaching.<...>

Sometimes, without denying the first-class significance of Leninism in the field of politics, political economy, the basic principles of history and especially revolutionary practice, they try to prove that Leninism does not contribute anything of particular value to the field of philosophy. This completely wrong and deeply harmful view of things must be rejected with all sharpness. Lenin, in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, developed a very rich system of views, which, from the point of view of understanding the essence of both the materialist and the dialectical side of the philosophy of the proletariat, is the most valuable contribution to the treasury of Marxist thought. Without the most careful study of this book one cannot be an educated Marxist. Lenin did not finish other philosophical works, but numerous abstracts of Hegel's writings and notes on a number of different philosophical problems remained in his draft notebooks.

* This refers to "Theses on Feuerbach" (1845). - Marx K., Engels F., Op. Ed. 2nd, vol. 3, p. 1–4.

It goes without saying that the general philosophical principles of Marxism substantiated by Lenin are of fundamental importance for literary criticism as one of the branches of proletarian science. Together with the use of the philosophical heritage of Lenin for this special purpose, it is necessary to carefully study from this special angle the social-scientific principles and data of Leninism. Of particular importance here is Lenin's teaching on culture, on the relationship between the culture of the past and proletarian culture, and on the cultural tasks of the proletariat in our country. Literature cannot be studied outside of historysociety and the history of literature itself. Lenin's legacy contains precious indications that reveal the inner meaning of the economic, political and cultural history of our country, without understanding which it is impossible either to know the past of literature or to comprehend its present and future historically.

2. Philosophical views of Lenin
The most characteristic feature of the Leninist method is the unity of theory and practice.<…>

The saying that Marxism is "not a dogma, but a guide to action"* was one of Lenin's favorite sayings. This dictum is highly characteristic of Leninism, that “Marxism of the era of imperialism and proletarian revolutions”,** when tens of millions of the international proletariat are involved in the active class struggle against capitalism, when the proletariat has already won over one-sixth of the globe and has entered a period of decisive battles. with the capitalist system for the remaining five-sixths of it.

* See, for example, Lenin V.I. Poln. coll. cit., vol. 31, p. 132; v. 37, p. 225.

** This definition was given by I. V. Stalin in his lecture "On the Foundations of Leninism", delivered at Sverdlovsk University in 1924. See "Questions of Leninism". Ed. 2nd, M., 1946, p. 20. -Ed

In his essay “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. Critical Notes on a Reactionary Philosophy” Lenin defended materialism with all the might of his genius.

The basis of materialism are the following provisions. There is an objective world, fundamentally it is one; it is a single matter in all its infinite diversity. Every person is a part of this world. His consciousness, like consciousness in general, is a property of highly organized matter. Human consciousness reflects the real things of the surrounding world and their relationship. It reflects only approximately, but this approximation is constantly becoming more and more accurate. Lenin writes about this: “... for a materialist, the world is richer, more alive, more diverse than it seems (that is, it appears to our consciousness at a given stage of its development. - A. L. ), because each step in the development of science opens up new aspects in it " .*

* Lenin V. I. Materialism and empirio-criticism. Critical Notes on a Reactionary Philosophy (1908–1909). — Full. coll. cit., vol. 18, p. 130.

The main task of Lenin's main philosophical work was to defend materialism from any disguised idealism that sought to undermine its unshakable foundations. Lenin attached gigantic importance precisely to the dialecticalessence of Marx's materialism. Matter for Lenin is not something inert, immobile in itself, in need of a push from outside, in some kind of non-material movement, force or energy. In the same way, for Lenin, this movement is by no means only mechanical movement in space by means of push, resistance, reflection, etc., as the mechanical materialists assumed. For Lenin, matter and motion merge into one. The matter of dialectical materialism is something developing, and by its movement we mean all its infinitely varied changes. Change is inherent in matter as such. Matter can never be constant anywhere. Any material given is in the process of change, and this process always has the character of bifurcation, the disintegration of a given whole into contradictory parts.essence (one of the “essences”, one of the main, if not the main, features or features) of dialectics. ”* “The identity of opposites,” Lenin continues, “...is the recognition of ... contradictory, mutually exclusive , opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature ( and spirit and society as well ). The condition for cognition of all the processes of the world in their "self-movement" , in their spontaneous development, in their living life, is their cognition as a unity of opposites. Development is a “struggle” of opposites.”**<…>

Lenin gives indications of the very method of exposition of dialectics in general and the dialectics of any particular phenomenon. These ingenious lines must be quoted here in full:

“NB: the difference between subjectivism (skepticism and sophistry, etc.) and dialectics, among other things, is what is relative (relative) in (objective) dialectics and the difference between the relative and the absolute. For objective dialectics there is an absolute in the relative . For subjectivism and sophistry, the relative is only relative and excludes the absolute.

In Marx's "Capital" he first analyzes the simplest, most common, basic, most mass-like, most ordinary, occurring billions of times, attitude of bourgeois (commodity) society; exchange of goods. Analysis reveals in this simplest phenomenon (in this "cell" of bourgeois society) all the contradictions (respective germs of all contradictions) of modern society. The further exposition shows us the development ( both growth and movement) of these contradictions and of this society in its 2 *** separate parts, from its beginning to its end.

* Lenin V. I. To the question of dialectics (1915). — Full. coll. cit., vol. 29, p. 316.

** Ibid., p. 316–317.

*** In sum.—Ord.

Such should be the method of presentation (respective study) of dialectics in general (for Marx's dialectics of bourgeois society is only a special case of dialectics). Start with the simplest, most common, mass-like, etc., with any sentence : the leaves of the tree are green; Ivan is a man; A bug is a dog, etc. Already here (as Hegel remarked with genius) there is a dialectic: the individual is the general…This means that the opposites (the individual is opposite to the general) are identical: the individual does not exist except in the connection that leads to the general. The general exists only in the particular, through the particular. Every individual is (one way or another) general. Every general is a particle (or side or essence) of the individual. Any general only approximately covers all individual objects. Every individual is incompletely included in the general, etc., etc. Every individual is connected by thousands of transitions with other kinds of individual (things, phenomena, processes), etc. ”*

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 29, p. 317–318.

The philosophical depth of these Leninist formulations is beyond any doubt at the present time. But they have not only a general philosophical, but also a special literary significance. From now on, every Marxist literary scholar will have to pose the problem of the unity of the "general" and "private" in relation to such important categories of literary science as style or genre. To pose the problem of the "unity of opposites" in relation to the work of a particular writer means to understand the internal contradictions of this work and to establish in their depths the leading, organizing principle.

Lenin attached extremely great importance to Engels's doctrine of the gradual mastery of truth by mankind. Since our summary of the materialism of Lenin (and, consequently, of the conscious proletariat) is given by us here, in particular, as a support for conclusions regarding the methods of constructing Marxist-Leninist literary criticism, we consider it expedient, following Lenin, to quote here these important thoughts of Engels: “The sovereignty of thinking is realized in a number of people who think extremely non-sovereignly; knowledge, which has an unconditional right to truth, is in a number of relative (relative) delusions; neither one nor the other" (neither absolute true knowledge, nor sovereign thinking) "can be fully realized except with the infinite duration of human life.

We have here ... a contradiction between the nature of human thinking, which seems to us by necessity absolute, and its realization in individual people who think only in a limited way. This contradiction can be resolved only in such a series of successive human generations, which, for us, at least in practice, is endless. In this sense, human thought is as sovereign as it is non-sovereign, and its faculty of cognition is as unlimited as it is limited. Sovereign and unrestricted in its nature" (or device, Anlage), "calling, opportunity, historical ultimate goal; non-sovereign and limited in terms of individual implementation, in terms of reality given at one time or another.

“Historically conditional,” Lenin himself adds, “the contours of the picture, but what is certain is that this picture depicts an objectively existing model. It is historically conditional when and under what conditions we advanced in our knowledge of the essence of things to the discovery of alizarin in coal tar or to the discovery of electrons in the atom, but it is certain that each such discovery is a step forward of "unconditionally objective knowledge".**<... >

Lenin insists that dialectics is inherent in the knowledge of man, for nature itself lives dialectically: there are constant transitions, overflows, and the mutual connection of opposites. Nevertheless, a person comes to the realization of the dialectical properties of his thinking, which are in deep accordance with the properties of nature itself, only sometimes, only under favorable conditions. On the contrary, very often his class interests or the class interests of those who lead him completely destroy the dialectic that lives in the activity of his brain, replacing it with inert metaphysical methods of thinking. Just now, with the triumph of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, the natural dialectical thinking of man, distorted by the proprietary social system, will finally triumph. This will take place in all areas of knowledge and creativity, including literary criticism and literature itself.<…>

“The highest task of mankind,” Lenin asserts, “is to embrace this objective logic of economic evolution (the evolution of social being) in general and basic terms in order to adapt its social consciousness and the consciousness of the advanced classes of all capitalist classes to it as distinctly, clearly, critically as possible. countries.”***

* Lenin V. I. Materialism and empirio-criticism ... Full. coll. cit., vol. 18, p. 135–136. The quotation from Engels is accompanied by a link: the link refers to the edition: "Herrn Eugen Duhrings Umwalzung der Wissenschaft" von Friedrich Engels. Funfte, unveranderte Auflage. Stuttgart, Verlag von J. H. W. Dietz Nachf, 1904.

** Ibid., p. 138–139. *** Ibid., p. 345.

Dialectical materialism in no way makes a person passive; on the contrary, it greatly increases the activity of a Marxist-conscious person. Lenin says about this: “According to Engels, all living human practice breaks into the very theory of knowledge, giving an objective criterion of truth: as long as we do not know the law of nature, it, existing and acting apart from, outside of our knowledge, makes us slaves of “blind necessity”. Once we have learned this law, which acts (as Marx repeated thousands of times) independently of our will and our consciousness, we are the masters of nature.

The fact that Lenin's deep objectivity did not lead him to fatalism and indifference, but was harmoniously combined with the most passionate attitude towards reality, is evidenced by a remarkable passage from one of his early works directed against the Narodniks: “Have you not heard, Mr. Mikhailovsky, that that one of the most remarkable examples of inexorable objectivity in the study of social phenomena is rightly considered the famous treatise on "Capital"? A number of scholars and economists see the main and fundamental shortcoming of this treatise precisely in its inexorable objectivity. And yet, in a rare scientific treatise, you will find so much "heart", so many passionate and passionate polemical antics against representatives of backward views, against representatives of those social classes that, in the author's opinion, hinder social development. The writer, who showed with inexorable objectivity that the views of, say, Proudhon are a natural, understandable, inevitable reflection of the views and moods of the French petit bourgeois **, nevertheless, with the greatest passion, with hot anger, “attacked” this ideologist of the petty bourgeoisie.

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 18, p. 198.

** Petty bourgeois. —Ed.

Doesn't Mr. Mikhailovsky think that Marx "contradicts himself" here? If a certain doctrine requires from every public figure an inexorably objective analysis of reality and the relations between different classes that are developing on the basis of this reality, then by what miracle can we conclude from this that a public figure should not sympathize with this or that class, that he is “not supposed to”? It is ridiculous even to speak of duty here, for not a single living person can but take the side of one or another class (once he has understood their relationship), cannot but rejoice at the success of this class, cannot but be upset by its failures, cannot but be indignant. on those who are hostile to this class, on those who hinder its development by spreading backward views, and so on and so forth.”*

* Lenin V.I. What inheritance are we refusing? (1897). — Full. coll. cit., vol. 2, p. 547–548.

Lenin advocated a comprehensive scientific study of facts and knew how to reveal these facts in all their gigantic diversity. Such works by Lenin as "The Development of Capitalism in Russia", "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism" or "Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism" are built on a huge, closely studied material, critically processed by Lenin's scientific method. Containing unerring forecasts of the social reality under study and giving an objective picture of the latter, Lenin's works at the same time were never objectivist. Lenin's characterization of Struvianism, a movement of bourgeois liberalism of the 1990s, which for the time being was draped in the garb of Marxist phraseology, is well known. “The objectivist,” wrote Lenin in The Economic Content of Populism, “speaks of the necessity of this historical process; the materialist ascertains with precision the given socioeconomic formation and the antagonistic relations generated by it. The objectivist, in proving the necessity of a given series of facts, always runs the risk of falling into the standpoint of an apologist for these facts; the materialist reveals class contradictions and thereby determines his point of view. The Objectivist speaks of "irresistible historical trends"; the materialist speaks of the class which "manages" the given economic order, creating such and such forms of opposition from other classes. Thus, the materialist, on the one hand, is more consistent than the objectivist and carries out his objectivism more deeply and more fully. It is not limited to pointing out the necessity of the process, but finds out what kind of socio-economic formation gives the content to this process, what kind of class determines this necessity. In this case, for example, the materialist would not be satisfied with stating "irresistible historical trends", but would point to the existence of certain classes that determine the content of these orders and exclude the possibility of going beyond the actions of the producers themselves. On the other hand, materialism includes, so to speak, partisanship, obliging, in any evaluation of an event, to directly and openly take the point of view of a certain social group.*

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 1, p. 418–419.

It is hardly necessary to comment on this quotation, it so eloquently characterizes Lenin’s negative attitude towards all programs and theories that claim to be “non-Party”, it so vividly outlines the Leninist method, the scientific nature of which is thoroughly permeated with Party sharpness - a characteristic property of all his theoretical works.

By necessity limiting ourselves to these quotations characterizing Lenin's philosophical views, we once again emphasize that everything in Lenin's philosophical heritage is of great importance for a literary critic, everything is subject to the most careful study, and if we confine ourselves to only relatively few quotations, then only character forces us to do so. our article.

3. Lenin's teaching about culture
It goes without saying that in its basic features Lenin's teaching on culture is the same as that which we find in Marx and Engels. The concept of culture embraces in them, in essence, all forms of social life, with the exception of directly production ones. The concept of culture includes all the so-called superstructures. These include not only "pure" forms of ideology, religion, philosophy, science, art, but also such forms of culture that are directly related to everyday life: morality, not only theoretical, but also directly existing in life, law, again and in its ideological and practical forms, etc. All these forms of culture are in continuous interaction with each other and, to a certain extent, also put pressure on the economic foundation of society. The determinant of all forms of culture and of all its dynamics is, in the final analysis, the process of production. It is this that determines the change in property relations and the grouping of people in production, and the grouping of classes is of particular importance. The classes play different roles in the production process and have different rights to the instruments of production and its products. It is the class configuration that determines the state structure, the political life of a given society, and all other forms of ideological superstructures.

“The class that has power in its hands, the class that really changes the world in a labor order, is always inclined towards realism, but it is also inclined towards romance, understanding by this romance the same thing that Lenin meant by his dream.”

("Victor Hugo. Creative way of the writer")

"Lenin's dream is a scientific dream; it follows from reality, from its tendency."

("Socialist Realism")

From these general propositions of Marxism-Leninism concerning culture, let us turn to those most valuable and original thoughts that Lenin introduced into the doctrine of culture - this necessary foundation of literary criticism.

The parallel between Lenin's and Plekhanov's teachings on culture is quite appropriate. Plekhanov, who for a long time was considered an indisputably authoritative disciple of Marx and Engels, in fact bore on all his thinking the stamp of a certain stratum of the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia of the end of the last and the beginning of this century, which went towards the proletariat, but failed to completely merge with it. This affected both Plekhanov's teachings about culture and his solution of a number of literary problems. In his opinion, a Marxist-literary critic in no case should have raised the question of the positive or negative nature of this or that cultural phenomenon, condemned it or applauded it. According to Plekhanov, Marxist literary criticism should have limited itself to elucidating the inevitable regularity of this phenomenon and all its causes. Lenin posed these problems differently. Of course, he perfectly understood the enormous importance of studying individual cultural phenomena from the point of view of their class equivalent. But for him this was only a preparation for the study of the phenomenon as a whole, for the study itself, in full accordance with the militant and creative character of the proletariat, was for Lenin only a prerequisite for the critical use of past culture and for the construction of new forms of it, corresponding to the interests of the proletariat. Cognitive work was placed directly at the service of revolutionary practice. Hence its completely new tone, of course, deeply Marxist, since it fully corresponds to the spirit of the revolutionary teachings of Marx, and at the same time Leninist, because the epoch of the first great proletarian revolution emphasized precisely this character of the theoretical assimilation of culture with particular force.

To the past of culture and its closest stage to us - bourgeois culture, especially the culture of decaying capitalism - Lenin, of course, treated with merciless criticism: much and the most essential in these historical formations excites his anger, hatred, contempt. But it does not at all follow from this that Lenin condemned this past culture as a whole, that is, he assumed that there were no elements in it that would be subject to critical assimilation by the proletariat in order to build a new culture. At a rally in 1919, Lenin proclaimed, among other things: “... You won’t be fed up with crushed capitalism. We need to take all the culture that capitalism left behind and build socialism out of it. It is necessary to take all science, technology, all knowledge, art. Without this we cannot build the life of a communist society. And this science, technology, art is in the hands of specialists and in their heads.* These thoughts were expressed with particular force and completeness by Vladimir Ilyich in his famous speech at the Third All-Russian Congress of the RKSM.<…>

The question of creating a socialist culture confronted Lenin not so much in general form, as the problem of creating a new world culture by the world proletariat, but in a more particular form, as a completely practical task of building this new culture in our country immediately after the transfer of political power into the hands of the proletariat. Speaking at the Eleventh Party Congress of the need to immediately ensure a gradual transition to communism, Lenin declared that for such a transition the proletariat in our country had absolutely enough political and economic strength. "What is missing?" asks Lenin, and answers: “Obviously, what is missing: there is not enough culture in the stratum of Communists who governs.”** But, of course, Lenin did not narrow the task down to raising the culture of the Communists themselves; pointing out the need to co-operate the population of our country as one of the main tasks, Lenin, of course, considered the need for enormous work to raise the cultural level of the masses themselves. Bureaucracy, the ugliness of the old way of life, poor labor discipline, shortcomings in the education of new generations, and many other things were the obstacles for which Lenin fought in every possible way to overcome them through the class struggle for culture.

* Lenin V. I. Successes and difficulties of Soviet power (1919). — Full. coll. cit., vol. 38, p. 55.

** Lenin V. I. Political report of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) March 27, 1922 - Full. coll. cit., vol. 45, p. 95.

Lenin by no means narrowed down the scope of the goals of socialist culture. Having developed a brilliant picture of a complete socialist system with a high standard of living, a system in which everyone receives according to his work, labor at the same time highly skilled and productive in general, Lenin puts forward as a further task the transition to a communist system proper, the principle of which will be - "from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs. Lenin inseparably connects this lofty principle with the enormous work of recreating man himself, with the deep work of the proletariat on itself in order to raise the entire mass of working people to a moral height that seems unattainable and fantastic to various philistines.<…>

Lenin openly said that a communist who is incapable of flying real dreams, that is, of broad perspectives, of broad visions of the future, is a bad communist.* But revolutionary romanticism was organically combined in Lenin with the strongest practical grip. That is why, in the matter of building a new culture, he was especially interested in those tasks that were the urgent tasks of the day. It is from this side that it is extremely important to assimilate the inner content of Lenin's criticism of the doctrine of culture of the so-called Proletcult.

* See Lenin V. I. What to do? (1902). Full coll. cit., vol. 6, p. 171–173.

On September 27, 1922, Pravda published an article by VF Pletnev, one of the Proletkult theorists, entitled “On the Ideological Front.” The very copy of Pravda with this article was dotted with numerous pencil notes by Vladimir Ilyich. Shortly after the appearance of this issue of Pravda, an article by Y. Yakovlev1 appeared in the same newspaper under the heading "On Proletarian Culture and Proletkult."* The main provisions of this article exactly coincide with Vladimir Ilyich's notes, and the article itself is a systematization of these notes. This article was undoubtedly read and approved by Lenin; therefore, we refer to this informative article in full confidence that it expresses precisely the ideas of Lenin.

* Pravda, 1922, No. 240, October 24; No. 241, 25 October.

“Comrade Pletnev’s proletarian culture is something like a chemical reagent, which can be obtained in the Proletcult retort with the help of specially selected groups of people. Elements of the new proletarian culture for him come out of the proletarian studios in much the same way as the once ancient goddess came out ready from the foam of the sea. In full agreement with Lenin, Yakovlev finds that the main task of culture is, first of all, the general rise of the most elementary culture in our country. On the other hand, proletarians lose sight of "such important elements of culture as morality, customs and law, in which the proletariat has indeed made and is making a number of significant changes." Intensive study is at the forefront here. “Not amateurish, self-admiring, allegedly proletarian science, but serious study over many and many years of more and more hundreds of thousands of workers and peasants.”

Tov. Yakovlev also moves on to questions of art, obviously, here again having a firm directive from the leader: “We live in an era of struggle,” he says. “Naturally, one must consider art primarily as a social force. And in relation to art that takes the liberty of being called proletarian, we have the right to make somewhat greater demands in this respect than even to the Maly Theatre. We want to see in the proletarian theater elements of artistic recognition of our revolution, revolutionary vigor and enthusiasm, elements that unite the working people in their determination and readiness for struggle, create a feeling of connection between the spectator-worker and members of his class, and finally, the actual introduction of the living masses onto the stage. We do not stand on the point of view of "art for art's sake". Therefore, we have the right to apply our criterion of “proletarian art” to the proletarian theater.”*

* Some quotations from Yakovlev's article are given by Lunacharsky with minor changes. —Ed.

It is not difficult to sum up the difference between proletarian culture and Lenin's teaching on culture. Hurrying as soon as possible to the so-called pure forms of proletarian culture, the proletarians tried to create it in a laboratory way. At the same time, the task was extremely narrowed: firstly, it was able to embrace only certain groups of the proletariat, and not the entire class with the many millions of poor peasants in addition. Secondly, Proletkult suspiciously strayed into exclusively artistic work plus some dubious research in the field of science. For Lenin, the cultural revolution, on the contrary, was a colossal process in which tens of millions of people, as well as the entire social and state organism of a vast country, had to be streamlined, learned, and enlightened. At the same time, along the way, he had to learn a huge amount of knowledge and techniques that were already common in America and the advanced countries of Europe. Studying was by no means understood by Lenin as a simple imitation of the West. In the foreground stands the very fact of the class struggle; the new class is assimilating what is useful from the heritage of the bourgeois world in order to immediately use it as a weapon against capitalism itself. Hygiene of everyday life, individual methods of science and art can be assimilated, and yet life itself must acquire a character far from Western philistinism. Science must be rebuilt on a new basis, striving for new goals, art must serve to understand enemies and friends, educate the socialist will, etc.

The tasks that the Communist Party has set for itself are international, and the solution of these tasks in the multinational, multilingual Soviet Union shows the full significance of the national policy of Leninism.<…>

Speaking of our internal cultural tasks, we by no means have in mind only the Russian people, but all the numerous peoples that make up the great brotherhood of the USSR; and in exactly the same way, speaking of literature, we have in mind the literature of all the peoples of the USSR, which reached its highest flowering as a result of Lenin's national policy.

4. Theory of imperialism

In relation to the historical process in its last stage, Lenin's theory of imperialism retains its fundamental significance, most fully expounded by him in the essay "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism" (1916). This essay characterizes imperialism as an economic system; but the conclusions that can be drawn from this work most directly relate to the history of the modern West, and politics, and literature. In this study, Lenin gives a consistent characterization of the distinguishing features of imperialism: the extreme concentration of production, the enormous influence of banks and the formation of finance capital, which exports capital to all countries of the globe, the formation of rentier states that lend money to weak states and exploit them mercilessly, the division of the world between the main imperialist states, parasitism and the decay of imperialism, stemming from the absence of prospects for growth, from a monopolistic position. Somewhat later, in the "Materials for the revision of the party program", published in 1917, contains a brief, as it were, final description of this system. “World capitalism,” writes Lenin, “at the present time—approximately since the beginning of the 20th century—has reached the stage of imperialism. Imperialism, or the epoch of finance capital, is such a highly developed capitalist economy, when the monopoly alliances of the capitalists—syndicates, cartels, trusts—became decisive, banking capital of enormous concentration merged with industrial capital, the export of capital to foreign countries developed on a very large scale, the whole world was already divided up territorially. between the richest countries and began the division of the world economic between international trusts.

Imperialist wars, i.e., wars for world domination, for markets for bank capital, for the strangulation of small and weak nationalities, are inevitable in this state of affairs. And this is precisely the first great imperialist war of 1914-1917.

And an extremely high level of development of world capitalism in general; and the replacement of free competition by monopoly capitalism; and preparation by the banks, as well as by the unions of capitalists, of an apparatus for the social regulation of the process of production and distribution of products; and the growth of high prices and the oppression of the syndicates over the working class, which is connected with the growth of capitalist monopolies, and the gigantic difficulty of its economic and political struggle; and the horrors, calamities, ruin, and savagery engendered by the imperialist war—all this makes the stage of development of capitalism now reached into an era of proletarian, socialist revolution.

This era has begun.”*<…>

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 32, p. 150–151.

The Leninist theory of imperialism makes it possible to navigate without error in all the most important phenomena of the political life of the capitalist West. But the conclusions from this theory should be drawn not only by an economist, not only by a historian, but by any researcher of Western European culture, including a literary critic. A number of interesting courses on the history of Western European literatures written in recent years by Marxists suffer precisely from the lack of application of Lenin's teaching on imperialism to this field. In some of these works, the historical process of the West is treated in an objectivist way. Excessive technicalism, confidence in the organizational abilities of capitalism, passion for theories of the internal balance of capitalism also pour water on the mill of anti-Marxist, anti-revolutionary concepts and in this sense need to be decisively overcome.

5. The theory of two ways of development of Russian capitalism
If Lenin's theory of imperialism plays a fundamental role in understanding capitalism in the epoch of its decay, then Lenin's concept of two paths for the development of capitalism in Russia plays a similar role in Russian history of the 19th century. The concept of "two paths" cannot be applied to literature without taking into account the theory of reflection, which is so important in Lenin's approach to the phenomena of the historical process. It takes into account not so much the genetic affiliation of the writers as the reflectionthis last social shift, not so much the subjective attachment of the writer and his connection with a certain social environment, but rather his objective characteristic for certain historical situations. Thus, the White Guard humorist Averchenko, embittered “almost to the point of insanity”, nevertheless gives a “highly talented”, according to Lenin, book “A Dozen Knives in the Back of the Revolution”, talented because of its permeation with the pathos of a representative of the “old, landowner and factory owner, rich, gorged and gorged Russia.”* Averchenko reflects the reaction of the bourgeoisie to the October Revolution, which threw this class out of history.

Reality is reflected incomparably deeper and more socially significant in the work of such ideologists of the peasant revolution as Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, and the Narodniks. Finally, a particularly remarkable example of reflection is the work of Tolstoy, one of the articles about which is entitled "Leo Tolstoy, as a Mirror of the Russian Revolution" * - "Comparison of the name of a great artist with a revolution that he clearly did not understand, from which he clearly distanced himself, at first sight strange and artificial. Not to call a mirror what obviously does not reflect the phenomena correctly? But our revolution is an extremely complex phenomenon; among the mass of its direct perpetrators and participants there are many social elements who also clearly did not understand what was happening, who also distanced themselves from the real historical tasks set before them by the course of events.

* Lenin V. I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 44, p. 249.

** Lenin V.I. Poln. coll. cit., vol. 17, p. 206.

And as a result of a brilliant analysis of Russian political reality at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Lenin came to the conclusion that “Tolstoy reflected the seething hatred, the ripened desire for the best, the desire to get rid of the past, and the immaturity of daydreaming, political bad manners, revolutionary softness. Historical and economic conditions also explain the need for the revolutionary struggle of the masses and their unpreparedness for the struggle, Tolstoy's non-resistance to evil, which was the most serious reason for the defeat of the first revolutionary campaign . neither the internal contradictions of each of them, nor the specifics of these stages.

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 17, p. 212–213.

Lenin's theory of reflection never meant a break with history, it was never an abstract scheme that opened any historical situation with the same key. On the contrary, it has always served to reveal the concrete forms of the class struggle in all the complexity of its internal dialectical contradictions.

“We,” he wrote, “do not at all look at Marx's theory as something complete and inviolable; we are convinced, on the contrary, that it has only laid the cornerstones of that science which socialists must advance in all directions if they do not want to lag behind life. We think that the independent development of Marx's theory is especially necessary for Russian socialists, because this theory provides only general guidelines that apply, in particular , to England differently than to France, to France differently than to Germany, to Germany differently than to Russia. '.*

* Lenin V. I. Our program (1899). — Full. coll. cit., vol. 4, p. 184.

Let's return to the theory of "two ways". Lenin not only established a picture of the historical struggle between these two tendencies, but also outlined the dependence of Russian literature on this struggle. Below we will quote Lenin's judgments about the dependence of such huge literary phenomena as Herzen, populism, Leo Tolstoy, precisely on these essential forces that moved the history of our country. Although this theory directly illuminates the period from the 50s of the last century to the revolution of 1917, but at the same time it brings us gigantically closer to understanding earlier phenomena, approximately starting from the 18th century ... Finally, Lenin's concept throws a lot of light on everything other countries (including their literary development).

“How subtly Vladimir Ilyich understood how the dead and the living, the useful and the harmful are combined in art, is evident from his conclusions about individual writers.”

("Lenin in his attitude to science and art")

“You must add to the material available to Marx and Engels, as a direct continuation, what Lenin wrote about literature. Because only then will we have a complete cycle of ideas, because in Lenin we have the application of these great thoughts of Marx and Engels to the next stage, to the stage of the beginning of the realization of socialism.

("An Introduction to the History of English and German Literature")

The theory of "two ways" runs like a red thread through all of Lenin's journalistic activities, already outlined in his early polemical work "What are" friends of the people "...". It is most fully expressed in the article "The Agrarian Program of Social Democracy in the First Russian Revolution of 1905-1907", written by Lenin at the end of 1907.

“The highlight of the struggle is the feudal latifundia, as the most outstanding embodiment and the strongest support for the remnants of serfdom in Russia. The development of commodity economy and capitalism absolutely inevitably puts an end to these remnants. In this respect, Russia has only one path of bourgeois development."

But the forms of this development can be twofold. The remnants of serfdom can fall away both by transforming the landowners' farms and by abolishing the landowners' latifundia, that is, by reform and by revolution.<...>

We would call these two paths of objectively possible bourgeois development the path of the Prussian type and the path of the American type... In the first case, the main content of evolution is the development of serfdom into bondage and capitalist exploitation on the lands of the feudal lords—junker landowners. In the second case, the main background is the development of a patriarchal peasant into a bourgeois farmer.

In the economic history of Russia, both these types of evolution are quite clearly revealed. Take the era of the fall of serfdom. There was a struggle between the landlords and the peasants over the way the reform was to be carried out. Both defended the conditions for bourgeois economic development (without realizing it), but the former advocated such a development that would ensure the maximum preservation of landowner farms, landowner incomes, and landowner (bondage) methods of exploitation. The second are the interests of such a development that would ensure the greatest possible welfare of the peasantry, at a given level of culture, the destruction of the landlord latifundia, the destruction of all feudal and enslaving methods of exploitation, and the expansion of free peasant landownership. Needless to say, faster than with the landowners' outcome of the peasant reform.*

These lines contain indications of exceptional methodological value, illuminating the historical process of the entire post-reform period. "The struggle between peasant and landlord interests, which runs like a red thread through the entire post-reform history of Russia and constitutes the most important economic basis of our revolution, is a struggle for one type or another of bourgeois agrarian evolution." along the path of “revolution” or along the path of “reform,” remained deeply relevant throughout the entire era of the development of Russian industrial capitalism and was removed from the order of the day only in October 1917.<…>

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 16, p. 215–216.

** Ibid., p. 218.

Lenin's concept gives a strict unity to the entire historical process that has taken place in our country, and firmly links our present and future with our past. Our democratic tendency, the main support of which, the main actual carrier of which was the scattered, ignorant peasantry, was weak, although it was able to bring forward giants in the field of thought and literature. In general, the development of Russia followed the Prussian path, and this determined, so to speak, the official squalor of our entire culture, the only exception to which are the heroes of the first path, who are constantly in the minority.<…>

The conclusions from the theory of "two paths" that the literary critic must draw for himself turn out to be extremely significant. Following Lenin, who emphasizes the significance of the influence of the feudal part of the nobility, who managed to rip off and mutilate the already moderate reforms, the literary critic will have to, firstly, establish the fact that in Russian literature of the near-reform period a significant group of writers - ideologists of serfdom. This camp is not very numerous, but it will include such writers as Sergei Aksakov, this beautiful-hearted idealizer of feudal relations between the landowners and the peasantry (“Family Chronicle”), such a bison of the feudal aristocracy as Markevich, such a reactionary estate poet as Fet, and some others. This is the camp of people who denied any path of capitalist development, who dreamed of a return to pre-reform social relations, the camp of defenders of the reactionary feudal utopia. Broader and more influential is the second camp, the liberals, which will include both writers of the bourgeois nobility and representatives of the bourgeoisie, like Leskov or Goncharov. Lenin ruthlessly fought against the legend of liberal democracy, by all means exposed the moderation of all kinds of Kavelins, who hypocritically warned against the excesses of the revolutionary movement, but in fact, to the best of their ability, poured water on the mill of government reaction. –s by such writers as Turgenev, as Goncharov. But, of course, the ideologists of the liberal reform were not translated into bourgeois-noble literature until the very last years of the existence of the system itself. And, finally, in contrast to the liberal supporters of the reform - the camp, which demanded the complete elimination of serfdom, the literature of the "American way", objectively reflecting the interests of the enslaved peasantry. This is how differentiation within Russian literature of the 60s is outlined, this is how intra-class contradictions are revealed in it, making it possible to establish the paths of social struggle. Between Fet and Turgenev, undoubtedly, there are disagreements, but both of them turn out to be allies in the struggle against Chernyshevsky and the Narodniks. In new forms at a new stage of development, this struggle between the two camps remains effective throughout the subsequent pore, right up to the October Revolution.<…>

* Wed. from V. I. Lenin: “And whoever wishes to recall the long history of Russian liberalism, he will already see in relation to the liberal Kavelin to the democrat Chernyshevsky the most accurate prototype of the attitude of the Cadet party of the liberal bourgeois to the Russian democratic movement of the masses (Lenin V. I. Another campaign against democracy (1912 - Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 22, p. 84). In connection with Kavelin’s response to Chernyshevsky’s arrest, Lenin calls Kavelin a “vile liberal,” and one letter to Herzen is an example of “professorial lackey profundity” (V. I. Lenin, Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 21, p. 259 ; v. 5, p. 33).

6. Lenin's views on individual Russian writers
Arguing that only "social democracy" - of course, Bolshevism, of course - can be the ideological hegemon of everything revolutionary in the country, [Lenin] wrote:

"... We want to point out" that only a party guided by an advanced theory can fulfill the role of an advanced fighter. And in order to at least somewhat concretely imagine what this means, let the reader remember such predecessors of Russian social democracy as Herzen, Belinsky, Chernyshevsky and the brilliant galaxy of revolutionaries of the 70s; let him think about the universal significance that Russian literature is now acquiring; let ... yes, enough of this. ”*

Belinsky interests Lenin primarily as one of the forerunners of democratic thought. “His (Belinsky. - A. L.) famous “Letter to Gogol”, summing up Belinsky’s literary activity, was one of the best works of the uncensored democratic press, which has retained enormous, living significance to this day. ** And for Lenin, Belinsky just like the later revolutionary Narodniks, he is the spokesman for the beginning protest and struggle of the peasantry.<…>

* Lenin V. I. What to do? — Full. coll. cit., vol. 6, p. 25.

** Lenin V. I. From the past of the workers' press in Russia (1914). — Full. coll. cit., vol. 25, p. 94.

Of the great predecessors of that greatest world revolution, in which Lenin himself played the first role, most attention was paid to A. I. Herzen. He wrote about him most often and most vividly. At the same time, we were also lucky, because Lenin's reviews of Herzen provide an unsurpassedly brilliant example of the analysis of a revolutionary writer, in which the essential shortcomings of his activity are not forgotten, but are by no means inflated to such an extent as to renounce the legacy left by his predecessor. We often see now how young literary critics, analyzing this or that great progressive artist of the past or present, who has not been able to rise above all the prejudices of his class, has not been able to achieve complete purity of ideological views, with some special passion try to emphasize and exaggerate these shortcomings. … Such a “leftist” attitude towards the inheritance is just as harmful as the right-wing oportunistic hushing up of the shortcomings and folly of such “allies”.

Herzen, like any other writer, was for Lenin a product of his time. “Herzen’s spiritual drama was the product and reflection of that world-historical epoch when the revolutionary spirit of bourgeois democracy was already dying (in Europe), and the revolutionary character of the socialist proletariat had not yet matured.”* An article about the great revolutionary of the past, written on the centenary of his birth, opens the establishment of Herzen's class affiliation in all its enormous complexity. “Herzen belonged to the generation of noble, landlord revolutionaries of the first half of the last century. The nobles gave Russia the Bironovs and Arakcheevs, countless "drunk officers, bullies, card players, heroes of fairs, hounds, brawlers, secons, seralniks", and the beautiful-hearted Manilovs. “And between them,” Herzen wrote, “people developed on December 14, a phalanx of heroes fed, like Romulus and Remus, with the milk of a wild beast ... to a clear death in order to awaken the younger generation to a new life and purify children born in an environment of butchery and servility.

* Lenin V.I. In memory of Herzen (1912). — Full. coll. cit., vol. 21, p. 256.

Herzen belonged to the number of such children. The Decembrist uprising woke him up and “purified” him. In serf Russia in the 40s of the 19th century, he managed to rise to such a height that he stood on a level with the greatest thinkers of his time. He learned Hegel's dialectic. He realized that it was "the algebra of the revolution". He went further than Hegel, towards materialism, following Feuerbach. The first of the Letters on the Study of Nature, Empiricism and Idealism, written in 1844, shows us a thinker who, even now, is head and shoulders above the abyss of modern empiricists and the darkness of the themes of modern philosophers, idealists and semi-idealists. Herzen came close to dialectical materialism and stopped short of historical materialism.*

In Herzen's social personality, positive traits are inextricably intertwined with negative ones. He almost reached dialectical materialism, but stopped, unable to master its method. “This “stop” caused the spiritual collapse of Herzen after the defeat of the revolution of 1848. Herzen had already left Russia and observed this revolution directly. He was then a democrat, a revolutionary, a socialist. But his "socialism" belonged to those innumerable forms and varieties of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois socialism in the era of 1948, which were finally killed by the June days. In essence, this was not socialism at all, but a beautiful-hearted phrase, a good dream, in which bourgeois democracy at that time clothed its revolutionary spirit, as well as the proletariat that had not freed itself from its influence.

Herzen's spiritual collapse, his deep skepticism and pessimism after 1848, was the collapse of bourgeois illusions in socialism.** Herzen is taken by Lenin in all the complexity of his internal contradictions. On the one hand, “Herzen created a free Russian press abroad—this is his great merit. "Polar Star" raised the tradition of the Decembrists. "The Bell" (1857-1867) stood up like a mountain for the liberation of the peasants. The servile silence was broken.”***

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 21, p. 255–256.

** Ibid., p. 256. *** Ibid., p. 258–259.

On the other hand, the reactions of the old are strong in him, leaving an imprint on his entire worldview. “But Herzen belonged to the landlord, lordly milieu. He left Russia in 1847, he did not see the revolutionary people and could not believe in them. Hence his liberal appeal to the "tops". Hence his countless sugary letters in The Bell to Alexander II the Hangman, which cannot now be read without disgust. Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Serno-Solovyevich, who represented the new generation of raznochintsev revolutionaries, were right a thousand times over when they reproached Herzen for these retreats from democracy to liberalism. However, Lenin immediately stipulates that in these contradictions, his revolutionary spirit was still the leading principle. "However, justice requires it to be said that for all Herzen's hesitations between democracy and liberalism, the democrat nevertheless prevailed in him." * And Lenin confirms his judgment with a series of sparkling quotations from his writings. Herzen, in which his hatred for the ruling regime, his contempt for the liberals of the Kavelin and Turgenev types is reflected. He angrily protests against the desire of the liberals to cling to Herzen, to praise the weak in him, to silence the strong, and at the end of his inspired speech about Herzen, he paints with titanic skill and breathtaking force a picture of the entire movement from the beginning of the noble revolution to the beginning of the proletarian. “Honouring Herzen, we clearly see three generations, three classes that acted in the Russian revolution. First - the nobles and landowners, the Decembrists and Herzen. The circle of these revolutionaries is narrow. They are terribly far from the people. But their work is not lost. The Decembrists woke up Herzen. Herzen launched a revolutionary agitation.

It was taken up, expanded, strengthened, and tempered by the raznochintsy revolutionaries, beginning with Chernyshevsky and ending with the heroes of Narodnaya Volya. The circle of fighters has become wider, their connection with the people is closer. “Young navigators of the future storm,” Herzen called them. But it wasn't the storm itself.

The storm is the movement of the masses themselves. The proletariat, the only fully revolutionary class, rose at the head of them and for the first time raised millions of peasants to open revolutionary struggle. The first onslaught of the storm was in 1905. The next one is starting to grow before our eyes.”**

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 21, p. 259. ** Ibid., p. 261.

Lenin also enjoyed great sympathy with Nekrasov and Saltykov-Shchedrin, two writers of the past, like Herzen, who had come from the nobility, but who had joined the ranks of the fighters for the "American way" much more closely. Biographically, Nekrasov is a very motley personality: by origin he was a nobleman, by a significant period of his youth he was an intellectual-proletarian, by his journal publishing practice he is in many respects a representative of big-bourgeois methods. Here you can pile up a lot of all sorts of psychology, and we are not at all saying that such a detailed analysis of the formation of Nekrasov's personality and the contradictions of an already formed personality, which Lenin by no means denies and even emphasizes, is of no importance. But all this in the eyes of Lenin is secondary. In the foreground for him is the fact that Nekrasov, like Saltykov, is the spokesman for the interests of the peasantry, that they deployed their great talent, honed it, used it to defend the "American path" of the development of the Russian revolution.

Both Nekrasov and Saltykov-Shchedrin were highly valued by Lenin as mask-breakers from feudal Russia. “Even Nekrasov and Saltykov,” he wrote in the article “In Memory of Count Heiden,” “taught Russian society to distinguish under the smoothed and pomaded appearance of the education of a feudal landowner, his predatory interests, taught to hate the hypocrisy and heartlessness of such types, and the modern Russian intellectual, who imagines himself custodian of the democratic heritage, belonging to the Cadet party or to the Cadet echoes, teaches the people rudeness and admires his impartiality as a non-party democrat. The spectacle is almost more disgusting than the spectacle of the exploits of Dubasov and Stolypin ... ”* Lenin also relied on the work of Nekrasov in the struggle against modern liberals. “This is about the distant past. And at the same time, the attitude of the liberals at that time and now (in appearance and officials in soul) to the class struggle is a phenomenon of the same order. It is especially unbearable to see when subjects like Shchepetov, Struve, Gredeskul, Izgoev and other Cadet brethren grab at the coattails of Nekrasov, Shchedrin, etc. Nekrasov, being personally weak, hesitated between Chernyshevsky and the liberals, but all his sympathies were on side of Chernyshevsky. Nekrasov, due to the same personal weakness, sinned with notes of liberal servility, but he himself bitterly mourned his "sins" and publicly repented of them:

"I did not trade in the lyre, but it happened, When the inexorable fate threatened, At the lyre the wrong sound was thrown out by My hand ..."

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 16, p. 43.

** Lenin V.I. Poln. coll. cit., vol. 23, p. 17.

"Wrong sound" - that's what Nekrasov himself called his liberal-serving sins. And Shchedrin mercilessly mocked the liberals and branded them forever with the formula: “in relation to meanness.”* This quotation extremely vividly characterizes both Nekrasov and Shchedrin as allies of the revolutionary peasant democracy headed by Chernyshevsky. Saltykov-Shchedrin came from a large noble family, was a major tsarist official, but all this is erased by the magnificent fact that Saltykov was imbued with a burning hatred and sharp contempt for serfdom, tsarism, bureaucracy, that he also transferred these feelings to all liberal talkers, that he felt the deepest respect for the revolutionaries and that in his brilliant pictures of Russian reality he depicted this reality mercilessly and with unsurpassed accuracy, branded its vices and called for a fight against it.

Saltykov-Shchedrin was one of Lenin's favorite writers. This is evidenced by the unanimous testimony of memoirists. No one was used by Lenin so often as a source of brilliant fiction illustrations for his passionate articles, as precisely by Saltykov. The latter is cited even in such seemingly purely research works as "The Development of Capitalism in Russia" or "The Agrarian Question and "Marx's Critics". “Unless such a task (of a materialist interpretation of Hegelian dialectics. - A. L.) is set for itself and systematically carried out, materialism cannot be militant materialism. He will remain, using Shchedrin's expression, not so much fighting as being fought."** "How does it not make people sick of this - I use Shchedrin's expression - tongue fornication?"*** Almost all of Shchedrin's heroes appear on the pages of Lenin's works in their new political guises . Here we will meet the pompadours, ranting in a liberal manner, and the Grim-Grumblings, who became prominent dignitaries with Black Hundred convictions, and the Karas, an idealist, who turned out to be a petty inhabitant, and the Wise minnow, and the downtrodden and crushed Konyaga, a peasant. The gallery of these images consists of the eloquent figure of Porfiry Golovlev... This ominous image of a landowner-serf-owner is especially frequent in Lenin. In the era of the suppression of the revolution of 1905 and the triumph of the reaction of the nobility, Lenin exclaims: “It is a pity that Shchedrin did not live to see the “great” Russian revolution. He would probably add a new chapter to the Golovlevs, he would portray Judas calming a flogged, beaten, hungry, enslaved peasant: are you waiting for improvement? Are you disappointed by the lack of change in the order based on hunger, on shooting people, on a rod and a whip? Are you complaining about "lack of facts"? Ungrateful! But this absence of facts is a fact of the greatest importance! After all, this is a conscious result of the interference of your will, that Lidvali is still in charge, that the peasants calmly lie down under the rods, without indulging in malicious dreams of the “poetry of struggle.” literature. In his writings we will find a mass of literary quotations from Turgenev, Gogol, Griboedov, Krylov, Narodniks, Chekhov, and others. Saltykov occupies the first place among them, and this, of course, must be entirely explained by the satirical sharpness of the work of this most prominent fighter for the "American way" .

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 22, p. 84.

** Lenin V. I. On the Significance of Militant Materialism (1922). — Full. coll. cit., vol. 45, p. 31.

*** Lenin V. I. Fundamental issues of the election campaign (1911-1912). — Full. coll. cit., vol. 21, p. 75.

Especially significant were Lenin's sympathies for Chernyshevsky, a publicist, whom he also repeatedly quoted in his writings on current political topics. “We remember how, half a century ago, the Great Russian democrat Chernyshevsky, giving his life to the cause of the revolution, said: “A miserable nation, a nation of slaves, from top to bottom, all are slaves.” Frank and covert slaves-Great Russians (slaves in relation to the tsarist monarchy) do not like to remember these words. And, in our opinion, these were words of true love for the motherland ... "**

* Lenin V.I. Triumphant vulgarity or Kadet Social Revolutionaries (1907). — Full. coll. cit., vol. 15, p. 213.

** Lenin V.I. On the national pride of the Great Russians. — Full. coll. cit., vol. 26, p. 107.

“Modern “Social Democrats,” a shade of Scheidemann or, which is almost the same thing, Martov, are just as disgusted by the Soviets, they are just as drawn to a decent bourgeois parliament, or to the Constituent Assembly, just as Turgenev 60 years ago was drawn to a moderate monarchist and the constitution of the nobility, as the muzhik democratism of Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky disgusted him.”* “Historical activity is not the pavement of Nevsky Prospekt,” said the great Russian revolutionary Chernyshevsky. Who “permits” the revolution of the proletariat only “under the condition” that it proceed easily and smoothly, that there should be an immediate united action of the proletarians of different countries, that a guarantee against defeat be given in advance, that the road of the revolution be wide, free, straight, that it should not be necessary at times marching towards victory, to bear the heaviest sacrifices, to "hide out in a besieged fortress" or to make their way along the narrowest, impassable, winding and dangerous mountain paths - he is not a revolutionary, he has not freed himself from the pedantry of the bourgeois intelligentsia, he will in fact turn out to be constantly sliding down to the camp of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, like our Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and even (though less frequently) Left Socialist-Revolutionaries.”** To these quotations—it would be easy to multiply them—it is necessary to add N.K. Krupskaya’s testimony about Lenin’s extremely positive attitude toward Chernyshevsky’s fiction . “... He loved Chernyshevsky's novel What Is To Be Done?, despite its unartistic naive form. I was surprised how attentively he read this novel and what subtle touches that are in this novel, he noted.

* Lenin V. I. Immediate tasks of Soviet power (1918). — Full. coll. cit., vol. 36, p. 206.

** Lenin V. I. Letter to the American Workers (1918). — Full. coll. cit., vol. 37, p. 57.

*** Krupskaya N. K. About Lenin. Sat. articles. M., Gospolitizdat, 1960, p. 70.

There is no doubt that in Lenin's sympathy for Chernyshevsky there was a kind of succession of two brilliant revolutionaries. “Chernyshevsky infected him with his intransigence towards liberalism. Distrust of liberal phrases, of the whole position of liberalism runs like a red thread through Lenin's entire activity. If we take the Siberian exile, the protest against the Credo, we take the break with Struve, then the irreconcilable position that Lenin took in relation to the Cadets, in relation to the Menshevik liquidators, who were ready to make a deal with the Cadets, we see that Vladimir Ilyich adhered to the same irreconcilable line that Chernyshevsky adhered to in relation to the liberals who betrayed the peasantry during the reform of 1861 ... Giving an assessment of the bourgeois-liberal democracy and democracy of the bourgeois populism of the 80s, reconciled with tsarism, Lenin opposed him with the democratism of revolutionary Marxism. Chernyshevsky gave an example of an uncompromising struggle against the existing system, a struggle where democracy was inextricably linked with the struggle for socialism. ”* In the person of Chernyshevsky, Lenin honored one of the most stubborn and most glorious fighters for the interests of the deceived peasantry, and it is no coincidence that in his early journalistic work he reveals the meaning peasant reform through the mouth of Volgin, the hero of Chernyshevsky's novel Prologue to Prologue, into whose mouth Chernyshevsky put his thoughts.**

* Krupskaya N. K. About Lenin. Sat. articles: M., Gospolitizdat, 1960, p. 64–65.

** See Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 1, p. 290–291.

Lenin's assessment of the Russian Narodniks of the 1960s and 1970s was also extremely high. This assessment was more positive than L. Tolstoy's, for the Narodniks, expressing the same peasant aspirations, stood on the left flank of the public at that time. This, however, did not prevent Lenin from noting that degree of duality, the works of these great revolutionary democrats, which could not but be inherent in them, for only the point of view of the proletariat can appear devoid of historical duality, and in the field of fiction, only proletarian literature.<...>

The Narodniks were the leaders of the peasantry in the sense that, in their best era, before their legalization and vulgarization, which began already with Mikhailovsky, they were able to represent the interests of the peasantry in an incomparably purer form than L. Tolstoy. The Narodniks were revolutionary-democratic representatives of the peasantry. In his article on Mikhailovsky, Lenin gives a general description of the Narodniks. From the characterization we give below, it is clear that Mikhailovsky was already a decadent type of Narodnik, incomparably inferior to the great representatives of Narodism. But this characterization speaks only of these spurs of the mountain range of revolutionary populism, which possessed such imposing peaks as Chernyshevsky. Lenin fought a lot and fiercely against the epigones of populism, who denounced Marxism by all means (see his articles “What are “friends of the people” ...”, “The economic content of populism”, “What heritage are we refusing”, etc.). But, exposing the reactionary nature of this trend in the era of the emergence of Marxism, he was in no way inclined to belittle the power of the socialist propaganda that these ideologists of peasant socialism conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. The socialist utopianism of the petty-bourgeois revolutionaries shows the intensity of their oppositional thought and brings them closer to us. This was reflected in all of Lenin's statements about the Narodniks: “Mikhailovsky was one of the best representatives and exponents of the views of Russian bourgeois democracy in the last third of the last century. The peasant masses, who in Russia are the only serious and massive (not counting the urban petty bourgeoisie) bearers of bourgeois-democratic ideas, were then still in deep sleep. The best people from among her and people full of sympathy for her plight, the so-called raznochintsy - mainly young students, teachers and other representatives of the intelligentsia - tried to enlighten and wake up the sleeping peasant masses.

The great historical merit of Mikhailovsky in the bourgeois-democratic movement in favor of the liberation of Russia was that he warmly sympathized with the oppressed position of the peasants, vigorously fought against all and any manifestations of feudal oppression, defended in the legal, open press - even in hints, sympathy and respect for the "underground ", where the most consistent and decisive democrats of the raznochints acted, and even directly helped this underground."*

The best Narodniks, revolutionaries like Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, writers like Uspensky and Saltykov were adamant and implacable supporters of the democratic revolution.<…>

Lenin treated Uspensky with special love. The “Development of Capitalism in Russia” characterizes the Caucasus with reference to the essays of this populist: “A country poorly populated at the beginning of the post-reform period or populated by highlanders who stood apart from the world economy and even aside from history, turned into a country of oil industrialists, wine merchants , manufacturers of wheat and tobacco, and Mr. Coupon ruthlessly dressed up the proud highlander from his poetic national costume into the costume of a European lackey ... "**which the proletariat could bring to the middle and poor peasants. Ouspensky's characterization is based on the same theory of reflection, which, as we will see below, is applied in all articles about Leo Tolstoy. <…>

* Lenin V.I. Populists about N.K. Mikhailovsky. — Full. coll. cit., vol. 24, p. 333–334.

** Lenin V.I. Poln. coll. cit., vol. 3, p. 594–595..

Most of all, Lenin paid attention to the work of L. Tolstoy. What is striking in Lenin's very approach to the "great writer of the Russian land"? * We have quite a few studies on Tolstoy written by Marxists and written before and after Lenin's articles. Among them are such valuable works as Plekhanov's articles.**

* An expression by I. S. Turgenev from a suicide letter to L. N. Tolstoy (end of June (old style), 1883). Wed Turgenev I. S. Sobr. soch., in 12 vols. M., 1958, v. 12, p. 580.

** Plekhanov wrote five articles about Tolstoy. See Plekhanov G. V. M.–L., 1927, v. XXIV.

All these researchers, of course, approached Tolstoy from the class point of view. But how did they understand this class point of view? They saw in Tolstoy primarily a representative of the aristocratic nobility and tried to deduce Tolstoy exclusively from the conditions of the aristocratic ruin and the aristocratic reaction to the onset of capital. Tolstoy's "muzhikovstvo" was for them a kind of eccentricity, a kind of utopian, pre-prepared position of the defender of the nobility, forced to abandon the protection of the first line of defense, that is, the estate culture and social leadership of the landlord class. Of course, there is a lot of truth in all this. Such a point of view is much higher than an attempt to explain Tolstoy and Tolstoyism as a “movement of human conscience”, or to declare them the result of exceptional personal genius, or, as the formalists have tried to do in recent years, to derive Tolstoy's work from the formal and everyday conditions of contemporary literary life. But even this relatively correct point of view appears pale and dull when compared with Lenin's brilliant analysis. Thanks to Lenin, Tolstoy not only ceased to be for us the offspring of the nobility, but, inserting this quality of his as a little serious starting point behind him, in the gigantic growth of his work, he turned out to be in deep accordance with the great social moment that determined this work, and the gigantic dimensions of that, however, contradictory in its consciousness and unorganized class, the spokesman of which in fact was this "count". “The sharp breaking of all the“ old foundations ”of rural Russia sharpened his attention, deepened his interest in what was happening around him, led to a change in his whole outlook. By birth and upbringing, Tolstoy belonged to the highest landlord nobility in Russia - he broke with the completely familiar views of this environment and, in his last works, fell with passionate criticism on all modern state, church, social, economic orders based on the enslavement of the masses, on their poverty, on the ruin of peasants and smallholders in general, on violence and hypocrisy, which permeate all modern life from top to bottom. the class that, with its entire social psychology, determined the monumental and at the same time deeply contradictory, at the same time revolutionary and reactionary ideology of L. Tolstoy, is the peasantry.

* Lenin V. I. L. N. Tolstoy and the modern labor movement (1910). — Full. coll. cit., vol. 20, p. 39–40,

Lenin devoted many works to Tolstoy. Here we will find the article “Leo Tolstoy, as a Mirror of the Russian Revolution”, originally published in the organ of the St. Petersburg and Moscow committees of the RSDLP “Proletary” in Geneva in 1908, then a wonderful obituary of Tolstoy, which appeared immediately after the death of the great writer in the central organ of the RSDLP “Social– democrat” (both articles are placed without a signature), the article “L. N. Tolstoy and the modern working-class movement”, published in the newspaper “Nash put” in 1910, “Heroes of the “reservation”, published in the same year in the journal “Thought”, stigmatizing the flirting with Tolstoy of the Menshevik Liquidators, who left “striking examples ... unscrupulousness”,* the article “L. N. Tolstoy and his epoch”, which to some extent summed up Lenin's idea of ​​Tolstoy and appeared in 1911 in the Zvezda magazine.

* *Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 20, p. 90.219

For reasons of greater harmony in the exposition of Lenin's views on Tolstoy, which are of great importance for the further paths of all literary criticism, we will first dwell on this last article. Here we read: “The epoch to which L. Tolstoy belongs and which is remarkably vividly reflected both in his brilliant works of art and in his teaching is the epoch after 1861 and before 1905. True, Tolstoy's literary activity began earlier and ended later than this period began and ended, but L. Tolstoy fully developed as an artist and as a thinker precisely during this period, the transitional nature of which gave rise to all the distinctive features and works of Tolstoy and "Tolstoy" .

Through the mouth of K. Levin, in Anna Karenina, L. Tolstoy expressed extremely vividly what the transition of Russian history was during these half a century.

“... Talk about the harvest, hiring workers, etc., which, Levin knew, is usually considered something very low ... now seemed only important to Levin. “Maybe it didn't matter under serfdom, or it didn't matter in England. In both cases the very conditions are defined; but with us now, when everything has turned upside down and is only just beginning to fit in, the question of how these conditions will fit in is the only important question in Russia,” thought Levin.

“Now in our country all this has turned upside down and is only fitting in,” it is difficult to imagine a more accurate characterization of the period 1861-1905 (this is how Lenin comments on the thoughts of Tolstoy’s hero in his article. - A.L.). What has "overturned" is well known, or at least quite familiar to every Russian. This is serfdom and the entire "old order" corresponding to it. What is "only fitting in" is completely unfamiliar, alien, incomprehensible to the broadest mass of the population. For Tolstoy, this "only fitting" bourgeois system is vaguely depicted as a scarecrow - England. Precisely: it was frightening, because Tolstoy rejects any attempt to clarify for himself the main features of the social system in this "England", the connection of this system with the domination of capital, with the role of money, with the appearance and development of exchange, Tolstoy rejects, so to speak, on principle. Like the Narodniks, he does not want to see, he closes his eyes, turns away from the thought that there is no other system than the bourgeois system that is "fitting" in Russia.

It is fair that, if not “the only important”, then the most important from the point of view of the immediate tasks of all socio-political activity in Russia for the period 1861-1905 (yes, for our time) was the question “how will this system, the bourgeois system, fit in?” taking on very diverse forms in "England", Germany, America, France, etc. But for Tolstoy such a definite, concretely historical formulation of the question is something completely alien. He argues abstractly, he admits only the point of view of the “eternal” principles of morality, the eternal truths of religion, not realizing that this point of view is only an ideological reflection of the old (“overturned”) system, the system of serfdom, the system of life of the Eastern peoples.

Emphasizing quite definitely that Tolstoy's teaching must be considered socialist, Lenin at the same time, however, considers it utopian and reactionary. <…>

“Pessimism, non-resistance, an appeal to the “Spirit” is an ideology that inevitably appears in an era when the entire old system has “turned over” and when the masses, brought up in this old system, have absorbed the principles, habits, traditions, beliefs of this system, does not see and cannot see what the new system is "fitting into place", what social forces and how exactly it is "fitted", what social forces are capable ofto bring deliverance from the innumerable, especially acute disasters characteristic of the epochs of “breaking.” But it does not at all follow from this that this teaching is not socialist, nor that it does not contain critical elements capable of providing valuable material for the enlightenment of the advanced classes.

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 20, p. 100–101. ** Ibid., p. 102.*** Ibid., p. 103.

In the same article, written after all sorts of liberals, populists and mystics tried to use the great movement caused by the death of Leo Tolstoy for their own purposes, Lenin especially sharply emphasizes that the significance of the social content of Tolstoyism refers to the past and that for the present the whole essence this doctrine is negative, and any flirtatiousness with Tolstoyism is a real crime for a supporter of the proletarian world outlook. “A quarter of a century ago, the critical elements of Tolstoy’s teaching could in practice sometimes benefit certain segments of the population in spite ofreactionary and utopian features of Tolstoyism. During the last, let's say, decade, this could not be so, because historical development stepped forward quite a bit from the 80s to the end of the last century. And nowadays, afterhow a series of events put an end to "Eastern" immobility, in our day, when the consciously reactionary, in the narrow class, in the selfish class sense, the reactionary ideas of the "Vekhiites" among the liberal bourgeoisie have become so immensely widespread - when these ideas have infected even part of the –that Marxists, having created a “liquidationist” trend, in our day any attempt to idealize the teachings of Tolstoy, justify or mitigate his “non-resistance”, his appeals to the “Spirit”, his calls for “moral self-improvement”, his doctrine of “conscience” and universal “ love”, his preaching of asceticism and quietism, etc. brings the most immediate and most profound harm.”*

*  Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 20, p. 104.

The article "Tolstoy and his era" gives a firm and clear summary, a general assessment of Tolstoy both from the genetic point of view, that is, from the point of view of the forces that gave rise to Tolstoy's work, and from the functional point of view, that is, in the sense of the action that Tolstoy's writings could to have in different eras of its existence. This, however, does not mean that Lenin's other articles were, so to speak, covered and removed by the above article. Their content is rich and needs special study. The first ever printed article, "Leo Tolstoy as a Mirror of the Russian Revolution," follows a slightly different path than the one just quoted. In the last summarizing article, Lenin proceeds from the definition and characterization of the epoch. Methodologically, he teaches here, when approaching a really large and socially significant literary phenomenon, to establish precisely its living, social chronology, that is, the connection of social phenomena, which is the historical basis of the object under study. Further, it is necessary to grasp the main link in this intertwining of events and find how exactly this dominant link is reflected in the dominant features of the ideology, and thus, of course, in the form of the works under study. But it is precisely the practice of Lenin's first article on Tolstoy that teaches the possibility of a different approach. Here Lenin begins with a brilliant analysis of the structure of Tolstoy's creative work itself, revealing its basic character and its basic contradictions, and, starting from this point, an excursion is made into the area of ​​those social conditions that gave rise and could not but give rise to such a result. it is necessary to grasp the main link in this intertwining of events and find out exactly how it, this dominant link, is reflected in the dominant features of the ideology, and thus, of course, in the form of the works under study. But it is precisely the practice of Lenin's first article on Tolstoy that teaches the possibility of a different approach. Here Lenin begins with a brilliant analysis of the structure of Tolstoy's creative work itself, revealing its basic character and its basic contradictions, and, starting from this point, an excursion is made into the area of ​​those social conditions that gave rise and could not but give rise to such a result. it is necessary to grasp the main link in this intertwining of events and find exactly how it, this dominant link, is reflected in the dominant features of the ideology, and thus, of course, in the form of the works under study. But it is precisely the practice of Lenin's first article on Tolstoy that teaches the possibility of a different approach. Here Lenin begins with a brilliant analysis of the structure of Tolstoy's work itself, revealing its basic character and its basic contradictions, and, starting from this point, an excursion is made into the area of ​​those social conditions that gave rise and could not but give rise to such a result.

He begins with an exposition of the contradictions inherent in Tolstoy's teachings: it is impossible, it will not be possible to stifle the need for a direct and clear answer to the question: what causes the screaming contradictions of "Tolstoyism", what shortcomings and weaknesses of our revolution do they express?

The contradictions in the works, views, teachings, in Tolstoy's school are really blatant. On the one hand, a brilliant artist who not only gave incomparable pictures of Russian life, but also first-class works of world literature. On the other hand, there is a landowner who is a fool for Christ. On the one hand, a remarkably strong, direct, and sincere protest against public lies and falsehood; on the other hand, a “Tolstoyan,” i.e., a worn, hysterical squib, called a Russian intellectual, who, publicly beating his chest, says: “ I'm bad, I'm ugly; but I am engaged in moral self-improvement; I don’t eat meat anymore and now eat rice cakes.” On the one hand, a merciless critique of capitalist exploitation, exposure of government violence, the comedy of court and state administration, revealing the entire depth of the contradictions between the growth of wealth and the gains of civilization and the growth of poverty, savagery and torment of the working masses; on the other hand, the foolish preaching of "non-resistance to evil" by violence. On the one hand, the most sober realism, tearing off all and sundry masks; - on the other hand, the preaching of one of the most vile things that there is in the world, namely: religion, the desire to put in place priests from public office, priests from moral conviction, that is, the cultivation of the most refined and therefore especially disgusting priesthood. Truly: the preaching of one of the most infamous things that exists in the world, namely: religion, the desire to put in place priests from public office, priests from moral conviction, that is, the cultivation of the most refined and therefore especially disgusting priesthood. Truly: the preaching of one of the most infamous things that exists in the world, namely: religion, the desire to put in place priests from public office, priests from moral conviction, that is, the cultivation of the most refined and therefore especially disgusting priesthood. Truly:

You are wretched, you are abundant, You are powerful, you are powerless - Mother Rus'!

Noting further that in this strange hodgepodge it is by no means possible to see the mirror of the Russian workers' revolution, Lenin looks for what kind of revolution was reflected in this cloudy and uneven mirror, and says: “... The contradictions in the views and teachings of Tolstoy are not an accident, but the expression of those contradictory conditions in which Russian life was placed in the last third of the 19th century. The old foundations of peasant economy and peasant life, foundations that had really held out for centuries, were demolished with extraordinary speed. The main engine of Tolstoy's creativity is, according to Lenin, the protest "against the impending capitalism, the ruin and dispossession of the masses, which was supposed to be generated by the patriarchal Russian village. This determines the meaning of the writer. “A thick chuckle is like a prophet who discovered new recipes for the salvation of mankind - and therefore the foreign and Russian “Tolstoyans” who wished to turn into dogma just the weakest side of his teaching are completely miserable. Tolstoy is great as a spokesman for those ideas and those moods that had developed among millions of the Russian peasantry at the time of the onset of the bourgeois revolution in Russia. Tolstoy is original, because the totality of his views, taken as a whole, expresses exactly the features of our revolution, as Tolstoy is great as a spokesman for those ideas and those moods that had developed among millions of the Russian peasantry at the time of the onset of the bourgeois revolution in Russia. Tolstoy is original, because the totality of his views, taken as a whole, expresses exactly the features of our revolution, as Tolstoy is great as a spokesman for those ideas and those moods that had developed among millions of the Russian peasantry at the time of the onset of the bourgeois revolution in Russia. Tolstoy is original, because the totality of his views, taken as a whole, expresses exactly the features of our revolution, aspeasant bourgeois revolution.”* This protest made him related to the peasantry, and the mighty element of peasant sentiment took possession of Tolstoy.

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 17, p. 210.

But are these positions truly revolutionary? No, they are dual, and the revelation of the latter is carried out by Lenin with the help of the same dialectical analysis. “On the one hand,” says Lenin, “centuries of serfdom and decades of forced post-reform ruin have accumulated mountains of hatred, malice and desperate determination:”. “On the other hand, the peasantry, striving for new forms of community life, had a very unconscious, patriarchal, foolish attitude to what this community life should be like, what kind of struggle it is necessary to win freedom for itself, what kind of leaders it can have in this struggle, how the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois intelligentsia regard the interests of the peasant revolution, why the forcible overthrow of tsarist power is necessary in order to abolish landlordism. The whole past life of the peasantry taught him to hate the gentleman and the official, but he did not and could not teach him where to look for the answer to all these questions. Only a small section of the peasantry resolved these contradictions in a revolutionary direction. “Most of the peasantry wept and prayed, reasoned and dreamed, wrote petitions and sent “applicants,” quite in the spirit of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy!” and the immaturity of daydreaming, political bad manners, revolutionary softness.”**

Most warmly, most positively for Tolstoy, Lenin wrote his obituary. However, it would be a huge mistake to imagine that, moved, so to speak, by the fact of the death of the great old man, Vladimir Ilyich went a little too far in the direction of a positive assessment. This assessment, like all others by Lenin, is many-sided and dialectical. If Lenin's last article on Tolstoy, which we have quoted above, specifically emphasizes the warning against being carried away by Tolstoyism in any dose, then it does not follow from all this that those high praises, that high appreciation of artisticworks of Tolstoy, which is given in the obituary. The author of "Anna Karenina" and folk stories draws "Russia, which remained after 1861 in semi-serfdom, rural Russia, the Russia of the landowner and peasant. Drawing this period in the historical life of Russia, L. Tolstoy managed to raise so many great questions in his works, managed to rise to such artistic power that his works took one of the first places in world fiction. Thanks to the brilliant coverage of Tolstoy, the epoch of the preparation for a revolution in one of the countries crushed by the feudal lords stood out as a step forward in the artistic development of all mankind.

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 17, p. 210–211.

** Ibid., p. 212.

*** Lenin V. I. L. N. Tolstoy. — Full. coll. cit., vol. 20, p. nineteen.

“... skill lies in the complete adequacy of the form to the content and, therefore, in the greatest understanding of this content. To go further than this and lower the content means to go against common sense, the true interests of the masses, and the direct instructions of Lenin. This would mean embarking on the path of false simplicity and writing in a vulgar way.

However, an even more terrible enemy of skill than false simplicity is false complexity. False flamboyance, false intricacy are incompatible with craftsmanship. True, flirtatious authors who are able to create an external, superficial, decorative, brilliant work are called masters, but who calls them masters? “People who already have an emasculated sense of content, who live in form.”

("Thoughts of Mastery")

This assessment contains a statement of great methodological value. "A step forward in the artistic development of all mankind" is recognized here as the result of two factors. The main thing is the gigantic material, so to speak, that begs to be artistically expressed. This kind of great social material, which has universal human value, as can be seen from the words of Lenin, is available where a profound revolution is being prepared on a large scale. The second factor is the "brilliant lighting", that is, the high artistic design of this material. From this we can draw the following conclusion: if there is a given biological genius, that is, the entire sum of natural talents that, say, L. Tolstoy possessed, but great social material is not given, then human art will not take a step forward: at best, we will to have a skillful master of form who will repeat some backsides or, in the absence of content, indulge in formal sophistication. Well, what if great content is given, but there is no suitable genius? This way of putting the question is wrong. Firstly, as can be seen from the statements of Lenin himself, not only Tolstoy used the above great material: if we name only first-class writers, then, without deviating from the characteristics of Lenin himself, we can point to Saltykov-Shchedrin and Gleb Uspensky. In general, the question of the presence of a brilliant mouthpiece for a new way of thinking and feeling that is already taking shape in the depths of society is resolved by the fact that biologically the amount of talent, the number of talents from the point of view of the natural should be approximately equal in any given era, but only deaf, gray eras lead the majority their talents to wither away, while bright, revolutionary epochs (especially during the period of preparation for the revolution), when artistic and ideological formulations turn out to be the only possible ones, since the time has not yet come for active political creativity in broad forms, they allocate a particularly large number of talents richly fertilized the epoch itself.

Then follow Lenin's significant lines in praise of Tolstoy: “Tolstoy the artist is known to an insignificant minority even in Russia. To make his great works truly the property of all, we need a struggle and struggle against a social system that has condemned millions and tens of millions to darkness, oppression, hard labor and poverty, we need a socialist revolution.

And Tolstoy not only produced works of art that will always be appreciated and read by the masses when they create human conditions of life for themselves by overthrowing the yoke of the landowners and capitalists, but he was able with remarkable power to convey the mood of the broad masses, oppressed by the modern order, to describe their position, to express their spontaneous feeling of protest and indignation.”*

At the same time, Lenin never shuts his eyes for a moment to Tolstoy's limitations. He says: “But an ardent Protestant, a passionate accuser, a great critic, at the same time, revealed in his works such a lack of understanding of the causes of the crisis and the means of overcoming the crisis that was approaching Russia, which is characteristic only of a patriarchal, naive peasant, and not of a European-educated writer.” **

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 20, p. 19–20.

** Ibid., p. 21..

In the obituary we still have one extremely important provision for our entire literary criticism. “... A correct assessment of Tolstoy,” writes Lenin, “is possible only from the point of view of that class which, by its political role and its struggle during the first denouement of these contradictions, during the revolution, proved its calling to be a leader in the struggle for the freedom of the people and for the liberation of the masses from exploitation—has proved his selfless devotion to the cause of democracy and his ability to fight against the narrow-mindedness and inconsistency of bourgeois (including peasant) democracy—is possible only from the point of view of the Social Democratic proletariat.”*

It is impossible not to quote here a rather large quotation from the article “L. N. Tolstoy and the modern working-class movement”, in which, in a somewhat hidden form, Lenin’s teaching on the relationship between social content and artistic form in literary creativity is laid down. Lenin says: “Tolstoy's criticism is not new. He did not say anything that had not been said long before him in both European and Russian literature by those who stood on the side of the working people. But the originality of Tolstoy's criticism and its historical significance lies in the fact that with such force, which is characteristic only of brilliant artists, it expresses the breaking of the views of the broadest masses of the people in Russia of this period, and precisely rural, peasant Russia. For Tolstoy's criticism of the modern order differs from the criticism of the same order by the representatives of the modern working-class movement precisely in that that Tolstoy stands on the point of view of the patriarchal, naive peasant, Tolstoy transfers his psychology into his criticism, into his teaching. Tolstoy's criticism is distinguished by such strength of feeling, such passion, persuasiveness, freshness, sincerity, and fearlessness in its striving to "go to the root," to find the real cause of the misery of the masses, because this criticism really reflects a turning point in the views of millions of peasants who have just been released from serfdom and saw that this freedom meant new horrors of ruin, death from starvation, homeless life among the city "khitrovtsy", etc. Tolstoy reflects their mood so accurately that he himself introduces into his teaching their naivety, their alienation from politics, their mysticism, the desire to escape the world, "non-resistance to evil", impotent curses against capitalism and the "power of money".

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 20, p. 22.

** Ibid., p. 40.

In this remarkable quotation, two thoughts must be distinguished: Tolstoy reflects the mood of those whom he speaks “so faithfully” that he even spoils his teaching from an ideological point of view, because protest turns out to be woven with despair in him, in contrast to the working-class movement, full of protest, but alien despair. Of course, from the point of view of social content, from the point of view of the revolutionary nature of the effect, the purity of the impact, such "fidelity" is sad. But this same “fidelity” gives Tolstoy “strength of feeling, passion, persuasiveness, freshness, sincerity, fearlessness”, and all this, according to Lenin, is Tolstoy’s main merit, for “Tolstoy’s criticism is not new”, that is, expound Tolstoy his criticism without this force of passion, he would add nothing to culture. In the presence of the power of passion "not new", but the extremely significant "criticism" of it turned out to be "a step forward in the artistic development of all mankind." The reader does not escape the enormous importance of this judgment of Lenin.

Lenin's articles on Tolstoy need especially close consideration: they give in all the main an exhaustive interpretation of such a gigantic literary and social phenomenon as Tolstoy's work and teaching, representing a brilliant example of the application of the Leninist method to literary criticism.<...>

7. Statements, Lenin on literary topics

What were literary tastesVladimir Ilyich? In a number of memoirs about Lenin on this occasion, interesting evidence has been preserved relating to Lenin's being in exile. “In the evenings,” writes, for example, N. K. Krupskaya, “Vladimir Ilyich usually read either books on philosophy — Hegel, Kant, the French materialists, or — when he was very tired — Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov. When Vladimir Ilyich first appeared in St. Petersburg and I knew him only from stories, I heard from Stepan Ivanovich Radchenko that Vladimir Ilyich only reads serious books, he had never read a single novel in his life. I wondered; later, when we got to know Vladimir Ilyich better, somehow we never once talked about it, and only in Siberia did I learn that it was all pure legend. Vladimir Ilyich not only read, but re-read many times Turgenev, L. Tolstoy, What Is to Be Done? Chernyshevsky, in general, he knew and loved the classics very well. Then, when the Bolsheviks came to power, he set the Gosizdat the task of republishing the classics in cheap editions.*

In another place of her memoirs, she says: “... In Siberia, I learned that Ilyich read the classics no less than I did, not only read, but also re-read Turgenev more than once, for example. I brought Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov with me to Siberia. Vladimir Ilyich laid them beside his bed, next to Hegel, and read them over and over in the evenings. Most of all he loved Pushkin. But he appreciated not only the form. For example, he loved Chernyshevsky's novel What Is to Be Done? However, he loved the whole appearance of Chernyshevsky, and in his Siberian album there were two cards of this writer, one inscribed in the hand of Ilyich - the year of birth and death. In the album of Ilyich there were also cards of Emile Zola, and of the Russians - Herzen and Pisarev. Pisarev Vladimir Ilyich read and loved a lot in his time. I remember that in Siberia there was also Goethe's Faust in German and a volume of Heine's poetry.**

Lenin especially appreciated strong social realism, which gives an artistically condensed depiction of social phenomena through their typically expressive examples. Thus, Comrade Krupskaya writes: “On his return from Siberia, Vladimir Ilyich once went to the theater in Moscow, watched The Coachman Genschel, then said that he liked it very much. In Munich, from books that Vladimir Ilyich liked, I remember Gerhard's novel "Bei Mama" ("At Mother's"), and "Buttnerbauer" ("Peasant") of Polenz. *** But also monumental symbolism, which elevates the same social reality through artistic concentration to generalizing crystals, almost, one might say, to artistic abstraction, was not alien to Lenin. Thus, Comrade Krupskaya testifies that on sleepless nights Lenin was reading Verhaarn. **** This also includes, in my opinion, the fact that, having fallen on the German and rather weak performance of Tolstoy's "Living Corpse", Ilyich, according to the testimony of t Krupskaya, “tensely and excitedly followed the game.”***** Already ill, Lenin listened with particular pleasure to the stories of Jack London when they were full of true pathos, and laughed at them when false, petty-bourgeois sentimentalism was manifested in them.< …>

* Krupskaya N. K. About Lenin. Sat. articles. M., Gospolitizdat, 1960, p. 70–71.

** Ibid.

*** Ibid., p. 71.

**** There, same, p. 72.

***** There.

Let us say a few words here about the profound simplicity of Lenin's manner of exposition, the simplicity that was inextricably linked with persuasiveness. Lenin was indignant at any lisp with the workers, at the replacement of a serious discussion of the issue with "jokes or phrases." In Ilyich's speeches and articles, the workers always saw that Ilyich, as one worker put it, was talking to them "in earnest." “... The main attention should be paid to raising the workers to the level of revolutionaries, not at all to loweringthemselves by all means to the “working masses,” as the “economists” want, by all means to the “working middle peasants,” as Svoboda wants (which in this respect rises to the second step of economic “pedagogy”). I am far from denying the need for popular literature for the workers and especially popular (only, of course, not farcical) literature for especially backward workers. But I am outraged by this constant entanglement of pedagogy with questions of ... organization. After all, you, gentlemen, who are guardians of the "worker-middle peasant", in essence, are rather insulting the workers by your desire to bend down without fail before talking about workers' policy or workers' organization. Yes, you talk about serious things straightened up, and leave pedagogy to teachers, and not to politicians and organizers!

* Lenin V. I. What to do? — Full. coll. cit., vol. 6, p. 131.

Three years later (in June 1905) Vladimir Ilyich again returned to what he had touched on in What Is To Be Done? question and wrote: “In the political activity of the Social Democratic Party there is always and will always be a certain element of pedagogy: it is necessary to educate the entire class of wage-workers to the role of fighters for the liberation of all mankind from all oppression; to the most drab, undeveloped representatives of this class, least touched by both our science and the science of life, in order to be able to speak with them, to be able to get closer to them, to be able to sustainably, patiently raise them to the level of Social Democratic consciousness, without turning our teaching into a dry dogma, teaching to him not only with a book, but also with participation in the daily life struggle of these very gray and most undeveloped sections of the proletariat. In this daily activity, we repeat, a well-known element of pedagogy. A Social Democrat who forgets about this activity would cease to be a Social Democrat. It's right. But among us it is often forgotten now that a Social-Democrat who would begin to reduce the tasks of politics to pedagogy would also, although for a different reason, cease to be a Social-Democrat. Who would think of making a special slogan out of this "pedagogy",to oppose it to "politics", to build on this opposition a special trend, to appeal to the masses in the name of this slogan against the "politicians" of the Social Democracy, they would immediately and inevitably descend to demagoguery.* This is only an explanation of what was said earlier and that defines Ilyich's requirements for popular literature.<…>

* Lenin V.I. On mixing politics with pedagogy. — Full. coll. cit., vol. 10, p. 357.

Of exceptional value for characterizing Lenin's views on literature, art, and the literary policy of the Party are his conversations with Clara Zetkin. Not to mention the fact that Comrade Clara Zetkin is a witness worthy of all credibility, the writer of these lines allows himself to make the following remark. Working for several years in the field of culture under the direct supervision of Lenin, he, of course, had several broad and deep conversations with the great leader on questions of culture in general, on issues of public education in particular, as well as art and fiction. He cannot permit himself to recount these conversations. Lenin's authority is immeasurable; it would be a crime to consecrate with this authority any subjective view that would have crept into such a presentation, made on the basis of recollections without exact records at a distance of many years. But the author of this article can say with certainty that Lenin's thoughts on this subject, set forth in the following quotations from Clara Zetkin's memoirs of him, are in full accordance with what is preserved in his memoirs, as Lenin's genuine guiding directives. Here is what Clara Zetkin tells us: “The awakening of new forces, their work to create a new art and culture in Soviet Russia,” he said, “this is good, very good. The rapid pace of their development is understandable and useful. We must catch up with what has been missed for centuries, and we want it. Chaotic fermentation, a feverish search for new slogans, slogans that today proclaim "hosanna" in relation to certain trends in art and in the field of thought, and tomorrow cry out "crucify him" - all this is inevitable. The revolution unleashes all previously bound forces and drives them from the depths to the surface of life. Here is one example out of many. Think of the influence that the fashion and whims of the royal court, as well as the taste and whims of gentlemen of the aristocrats and the bourgeoisie, have had on the development of our painting, sculpture and architecture. In a society based on private property, the artist produces goods for the market, he needs buyers. Our revolution freed artists from the oppression of these very prosaic conditions. She turned the Soviet state into their protector and customer. Every artist, anyone who considers himself such, has the right to create freely, according to his ideal, regardless of anything.
“But it is understandable,” Lenin added at once, “we are communists. We shouldn't stand idly by and let chaos run its course. We must manage this process quite systematically and form its results .

* Lenin on literature and art. M., 1960, p. 659.

Then follows an interesting exposition of Lenin's thoughts on the enduring achievements of human art, on the best results of the most mature aesthetic epochs in the history of mankind, and on the contemporary quests of the decadent bourgeoisie. On this issue, we still have disagreements. It is important to state what he thought about this and how our leader felt in this regard. I must immediately make a reservation: in concrete questions of art, in matters of taste, Lenin was exceedingly modest. He usually accompanied any of his judgments with the words: "I'm not at all an expert here" or: "this is my personal opinion: it can easily be that I'm wrong." At the same time, I must emphasize that I personally have great confidence in the taste of Vladimir Ilyich.

Lenin said Zetkin:

“We are too big “subverters in painting”. The beautiful must be preserved, taken as a model, proceed from it, even if it is “old”. Why do we need to turn away from the truly beautiful, to refuse it as a starting point for further development, only on the grounds that it is "old"? Why is it necessary to bow before the new, as before a god, to whom one must submit only because “it is new”?.. Nonsense, sheer nonsense.

There is a lot of hypocrisy here and, of course, an unconscious reverence for the artistic fashion that prevails in the West. We are good revolutionaries, but for some reason we feel obliged to prove that we, too, are "at the height of modern culture." I have the courage to declare myself a "barbarian." I am unable to consider the works of expressionism, futurism, cubism and other "isms" the highest manifestation of artistic genius.

I do not understand them. I don’t feel any joy from them.”*

But perhaps most important is what Lenin and Comrade Zetkin said about the general social role of art:

“... It is not our opinion about art that matters. It is also important not what art gives to several hundred, even several thousand of the total population, numbering in the millions. Art belongs to the people. It must have its deepest roots in the very depths of the broad masses of the people. It must unite the feeling, thought and will of these masses, raise them. It should awaken the artists in them and develop them. Should we serve sweet, refined biscuits to a small minority, while the working and peasant masses need black bread? I understand this, of course, not only in the literal sense of the word, but also figuratively: we must always have the workers and peasants before our eyes. For their sake, we must learn to manage, to count. This also applies to the field of art and culture.”**

* "V I. Lenin on literature and art. M., 1960, p. 660. ** Ibid.

Let us cite another remarkable passage from the memoirs of Comrade Zetkin, from which it is clear that Lenin did not at all think that socialist art would be limited to some primitive forms, allegedly corresponding to the poor cultural preparation of the masses. “Some of us, I don’t remember who exactly, spoke about some particularly striking phenomena from the field of art and culture, explaining their origin as “conditions of the moment”.

Lenin responded to this:

“I know well! Many are sincerely convinced that panem et cirenses (“bread and circuses”) can overcome the difficulties and dangers of the present period. Bread - of course! As for spectacles, let them be! I don't mind. But let it not be forgotten that spectacle is not really great art, but rather more or less beautiful entertainment. At the same time, we must not forget that our workers and peasants do not in the least resemble the Roman lumpen proletariat. They are not supported by the state, but they themselves support the state through their labor. They "made" the revolution and defended the cause of the latter, shedding torrents of blood and bringing innumerable victims. Indeed, our workers and peasants deserve something more than spectacles. They got the right to real great art. Therefore, in the first place, we put forward the broadest public education and upbringing. It creates the ground for culture, provided, of course, that the question of bread is resolved. On this soil a truly new great communist art must grow, which will create a form in accordance with its content. On this path, our "intellectuals" will have to solve noble tasks of great importance. By understanding and solving these tasks, they would have covered their debt to the proletarian revolution, which opened wide the doors for them too, leading them out of those low living conditions that are so masterfully characterized in the Communist Manifesto.* On this path, our "intellectuals" will have to solve noble tasks of great importance. By understanding and solving these tasks, they would have covered their debt to the proletarian revolution, which opened wide the doors for them too, leading them out of those low living conditions that are so masterfully characterized in the Communist Manifesto.* On this path, our "intellectuals" will have to solve noble tasks of great importance. By understanding and solving these tasks, they would have covered their debt to the proletarian revolution, which opened wide the doors for them too, leading them out of those low living conditions that are so masterfully characterized in the Communist Manifesto.*

* " I. Lenin on literature and art. M., 1960, p. 662.

Here is Lenin's proud and brilliant testament to art critics and artists, literary critics and writers.

8. Lenin and modern Marxist literary criticism

...Lenin's precepts for modern literary criticism are by no means academic. Art for him was never an end in itself; as we saw above, he set before him the task of "uniting the feeling, thought and will of the masses, raising them" (from the memoirs of Kl. Zetkin). Vladimir Ilyich fought with the greatest energy for such a militant, fighting, party art. Excellent evidence of this struggle is his article "Party Organization and Party Literature", referring to the era of the first revolution (1905). The reason for writing this article was the desire to streamline the political literature of the party, its journalism, its scientific publications, etc. But, of course, the objective meaning of the article goes beyond these limits, and Lenin's judgments are perfectly applied to all fiction of that time. “Literature,” wrote Lenin, “may now it's even "legal" to be a 9/10 party member. Literature must become party literature. As opposed to bourgeois mores, as opposed to the bourgeois entrepreneurial, mercantile press, as opposed to bourgeois literary careerism and individualism, "lordly anarchism" and the pursuit of profit, the socialist proletariat must put forward the principleparty literature, develop this principle and put it into practice in the fullest and most complete form possible.

What is this principle of party literature? Not only that, for the socialist proletariat, literary work cannot be an instrument of gain for individuals or groups, it cannot in general be an individual matter, independent of the general proletarian cause. Down with the non-party writers! Down with the superhuman writers! Literary work must become part of the cause of the general proletariat, the “wheel and cog” of one single, great social democratic mechanism set in motion by the entire conscious vanguard of the entire working class. Literary work must become an integral part of organized, planned, united Social Democratic Party work.

“Every comparison is lame,” says a German proverb. My comparison of literature with a screw, of living movement with a mechanism, is also lame. There will even be, perhaps, hysterical intellectuals who will raise a cry about such a comparison, which belittles, deadens, "bureaucratizes" the free ideological struggle, freedom of criticism, freedom of literary creativity, etc., etc. In essence, such cries would only be an expression of bourgeois-intellectualist individualism. There is no doubt that literary work is least of all amenable to mechanical equalization, leveling, the dominance of the majority over the minority. There is no doubt that in this matter it is certainly necessary to provide more scope for personal initiative, individual inclinations, scope for thought and fantasy, form and content. All this is indisputable, but all this proves only that the literary part of the party work of the proletariat cannot be stereotyped with other parts of the party work of the proletariat. All this by no means refutes the proposition, alien and strange to the bourgeoisie and bourgeois democrats, that literary work must necessarily and necessarily become a part of Social-Democratic Party work, inextricably linked with the rest. Newspapers should become organs of various party organizations. Writers must by all means join the party organizations. Publishing houses and warehouses, shops and reading rooms, libraries and various booksellers—all this must become Party-owned and accountable. All this work must be monitored by the organized socialist proletariat, it must be controlled, all this work, without a single exception, must be brought in by the living stream of the living proletarian cause, thus taking away all soil from the old, semi-Oblomov, semi-merchant Russian principle: the writer pees, the reader reads.*

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 12, p. 100–102.

Distancing himself from the "semi-Asiatic" past of Russian literature, Lenin immediately draws a sharp line that would not allow us to follow the no less dirty paths of Western bourgeois literature. He devotes a brilliant line to this problem:

“We will not say, of course, that this transformation of the literary business, defiled by Asian censorship and the European bourgeoisie, could take place immediately. We are far from the idea of ​​advocating any uniform system or solution of the problem by several resolutions. No, schematism in this area can be the least of all talk. The point is that our entire Party, that the entire class-conscious Social-Democratic proletariat throughout Russia should be aware of this new task, clearly set it and undertake to solve it everywhere and everywhere. Having emerged from the captivity of serf censorship, we do not want to go and will not go into the captivity of bourgeois-merchant literary relations. We want to create and we will create a free press, not only in the police sense, but also in the sense of freedom from capital, freedom from careerism; - little of:

On this occasion, Lenin gives an angry, bright, in the perfection of its form, one might say, a classic characterization of bourgeois "free" literature:

“... Gentlemen bourgeois individualists, we must tell you that your talk about absolute freedom is sheer hypocrisy. In a society based on the power of money, in a society where masses of working people are begging and a handful of the rich are parasitizing, there can be no real and real "freedom". Are you free from your bourgeois publisher, Mr. Writer, from your bourgeois public, which demands from you framed pornography and pictures, prostitution as a "supplement" to the "holy" theatrical art? After all, this absolute freedom is a bourgeois or anarchist phrase (for, as a world outlook, anarchism is bourgeoisness turned inside out). It is impossible to live in society and be free from society. The freedom of a bourgeois writer, artist, actress is only a disguised (or hypocritically disguised) dependence on a bag of money, on bribery, on maintenance.

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 12, p. 102.
** In the fifth edition of the works of V. I. Lenin, an editorial note: “The source, apparently, is a typo: the meaning should have been “in novels.” —

And we, socialists, expose this hypocrisy, tear down false signs, not in order to obtain non-class literature and art (this will be possible only in a socialist non-class society), but in order to hypocritically free, but in fact connected with the bourgeoisie , to oppose to literature really free, openly connected with the proletariat literature.

It will be free literature, because not self-interest or career, but the ideas of socialism and sympathy for the working people will recruit more and more new forces into its ranks. It will be free literature, because it will serve not the jaded heroine, not the bored and obese "top ten thousand", but the millions and tens of millions of working people who are the color of the country, its strength, its future. It will be free literature, fertilizing the last word of the revolutionary thought of mankind with the experience and lively work of the socialist proletariat, creating a constant interaction between the experience of the past (scientific socialism, which completed the development of socialism from its primitive, utopian forms) and the experience of the present (the real struggle of the comrades of the workers).*

* Lenin V.I. Full. coll. cit., vol. 12, p. 103–104.

Despite the fact that more than a quarter of a century has passed since the writing of this article, to this day it has not lost one iota of its deepest significance. Moreover, the basic principle of the partisanship of literature serving the cause of the socialist reorganization of the world is just as relevant today as the most severe criticism of bourgeois literature developed in the article, as well as the fiery characterization of future socialist literature serving millions and tens of millions of working people.<…>

Marxist-Leninist literary criticism is currently experiencing a stage of rapid growth. In his struggle against various idealistic and mechanistic systems, as well as in his positive research work, Lenin's legacy is the most reliable compass. Needless to say, we have in mind here the entire legacy of Lenin in its entirety, from philosophical notebooks and historical studies to statements on topics of proletarian culture or literature, often fraught with remarkable assessments of phenomena that should form the basis of special studies.

[1932]

On August 31, 1922, the Politburo of the Central Committee adopted a resolution to open a discussion on the Proletkult and proletarian culture on the pages of Pravda. Lenin closely followed all the materials of the discussion. Lenin carefully read Pletnev's article that appeared in Pravda and made a number of notes and underscores, criticizing Pletnev's views on "proletarian" philosophy and culture.

On October 11, 1922, Lenin received Yakovlev and talked with him about the activities of Proletkult. At the same time, Lenin instructed Yakovlev to write an article in which Pletnev's mistakes should have been analyzed in detail. Yakovlev wrote such an article and sent it on October 18 to Vladimir Ilyich. On October 19, Lenin again received Yakovlev and talked with him about the article. On October 23, on the eve of the publication of the article in Pravda, Lenin again spoke with Yakovlev. Yakovlev's article was titled "On 'Proletarian Culture' and Proletkult" and was published in two issues of Pravda on 24 and 25 October.

Yakovlev Ya. A. (1896-1939) - a prominent figure in the Communist Party and the Soviet state. Member of the Bolshevik Party since 1913. Active participant in the October Revolution and the Civil War. Delegate of the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b) and the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets. In 1918–1919 led active party work in Ukraine. From 1920 he worked at the Main Political Education Department. In 1922–1923 - Deputy head agitation and propaganda department, then head. press department of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), editor of the newspaper "Poor". Since 1926 - deputy. People's Commissar of the RCT, since 1929 - People's Commissar of Agriculture of the USSR. Author of a number of works on the history of the October Revolution, on issues of Soviet construction.