Writers Must Be Our Conscience

» Following what the American press called a “literary purge" in Moscow, this open letter of affirmation to American authors was written by one of the leading authors in the U.S.S.R.

by LEONID LEONOV

1

WE ARE contemporaries of the greatest victory that our arms and ideas have ever known. The most impressive duel in history, unexampled in expenditure of effort, sacrifice, and participants involved, has just ended. On a stupendous battlefield we have heard once more the impact of opposing ideas: that of the most honorable progress with the dark, brute forces which are peculiar to — here I hesitate, wondering to which distant geological epoch I may refer without fear of disparaging that virgin and primeval age. We have seen for ourselves what fascism and its dark apostles mean. In its fierceness and the significance of its outcome this battle was far beyond anything of its kind that history can show. And once more light has triumphed over darkness.

We have entered an age when wars have acquired peculiar and hitherto unknown features. Henceforth in war between belligerents who are technically equal, victory will be won by those whose ideas are progressive, because in these lie the hope and future of mankind. Mankind will not and must not die to please maniacs and fascist adventurers of the Hitler type. Mankind has far more important work in the future.

It seems then that our duly as writers is to depict through the medium of literary characters the essential content of our ideas, which but recently reduced to a malodorous epilogue a dozen of the greatest scoundrels of all times and peoples. This formed part of the creative minimum program of our literature and drama. It appears that the repertories of our theaters were formed on old-fashioned lines in a haphazard way, each selecting whatever appealed to him most, and this is pointed out in the decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (B) on Repertories of Dramatic Theaters. Among the art directors of our theaters were some easily tempted by the cheap, adulterated, and merely amusing, I have in mind not only dramas with foreign labels but also some domestic products which are obviously a rehash from a foreign dialect, the brand of the firm of their origin clearly discernible through Soviet words.

The sphere of duties of our men of letters, as of others, is clearly defined in the decision of the Central Committee. Our plays and theatrical productions in general should reflect the life of Soviet society and its steady progress, help in furthering the development of the best sides of Soviet character, shown with particular force during the great patriotic war. Furthermore, we must take an active part in the education of the Soviet people, respond to their high cultural needs, educate Soviet youth - vigorous, optimistic, devoted to country, and confident in the victory of our cause, a youth that fears no obstacles and can cope with any hardships. The decision points out, too, that authors who can write plays should coöperate in the essential task of building up theater repertories worthy of the contemporary audience.

Playwriting is the most difficult genre as regards the amount of work involved, and the highest and most accessible form of literature. Since the embellishment permissible in literature is absent here, the author is obliged to reveal at once the motor nerve of the event; thus the spectator is in the position of impartial judge of characters who represent the struggle taking place in human society. The Soviet spectator of today is keenly interested in the most progressive problems of the age. Upon prompt, correct, and successful solution to these questions depends the welfare of every citizen, perhaps even of the State; not only that, it may be of importance to the existence of mankind. Science has released elements that, unless curbed in good time by the combined efforts of reason and conscience, may make havoc of those priceless shrines of mankind that still survive.

That is why the audience regards with disapproval the questionable behavior of authors who waste their talent on description of minor trifles of philistine existence; when the house is on fire it would be stupid, to say the least, to begin by saving the piano or old family photographs instead of the children. What the theater needs today is not so much the professional playwright capable of turning out an entertaining four-act show, but thinkers our country sends ahead not perhaps to reconnoiter and map paths to the future, but to picture it for us in poetic imagery. The playwright should be guided by this in his range of themes and ideas if he wants to move with the times and be of service to progressive society.

All key tasks on which the Soviet people are working hard in every field of economic and cultural life—from the gigantic canvases of the new five-year plan to the smallest manifestations of heroism in the recent war years — are sources of inspiration for the playwright. We need not take our cue from the newspapers, it seems to me, in order to distinguish the important from the insignificant. In estimating the subject, we proceed primarily from the standpoint of its trend and effectiveness.

The great battle for the conscience of mankind is fought to the death; the entire reactionary world is rallied against us; observe and make note of facts that show how the advance of Soviet humanism gains ground daily, how old bastions of culture that the old world prided itself upon, and which decayed from neglect, are gradually passing into our hands. Our enemy has always been base and adroit, treachcrous, and, if not clever, then crafty; but all this, as you may observe, bears the mark of doom which must inevitably confront every reactionary who does not want to understand the revolutionary significance of new developments.

The importance of every victory is judged by the strength of the enemy who is crushed and brought to his knees. The writer is obliged, therefore, to preserve in his art the political proportions and perspectives that he sees. In order to do this he must broaden his mental horizon; Soviet writers must climb higher towards the peak from which the Stalin outlook on the world can be obtained. Then from this height the enemy’s efforts at the foot of the hill will seem insignificant indeed.

2

THERE is a great deal of discussion among our writers about the dramatic collision. Where are we to seek this collision in which the stuff of the dramatic plot is leavened? I omit all details of these purely professional debates; they are fruitless because they are conducted in crowded smoky rooms. These are questions which can he decided only in the open air under the overcast sky where the enemy reconnaissance plane may be hiding in the clouds; these professional problems should be decided in wide spaces where one can see the horizons of the country, which must be guarded al all costs against future invasions. The remarkable thing is that these very questions suggested themselves to us at the time when we were all threatened by the furnaces of Maidanek and Babi Yard¹ What has changed since that time in the plane of big history? Has that “longest night" of mankind passed already?

Today the complexity and responsibility of our craft are borne in upon us when we find ourselves facing paper alone. But we may as well admit that no one else can help us to overcome these difficulties. You and I are not building factories or gathering harvest; we are writing. People have no time to undertake the solution of our narrow professional problems-they need our work, our scenarios and plays, our novels and stories, and it is our duly to provide them just as other people provide us with factories and bread, tanks and boots.

The whole point is that the old conception of the plot of the play was evolved in the world of yesterday, a world we have left forever. Its laws had already lost their force on that boundary that wc crossed in 1917. Everything ages — not only locomobiles or ridiculous old tanks that moved at a speed of five kilometers an hour, but the entire technology of the drama with all its outdated love triangles and other figures which seem sheer nonsense to the contemporary audience.

The world climate has changed; other mechanisms of human feelings have been set in motion demanding other means for their presentation in literature. There is no doubt that bacteria of the old feelings of age-old human passions are still active; but in our country they will vanish sooner than in the West, where they will continue to exist for long in dark recesses of the human soul until they are dislodged and swept away by the cleansing waters of a powerful new social stream. At the same time, however, all noble new impulses and emotions of the human soul worthier of the high name of man which seemed unusual only yesterday will become the leading daily passions of the art of tomorrow. They will be the new form of energy moving the harmonious and beautiful mechanism of human art, of human civilization. This new form of energy will naturally require a new technology. Let us consider this beforehand.

It concerns all fields of human endeavor: this was the case, for example, in aviation. The old hardworked propeller is no longer so effective as if seemed some fifty years ago. It has reached its limit, and whatever the number of its revolutions today, it would have lagged behind the demands of our times. But to stop here would mean endangering the security of the State. So the new jet engine was invented to succeed it, and the youthful resonance of the jet drowns the quavering old propeller. It was always, like this: the cart ceded the road to the automobile. The time will come when this new and apparently perfect machine will rest its rusty mechanism in the dusty quiet of the museum.

Let us see whether the technology of playwriting is not subject to changes as times change and we change with them. Let us seek the new elements not in languid meditaion but in our daily work. Let us all consider it; there are heights that cannot be taken singlehanded. Where are we to look for dramatic collisions when Shylocks, Macbeths, Hamlets, and Lears have disappeared from the scene? I have no remedies ready for this, for I am your contemporary. I am merely venturing to confide my supposition that the store of future themes and inspirations will not be found in the polluted fountain of life in dark caves of fate and baser human passions, but in the wide country of the future where labor is ruler, noble human labor that transforms the world. I his, it seems to me, is the most significant word in our present vocabulary.

Our new hero differs in one respect from all literary characters of the past. They were mainly men of property. Society discerned the constructive power of labor—the real creator of human treasuresonly by the luxury of palaces and the extent, of territory acquired. But the audience of yesterday was not interested in knowing how the leading character of the play obtained his means of subsistence.

The contemporary author can no longer plan his heroes as he pleases— the truth of art lies elsewhere nowadays. Our hero cannot go out with the girl to stroll in the Bois de Boulogne on a weekday or try his luck in the casino—even if they existed. The author must follow him to the workshop, the laboratory, or the scaffolding of a great construction site. He is therefore obliged to know not only the hero’s trade or profession, the belt connecting him with the entire social machine, but also to penetrate to his psychology, even into his reflexes, for the artist and the doctor, to take two examples, may react differently to the same stimulus. The scope of our work is broadened infinitely, and in this I see immense enrichment of our media. In the first place new colors, forms, situations, and melodies, unknown to the artist of yesterday, will emerge. This is the significance of the changes taking place in the world as they apply to our literary craft, and I think that truly great fame awaits the man of letters who succeeds in raising his work to the level of the demands of the new socialist humanism.

The theater looks to us for plays; in particular our oldest theater, the Maly [the Little Theater], where Russian stagecraft matured. This theater has always been in the vanguard, and all that we can reproach it with is that its progress has not always coincided with the tempo of the age. But this is partly our fault; for it is our business to give form to the creative initiative of the theater.

We ought to have the greatest respect for the actors who devote their lives to the embodiment of our characters on the stage, Let us remember one thing. We are always behind the curtain of the director’s box and we always have the right, as Chekhov had during the performance of The Seagull, to slip out by the back door, whereas the actor must remain before the footlights to the bitter end, to face the audience’s bewilderment or obvious disapproval.

A bad part cripples the actor, and inadequacy in this respect leads eventually to the theater’s deterioration. Good plays are needed. Therefore the plays ihe theater expects of us should possess artistic merits up to the standards of the theater. The theater agrees to devote a great deal of time to coöperation with the author; it would be wrong then for the author to require the theater to lower its artistic standards.

In short, I imagine the play as a clock in which every part has its own place, and the movements of some are conditioned by the others, and human destiny turns its twenty-four-hour cycle on this face, and a speck of dust may interrupt the wonderful process by which the author’s dream becomes reality. And since the decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU(B) on Repertories of Dramatic Theaters requires this clock to show the people the time they are living in, it is more necessary that this clock should go well and justify its primary purpose.