The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Literature

200 The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Literature

the history of culture is written by Marxists, we shall see that the bourgeoisie’s role in the process of cultural creativity has been grossly exaggerated” (p. 233, Gorky’s emphasis). Especially repellant to Gorky is the fact that the heroes of bourgeois literature are all “swindlers, thieves, murderers, and detectives” - the detective novel being an idle game between propertied capitalists, the “favorite spiritual repast of satiated people in Europe” (p. 238) - devoid of plots that could engage or inspire the working class that actually produces the wealth. In addition to crooks and the detective who stalks them, the nineteenth century showcased the “superfluous person.” This empty and Purposeless individual had been featured in both lines of progressive European literature familiar in Russia: “critical realism” and its softer, more ecstatic precursor, “revolutionary romanticism.” The former “-ism” saw clearly the ills of society but offered no constructive alternative to them; the latter did not see at all.

What should the new Soviet person strive to see? This person should not dwell on the dark or perverse sides of human nature. Those are “survivals,” relics, reality not in its “revolutionary development” but reality stuck motionless somewhere far back on the path. Access to the “truthful, historically concrete representation of reality” depends on one’s Party-disciplined eye picking out the proper details on which to focus, and ascertaining where, on the ladderto the future, they belong. Truth in this context might be compared to an energy field surrounding and infusing the subject; immersed in the proper class or collective milieu, any person could become “conscious” and begin to see. Under the new regime, literature was no longer primarily a record of self-expression, and not even “a form of passive ideological reflection, but an active, ‘healthy,’ controlled ideological instrument, not a mirror any more but a weapon.”7 History could be hastened along by attitude alone, an energy resource that never runs out -even when a population is devastated by every conceivable type of war, famine, economic collapse, personal loss, and grief.

Four socialist realist principles eventually governed what a conscious subject, inside and outside the fictional text, is privileged to see.8 Partiinost', “party-mindedness,” decrees that every artistic act is also a political act. The source of all authoritative knowledge is the Party. Ideinost', “idea-mindedness,” is specifically topical: the “idea” of the artwork should embody the current high-priority party slogan (reconstructing a ruined factory, abolishing drunkenness, building the Moscow metro, destroying the fascist enemy). Klassovost', “class-mindedness,” both acknowledges the social-class origin of art and obliges it to further the struggle of the proletariat. Narodnost', “people- or folk-mindedness,” requires art to be accessible and appealing to the masses by drawing on their traditions, language, melodies, rhythms, and values. Since the Soviet Union was a multinational state, narodnost''authorized considerable