Soviets maintain controls on authors

Press, 11 August 1982, Page 12

Soviets maintain controls on authors

By

BRIAN BRUMLEY,

of Associated Press, in Moscow

A new Kremlin decree against literary experiments is a warning to writers not to expect a period of liberalisation during the struggle to succeed President Leonid Brezhnev. The exact target of the decree is not clear, but it follows official criticism of “alarming tendencies” in books discussing sex. Stalinism, the existence of God, criminality, and the plight of individuals at odds with society. It urges authors and editors to create “new heroes” for the younger Soviet generation, and to generate enthusiasm for Communist Party economic programmes and foreign policy. “It looks like we’ll get more books about building railroads.” said one well-known Soviet author, who asked not to be identified by name. He predicted that some writers would lose foreign travel privileges but that none would be imprisoned or excluded from the Soviet Writers’ Union. The edict, published last Fri-

day on the front page of “Pravda," organ of the Soviet Communist Party, condemned general trends but did not mention any writers by name. "One cannot tolerate the fact that some magazines have published works in which the events of our history, the socialist revolution and (agricultural) collectivisation are depicted with serious deviation . from life’s truth,” said the decree, issued by the party’s policy-making Central Committee. A follow-up article in the weekly “Literary Gazette,” distributed by the writers’ union, reviewed similar edicts dating from the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, and noted that "our literature .has always been literature of the highest social optimism." Knowledgeable Soviet sources said the decree had the approval of the Communist Party’s new chief ideologist, former K.G.B. chief Yuri Andropov, said to be a possible successor to the ailing Mr Brezhnev.

"Apparently he wanted to let hardliners know that he would not allow sweeping liberal reforms,” said one Western diplomat, quoting Soviet literary sources. Literature is tightly* controlled in the Soviet Union, although tolerance does fluctuate, and some critics have detected a slight liberalisation in recent years. The most liberal period, known as "the thaw," followed the death of Joseph Stalin in 1952 and included publication of anti-Stalinist works by such authors as Alexander Solzhenitsyn, later exiled. Stalin's former deputies clamped down in the 19605, reportedly to prevent the movement from getting out of hand. Soviet sources said three recent articles had disturbed party elders: a short story by Boris Vasiliyev describing hard times faced by pensioners, another by Bori Mozhayev dealing with the poverty of rural Russia, and a third by Lazar Karelin on corruption and

criminality. None of them has been publicly reprimanded. Criticism published since the beginning of the year, however, has chided specific authors for using religious themes, for being too old-fashioned or avant garde, for overly-explicit sex scenes, and for glorifying criminals. These articles signalled a debate within the party that resulted in the new decree. One powerful Soviet literary critic, Feliks Kuznetsov, last January condemned such “alarming tendencies," as “new-fangled structuralist innovations” and "long obsolete traditions from 19th Century Russian criticism.” “There is no doubt that the success of Soviet literature and art would have been still more significant and that shortcomings would have been eliminated faster if our literary and ■ art criticism had pursued the party line more vigorously," Mr Kuznetsov wrote. He criticised attempts to glorify a number of deceased Russian writers who are wellknown in the West, but whose, works are either not published

in the Soviet Union or are available only in limited and expurgated editions: Boris Pasternak. Osip Mandelshiam. Mikhail Bulgakov. Isaac Babel. Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetayeva. Mr Kuznetsov also questioned .works by several contemporary writers who are popular at home but little known abroad. Andrei Voznesensky, Chengiz Aitmatov, Valenin Rasputin and the late Yuri Trifonov, as well as avant garde productions at Moscow’s Taganka and Sovremenik theatres. Voznesensky, a Pasternak protege, has skirmished frequently with literary authorities; ' Aitmatov reportedlyraised some Kremlin eyebrows in describing the paranoia of Stalinism; Trifonov wrote about individuals strug- ■ gling with society: Rasputin and other Siberian writers have challenged Soviet planners on environmental issues; and the Taganka Theatre has produced works by Bulgakov and Trifonov which harshly portray some aspects of Soviet life. lIIMH IM I llll'IBMWf""

Another Soviet critic, Sergei Chuprinin, a February criticised works which described sexual encounters in a style uncharacteristically frank for the normally conservative Soviet reader. “It has become almost mandatory for any fiction writer who wants to be considered "up-to-date’ to dress up his prose . . . with scenes of adultery and all sorts of nudity and undressing," Mr Chuprinin said. Quoting from the works he condemned, Mr Chuprinin said: “It has gotten so that whenever some writers meet a woman their gaze slips down the front of her dress looking for "blueveined breasts wu long brown nipples’ or climbs up her skirt." The Communist Party theoretical journal “Kommunist" recently demanded and received an apology from writer Vladimir Solukhin for referring to God as “the creator,” thereby offending official atheistic sensibilities. Another author reportedly drawing official fire is Valentin Pikul, who has been accused of anti-semitism.