Codex manuscriptus

2949-0510 2949-0502

IWL RAS

https://doi.org/10.22455/CM.2949-0510-2024-5-223-276

Research Article

Articles

In the Struggle for Proletarian Literature: Financial and Political Components

Moskovskaya

Daria S.

codeximli@yandex.ru Galtsova

Elena D.

codeximli@yandex.ru

21 02 2024

5 223 276

literary policy financing economics nep author customer literary struggle archive RAPP MASTER FOSP A.K. Vinogradov translators section A.M. Gorky B.I. Yarkho M.D. Eichengolts I.I. Ionov

2026

Based on the new archival materials the article examines the financial and economic side of the historical and literary process of the 1920s–1930s. Under the conditions of the new economic policy, the proletarian and “poputnicheskiy” (fellow travelers) writers’ unions — were involved in an acute competitive struggle for hegemony on the literary front. As archival documents show, in the first half of the 1920s, “poputnicheskiy” unions enjoyed the support of the party and the government, possessed their own publishing houses and literary magazines. The mass character of the Association of Proletarian Writers helped them to gain attention from the Central Committee of Bolshevic party and to get finances and literary magazines at their disposal. After the formation of the Federation of Associations of Soviet Writers, proletarian writers usurped political influence in it and gained the desired material advantage. The party faction of the Federation, which consisted mainly of representatives of proletarian unions, determined the financial, ideological, and publishing policy of the Federation. In the early 1930s, the Association of Proletarian Writers waged a war against “poputnicheskiy” writers’ unions, including the section of translators in Moscow and Leningrad. The destruction of creative writers’ freedom is illustrated in the article according to the documents of the archives of the IWL RAS by the example of the fate of the writer and translator A.K. Vinogradov.

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