NEW OUTLOOK IN RUSSIA

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 24, 13 September 1946, Page 3

NEW OUTLOOK IN RUSSIA

FREEDOM CREEPS INTO THE PRESS

For the first time for 10 years questions of fundamental principle are being openly disputed in the Soviet press. In the violent controversy which is going on, apparently with the permission of the authorities, many well-established myths of Soviet dogma are being overthrown. This is a direct result of the war. Almost one-sixth of the population of Soviet Russia has been in the Red Army outside the frontiers of the Union during the last five years. ' Soviet citizens have seen the west and have been able to make comparisons. During their long periods of waiting in the trenches they did not talk only about trivialities, and there is little doubt that their conversations led sometimes to a general revision of values.

They read the official proclamations and news stories and saw the war propaganda plays, and they compared these pictures with the reality. Now when Russian writers who have remained true to the war-time idiom depict <a loutish and ridiculous enemy, and say nothing about all the defeats of the Red Army, articles appear in. the literary reviews by important Soviet writers, who vigorously attack this stereotyped phraseology. In Russia the battle against cliches is not just a difference of opinion on literary style, it is an attack on State propaganda. Report on Deserters

The first sensation of the kind was caused by the memoirs of a veteran of the Partisan warfare, Major-General Wersigora, called “People With a Clear Conscience.” The first edition was exhausted in a few days. The major-general, a former film producer, describes the first period of the Soviet defeats. Prosaically he tells of the growth of the first Partisan detachments among the Soviet troops surrounded by the Germans. He does not discount the existence of Russian troops on the enemy side. He mentioned not only the Wlasov units, but also the detachments of the Don, the Kuban, and the Cossack groups which passed over the enemy. He describes the capture by the Partisans of these Russians fighting on the enemy side. He tries to understand their psychology, ruoting, “Among these troops there were people with a strong hatred for the Soviet regime. We had to save those who had strayed and work on them with patience. This is almost the first time that any public reference to these deserters has been permitted and the manner of treating the subject shows new kind of courage. None the less these first discussions are careful -to observe the usual Soviet ritual, and while attacking the falsification of history, interlard their sentences with quotations from Stalin.

jp Realism Comes In the May number of the review “October,” official organ of the Association of Soviet Authors, the chief editor, Panferov, a well nown man of letters, takes issue with the writers and critics who simplify the history of this war. Panferov writes: “Once, when we were on the banks of the Elbe, some writers and generals were sitting at our table. I asked the generals, ‘You have brought your army from the city of Orel to the Elbe without retreating once. Can you explain what forces made your army advance?’ The generals replied: ‘We, ourselves, have not had time to think about it. It is a question we must try to answer’.” This is very different from the old formula which was once obligatory: “The genius of our leaders has led us to victory.” The generals are now looking for deeper causes. The author of the article goes even further and attacks those who pretend that war consists entirely of victories and that “retreat was prepared in advance. “Fate Hung by a Thread” “Was it prepared in advance then,” he asks, “when the fate of our country hung from a thread ? Comrade Stalin and his colleagues have told us.” The author suggests to these writers that now at least they might begin to tell the truth by describing the terrible moments which were passed behind the front, and which had to be hushed up during the war. “Everything,” he says, “seems to have happened in our country easity, quietly, in a holiday spirit. To judge from these writers, even the blind men in hospital live in a state of eternal gaiety, singing and playing the accordion.”

Yet this optimistic type of simplification was used even before the war. So the attack is not only on the manner of writing during the war, but also on the ideology of optimism, expressed by Stalin to a party gathering in the well known phrase: “Life has become lighter and gayer.” For years the whole press wrote in this manner. It was the tone of literature. Scepticism and pessimism were banned. But Panferov now deprecates over simplification. In speaking of the Germans he says: “Fritz, a senseless, empty-headed coward, knows nothing of military science, has no feelings. In this case how did he get to Stalingrad? Where is the heroism of the Red Army in having rid us of such dolts? Enemy’s Tenacity Acknowledged “And the Prussians? Are the Prussian generals and majors good for nothing too? . . . We hate the Fascists as much as anybody, but why under-estimate the strength of their army, their ability to wage war, their knowledge of defence and attack. A dolt could not even temporarily have conquered all Europe. We must then learn to know the force and phychology of their army.” Panferov is certainly not expressing a mere personal opinion. He went to the front, was in the trenches, lived among the soldiers, also with the gexierals. He steeped himself in the atmosphere of the front and claims that those who write in routine style seldom visited it. This article has been severely criticised by the central party organ, the daily Pravda. But criticism goes no further. The literary monthly was not suspended, it did not share the fate of another periodical, the monthly Historic Journal, which had to be renamed Problems of History on account of ideological “deviations.” Now it seems that repressive measures are no longer taken against “deviations.” Rather there is an attempt to define a “deviation” and thereby to arrive at a devision of values which have been sacrosanct for 15 years. Criticism of the Cities

There is thus a gentle picking at the foundation of the dictatorship, the idea of the infallible leader. There is an attack on optimism in literature and a demand for the abandonment of cliches and stereotyped phrases. This struggle sometimes takes serious forms. The daily newspaper Trud, organ of the Central Council of the Workers’ Federation, recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. Not long after, the paper published an article headed “The bureaucratic style and excessive formalism of a newspaper.” The newspaper referred to was Trud itself. The publication of the article, which had previously appeared in a new review, “Culture and Life” had the appearance of a public confession. Trud is accused of using stereotyped phrases and of slurring over faults and omissions. “The newspaper,” it says, “asks public opinion to be critical, but itself does not know how to criticise. Its criticism is timid, impersonal and vague. All the pages of this newspaper seem to be written by one and the same person.' There are no differences of style, no marks of individual effort.” The article demands a transformation of Trud from top to bottom. This controversy implies a liberty of analysis and criticism which, if allowed to continue and develop, must lead to the free expression of opinions.