SOVIET LITERATURE
109
of a Purpose, an art in which the grotesque will replace realist de–
scription of everyday life. This is what would best correspond to the
spirit of our epoch. Let the
outre
images of Hoffman, Dostoyevsky,
Goya, Chagall and Mayakovsky ... teach us how to be truthful
with the aid of absurd fantasy.
Mr. Hayward has added the following observations on recent
events that have taken place since this article was written:
Developments in the few months after the Writers' Congress
show that Khrushchev's speech and the subsequent changes in the
secretariat of the Writers' Union have, for the time being, decisively
tipped the scales in favor of the "progressives." Before the Congress
the Stalinist diehards (Surkov, Sobelev, etc). though showing in–
creasing signs of lack of confidence and nervousness, were never–
theless able to browbeat the progressives with appeals to high Party
authority. This no longer seems to be the case and with the Party
observing some degree of neutrality, as foreshadowed by Khrush–
chev in his speech, the diehards now create the impression of being
on the defensive.
The great change in the climate may
be
illustrated by two ex–
amples: In December, 1958, the Union of Writers of RSFSR, a
recently created body which is dominated by reactionaries (its
president is L. Sobolev who made quite a career out of baiting "re–
visionists" in the difficult months after Hungary), held its consti–
tuent congress. Several of the speakers made vicious attacks on
Pasternak and one of them added a new charge, namely that of
"corrupting youth." It appears that two young poets, Pankratov
and Kharabarov, students of the Moscow Literary Institute, had
fallen under the spell of Pasternak, made "secret" visits to his
dacha, written verse in imitation of him, hung his portrait in the
Institute hostel and circulated a manuscript copy of
Doctor Zhivago
among their fellow-students. For these heinous offenses they "under–
went their deserved punishment"-expulsion from the Komsomol.
In August this year the Central Asian newspaper
Kazakhstan–
skaya Pravda
announced that the two well-known young Moscow
poets
Pankratov and Kharabarov had arrived in Kazakhistan on a
