110
MAX HAYWARD
travel-warrant issued by the Central Committee of the Komsomol
and had honored the editorial board of the paper with a visit. The
announcement is accompanied by two specimens of their work.
Kharabarov's poem is entitled "On an Untrodden Path" and is a
moving appeal for the right to go one's own way. Evidently there
has been very powerful intervention on their behalf since last De–
cember and it seems highly likely that their total rehabilitation was
made possible by the changes at the Third Congress of Writers
in
May.
The second example is an interview given by Ehrenburg
in
August to a correspondent of
Literature and Life.
He says here
what he had said in a rather more disguised way in an article on
Chekhov published just before the Writers' Congress. Among other
things, he makes an unprecedented appeal for "solidarity" among
writers:
"In the very difficult times of the eighties Chekhov spoke of the
solidarity of the writers of that generation. Is it not time to give
serious thought to the question of solidarity among writers in our
Soviet epoch? Savage attacks on young writers, cliquishness, and
novels in which authors settle accounts with their fellow-writers
(i.e. Kochetov's infamous
Brothers Ershov- M.H.)
would
be
incom–
patible with such solidarity . . ."
The mere fact that such an unheard-of appeal for solidarity
among intellectuals- the Party's grip on them has always depended
on their
lack
of solidarity-can now be made speaks more eloquent–
ly than anything of the radical change of atmosphere since the
Congress.
