Max Hayward
INTRODUCTION
SOVIET LITERATURE 1917-1961
This miscellany of Soviet writing covers a period of
forto/-three years, beginning with
an
early prose fragment by
Boris
Pasternak written in 1918 and ending with an extract from
the memoirs of IIya Ehrenburg, which are currently being pub–
lished
in
the monthly
Novy Mir.
The picture which emerges
is
inevitably very incomplete,
but the editors hope they may have succeded in their principal
aim
of showing that the Soviet period has been by no means as
barren
in
literary achievement as
is
often supposed. Apart from
years of utter sterility-notably the years 1947 to 1953-there
has been a fairly steady output of work, some of which is not un–
worthy of the great tradition from which it ultimately springs.
Needless to say, much Soviet writing can only be appreci–
ated against the background in which it was produced and the
purpose of this introduction is to sketch the changing climate in
which Soviet writers have lived and worked.
The Russian intelligentsia, not least the writers, were divided
in their attitude to the Bolshevik Revolution of October, 1917.
Many, like Bunin, Leonid Andreyev, Kuprin, Zaitsev, Merezh–
skovsky and others could not reconcile themselves to Lenin's
usurpation of power and emigrated at the earliest possible oppor–
tunity. Others like IIya Ehrenburg, Alexei Tolstoy and Maxim
Gorky were more ambivalent in their attitude. At first sceptical
of the new regime, they made their peace with it-for different
