OTHER VOICES
lOl
TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD ABOUT
SOVIET LITERATURE
by
Alexander Dementiev
In June last year a special issue of the American magazine
Atlantic
devoted to the literature and arts of our country was published
with the title "The Arts in the Soviet Union." This, let us say at once,
was a quite unusual event for America.
In an introduction to this number of the magazine the editor Ed–
ward Weeks described it as the "opening of a window on the present
and lively arts of a talented people." And although we read in the pre–
face that "the canons of socialist realism are foreign to our (American)
way of thinking," the American readers are nevertheless told that Soviet
writers have "more freedom of thought, power of expression, and di–
versity of sympathy" than they may have expected. One has a feeling
that the editor of the
Atlantic,
having decided to acquaint Americans
with the "present and lively arts of a talented people" found himself in
a somewhat awkward situation: he had to come into collision with that
false conception of Soviet literature which is instilled in readers by
American propaganda.
But be that as it may, the special issue of the
Atlantic
turned out to
be
fairly objective. ...
[Here Dementiev gives a detailed list of the contents (works by Sholok–
hov, Leonov, Katayev, Simonov, Fedin, etc.), more praise of the
Atlantic
for its serious objectivity, in contrast to the usual "distortions" by Ameri–
can scholars of Soviet literature, and, finally, an account of the "de–
lighted" response of American readers to the Atlantic issue.- P. B.]
Let me say frankly that ... we too were delighted by the publica–
tion of the issue of
Atlantic
devoted to the arts in Russia and we too
hope that the barriers that hinder the American people from knowing
the truth about the Soviet Union and Soviet literature in particular will
be removed.
That is probably what is going to happen in the long run. But,
"thanks to the late Senator McCarthy," not as fast as one would hope,
for the motley band of the past-masters at false information are not
going to surrender without a struggle. They will go on spreading all
kinds of unfriendly falsehoods about our country and denigrate and
slander our literature. That is shown in particular by issues 3-4 of another
American magazine, the
Partisan Review,
published in the summer of
