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PARTISAN REVIEW
possible and, in order to hold its ground in the difficult battle,
creates new variants of indirectness, constructed on top of the
original ones. The world is divided in half not only politically
and ideologically; the literatures of the two halves also lead dif–
ferent
lives.
There are similarities, of course. Everywhere litera–
ture is a verbal art, consisting of definite forms and genres. Still,
the structure of verbal art differs in the West and in the East. Dif–
ferent relationships have taken shape between the state and the
author, the author and the reader, the author and his work, the
reader and the book and, finally, between separate parts of litera–
ture as such.
State and author:
In
the majority of democratic countries,
the relationships between state and author cannot be fixed be–
cause of constitutional principles and guarantees. Neither novels
nor plays nor film scenarios can directly serve political goals.
Even television, radio, and the press pride themselves on their
independence. Sometimes this is unrealizable.
In
France, Her–
sant, and in Germany, Axel Springer have taken possession of
such a quantity of newspapers and magazines that each deter–
mines the direction of political thought inside his empire. How–
ever, this is not yet literature, but the press.
In
every country
there are infl uential writers, people in one way or other con–
nected to political parties. But even they do not speak for the par–
ties, but write as writers. Governments do not ordinarily ingra–
tiate themselves with writers; they don't even attempt to place
writers a t their service.
In
Soviet society everything is the opposite.
In
the first
place, the government-or in any case, the regime-is not
elected. The Communist Party, which came to power in 1917,
has remained the sole governing party.
In
the sixty-five years
that have since passed, it has created for itself not only a stable
and comfortable bureaucratic apparatus-administrative, mili–
tary, police, party, trade union-but the ideological institutions
it needs as well. The Writers' Union proved a perfect tool for the
control of literature. From the very beginning, only those who
proved their devotion to the regime were admitted into it; the
other writers, not admitted into the Union, are not taken seri–
ously and are viewed by the administration as parasites deserving
imprisonment or deportation. The Writers' Union provides its
members with innumerable privileges.
In
exchange, only one
