WRITERS IN EXILE
361
thing is required of the writers: loyal compositions. Refusal to
comply with this condition leads to expulsion from the Union,
which involves a loss not only of privileges but, frequently, of
the means of subsistence. Excluded in this way from the Union
and condemned to public ostracism were Akhmatova, Zoschenko,
Pasternak, Lidia Chukovskaya, Vladimir Kornilov, Solzhenitsyn,
Voinovich. Later, writers indignant at the dictatorship of the
Union and
it~
perfidious behavior began to leave on their own,
and; sacrificing all privileges (I use the words of Georgi
Vladimov), "expelled the Writers' Union from their lives."
Among those who took such an action were Georgi Vladimov,
Lipkin, Lisnyanskaya. The Union leaders were aware of the ar–
tistic talent of each of them. These writers were excluded, or
forced to make a break, not because of a lack of talent, but be–
cause of political disagreement.
In
the processes of expulsion, insidious use is made of re–
spected writers who, for some reason or other, value privileges
and agree to participate in the executions, taking refuge behind
patriotic phraseology. Among such helpers of the executioner
we often see unexpected people, such as the poets Slutsky,
Dudin, Botvinnik, the children's writer Agnia Barto, the literary
critic Orlov, the essayist Sergey Sergeevich Smirnov, and many
others. What is required of the writers? Work in the spirit of so–
cialist realism, i.e., glorification of the regime and the attribu–
tion to it of those qualities that the regime does not possess: de–
mocracy, equality, fairness, freedom, unity.
In
a democratic society every citizen is exposed to all forms
of intellectual and spiritual influences. A society of the Soviet
type is conceived and constructed in order that a person be in–
formed exclusively one-sidedly, in a direction desirable for the
Party. Information about non-Marxist teachings can reach the
reader only through works containing criticism of such teach–
ings. All the rest do not get past the censors. However, in recent
years the prohibitions have become weaker, and, for example,
the journal
Voprosy Literatury (Questions of Philosophy)
man–
ages to acquaint its subscribers with the philosophical systems of
Kierkegaard or Heidegger, as well as with Averintsev's work,
" On Early Christian Culture," and with such research as the ar–
ticle by Cecilia Keene, "Catholic Culture in Italy Today."
It
is possible to write today in a journal about the work of
