562
PARTISAN REVIEW
terested in almost anything. And Tadzio felt even better. In fact he
felt great. He was met by the Secretary General himself, although he
hadn't become a member of the Party yet. The secretary told him
about a meeting with older writers on the new directions in litera–
ture. "So I went to the meeting with older writers who were supposed
to instruct us," says Tadzio. "They were wonderful poets and novel–
ists from before the war, but from the very beginning they did not
like us because we were young. Therefore we launched a frontal at–
tack . We told one of them that he was a symbolist - which was a ter–
rible insult. We told another that he was a passeist-which was also
an insult-and we left slamming the door. After we had left , we got
together and decided to form a group. We formed a group and we
went not even to the minister, but to Berman himself and told him:
'Comrade, we want to have a magazine of our own.' Comrade Ber–
man agreed. Sure , we were young, we should have our own maga–
zine. So we started a magazine and
c~JJed
it
NUTt.
It
was a very bold
magazine for those times . We attacked some people for symbolism
and some others for passeism, and we published mostly ourselves.
Mieciek started to defend abstract painting, which was at that time
under attack, and he had some problems, although Picasso was a
member of the Party . We were very tough then - we were the oppo–
sition. But
NUTt
was shut down-God knows why-and the group
dispersed. Mieciek went to
Poglad
and started to praise socialist
realism in art - all those peasant women with cows and happy
miners. I continued to write . I was getting tired of poetry . The time
is not suitable for poetry , I said, and I had better write a novel.
It
had to be a factory novel. Socialist realism had been proclaimed . But
my colleagues were faster. Silesia and the miners were all taken care
of. Witold got the shipyards, somebody else - sugar plants . I got the
furniture industry . A bit marginal, but I took it anyway. I went to
the factory - all expenses covered - I talked to the director, who
always had time for comrade writer. I talked to all the leading work–
ers, and after returning home I concocted a novel. ..."
This is the answer I would like to hear. It certainly is a bit
rough, but close to the truth . I am not interested in anecdotes about
who persuaded whom and with what tricks, but in how it all devel–
oped from innocent beginnings. Not in the torments of the soul but
in a sequence of dry facts.
And now about the old boys, who knew quite a bit of life. They
said that the interwar era was bad, terrible, and towards the end
very close to fascism. This term was in free circulation then. It is
)
