Stalin - Letter to the editorial office of Pravda regarding novel by V. Latsis "To a new shore"

Source: Stalin I.V. Works. - T. 18. - Tver: Informational Soyuz Publishing Center, 2006. P. 575–577.

Recently appeared in "Literaturnaya gazeta" (December 15, 1951) article-correspondence of M. Zorin from Riga under the title "Discussion of V. Latsis's novel" To the new shore "".

As you know, V. Latsis's novel was published in Russian translation in three issues of the Zvezda magazine in 1951.

In his correspondence, M. Zorin reports on a discussion organized in Riga by the Art Council of the Latvian State Publishing House, where the novel was sharply criticized. The correspondent expounds negative statements of the participants in the discussion, and the author of the correspondence himself outwardly refrains from interfering in the matter of the discussion. But this is the trick of the author of the correspondence. In fact, judging by the selection of facts and the underlining of some points of the discussion, the correspondent expounds his own negative views on the novel by Latsis. The discussion is only an external reason for this. This penny trick was needed by M. Zorin in order to rid himself of responsibility.

M. Zorin claims that the main character of the novel is Aivar, the adopted son of Taurin's kulak, who later broke with the Taurin family and went over to the side of the people, that Aivar is the axis of the novel. This is not true.

No matter how you approach the question, whether from the point of view of the number of pages dedicated to Aivar, or from the point of view of the role given to Aivar in the novel, Aivar does not get the main character. If we talk about the main character of the novel, then one could most likely recognize as such Jan Lidum, an old Bolshevik from farm laborers, who is much higher than Aivar both in understanding of public affairs and his authority among the people, and in terms of his share in party circles. Trust in Aivar is far from complete. He is given various assignments, but he works all the time under the test supervision of an asset. And only after Aivar successfully completes the tasks of draining the swamp and straightens out the fist Taurine that turned up under the arm of his former adoptive father, - only after that is put in the asset the question of accepting Aivar to the party.

But the main advantage of Latsis's novel is not in portraying individual heroes, but in the fact that the main and true hero of the novel is the Latvian people, ordinary working people from the people, yesterday still intimidated and downtrodden, but today they are perked up and create a new life. Latsis's novel is an epic of the Latvian people who have broken with the old bourgeois order and are building new socialist order.

M. Zorin further asserts that the discord in the family of Taurin's fist and Aivar's break with Taurin is an accidental phenomenon, an insignificant episode, that such an episode cannot be turned into the basis of the novel. This is also not true.

First, as mentioned above, Aivar's break with his fist Taurine is neither the basis nor the essential moment of Latsis's novel. Aivar's break with Taurine is just one of the moments in the novel. The basis of the novel is the popular movement of the Latvian peasantry towards the collective farm system in the countryside.

Secondly, it is completely wrong that the discord in the family of Taurin's kulak and Aivar's break with this family is a seemingly random occurrence, an insignificant episode. V. Latsis depicts in his novel the transitional period from the bourgeois-nationalist power in Latvia to the Soviet order, from the individual peasant economy to the collective farm system in the countryside. A distinctive feature of this period is that it breaks the old order, the old foundations, the old manners and customs, raises brother against brother, children against fathers, corrupts and breaks families, including kulak families. Therefore, it is not accidental that the storm of a new popular movement burst into the family of Taurin's kulak and disintegrated it. And not only into the family of the kulak Taurin, but she also broke into the family of the middle peasant - the podkulak Patseplis, tearing her son Jean and daughter Anna away from her and dragging them into the popular movement. 

Only people who do not know life and believe in the omnipotence of the kulaks can think that the families of kulaks and podkulaks can resist the blows of the popular movement, that during the period of breaking the entire old family of kulaks and podkulaks they can allegedly remain intact. No, the breakdown in the family life of the kulaks and podkulaks during the period of the growth of the collective farm movement is not an accidental phenomenon or a simple episode, but the law of life. That is why V. Latsis, as a good connoisseur of life and a great artist, could not do without depicting that in the period of breaking the whole old family of kulaks and podkulaknikov can supposedly remain intact. No, the breakdown in the family life of the kulaks and podkulachniki during the period of the growth of the collective farm movement is not an accidental phenomenon or a simple episode, but the law of life. That is why V. Latsis, as a good connoisseur of life and a great artist, could not do without depicting that in the period of breaking the whole old family of kulaks and podkulaknikov can supposedly remain intact. No, the breakdown in the family life of the kulaks and podkulachniki during the period of the growth of the collective farm movement is not an accidental phenomenon or a simple episode, but the law of life. That is why V. Latsis, as a good connoisseur of life and a great artist, could not do without depicting in the novel, the process of disintegration of the family life of kulaks and podkulachnikov.

After what has been said, the whole emptyness of M. Zorin's relationship about the “ideological flaws” and the “ideological disruption” of the novel “Towards a New Shore” becomes clear. To convince someone of the validity of such accusations, you need to have in your arsenal something more serious than superficial and ambiguous correspondence from Riga. We cannot consider leftist attacks on V. Latsis as arguments. On the contrary, such attacks indicate the absence of any arguments.

We believe that V. Latsis's novel "Towards a New Shore" is a great achievement of Soviet fiction, consistent ideologically and politically from beginning to end.

We would like Pravda to express its opinion on the novel by V. Latsis.

Group of readers

 1952.25 February .

Note

The review was written by L.F. Ilyichev (then editor-in-chief of Pravda) under Stalin's dictation and signed the "Group of Readers" after Ilyichev refused to sign it, as the dictator suggested, "L. Ilyichev, I. Stalin ".