Poetry or Politics?

...In Defense of Andr...

...Cynicism is their substitute for morality...

...At the age of 75 years he maintains all his mental clarity and strength...

...As s political chronicle of th* fat* of poetry in th* Soviet Union tho work of Professor Kaun suffer* from a root defect He devote* th* very first paragraph of hi* book and the closing paragraphs of the penultimate chapter to tbe assertion that with tho dissolution of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writer* in 1932, "tbe atmosphere was cleansed, and the writers have been able to breathe more freely and to create without fear of petty persecution...

...In a land where the artist has been faced with command performance and official dictation of form and content, such documents are important as background material, bat bars they ar* thrust into Use for* ground, while there is not enough evidence of lev* for poetry and sympathy with tbe problems of poets working under suck conditions There are unac-roustasia gap* in the organisation of the work: the much atudied twenties are here studied at length again and there is space slotted to tbe pro-revolutionary and the poet-1041 period*, but th* thirties ar* a virtual blank...

...On* would never suspect from this ¦tudy that th* distinguished Soviet critic Voronsky, of whose views th* author ha* made use, that Kirshon, Kataev, Serebryakova, kfakarov, Guber, Zarudin, Averbach, Vasiliev, Pilniak, Tarasov-Rodionov, to mention only a few, were either purged during those dread years or disappeared from view, that count-leu other* turned to the remote past or to trsnslation or other technical work or became silent, and that even the Communist writer Aflnogenev, who later died in the bombardment of Moscow, spent a full year under the ahadow of the widely publicized title "Enemy of the People...

...Even when Professor Kaun discusses a poet like Pasternak, some of whose moat significant work lioa in that period, there is the same leap from his My Sister Lift of 1922 to his work of tbe nineteen forties withoo* any attempt to evaluate hia autobiographical Safe Conduct and hia crucial Stcnd Birth of the thirties...

...The twenty-five pages or so devoted to Msyakovaky can be recommended wltnout reservation as the best study of thst poet now available in English...

...the calumniea of Ehrenburg, produced aad published according to ordera from above, date from 19S7...

...But I happen to have known Gide during the days of defeat...

...ring these trying year* Andre Gide **» proved himself one of the moot faith-«' *i»d upright of the French intelli-W>t*i...

...Yet Demyan Bedny is here, though he no more belongs in a serious essay on contemporary Russian poetry than would Berton Bra-ley, Edgar Guest or Ogden Nash in a corresponding work for this country* The section devoted to folk poetry confounds th* government-fostered adulation of living rulers with genuine folk poetry, unaware — as every foiklorist should be — of the fsct thst a martyr's death and outlaw opposition to the powers that be are the Arst prerequisite* to capturing the folk imagination...

...The author is more concerned with the politics of Soviet poetry than with poets and poetry...

...It wps n campaign marvel-°**1» conceived and organized to affect tb* emotion* of an old man who was •By depressed by th* bad news from Spain...

...This Soviet literary handy-man accuses Gide of being collaborationist and pro-Vichy...

...Yet Professor Kaun must know that the climax of harassment and terror came to poet* as to others in public life during the great purge of 1936 to 19SS...

...Gide By VICTOR SERGE The NEW LEADER mentioned recently the vile attacks on Andre Gide by llya Ehrenburg...

...With these serious criticism* in mind (criticism* which touch the very core of the work), this book msy be recommended to the reader for the various excerpts from political pronouncements on literary questions contained in it, for poems (the few translations done by Dorothea Prall Radin succeed in preserving much of the poetic spirit of the originals), snd for s really excellent study of Mayakovsky...

...Gide had, at that thaa, juet returned from Russia and prepared his little book about the Soviet regime, a book so scrupulous, so ssd aai, because of tho nature of its con-claslans, so hard to write...

...And, before the hook was printed, at a moment when not nor* than a half-dozen trusted friends knew Of Ita contents, Gide re-«*lved telegrams from the Spanish front « which fighters for the Republic begged kim not to publish criticisms of the USSR which might add to the prejudice *r*inat...

...The Vichy Legion of Former Veterans prevented him from speaking out in public...

...the cause of the Spanish Republicans...

...But the memory of all this now does not embarass them at all...

...By BERTRAM D. WOLFE SOVIET POSTS AND FOKTKY...

...At the same time he extended encouragement to the young people who were planning either to resist or to migrate...

...The title of this work does not correspond to its contents...

...The truth above all," he •aid to me...

...So, too, under "popular" song, which In a aeriou* poetic study cannot be taken to mean just songs that every one is singing, there is chosen for quotation in full the Song of the Motherland, exemplary enough as official patriotism with its time-worn epithets snd rhymes snd its specially composed slants* to celebrate clauses 12, 118, 11» and 121 of the "Stalinite People's Law"—but as far removed from serious poetry ss is Irving Berlin's Cod Blttt America...

...When the authorities, embarrassed by what, had occurred in connection with so distinguished a writer, canceled the denial, Gide scornfully refused to accept any favors from them...

...During the years of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact the Ehrenburgs themselves were well enough disposed toward the Nazis while they were bombarding London, persecuting the Jews and devastating Central Europe, including France...

...He never loft his retreat until the beginning of the struggle for the liberation of Tunis...

...During the period of the German occupation Gide passed long months living underground in Tunisia...

...In sending thst brief note Andre Gide lined himself up with all* of the hunted anti-totalitarians...

...Strangely missing are a number of fine poets who have earned neither official strictures nor official decorations, and one first-rate tslent, Pravel Vasiliev, who earned both in turn...

...On this postcard, carefully worded in order to get past the pro-Nazi censor, Gide said to me: "Happy to hear from you in thi* moment of crisis—and to have thia assurance of your faithfulness...

...But Gide recognized the trade-**rk of the propaganda and refused » give, in...

...This was a public acknowledgment of agreement with a condemned socialist refugee...

...Th* hew* which I received from him during tail period showed that he was tarrying on his literary labors with all of his accustomed energy...

...The maim etript of it was delivered to the printer under conditions of absolute secrecy, hut Ehrenburg and Louis Aragon managed t* find out about it...

...Manifestoes, critical documents, governmental decrees, pronouncements, polemics, often dealing with literature or art in general or even culture in general, take up a disproportionate space...

...Glad to have this exposition of your thoughts and to be able to agree with you in everything...

...In the spring of 1940, writing in Figaro, which at that time still maintained a discreet opposition to the naxification of French letters, Andre Gide spoke out against regimented thinking...

...rjndM thjg new Btttck he h,g • right to the sympathy and support •fall thorn to whom fro* thought is a necessity...

...In April, 1941, interned in Martinique, I received from him a postcard in reply to a letter of farewell in which I had expressed my revolt at what had happened and explained my resolution to leave Franco and continue the fight from outside...