p261  "Our magazines are serious ideological weapons of the Party. Their duty is to carry on great educational work among the masses. This obliges the editorial staffs of every magazine to use all possible care in selecting works for publication in the magazine pages.

"The facts show that the editorial staff of Zvezda is not carrying out these requirements. It has shown utter irresponsibility in publishing Sosyura's poem without even submitting it to the editorial board for consideration.

"It is above all surprising that the magazine's editorial board and Editor-in‑Chief V. Druzin chose for publication, out of Sosyura's many works, the poem 'Love the Ukraine,'⁠a fundamentally defective in its ideology.

"To judge by the title of the poem, the author's intention was to give artistic embodiment to the great idea of Soviet patriotism.

"The theme of love of one's country is a noble and lofty theme of our literature. Creative Soviet patriotism is a mighty motive force of our society. 'In Soviet patriotism the national traditions of the peoples and the general vital interests of all the working people of the Soviet Union are harmoniously combined' (J. Stalin).

"Every literary work which contains a talented exposition of the theme of love for one's socialist motherland inspires in our hearts great patriotic feelings.

"Unfortunately, Sosyura's poem 'Love the Ukraine' does not engender such feelings. What is more, it evokes a feeling of disillusionment and protest. It is true, in his poem the poet calls for love of the Ukraine. The question arises: Which Ukraine is in question, of which Ukraine is Sosyura singing? Is he singing of that Ukraine which groaned for centuries under the exploiters' yoke and whose sorrow and bitterness poured out in Taras Shevchenko's angry lines? . . .

"Or does Sosyura's poem refer to the new, prosperous Soviet Ukraine, created by the will of our people, led by the party of Bolsheviks?

"It is sufficient to examine Sosyura's poem to remove any doubt that, contrary to the true facts, he is singing of some primordial Ukraine, the Ukraine 'inspector general':

"Out of time, out of historical epoch — this is the Ukraine in the poet's portrayal.

"Sosyura's poem does not contain the image which is infinitely dear to every true patriot — the image of our socialist motherland, of the Soviet Ukraine. In our people's minds the image of the Soviet Ukraine is irrevocably linked with mighty socialist industry, created by the labor of the creator people, with giant metallurgical and machine building factories, with mechanized mines, with initiators of the Stakhanovite  p262 movement, with that glorious creation of the Stalin five-year plans, Dnieper Hydroelectric Station, with the collective farm system which has brought a happy and prosperous life to the peasantry of the Ukraine. The Soviet Ukraine is a republic of advanced socialist science and culture.

"This is the Ukraine our people allow and love — an equal among equals in the harmonious family of Soviet republics.

"But this is not the Ukraine of which Sosyura sings in his poem. He is moved by the ancient Ukraine, with its flowers, leafy willows, birds and Dnieper waves. The author sings of the 'ancient wide open spaces,' 'her blue sky,' 'eternal breezes,' 'purple clouds.' It goes without saying all this is worthy of poetic imaginary and inspiration. But after all Sosyura's poem is called 'Love the Ukraine.' By its very innermost meaning it should inspire love for the Soviet motherland, sing and glorify all that is new that has been created by the constructive labor of our great people and that has transformed into a flourishing Soviet republic the Ukraine which had bathed in tears and had groaned for centuries.

"Behind the external beauty of the poetic form Sosyura's poem contains neither angry condemnation of the enslaving institutions of the past nor a vivid portrayal of the new socialist life of the Ukrainian people, which is becoming more and more bright and beauti­ful. It is known that Sosyura has written many good verses which deservedly enjoy the sympathy of our readers. As for the poem 'Love the Ukraine,' any enemy of the Ukrainian people from the nationalist camp, say Petlura, Bandera, etc., would endorse this kind of work.

"The Soviet Ukraine has grown and strengthened in the indestructible fraternity of socialist nations, in irreconcilable struggle against the enemies of the people, against bourgeois nationalists. Friendship of the peoples is a great might move force of our society. In the fraternal family of peoples of the Soviet Union, under the direction of the Bolshevist party, the Ukrainian people have achieved outstanding successes in building communism.

"In Sosyura's permanent 'Love the Ukraine' we do not see this Ukraine; it is depicted here alone, unlinked with the other peoples of the Soviet Union.

"The following lines about the Ukraine sound strange:

"And the poet's words, grossly distorting the true facts, sound openly nationalistic:

 p263  It is known that the essence of nationalism consists in a desire to stand aloof and lock oneself up within one's national strict, in a desire not to see what unites the working masses of the nationalities of the U. S. S. R. and brings them closer together, but to see only what can estrange them from each other. The survivals of capitalism in people's minds are far more tenacious in the nationality question than in any other sphere. They are more tenacious, since they are able to mask themselves in national costume.

"Sosyura's poem 'Love the Ukraine' was written and first published in 1944, during the great patriotic war. The German fascist bandits had made ashes and ruins of hundreds and thousands of towns and villages, mills and factories, collective and state farms. On the field of battle flowed the blood of Soviet people who were heroically defending the liberty and independence of their native land. The author of the poem, written during this period of stern trials for our motherland, did not find in himself wrathful words to express all the force and depth of the Soviet people's hatred for the enemy. The poet went no farther than an ambiguous and indifferent phrase about 'foreigners in green uniforms.'

"Thus, by publishing Sosyura's ideologically defective poem 'Love the Ukraine,' the editorial staff of the magazine Zvezda showed that it has not drawn the necessary conclusions from the Party Central Committee's decrees on ideological questions.

"In spite of the obvious erroneousness of Sosyura's poem, the Ukrainian press has not sharply criticized the defective poem, which has frequently been published in the Ukraine. We speak about this also because mistakes are not only committed in literature. Distortions in ideological work also occur in the arts. Thus, the opera 'Bogdan Khmelnitsky,' the libretto of which, as has already been noted in Pravda, contains serious errors, was produced on the stage of Kiev's Shevchenko Opera and Ballet Theater.

"These facts testify to serious shortcomings and mistakes in ideological-educational work in the Ukraine. It is evident that the Central Committee of the Ukraine Communist Party concerns itself little with ideological questions. Bolshevist direction of ideological-educational work lies in correcting people in good time, in criticizing in a Bolshevist manner and not slurring over their mistakes. This is what helping people and furthering their creative production means. It cannot be said that Party organizations in the Ukraine have consistently applied these principles in their practical work of guidance.

"It must be admitted that ideological-educational work among the intelligentsia is badly organized in the Ukraine. Among Ukrainian writers criticism and self-criticism is inadequately developed and there are cases of slurring over of mistakes and mutual admiration. Naturally, in this atmosphere Sosyura's poem not only was not criticized but was unreservedly eulogized. Sosyura's poem 'Love the Ukraine' was particularly overloaded with praises by, among others, the poet Maxim Rylsky, who, as is known, himself has not avoided serious ideological errors in the past. At one time, in a report to the plenary session of the Baron of the Ukraine Union of Soviet Writers, Rylsky, in defiance  p264 of the fact, declared that Sosyura's poem unfolds the themes of 'friendship of peoples' and 'internationalism.'

"Such an unprincipled position inevitably leads to serious failures in literary work and prevents the correct, Bolshevist education of creative cadres.

"Something must be said concerning the practice of translations of literary works.

"Sosyura's poem 'Love the Ukraine' is printed in the magazine Zvesda in a translation by the poet A. Prokofyev, who is a member of the editorial board of the magazine and is responsible for the poetry department. The facts show that Prokofyev adopted an irresponsible attitude to his work as a translator. Thus, in his 1947 translation of Sosyura's poem, Prokofyev for incomprehensible reasons acted completely arbitrarily in writing into the text images which are completely absent from the author's poem. For example, the translator wrote in these lines:

"But in the translation made in 1951 Prokofyev left out what he had himself add in his earlier translation of the poem and furthermore omitted from the poem the little that pointed, although indistinctly, to a link with present‑day reality. Thus the reference to 'foreigners in green uniforms' is left out of Sosyura's poem.

"As has become known, Sosyura's poem has been also translated into Russian by the translator N. Ushakov. Attention is drawn to the fact that his several translations of Sosyura's poem 'Love the Ukraine' have a number of alternative versions; moreover, in each case the author of the translation deviates from the sense and arbitrarily adds to the text. In 1948 Ushakov translated the beginning of the fifth stanza as follows:

"The same lines in 1949 were translated as:

"Finally, in 1951, this text was radically changed by the translator:

"The Bolshevist party teaches that the strength of Soviet literature lies in the fact that it is a literature which has no other interests and can have no other interests than the interests of the people and the  p265 state. The mission of Soviet literature is to depict the grandeur and might of our motherland, to cultivate and develop the Stalinist friendship of peoples, ardent Soviet patriotism.

"Soviet patriotism, the national pride of Soviet people, is an active emotion, an emotion the strength of which lies in the fact that the roots which feed it lie in real life. It is the love of the fatherland which we have transformed and built with our own hands. It is the love that is fortified by the consciousness that each step and each effort for the good of the motherland brings closer the triumph of communism.

"No foe is frightening to our country so long as the indestructible friendship of the peoples of the Soviet fatherland lives and thrives. It is the duty of the writers to wage an implacable fight against all and sundry manifestations of nationalism, tirelessly to propagandize the noble ideas of Soviet patriotism⁠1 and proletarian internationalism, to sing in their works of the heroic deeds of our great motherland as she builds communism."

"The Central Committee will take measures to remove serious mistakes and faults in ideological work in the near future [its resolution said]. It has been decided to work out measures in ideological work and for a radical improvement of the leader­ship of the artistic organizations of the past."

"On the occasion of the opening of a branch of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Lviv, a mass meeting of the Ukrainian intellectuals took place in Lviwº on April 3, 1951.

"Professor I. P. Krepyakevych, greeted the meeting on behalf of Ukrainian historians and said that in the past 'Ukrainian historiography was burdened with Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism, which was formulated in the so‑called counter-revolutionary school of Hrushevsky and which endeavored to detach the Ukrainian people from the brotherly Russian people. . . . The Hrushevsky school preached the classlessness of the Ukrainian nation . . . the theory of a unique stream in the Ukrainian culture . . . falsification, zoological nationalism and reactionary idealism.' He called for redoubled efforts against the 'remnants of the Ukrainian bourgeois nationalist ideology.' "

According to information the Stalinist church in Ukraine has become a power­ful weapon of the Russification of all spiritual life of our enslaved fatherland. The majority of bishops appointed by Patriarch Alexei are Russians who relentlessly conduct the Russification and persecute attempts to preserve the Ukrainian character of the Orthodox Church. . . . 'In December 1950 Patriarch Alexei ordered immediate removal of Bishop Alexander of Zhytomyr and Ovruch; his place was taken by Bishop Sergius Darin of Rostov. The first act of the latter was an ostentatious disavowal of a medal of 'National Liberation,' bestowed upon him by the Yugoslav government in 1945, under the pretext that 'Yugoslavia is hostile to the Soviet Union.' No information is obtainable as to the fate of Bishop Alexander. Rumors circulated in Kiev to the effect that he was arrested for 'Ukrainian nationalism' among the clergy of the Zhytomyr Diocese. His successor, however, stayed but a short while in  p267 Zhytomyr before being sent to Byelorussia, his see being taken by Bishop Nifont of Ufa.

" 'The clergy being trained in the seminaries in McWn Leningrad, and Kiev. . . . Candidates for priesthood are compelled to fill out a questionnaire with precise answers on place of birth, social origin and occupation. All must know the "literary Russian language," as well as the 'history of the Russian church.' "

"THEATRE: A Moving Play, by S. Makarov, Dnipropetrovsk. — The presentation of Lyubomir Dmiterko's drama Forever Together at Dnipropetrovsk's Shevchenko Theatre has been awarded a Stalin Prize.

"The play is devoted to the historic events of 1657. Bohdan Khmelnitsky, under whose leader­ship the Ukrainian people joined the great Russian people once and for all, dies, Ivan Vyhovsky takes over the Hetman's mace. This descendant of petty gentry betrays the Ukraine. The rapacious bands of the King of Sweden, of the Turkish Sultan, of the Crimean Khan and of the Polish noblemen stretch forth towards Ukraine's incalculable resources. The portrayal of the used to go Ukrainian girl Orysia is quite symbolic. Vyhovsky's wife gives her to a Crimean envoy, who sells her to Nemerich the Swedish ambassador.

" 'Now you belong to me, my beauty,' the Swede informs her.

" 'What? I have been sold?'

" 'Don't be sad, my dove; the whole Ukraine has been sold.'

"The Zaporozhe Cossacks rise in a liberation struggle. The best sons and daughters of the Ukraine join them. The fraternal Russian people help them. This puts an end to Vyhovsky's treacherous intrigues. The words of Ataman Ivan Sirko sound like a solemn oath: 'Forever together!' "

"The title of the collection, which evokes the image of a fairytale land beyond the blue waters, is, of course, ironic, for the land in question is the U. S. A., and what the poet saw was violence, oppression and appalling inequality. Unemployment, that terrible word, forgotten today in the Soviet Union, is omnipresent in America. He saw tears in the eyes of bricklayers, longshoremen and miners; he saw them also in those of his countrymen who had migrated to this 'promised land' a long time ago and now questioned him eagerly about the Soviet Union ('A Visit').

Repeatedly he met Negroes, descendants of the Uncle Tom over whose fate we cried in our childhood. They are persecuted with the old, stupid cruelty and with a new, hor refinement. They are kept down by 'misery and backbreaking work' ('The Negro Woman'); they are deprived of their rights. With profound compassion the poet tells of the negro woman elevator operator who is addressed by 'the rich with mugs like roast brief' only in the two monosyllables 'Up!' or "Down!'

"Our poet, who since his chivalrous has been accustomed to respect old age, takes off his hat to the aged woman.

" 'Beyond the Blue Sea' is not merely a description of human sorrow and injustice. It is an expression of a people's wrath. We are shown a line of striking workers and the poet declares: 'No, they will not be conquered, nor is it possible to buy them off.'

"The theme of friendship of peoples is also present in the book. The poem 'Katyusha' has become particularly well known. It tells of two Negroes walking down an Oklahoma field singing 'Katyusha,' the "Katyusha," you know, written by Isakovsky.'

 p269  "The eyes of all the honest people of the land are directed toward our country, which is on its way to the sunny summits of communism. And over there, 'beyond the blue sea,' our poet saw the will to struggle, faith in the just cause."

"PLENARY SESSION OF BOARD OF UKRAINE UNION OF SOVIET WRITERS. Stalino⁠b — One hundred twenty writers from Kiev, Kharkov, Dnipropetrovsk, Stalino and other cities of the republic took part in the fifth session of the board of the Ukraine Union of Soviet Writers, which concluded its work Dec. 26. The plenary session heard and discussed the following reports: 'Comrade Stalin's Work on "Marxism and Problems of Linguistics" and its Role in the Development of Soviet Literature' (M. Rylsky), 'The State and Problems of Literary Criticism in the Ukraine' (L. Novichenko), 'The Second World Congress of Partisans of Peace and Tasks of Soviet Literature in the Fight for Peace' (A. Korneichuk), and 'The Work of the Donets Branch of the Ukraine Union of Soviet Writers' (P. Baidebura).

"The discussion following the reports stressed the necessity of struggling to perfect the Ukrainian language and combating vulgar and bourgeois-nationalist manifestations in linguistics and literature. The session outlined measures to raise the level of literary criticism in the Ukraine."

"Speaking at the Fifth Plenary Session of the But also of the Ukraine Republic Union of Soviet Writers in Stalino, the poet M. Rylsky, Member of the Ukraine Republic Academy of Sciences, gave a report entitled 'J. V. Stalin's Work "Marxism and Problems of Linguistics" and Its Role in the Development of Soviet Literature.' 'The enemies of the people — the nationalists — at one time sought to implant the harmful notion that the Ukrainian language is separate from the fraternal Russian language,' said M. Rylsky. 'They denied the undoubtedly beneficial influence of Russian on the language of the works of Shevchenko, Kotlyarevksy, Ukrainka, Franko and Kotsyubinsky. The cosmopolitans in general denied the indigenous nature of the Ukrainian language, leveled it down, deprived it of its fresh tones and cluttered the language with artificially created phrases, vulgarisms, etc.'

"D. Kosarik criticized the work of the Ukraine Republic Academy of Sciences' Institute of Linguistics for its insufficient attention to the study of the language of the classics of Ukrainian literature. There are a number of gross shortcomings, D. Kosarik pointed out, in the dictionary of the Ukrainian literary language which has been prepared for the press.

 p270  "L. Novichenko, Chairman of the Commission on the Theory of Literature and Criticism of the Ukraine Union of Soviet Writers, gave a report entitled 'On the State and Task of Literary Criticism in the Ukraine,' pointing out that one of the reasons for postwar successes on the literary front was the merciless eradication of relapses into Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism and cosmopolitanism, which had occurred in the work of individual writers and critics. Ukrainian criticism has exposed the antiscientific essence of all attempts to revive the bourgeois theory of the 'single stream,' which has isolated literary works from their class and national soil. Criticism as justly struck at those who tried to deny or gloss over the beneficial influence of advanced Russian culture on the spiritual life of the Ukrainian people."

"Uchitelskaia gazeta, Sept. 12, 1951. Kiev — The Ukraine Communist party Central Committee has passed a special decree concerning textbooks on Ukrainian literature for the schools of the republic. The Central Committee notes that serious shortcomings and mistakes are committed in individual books for reading in the elementary classes and also in readers and textbooks in Ukrainian literature for the fifth to tenth grades.

"The elementary readers, the resolution states, give a poor elucidation of the theme of the friendship of the peoples, do not show the leading role of the great Russian people among the fraternal peoples of the homeland and the assistance given to the Ukrainian people by the peoples of the U. S. S. R. and especially the Russian people. The heroic labor of the working class of the U. S. S. R. is inadequately reflected. Some books lack material on the Stalinist plan for the transformation of nature and the great construction projects of communism. The Soviet Ukraine as an integral and inseparable part of the great Soviet Union is poorly shown in the readers and textbooks on Ukrainian literature. Apolitical articles and poems are published in a number of them.

"The textbooks on Ukrainian literature for the eighth to tenth grades, the Central Committee points out, do not meet present‑day demands for the teaching of literature in the school in the light of Comrade Stalin's language teaching. Some textbooks elude arbitrarily and incorrectly highly important questions of the history of Ukrainian literature, the analysis of individual works is given as a thing apart from the social-political conditions of the epoch, and questions of Soviet patriotism and the historic friendship of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples are treated in a superficial manner. The interrelation­ship of Russian and Ukrainian literature and the fruitful influence of advanced Russian literature on the development of the latter are shown inadequately. The analyses of the creative labor of a number of writers are notable for their lack of concreteness, their declarative spirit and the absence of principled Party criticism . . . .

"The Central Committee charged the Minister of Education to eliminate the shortcomings and mistakes in readers, manuals and textbooks  p271 on the Ukrainian language and literature and to ensure the preparation of editions opening up, ideologically consistent textbooks which would give pupils a profound knowledge of literary works, an understanding of the orderly character of the historical-literary process and of the fruitful influence of Russian literature on the development of Ukrainian literature. The analysis of the language of artistic works in textbooks must be based on Comrade Stalin's works on questions of linguistics.

"The Ministry of Education must complete revision of present manuals and textbooks and preparation of new textbooks on the Ukrainian language and literature by June 1, 1952. . . ."

"that only through the help of the great Russian nation the Byelo-Russians have defended their national independence . . . only through the help of the brotherly Russians the Byelo-Russians could defend their existence and preserve their language and culture. The light of culture went into Byelo-Russia always from the east, from the great Russian brother nationality."

". . . It is pleasant to note that capable, talented young people are constantly adding to the ranks of Moldavian poets. Yet, along with this desirable situation, Moldavian poetry plainly lags behind the growing demands of the reader. Serious shortcomings and errors have not yet been eliminated from the work of many poets of Moldavia. . . . Before us lies 'In the Vanguard,' a book of verse by Bogdan Istru that appeared this year. Along with verse in which one feels the warm breath of our times, the book contains many light and superficial poems. . . .

"In another poem, 'Construction,' Istru likewise speaks superficially and only incidentally of the important thing — man, raising a majestic  p272 structure by his labor. The poet noticed only a girl working on the building, 'with a voice of crystal,' of whom he 'caught a glimpse through the window.'

'Bogdan Istru is one of the best Moldavian writers of the older generation and these verses of his testify that the poet has lowered his standards and has not fully outlived his formalist errors.

"There are particularly disappointing, obvious ideological misconceptions in the poet's work. For example, he writes in the poem 'Stalingrad':

"It is difficult to imagine a more distorted conception of the friendship of the Soviet peoples! The poem 'Stalingrad' is an example of national narrowmindedness, lack of clear understanding of the immense significance of the battle of Stalingrad in the great patriotic war and in the liberation struggle of all peoples against Hitler­ism.

"Many success­ful ballads and songs belong to the pen of the young and talented poet Petr Darlenko, but his work, too, shows serious defects. Some of Darlenko's verses are dedicated of the Moldavia and its flourishing in the years of Soviet rule. But it is these very poems — 'My Moldavia,' 'Moldavia, You Are a Sweet Song to Me,' 'On the Strings of the Heart,' 'My Dear Country' — that merit the strongest reproof. It is hard to find in them the signs of our times, of the socialist changes that have taken place on Moldavia's soil. The verses are apolitical and without thought.

"The poet Yu. Barzhansky issued a book of verse called 'Road to Happiness.' Reading this book, one feels that Barzhansky's poetry bears the imprint of indifference, coldness, superficial description of life and at times even an apolitical attitude. . . .

"Leonid Kornyanu's poem 'To the Dniester' is filled with pessimism. . . . It romances for the reader to ask the poet what threw him into such hopeless melancholy and where, to what shores, 'the rolling waves are carrying off' Kornyanu's sadness.

"It is necessary to speak sharply and publicly about such errors in Moldavian poetry not only because they are inherent in the work of certain young as well as 'veteran' poets, but also because as a result of friendly personal relations these ideological deviations are passed over in silence by the critics and 'smoothed out' by translators.

"Only an atmosphere of mutual hushing up of errors can explain the fact that Ye. Bukov's apolitical poem 'I Yearn for the Land of the Cherries' could be reprinted in anthology after anthology, year after year. This is what, it seems, the poet longed for during the days of the terrible struggle against fascism that were so grim for the motherland:

"The poet Bukov frequently reduces to purely external characteristics such lofty feelings and concepts as love of motherland and Soviet patriotism. His poem 'Motherland' plainly smacks of anatomic description of his beloved, for, in his works, he loves his motherland because she 'is tall, young, strong and beauti­ful. . . .'

"The milles and factories built after the war, the growing economic strength and culture of the conforms collective farms and collective farmers arouse justified pride in the working people of Soviet Moldavia. But it is not this socialist Moldavia of which Bukov sings in his poem 'Green Leafy Land.' He idealizes the distant past of Moldavia, crushed by the Turkish yoke, he glorifies not Soviet man, who has transformed the republic by his heroic labor, but fairy tale knights and princesses. . . .

"Bukov has been told more than once that his works depict methods of labor that have been outlived. But even after these critical comments the poet in 'Young Communist Lake' describes the same physical straining, the same 'rivers of sweat.' There is nothing here but shouts, shovels, rubble, and sweat running from under the broad visors of the young builders' caps.

"Lately it has become the fashion among Moldavians to speak of poetry as a genre which now occupies a 'leading place.' There are not a few literary critics willing to extol both the real and illusory successes of Moldavian poets. However, the facts cited by us testify that indifference to politics, lack of ideological orientation and national narrowmindedness have by no means been outlived in the work of some Moldavian poets."

"Much attention was given in the report to problems of ideological work. while pointing out steady cultural growth, the speaker dwelt in detail on serious deficiencies in a number of sectors of ideological work. The Armenian Republic Academy of Sciences' Social Sciences Institute was criticized for insufficient elaboration of timely problems of the history and literature of the modern, recent and, in particular, the Soviet period. Certain scientific institutes have not produced any scientific works for a long period, and persons with little bent for scientific work have found 'shelter' in some of them.

"In recent years the writers of Armenia have largely outcome the narrowness of subject matter in their creative work, have gained more profound mastery of the method of socialist realism and have had some successes, particularly in the realm of poetry, drama and children's literature. The continued lag in this field is, however, a serious shortcoming in Armenian literature. Though many works have been published  p274 in the past two years, the majority of them still fail to meet the growing demands of the Soviet reader. In general these works do not have sufficiently high artistic standards, one of the reasons being unsatisfactory literary criticism.

"The speaker stressed that Party organizations must continue to wage a resolute struggle against all relapses into bourgeois ideology and manifestations of idealism and formalism in the work of individual workers in science, literature and the arts. . . ."

". . . Several years ago an alarming urge to abandon the reflection of living problems of modern times and to go back to the distant past was discerned in a number of Armenian writers. . . . Attention was called to the need for intensifying the struggle in literature against relapses of bourgeois nationalism, the idealizing of ancient Armenia, against all manifestations of kowtowing before the reactionary West. The Party Central Committee's historic decisions on ideological questions laid the foundation for a new advance in Armenian literature since the war. . . .

"G. Emin's book of poems 'New Road' has been highly valued: the poet was awarded a Stalin Prize. O. Shiraz has written a poem 'Names of Our Villages,' devoted to socialist transformations in Soviet Armenia. The successes of the young poets are encouraging. V. Davtyan has written a fine poem entitled 'In the Turukhan District,' which reproduces incidents in the life of the great Stalin. The poems of A. Grashi, S. Kaputikyan, M. Markaryan and other poets exposing the warmongers are well known.

"However, these advances in Armenian literature cannot conceal serious shortcomings in the creative work of a civ number of writers. The recent 15th Congress of the Armenian Communist Party pointed out that at the present time the biggest shortcoming of Armenian literature is the still unsurmounted lag of prose, and also the excessively low level of the Locris. The majority of recent works does not satisfy the growing demands of the reader.

"Despite a noticeable shift to contemporary subjects, Armenian literature is still in debt to its readers. The important achievements of the Armenian people have not found worthy reflection in literature; there are still few books which depict the labor exploits of leading workers in socialist industry, agriculture and science. In effect the Armenian working class is still not properly portrayed in literature. The theme of the Bolshevist party and its wise guidance has not yet received entirely satisfactory treatment. The life of the fraternal people of the motherland is likewise insufficiently reflected."

. . . The East did not form a Protestant Church, since it was not historically necessary here; this circumstance confirms our idea that the Renaissance in the East did not represent historical necessity. In the contrary event it would have inevitably arisen among the Russian people also. Sh. Nutsubidze, however, says nothing about a Russian Renaissance. According to his theory, the Renaissance, 'removing the confessional barriers' and joining the Georgian people in a single cultural family (cf. p80) with the peoples of Islam (Persia, Arabia, etc.) and the Catholic West (Italy, France, teach), separated it at the same time by a high wall from the Russian people. This is a badly thought out theory, by the single fact that in their cultural relations the Georgian people stood immeasurably closer to the Russians than to the Persians and even the Italians, while the 'confessional barriers,' being the result of very profound historical causes, were far from being as important as the author supposes.

'If we accepted the concept of the 'Eastern Renaissance' put forward by Sh. Nutsubidze, we would be constrained, contrary to the well-known remarks of J. Stalin, S. Kirov and A. Zhdanov concerning the syllabus for a textbook on the history of the U. S. S. R., to construct the history of the culture of the Georgian people in complete isolation from the history of the culture of the Russian people and completely to ignore the greatest achievements of Russian social thought and of Russian historical science; that is, we would have had occasion to break with the long-established traditions of Georgian historiography, the greatest representatives of which the author treats with incomprehensible arrogance.

"Ship. Nutsubidze hastens to ascribe a Renaissance to Georgia, apparently not noti­cing that if Georgia had had a renaissance, she would have lagged behind the Russian people in the spiritual sphere much more than was indeed the case. Isolating the history of the Georgian people from the history of the Russian people by his concept of an 'Eastern Renaissance,' Sh. Nutsubidze has mechanically carried over into Georgia the specific characteristics of Italy. The question involuntarily arises: Why should the historical past of Georgia be painted in the Italian colors?

"Why did the author, in order to extol the Georgian people, have to dress them in a strange garb, in the Italian garb of the Renaissance?

"Instead of elucidating the specific characteristics of the national  p276 Georgian culture, Sh. Nutsubidze ignores this important principle of Marxism-Leninism.

"Thus, the main conception of Sh. Nutsubidze's book — the 'Eastern Renaissance' — has been formed in clear violation of the fundamentals of Marxist-Leninist methodology. The author's mistake lies in the mechanical transfer to Georgia of tenets worked out by historical science in relation to the Western European countries. At the same time, in isolating the history of the Georgian people from the history of the Russian people, he has obscured the specific features of Georgian culture."

"All is far from well in Soviet Azerbaijan, the oil‑rich Soviet republic bordering on Iran, M. D. Bagirov, head of the Azerbaijan Communist party, has revealed in a major speech, the text of which has just reached this country.

"Mr. Bagirov's exposé of economic deficiencies, ll deviationism, and covert anti-Government behavior in Azerbaijan is being studied with particular interest because of the key relation of this area to Iran. Much Soviet propaganda directed to Iran holds Azerbaijan up as a model of what the Iranians could achieve if 'liberated from Western domination.

"There are many ties of language, religion and culture between the peoples of Soviet Azerbaijan and of Iran.

"Though pointing to increased industrial and agricultural production in the post‑war period, Mr. Bagirov made plain that many of these results were below planned quotas, the result of inefficiency, neglect and some deliberate efforts to evade obligations to the Government.

"He lashed out most bitterly at peasants attempting to serve their own interests rather than those of the collective farms. To meet collective farm livestock quotas, he charged, peasants gave the collectives bulls and calves so far as possible, keeping for themselves cows whose milk they appropriated. Similarly they kept sheep for their own flocks while giving collectives less valuable goats.

"In industry, Mr. Bagirov reported a 28 per cent increase in Baku oil production during the Fourth Five-Year Plan, a rather low rate of gain in view of the great wartime production decline in this area and failure to meet the 1950 rate of gain of oil production, the poor quality of much work in this area, and failure to meet the 1950 drilling program by more than 70 per cent.

"Construction in Azerbaijan, Mr. Bagirov indicated, is going poorly, with power station erection proceeding slowly. Much housing, he indicated, is built negligently so that it is of poor quality and there are delays in putting it to use.

 p277  "Progress in transportation development has been poor. Railroad lines and river craft do not operate on schedule and accidents occur too often. Trucks for road transport are out of commission awaiting repair too much of the time.

"Food made available to the urban population is often of poor grade and produced under unsanitary conditions. Mr. Bagirov reported, assailing the standards of work of the Azerbaijan Ministries for the food and for meat and dairy industries. He indicated similar discontent over the quality of consumer goods.

"Mr. Bagirov demanded that better cooperation be given the Soviet voluntary military training organizations preparing civilians in skills needed by the ground, sea and air forces. He assailed lack of interest in their work, even on the part of organizations linked with the Communist party.

" 'Bourgeois nationalism' continues to be a problem in Azerbaijan, Mr. Bagirov's speech indicated. He assailed those intellectuals and others who sought to glorify anti-Russian heroes from Azerbaijan's past."

"The republic's Party organization has exposed the incorrect and unscientific conception of the reputedly progressive nature of muridism and the Shamil movement, a conception which was current in Soviet historical literature. Criticism of these serious mistakes with regard to certain problems of Azerbaijan history has played an important role in the correct education and tempering of cadres.

"Recently the Azerbaijan Union of Soviet Writers correctly criticized the harmful, antipopular book 'Dede Korkut.' This book was written in the guise of an Azerbaijan epic⁠c and propagandized for many long years by one of our literary scholars and writers who had lost political vigilance and feeling of responsibility.

"The speaker stressed the need to continue a tireless struggle against ideological perversions and manifestations of bourgeois nationalism.

"The Party Central Committee's decrees on ideological problems, continued the speaker, have helped the writers of Azerbaijan to understand their failings and shortcomings, to understand the demands which the Bolshevist party and Soviet government make of creative workers. They have begun to turn more to themes of everyday life. Above of works by Azerbaijan writers have been awarded Stalin Prizes in the past two years. But the writers have not fulfilled the order of the 17th Azerbaijan Communist Party Congress for the creation of really valuable works on the friendship of peoples and the joint struggle of the Transcaucasian peoples for their freedom and independence and for Soviet rule. . . ."

 p278  ". . . It is impossible, however, to overlook the fact that criticism and literary scholar­ship still lag behind the general development of Azerbaijan literature. The decree of the Azerbaijan Party Central Committee pointed out that critics and literary scholars are not performing their direct function and are not yet able to relate to the proper extent the problems of literature and of the policy of the Bolshevist party and Soviet government. They are not waging a sufficiently active struggle against formalism and are not exposing in good time manifestations of bourgeois nationalism in literature.

"Comrade M. D. Bagirov's article in Bolshevik No. 13: 'The Problem of the Character of the Movement of Muridism and Shamil,' shows by the example of the harmful and defective book by G. Guseinov that a whole series of Azerbaijan literary and scientific workers have been blind to the manifestations of bourgeois nationalism. Critics and scholars were not able to reveal in time the ideological and political shortcomings of G. Guseinov's book. The critics were also unable to generalize from experience of Azerbaijan Soviet literature or to render active assistance in the struggle to implant the method of socialist realism. Both outlines of the history of Azerbaijan Soviet literature, that which appeared in 1940 as well as et one prepared this year by the Asian Republic Academy of Sciences' Literature Institute proved unsound and full of ideological and methodological errors.

"The strength of our literature lies in the fact that it is inspired by the great ideas of communism, that it lives in the great problems of today and has its roots deep in the soil of the people. . . . In all our literature, our poets and waters sings of the great friendship of the peoples of the Soviet Union, of the idea of proletarian internationalism. . . . The theme of the struggle for world peace and against the A.M. warmongers occupies a large place in contemporary Azerbaijan literature.

"Following the Party Central Committee undeviatingly on ideological questions, continuing the great tradition of advanced Russian culture, and learning from the Soviet writers, the writers of azimuth have great success. We can say without exaggeration that our literature has emerged onto the highroad and is developing as a literature of socialist realism. Nevertheless, our Moscow friends are quite right in pointing out shortcomings in the work of Azerbaijan writers. . . .

"Our celebration has proved once again that Moscow is a most exacting, severe and demanding judge. What pleases Moscow pleases all the people and the whole world.

"What does please Moscow?

"One of the latest major works of Samed Vurgun, 'A negro Speaks,' which describes the speech of a Negro artist at the Wroclaw Peace Congress, gives a broad panorama of the popular struggle for world peace. . . .

"Among the works of present‑day Azerbaijan poetry mention must be made of 'Two Shores,' a book of verses by Suleiman Rustam. . . . The second part of the book depicts the other world, on the other bank of the Araks, where the working people languish under the yoke of exploitation, where 'the specter of hunger and death, of torture and hardships begotten by the Marshall Plan, arises year in, year out!' . . ."

" . . . The genuine freedom of scientific creation brought into being in our country as a result of the great October socialist revolution, the consistent scientific world view and close contact with revolutionary practice — these things have led Soviet science to world-historic triumphs of which the whole Soviet people can be justly proud and which are admired by all progressive humanity. . . .

"Talk of 'free science' in capitalist countries is repulsive hypocrisy, cynical mendacity. The scientist of the bourgeois world, compelled to convert the products of scientific creation into a means for the mass destruction of peaceful people, compelled to sing the praises of the most misanthropic and reactionary antipopular prejudices, has a shameful and debased status: he is doomed to the role of a traitor to science and accomplice of murderers, of exploitation and oppression. . . . Genuine freedom of scientific creation is possible only in the U. S. S. R. and people's democracies, where science serves the people. . . .

"The essential condition for the progressive development of science, for its departure from old obsolete ideas, is freedom of criticism. 'It is generally recognized,' says Comrade Stalin, 'that no science can develop and thrive without a clash of opinions, without freedom of criticism. . . .

"In the development of Soviet science criticism and self-criticism is the basis for overcoming routine, the basis of actual progress. Without free criticism there is no movement forward. Therefore criticism— vital creative discussion of problems of science — is an essential condition for fruitful activity by scientists. . . .

"The Bolshevist party and Comrade Stalin personally enjoin Soviet scientists to the broad discussion of fundamental problems of science. Thus, in 1947, the Party Central Committee organized a discussion Academician G. F. Alexandrov's book 'The History of Western European Philosophy.'

"The dissension revealed basic shortcomings in the work of Soviet philosophers as a whole and in particular in the work of the Philosophy Institute. A. A. Zhdanov formulated a number of most important theoretic questions and concrete problems of philosophical thought in his brilliant address at this discussion and severely criticized the lack of principle and of ideological content in the philosophers' work.

 p280  "The linguistic discussion which took place in the pages of Pravda and in which the most brilliant thinker of our time, J. V. Stalin, took part, will have major significance for all contemporary science. . . .

"The exposure of the existence of an Arakcheyev regime in linguistics is a serious lesson for all branches of Soviet science and for all scientific institutions, in particular the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences. Where there is no living clash of opinions, no vital and free criticism, no creative debate or continual discussion of scientific problems, there inevitably comes into being the sway of science's 'monopolists,' and stagnation and ideological blunders are unavoidable."

"In the work of tansy and description of facts from the rich history of the peoples of the U. S. S. R. the correct Marxist-Leninist assessment and interpretation of various national movements, of their real sources and significance, is of particular importance.

"In this great and responsible work it is necessary constantly to bear in mind the brilliant statement of J. V. Stalin to the effect that history can neither be improved upon nor detracted from. The endeavor to embellish historical reality is contrary to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism. This refers particularly to the characterization of national movements, which is indissolubly linked with the solution of the nationality question.

"The Presidium of the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences notes that various staff members of the History Institute of the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences and of the Dagestan branch of the Academy of Sciences have forgotten these warning instructions of Comrade Stalin.

"Comrade N. M. Druzhinin, A. M. Pankratova, M. V. Nechkina and Zaks, the authors and editors of textbooks on the history of the U. S. S. R., distorting historical reality, idealized muridism, which was inspired by Turkey and Britain, and depicted Shamil as the popular leader of the mountain tribes of the Caucasus. The History Institute of the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences published S. K. Bushuyev's politically pernicious book about Shamil. This anti-Marxist, bourgeois-objectivist evaluation of the muridism movement and Shamil also found expression in the discussion 'On the Historical Essence of Muridism,' held in 1947 in the History Institute of the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences.

"The book by R. M. Magomedov, of the Dagestan branch, entitled 'The Struggle of the Caucasians for Independence Under the Leader­ship of Shamil,' was written from the stamp of bourgeois nationalism.

"A. O. Makovelsky, Corresponding Member of the ussr Academy of Sciences, expedited the publication and popularization of G. Guseinov's bourgeois-nationalist book 'From the History of Social and Philosophical Thought in Azerbaijan,' although this defective book maintains that 'in  p281 its struggle against the Tsarist colonial regime and the local feudal lords, the Azerbaijan peasantry was also inspired by the Shamil movement,' which is a vile slander upon the Azerbaijan people.

"A superficial, dogmatic grasp of the principles of Marxist-Leninist theory, inattentiveness to the real facts and documents of the epoch, relapses into the anti-Marxist ideas of the Pokrovsky school, which have not yet been overcome all the way among our historians — all this could not but lead and did lead to distortion of the facts of historical reality and in particular to the erroneous and politically pernicious assessment of muridism and the Shamil movement in the Caucasus.

"As a result, a numerous collection of documents and information in the state archives attesting to the antipopular character of muridism and Shamil were consigned to oblivion.

"Instead of subjecting these most valuable archive materials to Marxist-Leninist analysis, certain historians from the institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences essentially followed the lead of British and Turkish authors who have deliberately gilded and glorified muridism and Shamil; they showed lack of comprehension of the political acuity of the question of assessment of muridism, let slip from view the fact that muridism is the foundation of Pan‑Islamism and Pan‑Turkism and that international reaction, headed by the U. S. and British imperialists, is making broad use of muridism, sheiks and dervishes to organize provocations and diversions against the democratic forces of the world and primarily in the U. S. S. R.

"The Presidium of the Academy of Sciences considers that the Bureau of the Department of History and Philosophy and the History Institute did not take the necessary measures for immediate rectification of the errors in the assessment of muridism and for liquidating the faults in the research work of institutes of the Academy of Sciences which led to these errors.

"Yet back in the middle of May, 1950, a report was published, according to which the U. S. S. R. Council of Ministers had repealed the previous decision to award a Stalin Prize to G. Guseinov for the book 'From the History of Social Thought in 19th‑Century Azerbaijan' because this book distorts the character of the muridism movement and Shamil, picturing them as allegedly progressive, national liberation and democratic phenomena; in July, 1950 a gathering of the intelligentsia of the city of Baku, after discussing a report by M. D. Bagirov, and a gathering of the Party aktiv of the city of Makhach-Kala, after discussing a report by Comrade A. A. Danialov, Secretary of the Dagestan Province Party Committee, subjected the anti-Marxist assessment of the muridism movement and Shamil to a Party-principled criticism.

"The Presidium of the Academy of Sciences decrees:

"1. To ask the institutes of the Department of History and Philosophy, the Department of Literature and Language and the Department of Economics and Law and also the institutes and sectors of history, literature and language of the branches of the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences to hold, prior to Oct. 15, 1950, meetings of the Learned Councils or gatherings of staff members to discuss the article by Comrade M. D.  p282 Bagirov 'On the Problem of the Character of the Movement of Muridism and Shamil' (Bolshevik, No. 13, 1950).

"2. To ask the Dagestan branch of the Academy of Sciences to hold a scholar­ly session in 1950 devoted to exposure of the reactionary nationalist substance of the muridism movement and Shamil.

"The materials of the Dagestan session, together with the main archive documents attesting to the reactionary substance of the muridism movement and Shamil, are to be published in Makhach-Kala in 1950.

"3. To note that the Bureau of Department of History and Philosophy and the History Institute did not fulfill the Feb. 15, 1950, decree of the Presidium of the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences on extending scholar­ly assistance to the Institute of the History of Language and Literature of the Dagestan branch of the Academy of Sciences and did not make proven in the plan of works for 1951 for the writing of a 'History of Dagestan' jointly with the Dagestan branch of the Academy of Sciences.

"To ask the History Institute and tIsti of thrust of Material Culture ot U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences to include in the 1951 plan questions relating to the study of the history of the peoples of Dagestan, jointly with the Dagestan branch of the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences.

"4. To charge the History Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences with assuming leader­ship in extending assistance and in editing the'History of Dagestan.' To allocate to the Dagestan branch of the Academy of Sciences a fund of 150,000 rubles in excess of the grant for 1951 to finance the work of writing the 'History of Dagestan.'

"5. To release R. M. Magomedov, who in a number of his works gave a bourgeois-nationalist interpretation of the muridism movement and Shamil which has nothing in common with scholar­ship, from the duties of Vice-Chairman of the Dagestan branch of the Academy of Sciences.

"6. To aircraft carriers the editors of the magazine Voprosy istorii to publish a series of articles on the reactionary role of the muridism movement and Shamil, on the aggressive substance of Pan‑Islamism and Pan‑Turkism and on the progressive role of the annexation of the Caucasus to Russia in the history of the Caucasian peoples.

"7. To hear, at a meeting of the Presidium of the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences at the end of November, 1950, a report of the Department of History and Philosophy and of the Council of Branches on the execution of this decree.

"S. I. Vavilov, President, U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences

"A. V. Topchiyev, Chief Academic Secretary, Presidium of USSR Academy of Sciences.

"Moscow, Sept. 22, 1950."

"Transcaucasian peoples established ties with Russia toward the end of the 15th century and these ties were strengthened in proportion as the military danger presented by Turkey and Iran increased. By their actions against Turkey and Iran Russian troops often saved the peoples of the Caucasus from military danger.

"Russia's close association with Georgia, Armenia and certain khanates of Dagestan and Azerbaijan in the second half of the 18th century and the consolidation and pushing forward of the 'Caucasus line' in the North Caucasus contributed to the aggressiveness of Russo-Turkish and Russo-Persian relations. British and French diplomacy at this time made great efforts to bar Russia from access to the Black Sea and, with the help of Turkey and Iran, turn the Caucasus into their enduring barrier against Russian advance southeastward. From 1784 to 1787, when the hostile Turkish policy toward Russia became more and more active, Ushurma, the 'Turkish emissary' and 'prophet,' fell upon Northern Caucasia and made determined attempts to take Kizlyar and other fortifications on the 'Caucasus line.'

"The first period of Ushurma's activity showed he had not been mistaken in counting on the support of the mountain people. But the mountain people were mistaken in accepting Ushurma as their leader. The backward mountain people were propelled toward Ushurma by the colonial policy of Tsarism, the endless confiscations and tribute; they were lured by his anti-Russian propaganda. Instead of the struggle for land, against expedition and for the idea of equality, Ushurma called for armed uprising against Russia. This sort of political program did not correspond to the pressing and urgent interests of the mountain people. . . . Certainly, at the beginning of Ushurma's campaign, the Kumyks, some of the Kabardians and other mountain people, seeing in his appeals and sermons a signal for revolt, followed him, dreaming about all of fighting their feudal oppressors. His uprising was a typical reactionary revolt directed by a foreign hand — Turkey.

"In the 19th century Moslem circles adopted a policy of establishing a special religious and political movement in the Caucasus — Muridism. Blindly devoted to its Imam Shamyl, its followers, sword in hand, imbued the peoples of the Caucasus with hatred of everything Russian. Its political task was to raise a movement of the mountain people against Russia and subordinate it to the interests of Turkey and Britain, at this time standing behind Turkey's back. It was, according to M. D. Bagirov, a reactionary nationalist movement, connected with Pan‑Islamism.

"Revealing the essential meaning of Pan‑Islamism, V. I. Lenin pointed out 'the need to fight Pan‑Islamism and similar movements.' "

 p284  A number of Soviet historians have committed gross anti-Marxist errors in description and appraising the movement of the Caucasians led by Shamil in the 1930s‑1950s. Many historians forgot that annexation by Russia represented the only path of social-economic and cultural development and also salvation of national existence for the peoples of the Caucasus and Trans-caucasus threatened with conquest by backward, feudal Turkey and Iran or with colonial enslavement by capitalist Britain and France. The nationalist, reactionary murid movement, implanted and supported by Turkey, Britain and France as an instrument in the struggle against Russia, was regarded, contrary to historical truth, as a national liberation and antifeudal movement, and Shamil himself, who betrayed the interests of his people and served their enemies, almost as a national hero.

"G. Guseinov's harmful book, 'From the History of Social and Philosophical Thought in 19th Century Azerbaijan,' written from bourgeois-nationalist positions, which idealized and distorted the true meaning of muridism and of the activity of Shamil, not only did not meet with a vigorous rebuff, not was even submitted for the cruise Prize competition. . . .

"Gross anti-Marxist mistakes in the appraisal of the movement of the Caucasians in the 1830s‑1850s occurred also in the textbook 'History of the U. S. S. R.,' Part II, for the ninth grade of secondary schools, and in the practice of teaching in the school."

"Agents of Turkey, Britain and France, the preachers of muridism, supplied with British and French gold, called for a 'gazavat,' a 'holy' war by the Moslems against Russia, making use of the cultural backwardness of the Caucasians and the discontent over the abuses of Tsarist officials and officers. . . .

"It must be borne in mind that students read in the old editions of textbooks eulogistic descriptions of Shamil and favorable appraisals of the Caucasians' insurrection under his leader­ship. Therefore, exposure of the true role of Shamil, of the social and political aspect of the movement headed by muridism, must be especially succinct and demonstrative in the teacher's narration. The teacher is advised to tell students briefly that gross mistakes, which were reflected in textbooks and other literature, have been committed in the treatment of the Caucasians' insurrection in the 1830s‑1850s.

"The textbook 'History of the USSR' (Part II, edited by A. M. Pankratova) contains considerable factual data for a description of the social and political role of muridism and of Shamil personally. Making use of the material cited in the textbook and in M. D. Bagirov's article, the teacher should make students conscious of the following basic tenets. . . .

 p285  "Shamil in no way expressed or defended the interests of the pes of the Caucasus, but, on the contrary, betrayed them. In order to involve the Caucasians in a war against Russia, Shamil resorted to deception; camouflaging his true policy with slogans of a struggle for independence, he seduced the Caucasians with booty from predatory raids and also terrorized in an extremely cruel manner all the districts under his rule. Shamil despised the people whom he forced to shed blood, their own and others', on behalf of Turkish, British and French interests. . . .

"At the conclusion of the lesson it is necessary to stress that even after the destruction of muridism in the Caucasus, muridism and Islam continued and continued to play a profoundly reactionary role. Islam is being utilized to kindle nationalism, preach a most reactionary alliance of Moslem states, send spies and diversion zzz, under the guise of sheiks, dervishes, etc., and struggle against the spread of enlightenment and the emancipation of women.

Muridism 'was the basis of the subsequently formulated reactionary ideology of Pan‑Islamism and Pan‑Turkism, which preached unification under Turkish rule of all the Islam peoples.' The center of Pan‑Islamism and Pan‑Turkism is chiefly Turkey, but the U. S. and British governments also, not sparing any means, continue to utilize Islam, just as they use Christianity, for their own reactionary aims. Together with the Vatican, Islam plays the most militantly reactionary role among religions."

"The fundamental deficiency of the work in the first edition was the fact that its authors considered the history of the Kazakh people exclusively as a process of forming the militant traditions of the Kazakhs' struggle for their independence . . . such an aim and arrangement objectively led to an idealization of the patriarchal-feudal mode of life of the Kazakhs, to an incorrect evaluation of the national liberation movement, to a treatment of the usual reactionary feudal incursions as special forms of the national liberate movement, to an erroneous evaluation of the annexation of Kazakhstan to Russia as 'an absolute evil,' to incorrect periodization, and so faith."

"The history of the Kazakh people is rich in vivid pages of struggle for freedom and independence against foreign and internal foes. . . . The Kazakh people also fought stubbornly against the yoke of their own feudal hierarchy and against the colonial policy of Russian Tsarism.

"Alongside the people's national liberation movements in the 19th century there occurred the reactionary feudal-monarchical movements of Sarzhan and Kenesary Kasymov and Karatai.

"Soviet historians are called upon to elude the history of the national movements profoundly and correctly. This means approaching historical facts from Marxist-Leninist positions. Unfortunately, not every research work meets these requirements as yet. In particular, certain books on the history of Kazakhstan suffer from serious methodological defects which lead to distortion of historical fact.

"Even in the first edition of 'The History of the Kazakh Republic,' edited by A. Pankratova and M. Abdylkalykov (1943), the reactionary feudal-khan systems were idealized and the activity of the khans and sultans extolled. The Kazakhstan Communist Party Central Committee, recognizing the defectiveness of this book, adopted a decision to prepare a new edition. Mistakes of a bourgeois-nationalist nature, however, were repeated in the E. Bekmakhanov's book, published in 1947, 'Kazakhstan, 1820‑1840.' In it the feudal-monarchical movement of Sultan Kenesary Kasymov was idealized.

"The appearance of this book caused justifiable protest by many historians of Kazakhstan. The necessity of reconsidering the evaluation of the Kenesary movement arose. The History Institute of the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences, where Bekmakhanov defended his thesis, was obliged to hold a discussion. . . . Criticism of Bekmakhanov's mistakes at these discussions, however, did not reveal the full defectiveness of his work.

"An erroneous evaluation of the Kenesary movements was given in the second edition of 'The History of the Kazakh Republic,' published in 1949 and edited by I. O. Omarov and A. M. Pankratova. The Kenesary movement is here recognized as progressive, 'according to the political demands which Kenesary put forward' (p296). The political demands of Kenesary, however, boiled down to restoration of the medieval power of the khan and detachment of Kazakhstan from Russia.

"Thus, the distortions in the evaluation of the movement of Kenesary Kasymov are repeated and, as before, give historians a wrong orientation. Therefore it is necessary to turn to the 'theoretical' source of all these distortions and mistakes — E. Bekmakhanov's book 'Kazakhstan, 1820‑1840' — and to introduce clarity into the evaluation of the Kenesary movement, deciding it in the spirit of Marxist-Leninist historiography.

"The annexation of Kazakhstan to Russia began in the first third of the 18th century and continued up to the '60s of the 19th century. This annexation was of profoundly progressive significance. It determined  p287 the historical fate of Kazakhstan and secured the economic and cultural intercourse between the Kazakh people and Russia. . . .

"The Sultan Kenesary, grandson of Ablai Khan, and a group of feudal lords close to him decided to use the discontent of the masses in the struggle for their own narrowly class interests and for restoration of the privileges of the feudal hierarchy. Kenesary decided to obtain power for himself and to turn Kazakhstan back to the institutions existing in the Ablai Khanate (18th century).

"Certain groups of Kazakh working people at the beginning joined Kenesary's movement. . . .

"The Kenesary revolt was a reactionary, feudal-nationalist move by the Kazakh aristocracy, discontented with the liquidation of the power of the khan and certain privileges of the sultans.

"Ignoring the class stratification of Kazakh society, however, E. Bekmakhanov depicts the Kasymovs as progressive and all but revolutionary figures and 'popular leaders.' Bekmakhanov's attempt to represent the feudal-monarchical movement of the Kasymovs as a national-liberation rebellion is contrary to the principles of Marxist-Leninist historiography, which requires a consideration of the history of society as a history of class struggle.

"In essence, Bekmakhanov obliterates the class boundaries in the patriarchal-feudal Kazakh society of that time. Without revealing the profoundly progressive significance of the annexation of Kazakhstan to Russia, he one‑sidedly concentrates on the colonial oppression which arose after the annexation. The Kazakh working people were vitally interested in the annexation of Kazakhstan to Russia. The rebellion of the Kasymovs, by reetarding the annexation, was contrary to the hopes of the advanced section of Kazakh society. This movement, however, is extolled in the book 'Kazakhstan, 1820‑1840.' In it we read: 'The Kenesary rebellion, which bore a clearly expressed anti-colonial and mass character, played a progressive role in the history of the Kazakh people.' Moreover, in depicting Kenesary as a fighter against 'Russian expansion,' the author asserts that the movement headed by this reactionary sultan was allegedly 'a splendid school for the political training of the masses' (p360).

"These and other mistakes led Bekmakhanov to idealize a reactionary movement, to distort historical facts.

"Trying to prove that Kasymov acted in the interests of the Kazakh people, the author of the book characterizes him as a wise statesman and talented military leader, who fought allegedly for the formation of an independent and free and centralized Kazakh state. The facts refute this.

"In idealizing the reactionary feudal leaders, the author of the book extols in every way not only Kenesary but the whole family of the Kasymovs. He devotes many pages to rapturous descriptions of Kenesary, his grandfather and father, brother, sister, mother and nephew, everywhere emphasizing their especial spiritual and physical beauty and their superiority to those around them.

 p288  "Kenesary himself is depicted by Bekmakhanov as a progressive reformer; the author discusses his 'legal reform,' the 'reform of the government machinery' and his 'diplomacy.'

"Carrying out the precepts of his grandfather, Kenesary achieved the khanite power, agreeing to vassal dependence on Russia and at the same time fighting against annexation to Russia. He called on his followers to march against the 'infidels,' that is, the Russians. Kenesary formed ties with the Central Asian khanates which were hostile to Russia and Kazakhstan. E. Bekmakhanov himself is forced to admit this, but he does not consider it necessary to expose the political meaning of this struggle which Kenesary waged against the Russians, relying on the support of the Central Asian khans.

"E. Bekmakhanov recalls the contradictions between Kenesary and Khivoy, but is silent on the main point — the special interest of the Central Asian khanates in Kenesary's struggle against Russia. . . .

"Mukhamedov, a Kazakh of the Chiklin tribe, stated in his report: 'Envoys came to Kenesary from the Khiva, Bukhara and Kokand khans. Kenesary told these envoys to tell the khans that the Russians were building fortifications in the steppe and therefore they should collect and send their troops to drive them off, in which operation he would help them.' Another report states 'the Khiva spy, Tair-khodja, who came to Kenesary, stirred up the Kirgiz to try to maneuver against the Russian government, to wear a mask of loyalty, while being sincerely obedient to the Khiva khan, and he threatened the Kirgiz with destruction if they did not do this.'

"The attempts of the Central Asian khans to extend their influence over Kazakhstan by supporting Kenesary reflected a desire to hamper the annexation of Kazakhstan to Russia. This policy corresponded to the interests of the British colonizers who coveted Central Asia. It is revealing that Sadyk, the son of Kenesary Kasymov, waged a struggle against Russia in the service of the Central Asian khans, who were connected with the British."

"The Bureau of the Central Committee of the Kazakhstan Communist Party has discussed the article and has found the criticism it contained of the errors of E. Bekmakhanov's book to be correct.

 p289  "A decree of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Kazakhstan Communist Party observes that E. Bekmakhanov viewed the Kenesary Kasymov movement from a bourgeois-nationalist position. By juggling quotations and texts he distorted in his work the historic reality of Kenesary's reactionary movement and contended that this movement was a mass people's liberation movement, a movement which played a progressive role in the history of the Kazakh people. Distorting the truths of history, Bekmakhanov failed to reveal the profoundly progressive significance of the annexation of Kazakhstan to Russia. At the same time he represented Kenesary as a defender of the interests of the Kazakh people, although in fact this Sultan never defended the interests of the Kazakh people but south one thing only and that was to keep in the hands of the Kazakh feudal lords the monopoly right to exploit the Kazakh working people, to separate Kazakhstan from Russia and restore the power of his line of Khans.

"The Central Committee of the Kazakhstan Communist Party also noted that the editors of the second edition of the 'History of the Kazakh Republic' did not carry out the August 14, 1945, decision of the Central Committee of the Kazakhstan Communist Party on 'The Preparation of a Second Edition of the History of Kazakhstan' and made the same political mistakes in evaluating the movement of Sultan Kenesary Kasymov as had been made in the first edition.

"The Central Committee of the Kazakhstan Communist Party has give the republic's historians a most important task. They are to study thoroughly and truthfully to elucidating the history of Kazakhstan on the basis of Marxist-Leninist teaching, paying special attention to working out the history of the Soviet period and resolutely combating all and every attempt to distort the history of the Kazakh people and its continuous friendship with the great Russian people.

"The Central Committee of the Kazakhstan Communist Party outlined concrete measures for the fulfillment of the present decree."

"The Learned Council of the History Institute of the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences also discussed the article 'For Marxist-Leninist Elucidation of Problems of Kazakhstan History,' published in Pravda.

"Those taking part in the discussion remarked in their speeches that the article quite rightly criticized E. Bekmakhanov's book 'Kazakhstan, 1820‑1840.' Kenesary's movement is also described in a flagrantly erroneous manner in the 'History of the Kazakh Republic,' in the secondary school textbook on the history of the U. S. S. R. (editor: A. M. Pankratova) and in that for higher schools (editor: M. V. Nechkina). Responsibility for the errors made, it was observed at the meeting of the Learned Council, also lies with the History Institute of the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences, which did not provide a prompt and correct evaluation of the book 'Kazakhstan, 1820‑1840.'

"The Learned Council condemned the book 'Kazakhstan, 1820‑1840' and drew the attention of the editor of the book M. P. Vyatkin to his  p290 serious error, manifest in the fact that he supported and shared E. Bekmakhanov's profoundly harmful views.

"Comrades A. M. Pankratova, N. M. Druzhinin and M. P. Vyatkin, who spoke at the meeting, admitted their errors."

"Turkmenian writers have waged a determined struggle in their time against kowtowing before the culture of the feudal-bourgeois East, against bourgeois nationalism, against the theory of the "single stream" and against an uncritical attitude toward the past. This struggle has strengthened Turkmenian writers ideologically, and many important works on contemporary themes have resulted from it.

"But not all writers have adhered consistently in practice to principles proved by life itself."

"The demand for children's books in the national language is exceptionally high. However, only 18 books for children have been printed in Kirgizia during the past five years (11 of which are translations). Some books by native writers suffer from serious shortcomings and even contain milieu distortions, among them A. Tokombayev's 'The Indian in Search of Happiness,' which preaches nonresistance to evil and presents man as a weak and passive creature, and S. Bulekbayev's 'Comrades Saved Us,' which glorifies the backward usages and customs of the Kirgiz people's remote past.

"Matters are particularly bad with respect to literary translations. The best samples of the Russian classics for children remain untranslated and unpublished with the exception of A. Pushkin's fairy tales. The same is true of contemporary children's literature. Mayakovsky's poems for children and Stalin's Prize works of children's literature have not been translated.

"The serious shortcomings in the publishing of children's literature are due primarily to the fact that the Union of the Soviet Writers of Kirgizia has, until recently, almost completely neglected matters relating to children's literature and has bypassed this important field.

"The Kirgiz Republic Ministry of Education watches the resulting situation with scandalous indifference. In the past five years the ministry has never conducted a single conference on children's literature, has not defined its stand on books which have appeared and, finally, is completely indifferent to the fact that not a single book for children has appeared in the republic in 1950."

"The Language, Literature and History Institute of the Kirgiz branch of the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences is one of the oldest research institutes of the Kirgiz Republic. . . .

"In recent years the institute has prepared for the press the collective work 'Studies in the History of Kirgizia' and has completed the work 'The Annexation of Northern Kirgizia to Russia.' The first large Russian-Kirgiz dictionary has been compiled, as well as the books 'Grammar of the Kirgiz Language,' 'Phonetic System of the Kirgiz Language,' 'Introduction to the Study of Kirgiz,' and others.

"Alongside these accomplishments, however, a number of major errors in the Institute's work have been found by a commission of the Presidium which investigated it.

"The past of the Kirgiz people has been idealized and the class struggle in the prerevolutionary Kirgiz village has been glossed over in works by the historians and literary scholars of the institute. The annexation of Kirgizia to Russia has been equated with the conquests of the Manchu emperors and the Kalmyk and Kokand Khans, which could not but lead to politically pernicious conclusions (works by K. Rakhmatulin, A. N. Bernshtam and others).

"The anti-Leninist theory of 'the single stream' held sway in Kirgiz literary scholar­ship until recently. All the folk bards of the 19th and early 20th centuries were regarded as 'great realists and democrats' irrespective of the class substance of their works. The poetry of the reactionary folk bards Arstanbek, Moldo-Klych, Osmon‑Aly and others who reflected the ideology of the upper classes — poetry permeated with religious mysticism and anti-Russian tendencies — has not been set apart from the work of the truly democratic folk bards Toktogul Satylganov, Togolok Moldo and others. . . .

"The Kirgiz literary scholars have to a considerable extent worked in detachment from the accomplishments of Soviet literary scholar­ship, on a low theoretic level.

"The Kirgiz heroic epic poem 'Manas' has been idealized, but the problem of its folk character, the question of its historicity, etc., remain unclarified to this day.

"The leader­ship of the institute and the Presidium of the Kirgiz branch of the Academy displayed political myopia toward the bourgeois nationalists (Samanchin, Baidzhiyev, Bektenov), did not fight vigorously enough against the consequences of their sabotage on the ideological  p292 front and did not foster the development of principled and truly scientific criticism and self-criticism. The leader­ship of the institute and the Presidium of the Academy branch did not take measures the realign the institute's work on the basis of the historic decisions of the Party Central Committee on ideological questions. The historic directions of J. V. Stalin contained in his works on linguistics have not been made the basis of the institute's work. The institute has bypassed very important problems raised by the Soviet public. The question of the reactionary substance of muridism and the Shamil movement has remained outside the field of vision of the leader­ship of the institute and the Presidium of the Academy branch.

"The propagandists of Marr's 'new teaching' on language injected considerable theoretic confusion into Kirgiz linguistics. And criticism was meted out mainly to the linguists who had not shared Marr's theory. . . .

"The Learned Council of the Institute is not directing the scholar­ly work and takes an irresponsible attitude toward don't discussion of completed works. At meetings of the Learned Council, works containing gross political and methodological errors have been approved (Taiguronov's book 'The War Epic,' Kutareva's book 'Major Stages of the Civil War in Kirgizia,' and others). . . .

"The Presidium of the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences has carried the Presidium of the Kirgiz branch and the director of the institute with eliminating these shortcomings in the shortest possible time and securing fulfillment of the tasks confronting the institute.

"In the next few years the institute must prepare a scientific history of Kirgizia and the history of the national liberation movements in Kirgizia, showing the significance of the October revolution in the national and cultural renaissance of the Kirgiz people. In the field of the history of Kirgiz literature, the institute must see to the writing of monographs on the creative work of Kirgiz writers, must turn to study of the questions of socialist realism in Kirgiz literature, traditions and innovation, socialist esthetics, the influence of prerevolutionary Russian literature and threaten Soviet literature on the development of Kirgiz literature, and questions of the attitude toward the literary heritage in the light of Leninist-Stalinist teachings. . . .

"The Presidium of the Kirgiz branch of the Academy has been told to carry out in 1951 a recertification of the staff members of the institute, to work out a plan for training personnel through postgraduate studies, to send ten holders of the Master's degree in 1951 to study for the Doctor's degree in the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences, to review the Institute's 1951 plan of research and its plan for the five-year period from 1951 to 1955 on the basis of the instructions of the Council of Branches and the commission of the Presidium of the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences, to organize systematic check on fulfillment of the thematic plan and to hold a scientific session of the institute in 1951 on the Kirgiz epic 'Manas,' raising questions of the folk character of the epic and its major versions and of preparing a collated text.

 p293  "The Presidium has charged the Departments of Literature and Language and of History and Philosophy of the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences with extending scholar­ly and methodological aid in organizing the session on 'Manas.' General supervision of the organizing of the session is assigned to the Council of Branches of the Academy. . . .

"For the purpose of extending regular scholarly‑consultative aid to the institute, the Presidium has charged the A. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature, the History Institute, the Oriental Studies Institute and the Philosophy Institute of the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences to appoint permanent consultants on questions of the folklore, literature and history of the Kirgiz people. . . .

"The Presidium has asked all branches of the Academy which have scientific institutions concerned with humanities to discuss this decree at general meetings of staff members."

"At all stages of its development Buryat-Mongolian literature has experienced and continues to experience the tireless solicitude of the Bolshevist party and the great Stalin for the flowering of the culture of the peoples of the U. S. S. R. The Party Central Committee's decree on ideological questions caused a new upsurge in Buryat-Mongolian literature. . . .

"Like all Soviet writers, our men of letters . . . summon Soviet citizens to peaceful, creative labor, actively fight for peace and castigate the Anglo-American warmongers. The poet Tseden Galsanov devoted his book of verse 'Dawn Over Asia' to the heroic struggle of the Chinese and Korean peoples for their liberation and against the American interventionists. . . .

"Together with this successes in development, Buryat-Mongolian literature's substantial failings must be pointed out, both in the ideological and artistic spheres. Serious individual ideological deviations have occurred in the work of the writers' organization of the republic since the war. Bourgeois-nationalist elements in their books have sung the praises of the feudal past and tried to paint in a false light the relations of the Buryat-Mongolian and Russian peoples. The Party has helped the writers of the republic to expose perpetrators of bourgeois-nationalist distortions in literature and to purge their ranks of them."

"The historic decrees of the Party Central Committee on questions of ideological work are playing an immense role in the new advance of  p294 Soviet Science and culture, in the struggle against the penetration of alien influences into Soviet ideology. Armed with the historic decrees of the Party Central Committee, the public of the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Republics, on the basis of Bolshevist criticism and under the leader­ship of the Party organization, has uncovered serious distortions of a nationalist character in the treatment of the Buryat-Mongolian people and literature. One of the important elements in the struggle against ideological distortions in the republic is the exposure of the reactionary essence of the epic poem 'Geserº Khan'; it was upon propaganda concerning this poem that the bourgeois nationalist elements counted. . . .

"Alien to the Buryat-Mongolian people, the feudal epic poem 'Gezerº Khan' cultivates a hostile attitude toward the Russian people. Our people, who received their liberty and happiness thanks to the great Russian people, cannot permit their fraternal feelings for the Russian people to be insulted. . . . The bourgeois nationalists tried to use the epic poem 'Gezer Khan' as an ideological weapon for their own anti-popular objectives. By propagandizing this feudal Khan epic poem, they strove to elevate and extol the cult of Genghis Khan, depicting him as a leader and military commander who stemmed from the people and defended their interests. . . .

"An attempt to revive the cult of Genghis Khan by propagandizing the 'Gezer' has been made in recent years. Symptomatic in this respect is the book by Academician S. A. Kozin, 'The Epic Poem of the Mongolian Peoples.' Academician S. A. Kozin in his book speaks rapaciously rapturously of the epic poem 'Gezer' and of the feudal Genghis Khan court chronicle 'Secret Narrative,' in which the bloody misdeeds of Genghis Khan and his hordes are depicted. S. A. Kozin approaches the analysis of the 'Geseriad' not from the standpoint of exposing its reactionary essence but from the standpoint of idealizing it and actively propagandizing it. He lauds the 'Geseriad' with a zeal worthy of better application and tries by this means to show that the epoch of Genghis Khan and his empire was allegedly 'the golden age' in the history of the Mongolian peoples. . . ."

"It must admitted that the postwar creative work of Chuvash writers is not free of individual failure. This reminds us again and again of the necessity for improving our ideological standards. . . . Noteworthy in this respect is the fate of V. Rzhanov's play 'Entip' . . . the play suffered from serious defects. However, the literary public did not correct the author opportunely, and the play was seriously revised only after the province Party committee had indicated the author's mistakes to him" (Pravda, November 3, 1950).

"Even pupils, who are finishing high schools, do not completely master Russian and write with orthographic and stylistic mistakes; the teacher himself speaks Russian by badly."