MOSCOW'S HINTS TO WRITERS
By AMABEL WILLIAMS-ELLIS
THE writers of the Soviet Union have just finished their first full-dress Conference, and the long red and white banners of welcome still hang in the streets of Moscow, and the pictures of the great writers of the world—Shakespeare, Cervantes, Tolstoy—in the charming. white-pillared assembly hall of the Trades Union.
I left them still at it after ten days of conference. Having discussed novels and children's books, and the national minorities, they were half way through a dis- cussion of the drama, and—most difficult subject of all— next day they were going to talk about poetry. But by now the streams of oratory have been dammed. The foremost writers of the Union and the authors of the national minorities will be going back to their holidays or their avocations, triumphant but exhausted. For the Con- ference has been a great success, and everyone has been basking in the dazzling light of publicity. Fat Demyan. Bedmi, the best satirical columnist in Russia ; the charming Marshak, beloved of children and always re- presented by the cartoonists as riding a scooter or playing a drum ; the old man from Daghestan, who, dressed in the gorgeous silks of his native land, recited a long heroic poem ; Karl Radek, the caustic wit ; Leonov, the novelist ; and last and greatest, the universally beloved Maxim Gorki. They have all said their say, and have been photographed in this pose and that, broadcast, pelted with flowers and generally made much of.
It would take too long to speak here of the technical discussions that were launched, when they spoke of such things as the form of the novel, treatment of character, and so on, and anyhow, some such discussions could be imagined as taking place in any conference of -writers. What was unique about this Congress were the inter- -hides. For there appeared before us no less a thing than that elusive creature, the reader. First came a deputation of miners from the coal areas of the Don basin. It was led by a noted shock-brigader. - He and the rest of the deputation liked reading books they said—novels and all -sorts of books, but more particularly, they liked novels which dealt with their own sort of life. He said that he had taught a lot of young miners their trade, and he did hope that the older, more experienced literary workers whom he saw at the Congress would do the same in their .job as he was doing in his. There were so many people in the Soviet Union who wanted to tell about their ex- periences, and he urged the older writers to help them.
Then there were boys and girls from Eastern Siberia. They said that there were certainly not enough books about boys and girls who lived in Eastern Siberia, so they had written a book themselves about their own lives, and here it was, and they laid their production proudly before Gorki.
In the days that followed, we had deputations from all the factories around Moscow. One brought a gift of a 'brand new samovar. The Red Army pelted us with flowers (which we returned) and demanded new songs to sing and more novels about Red Army life. The Navy, who brought a model ship, had much the same things to say. Another day, there *ere more boys and girls, these fresh from their camp, sunburned and bright-eyed, and with caps, belts and arms full of flowers. They stood on the brightly lighted platform and recited a poem, throw- ing the lines of it from one to another, and all speaking together in the refrain. They, too, wanted new songs and new poems. Then there were railway workers, who solemnly blew a whistle and waved a green flag when their spokesman's speech was to . start, and a deputation of peasants who had come, one from each of the co-operative farms around Moscow, and who brought gifts of the fruits of the earth in their season, and sheaves of wheat, barley and flax.
• Several different points of view were represented or the more technical side of things. Ehrenbourg, lot instance, said that the scope of Soviet literature up till now had been too narrow, and that however deep the impression it had made on them, writers must try to get away from the dark, early days of the Civil War. The difficulty of treating new subjects in poetry was discussed too, but all - agreed that a literature which does not describe the life just round the corner is no good, and that the newness with which Soviet writers had to deal was at once their difficulty and opportunity. Leonov, author of a novel which I admire (translated here under the name of " S.O.T."), discussed in conversation the extraordinary amount of technical things a writer was expected to know nowadays, and how long it was taking him to get local colour for the book on which he was working.
But by and large, the feature which most struck a foreign observer at the Congress was the atmosphere of co-operation 'and good-humoured criticism which exists between writers and readers. For instance, the Con- gress made an excursion to the big amusement park on the banks of the Moskva river, and was there received not only with brass bands, but with an amusing series of 'dancing pantomime figures, some on stilts and all -with enormous comic false heads. There were two dressed As Pioneers (Soviet Boy Scouts and Girl Guides) with ridiculous simpering faces, bearing a banner—" When you write about us boys and girls, do not make us look like this." Another grotesque was of a woman, in peasant costume, with enormous red cheeks and little eyes like a pig, and a loutish peasant man, with a sort of straw thatch instead of hair and a semi-idiotic expression- " Writers, remember we peasants are not _like this ! " The smaller children _had their representatives too, two toddlers with dummy - comforters, and wide blue eyes and idiotic mouths—" Do not write books for children like this, they do not exist." There was a Critic too, an enormous bilious-looking grotesque with a red nose and a dissatisfied expression, and a pair of shears in his hand —" I am the Critic who will cut up your books."
Altogether, what with grotesques, battles of flowers and a general atmosphere of the good humour of a "Harvest-home," no solemn literary congress ever per- haps debated at greater length or. in more cheerful circumstances.
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