Volume 51, Number 10 · June 10, 2004
Soviet Sad Sack
By Ken Kalfus
Yuri Olesha's short novel Envy[*] first appeared in the Soviet literary magazine Red Virgin Soil in the latter part of 1927, a perilous season in the history of the socialist republic. As Stalin consolidated power, the Party-controlled press warned of military intervention by Great Britain and its anti-Communist allies. The liberal New Economic Program was terminated, diminishing the supplies of goods to the cities. The regime intensified its propaganda efforts. Bolshevik critics lashed out at the artistic avant-garde, which had flourished earlier in the decade. Late that autumn Stalin would crush the opposition at the 15th Party Congress and expel Trotsky from the Party—and fire the editor of Red Virgin Soil, Aleksandr Voronsky. For a few more years nonconformist artists would keep on with their creative work until they ran into the wall of socialist realism.
Feature, 2169 words
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