Contents

On Literature, Music and Philosophy

By A. A. Zhdanov

1950
Lawrence & Wishart Ltd. London

Contents

On literature

I Speech at the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers, 1934
II Report on the Journals “Zvezda” and “Leningrad”, 1947

On music

Concluding Speech at a Conference of Soviet Music Workers, 1948

On philosophy

Speech at a Conference of Soviet Philosophical Workers, 1947

A. A. Zhdanov (1896-1948) was a lifelong member of the Bolshevik Party. For many years leader of the Party in Leningrad, he was entrusted with the city’s defence during the war. In 1938 he was elected to the Political Bureau of the Party’s Central Committee and was entrusted with leadership of propaganda and agitational work. An outstanding Marxist theoretician, he made a number of brilliant reports on questions of literature, art, philosophy and the international situation.

Three works translated here are among the most important contributions defining and clarifying the new socialist attitude to art and literature; the fourth deals with the role of Marxist philosophy.

The first, on literature, outlines the outstanding tasks in the development of Soviet literature. This was a speech at the first Congress of the Union of Soviet Writers, where the main report was made by Maxim Gorky. The second was occasioned by criticisms made of two Leningrad journals for publishing inferior stories and poems – in particular, the story Adventures of a Monkey by Mikhail Zoshchenko, and poems by Anna Akhmatova.

The speech on music was delivered at a conference of Soviet composers, at which the work of leading composers was under review, following criticisms of a new opera, The Great Friendship, by Muradeli.

The speech on philosophy was delivered at a philosophical conference called to review G. Alexandrov’s textbook on the history of philosophy.

The translations were prepared and edited by Eleanor Fox, Stella Jackson and Harold C. Feldt for the Society for Cultural Relations with the U.S.S.R.