Why Gorky did not accept the revolution. Maxim Gorky's attitude to the revolution
But it’s a strange thing - against the backdrop of the Russian intelligentsia, completely enchanted and delighted by February, Gorky stands out with skepticism and muttering. Still, he knew Russia better than most of his contemporaries.
Revolutions and other cataclysms, as a rule, are enthusiastically greeted by people with internal cracks, with a breakdown: their own tragedy resonates with the world, and constant anxiety is finally resolved by a social storm. In Russia - due to its rather bestial living conditions - there are, as a rule, many such people.
But few healthy people revolutions are perceived as they should be: as a serious danger, a collapse of the world order and a threat to culture. Gorky's attitude towards the revolution of 1917 shows that at this time he was much healthier and more normal mentally than in 1905, when he rejoiced at the Moscow uprising.
However, there is another reason: Russia was different. The revolution of 1905 was the result of a colossal social upsurge, and the revolution of 1917, which is usually forgotten, was the result of an unprecedented decline. The revolution of 1905 was made by revolutionaries - propagandists, proletarians, intellectuals.
The revolution of 1917 was made to a great extent by circumstances - it did not have its own driving class: Russia collapsed not as a result of the deliberate efforts of a handful of emigrants who called themselves Bolsheviks, but by itself, in the course of things. The revolution of the fifth year was a creative effort of the masses, but what happened in the seventeenth, strictly speaking, was no revolution at all. There was no coup either. There was a progressive anarchy, which could be resolved either by the usurpation of power or by the seizure of the country from the outside. It was under these conditions that the Bolsheviks won - they simply organized themselves first. Gorky himself saw in what was happening only a rebellion of the primitive, a rebellion of instinct - and branded it earlier than others in “Untimely Thoughts.”
“I expect that one of the “real politicians” will exclaim with disdain: “What do you want? This is a social revolution! No, in this explosion of zoological instincts I do not see clearly expressed elements of a social revolution. This is a Russian revolt without socialists in spirit, without the participation of socialist psychology. And some workers say and write to me: “You should be happy, comrade, the proletariat has won!”
I have nothing to be happy about, the proletariat has defeated nothing and no one. Just as he himself was not defeated when the police regime held him by the throat, so now, when he holds the bourgeoisie by the throat, the bourgeoisie is not yet defeated. Ideas are not defeated by physical violence. Winners are usually generous, perhaps because they are tired, but the proletariat is not generous."
February could only evoke delight among a thoroughly politicized - and therefore petty-short-sighted - intelligentsia like the circle of Zinaida Gippius, or among those political prisoners and exiles to whom he returned freedom. The others understood perfectly well how it would all end. Among them was Gorky, who did not experience enthusiasm for February and was angry when others expressed them in front of him.
“In a country generously endowed with natural wealth and talents, as a consequence of its spiritual poverty, complete anarchy was revealed in all areas of culture. Industry, technology - in their infancy and without a strong connection with science; science - somewhere in the margins, in the dark and under the hostile supervision of an official; art, limited, distorted by censorship, was cut off from the public, immersed in the search for new forms, having lost its vital, exciting and ennobling content.
Everywhere, inside and outside a person, devastation, looseness, chaos and traces of some long-term Mamaev's massacre. And no matter how ardently one would like to say a word of kind consolation, the truth of harsh reality does not allow one to console, and it must be said with all frankness: the monarchical power in its desire to spiritually behead Rus' has achieved almost complete success. The revolution overthrew the monarchy, right! But perhaps this means that the revolution only drove the skin disease inside the body.
One should not at all think that the revolution spiritually healed or enriched Russia. This people must work hard in order to acquire consciousness of their personality, their human dignity; this people must be calcined and cleansed from the slavery nurtured in them by the slow fire of culture. Culture again? Yes, culture again. I don’t know anything else that can save our country from destruction.”
The fact that the long-standing national disease was driven inside and subsequently defeated the revolution itself was something he guessed with complete accuracy. But it seems he was the only one who understood this then. He was generally lonely difficult person, because he rejoiced so much at the slightest manifestation of humanity because few of these manifestations fell to his own share. Partly his continuous, titanic work is to blame for this, partly his love for abstract humanity and irritation with specific people.
His political position in 1917 was so at odds with other points of view that he could not choose a single suitable platform for himself and was forced to create one himself. This is how the newspaper “New Life” appeared, the first issue of which was published on May 1, 1917, and Gorky himself spoke about the sources of financing as follows.
“New Life” was organized by me, with money borrowed from E.K. Grubbe, in the amount of 275 thousand, of which 50 thousand have already been paid to the creditor, I could have paid the rest of the amount a long time ago if I knew where E.K. lives. Grubbe. In addition to this money, part of the fee I received from Niva for the publication of my books was invested in the newspaper. All this money was transferred by me to A.N. Tikhonov, the actual publisher of Novaya Zhizn. In the loan I made to organize the newspaper, I do not see anything disgracing it and I consider accusations of corruption to be polemical meanness. But, for your information, I will say that during the period from 901 to 917, hundreds of thousands of rubles passed through my hands for the cause of the Russian Social Democratic Party, from which my personal earnings amounted to tens of thousands, and everything else was drawn from pockets of the "bourgeoisie".
Iskra was published with the money of Savva Morozov, who, of course, did not lend money, but donated. I could name a good dozen respectable people - "bourgeois" - who financially helped the growth of the Social-Democrats. parties V.I. knows this very well. Lenin and other old party workers. In the “New Life” business there is no “donation”, but only my loan. Your slanderous and dirty tricks against Novaya Zhizn disgrace not it, but only you." Grubbe is a famous banker, owner of the Grubbe and Nebo bank. Both Grubbe and Nebo emigrated even before the October coup. This is how Gorky had to justify himself because already in October 1917, his recent friends, the Bolsheviks, began to reproach him that he was playing into the hands of the enemies of the working class and was doing it clearly not selfishly. However, in his life there were more than enough such “polemical meannesses”, he seems , had already stopped reacting to them - but then he couldn’t help but bite back: with whose money did you publish your Iskra? In Novaya Zhizn, Gorky became, modernly speaking, a columnist. Of these columns, he later wrote two books - " Untimely thoughts" and "Revolution and Culture".
In notes from the spring and summer of 1917, he congratulates the Russian people on their newfound freedom, but immediately poses the question: are we ready for it? Almost all of his pre-October journalism is a call to engage in science and creativity, to preserve culture and overcome ignorance; reading all this at the height of dual power seemed rather strange. He is especially alarmed by the lustration that has begun in the country and the publication of lists of secret employees of the security department: there were unexpectedly, inexplicably many of them.
“This is a shameful indictment against us, this is one of the signs of the collapse and rotting of the country, a terrible sign,” he wrote.
Almost immediately, a peasant theme appeared in “Untimely Thoughts” - Gorky had been unfriendly and suspicious of the peasantry since his tramp days, from his first printed appearances, seeing in the peasant only an owner, and also a beastly one. Now he has at his disposal all new facts of senseless atrocities, and " New life“tirelessly records them.
“Recently the men plundered the estates of Khudekov, Obolensky and whole line other estates. The men took home everything that had value in their eyes, and burned the libraries, chopped up the pianos with axes, and tore up the paintings. Objects of science, art, instruments of culture have no price in the eyes of the village - one can doubt whether they have a price in the eyes of the urban masses?
Even those who can’t stand Gorky must admit that the main feature of his journalism at that time was nobility. He stands up for the deposed Romanovs, over whom the drunken crowd cackles, having just yesterday been servile before them; he also notices that the mocking lampoon about the Romanovs is signed Jewish surname- and immediately predicts that the blame for the abominations of the Russian revolution will certainly be shifted to the Jews, fortunately they are doing everything possible for this, demonstrating amazing tactlessness and cynicism.
“I consider it necessary, according to the conditions of the time, to point out that nowhere is so much tact and moral sense required as in the attitude of a Russian to a Jew and a Jew to the phenomena of Russian life. This does not mean at all that in Rus' there are facts that should not be critically concern a Tatar or a Jew, but it is imperative to remember that even an involuntary mistake, not to mention a deliberate nasty thing, even if it was made out of a sincere desire to please the instincts of the street, can be interpreted to the detriment of not only one evil or stupid Jew, but - to all Jews."
Gorky's journalism is a unique chronicle of the degeneration of the revolution.
The ideals, banners, slogans under which they fought against the autocracy were trampled upon and forgotten as soon as the autocracy collapsed. It cannot be said that Gorky dreams of the restoration of Romanov Russia - he remembered everything too well. But what is happening around him makes him very critical of the Social Democrats, whom he helped with money and words for twenty years. Later, a legend was formed that it was in “New Life” that Kamenev and Zinoviev gave the Provisional Government plans for an armed uprising, scheduled at the request of Lenin for October 25. This is not so, and there was no publication of Kamenev and Zinoviev in the Gorky newspaper. On the contrary, both of them - especially the future owner of Petrograd Zinoviev - did not treat Gorky in the best possible way, at least in 1917. Novaya Zhizn learned about a closed letter that Kamenev and Zinoviev sent to party committees, protesting against what they thought was an adventuristic Leninist plan to seize power. Perhaps it was precisely this publication that Zinoviev subsequently could not forgive Gorky - it infuriated Lenin, although he was well aware of Zinoviev’s position.
In the 1938 film “Lenin in October” - we will return to this Romm duology - Lenin is indignant at the betrayal of Kamenev and Zinoviev as loudly as if it were happening directly during the Stalinist trials. But 20 years remained before the Stalinist trials, and Kamenev and Zinoviev were forgiven. Moreover, on the sidelines of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which took place in Smolny, Kamenev allegedly said: “They did something stupid, took power - now we need to form a cabinet.” So there was no betrayal, there was disagreement, which Gorky’s newspaper reported - probably in the hope of preventing bloodshed.
But the coup of October 25 was already almost bloodless - the blood flowed later, with the Red Terror, with Civil War. One of the first victims of this terror was the free press “New Life”, which was closed on July 29, 1918, and “Untimely Thoughts” was not published in Russia for seventy years. But today this is one of those works of Gorky that save his reputation and ensure immortality.
Alexey Peshkov, known in literary circle, as Maxim Gorky, was born in Nizhny Novgorod. Alexei's father died in 1871, when the future writer was only 3 years old, his mother lived only a little longer, leaving her son an orphan at the age of 11. The boy was sent for further care to the family of his maternal grandfather Vasily Kashirin.
It was not the cloudless life in his grandfather’s house that forced Alexei to switch to his own bread from childhood. To earn food, Peshkov worked as a delivery boy, washed dishes, and baked bread. Later future writer will talk about this in one of the parts autobiographical trilogy called "Childhood".
In 1884, young Peshkov sought to pass the exams at Kazan University, but was unsuccessful. Difficulties in life, the unexpected death of his grandmother, who was a good friend of Alexei, lead him to despair and attempt suicide. The bullet did not hit the young man’s heart, but this incident doomed him to lifelong respiratory weakness.
Thirsty for change government structure, young Alexey gets involved with Marxists. In 1888 he was arrested for anti-state propaganda. After his release, the future writer travels, calling this period of his life his “universities.”
The first steps of creativity
Since 1892, having returned to his native place, Alexey Peshkov became a journalist. The young author's first articles are published under the pseudonym Yehudiel Chlamys (from Greek cloak and dagger), but soon the writer comes up with another name for himself - Maxim Gorky. Using the word “bitter,” the writer strives to show the “bitter” life of the people and the desire to describe the “bitter” truth.
The first work of the master of words was the story “Makar Chudra”, published in 1892. Following him, the world saw other stories “Old Woman Izergil”, “Chelkash”, “Song of the Falcon”, “ Former people"and others (1895-1897).
Literary rise and popularity
In 1898, the collection “Essays and Stories” was published, which brought Maxim Gorky fame among masses. The main characters of the stories were the lower classes of society, enduring unprecedented hardships of life. The author depicted the suffering of the “tramps” in the most exaggerated form, in order to create a feigned pathos of “humanity”. In his works, Gorky nurtured the idea of the unity of the working class, protecting the social, political and cultural heritage of Russia.
The next revolutionary impulse, openly hostile to tsarism, was the “Song of the Petrel.” As punishment for calling for a fight against the autocracy, Maxim Gorky was expelled from Nizhny Novgorod and recalled from the Imperial Academy. Remaining in close ties with Lenin and other revolutionaries, Gorky wrote the play “At the Lower Depths” and a number of other plays that received recognition in Russia, Europe and the United States. At this time (1904-1921), the writer connected his life with the actress and admirer of Bolshevism Maria Andreeva, breaking ties with his first wife Ekaterina Peshkova.
Abroad
In 1905, after the December armed rebellion, fearing arrest, Maxim Gorky went abroad. Gathering support for the Bolshevik party, the writer visits Finland, Great Britain, the USA, meets famous writers Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt and others. But the trip to America turns out to be not cloudless for the writer, because he soon begins to be accused of supporting local revolutionaries, as well as violating moral rights .
Not daring to go to Russia, from 1906 to 1913 the revolutionary lived on the island of Capri, where he created a new philosophical system, which is vividly depicted in the novel “Confession” (1908).
Return to the Fatherland
An amnesty for the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty allowed the writer to return to Russia in 1913. Continuing his active creative and civic activities, Gorky published key parts of the autobiographical trilogy: 1914 - “Childhood”, 1915-1916 - “In People”.
During the First World War and the October Revolution, Gorky's St. Petersburg apartment became the site of regular Bolshevik meetings. But the situation changed dramatically a few weeks after the revolution, when the writer explicitly accused the Bolsheviks, in particular Lenin and Trotsky, of lust for power and false intentions of creating democracy. The newspaper “Novaya Zhizn”, which Gorky published, became the target of censorship persecution.
Along with the prosperity of communism, Gorky's criticism diminished and soon the writer personally met with Lenin, admitting his mistakes.
Staying in Germany and Italy from 1921 to 1932, Maxim Gorky wrote the final part of the trilogy called “My Universities” (1923), and was also treated for tuberculosis.
The last years of the writer's life
In 1934, Gorky was appointed head of the Union Soviet writers. As a token of gratitude from the government, he receives a luxurious mansion in Moscow.
IN last years creatively, the writer was closely associated with Stalin, strongly supporting the dictator’s policies in his literary works. In this regard, Maxim Gorky is called the founder of a new movement in literature - socialist realism, which is more associated with communist propaganda than with artistic talent. The writer died on June 18, 1936.
Contents of the essay:
What we call the beginning
Often this is the end.
We're coming to the end
Start all over again.
Where the end is, there is the beginning.
T. Eliot
The revolution knows neither how to feel sorry nor how to bury its dead,
I. Stalin
In the poem “The People and the Poet,” Blok addresses the “artist,” that is, apparently, himself: “It has been given to you dispassionate measure measure everything you see." I think that no reasoning, just like feeling, can be objective, “dispassionate,” but I agree with this statement, because a person of art is really able to convey not only time and events, but also make us feel them, because he draws and inner world of people. Both Blok and Gorky were waiting for the revolution: Gorky as one of its active supporters. Blok is like a person who supports her, but feels that this is his “last sunset,” and the decline is natural. The illusion of “the march of children to a new life” in the material world turned into blood without a temple. Blok first tried to justify the “revolutionaries,” looking at their deeds as retribution. Subsequently, he wrote in the “Note on the Twelve” that he “blindly surrendered himself to the elements.” But soon he felt that this element was not elevating, like love, creativity, but destroying. Providence is not a rare thing, and I found Blok’s description of the metamorphosis of the revolution back in 1904, this poem “Voice in the Clouds,” although I don’t think Blok had revolution in mind when he wrote about sailors lured to the rocks by a “prophetic voice” . Gorky, the “petrel of the revolution,” wrote to his wife back in 1908 that the Bolshevik detachment assigned to him had killed 14 people and that he could not accept this. He was more uncompromising than Blok, probably because he really was a petrel: he actively helped the Bolsheviks and was much more concrete, bloodless and optimistic. In life, it appeared before him as a rampant of senseless cruelty, murder, a rampant of “grave Russian stupidity,” and the new government, its former comrades - in 1917 Gorky did not confirm his membership in the RSDLP (b) - not only do not stop, but, on the contrary, , maintain this animal atmosphere. Gorky accused Lenin and the government of conducting “a merciless experiment on the tortured body of Russia, on living people, an experiment doomed to failure in advance,” and their decrees were nothing more than feuilletons. For him, socialism was not so much economics as the concept of “social”, “cultural”, and he called for a move away “from the struggle of parties to cultural construction.” It was not just a call, but an action: the creation of the “Association of Positive Sciences,” etc. Gorky largely blamed tsarism, seeing its legacy in the atrocities occurring, but at the same time noted that then “there was a conscience that has died now.” , both he and Blok saw the “internal enemy,” as Gorky called “a person’s attitude towards other people, towards knowledge,” and for the poet this is the image of the “old mangy dog"(the worst thing is that he is hungry). You can get rid of it only through getting rid of yourself, or rather, changing yourself. But how difficult it is for a person living during the “Twelve,” when: “Freedom, freedom! Eh, eh, without a cross! I think Blok also could not accept the revolution, because it “maturity of anger” awakened not “youth and freedom,” as he dreamed, but “black anger: holy anger.” The poem “The Twelve” for me is a statement of what is happening and rejection of sovereignty, lack of spirituality, and justification for murder. At the same time, she is full of deep compassion for these people, especially Petka, who are ready for everything, want nothing, but also see nothing... True creativity “introduces a person to the highest harmony,” and the image of Christ that ends the poem and is unexpected for the poet himself , arose precisely from this harmony. It has many meanings and interpretations: an indication of way of the cross Russia, the primacy of the spiritual (“behind is a hungry dog, ahead is Jesus Christ”), but after I read “Untimely Thoughts,” for me it also became the poet’s answer to a publicist: Gorky writes that the revolution needs “a fighter, a builder of a new life, and not a righteous man who would take upon himself vile sins everyday people».
Christ is the Righteous One and the Sacrifice, who is needed most of all by all people, not only by “the flower of the working class and the democratic intelligentsia,” when everything is collapsing, when nothing is visible and everyone is going wild because of it. Both writers were always amazed by the combination of cruelty and mercy among the people, as if in a kaleidoscope, changing places every minute. Immediately after “The Twelve,” Blok writes “Scythians,” as if historical explanation such a character, such a destiny. This is an appeal to the “old world”, in my opinion, not only European, but also Russian, so that through the “evil”, “Scythian” it sees goodness and love in the people and supports them, so that they extinguish the hatred in the souls of the “twelve”. Gorky believed that the merit of the Bolsheviks and the revolution was that they “shaved Asian inertia and Eastern passivism” and thanks to this “Russia will not perish now,” and cruelty could soon “inspire disgust and fatigue, which means death for her.” The writer's forecast, unfortunately, did not come true: appetite comes with eating.
Now we are learning history in a new way, and there are fewer people who absolutely support the revolution. Increasingly, the name “Great October socialist revolution" is replaced by "October Revolution". Everything that has happened to us in seventy-three years was brilliantly predicted by Bakunin back in the middle of the last century and told to Marx himself. But what can you do, “because of an illusion, a person loses freedom,” and also loses the freedom to listen to criticism.
Christ warned about false prophets who would come “in sheep's clothing but they are ravenous wolves,” and “you will know them by their fruits.” We see the fruits, and we ourselves are probably partly the fruits.
It seems to me that the most strong feeling, generated by the revolution of 1917, is fear. Now this revolution seems like a prologue to the end of the world, and once upon a time the St. Bartholomew’s Night, the fall of Rome, the invasion of the Horde seemed like such an end... The terrible thing is that nothing could stop the “bloody rain”, and it still doesn’t, we are really “walking in circles.”
I think that great theorists should beware of power, since they often use abstract concepts: masses, classes, and the like, and this alienates them from life. The awakening thirst for practice pushes them to experiment, and life is chaotic, they try to introduce rationalism into it, but living people understand it in a living way, and more often in an animal way. And what was fair in scientific works turns out to be a tragedy. And giving up an idea into which so much effort has been invested is like death.
People striving for power always forget the example of Macbeth and Claudius, they forget that power comes from blood. The Bolsheviks elected new way cover up a crime: legitimize it. Good intention - stop world war— turned into fratricide, justified by the “class struggle.” But even the Greek tragedians said that it is difficult to calm down the “thirst for blood” when “revenge reigns in the heart,” and “woe to the one who supports it.”
The shake-up of the soul in the revolution grew into an attempt to take it away. The enormity, the “greatness” of what was happening, politics were contrasted with the personal. Personality was relegated to the background (unlike Christianity and other religions) by words addressed to young people and asserting that morality is something “beneficial to this or that class”, the zoological division into classes in itself - all this broke or smoothed out the inner a barrier called conscience, God, after which “everything, therefore, is possible.” What happens in the soul cannot be changed by the mind. The shock and loss of the person, first tearing and crippling, and then passive, continued for a long time, but they did not treat him, but drove the disease deeper.
The revolution seems to me to be another loss. I don’t argue that not everyone lived well in Russia (this cannot happen at all, for absolutely everyone to have a good time), they were hungry and humiliated, but despite this, in Russia there was a special spiritual subtlety. She, that one, will no longer exist, she left with the Turbins, Zhivago... Mental subtlety will be reborn, I believe, but it will be different.
Believers accepted the revolution as God's punishment. We need, I think, to accept it in the same way: it will save us from curses. Only a bad person can curse his past, no matter how terrible it is. We have already had this experience and have seen its fruits. We must do what we did not do then: have compassion for the past. Even to those “through whom sins come.” It's very difficult, but if you think about it, were they happy? What did you remember?
In 1917, Maxim Gorky was 49 years old. He has already become a world famous writer, the author of numerous novels, stories, and plays. But literature was not only passion. He was attracted to politics. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, when he met Lenin and joined the ranks of the RSDLP...
During the First Russian Revolution, Gorky helped the rebels: he gave money for weapons, there was a headquarters in his apartment, hand grenades and revolvers were stored there, and bombs were made. He joyfully exclaimed: “Let the storm blow stronger!”
As a result, Gorky was imprisoned in solitary confinement in the Trubetskoy bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, he did not have to languish in captivity for long - within a month, thanks to the intercession famous writers, Alexey Maksimovich was released.
They not only often met with Lenin - they talked about politics, thought about the fate of Russia, but also spent their leisure time together: they went to museums and theaters. They fished and played chess. One of the parties (1908) was even recorded in history. Lenin then received a curse word from Gorky...
Time passed. Their paths diverged. After October 1917, the writer became an opponent of the Bolsheviks. He wrote impartial letters to Ilyich - “to eradicate half-starved old scientists, putting them in prisons, putting them under the fists of idiots stunned by the consciousness of their power, is not business, but barbarism.” He stood up for writers and scientists, and was indignant at the cruelties and lawlessness committed by the new government...
However, I got ahead of myself, and therefore I am returning to the beginning of 1917. At that time, Gorky lived in Petrograd with his common-law wife Maria Andreeva. They rented a large apartment at 23 Kronverksky Prospekt, in apartment building Evgenia Barsova.
Gorky looked much older than his years. He was a tall, massive man with a drooping red mustache and a beaver haircut. He smoked constantly and coughed just as often. However, he was as energetic as always.
In the winter of 17th - even before the February Revolution - Gorky was preparing the publication of a new newspaper. He turned to prominent Russian writers, trying to attract them to cooperation. Wrote, in particular, to Bunin: “Dear Ivan Alekseevich! Let me ask you to cooperate with the newspaper “Luch”. I will only say that the newspaper promises to be quite decent and literary. The conditions are whatever you like. I would be very happy if you gave me some poetry or a short story...”
Gorky's plans were not destined to come true. In his own words, “the Luch newspaper was not published due to some complex and dark obstacles.”
After the February Revolution, Gorky was actively involved in public work - he became a member of the Special Meeting on Arts, and participated in the establishment of two societies - “In Memory of the Decembrists” and “House-Museum in Memory of Freedom Fighters.” With the assistance of Gorky, the “League of Social Education” was created, and the city House of Scientists was opened.
The writer greeted the collapse of the autocracy with cautious optimism, noting that this was only the first success, “and first of all, we must defeat our own illusions.” For comparison, Gorky literally applauded the events of 1905: “So - the Russian revolution began /... / Those killed - don’t bother - history is repainted in new colors only with blood.”
Gorky became older and wiser.
If in the first revolution he saw the result of a colossal social upsurge, then the events of the February Revolution seemed to him a spontaneous explosion, a riot of the crowd.
The writer was skeptical about the goals and slogans of the uprising and considered them impracticable. Remembering the statement of the French psychologist and sociologist Gustave Le Bon: “Of all the mistakes generated by history, the most disastrous is the one for which the most blood has been spilled without benefit and the most destruction has been caused; this error is the idea that any people can change their institutions at will. All he can do is change names, give new names to old concepts.”
However, rejoicing reigned everywhere in Russia, and a naive confidence emerged that after the overthrow of the hated tsar, a new one would inevitably begin. happy life. These views and opinions were propagated in the press. Those who thought differently and expressed pessimistic forecasts were not allowed on the pages of newspapers and magazines. It turned out that censorship, barely abolished by the Provisional Government, showed itself again, albeit in a different guise...
At the same time, the intelligentsia greeted the February events differently. Vladimir Korolenko rejoiced that the revolution “swept away the stronghold of autocracy.” Alexander Blok was also inspired - it seemed to him that the element of the people was capable of not only destroying the old world, but also rebuilding it.
Alexander Kuprin also believed in the future of Russia: “No, the country that has endured on its shoulders more than what is meted out by fate to all other nations is not condemned to inglorious destruction. She endured the Tatar yoke, Moscow Byzantineism, Pugachevism, serfdom without rights, the horrors of Arakcheevism and Nikolaevism...”
Zinaida Gippius hoped only at first: “In the crowd crowding around the troops, along the sidewalks, there are so many familiar, lovely faces, young and old...” But the euphoria quickly disappeared, and the Provisional Government, on which so many hopes were pinned, turned out to be only for the time being, Bolshevik time. “Kerensky is a car that has gone off the rails,” Gippius quipped. - It wobbles, sways, painfully, and - without the slightest beauty. It is close to the end, and the bitterest thing is if the end is without dignity.”
Nadezhda Teffi’s illusions melted away like shifting February snow: “The revolution is a roar and a whistle. The underground popped up. Knocked off my feet. Dancing." But these were still “flowers”. When October of the seventeenth arrived, Teffi was horrified. And she hurried away from Russia...
Ivan Bunin was, perhaps, close in his perception of events to Gorky. He was anxious, anticipating further trials. And I was not mistaken - they are coming soon " Damned days": "The streets were littered with paper, dirt, manure, and seed husks. The round windows of many houses were covered with paper. On all corners of the city, soldiers and prostitutes behaved with “revolutionary ease...”
Gorky, who disagreed with neither the right nor the left, did not find a platform for expressing his, to put it mildly, extraordinary thoughts, which he himself called “untimely.” But in May 1917, the publication of “New Life”, the organ of Social Democratic-Internationalists, mainly of the Menshevik persuasion, began. In the newspaper, the writer became, in the language of the Soviet era, the author of “editorial” articles, that is, topical materials on the topic of the day (today such journalists—leading columns, sections—are called columnists).
In the first issue of Novaya Zhizn, Gorky wrote in the article “Revolution and Culture” that the old government “was mediocre, but the instinct of self-preservation told it that its most dangerous enemy was the human brain... and so, by all means available to it, it is trying to make it difficult or distort the growth of the country’s intellectual forces... The legacy left to the revolution by the monarchy is terrible.”
The writer called for “to get down to work together comprehensive development culture, - the revolution has destroyed the barriers to free creativity, and now it is in our will to show ourselves and the world our gifts and talents, our genius...” Only art, according to Gorky, “reveals the universal in man, unites us.”
Gorky’s “Untimely Thoughts,” which were regularly published in the pages of Novaya Zhizn, are deep, clear, seasoned with keen observations.
The writer believed that politics is the soil on which the thistles of poisonous enmity, shameless lies, slander, painful ambitions, and disrespect for the individual grow quickly and abundantly.
He looked into the water - people very soon became hardened, murder, if it was motivated ideological differences, an aggravation of the “class struggle,” was no longer considered a crime.
Gorky stated that “we are experiencing an alarming dangerous time“The pogroms speak about this with gloomy convincingness... the wild antics of soldiers at railway stations and a whole series of other facts of debauchery, stupefaction, and rudeness.”
Was there a way out of this darkness?
Gorky believed that “the artist must invade the chaos of the mood of the street.” According to the writer, the Fatherland would feel less in danger if it had more culture.
But where does it come from in Russia, if the great mass of people were illiterate and downtrodden?! For centuries they were mocked, bent to the ground. They were afraid to open their mouths... The revolution not only liberated millions of peasants, workers, and soldiers from oppression, but also awakened the beast in them. His bestial instincts burst out: these people didn’t care - literally- for all! Under the red banners of the revolution, they carried out reprisals not only against the former oppressors, but also against those who were richer, smarter, or simply looked askance. Freedom! Freedom, motherfucker!
Gorky was a real knight - kind, merciful. But amazingly naive. He repeated like a spell: culture, culture! Only she will save Russia!
The writer protested against the humiliation of the royal family, called for an end to the outrages, to stop the theft of works of art, and to end the terrible, bloody war.
He was disgusted by the so-called “free press”: “Clung to each other, newspapers roll through the streets in a ball of poisonous snakes, poisoning and frightening the average person with their evil hiss.”
Although Gorky raised topical, pressing issues, few supported him. But there were more than enough of those who took up arms against the writer. He was accused of many sins, including “defeatism.” The Petrograd newspaper went the furthest Living word”, which ranked Gorky among the “German agents”.
...In the writer’s huge apartment – there were 11 rooms! - besides him and Andreeva, there were relatives, acquaintances of Alexei Maksimovich, just hangers-on. Up to 30 souls in total! However, nothing surprising - the famous owner was sympathetic, sentimental, and could shelter anyone who came from the street if he liked him.
Writers, artists, academicians, professors, former counts, princes, and society ladies came to the apartment on Kronverksky Prospekt to chat, pour out their souls, and complain about life. Here they ate, drank, danced, sang, played lotto, cards...
Gorky lived in a large room lined with shelves of books. In the mornings, dressed in an old jacket, splattered with ink up to the elbows, he sat in a Chinese folding chair and worked. He closed the door, fenced himself off from the noise and bedlam, plunged into clouds of tobacco smoke and wrote - thoughtfully, carefully, in large letters...
In October 1917, Novaya Zhizn became aware that the Bolsheviks were preparing a performance. Gorky came out with an accusatory article, which, on the one hand, was supposed to force the Provisional Government to take effective measures, stir up the public, and, on the other hand, to stop Lenin and his comrades: “An unorganized crowd will crawl out onto the street, poorly understanding what it wants, and, hiding behind it, adventurers, thieves, professional killers will begin to “make the history of the Russian revolution.”
But the voice of the crying "Petrel" was not heard, and the Bolsheviks seized power. He should be happy - after all, Lenin is his old friend, if you look into Smolny, he will probably receive him from old memory, pour him some tea and, squinting slyly, smile: “Well, my friend, who will you go with next? With us or..."
But Gorky is not going to the feast of the winners. Moreover, in the article “Towards Democracy,” published after the Bolsheviks came to power, he demonstrates open hostility towards them: “Lenin, Trotsky and those accompanying them have already been poisoned by the rotten poison of power... Blind fanatics and unscrupulous adventurers are rushing headlong supposedly along the path to “ social revolution" - in fact, this is the path to anarchy, to the death of the proletariat and revolution."
By some miracle, “New Life”, despite the fact that it became the core of the opposition, survived until July 1918. She, through the mouth of Gorky and other authors, protested, screamed, and was indignant. But the days of the newspaper were numbered...
When the publication was closed, Gorky tried to appeal to Lenin, but to no avail. “Of course, New Life needs to be closed,” said the leader of the proletariat in a private conversation. - Under current conditions, when it is necessary to rouse the entire country to defend the revolution, any intellectual pessimism is extremely harmful. And Gorky is our man... He is too connected with the working class and with the labor movement, he himself came from the “lower classes.” He will definitely come back to us."
Lenin turned out to be right - the writer began to collaborate with Soviet power. On Gorky’s initiative, the “House of Arts” was opened, the prototype of the writers’ union, and with his participation, the Central Commission for Improving the Living Life of Scientists arose. Thanks to the writer, the publishing house “World Literature” appeared.
However, Gorky continued to sharply and fearlessly polemicize with Lenin. He was angry at why the new government treated the intelligentsia so rudely and contemptuously, why it indiscriminately threw its famous representatives into prison.
He expressed thoughts that seemed not so subtle and new, but for some reason “not captured” by the Bolsheviks: “A learned person should now be more valuable to us than ever, it is he, and only he, who is capable of enriching the country with new intellectual energy, he will develop it... In Russia there is little brain, we have little talented people and too much! - a lot of swindlers, scoundrels, adventurers. This revolution is ours - for decades; where are the forces that will lead it reasonably and energetically?”
Lenin failed to “tame” Gorky. It was impossible to put him behind bars, because he is a luminary, a great Russian writer, and also a former comrade-in-arms. And Lenin slyly advised Alexei Maksimovich to go abroad for treatment. In fact, Ilyich warned, seemingly jokingly: “Leave! Otherwise we’ll send you away.”
And Gorky heeded the advice ex-friend. Moreover, the day before he once again shuddered with horror - the brilliant talent Nikolai Gumilyov was shot, despite his intercession. Maybe Alexey Maksimovich thought: “And this will come to me too...”
And in 1924, Gorky published the essay “V.I. Lenin,” in which he praised the leader: “He is a politician. He perfectly possessed that clearly developed straightforwardness of view that is necessary for the helmsman of such a huge, heavy ship as leaden peasant Russia is... And there was no person who, like this, truly deserved eternal memory in the world.”
Especially for "Century"
The article was published as part of a project with state support funds allocated as a grant in accordance with the order of the President of the Russian Federation dated 04/05/2016 No. 68-rp and on the basis of a competition held by the Union of Pensioners of Russia.
(Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov) was born in March 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod into the family of a carpenter. Elementary education he received at the Slobodsko-Kunavinsky School, which he graduated in 1878. From that time on, Gorky began working life. In subsequent years, he changed many professions, traveled and walked around half of Russia. In September 1892, when Gorky lived in Tiflis, his first story, “Makar Chudra,” was published in the newspaper Kavkaz. In the spring of 1895, Gorky, having moved to Samara, became an employee of the Samara Newspaper, in which he led the departments of the daily chronicle “Essays and Sketches” and “By the Way.” In the same year, such his famous stories, like “Old Woman Izergil”, “Chelkash”, “Once in the Autumn”, “The Case with the Clasps” and others, and in one of the issues of the “Samara Newspaper” the famous “Song of the Falcon” was published. Gorky's feuilletons, essays and stories soon attracted attention. His name became known to readers, and fellow journalists appreciated the strength and lightness of his pen.
A turning point in the fate of the writer Gorky
The turning point in Gorky’s fate was 1898, when separate publication Two volumes of his works were published. Stories and essays that had previously been published in various provincial newspapers and magazines were collected together for the first time and became available to the mass reader. The publication was an extraordinary success and sold out instantly. In 1899, a new edition in three volumes was sold in exactly the same way. The following year, Gorky's collected works began to be published. In 1899, his first story “Foma Gordeev” appeared, which was also met with extraordinary enthusiasm. It was a real boom. In a matter of years, Gorky turned from an unknown writer into a living classic, into a star of the first magnitude in the horizon of Russian literature. In Germany, six publishing companies immediately began to translate and publish his works. In 1901, the novel “Three” and “ Song about the Petrel" The latter was immediately banned by censorship, but this did not in the least prevent its spread. According to contemporaries, “Burevestnik” was reprinted in every city on a hectograph, on typewriters, copied by hand, and read at evenings among young people and in workers’ circles. Many people knew it by heart. But truly world fame came to Gorky after he turned to theater. His first play, “The Bourgeois” (1901), staged in 1902. Art Theater, then went on in many cities. The premiere took place in December 1902 new play « At the bottom", which was absolutely fantastic among the audience, incredible success. Its production by the Moscow Art Theater caused an avalanche of enthusiastic responses. In 1903, the play began to march across the stages of European theaters. It was a triumphant success in England, Italy, Austria, Holland, Norway, Bulgaria and Japan. “At the Lower Depths” was warmly welcomed in Germany. The Reinhardt Theater in Berlin alone played it to full houses more than 500 times!
The secret of young Gorky's success
The secret of young Gorky's exceptional success was explained primarily by his special worldview. Like all great writers, he posed and solved the “damned” questions of his age, but he did it in his own way, not like others. The main difference was not so much in the content as in emotional coloring his writings. Gorky came to literature at the moment when the crisis of the old critical realism and themes and plots began to become obsolete great literature XIX century The tragic note, which was always present in the works of famous Russian classics and gave their work a special - mournful, suffering flavor, no longer awakened the previous uplift in society, but caused only pessimism. The Russian (and not only Russian) reader has grown tired of the image of a Suffering Man, a Humiliated Man, a Man Who Must Be Pityed, moving from the pages of one work to another. There was an urgent need for something new positive hero, and Gorky was the first to respond to it - he brought it out on the pages of his stories, novellas and plays Fighter Man, A Man Capable of Overcoming the Evil of the World. His cheerful, hopeful voice sounded loudly and confidently in the stuffy atmosphere of Russian timelessness and boredom, the general tonality of which was determined by works like “Ward No. 6” by Chekhov or “The Golovlevs” by Saltykov-Shchedrin. It is not surprising that the heroic pathos of such things as “Old Woman Izergil” or “Song of the Petrel” was like a breath of fresh air for contemporaries.
In the old dispute about Man and his place in the world, Gorky acted as an ardent romantic. No one in Russian literature before him had created such a passionate and sublime hymn to the glory of Man. For in Gorky’s Universe there is no God at all; all of it is occupied by Man, who has grown to cosmic proportions. Man, according to Gorky, is the Absolute spirit, which should be worshiped, into which all manifestations of existence go and from which they originate. (“Man is the truth!” exclaims one of his heroes. “...This is huge! In this are all the beginnings and ends... Everything is in man, everything is for man! Only man exists, everything else is his business hands and his brain! Man! This is magnificent! It sounds... proud! ") However, depicting in his early works a “breaking out” Man, a Man breaking with the bourgeois environment, Gorky was not yet fully aware of the ultimate goal of this self-affirmation. Thinking intensely about the meaning of life, he initially paid tribute to the teachings of Nietzsche with his glorification “ strong personality", but Nietzscheanism could not seriously satisfy him. From the glorification of Man, Gorky came to the idea of Humanity. By this he meant not just an ideal, well-ordered society that unites all the people of the Earth on the path to new achievements; Humanity appeared to him as a single transpersonal being, as “ collective mind", a new Deity in which the abilities of many will be integrated individuals. It was a dream of a distant future, the beginning of which had to be made today. Gorky found its most complete embodiment in socialist theories.
Gorky's fascination with revolution
Gorky's passion for revolution logically followed both from his convictions and from his relationship with Russian authorities who couldn't stay good. Gorky's works revolutionized society more than any incendiary proclamations. Therefore, it is not surprising that he had many misunderstandings with the police. The events of Bloody Sunday, which took place before the writer’s eyes, prompted him to write an angry appeal “To all Russian citizens and public opinion European states." “We declare,” it said, “that such an order should no longer be tolerated, and we invite all citizens of Russia to an immediate and persistent struggle against the autocracy.” On January 11, 1905, Gorky was arrested, and the next day he was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. But the news of the writer’s arrest caused such a storm of protests in Russia and abroad that it was impossible to ignore them. A month later, Gorky was released on a large cash bail. In the autumn of the same year he became a member of the RSDLP, which he remained until 1917.
Gorky in exile
After the suppression of the December armed uprising, which Gorky openly sympathized with, he had to emigrate from Russia. On instructions from the Party Central Committee, he went to America to collect money for the Bolsheviks through campaigning. In the USA he completed Enemies, the most revolutionary of his plays. It was here that the novel “Mother” was mainly written, conceived by Gorky as a kind of Gospel of socialism. (This novel, which has central idea resurrection from darkness human soul, is filled with Christian symbolism: during the course of the action, the analogy between the revolutionaries and the apostles of primitive Christianity is played out many times; Pavel Vlasov's friends merge in his mother's dreams into the image of a collective Christ, with the son in the center, Pavel himself associated with Christ, and Nilovna with the Mother of God, who sacrifices her son for the salvation of the world. The central episode of the novel - the May Day demonstration in the eyes of one of the characters turns into procession in the name of the New God, the God of light and truth, the God of reason and goodness.” Paul's path, as we know, ends with the sacrifice of the cross. All these points were deeply thought out by Gorky. He was confident that the element of faith was very important in introducing the people to socialist ideas (in his 1906 articles “On the Jews” and “On the Bund,” he directly wrote that socialism is “the religion of the masses”). One of important points Gorky's worldview was that God is created by people, invented, constructed by them in order to fill the emptiness of the heart. Thus, the old gods, as has happened many times in world history, can die and give way to new ones if the people believe in them. The motive of seeking God was repeated by Gorky in his story “Confession” written in 1908. Its hero, disillusioned with the official religion, painfully searches for God and finds him in merging with the working people, who thus turn out to be the true “collective God.”
From America, Gorky went to Italy and settled on the island of Capri. During the years of emigration, he wrote “Summer” (1909), “The Town of Okurov” (1909), “The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin” (1910), the play “Vassa Zheleznova”, “Tales of Italy” (1911), “The Master” (1913) , autobiographical story “Childhood” (1913).
Return of Gorky to Russia
At the end of December 1913, taking advantage of the general amnesty declared on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Romanovs, Gorky returned to Russia and settled in St. Petersburg. In 1914, he founded his magazine “Letopis” and the publishing house “Parus”. Here in 1916 it was published autobiographical story“In People” and a series of essays “Across Rus'”.
February revolution 1917 Gorky accepted with all his soul, but to further events, and especially towards the October revolution, his attitude was very ambiguous. In general, Gorky’s worldview after the 1905 revolution underwent an evolution and became more skeptical. Despite the fact that his faith in Man and faith in socialism remained unchanged, he had doubts that the modern Russian worker and modern Russian peasant were capable of accepting the bright socialist ideas the way it should. Already in 1905, he was struck by the roar of the awakened national element, bursting out through all social prohibitions and threatening to sink the miserable islands material culture. Later, several articles appeared defining Gorky’s attitude towards the Russian people. His article “Two Souls,” which appeared in “Chronicles” at the end of 1915, made a great impression on his contemporaries. While paying tribute to the richness of the soul of the Russian people, Gorky still treated its historical possibilities with great skepticism. The Russian people, he wrote, are dreamy, lazy, their powerless soul can flare up beautifully and brightly, but it does not burn for long and quickly fades away. Therefore, the Russian nation necessarily needs an “external lever” capable of moving it from dead center. Once the role of “lever” was played by. Now the time has come for new achievements, and the role of “lever” in them must be played by the intelligentsia, first of all revolutionary, but also scientific, technical and creative. She must bring to the people Western culture and instill in him an activity that will kill the “lazy Asian” in his soul. Culture and science were, according to Gorky, precisely the force (and the intelligentsia the bearer of this force) that “will allow us to overcome the abomination of life and tirelessly, stubbornly strive for justice, for the beauty of life, for freedom”.
Gorky developed this theme in 1917-1918. in his newspaper “New Life”, in which he published about 80 articles, later combined into two books “Revolution and Culture” and “Untimely Thoughts”. The essence of his views was that revolution (a reasonable transformation of society) should be fundamentally different from the “Russian revolt” (meaninglessly destroying it). Gorky was convinced that the country was now not ready for a creative socialist revolution, that first the people “must be calcined and cleansed of the slavery nurtured in them by the slow fire of culture.”
Gorky's attitude to the 1917 revolution
When the Provisional Government was finally overthrown, Gorky sharply opposed the Bolsheviks. In the first months after the October revolution, when an unbridled crowd smashed the palace cellars, when raids and robberies were committed, Gorky wrote with anger about the rampant anarchy, about the destruction of culture, about the cruelty of terror. During these difficult months, his relationship with him became extremely strained. The bloody horrors of the Civil War that followed made a depressing impression on Gorky and freed him from his last illusions in relation to the Russian peasant. In his book “On the Russian Peasantry” (1922), published in Berlin, Gorky included many bitter, but sober and valuable observations on the negative aspects of the Russian character. Looking the truth in the eye, he wrote: “I attribute the cruelty of the forms of the revolution exclusively to the cruelty of the Russian people.” But of all the social strata of Russian society, he considered the peasantry to be the most guilty of it. It was in the peasantry that the writer saw the source of all historical troubles Russia.
Gorky's departure to Capri
Meanwhile, overwork and bad climate caused an exacerbation of tuberculosis in Gorky. In the summer of 1921 he was forced to leave for Capri again. Next years were filled with hard work for him. Gorky writes the final part of the autobiographical trilogy “My Universities” (1923), the novel “The Artamonov Case” (1925), several short stories and the first two volumes of the epic “The Life of Klim Samgin” (1927-1928) - a picture of intellectual and social life Russia last decades before the revolution of 1917
Gorky's acceptance of socialist reality
In May 1928, Gorky returned to the Soviet Union. The country amazed him. At one of the meetings, he admitted: “It seems to me that I have not been in Russia for not six years, but at least twenty.” He eagerly sought to get to know this unfamiliar country and immediately began to travel around Soviet Union. The result of these travels was a series of essays “Around the Union of Soviets.”
Gorky's performance during these years was amazing. In addition to the multilateral editorial and social work, he devotes a lot of time to journalism (over the last eight years of his life he published about 300 articles) and writes new works of art. In 1930, Gorky conceived dramatic trilogy about the revolution of 1917. He managed to finish only two plays: “Yegor Bulychev and others” (1932), “Dostigaev and others” (1933). Also, the fourth volume of Samgin remained unfinished (the third was published in 1931), on which Gorky worked in recent years. This novel is important because in it Gorky says goodbye to his illusions in relation to the Russian intelligentsia. Samghin’s catastrophe in life is the catastrophe of the entire Russian intelligentsia, which crucial moment Russian history was not ready to become the head of the people and become the organizing force of the nation. In a more general, philosophical sense, this meant the defeat of Reason before the dark element of the Masses. A just socialist society, alas, did not develop (and could not develop - Gorky was now sure of this) by itself from the old Russian society, just as it could not be born from the old Moscow kingdom Russian empire. For the triumph of the ideals of socialism, violence had to be used. Therefore, a new Peter was needed.
One must think that the awareness of these truths largely reconciled Gorky with socialist reality. It is known that he did not like him very much - he was much more sympathetic to Bukharin And Kamenev. However, his relationship with the Secretary General remained smooth until his death and was not marred by a single major quarrel. Moreover, Gorky put his enormous authority at the service of the Stalinist regime. In 1929, together with some other writers, he traveled Stalin's camps, visited the most terrible of them on Solovki. The result of this trip was a book that, for the first time in the history of Russian literature, glorified forced labor. Gorky welcomed collectivization without hesitation and wrote to Stalin in 1930: «... the socialist revolution takes on a truly socialist character. This is an almost geological revolution and it is greater, immeasurably greater and deeper than everything that has been done by the party. A system of life that has existed for millennia is being destroyed, a system that created a man who is extremely ugly and unique and capable of terrifying with his animal conservatism, his instinct of ownership.».
In 1931, under the impression of the process of the “Industrial Party,” Gorky wrote the play “Somov and Others,” in which he portrays sabotage engineers.
We must remember, however, that in the last years of his life Gorky was seriously ill and he did not know much of what was happening in the country. Starting from 1935, under the pretext of illness, inconvenient people were not allowed to see Gorky, their letters were not given to him, and newspaper issues were printed especially for him, in which the most odious materials were absent. Gorky was burdened by this guardianship and said that “he was surrounded,” but he could no longer do anything. He died on June 18, 1936.
