The problem of human moral fortitude. According to text A

Political figure, prose writer and publicist A.K. Voronsky was born on September 8, 1884 in the village of Khoroshavka, Kirsanovsky district, Tambov province, into the family of a priest. After the death of their father, the family settled in the village of Dobrinka, Usman district, where numerous relatives lived, including the last rector of the Chuevsky St. Nicholas Church, Nikolai Ivanovich Dobrotvortsev. A.K. Voronsky spent his childhood there.

After graduating from the 1st Tambov Theological School in 1900, he entered the Tambov Theological Seminary, from which he was expelled in 1905 for “political unreliability.”

Since 1904, Alexander Konstantinovich was a member of the RSDLP (b) and conducted party work in St. Petersburg, Vladimir, Saratov, Tambov, Odessa, and Crimea. He was in exile for 4 years, served a prison sentence for 2.5 years, including a year in the fortress.

In 1911, he began publishing his first articles and essays in the Odessa newspaper Yasnaya Zarya. In 1912, A.K. Voronsky was a delegate to the Prague Conference.

After the revolution, he worked as editor-in-chief of the Rabochy Krai newspaper in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, making it one of the best in Russia. In the early 1920s, Alexander Konstantinovich moved away from party organizational work and devoted himself entirely to literature. He had the idea to publish the first Soviet “thick” magazine “Krasnaya Nov”, which began publishing in July 1921 and A.K. Voronsky was its editor. Alexander Konstantinovich contributed to the publication of all the best that was in the literature of those years. He wrote many articles about writers who became, largely thanks to his support, classics of Soviet literature

A. K. Voronsky’s critical and theoretical articles of these years were collected in the books “At the Junction” (1923), “Art and Life” (1924), “Literary Types” (1924), “Literary Records” (1926), “Mr. Britling drinks the cup to the bottom" (1927), "Literary Portraits" (Vol. 1-2. 1928-1929), "The Art of Seeing the World" (1928).

In 1927, A.K. Voronsky was removed from the leadership of Krasnaya Novya, removed from the editorial office of the Krug publishing house, expelled from the party for belonging to the Trotskyist opposition, and after his arrest in January 1929, he was exiled to Lipetsk.

The Lipetsk exile regime was not very strict, but he was prohibited from speaking at meetings and in the local press. In Lipetsk, Alexander Konstantinovich and his family lived first in a hotel on Petrovsky Spusk, then in the outbuilding of lawyer M.A. Dyachkov on Pervomaiskaya Street (the house has not survived). I. Babel, L. Seifullina, B. Pilnyak, members of the “Pereval” group close to him - I. Kataev, N. Zarudin and others came to visit him.

In Lipetsk, he wrote the stories “Exhibit”, “Factory”, “Prison Little Things”, “Fedya-Gverillas”, in which Lipetsk and its inhabitants are recognizable, as well as a short story about A.I. Zhelyabov “Sleepless Memory”, three stories: “At the crossroads”, “Everyday life”, “Olga”.

In the fall of 1929, due to illness, he was allowed to return to Moscow, he was reinstated in the party and appointed editor of the classical literature department at Goslitizdat.

In 1927, his first book was published, based on autobiographical material, “Beyond Living and Dead Water,” republished in expanded form in 1934. Its logical continuation, the story “The Eye of the Hurricane,” was published in 1931. In 1931-1933, his collections of stories were published; in 1933, a magazine publication of the novel “Bursa” appeared, in which the impressions of Dobrin’s childhood came to life. In 1934, the books “Zhelyabov” and “Gogol” were published in the “Life of Remarkable People” series.

In 1935, he was again expelled from the party, suspended from work and arrested on February 1, 1937. On August 13, 1937, A.K. Voronsky was shot. His personal investigative file was destroyed. 20 years later, on February 7, 1957, he was completely rehabilitated.

For decades, the name of A.K. Voronsky was “erased” from Soviet history. After the execution, his works were confiscated and were not republished for a long time.

In the name of A.K. Voronsky in the village. The street is named Dobrinka.

Author's works

Gogol. – M.: Magazine and newspaper association, 1934. – 496 p.
Zhelyabov. – M.: Magazine and newspaper association, 1934. – 403 p. – (Life of remarkable people. Series of biographies; issue 3, 4).
Literary critical articles / intro. Art. A. G. Dementieva. – M.: Sov. writer, 1963. – 423 p.
Bursa: novel / intro. Art. A. Dementieva. – M.: Khudozh. lit., 1966. – 320 p.
Behind living and dead water: story / intro. Art. F. Levin. – M.: Khudozh. lit., 1970. – 432 p.
Selected articles about literature / intro. Art. A. G. Dementieva. – M.: Artist. lit., 1982. – 527 p.
Selected lyrics / comp. and preparation text by G. Voronskaya; entry Art. V. Akimova. – M.: Khudozh. lit., 1987. – 655 p. : portrait – Contents : Bursa; For living and dead water: stories; First work; Bombs; From old letters; From Valentin's stories; Armadillo; Fedya Guerillas: stories.
Eye of the Hurricane: stories / comp., prepared. text, note G. A. Voronskaya; entry Art. V. Akimova. – Voronezh: Central-Chernozem. book publishing house, 1990. – 234 pp.: ill. – Contents: At crossroads; Weekdays; Olga; Eye of the hurricane: stories.
The art of seeing the world: portraits. Articles. – M.: Sov. writer, 1987. – 704 p.
Sleepless memory: stories. – M.: Marekan, 2004. – 80 p.
Strada: [lit.-crit. Art.]. – M.: Antikva, 2004. – 359 p.
For living and dead water. – M.: Antikva, 2005. –
- T. 1. – 170 p.
- T. 2. – 375 p.
Mr. Britling drinks the cup to the dregs: Sat. Art. and feuilletons / intro. Art. N. Kornienko. – M.: Antikva, 2005. – 243 p.
Literary records. – M.: Antikva, 2006. – 211 p. : ill.
Collection of articles published in the newspaper “Rabochy Krai”: 1918-1920. – M.: Antikva, 2006. – 388 p.
Gogol / author. entry Art. V. A. Voropaev. – M.: Young Guard, 2009. – 447 p. : ill. – (Life of remarkable people. Series of biographies. Small series; issue 1).

Literature about life and creativity

Volokitin V. A. A. K. Voronsky // Travel through the Lipetsk region. – Voronezh, 1971. – P. 267-272.
Kupriyanovsky P. Pages of the biography (writer) A.K. Voronsky // Russian literature. – 1982. – No. 4. – P. 246-247.
Efremov E.P. Founder of Bolshevik criticism // Rise. – 1984. – No. 8. – P. 128-129.
Literary activity of A.K. Voronsky // Questions of literature. – 1985. – No. 2. – P. 78-104.
Medvedeva L. Lipetsk short story by A. K. Voronsky // Rising. – 1985. – No. 10. – P. 115-118.
Akimov V. Our contemporary Voronsky: touches to the portrait // Neva. – 1989. – No. 8. – P. 178.
Belaya G. Don Quixotes of the 20s: “The Pass” and the fate of his ideas / G. Belaya. – M.: Sov. writer, 1989. – 415 p.
Unliving E. S. Alexander Voronsky. Ideal. Typology. Individuality / E. S. Nezhivoy. – M.: VZPI, 1989. – 180 p.
“Maybe later a lot will become more obvious and clear”: (from the document “Party Affairs by A.K. Voronsky”) // Questions of Literature. – 1995. – Issue. 3. – pp. 269-292. – From the contents: [about the eviction of A.K. Voronsky to Lipetsk]. – S.: 274, 282.
Dinerstein E. A. A. K. Voronsky. In search of living water / E. A. Dinerstein. – M.: Rosspen, 2001. – 360 p. : ill. – (People of Russia).
Povartsov S. Preparatory materials for the biography of Babel I. E. // Questions of literature. – 2001. – No. 2. – P. 202-232. – From the contents: About I. Babel’s trip to Lipetsk to A.K. Voronsky.
Vetlovsky I. Alexander Voronsky // Dobrinsky region: pages of history / I. Vetlovsky, M. Sushkov, V. Tonkikh. – Lipetsk, 2003. – P. 299-303.
What the old walls will tell you about: [A. I. Levitov and A.K. Voronsky at the Tambov Theological Seminary] // History of the Tambov region: essays on the history of culture and literature: textbook. a manual on historical and literary-cultural local history. – Tambov, 2005. – P. 113-114.
Shentalinsky V. Execution nights // Zvezda. – 2007. – No. 5. – P. 67-102.

Reference materials

Lipetsk encyclopedia. – Lipetsk, 1999. – T. 1. – P. 233.
Tambov Encyclopedia. – Tambov, 2004. – P. 106-107.
Zamyatinskaya encyclopedia. Lebedyansky context. – Tambov-Elets, 2004. – P. 110-118.
Glorious names of the land of Lipetsk: biogr. reference about the known writers, scientists, educators, artists. – Lipetsk, 2007. – P. 124.
The pride of the Usman land: short. reference biogr. noble people who glorified their fatherland. – Usman, 2005. – Book. 2. – P. 54.

Alexander Konstantinovich Voronsky was a romantic man, firmly convinced of the direct effect of a work of art on a person’s soul, on his deeds and actions. Voronsky acted with faith in this ennobling principle of literature.

He condemned Lassalle for dying in a duel because of a woman, did not forgive Pushkin’s passions that led to his death, but he himself was ready to die in a duel in a dispute for some classical ideal, like Andrei Bolkonsky.

He was alien to Dostoevsky’s heroes, shunned all this dark power, did not understand and did not want to understand.

Voronsky was a romantic dogmatist.

Voronsky essentially had no other assessments other than useful or not useful.

He treated poetry the same as prose - following the example of Belinsky.

Yesenin’s talent was recognized, but he did not want to see that Yesenin’s successes like the poems about 26, about 36 and even “Anna Snegina” are all outside of great literature, that “Moscow tavern”, “Inonia”, “Sorokoust” will not be surpassed.

A collision with this poetics led Yesenin to death.

And “Soviet Rus'”, “Persian Motifs” and “Anna Snegina” are significantly lower in their artistic level than “Sorokoust”, “Inonia”, “Pugachev” or the pinnacle of Yesenin’s creativity - the collection “Moscow Tavern”, where each of the 18 poems , making up this amazing cycle, is a masterpiece of Russian lyricism, distinguished by its extraordinary originality, dressed in personal destiny, multiplied by the destiny of society - using everything that has been accumulated by Russian poetry of the 20th century - expressed with the brightest power.

But not only “Anna Snegina” and “Soviet Rus'” - here some satisfactory compromise was also found due to artistry, of course, with all their verbosity, anti-Yesenin style in essence - Yesenin does not have narrative descriptive poems.

Yesenin is the concentration of artistic energy in a small number of lines - this is his strength and attribute.

But we’re not even talking about “Anna Snegina”. Yesenin wrote and hastily, with the help of Voronsky and Chagin, published /577/ the fruits of his perestroika and “abandoned his views” - according to the then fashionable expression.

“The Ballad of Twenty-Six”, “The Ballad of Thirty-Six”, all of these, as previously made attempts in the same direction - the poem “Comrade” - are outside of art.

Attempts to rape myself led to suicide. Now we know that along with this hack work, Yesenin also wrote “Yesenin” poems “Blizzard”, “Black Man”...

At that time, each “leader” provided patronage to some writer, artist, and sometimes provided financial assistance.

Trotsky patronized Pilnyak, Bukharin - Pasternak and Ushakov, Yagoda - Gorky, Lunacharsky and Stalin - Mayakovsky.

Trotsky wrote several articles about Pilnyak, demanding mutual love and its proof.

“Pilnyak is talented - but a lot will be asked of him” - this is how Trotsky’s article about Pilnyak’s “Naked Year” ended.

Yagoda patronized Gorky. One should not think that Gorky's name opened anyone's doors in the twenties. Gorky was never forgiven for his positions in 1917 and his speeches in defense of the 1914 war. Gorky's position was more than precarious, and RAPP and Mayakovsky hounded Gorky, not to mention Sosnovsky, essentially carrying out the party decision.

The party point of view on Gorky was set out in a special article by Teodorovich “The class roots of Gorky’s work” (lumpen, Volga bourgeois anti-Leninist speeches, friendship with Bogdanov, who is an anti-Leninist school with the money of the millionaire Gorky).

Genrikh Yagoda took upon himself to ensure a quiet life for Gorky. This was solid support.

Gorky quickly came to an agreement with Stalin and after the execution of his friend Yagoda, he made the famous statement “If the enemy does not surrender, he is destroyed.”

Here Gorky no longer needed the help and support of minor persons. Gorky was terribly afraid of Stalin.

Vsevolod Ivanov left a story about his invitation to breakfast with Gorky on Nikolina Gora. /578/

During breakfast, Gorky’s son, the famous amateur motorist Maxim, entered the dining room and said: “Dad, I just overtook the car, it seems, of Joseph Vissarionovich.”

The dachas of Gorky and Stalin were nearby.

Gorky turned pale, ran to apologize, breakfast was interrupted, and when the owner returned, his face was gone, and the guests hurried to leave. This colorful episode was described in the magazine “Baikal” in 1969, No. 1.

But what happened in the second half of the thirties became possible to tell in brief form only thirty years later.

Nothing truthful has been published about the twenties even now.

But let's return to patrons of art, party politics at the very top.

Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, in a report at the 1st Congress of Writers, called Pasternak the first name in Russian poetry. But together with Pasternak, Nikolai Ivanovich called Ushakov the hope of Russian poetry.

There was nothing unusual about this.

With his first books, “Spring of the Republic” and “50 Poems,” Ushakov immediately entered the forefront of modern Russian poetry. The Lefists, Constructivists, and Rappists were waiting for him, the Lefovites, the Constructivists, and the Rappists were reaching out to him, hastening to flood the new fearless talent into their networks.

Nikolai Nikolaevich Ushakov, a modest man, was afraid of the cheerful glory and retreated into the shadows, not daring to take a place in the struggle of titans like Mayakovsky and Pasternak. A lot was expected from Ushakov. He did not write anything better than his first collections.

Stalin patronized Mayakovsky. Both figures exchanged compliments. Stalin, in response to Lily Brik’s statement, wrote a resolution addressed to N.I. Yezhov: “Mayakovsky is the best, most talented poet of our Soviet era. Indifference to his memory is a crime.”

Mayakovsky had earlier composed a poem on the same topic:

I want a feather to be compared to a bayonet,
With cast iron and with steel making, /579/
About the work of poetry at the Politburo
So that Stalin makes reports.

Pasternak decided to protect himself from Stalin’s vindictive hostility, expressed against everyone praised by his enemies, and wrote a poem about Stalin himself in 1934, calling the cycle “The Artist”:

It is not a man who lives, but an act,
An act as tall as the globe.

This poem not only saved Pasternak, but also earned him a personal telephone conversation with Stalin, although not about his ode.

To this day, no one can understand how a poet, to whom Lenin had a sharply negative attitude, was included in history and later even in a school textbook.

Mayakovsky was included by Stalin and Lunacharsky.

When Gorky lived in Capri and negotiations began on such a delicate matter as Gorky’s return to the Soviet Union, Mayakovsky published his letter to Gorky in Novy Lef.

Voronsky received a letter from Gorky that he, Gorky, would reconsider his decision to return if he was not guaranteed that such demarches would be excluded from anyone.

Voronsky replied that he informed members of the government about this and Alexey Maksimovich need not worry. Mayakovsky will be put in his place.

Both letters are in Gorky's archive.

Which government member did Voronsky address? Not to Stalin... And hardly to Lunacharsky.

In any case, negotiations were conducted through Voronsky, and Voronsky was by no means a fan of Gorky - neither as an artist nor as a public figure.

At a crowded debate with Averbakh and the Rappovites, Voronsky disputed Gorky’s belonging to proletarian literature (Gladkov, Lyashko, Bakhmetyev, etc.). Voronsky shook his finger, and the blanket thrown over him for warmth fell from his shoulders. In the end, Voronsky threw off his bekesha, put it on the lectern and finished his speech without the bekesha - and then he just put on his sleeves and sat down at the wooden, unpainted table of the presidium.

In 1933 I was at the purge of Voronsky in Goslit. Alexander Konstantinovich’s last job in Moscow /580/ was senior editor of Goslit. Goslit itself was then located in Vetoshny Lane.

The purge was led by Magidov, an old Bolshevik.

And Magidov, like Teodorovich - yes, all, without exception, people whose names were in the forefront of the builders of a new life - were all destroyed by Stalin, physically destroyed.

Voronsky talked about his life, that, they say, he was mistaken, that he worked in such and such a place.

No questions were asked, there were not many people, about sixty people in the hall, or even less. Magidov was already preparing to dictate to the secretary: “Consider it verified,” when suddenly a hand rose from the back rows, asking for the floor to ask a question.

A young guy stood up. On his face was written a sincere desire to comprehend the situation, not to prick, not to hint, but simply to understand - for himself.

Tell me, Comrade Voronsky, you were an outstanding critic. For a long time now, your critical articles have not been seen in the Soviet press. You wrote a book about Zhelyabov - that’s good. The memoirs were written even better. The story, finally the chapter of “Hurricane”. All this very well proves the large reserve of creative energy. But where is your criticism?

Voronsky paused and answered calmly, leisurely and coldly:

The guy in the back rows nodded his head enthusiastically, sat down, disappeared from sight, and Magidov called another one for inspection.

Alexander Konstantinovich Voronsky, as the editor of two magazines - "Krasnaya Novy" and "Prozhektor", as the head of a large publishing house ("Circle") and the leader of the literary group "Pereval" - devoted a huge amount of time, energy, moral and physical strength to reading other people's manuscripts. A lot of poetry has always been written, and the gravity of the twenties was the same stormy sea as it is now.

I myself was a consultant on fiction at the Central Working Reading Room named after. Gorky in the House of Unions in thirty-two and thirty-three. Flow of manuscripts, conversations with authors, etc. But a library is not a magazine.

Alexander Konstantinovich read day and night and, of course, didn’t find anything worthwhile; he didn’t pick up a single name from /581/ and couldn’t pick it up - because in the mix there is such a special quantity and quality. It was this feature of art that dogmatists and theorists, realists and romantics, hermits and businessmen did not want to accept.

Not a single new name in literature that would come out ordained by Voronsky.

Reading other people's manuscripts is the worst of the worst jobs. A thankless task. But theoretical convictions forced Voronsky to turn in new searches and with new attention. However, this attention began to be eroded by skepticism over time. Voronsky’s daughter tells how her father sometimes accepted someone’s voluminous manuscript.

Pupyrushkin.

Alexander Konstantinovich weighed the paper weight on his hand.

Send it back. It won't work.

Why? - the daughter was perplexed.

Because,” Voronsky said edifyingly, “if he was a talented author with literary taste, he would write under a pseudonym.”

There is a reason here, of course.

Then everyone was waiting for Pushkin: five years would pass and a new Pushkin would appear, because capitalism is a system that “crumpled and strangled”, and now...

Time passed, but Pushkin was still missing. Gradually they began to understand that art lives according to special laws, outside of social conflicts and is not determined by them.

Gorky paid the same attention in his correspondence and in his writing. There were the same policies and the same failures.

Who did Gorky introduce into literature? Gorky’s successors brought neither honor nor glory.

More than once we started a conversation with Voronsky about the future. Voronsky did not hope for new figures, but for the fact that all talented writers would go over to the Soviet side. If they don’t cross over, they won’t be allowed to write: “Who is not with us!”

Therefore, Mandelstam and Akhmatova were also an element alien to Soviet power for Voronsky.

Alexander Konstantinovich painted the future before us in the classical style of universal prosperity, the growth of all needs, the satisfaction of all tastes.

Once I happened to have a conversation with Rakovsky on the same topic. Rakovsky politely listened to our boyhood dreams and smiled. /582/

“I have to say, guys,” he said “guys,” even though he had university students, “that the picture you painted is attractive. But don’t forget,” and Rakovsky smiled, “that these are the ideas of people of bourgeois society. And mine and, most importantly, yours, yours, although you are forty years younger than me - these are the ideas, the ideals of bourgeois society. Nobody knows what a person in a communist society will be like. What will be his habits, tastes, desires. Maybe he will love the barracks.

You and I don’t know its tastes, we can’t imagine it.”

Many years after this conversation, I came across Gandhi's autobiography. Gandhi writes about his religion like this. “A person should be interested in self-denial, and not in the afterlife, which must be earned by self-denial. If an ascetic on earth fulfills his duty, then what kind of afterlife better than this can he imagine..."

How did it happen that Voronsky knew Lenin so well that even the organizational meeting of the first Soviet literary and artistic magazine “Krasnaya Nov” was held at Lenin’s apartment in the Kremlin? Lenin, Krupskaya, Gorky and Voronsky were present at this first meeting. Voronsky made a report on the program of the new magazine, which he was supposed to edit and where Gorky led the literary and artistic part.

For this first issue, Lenin gave his article on the tax in kind.

In some memoir I read that Lenin took a closer look at the newspaper “Rabochy Krai” - in Ivanovo, which was headed by Voronsky, and called him for a new job. I figured out in him the author of books on art that had not yet been written.

In fact, Alexander Konstantinovich Voronsky, a professional revolutionary, underground Bolshevik, party member since 1904, was one of the organizers of the party. Voronsky was a delegate to the Prague Conference in 1912, a party conference held by Lenin at one of the most critical moments in party history. There were only eighteen deputies to the Prague Conference.

Voronsky's personal qualities - unmercenary, principled, modest to the highest degree - are illustrated from the stories of Krupskaya and Lenin. Voronsky became a close personal friend of Lenin, visiting Gorki in /583/ those last months of 1923, when Lenin had already lost his speech. Krupskaya wrote about those who visited Lenin in Gorki at that time: Voronsky, Evgeny Preobrazhensky, Krestinsky.

Now all this is included in reference books; Voronsky’s visit to Lenin on December 14, 1923 is recorded. But another visit, a later one, at the end of December, when Alexander Konstantinovich was at Lenin’s Christmas tree, was not recorded. This fact has not yet been legally verified.

The first part of A.K. Voronsky’s memoirs, “Beyond Living and Dead Water,” was published by the Krug publishing house, which Voronsky himself organized as the director of “Pass” in 1927. The first part was written in 1926 - the beginning of stormy party and literary battles.

The so-called opposition, the young underground, first of all needed the most popular brochures outlining the elementary rules of conspiracy.

Kravchinsky, Bakunin, Kropotkin - all this was studied and studied by young people, especially students.

The task of quickly writing a catechism for an underground worker, where the reader could learn the basic rules of conspiracy and behavior during interrogations, was taken on by Alexander Konstantinovich Voronsky.

Fishelev provided a printing house where Platform 83, the main opposition document, was typed. Trotsky and his friends Radek, Smilga, Rakovsky came out with letters, and these platforms were reprinted and distributed through links.

Alexander Konstantinovich Voronsky took on a special task - to provide popular guidance on behavior.

The second and third parts of the memoirs “Beyond Living and Dead Water” were such a guide.

The second part was published in the magazine “New World” in No. 9-12, 1928. This second part had a special epigraph from Lermontov.

And the marshals don’t hear the call.
Others died in battle, /584/
Others cheated on him
And they sold their sword.

This highly [expressive] epigraph was removed in separate publications.

The second part, where any arrested and exiled person can receive good practical advice, was very highly rated among opportunistic youth.

This is the main book, a reference guide for young underground fighters of those days.

There is an example of the delegates of the Prague Conference, which decided the fate of Russia - all the delegates were eighteen people.

Voronsky wrote extremely briefly in his book about his closeness to Lenin. Lenin was very modest, but Voronsky himself was even more modest. The traits of modesty are the same in both of them.

In opposition, A.K. Voronsky was the underground chairman of the Central Control Commission. After all, the opposition was built as a parallel organization with the same “states”, but “shadow”.

There is no doubt that, rejecting the views according to the then fashionable formula, Voronsky did not hold even a shadow post in the underground. But once upon a time, on some day and hour, he occupied this underground shadow post.

I also know about V.I. Lenin’s exceptional attitude towards A.K. Voronsky. Georges Kasparov, the son of Stalin's secretary Varya Kasparova, whom Stalin drove into exile and killed, told me in Butyrka prison in the spring of 1937 that Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, at Lenin's request - and Voronsky visited Lenin in Gorki during his illness, as a personal friend , personal friend -<спасала Воронского, пока могла>.

From many years of reading publishing and magazine publications, Voronsky correctly concluded that talent is a rarity. And Voronsky paid special attention to the approach of the so-called “fellow travelers” to the revolution.

As fellow travelers, RAPP broke his neck, and so did the nihilists from LEF.

The dissolution of RAPP passed by Voronsky and did not bring any benefit to Voronsky.

Voronsky by this time - the beginning of the thirties - was charged with a worse sin, in comparison with which literary battles were considered, and in fact were, a matter of less importance. /585/

1928 - arrests throughout Moscow, destruction of the university. Voronsky received his share. Rakovsky, Radek, Sosnovsky are in political isolation cells. Voronsky is in exile in Lipetsk. This is explained by the energetic petition of Krupskaya, who, according to her, was instructed by Lenin to look after Voronsky’s health.

Krupskaya, who herself signed the main program - platform 83 - saved Voronsky’s life while she could. In 1938, Krupskaya died.

According to press reports, Voronsky’s death dates back to 1944. In fact, none of the comrades met Voronsky after 1937. Voronsky's personal investigation file was destroyed by an unknown hand.

Voronsky signed Platform 83 - the main program of the left opposition, under this name the program went down in history. However, this initial program was called platform 84. The eighty-fourth was Krupskaya’s signature, which Krupskaya later removed under pressure from Stalin. In Moscow they gloomily joked that Stalin threatened Krupskaya that he would declare Lenin’s wife Artyukhin. These dark witticisms were not very far from the truth. There have been any number of examples of this in history.

Krupskaya even spoke out in defense of the opposition at some party conference, but was immediately disavowed by Yaroslavsky.

By a special decision - to clarify this delicate and bloody subject - the leaders, that is, those who signed the platform, letters to the Central Committee, and so on, were deprived of the right to party rehabilitation and were restored to only civil rights.

But this decision was not made immediately. Long before this decision, a petition for party rehabilitation was filed by Voronsky’s daughter, on the basis of failed expulsions in the thirties, when execution and extermination overtook formalities such as expulsion from the party.

Voronsky’s wife died long ago in the camps, his daughter endured twenty-two years in Kolyma, five in the camp on Elgena and seventeen in Kolyma itself.

She went there as a seventeen-year-old girl and returned as a gray-haired and sick mother of two girls.

Whether Voronsky, given his integrity and high moral demands on himself, would consider it possible for himself to apply for rehabilitation - I don’t know. I cannot answer /586/ this question. But the daughter filed an application, and Alexander Konstantinovich Voronsky received full party rehabilitation.

Before 1967, they did not write about Voronsky. His books were published very slowly. “Beyond Living and Dead Water” was published only in 1970 - fifteen years after rehabilitation; the collection of critical articles was carefully filtered to weed out the dubious spirit.

A year or two after rehabilitation, Voronsky’s daughter needed some kind of certificate from the PC about her father’s party experience. The secretariat employee involved in these matters said that he could not issue certificates because her father had been rehabilitated incorrectly: “He, as a signatory of the platform, is not subject to rehabilitation.”

Polkan, who had until then been observing the battle good-naturedly, could not stand it, stretched out, at first he lazily barked, then he dispersed more and more, and now he was pouring out as loud as he could and breaking free from the chain. Cunning, he pretended to be frantic, and at a time when the nettles burned my legs unbearably, he preferred to rush from side to side. I was ready to retreat shamefully from the nettle “paws”, even tears came to my eyes, but Ivan kept pressing on behind me - “Kill them!” Ruby! Fire!” - And I continued to mercilessly shed nettle blood.

Sometimes the aforementioned Pitersky, also drunk, joined the “case”: weren’t he and Ivan getting drunk together? Pitersky was shaking his trousers with enormous baggage, his hair stuck out wildly; thin, very long - he added incredible swearing to our hubbub, and even the experienced Ivan fell out of tone and looked sideways with doubt at his militant and overly zealous comrade. Polkan at this time was losing his balance of spirit and was already seriously trying to get to Pitersky, to grab his bare, scabbed foot, to which the old man paid no attention, which confused Polkan. It was difficult to understand who was meant by Pitersky’s frantic abuse; I attributed it to nettles, but now, it seems to me, he brought it down on all of us, and on the village, and on his entire miserable and absurdly spent life.

Ivan’s hoarse command, my war cries, Polkan’s barking, Pitersky’s heart-rending swearing merged into one utter chaos. Men appeared at the neighboring huts, and housewives looked out of the windows. Village children gathered around us, taking whatever part they could in the “war.” The noise, commotion, and confusion grew. Uncle Ermolai hurried from another order with a bucket, believing that the hut at our end had been occupied. Someone's calf, tail in the air, was racing across the pasture. The chickens scattered in all directions, clucking. And Alexey was already hurrying towards us, shaking his head, waving his arms, and muttering protractedly and condemningly. Sweaty and frantic, he grabbed me by the armpits and dragged me home; I resisted, yelled and in a rage kept waving my gun or saber, looking back at Ivan, at Polkan, at Pitersky and at the horde of guys. At that moment the horde was advancing on the pond, where a brood of ducks was swimming in the dirty, rusty water. Away from sin. The brood wisely made its way to the opposite bank, the ducklings shook themselves off and quacked to express disapproval of the reprehensible human behavior. I tore myself out of Alexei’s strong arms with an exasperated cry, either because I wanted to fight some more, or because my legs and arms were burned by nettles, or for both reasons. The hubbub at the pond stopped when Nikolai Ivanovich appeared on the porch. Polkan was the first to give in, he began to wag his tail slavishly and treacherously: don’t confuse me with these good-for-nothing mischief-makers! Following Polkan, the guys jumped everywhere, showing their black heels. Ivan muttered something unintelligible and retreated under the canopy. Pitersky was the most stubborn of all; he continued to “clean” the pond, and the ducklings, and his uncle, and Polkan, until his old woman came for him and lured him with promises of vodka, and showed him a bottle of water from under her apron or from under her skirt.

Ivan did not get along closely with anyone, was not friends; inflexible, obstinate, he had no attachments; He respected, perhaps not for fear, but for conscience, only his grandfather. Seeing him, Ivan stood up, straightened his lower back and back with difficulty, bowed earnestly to his grandfather, followed him with a gaze and did not sit down until he disappeared. Ivan never stood up in front of the others.

Ivan died suddenly. In the morning they found him under the barn shed, already cold and covered with dew. Long before his death, he was completely dry, and his corpse resembled a relic: his temples sank, his cheeks were deeply sunken, his cheekbones stood out sharply, his collarbones protruded; his eyes went under his forehead, his bent knees stuck out like sticks. Green flies swarmed in the corners of his blue-black lips and woodlice crawled across his face... How lonely, bitter and untold a person’s life can be!

...Behind the vegetable gardens there is a hemp plant. The rye is ripening. On the hill, the mill flaps and flaps its wings tirelessly, it would fly, but the earth holds tightly. It smells of dill, cucumber, and sometimes the wind brings the hot, bitter smell of wormwood. The sky is about to open up and become surrounded by mirages.

I decided to make humanity happy. Raw eggs lather excellently. I stole three eggs from under the chickens “for experiments.” In the tin there are yolks, salt, blue, cherry glue is added to them, the glue will harden, the liquid will turn into solid, and an excellent soap is ready. Should I add more ink for coloring?.. So, I will become a famous soap maker, get rich, travel... Maybe I should also add some sugar? For what? We'll see there. Or better yet, lime. However, quicklime, if you pour water on it, hisses and burns. Wouldn't lime make something explosive instead of soap, say, gunpowder? Well, this is not bad for a young chemist! It's even wonderful to invent gunpowder. Some sweat stench all their lives, but don’t invent gunpowder... We must be careful: what if the tin explodes! I put a piece of lime into the mixture and even close my eyes in fear. Glory to the creator, nothing happened!..

A woman comes down from the hill from the mill; closer and closer she flashes in the thick and tall rye. No one should guess about my secret chemistry studies. I diligently hide the tin under a mound. Today soap and gunpowder didn’t work out, there’s no need to be discouraged: they’ll definitely work out tomorrow. I recognize the woman as the wanderer Natalya. Her head is tied with a gray cotton scarf, the ends of the scarf stick out like horns above her forehead, and there is a wicker knapsack behind her. Natalya walks quickly, easily, leaning on the staff. She is over forty years old, but it is difficult to determine her age by her face: she is tanned and weathered almost to blackness. She is wearing a homespun plaid skirt, a white woolen zipun, and her legs are in dusty bast shoes, tightly and neatly wrapped with onuchas and twine. I call out to Natalya.

“Hello, dear, hello, master,” Natalya answers warmly, vigorously wiping her lips into small wrinkles. -Will you welcome a guest into the house? Is everyone alive and well?

Thank you. Everyone is alive and well. I will accept you for a visit.

I speak gravely, as if I really am the owner. I waddle next to Natalya, like a peasant.

Natalya is from a neighboring village; about ten years ago she immediately lost her husband and three children: while she was away, they died from smoke inhalation. Since then, she sold the house, abandoned the farm and wandered.

Natalya speaks quietly, melodiously, innocently. Her words are pure, as if washed, as close and understandable as the sky, the field, the bread, the village huts. And all of Natalya is simple, warm, calm and majestic. Natalya is not surprised by anything: she has seen everything, experienced everything, she talks about modern affairs and incidents, even dark and terrible ones, as if they were separated from our lives by millennia. Natalya doesn’t flatter anyone; It’s very good about her that she doesn’t go to monasteries and holy places, doesn’t look for miraculous icons. She is worldly and talks about everyday things. There is nothing superfluous in it, no fussiness. Natalya bears the burden of a wanderer easily and she buries her grief from people. She has an amazing memory. She remembers when and why the children in such and such a family were ill, where Kharlamov or Sidorov went to earn money during Lent, whether they lived well and well enough there, and what kind of renewal they brought to the housewives.

Seeing the wanderer, Alexei hums joyfully and rushes to put on the samovar. From her knapsack, Natalya slowly takes out the popular book “Guac or Invincible Loyalty.” She gives her sister a wooden doll, and her mother a towel embroidered with roosters. Over tea, carefully biting off sugar with strong and juicy teeth, supporting the saucer on her outstretched fingers, Natalya narrates:

- ...I went to a Tatar near Kazan, and his peddlers also asked for the night. The Tatar is old, over sixty years old; the neck is all in folds and the scar is blue from the lip to the chest; my eyes are watering. He treats the peddlers, and they ask, “Where is your mistress?” The Tatar laughs - “My hostess is young, she’s afraid of guests.” - There is an accordion in the corner on the bench. - “Who, master, plays the accordion?” - “And my wife plays.” The peddlers pestered: show and show the hostess, let her play the accordion, we’ll give you a mirror and a comb. One of the peddlers is elderly, and the other is very young, about twenty years old, no more. The Tatar brings his wife out from the other half, she resists, lowered her head, doesn’t look at us, is all crimson, blushing. She looks like a girl; with small rowan spots around the eyes, so pleasant and clean. She sat down on the windowsill, buried herself and covered her face with her palm, unaccustomed to it. They begged her - she took the accordion, started playing, and she played well; enough for the heart. It’s sad, and everyone seems to be crying in accordion. She played well. The young peddler does not take his eyes off the Tatar woman and only with a high eyebrow, no, no, and he will lead; and I listen and think: he is playing about his unenviable life with the old man. Even as a wanderer, I feel sick to my stomach as soon as I look at the old man’s scar, his Adam’s apple, and the wrinkles, but she, who is young, doesn’t have any pleasant experiences with him at all: with someone like that there’s no joy in him. She played, covered her face with her palm again and ran away. And the guy just sighed after her with his whole chest and ran his hand over his forehead... The next day I said to the Tatar: “Your wife is not a match for you, Akhmet, not a match for you. Why are you, old man, you didn’t spare the little green girl: this ten suited you, but she hasn’t seen the world yet.” “My first wife,” the old man replies, “died, someone needs to look after the guys.” And this one served as a nanny. Well, that's how it happened. She’s well-fed, she’s got shoes, she’s dressed, and she used to be a beggar, she’s a big orphan...” He paused, frowned: “You’re with me, Natalya, don’t knock her down. We have our own law, you have your own law; go quickly where you came from...” That’s what they are, our women’s affairs!..

In the text proposed for analysis, the famous Soviet writer and literary critic Alexander Konstantinovich Voronsky raises the problem of human moral fortitude.

Reflecting on this issue, the author tells the story of the life of a village woman, Natalya, who began to wander after the death of her husband and children. The writer tries to create the image of the heroine as accurately as possible, reflecting her attitude towards her own life: “Natalia bears the burden of a wanderer easily, and she buries her grief from people.” At the same time, the literary critic clearly shows the reader how attentively the wanderer treats other people: “Natalya walked from afar, from Kholmogory, remembered me, and although she had to give a detour about eighty miles, how could she not visit the orphan.”

A.K. Voronsky is convinced that no blows of fate can make a person who is strong in spirit callous.

It is impossible to disagree with the writer's opinion. If a person has at least some moral values, he will not become indifferent to the troubles of others, even after experiencing many misfortunes.

Many literary works are devoted to the problem of moral fortitude. The main character of M. A. Sholokhov’s work “The Fate of Man,” Andrei Sokolov, despite the difficulties he had to face, managed to retain the ability to empathize with the grief of others. Having survived the war and the death of his entire family, Andrei remained a truly highly moral person: he took in an unfortunate orphan who had suffered from the blows of fate.

This example proves that a morally strong person will never lose the ability to have compassion for other people.

A similar incident also happened in the life of my friend Sergei. He suffered a lot of troubles. He survived the death of his parents, he was unfairly expelled from the university, and from an early age he had to earn money through hard work. But despite everything, he continues, as before, to help others. He is ready to give the last thing he has if he understands that the other person is in an even more serious situation than himself. All this once again confirms that no tests of fate can break a highly moral person.

Thus, it is safe to say that a truly resilient person will never become indifferent towards others.

Effective preparation for the Unified State Exam (all subjects) - start preparing

Updated: 2018-01-22

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Useful material on the topic

The problem of the influence of the social environment on a person. “...Natalya is from a neighboring village, about ten years ago she immediately lost her husband and three children...” (according to A.K. Voronsky).

“Hello, dear, hello, master,” Natalya answers warmly, vigorously wiping her lips into small wrinkles. -Will you welcome a guest into the house? Is everyone alive and well?

Thank you. Everyone is alive and well. I will accept you for a visit.

I speak gravely, as if I really am the owner. I waddle next to Natalya, like a peasant.