«Без божества, без вдохновенья», или как РАПП нашел себе работу в ФОСП

Abstract

The history of the Federation of Organizations of Soviet Writers (FOSP) has so far only been studied through periodicals. Archival documents could explain the context, the driving forces, and the true motives of the actors of the literary process. The theoretical framework of the institutional approach seems to be the most suitable for considering the history of FOSP, which is inseparable from the history of the struggle of VAPP/RAPP (All-Russian Association of Proletarian Writers / Russian Association of Proletarian Writers) for its share in the symbolic capital of the new Soviet culture. After the defeat of the Proletkult, the main financial and power resources were concentrated with fellow travelers. FOSP was needed to achieve VAPP’s hegemony on the literary front. VAPP used the communist faction of FOSP to manipulate the Press Section of the Central Committee. VAPP created a mass writer and a mass consumer of proletarian literature, provided conditions for the destruction of “groupism” in FOSP, ensuring the only suitable environment for the formation of a nationwide, homogeneous, mass writers’ union – the Union of Soviet Writers, controlled directly by the Politburo.