Socialist Realism and Literary Theory

Abstract

FOR UNDERSTANDABLE REASONS, most discussions of socialist realism resemble elegies more than analyses. They usually lament the passing of the pre-revolutionary tradition, deplore the brutal methods by which literature has been emasculated and writers silenced, and condemn the government policies that have rewarded a Fadeev with a Stalin prize and removed Dostoevsky from the secondary school curriculum. Now, I also prefer Dostoevsky to Fadeev and think that literature in the Soviet Union is not fulfilling the social functions I would most like to see literature fulfill. That said, however, I also think that the elegiac is not the only mode for writing about socialist realism. There is, or should be, room for the sort of analysis that would treat socialist realism as a literary fact, not simply an unfortunate political consequence, without being accused of apologizing for it. The aim of this essay is to suggest some fruitful ways of looking at socialist realism and the socialist realist novel-fruitful, that is, for our understanding of the nature and function of literature as a whole. However poor socialist realism may be when judged by the standards usually employed in the West to praise Dostoevsky and Dickens, it can still serve as a useful test case for thinking about key problems in contemporary literary theory, literary history, and comparative literature.