The Evolution of I. G. Ehrenburg’s Weltanschaung During the Period 1928-1934

Abstract

Oversimplification is inherent in the commonly-held view that the Soviet Russian writer Ilya Ehrenburg suddenly accepted Soviet ideology and the method of socialist realism at the First Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934. In fact, the reasons for his conversion lay a good deal deeper: it was by no means abrupt, and indeed had its roots in his personality makeup, in certain of his previouslyheld convictions, and especially in the effects on him of political and social developments in the world (mainly Europe) from 1928 to 1934. That particular period was critical in formulating attitudes characterizing him over the two decades following 1934, and his official acceptance of the Soviet order of things was but confirmation of an outlook to which he had gradually evolved over those six years. In addition, his commitment to socialist realism in literature was actually much less forthright and unconditional than his pledge of loyalty to Soviet ideology. Explanations advanced for his conversion vary. At the extremes are those who regard the step as a purely opportunistic one, e.g., that Ehrenburg saw his economic security guaranteed through the proceeds from massive editions of his politicallyacceptable works published in the Soviet Union1, while others never regarded him as anything but a communist writer all along (after all, had he not travelled abroad on a Soviet passport since 1921? 2), whose speech at the Congress was nothing more than a clear and unequivocal statement of an already known fact. Both of these attitudes are largely unsatisfactory and do little to explain the reasons underlying his behaviour at that time. Ehrenburg's action