Worker Correspondents: Between Journalism and Literature

Abstract

AAAiile journalism is often seen as the antithesis of literature, the two enjoyed close and productive relationship in the Soviet Union in the decade following the Revolution.1 The influence of the Bolshevik press was key to Red victory in the Civil War, and much of Bolshevik journalism's power stemmed from its application of literary methods to factual genres and harnessing of literary talents such as Vladimir Mayakovsky.2 Early Soviet journalism's innovative emphasis upon the presentation of factual material for political persuasion rather than information was the inspiration for remarkable 1920s cultural forms such as Dziga Vertov's revolutionary newsreel and the ubiquitous newspaper feuilleton.3 Yet this groundbreaking approach to propaganda was not the most unusual feature of 1920s Soviet newspapers. This honor belongs to journalists' active solicitation of readers' letters leading to a volume of mail probably unprecedented in world history.4 By 1922 such letter-writing had been christened the movement of worker correspondents (rabochii korrespondent, or rabkor). For writers Mikhail Bulgakov and Mikhail Zoshchenko the torrent of correspondence furnished source material for stories of disputes in restaurants,