Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
First Congress of the Soviet Writers' Union
17 August 1934
The Writers' Union of the USSR (Russian: Союз писателей СССР/Sojus pissatelei SSSR) was an association of professional writers in the Soviet Union that was founded in 1934 on the initiative of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
In August 1934, the first Soviet Writers' Congress took place in Moscow with 591 authors from 52 nationalities of the country. The Soviet Writers' Union was founded there and the doctrine of socialist realism was established as a binding artistic method.
"Socialist realism, which is the main method of Soviet literature and literary criticism, demands from the artist a truthful, historically concrete historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development.
In doing so, truthfulness and historical concreteness of artistic representation must with the task of ideological reorganisation and education of the working people in the spirit of socialism."
(Statute)
The first congress opened on 17 August and ended on 1 September. 1934 The delegates present at the congress (376 with a casting vote and 215 with a consultative vote) represented about 2.5 thousand members and candidates. 2.5 thousand members and candidates of the League of Communists of the USSR.
A. A. Zhdanov spoke at the congress on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks) of the All-Union and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.
The congress discussed reports on the literatures of the national republics as well as questions of international art literature, Soviet drama, poetry, children's literature, youth literature and work with young writers as well as the statute of the Union of Soviet Writers.
Gorky's report 'Soviet Literature' took centre stage at the congress. It defined the tasks of Soviet literature in the light of the overall development of world literature to date. 'We should choose work as the main hero of our books, i.e. a person who is organised through the processes of work,' said Gorky (First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers. Stenographic Report, 1934, p. 13).
The congress paid great attention to the issues of socialist realism, which was unanimously recognised at the congress as the main method of Soviet literature. Its definition, formulated in the Charter of the Union of Soviet Writers, contains two fundamental demands:
'...truthful, historically concrete representation of reality in its revolutionary development' and "...ideological reorganisation and education of the workers in the spirit of socialism".
