In our readings for today, we were given two examples of writing from the Soviet period: An excerpt from Time Forward, a production novel by Valentin Kataev; and “The Adventures of a Monkey”, a short story by Mikhail Zoshchenko.
Time Forward is, to my eye, in perfect accordance with the model of Soviet literature outlined by Andrei Zhdanov in “Soviet Literature: The Richest in Ideas”. It depicts a cement mixing team beating their shift record with technical ingenuity, dedication, and exhausting enthusiasm. I’d be curious to see, in fact, if anyone can pick out any passages in the text that don’t support Soviet hegemony. A second question: where does the excerpt we read fall within the model plot outlined by Katerina Clark in her 1981 analysis of the genre?
The quick version of Clark’s model is below. It’s also worth taking a look at her expanded description starting on page 255.
- Arrival in the microcosm
- Setting up the task
- Transition and trials
- Climax
- Pep talk from a mentor
- Finale
Unlike Time Forward, “The Adventures of a Monkey” does not obviously adhere to the Socialist Realism model. It is wholeheartedly denounced in our statement from the Central Committee: “Resolution on the Journals Zvezda and Leningrad“:
Zoshchenko’s most recently published story, “The Adventures of a Monkey,” (Zvezda, no.5-6, 1946) presents a crass lampoon of Soviet daily life and Soviet people. Zoshchenko depicts Soviet manners and Soviet people in distorted, caricatured form, slanderously presenting Soviet people as primitive, uncultured, stupid, with narrow-minded tastes and morals.
This appraisal is quite mystifying from my own cultural perspective. Its a silly story to be sure, so none of the characters are paragons of virtue, but I wouldn’t say that the text portrays the Soviet people as primitive, uncultured, or stupid. Is humor possible in Socialist Realism?
For fun, we can also try to apply Clark’s model plot to “The Adventured of a Monkey”.
The Zoshchenko does have a socialist message — the triumph of the little boy who desires merely to be freinds with the monkey over the capitalist who intends to sell the monkey for profit, the monkey originally being the property of the state.
I think the excerpt from “Time Forward!” is both the climax and the finale. The completion of the task is threatened like in the climax, but then it’s ultimately accomplished, which also places it in the finale step.
I can see how the Central Committee wasn’t a fan of “The Adventures of a Monkey.” The story points out deficiencies in Soviet life (like queues), and paints Soviet people as simple, but the stupid kind of simple. By all accounts, it paints the proletariate as one-dimensional, lacking high-minded qualities, and not at all special (like the Party would want everyone to view it as).
In the “Adventures of a Monkey,” Zoshchenko portrays the Russian people as primitive, uncultured, and stupid by making it seem like a monkey has more common sense than they do. Where the monkey questions things the people have just accepted but the monkey just sees as foolish.