The following Central Committee decree, published on 23 April 1932, liquidated all independent literary organizations and called for the creation of the Union of Soviet Writers

The Central Committee asserts that in recent years, on the basis of significant successes in socialist construction, there has been a considerable growth, both qualitatively and quantitatively, in the spheres of literature and art.

Several years ago, when there was still a strong influence of alien elements in literature, which flourished particularly in the first years of the NEP, and when the cadres of proletarian literature were still weak, the Party, by all means possible, helped in the creation and strengthening of certain proletarian organizations in the spheres of literature and other forms of art, so as to firm up the position of proletarian writers and art workers.

Now, when the cadres of proletarian literature and art have had time to grow and when new writers have come forward from factories, mills, and collective farms, the framework of the existing literary-artistic organizations (VOAPP², RAPP³, RAPM⁴, etc.) have become too narrow and are impeding the serious development of artistic creation.

This situation creates the danger of transforming these organizations from a means of mobilizing Soviet writers and artists around the tasks of socialist construction into a means of cultivating group insulation as well as isolation from the political tasks of the day and from large groups of writers and artists who sympathize with socialist construction.

From this arises the necessity for an appropriate restructuring of the literary-artistic organizations and a widening of the bases of their work.

Therefore, the Central Committee of the VKP(b) resolves:

      1) To liquidate the Association of Proletarian Writers (VOAPP, RAPP);

      2) To unite all writers who support the platform of Soviet power and who strive to participate in socialist construction into a single Union of Soviet Writers with a communist faction in it;

      3) To carry out an analogous change in policy for other forms of art;

      4) To entrust the Organization Bureau with working out the practical measure for implementing this decision.

---

Footnotes:

¹VKP(b): All Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)
²VOAPP: All-Union Organization of Associations of Proletarian Writers.
³RAPP: Russian Association of Proletarian Writers.
⁴RAPM: Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians.

---

Translated by Eric Konkol

Of Related Interest: On the Policy of the Party in the Sphere of Artistic Literature Party Decree of 1 July 1925 calling for a literary tolerance and a sympathetic approach to all literary factions, including the "fellow travelers". Uncivil War: Fyodor Gladkov & The Smithy vs. RAPP Account of an underhanded attempt by the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) to subvert the Party Decree of 1 July 1925 by liquidating all rival organizations and unilaterally declaring its own "hegemony" in literature.

Return to: SovLit.net