Leopold Leonidovich Averbakh (Russian: Леопо́льд Леони́дович Аверба́х; 8 March, 1903
Saratov – 14 August, 1937,
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
) was a
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
literary critic, who was the head of the
Russian Association of Proletarian Writers
The Russian Association of Proletarian Writers, also known under its transliterated abbreviation RAPP (russian: Российская ассоциация пролетарских писателей, РАПП) was an official creative union in the ...
(RAPP) in the 1920s and the most prominent member of a group of communist literary critics who argued that the Bolshevik Revolution, carried out in 1917 in the name of Russia's industrial working class, should be followed by a cultural revolution, in which 'bourgeois' literature would be supplanted by literature written by and for the proletariat. Averbakh was a powerful figure in Russian cultural circles until
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
ordered RAPP to cease its activities, in 1932.
Family and early career
Leopold Averbakh was born to Jewish parents in 1903 in Saratov,
though most of his family links were in
Nizhny Novgorod
Nizhny Novgorod ( ; rus, links=no, Нижний Новгород, a=Ru-Nizhny Novgorod.ogg, p=ˈnʲiʐnʲɪj ˈnovɡərət ), colloquially shortened to Nizhny, from the 13th to the 17th century Novgorod of the Lower Land, formerly known as Gork ...
. His father Leonid owned a small steamship on the Volga. Aged only 14 at the time of the Bolshevik revolution, Leopold had exceptionally good family links with the new regime. His mother was the sister of
Yakov Sverdlov
Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov (russian: Яков Михайлович Свердлов; 3 June Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._22_May.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S ...
and of
Zinovy Sverdlov, who became the adopted son of
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...
. He was also the son-in-law of
Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich
Vladimir Dmitriyevich Bonch-Bruyevich (russian: Владимир Дмитриевич Бонч-Бруевич; sometimes spelled Bonch-Bruevich; in Polish Boncz-Brujewicz; – 14 July 1955) was a Soviet politician, revolutionary, historian ...
. His sister Ida married
Genrikh Yagoda
Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda ( rus, Ге́нрих Григо́рьевич Яго́да, Genrikh Grigor'yevich Yagoda, born Yenokh Gershevich Iyeguda; 7 November 1891 – 15 March 1938) was a Soviet secret police official who served as director ...
, future head of the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
.
He played a prominent role in the Bolshevik youth movement in his teens, and by the age of 19 he was editor of the literary journal ''Molodaya gvardiya'' ('Young Guard'), and a leading member of the All-Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (VAPP), the forerunner of RAPP. He was one of three representatives of VAPP, who signed an agreement in 1923 with the poet
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (, ; rus, Влади́мир Влади́мирович Маяко́вский, , vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ məjɪˈkofskʲɪj, Ru-Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky.ogg, links=y; – 14 Apr ...
, promising that their respective organisations would co-operate to "steadfastly unmask bourgeois-gentry and pseudo-sympathetic literary groups" and to promote "class artistry". One of the 'bourgeois' writers they targeted was
Mikhail Bulgakov, whom Averbakh denounced in September 1924 as a writer "who doesn't pretend to disguise himself as a fellow traveller."
Head of RAPP
Late in 1925, the Soviet communist party's ruling triumvirate of Stalin,
Grigory Zinoviev and
Lev Kamenev split.
Illarion Vardin, effective leader of VAPP, joined the Zinoviev faction. Averbakh and most of VAPP's younger members broke with him and founded RAPP, as a kind of literary wing of the Stalinist faction, though they never sought or received Stalin's formal endorsement. Averbakh was RAPP's unchallenged leader for the whole of its existence. He wrote extensively – "a prolific critic who hoped to apply
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
’s understanding of historical materialism to literary production, Averbakh’s theoretical contribution to Soviet literary scholarship cannot be negated."
[
]
Personality and reputation
Averbakh was the first from the generation who were too young to have taken part in revolutionary activity before 1917 to achieve prominence under communist rule. Some of his contemporaries, such as Mikhail Suslov
Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov (russian: Михаи́л Андре́евич Су́слов; 25 January 1982) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1965, and as uno ...
, still held high office in the 1980s, whereas Averbakh's career had peaked 50 years earlier. He was an effective organiser, but had a bad reputation. The French writer, Victor Serge
Victor Serge (; 1890–1947), born Victor Lvovich Kibalchich (russian: Ви́ктор Льво́вич Киба́льчич), was a Russian revolutionary Marxist, novelist, poet and historian. Originally an anarchist, he joined the Bolsheviks fi ...
, who knew Averbakh for many years, described him as:
According to a fellow member of RAPP, Anna Karavayeva:
His treatment of eminent writers
Averbakh's influence reached its peak in 1929, when he orchestrated public campaigns against the writers Yevgeny Zamyatin
Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin ( rus, Евге́ний Ива́нович Замя́тин, p=jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ zɐˈmʲætʲɪn; – 10 March 1937), sometimes anglicized as Eugene Zamyatin, was a Russian author of science fictio ...
, who was driven into exile, and Boris Pilnyak
Boris Andreyevich Pilnyak (''né'' Vogau russian: Бори́с Андре́евич Пильня́к; – April 21, 1938) was a Russian and Soviet writer who was executed by the Soviet Union on false claims of plotting to kill Joseph Stalin and ...
, and the Old Bolshevik and critic, Aleksandr Voronsky
Aleksandr Konstantinovich Voronsky (russian: Алекса́ндр Константи́нович Воро́нский) ( – 13 August 1937) was a prominent humanist Marxist literary critic, theorist and editor of the 1920s, disfavored and pu ...
, founder of the literary journal, ''Krasnaya Nov
''Krasnaya Nov'' (russian: Красная новь, lit='Red Virgin Soil') was a Soviet monthly literary magazine.
History
''Krasnaya Nov'', the first Soviet "thick" literary magazine, was established in June 1921. In its first 7 years, under e ...
''. Reviewing a short story by Andrei Platonov
Andrei Platonov (russian: Андре́й Плато́нов, ; – 5 January 1951) was the pen name of Andrei Platonovich Klimentov (russian: Андре́й Плато́нович Климе́нтов), a Soviet Russian writer, philosopher, pla ...
in 1929, Averbakh warned: "There is ambiguity in it...our era does not tolerate any ambiguity." When Nadezhda Mandelstam
Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelstam ( rus, Надежда Яковлевна Мандельштам, p=nɐˈdʲeʐdə ˈjakəvlʲɪvnə mənʲdʲɪlʲˈʂtam, , Хазина; 29 December 1980) was a Russian Jewish writer and educator, and the wife of ...
challenged him to explain how he could denounce her husband's poetry without having read it, he replied "that there is no such thing as art or culture in the abstract, but only 'bourgeois art' and 'proletarian art'." By contrast, Averbakh went to pains to cultivate Russia's most famous living writer, Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...
, after being introduced to him by Yagoda. He spent the summer of 1931 as a house guest in Gorky's home in Sorrento, on a mission to persuade Gorky to return permanently to Russia. On his return, he reported to Yagoda that he was "proud and happy" to have succeeded.
Dissolution of RAPP
On 23 April 1932, Stalin ordered suddenly and unexpectedly RAPP, and all other literary clubs and movements to disband and merge into the newly formed Soviet Writers' Union. It was immediately understood that this move was intended to destroy Averbakh's power base. When Nadezhda Mandelstam visited Herzen House in Leningrad the day after the announcement, she found two eminent writers, Nikolai Tikhonov
Nikolai Aleksandrovich Tikhonov (russian: Николай Александрович Тихонов; ukr, Микола Олександрович Тихонов; – 1 June 1997) was a Soviet Russian-Ukrainian statesman during the Cold War. H ...
and Pyotr Pavlenko
Pyotr Andreyevich Pavlenko (russian: Пётр Андре́евич Павле́нко; 11 July 1899 – 16 June 1951), was a Soviet and Russian writer, screenwriter and war correspondent. Recipient of four Stalin Prizes.
Biography
Early life
Pav ...
, drinking wine to celebrate Averbakh's downfall. When she protested: "I thought you were a friend of Averbakh" – Pavlenko replied: "The war in literature has entered a new phase." Averbakh's fall may have been Stalin's way of striking at his powerful brother-in-law Yagoda, but also seems to have been brought about by his own overconfidence and lack of deference. As early as 1929, Stalin complained in a letter to his deputy Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov. ; (;. 9 March Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._25_February.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S. 25 February">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dat ...
about certain young communists, including Averbakh, who treated the party as a "discussion club" where they could "review policy" instead of awaiting instructions.
Later career and arrest
Most of Averbakh's former colleagues in RAPP, with the notable exception of the playwright Vladimir Kirshon, deserted him after this public humiliation, but he continued to enjoy the protection of Yagoda, and of Maxim Gorky. In 1935, Gorky, Averbakh and the NKVD officer Semyon Firin, the deputy head of Gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
, co-edited a book lauding construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
by convict labour. Gorky's death and Yagoda's downfall left him unprotected. He was arrested in April 1937, and shot on 14 August 1937, along with Kirshon, Firin and others.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Averbakh, Leopold
1903 births
1937 deaths
Russian Jews
Soviet literary critics
Writers from Saratov
Communist Party of the Soviet Union members
Great Purge victims from Russia
Molodaya Gvardiya (magazine) editors