Socialist Realism

Some quotes from Abram Tertz's On Socialist Realism.

"Socialist realism is the basic method of Soviet literature and literary criticism.  It demands of the artist the truthful, historically concrete representation of reality in its revolutionary development."  (Tertz cites the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers, 1934)

"A poet not only writes poems but helps, in his own way, to build Communism..."

"Our art, like our culture and our soviety, is teleological through and through."

"Aimless rivers become arteries of communication.  Aimless trees become paper filled with destiny."

"The modern mind cannot imagine anything more beautiful and splendid than the Communist ideal."

"As Lenin promised, we will make toilets out of pure gold..."

"An iron necessity and a strict hierarchical order harnessed the flow of centuries."

"The man who received a Marxist education knows the meaning of both past and future."

"It is a long time since men had such an exact knowledge of the meaning of the world's destiny--not since the Middle Ages most likely."

"...so that not one drop of blood be shed any more, we killed and killed and killed."

"Yes, we live in Communism.  It resembles our aspirations about as much as the Middle Ages resembled Christ, modern Western man resembles the free superman, and man resembles God.  But all the same, there is some resemblance, isn't there?"