It was more just playing with the just-discovered translate feature of my browser. I went looking for something else to translate, and thought, "Hey, didn't Tom post something in Russian a while back?"
Of course, this statement is to a certain extent obvious. On the other hand, it is worth noting that Stalin was patient. He never forgot any personal slight or any real or perceived betrayal, but he also never acted solely on his emotions. He never had true friendship with anyone and was prepared at any moment to put even the heads of his "favorites" on the chopping block if circumstances so dictated. "We'll find a new widow for Lenin", he said to Krupskaya when she opposed him. Against the backdrop of that mentality, even the most famous author could at any moment turn into "GULAG dust".
Authors were needed for many reasons. First of all, he understood that the Soviet people wanted to read books and watch plays. When Party functionary D.I. Polikarpov complained that there were too many "counterrevolutionaries" in the Union of Soviet Writers, Stalin replied, "I don't have any other writers for Comrade Polikarpov, but we can find another Polikarpov for the writers." Stalin understood that he needed, in a certain quantity and for a certain period of time, "undesirable" writers. He came to terms with this fact. Even when many of them were no longer being published in the USSR, he willingly sent them overseas for conferences and speaking tours. But at any moment if he felt that a writer was no longer useful, he was ready to abruptly get rid of him.
Unfortunately for the authors, writers were needed by Stalin first and foremost to praise socialism and their Soviet homeland. The Soviet authorities, and Stalin in particular, wanted to control literature. Nothing good came from this, nor could anything good ever come from this a priori.
That makes a lot of sense, based on what I have seen of Stalin in other spheres of activity, and not having much interest in the literature of the era. Too many people seem to look at one aspect or another of life under Stalin as in a vacuum, with no awareness of how a particular phenomenon is typical for the USSR or Stalin. Others focus so intently on his evil, that they ignore his mindset or particular interest or practical constraints in given scenario (people do the same with Hitler on a much wider scale, there being many fewer people with an appropriately negative perspective of Stalin).
I think that's a bit harsh considering their circumstances and the price of artistic integrity. Solzhenitsyn is a hero exactly because his level of courage and integrity is so rare.
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*
