This article is reprinted from the WeChat public account: Four Seasons Star Xuan
Stalin wanted the Soviet Union to be a closed society, an isolated society that was not disturbed by the outside world, i.e. the capitalist countries. He hoped to build a socialist state in this closed state, and therefore expected the common people to live in isolation, and to know only the Soviet Union first in isolation from the world. Therefore, his so-called challenges of the times are in fact "my escape", and his direct industrialization and total collectivization of agriculture, as well as the purge and the Great Purge, are all such decisions in pursuit of closure.
The Great Patriotic War once again forced Stalin to face challenges and the choice of a response. He tried his best to avoid a war with Hitler, but Hitler declared war on him. However, victory can make people smart or dull, and time can increase people's talents or weaken people's intelligence, and Stalin, who is approaching advanced age, faced the double test of victory and years in the post-war peace years. Even when the opportunity for development came to the threshold of the Soviet Union, it flashed by, and the country lost the best opportunity to win a more brilliant victory.
Zochenko was a well-known humorous satirist in the Soviet Union, and his works were all the rage, and various publishing houses competed to publish various collections of his works, and even many of his works were translated and introduced abroad. However, he never imagined that a short story "The Adventures of the Monkey" would attract Stalin's attention and attention, and then be criticized. The protagonist of "Monkey Adventure" is a long-tailed monkey who runs out of the zoo, and through its adventures, it reveals all kinds of unsatisfactory phenomena in wartime life, and makes an exposing depiction of the bad habits of national culture and psychology.
However, on August 9, 1946, a special meeting of the Communist Party of Brazzaville was held to discuss the issue of the two magazines "Star" and "Leningrad". At the meeting, Stalin went so far as to call the works of Zochenko and the poet Akhmatova and others dung. His assessment of Zochenko was: "The whole war has passed, the people of all nationalities have fought bloodily, and he has not written a single word. He writes about trivial things, it's just nonsense. Regarding Zochenko's "Monkey Adventure", he said more directly: "This is the most boring thing, meaningless, vulgar joke in the market." I really don't understand why the magazine should publish such a vulgar thing on its own pages, which is not worth mentioning?" At this meeting, Stalin also attacked the two magazines for their flattery: "You flatter foreign writers there. Is it necessary for the Soviets to flatter foreigners?"
On August 14, a special <星><列宁格勒>"Resolution on Peace Magazine" was issued, which focused on criticizing Zochenko and Akhmatova. The resolution said that Zochenko's "Monkey Adventure" "is an obscene denigration of everyday life in the Soviet Union and of the Soviet people." Zochenko portrayed the Soviet system and the Soviets in a caricature of the Soviet people, slanderously portraying them as ignorant, backward, stupid people with vulgar hobbies and customs. Zochenko's vicious roguelike depiction of our real life is anti-Soviet. "The resolution emphasizes that the Soviet Union is the first, that Soviet literature is the most advanced literature in the world, and that its strength lies in the fact that it has no and cannot have interests other than the interests of the people, the interests of the state. The resolution banned the works of Zochenko, Akhmatova and others from entering magazines, and the relevant party and government leaders were also punished.
The events of "Star" and "Leningrad" were political events from the very beginning, and the purpose was to use the phenomena in the field of literature to reaffirm the decision of a leader, that is, the Soviet Union must be preached first, and socialism, industrialization, and agricultural collectivization in the Soviet Union must be extolled, otherwise it will be unpatriotic and anti-Soviet. And in order to vigorously shape the Soviet Union, it was absurdly decided to set up a "court of honor". On March 28, 1947, Stalin and Zhdanov jointly signed the Resolution on the Establishment of Honorary Tribunals in the Ministries and Central Departments of the USSR. The Honour Tribunal examines the anti-patriotic, anti-State and anti-social acts and activities of the leaders, staff and scientists of the ministries and authorities that are not subject to criminal punishment. The resolution also stipulates that the judgment of the Court of Honour shall be final. On June 5, 1947, the Honorary Court of the Ministry of Health of the USSR tried the case of two professors, Klyueva and Ruskin, who were accused of betraying the interests of the country by publishing their research results in English. Through the trial of such cases, the Soviet Union further propagated and strengthened patriotism with "Soviet First" as its core content.
As a matter of fact, challenges and responses to challenges are the inevitable law of historical development. The history of a nation and a country has developed in the face of various battles and challenges. No nation or country can be isolated from the world. The history of the Soviet Union proves that without freedom of thought, there will certainly be no freedom of speech, and a society without freedom of thought and speech cannot be truly moral.