"let's put God—and all
these grand progressive ideas—to one side. Let's begin with man; let's be kind
and attentive to the individual man—whether he's a bishop, a peasant, an
industrial magnate, a convict in the Sakhalin Islands or a waiter in a
restaurant. Let's begin with respect, compassion and love for the individual—or
we'll never get anywhere.
Anton Chekhov
"In those difficult
days, people wanted only the truth, however difficult and cheerless it might
be. And Bogariov told them this truth."
Vasily Grossman
A work not only of
considerable literary significance but also an important historical document.
As a new world war is brewing in Ukraine, and the vilest nationalism,
xenophobia and historical lies are being promoted by the ruling classes
everywhere, works like this will help reconnect the generations that have to
wage the revolutionary battles of today with the socialist traditions of 1917.
—Clara Weiss, World
Socialist Website
"There are also other
aspects of Grossman's work that are becoming important today. During the last
20 years, the Anglophone world has gradually recognised that the second world
war was fought between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and that the Western
allies played a secondary role in it. There are many, many reasons why Grossman
seems more relevant today than when I was first translating him over 40 years
ago."
Robert Chandler
In September 2022, The
Immortal People, the Soviet author Vasily Grossman's first of three superb
novels chronicling the Second World War, was published with a new English
translation by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler. The recent re-publication of the
Soviet writer Vasily Grossman's book reflects a renewed surge of interest in
his books. Grossman has a journalist's eye for detail coupled with a
novelist's empathy. His work has been compared to that of Erich Remarque and
Stephen Crane.
Perhaps the most significant
thing about this extraordinary new translation by Robert Chandler, who called
Grossman's political stance "revolutionary romanticism", is that it
contains never before-published passages from Grossman's original manuscript.
It, therefore, represents the complete edition of this work published so far in
any language, including Grossman's native Russian. As Claire Weiss correctly
states, "The result is a work of considerable literary significance and an
important historical document." Weiss's interview with Robert Chandler can
be seen on the wsws.org.[1]
Grossman's novel opens with
the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The fact that the Nazis could overrun
large swathes of the Soviet Union was down to the fact that The Red Army and
Soviet people had been left completely unprepared for the Nazi invasion. According
to Weiss, Stalin had not only rejected dozens of warnings of the impending attack
but had also murdered the leadership of the Red Army and large portions of its
ranks in the Great Terror of 1936-1938.
Weiss states in her book
review, "As a result, the Red Army of 1941 was poorly led militarily and
politically, and vastly under-equipped to confront the highly sophisticated
weaponry and mass assault of German imperialism. In the first months of the
war, millions of Red Army soldiers were captured—about two million of them
would be starved to death by spring 1942—and many more were killed and wounded
on the battlefield". [2]
The book is a fascinating
look at the brutal nature of the Nazi invasion and the extraordinary sacrifice
of The Red Army and the Russian Working Class. Grossman includes many important
and politically fascinating characters. Such as the political commissar,
Bogariov; the commander Babadjanian; and the soldier Ignatiev.
Bogariov doesn't appear to
be modelled on any particular individual but is probably an amalgam of many
people met by Grossman. The Marx-Engels Institute mentioned in the book was a
refuge for many oppositionists to the |Stalin regime. Mikhail Liftshitz and the
Hungarian philosopher and literary critic György Lukács carried out work there.
While Lukacs and Lifshitz managed to survive, many leading Bolsheviks, such as Isaak
Rubin, were shot in 1937, and the leader of the Institute, Ryazanov, suffered
the same fate. Grossman was aware of what was happening and added characters
such as Bogariov, who opposed the Stalin regime.
As Clara Weiss writes, "Bogariov
is a former employee of the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow, devoted to the
legacy of Lenin and the early Russian socialists, who now take to the art of
war as much as he did to the writings of Marx and Engels. Bogariov becomes the
embodiment of what good political leadership means for Grossman. In what can
only be read as a blatant rebuke of the Stalinist effort to dull the population
and the soldiers into unconsciousness in the face of the immense dangers they
were facing and of the bureaucracy's constant lies during the war, Grossman
writes, "In those difficult days, people wanted only the truth, however
difficult and cheerless it might be. And Bogariov told them this truth." [3]
One might add that Grossman
told the truth, and his novels, including Stalingrad and Life and Fate, were in
opposition to the Stalinist falsifications of this history. As Weiss points out,
the material also provides a sense of how the soviet bureaucracy's constant
political and historical lies impacted the cultural and socio-political climate
at the time. To fully appreciate the book, the reader will need to familiarise
themselves with what Weiss says was the "political and ideological
crackdown by the Stalinist bureaucracy of the 1930s. "[4]
To conclude, Grossman's
books should be a must for every worker and young person and should be on every
university reading list. Grossman, although long overdue, is correctly seen as
one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century. His best works are regarded as
masterpieces. Grossman states, "I wrote the book out of love and
pity for ordinary people, and I still believe in them." Despite living
through what the poet Osip Mandelstam called the "wolfhound century",
Grossman retained this sentiment to his dying day.
[1] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/11/02/ljhh-n02.html
[2]
[3] The People Immortal: Soviet writer
Vasily Grossman’s first novel about World War
II-www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/10/14/auih-o14.html
[4] The People Immortal: Soviet writer
Vasily Grossman’s first novel about World War II-www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/10/14/auih-o14.html
