Introduction: Literature and the Political Problem 1. Since 1917: A Brief HistorySoviet LiteraturePersistence of the PastFellow TravelersProletariansThe StalinistsSocialist RealismThe ThawThe Sixties and Seventies 2. Mayakovsky and the Left Front of ArtThe Suicide Note"Vladimir Mayakovsky, A Tragedy"The Cloud"The Backbone Flute"The Commune and the Left Front"The Bedbug" and "The Bath"Mayakovsky as a MonumentPoets of Different Camps 3. Prophets of a Brave New WorldThe Machine and EnglandOlesha's Critique of the ReasonEnvy and Rage 4. The Intellectuals, ISerapionsBoris Pilnyak: Biology and History 5. The Intellectuals, IIIsaac Babel: Horror in a Minor KeyKonstantin Fedin: The Confrontation with EuropeLeonov and KatayevConclusion 6. The Proletarians, IThe ProletcultThe Blacksmith PoetsYury Libedinsky: Communists as Human BeingsTarasov-Rodionov: "Our Own Wives, Our Own Children"Dmitry Furmanov: An Earnest CommissarA. S. Serafimovich: A Popular Saga 7. The Proletarians, IIFyodor Gladkov: A Literary AutodidactAlexander Fadeyev: The Search for a New Leo TolstoyMikhail Sholokhov: The Don CossacksA Scatter of Minor DeitiesConclusion 8. The Critic Voronsky and the Pereval GroupCriticism and the Study of LiteratureVoronskyPereval 9. The Levers of Control under StalinResistanceThe PurgeThe Literary State 10. Zoshchenko and the Art of Satire 11. After Stalin: The First Two ThawsPomerantsev, Panova, and "The Guests"Ilya Ehrenburg and Alexey TolstoyThe Second ThawThe Way of Pasternak 12. Into the UndergroundThe Literary PartiesThe Trouble with "Gosizdat" End of a ThawBuried Treasure: Platonov and BulgakovThe Exodus into "Samizdat" and "Tamizdat" Sinyavsky 13. Solzhenitsyn and the Epic of the Camps"One Day""The First Circle" and "The Cancer Ward"The Gulag"The Calf and the Oak: Dichtung and Wahrheit"Other Contributions to the Epic 14. The Surface Channel, I: The Village 15. The Surface Channel, II: Variety of Theme and StyleThe City: Intelligentsia, Women, WorkersThe Backwoods: Ethical ProblemsOther New Voices of the Sixties and SeventiesWorld War IIPublished PoetsA Final Word on Socialist Realism 16. Exiles, Early and LateThe Exile Experience"Young Prose" and What Became of ItReligious Quest: Maximov and TernovskyTruth through Obscenity: Yuz AleshkovskyTranscendence and Tragedy: Erofeev's TripPoetry of the Daft: Sasha SokolovPerversion of Logic as Ideology: Alexander ZinovievA Gathering of Writers ConclusionNotesSelected BibliographyIndex