LATEST PHASE m
with the party command, a workmen's collective is depicted
against the background of factory life. Significantly, however, the
interest is centered not on the positive types, but on exposing the
"unmagnetized" characters gradually retiring from factory life,
in other words on the new "superfluous" people. The most curious
is that the "disintegrated" Communist Fedor Gorbachev (the
ex-hero) is victor in a party dispute, while those representing the
positive element are forced to leave the factory.
Still more difficult and delicate proved to be the task of picturing
the Communist Party itself, and therefore this subject was care-
fully avoided in the works oŁ the proletarian writers. Of course
no criticism was allowed here; it was necessary to indulge in eulo-
gies. Consequently a special interest was excited by Libedinsky's
attempt to portray party members in accordance with his own
theory* which, as we know, rejected all "stamps" and insisted on
introducing living men into literature. True, by adopting the dia-
lectical method he secured for himself the right to-describe party
members both in their positive and negative aspects. Libedinsky
availed himself of this opportunity freely. We are not speaking of
his first story, The Wec\, which brought fame to him and in which
he, rather coarsely, divided the party members into sheep and goats,
but of his far more ambitious work, The Commissars. Here the
author assembled at a recapitulatory school course several ReH
commissars, who had lately gained fame by their military vic-
tories, but who showed their ignorance and inability to submit
to discipline. With such a theme it was possible for the author
to combine in a single temporary collective some most hetero-
geneous types. Libedinsky depicted them with great realism and
talent, complying at the same time with the chid demands of
proletarian literature. The characters were divided iato three cate-
gories in accordance with their social origin: commanders and
teachers from the working class, the peasants, aad the intelligent-
sia. While the workmen were the "gold reserve* of the Soviet
revolution, the intelligentsia represented a mere "paper currency
issued against the gold reserve." They were either decadents or
at best people who could riot divest themselves dE dd seignorUl
habits. The peasants were treated no better. They were imfe&*
able and likely *o desert the party. Within the limits of his story