The literary commissar who coined 'socialist realism' with Stalin
Gronsky defined socialist realism as "Rembrandt, Rubens and Repin put at the service of the working class."
A journalist and Party functionary who began as a revolutionary under the Tsar and became one of the architects of Soviet literary control. As editor-in-chief of Izvestia (1928–1934), the USSR's second newspaper, he coined the term 'socialist realism' in a May 1932 conversation with Stalin: a phrase that became the official doctrine of all Soviet arts. That same year he was appointed chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Union of Soviet Writers, co-founded the Literary Institute with Maxim Gorky, and as editor of Novy Mir served as Stalin's direct intermediary with the literary world during the critical period when the new orthodoxy was formulated and enforced. Arrested in 1938, he spent sixteen years in camps and exile, and after rehabilitation in 1954 remained a committed communist to the end of his life.
Career Timeline
- 1912–1918Member, Union of SR-Maximalists
- 1918Joined the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)
- 1928–1934Editor-in-chief, Izvestia
- 1932Coined the term 'socialist realism' (May, in conversation with Stalin)
- 1932–1934Chairman, Organizing Committee of the USSR Writers' Union
- 1932–1937Editor-in-chief, Novy Mir
- 1933Co-founded the Literary Institute with Maxim Gorky
- 1938–1954Arrested, sentenced to 15 years, camps and exile
- 1954–1985Rehabilitated; researcher at the Institute of World Literature (IMLI)