Gorky’s situation was no different from that of a foreign minister, the only difference being that the foreign minister had his own secret informants, through whom he could learn the real situation of the country’s undertakings under Stalin’s leadership. Gorky, however, did not have his own informants, so he had to be satisfied with what the people sent by the NKVD had to say.
Knowing that Gorky was sympathetic, Yagoda prepared a special event for him: once a year he was taken to inspect the prisons. There, a number of criminal prisoners who wanted to seek early release were selected to give the Writer a special report on the causes and consequences of their crimes, as well as on how they intended to start a new honest Life after their release. The Cheka officer who accompanied Gorky (usually the talented actor Semyon Filin), always with pencil and notebook in hand, looked at Gorky inquiringly, and as soon as the writer nodded, he immediately wrote down the prisoner’s name and gave the release order to the prison authorities. Sometimes, if the prisoner was very young and his words pleased Gorky, the writer would request that the young prisoner be given a job in a model commune for ex-prisoners.
Gorky often asked these “Amnesty prisoners” to write to him about how they had started a new life. Thus, Yagoda’s men had the additional task of ensuring that Gorky received such letters, and through them they showed the writer an idyllic picture of life in peace and happiness. In front of Gorky, even Yagoda and his men seemed to be good-hearted idealists.
Gorky lived a carefree and happy life for several years until Stalin’s collectivization campaign brought about a terrible famine and tragedy: thousands of orphans poured from the countryside into the city and begged in the streets. Despite the fact that Yagoda’s people tried to play down the extent of the famine, Gorky still showed extreme consternation and unease. He began to whine and, in his meetings with Yagoda, publicly denounced many intolerable phenomena. These were phenomena that he had already discovered in the country, but had kept silent until then.
In either 1930 or 1931, the Soviet press published a story about the shooting of forty-eight people accused of committing the crimes that led to the famine. When he read the news, Gorky was outraged. He immediately approached Yagoda and protested against the government’s framing and killing of innocent people. Yagoda and his men quoted extensively, but Gorky was still not convinced that these people were guilty.
Not long after this incident, Gorky received an invitation from abroad to attend the congress of the International Association of Democratic Writers. But Yagoda told Gorky, on Stalin’s instructions, that the Politburo was against his going to the congress because some of its members had sent a joint anti-Soviet note to the International League for the Protection of Human Rights, protesting against the recent death sentences imposed by the Soviet Union on many people. The Politburo wanted Gorky to defend the reputation of his country and warned slanderers to behave themselves.
Gorky was in a dilemma over this matter. Yes, he had denounced and even protested to Yagoda against the cruelty of the government, but that was an “intra-Family” conversation, and now he was faced with the question of whether to protect the reputation of the Soviet motherland from the siege of the capitalist world. After an ideological struggle, Gorky finally wrote to the World Association of Democratic Writers, declaring that he refused to join the association for some reason. He even added that he was convinced that those who had been shot by the Soviet Union had deserved it.
At that Time, Stalin was incredibly generous to Gorky. The Council of People’s Commissars issued a special order recognizing Gorky’s great contribution to Russian literature. Various enterprises and institutions in the country vied to be named after him. The Moscow Soviet also announced the renaming of the city’s main street, Tverskaya Street, as Gorky Avenue.
But Stalin himself did not take the initiative to deal with Gorky. He met with the great writer only once or twice a year, on major holidays, waiting for Gorky to take the first step and “approach” him. Knowing Gorky’s weaknesses, Stalin deliberately pretended to be very concerned about the development of Russian Culture and suggested that the writer become a People’s Commissar for Education. But Gorky declined the offer, saying that he had no managerial skills.
When Yagoda and his assistants were convinced that Gorky had fully accepted their influence, Stalin instructed Yagoda to suggest to the famous writer that it would be great if he could write a book in praise of Lenin and Stalin. It was well known that Gorky was Lenin’s close friend and Lenin was Gorky’s confidant, and the two had a deep personal relationship. So, Stalin wanted to use Gorky’s pen to shape him into Lenin’s natural successor.
In order to make himself famous and to make the world famous Russian writer to sing his praises, Stalin was a bit impatient. He decided to give Gorky the most valuable gift and the highest honorary title, which would influence the content and the so-called tone of the writer’s future books.
Thus, within a short period of time, Gorky was crowned with a title that no writer in the world had ever received or dared to hope for. By Stalin’s order, the large industrial city of Nizhny Novgorod was renamed Gorky City, and Nizhny Novgorod State was accordingly changed to Gorky Region. Gorky’s name also occupied the Moscow Art Theater, although it was not Gorky’s efforts but Stanislavsky’s and Nemirovich I. Danchenko’s that led to the creation and worldwide fame of this theater. Every time Stalin made such a boon, a big celebration banquet was held in the Kremlin. At the banquet. Stalin always raised his glass to congratulate the “great writer of the Russian land” and the “loyal friend of the Bolshevik Party”. All this seemed to prove how wise and correct was the view that Stalin had always instilled in the staff of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (“It’s just that everyone sells for a different price”). Yet the years were flying by, and Gorky never wrote a book about Stalin. Moreover, from the works he was writing and from his creative plans, the writer had no intention of creating a monument to Stalin.
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