Even before the triumph of the October Revolution, Gorky had a reputation for consistently speaking out on behalf of the oppressed and those who fought against the tsarist dictatorship. At the beginning of the revolution, despite his close personal ties with Lenin, he dared to attack him, protesting against the Red Terror in his own newspaper “Neue Life” and speaking out in defense of the persecuted “old-fashioned people”.
When Gorky was still alive, Stalin tried to make him his political ally. Anyone who knows Gorky’s strong will can imagine how futile this attempt was. But Stalin did not think so, for he never believed in a strong will. He often instructed the staff of the Ministry of Internal Affairs abroad to base their interrogation work on the starting point that there is no such thing as an unbuyable person in the world, but only a different price for each person.
It was on the basis of this “philosophy” that Stalin kept ingratiating himself with Gorky.
In 1928, the Central Committee of the Party launched a nationwide campaign to welcome Gorky back to the country. The campaign was organized quite artfully. First the Soviet Writers’ Association, and then various groups, wrote to Gorky, who was living in Italy, asking him to return to help raise the cultural level of the Soviet people. Even the pioneers and schoolchildren were mobilized. In their letters of invitation, the children asked their beloved Writer: Why did you live in Fascist Italy instead of returning to the Soviet Union and to the Russian people, who loved you with all their hearts?
As if in response to a strong spontaneous demand, the Soviet government also sent a letter to Gorky, inviting him enthusiastically to return and settle in his country. The government even promised that Gorky could go to Italy for the winter every year as long as he wanted, and the state would be responsible for all expenses. It seems that the Soviet government was indeed very concerned about Gorky’s interests.
With such a warm call, Gorky returned to his homeland. From the moment he set foot on Soviet soil, Stalin began to implement his plan of ingratiation and cooptation. A garden house was allocated to Gorky in Moscow, and two luxurious villas were built for him on the outskirts of Moscow and in the Crimea. All the necessities of life for Gorky and his Family, as for Stalin and the members of the Politburo, were secured by a special organ of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. To facilitate Gorky’s travel to the Crimea and abroad, a specially adapted carriage was prepared on the railroad. According to Stalin’s orders, Yagoda had to quickly learn and satisfy any of Gorky’s wishes. Gorky’s dacha was surrounded by his favorite plants and flowers, which were specially imported from abroad. The cigarettes he smoked were high-class ones specially ordered from Egypt. He had access to any book, regardless of the country from which it came. Gorky, a modest and frugal man by nature, refused many times to enjoy these privileges and luxuries, but he heard the reply that there was only one Maxim Gorky in the country.
The government also fulfilled its promise to let Gorky return to Italy for the autumn and winter. He went there every year from 1929 to 1933, accompanied by two Soviet doctors who were responsible for his care en route.
Stalin was not only concerned with Gorky’s material well-being, but also entrusted Yagoda with the task of “ideological transformation” of Gorky, trying to convince the famous writer that Stalin was building real communism and doing what he could to improve the living standards of the working people.
From the first day of Gorky’s return, Yagoda took a series of measures in Moscow to obstruct the writer’s free contact with the masses. Of course, the writer was still able to meet with representatives of the workers in the factories or model state farms and to examine through them the living conditions of the people, but these meetings were carefully arranged by the Ministry of the Interior. Whenever Gorky visited a factory, he was warmly welcomed by the people. The specially selected cadres of propagandists who spoke to him unanimously praised the “happy life of Soviet workers” and cited the great educational and cultural achievements of the working masses, while the party leaders lost no Time in leading the chant: “Long live Gorky and Stalin, good friends of the working class! Hurray!”
Yagoda always kept a full schedule of Gorky’s activities, leaving him little time for independent observation and reflection. Gorky was often taken to see scenes that international travel agencies used to bluff foreign tourists. For example, outside Moscow, in Bolshev and Lyubeltsi, there were two communes formed by ex-prisoners from labor camps, which interested Gorky in particular. The workers there always greeted Gorky with a storm of applause and pre-drafted speeches. And the speakers, in presenting how they had returned to honest life, always thanked two people wholeheartedly – Gorky and Stalin. The children of released prisoners from labor camps came up to the stage and read aloud fragments of Gorky’s works. All this moved Gorky to tears. These tears, in turn, showed the NKVD personnel who accompanied him that they had successfully completed the task assigned to them by Yagoda.
In order to keep Gorky more “legitimately” free, Yagoda asked the writer to head a writing group responsible for writing a history of Soviet industry and glorifying the “climax of Soviet construction”. Gorky also had to organize the magazine “Literary Study” to train new literary recruits and guide self-taught writers. Gorky also took part in the work of the Proletarian Writers’ Association, which was headed by none other than Yagoda’s in-law, Averbach. In short, Gorky was busy for several months after his return to the Soviet Union. But he had to follow the track Yagoda had laid out for him in advance, surrounded by a large group of Cheka personnel and young writers in the service of the Ministry of the Interior, almost completely detached from the common people. Gorky was surrounded by people with one task: to introduce the writer to the amazing achievements of socialist construction and to sing the praises of Stalin. Even the flower workers and cooks assigned to him had an obligation to praise the writer about the increasingly better life of the peasants, taking letters from friends and relatives in the countryside that they seemed to have “just” received.
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