The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-02-16
By VIcToR SERGE.

most remarkable of the short
stories by this young Russian
whom Trotzky rates as the great
est of the writers produced by the
revolution. The story has been
translated by Louis Lozowick who
is an authority on the latest art
and literature Of Soviet Russia
and who will continue to translate
and write for the Daily Worker.)
DILNIAK is decidedly the most
characteristic and the most cello
bratcd of the Russian authors. HIS
first work appeared in 1920 in the
Moscow state edition. He writes
exclusively about the Revolution.
He has written a novel, called, "The
Bare Year" as well as a couple of
volumes of short stories: "Tales from
Petrograd," "Ivan and Maria" which
embrace the whole Of the Revolu-
ton.
Pilniak's manner seems strange
Mt first. But it is in absolute har-
mony with the spirit Of the time.
He writes rather in the style of
futuriSt painters. 1t would be ut
terry impossible to describe the Rus
sian Revolution in the style of
Baizac describing the sordid and mo-
nOtonous life of a father Grandet,
as well as with the utter indifference,
the finish and perfection of style,
with the absolute harmony of the
whole of the detail-which we wit
ness in Anatofe Frances Gods
Athirst." It is only the writers of
the time to come that will be able
to describe the Revolution. We, as
well as Piiniak, are incapable of
doing %. The Revolution, which has
done away with so many forms Of
the past, has alike cleared up many
a literary prejudice of the past.
1t is hopeless to look for con-
tinuity of events in the work of
this author. Intrigue chow pitiful
this expression) does not exist. NO
chief and secondary figures either.
in his work. The movement of
masses in which every single figure
IS a world for himself, representing
in himself completion. Events rush
ing in and overpowering one, nu-
merous human lives inteImingling,
each of which always represents in
itself an occasion never to be re-
peated. The whole of them, in the
end, of not much Importance on the
ba -kground of "Rnssia." the snow
drift and Revolution, for the coun-
try, the snowurlft, and the masses,
are the only things remaining and
stable. The exterior aspect of Pill
niak's work corresponds to the con-
tents Of it. The pages often wear a
somewhat strange aspect. One page
carries the description of an old
priest among his ikons, breaking
under the burdens of his sins. Sud-
denly the narration breaks up and
one hears the people in the street
passing by, talking; a new inter-
ruption, and in comes, tearing along.
q hungry, bowling wolf with barred
teeth This constant change of de-
scIiption and pictures requires. OF
course, different aspects of the page.
The reading of this book is, in a
certain sense, rather bewildering.
But the final impression is strong
and powerful Pilniak is under the
HuuSnCS Oh the HdSIerS OF ldtC
years, such as Andrei Belly and
Alexei Remizov, but he resembles
them in manner only, and not in
contents.
He has such lot to show and
to describe, and to bring out in
his book, that every manner and form,
is oppressive to him. He let's life
drift where it will. Classicism is
Of value, but in shapes long existing.
In the "Bare Year" we find eight
beautifully treated subjects: the lit
tie bourgeois, the dying aristocracy,
the sectarians, the anarchists, the
monastery, the train number 81, the
peasants, the bolsheviks. But the
Same stern unity reigns over all on
account of totality Of the varying
dynamics, as in some heroic SYM
phohy. In the course OF the story
g'lvan snd Maria" the shouting Of
a sniner, who has nothing whatever
to do with the story is repeated, a
black slave of international metal
lurgy, who quite inert and apathetic
FROM his work seeks his couch Tor
his nightly rest. But what a nuln-