The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-06-10

By V. ]. JEROME

10 the American working class the
recent world proletarian celebration
of the fertteth anniversary of Maxim
Gorky's literary activity was of spe-
cial significance. 1t afforded fit
ting occasion for the workers of the
United States to strike back at the
neutrality-suspicious. accorded Com
rade GeTky by the American CAPT
talist government when in 1907 he
sought to land upon these hospit-
able shores. The class conscious
American workers of today who look
upon the Soviet Union as their
fatherland. were enabled to demon
strate Their revolutionary pride in
the great .proletarian artist whom the
Council of People Commissars hailed
Is the pride of our Soviet land"
It is with qualification, therefore,
that we should acknowledge the APP
pearance at this time of Comrade
Olgin's enlightening monograph on
Maxim eGorky.* Coming to us, as it
does, in the year of the international
Gerky jubilee, the publication of this
essay represents an extension of our
campaign for the popularization Of
the great revolutionary figure among
the American masses. And coming
from the pen of so authentic a stu
dent of the scene and the epoch-the
old and the neW-depicted in the
works of Gorky, productive, one may
say, of tsIe man Gorky, the essay
goes far to meet the long-felt need
in this country for an adequate pre-
sentation Of the essence Of Gorky's
life and work in its meaningfulness
for the world proletariat.
A Historical Materialist Treatment
49, of Gorky
A keen MarXiSt-Leninist critic OF
literature, Comrade Olgin has in this
booklet presented to us the writer
revolutionist Gorky in the clear light
Of historical -materialism. From the
outset l{e' rejects the shallow judy
ment of the philistine critics who
would see in the strong vagrant-
types that people Gorky's early sto-
ries solely a romantic ennoblement
of the nomadic Lumpenproletarian,
of the rural anarch standing be-
yond good and evil, elements mega
lively posed against the advancing
industrialism and the developing
proletariat. 81 g isn perceives the
idealization of the vagrant in the
early writings of Maxim Gorky, but
he perceives, too, the ominousness OF
a progressive class-force stirring
with the movements of those ele-
mental, rebel-hearGed figures:
CAS- a matter of fact, Gorky was ex-
pressing the aggressive sentiment of
new class that hsa come into eX-
istence." -
And here we have4a profound OBJ
walton:
.Gorky's tone, if not his heroes,
YVES heraldipg the coming Of the
proletarian class struggle" a
Gorky, already then possessed Of
proletarian literary elements, al
Though not yet prepared to take his
material from the life of the indus
trial working class, gave utterance
nonetheless to the proletarian 81
gressive. tone of criticism and affirm
alton in his treatment Of his mag
nificent sub proletarian types.
To quote Olgin:
Even in those early stories one
can see the fighter aginst bourgeois
society. Gorky's hoboes are a strik-
ing contrast to the stagnating peas
ants, to the narrowminded philstines
of the city, to beauty-loving but mar
row-minded and self-centered intel
lectuals. sGorky's hoboes are not pro-
letarians, but they shake hairy fist