The producers news., 1936-02-28
RUSSIA"


SPONSORS the radio news dramatic, "Fne
March Of Time" It is Illuminating as fur
ther evidence of the trend of afafirs in the
Soviet Union back to "natl0nansm ano
"patriotisn" and "respectabillty" and al
SO the character and power OF the man
who occupies the suite OF Ivan the terrible
in the Kremlin and also OF the yes, men
who now constitute the bureaucratic ap-
paratus of the workers and farmers tath-
erland." Workers should read 1t and pom
der.
CRACK! CRACK!
The whip that cracks lOudest and most
pOtently in Russia is the Communist
Party newsOrgan Pravda ('TruthO in
which Joseph Stalin's ightest whims
and heaviest commands, usually unSlgn-
ed, often appear first. Last week that
prominent Old BOlshevik, the editor of
the Soviet Government neWSOrgan lives
tia ('News), famed NicOlai IvanOvich
Burkharin, expressed the editorial Opin-
ion that the Russian people were "a ma
ton of OblOmOvs' ii. e., lazy, gOOd-fOr-
nothing dreamers like OblOmOV, pr1nCI-
pal character in the famed GOncharOv
nOveD prior to their glorious awakening
by the Revolution of 1917.
"CRACK!-Pravda came out with an
editorial flaying Old BOlshevik Bukharin.
Promptly Editor Bukharin abjectly
crawled, withdrew everything he had
said, apOlOgiZed. Even so, Bukharin was
left not quite sure whether it had been
Stain who took umbrage at 'OblOmOV'
or somebody else in the Party's inner
circles.
CRACK!-Even louder that same day
Pravda lashed out against Composer
Dmitri ShOstakOvich, whom every Soviet
music critic has hailed as the RevOIu-
tons most brilliant genius in the relm
of operate and symphonic composition.
Not only has COmrade ShOStakOvich
been BOlsheviSm's musical darling, but
Capitalism in Manhattan put on it's boil
ed shirts and sped to the splendiferOus
Metropolitan Opera House premiere of
his master work, Lady Macbeth of
Mzensk' (Time, Feb. IL, 1880.
''Pravda called ShOstakOviCh's cOmpo-
sitiOn's 'unsOviet, unWhOleSOme, cheap,
eccentric and tuneless.' The devastating
Communist epithet bourgeois was tag
ged to them. Rehearsals of his latest
ballet 'Limpid Stream on which the
Corps de Ballet of MOscOw's great Boil
shOi Theatre have been working diIigent-
ly, were cancelled.
Gas Soviet critics leaped to a new
point of view which would save their
jobs last week, they discovered that
James JOyce's Ulysses previously so es-
teemed in Moscow that it has been ap-
pearlng serially in leading Soviet re-
view, is confused, obscene and written
in English that can hardly be understood
by an Englishman.'
Moscow critics urged Soviet cOmpOs-
ers to turn back to TchaikOvsky, Mus
sOrgsky and Rimsky- KOrsakOv; Soviet
writer's to turn back to Shakespeare.
Goethe and PushI1in. In the general Boil
shevik artist furOr this week it was ev-
eryWhere believed, although not official
Iy confirmed, that Joseph Stain early
last week heard for the first time some
OF ShOstakOvich's music, then translat-
ed his personal reactions into the lash
ing Pravda editorial which called th&
Red Genius works 'muddIe instead of
music, fragments of melody disOIving in.
10 general roar, scrunch and scream -
vi all the BOlShevik heroes of the Octo.
Der revolution of 1917, who were on the
central Committee of the Bolshevik party
at the time Of the revolution, onlv StaIin
remains. All the others, who are not dead
are IN exile or in prison, or have heen do
graded IN disgrace on one charge or anofb
er. The great majority of the members ~
OF the party at the time of the seizure ~
power have been expelled from thn oo,,+J-
And now Bukharin ono of +ho foS. pe'A ~ ,