Maxim Gorky´s untimely thoughts

“Untimely Thoughts” is a collection of articles by Maxim Gorky, the famous Russian writer. He had originally supported the Bolsheviks, but turned against them after the 1917 February revolution. Gorky published his own newspaper, “Novaya Zhizn” (New Life), which expressed the political viewpoints of a Menshevik faction known as the Internationalists. Leaders of this group included A Tikhonov, N Sukhanov and V Desnitsky. I admit that my knowledge of them is scanty at best!

Gorky's paper became notorious when two Bolshevik leaders, Gregory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, published an article in it, opposing and de facto exposing the coming October revolution, which was then in full preparation. Lenin denounced the article as treasonous, but forgave Zinoviev and Kamenev after the successful revolution (since they both decided to support it at the last moment), giving them high-ranking posts in the new Soviet administration. Stalin, however, didn't forget and used the “Novaya Zhizn” article decades later when he had the two party veterans purged! Apart from this curious episode, Maxim Gorky's newspaper is almost unknown in the West, and this book therefore filled a gap when it was published in 1968. Note that it only contains Gorky's articles, not the more famous piece by Zinoviev and Kamenev. The title “Untimely Thoughts” comes from the name of Gorky's regular column in “Novaya Zhizn”.

Gorky denounces the Bolshevik seizure of power from broadly Menshevik positions. He protests the Bolshevik suppression of dissenting newspapers, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, but also the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty with Germany. The perspective is unabashedly elitist, with Gorky denouncing “the dark masses” (a Russian derogatory term for the great mass of unskilled workers) and their “animal anarchism”. The skilled workers (what a Bolshevik would call the labor aristocracy) are the real working class. Indeed, the Mensheviks drew most of their support from skilled workers, while Lenin's party mobilized “the dark masses”. Since the labor aristocracy is a small minority, Gorky doesn't believe that socialism is possible in Russia. Neither the anarchic dark masses, nor the non-socialist peasantry, are ready for it. The program is therefore one of parliamentary democracy through the Constituent Assembly, and a gradual cultural uplift of the common people. My impression is that Gorky, like all intellectuals, overestimated the role of his own stratum!

Overall, Gorky's attacks on the Bolsheviks have a peculiar ring. On the one hand, they sound prescient, since, of course, we know exactly what happened later. On the other hand, they also sound rather petty, with the high-brow writer constantly denouncing every incident of violence and theft in Petrograd or Moscow, as if such things could be avoided during a political upheaval in a war-torn and destitute nation like Russia (using the same logic, a Czarist could have denounced the February revolution, which Gorky supported!).

Lenin, of course, wasn't pleased with “Novaya Zhizn”. The last issue of the periodical is dated July 2, 1918. On that day, the Bolshevik government finally suppressed Gorky's newspaper. The Bolsheviks accused “Novaya Zhizn” of being counter-revolutionary, claiming that it had expressed support for Admiral Kolchak's insurgent movement in Siberia. At this point, some Menshevik factions were indeed collaborating with Kolchak. However, “Novaya Zhizn” seems not to have done so, suggesting that there were other reasons behind the suppression. Gorky's sharp pen, perhaps?

The mercurial Gorky left Soviet Russia in 1921, but returned in 1932 at the invitation of Stalin. The former anti-Bolshevik firebrand now became associated with “socialist realism” and other Stalinist politics. He died a Soviet citizen of good standing in 1936 (unless, of course, he was poisoned on Stalin's orders, an oft-repeated rumor). Gorky's curious career – from pro-Bolshevik to anti-Bolshevik to pro-Stalinist – became a source of embarrassment for his official Soviet hagiographers, who suppressed his articles in “Novaya Zhizn” or blatantly falsified their contents, for instance by turning an attack on Lenin into a tribute to the man! George Orwell would have been pleased.

It seems Maxim Gorky's thought are permanently untimely.