“To a friend, in an unguarded moment, he [Maxim Gorky, 1932] declared his ambition: simply to portray the world and man as they were, without the myth of love, ‘repudiating noting, praising nothing’; repudiation was unjust, while praise was premature—‘for we live in chaos and ourselves are fragments of chaos.’ He compared his desire with Einstein, ‘trying to alter radically our representation of the universe.” PhilosophyHistoryIllusionChaosSoviet UnionSelf DeceptionDisillusionEinsteinSocialist RealismGorky Book:Stormy Petrel: The Life and Work of Maxim Gorky Source: Stormy Petrel: The Life and Work of Maxim Gorky
“To a friend, in an unguarded moment, he [Maxim Gorky, 1932] declared his ambition: simply to portray the world and man as they were, without the myth of love, ‘repudiating nothing, praising nothing’; repudiation was unjust, while praise was premature—‘for we live in chaos and ourselves are fragments of chaos.’ He compared his desire with Einstein, ‘trying to alter radically our representation of the universe.” PhilosophyHistoryIllusionChaosSoviet UnionSelf DeceptionDisillusionEinsteinSocialist RealismGorky Book:Stormy Petrel: The Life and Work of Maxim Gorky Source: Stormy Petrel: The Life and Work of Maxim Gorky
“The scythe went down the ranks, in cities and provinces, lopping the heads of the Party apparatuses, of intellectuals, activists. Nearly the entire Party Central Committee was killed; nearly the entire Soviet war council; nearly the entire Red Army command, starting with its head, Tukhachevsky; 35,000 officers; most Soviet ambassadors, almost the entire staffs of Pravda and Izvestia, most of the officials of the Cheka (including its head, Yagoda), most of the leaders of the Young Communist League . . . From late 1936 into 1939 the slaughter went on. The tortures and shootings that took place in the basement of the Lubyanka, headquarters of the security police, must have set a world record for one building.” HistoryCommunismTortureSoviet UnionStalinismRussian RevolutionMass Murder1936GorkyLubyanka Book:Stormy Petrel: The Life and Work of Maxim Gorky Source: Stormy Petrel: The Life and Work of Maxim Gorky