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Belorussian Review
6
MUNICH
1958
The views expressed in the Review are those of their authors. They are not bound by any single political philosophy nor are they to be construed as representing the point of view of the INSTITUTE.
Material contained herein may be reproduced, provided reference is made to this publication
All comments and inquiries are most welcome and should be addressed to:
Institute for the Study of the USSR Editor,
The Belorussian Review
Mannhardtstrafle 6
Munich, Germany
Verantwortlich fur den Inhalt: Dr. Stanislau Stankievic
Herausgeber und Veilag: Institut zur Erforschung der UdSSR, e. V., Munchen 22, Mannhardtstrasse 6, Telefon 2 06 81—4. Printed in Germany by Buchdruckerel Universal, Munchen 5, Rumfordstrafie 29/31
The Belorussian Review is a publication of the Institute for the Study of the USSR. Its purpose is to present the free world an analysis of contemporary events and detailed studies of Belorussian history and culture by persons who know the system intimately.
The Institute for the Study of the USSR was organized on July 8, 1950. It is a free corporation of scientists and men and women of letters who have left the Soviet Union and are now engaged in research on their homeland.
Any member of the Soviet emigration, irrespective of his national origin, political affiliations or place of residence, is eligible to take part in the work of the Institute provided he is not a Communist Party member or sympathizer.
All comments and inquiries are most welcome and should be addressed to:
Institute for the Study of the USSR
Editor, Belorussian Review
Mannhardtstrasse 6
Munich, Germany
CONTENTS
H. NIAMIHA The Belorussian Academy of Sciences (October 13,1928—July 7,1936)
P. URBAN Belorussian Opposition to the Soviet Regime
U. HLYBINNY Belorussian Culture After World War II
ALES BIERAZNIAK Soviet Belorussian Literature in 1957
ANTON ADAMOVIC Some Notes on Kupala's Attitude to the Bolsheviks
JOSEPH J. BARITZ Belorussia and the Kremlin's Strategic Plans
SYMON KABYS The Sovnarkhoz and Industry in Belorussia
VSEVOLOD HOLUBNYCHY The Population of the Belorussian SSR
Reviews
A. MARHOVIC La Ligne Curzon et la № Guerre Mondiale, by Romain Yakemtchouk 122,
JAN ZAPRUDNIK Komunist Bielarusi, 1957, Nos. 6—12
THE BELORUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
(October 13, 1928—July 7,1936)
H. NIAMIHA
Initial Activity
The history of the Belorussian Academy of Sciences, as such, may be traced back to the beginning of January 1929, when, after an interim period of two and a half months in which the Academy's predecessor, the Institute of Belorussian Culture, was being reorganized, the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR approved the appointment of twenty-two academicians."* Apart from Professor S. Volfson, at that time the best-known of the "Marxists," this restricted number could only include the more outstanding representatives of science and literature. At the same time, the following presidium was approved: U. Ihnatouski (President); S. Niekrasevic and M. Bialuha (Vice-Presidents); V. Lastouski (Permanent Secretary); M. Malusycki, People's Commissar for Education of the BSSR A. Balicki and Arsanski (members). For maintaining liaison with the Academy, academicians Karpinsky, Oldenburg, Marr, Pokrovsky and Vilyams were appointed by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and academicians Zabolotny, Turkovsky, Skrypnyk and Yavorsky by the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR.
The following changes were then introduced. All historical studies were united under one body—the Institute of History—with the following chairs: general history, Belorussian history, history of Belorussian law and history of the Belorussian economy. General and Belorussian literature were assigned to the Institute of Literature. The chair of ethnographical studies was renamed the chair of material culture and ethnography, with commissions for the study of material culture, folk art, folk music and folklore. During the first half of 1929, a chair of Marxism and Leninism, under Volfson as departmental head and Valobrynski as academic secretary, was set up, with three commissions—for dialectical materialism, Leninism and historical materialism.
New scholars were recruited. In the second half of June 1929, the Academic Council elected two new academicians—Professor Skacielau for the chair of chemistry and Professor Vasilkou for the chair of botany. Professor Vasilkou had occupied the chair of botany in the Belorussian Academy of Agriculture and had organized at Gorki one of the best botanical gardens of the BSSR. It contained flora from all over Belorussia and research was conducted there on a large scale. Professor Skacietau was the author of numerous papers.
In 1928, the first volume of Pracy kdtedry etnahrafii (Studies of the Department of Ethnography) was issued under the editorship of V. Lastouski. Since Lastouski had been put in charge, the work of the department had been intensified, and ia the following year this intensive work was continued. Together with the scientists Serbau and Secretary of the Central Bureau for Regional Studies Kaspiarovic, Lastouski, as Permanent Secretary of the Academy, undertook ethnographic expeditions to the region of Mozyr (confluence of the Pripet and the Dnieper). The Yurovichy, Khoiniki, Bragin, Loev and Rechitsa regions were also studied. Until then it had been assumed that these places were inhabited by a mixed population of Russians, Belorussians and Ukrainians, but after studying the relevant ethnographical evidence, particularly folklore, the researchers came to the conclusion that the population was predominantly Belorussian. At a neolithic settlement discovered near the village of Klovy, on the land of the Zahalle forestry enterprise, stone tools, including hammers, axes and flint knives, were unearthed.
The ethnographical commission of the Polish section collected materials on the origin of the Polish population in Belorussia, while its language and literature commission worked on a Polish-Belorussian dictionary and a dictionary of Polish provincialisms, and studied Polish songs in Belorussia. The Latvian commission was engaged on a historical study "The Migration of Latvians to the BSSR and Adjoining Provinces," the purpose of which was to examine the reasons for this migration and the manner in which Latvian colonies had come into existence. Professor P. Buzuk was sent to study the peculiarities of the Belorussian language among the Belorussian population of Latvia.
The Academic Council examined and in the main approved a draft reform of Belorussian spelling, which included some simplification of the rules of phonetics and morphology and laid down rules for the spelling of foreign words and proper nouns. The project was sent for further discussion to the board of the People's Commissariat for Education of the BSSR.
The Beginning of Communist Infiltration
In the second half of 1928, a new turn in official nationality policy began to make itself felt: a campaign was launched to destroy nationally conscious elements in the national republics, whom the Bolsheviks viewed as potential leaders of peasant resistance to collectivization. At first, however, the Institute of Belorussian Culture, as it then was, was not directly affected: only toward the end of 1929 did it become evident that its successor, the Academy, would not escape unscathed. By that time, apart from its function as a research institution, the Academy had grown into a center for the national revival of Belorussia. Realizing
this, the Bolsheviks could not allow this center to become any stronger. They decided to deal a crushing blow to the whole movement of national revival in Belorussia and in the first place to the People's Commissariats for Education and Agriculture and the Belorussian Academy of Sciences.
This began with seemingly innocuous changes of personnel. On August 31, 1929, the Bureau of the Belorussian Party Central Committee dismissed Balicki from his posts as People's Commissar for Education of the BSSR and member of the Academy's presidium, and appointed A. Platun, a member of the Party Central Committee, in his place. On September 14, People's Commissar for Agriculture "Z. Pryscepau, a former member of the Institute for Belorussian Culture, was relieved of his post, and on October 16, Permanent Secretary of the Academy V. Lastouski and Vice-President S. Niekrasevic were relieved of their duties.
These changes were represented by the press as the outcome of the wishes of the Academy. Without comment, the "Chronicle" section of Polymia for October 1929 reported:
On October 26, 1929, the Academic Council of the Belorussian Academy of Sciences elected a Vice-President, a Permanent Secretary and new members of the presidium. The People's Commissariat for Education approved the following candidates proposed by the Academy: Academician Jakub Kolas as Vice-President and member of the presidium, and Academician I. Piatrovic (J. Niomanski) as Permanent Secretary and member of the presidium, the latter retaining his post of deputy chairman of the State Planning Commission of the BSSR. In addition, the appointment of academicians S. Matulajtis, A. Platun and I. Oserovic was approved as members of the presidium. The Council of People's Commissars noted that the final composition of the Academy's presidium, after the additional elections, was the following: U. Ihnatouski (President); M. Bialuha and J. Kolas (Vice-Presidents); I. Piatrovic (Permanent Secretary); and academicians Matulajtis and Niekrasevic and comrades A. Platun and I. Oserovic (members).
The new "academician" A. Platun, who took Balicki's place, not only in the People's Commissariat of Education, but also in the presidium of the Academy, had not even had a secondary education. He had, of course, published nothing nor delivered lectures of any kind. He had, however, been a Party member since 1920, and, what is more, was a member of the Belorussian Party Central Committee responsible for "purging" the People's Commissariat of Education and watching over the Belorussian Academy of Sciences. These changes were at first taken to mean no more than an intensification of Communist influence on the Academy's work. No one then accurately realized how tragically this action would end. The persons thus removed from responsible posts continued their academic work, though under increasingly trying conditions.
In the meantime, the Academy was preparing a new Belorussian orthography in order to circulate it for discussion to all bodies concerned. The chair of soil science was reorganized as an institute. Through the Permanent Mission of the BSSR in Moscow, the Academy's presidium requested the АН-Union People's Commissariat for Labor and the Higher Council of the National Economy to assign to the Academy a definite number of specialists in geology, chemistry and economics. It was even proposed to send to Siberia an expedition to study the life and customs of Belorussian immigrants.
The 1929—30 academic year coincided with the opening of the general offensive against the peasants, the incitement everywhere of class warfare, and the introduction of "socialist methods of work." "Socialist competition" was coming into fashion, and academic work could not help becoming involved. On January 19, 1930, a general meeting of the Academy's staff took place at which delegates from the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences were present to sign a "socialist agreement." This agreement was divided into four parts. The first dealt with improvements in the structure of the All-Ukrainian and Belorussian Academies of Sciences; the second with the planning of academic research; the third with the participation of the academies in "the socialist reconstruction of the economy of the BSSR and Ukrainian SSR," and the fourth with "cultural revolution and cooperation with the masses." Later, representatives of the Belorussian and All-Ukrainian academies went to Leningrad to sign an agreement on competition between the Academies of Sciences of the USSR, BSSR and Ukrainian SSR.
As a result of the call for "competition" and active participation in the country's "socialist reconstruction," much time had to be spent on the holding of meetings and the making and remaking of plans, to the detriment of genuine academic work. Thus, in connection with the collectivization of the rural economy, the chair of Belorussian literature was obliged to prepare an anthology of literature devoted to "class warfare and socialist construction," and to give lectures at enterprises and worker's clubs on "Belorussian proletarian literature." Members of various departments were called upon to "instruct" literary circles in workers' clubs and to help them in "practical work."
In the spring and particularly in the summer of 1930, mass arrests began. One after another, academicians and members of the Academy's staff were taken for interrogation, including A. Cvikievic, V. Lastouski, A. Smolic, Kraskouski, J. Losik, S. Niekrasevic, Professor B. Epimach-Sypila, H. Harecki, Professor U. Piceta, M. Bajkou, A. Balicki, S. Dubinski and J. Dyla. With them went writers, teachers, regional study researchers and students—in all about three hundred persons. They were charged with helping to create the "Sajuz Vyzvalennia Bielarusi" (Union for the Liberation of Belorussia), an organization invented by the GPU which was allegedly aiming at "severing the BSSR from the USSR and setting up a bourgeois and landowners' republic" and was supposed to be maintaining for this purpose ties with the "Union for the Liberation of the Ukraine," the trial of which was being staged by the GPU at that time.
After those arrested had been forced to "confess" to their part in the work of this organization, Savieckaja Bielarus for December 8, 1930, published the following resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR:
In connection with the unmasking of harmful counterrevolutionary activity by a group of academicians of the Belorussian Academy of Sciences, aimed at the dictatorship of the proletariat and at wrecking socialist construction, the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR resolves to exclude from membership of the Academy academicians V. Lastouski, U. Piceta, J. Losik, S. Niekrasevic, H. Harecki and A. Dubach and to deprive them of the status of academicians as enemies of the proletarian dictatorship.
The Union government planned to stage a trial of the "Sajuz Vyzvalennia Bielarusi" similar to that of the "Union for the Liberation of the Ukraine." The intention was to accuse Professor Piceta, Rector of the Belorussian State University, of providing a link between the "Sajuz Vyzvalennia Bielarusi" and the GPU-fabricated "Union for the Liberation of Russia," which it was proposed to head by academician Platonov, a historian like Piceta.1 Niekrasevic was to furnish the link with the "Union for the Liberation of the Ukraine." For this purpose a campaign was launched against the arrested men at various meetings and in the press.
Thus, A. Siankievic wrote as follows in his article "For the Leninist Line in jtionality Policy":
The counterrevolutionary group discovered by the GPU and headed by former ministers and leaders of the Belorussian Rada—Lastouski, Cvikievic, Losik, Niekrasevic and others who had entrenched themselves in the Belorussian Academy of Sciences—extended their feelers from there to a number of economic and cultural bodies, the People's Commissariats for Agriculture and Education, the Belorussian State Publishing House, etc.
At the Belorussian Academic Conference held in Minsk in 1927, a bloc was created between centers of the Belorussian counterrevolution on either side of the frontier .... The counterrevolutionary group of Belorussian national-democrats maintained contact with the group of the Ukrainian Professor Efremov, or the so-called "Union for the Liberation of the Ukraine," and jointly oriented themselves on the same imperialist power. . .
Having seized a number of research institutions and taken over a number of chairs in higher educational establishments, the counterrevolutionary national-democrats aimed at training the younger generation to take their place. . .
The idealization of Belorussia's past was actively pursued—the celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of Belorussian printing, the Skaryna jubilee, the idealization of the Szlachtist revolutionary Kastus Kalinouski, and the idealization of medieval literature by means of textbooks on the history of Belorussian literature compiled by M. Harecki, Carzynski, Piotuchovic .. .2
Ihnatouski and Zylunovic, as Communists, were accused of opportunism, which had enabled the "enemy" to seize key positions in the Academy and the People's Commissariat of Education of the BSSR. As a result, Ihnatouski "voluntarily" resigned from his duties as President of the Academy and member of the presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the BSSR. Both these "personal requests" of Ihnatoiiski's were granted in the second half of January 1931 by the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR.3 2ylunovic had already been deprived of his influence.
Soon the entire press was filled with sensational public statements by 2yluno-vic, Ihnatouski and Kolas "repenting" their "national-democrat sins." Ihnatouski was forced to sign a statement drawn up beforehand by the GPU declaring that those arrested
... had for their own dirty counterrevolutionary aims used a number of Soviet institutions, including the People's Commissariat for Education, the Institute of Belorussian Culture and later the Belorussian Academy of Sciences at a time when I was in a position of authority. This exploitation had become possible thanks to my nationalist opportunism in theory and practice.
In the official Communist view, such a public declaration by one of the closest comrades of the arrested men, who were outstanding and loyal supporters of Belorussian nationalism, would help to discredit the entire Belorussian national-л liberation movement and lead to its being accepted as "anti-popular" and directed at destroying the "fraternal" links with the Russian people. This was to have been carried a stage further through the arrest of Ihnatouski himself, after suitable brainwashing by the GPU to make him emerge as the leader of the "Sajuz Vyzvalennia Bielarusi." According to rumors then current, GPU officials tried during preliminary interrogation to force Ihnatouski to accept this role and that to escape this he committed suicide on February 20, 1931, after a meeting with the interrogators. Another, more likely, rumor was that Ihnatouski was warned by sympathizers in the GPU of his impending arrest.
In either case, Ihnatoiiski's tragic end strengthened the general belief in his integrity and sympathy with the convictions and activity of those who had been arrested. This step cancelled out the confessions extorted, not only from Ihnatouski himself, but from all the others, and in many ways hampered the Bolsheviks! plans.
The Election of New Academicians
For a whole month the Presidency of the Academy remained vacant. For this important post the Bolsheviks had difficulty finding suitable candidates in Belo-russia who were uncompromised by any connections with the national-democrats. "It was permissible to appoint as academicians men with an elementary education," says S. Krusynski, an authoritative contemporary witness, "but a `personality' was essential for the post of President."4
On January 23, 1931, "at the victorious moment when the Academy, of Sciences was making a new start in its work, which was to transform the Academy from a national-democrat bridgehead into a proletarian Academy, building socialist culture and proletarian science,"5 the Academic Council held a meeting at which it was decided to elect eleven new academicians, after declaring vacant^ posts in the institutes of history, chemistry and linguistics, in the departments of Marxism-Leninism, ethnography, mathematics, economic geography and physics, and in the Jewish and Polish sections. It was decided to give the campaign for their election a "broad public character" and to draw into it "the working masses, scholars, and higher educational establishments." It was to be conducted by a commission consisting of Chackievic, Platun, Volfson, Scerbakou, Ryulin, Piatrovic, Ahulnik and Sierafimau. The election campaign thus coincided with another campaign, that of "transforming the Belorussian Academy of Sciences into a proletarian academy," as Savieckaja kraina called the purge of the Academy's | staff carried out by the People's Commissariat for Workers' and Peasants' Inspection and the Belorussian Party Central Committee.
This purge led to new dismissals and arrests. Before the election campaign I was over, Moscow found a suitable figure for the post of President of the Academy in the person of P. O. Horyn, a native of Western Belorussia who no longer used the Belorussian language and had even abandoned his Belorussian surname of Kalada. On February 13, 1931, his appointment was confirmed by the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR.6
Horyn was born in 1900. According to Savieckaja kraina, he joined the Party I in 1918 and served as a volunteer in the Red Army. In January 1920, he was sent to Sverdlovsk University, on completing which he worked as a lecturer there. Between 1923 and 1925 he studied in the Institute of Red Professors, on the pistorical side. From 1925 he was a member of the presidium of the Society of 1 Marxist Historians and from 1930 a member of the Communist Academy. He was deputy director of the Institute of History of the Communist Academy, assistant editor of the journal Proletarskaya revolyutsiya, and a member of the editorial staff of the journal Istorik-Marksist and the Istoriya proletariata SSSR. At the same time he taught at the Second Moscow State University and the Institute of Red Professors. Savieckaja kraina said that "Comrade Horyn had published a number of works on the history of the revolutionary movement in .the USSR, the history of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, etc." In other words, he was a man devoted body and soul to the Communist Party.
The Bolsheviks knew full well whom they were sending to "purge" the Belorussian Academy and were, of course, not disappointed. Horyn tackled this task in all seriousness and convinced of the honorable nature of his mission. He was very proud of being a pupil and follower of Pokrovsky, who was dethroned after mis death, but was then still an infallible pillar of Russian Marxist history. According to Krusynski, Horyn behaved arrogantly; he demanded aid of all and sundry in his "difficult work of transforming the Academy" and accused everyone of jwithholding it. Soon after he took over this assignment, Horyn declared:
The Belorussian Academy of Sciences is called upon to take a most active part in the socialist construction of the BSSR.... It is above all essential to realize that science is not apolitical.... The complete realization that science is a class phenomenon and that the Belorussian Academy of Sciences must join in the energetic socialist construction of the BSSR, is the first and foremost condition if the Academy is to tackle the tasks with which it is confronted.7
According to two of Horyn's proteges in the Academy, L. Babrovic and I. Spileuski, the most urgent task was to "finish off" the class enemy—the national-democrats, to remove them from the Academy of Sciences in general and the chair of ethnography in particular, and to replace them with young Marxist cadres.8 Throughout the country, public meetings of various kinds were held at which the following resolutions were approved:
1. To transform the Academy into a true and united Soviet center for academic research and the most authoritative Marxist-Leninist institution of the BSSR;
2. To appoint as new academicians the best fighters on the Marxist-Leninist academic front, who are devoted to the cause of the working class;
3. To turn the Academy of Sciences into a most, effective weapon of the Communist Party and Soviet government;
4. To subordinate the entire work of the Academy to tasks of socialist construction and the development of Belorussian proletarian culture, by linking closely the work of the entire Academy and of its individual members with the enterprises, the workers and Soviet society;
5. To expand the training of young scholars drawn from workers, kolkhozniks and intellectuals devoted to the proletarian cause;
6. To expose and liquidate the national-democrat counterrevolution on the academic front and to wage a resolute fight against every kind of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois movement in science.9
All the meetings were given the hint to nominate twenty-one candidates for the vacant posts in the Academy, eighteen of them being Party members and only three non-Party men. Of these, the Academic Council elected ten academicians. The eleventh vacancy had already been occupied by Horyn before the election took place.
Under Communist Control
On March 19, 1931, the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR confirmed, on the basis of the foregoing elections, the following as members of the Academy: C. Burstyn, Oskar Kiedrau-Zichman, M. Krol, V. Lubiako, M. Nikolski, P. Pankievic, A. Platun, I. Ryulin, V.Serbent, and V. Scerbakou. The appointment was confirmed of Scerbakou as Vice-President.10
The greatest zeal in helping Volfson to discredit the "national-democrats" was displayed by Scerbakou, who redoubled his efforts on becoming Vice-President of the Academy. In trying to curry favor with the regime, however, these men did not notice that they were overstepping the mark. It was not commonly Lnown, even among Party members, that the assiduous preparations for the trial the "Sajuz Vyzvalennia Bielarusi" were misfiring. The suicide of Ihnatouski md attempted suicide of the popular national poet Janka Kupala as a reaction against the efforts of the GPU to involve them in this trial had done much to spoil the GPU's plans. Besides this, the official discrediting of the arrested Lcademicians and writers and ceaseless emphasis on their "chauvinism" and In their service to the cause of Belorussia's revival made them even greater heroes and martyrs in the eyes of the population. Charges of being in contact with "the interventionists" and labels such as "bourgeois degenerates" were of no avail. The Original plan of a public trial was therefore abandoned and those arrested were secretly banished one after the other to the remote north or to concentration camps.
Attention was concentrated upon consolidating Communist control in the academy and extending it to all academic research in the BSSR by subordinating J.11 the institutions concerned to the Academy. For this purpose, on May 13, 1931, the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR passed the following resolution:
1. The Belorussian Academy of Sciences is the sole academic center in the Republic, in which the control of all academic research in the BSSR is concentrated, for which purpose the Academy is entitled:
(a) to plan the work of all research institutions in the BSSR, no matter under whose jurisdiction they may be;
(b) to establish Marxist methods in the work of all research institutions;
(c) to determine the choice of subjects; and
(d) to supervise the execution of these plans and application of these methods in all research institutions in the BSSR.
2. All people's commissariats and institutions in the Republic exercising jurisdiction over research institutions and also branches of all-Union institutes working in the BSSR are to submit to the Academy in due course plans for the work of research institutes, stations, etc.
3. Research institutes and other bodies controlled by people's commissariats and organizations are to work in accordance with the instructions of these people's commissariats and organizations under the control of the Academy.
People's commissariats, central institutions and organizations are to be asked to intensify their operational control of the research done by their institutes.
4. The change in the internal structure of the Academy from the system of departments to that of special institutes is approved and the number of institutes already organized and those to be organized is noted.
5. The presidium of the Academy is to be invited to submit to the Council of People's Commissars -within one month a draft of the requisite changes in the statutes of the Academy.11
Summing up the Academy's work during the first half of 1931, Horyn said that it had been reorganized with an eye to its participation in socialist construction.12 The choice of subjects for research was revised, and changes in the structure of the Academy were introduced which were aimed at achieving the "closest coordination with Soviet and economic institutions." The multiplicity of commissions, chairs and sections was replaced by institutes for research in philosophy, economics, history, Soviet construction and law, linguistics, literature and art, geology, biology, physics and technology, chemistry, soil science and the central nervous system. The Jewish, Polish, Lithuanian and Latvian sections, the commission for the study of Western Belorussia and the Central Bureau for Regional Studies were retained.
On June 23, 1931, the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR approved the following presidium: P. Horyn (President); V. Scerbakou and J. Kolas (K. Mickievic) (Vice-Presidents); and I. Oserovic, S. Volfson, M. Krol, P. Pan-kievic, A. Platun, I. Piatrovic, I. Ryiilin and V. Serbent (members).13
"The attention of the Academy," said Horyn, "was above all centered on exposing the anti-Marxist methods employed in their works by the representatives of great-power and national-democrat chauvinism."14 It follows from this that no truly free or creative work, especially in the humanities, was done at the time. The Institute for the Central Nervous System, for example, studied "questions of shock methods, fatigue and its liquidation"; the Institute of Philosophy examined "the class war in the period of reconstruction," "contemporary religious feeling in the BSSR" and "nationality problems in the period of reconstruction." The Institute of Biology conducted experiments on the cultivation of soybeans, which at that time, like Khrushchev's corn today, were expected to relieve the shortages of basic products, particularly of fats, provoked by the agricultural crisis resulting from wholesale collectivization. According to Horyn,
During the past half-year, the Academy took its first steps to establish contact with the masses. Over a hundred lectures on academic subjects were read in clubs and factories. A beginning was also made on the publication of popular literature.15
The shortage of qualified personnel is clear from what Horyn4went on to say:
We now, literally, need thousands of academic workers-A postgraduate institute has been created under the Academy for the training of proletarian academic workers. The recruitment of 180 postgraduate students is planned in 1931 and a preparatory department has been set up for workers and kolkhozniks.16
Such scholars as had survived were too intimidated to assert themselves, particularly as even orthodox Marxists seldom appeared in print as individuals, but only en bloc and even so very often drew on themselves the crossfire of the changeable policy of the Communist Party.
At the same time, a bitter ideological fight was being waged at the highest Party level by the supporters of Stalin's dictatorship and their rivals. Among other deviations from the Party line, a new crime, that of "Menshevik idealism," which defied the authority in academic matters of the infallible Stalin himself, was invented. The struggle for control at the summit had somewhat belated repercussions at the periphery, in the national republics. In Belorussia, academicians Volfson, Scerbakou and their like became so engrossed in slandering the "national-democrats" that the dispute in the upper ranks of the Party escaped their notice. This situation was exploited by more opportunistic elements in the Society of Militant Materialists and Dialecticians of Belorussia, where Volfson and Scerbakou still played the leading roles. At a meeting of this society held on June 1, 1931, a resolution was adopted consisting of the following main points:
Successful implementation of the general Party line is impossible without a resolute struggle against all bourgeois and petty-bourgeois tendencies to revise Marxism-Leninism under a cloak of Marxist phraseology. In philosophy, the revision of Marxism is reflected on the one hand in a mechanistic approach, which is in the main the methodology of the right deviation and hence at this stage the more dangerous, and, on the other hand, in the form of Menshevik idealism.
Menshevik idealism has denied the Party nature of philosophy and science in general, and does not subordinate theory to the cause of socialist construction and the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat.... Menshevik idealism has denied the Leninist stage in the development of the theory of Marxism-Leninism, has concealed the theoretical errors of Plekhanov and their connection with his Menshevism, has subjected Lenin to revision, ... and has ignored the theoretical role of the Party, its Central Committee and comrade Stalin The Society of Militant Materialists and Dialecticians of Belorussia condemns the opportunistic attitude of the leadership of this society and deems it essential to change its composition by strengthening it with young philosophical cadres.17
Later in the same month, a group was appointed within the Academy to revise all the basic philosophic works which the Academy had published (including those by Volfson, Bychouski and Vydra). This episode did not, however, eliminate the question of the national-democrats. Thus, Savieckaja kraina, 1931, No. 8, published the completely innocuous "Instruction on the Study of the Customs and Culture of Woodcutters and Raftsmen," compiled by the ethnographer I. Serbau. Although ЬегЬай had worked as a specialist in the Institute of Belorussian Culture under the national-democrats, he had never been one of their followers and had consequently survived all the purges of the Academy. In a subsequent issue, the journal printed the following resolution of its editorial board:
1. The publication of the instruction submitted by I. Serbau, member of the academic staff of the ethnographical section of the Institute of History, and purporting to come from the ethnographical section, is to be considered as the grossest of political mistakes.
2. The instruction reflects national-democrat aims in ethnography and ignores class aims.
3. The editor of the journal, Sadouski, failed to show the necessary class vigilance, and his case is to be examined on his return from leave.18
Toward the end of 1931, a special "mass section" was set up within the Academy, which, together with the Central Bureau for Regional Studies, aimed primarily at "taking an active part in all the more important politico-economic campaigns: sowing, harvesting, timber rafting, grain procurement, etc." However, in order to tone down the propaganda demanding that a state research institution of the highest rank "coordinate with the masses," regional study organizations were given tasks that in fact were no more than a semblance of academic research work, such as "monographic studies" of factories, agricultural communes, artels, MTS and sovkhozes, and "the study of class warfare in rural areas (forms and methods of kulak resistance to kolkhoz construction)."19 This work could now be safely entrusted to regional study organizations, as they, like the Academy, had "cleansed themselves of alien and enemy elements carrying out national-democrat orders."
The article entitled "One Year's Work of the Institute of Linguistics of the Belorussian Academy of Sciences," written by Professor P. Buzuk, J. Maciukievic and P. Jurhilevic, provides an idea of what the Institute did in 1931. From the start, the authors protect themselves with the statement: "The struggle for Marxist-Leninist linguistics is the basic task of linguists of the BSSR." They go on to say that the practical implementation of this task consists in pursuing
... a linguistic policy under the guidance of the Party in the direction indicated by Comrade Stalin at the Sixteenth Congress of the АН-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. It is essential to give the national cultures the possibility of developing and showing their potentialities, in order to create the conditions for amalgamating them in a general culture, with one common language.20
It is necessary, say the authors, to wage war on two fronts—with great-power chauvinists and Belorussian counterrevolutionary national-democrats; the former regard Belorussian as a "dialect of the single and indivisible Russian language" and consider it useless for academic purposes, and the latter "clutter up the Belorussian language with archaisms and assiduously expel Sovietisms from the dictionary."
The subsequent reform of Belorussian grammar and spelling (promulgated on august 26, 1933) showed that the "drawing together of the Belorussian language" rith the "one common language," meaning, of course, Russian, had begun. From this point of view it becomes clear why, in this "war on two fronts," the only victims were those who "cluttered up the Belorussian language," while the "great power chauvinists" not only escaped banishment if they confessed to their devisitions, but were free as before to continue their attacks on the national-democrats. Thus, after admitting that "in exposing national-democracy in matters of language, Babrovic, Spileuski, Bandarenka, Volfson and Maciukievic, in their article `Science in the Service of National-Democrat Counterrevolution,' admitted a number of exaggerations and mistakes of a great-power character," the |authors (including this same Maciukievic) declared:
The Institute of Linguistics of the Belorussian Academy of Sciences, in studying living dialects, unlike the national-democrats, approached them with a clear class-social differentiation, revealing the individual peculiarities in the speech of workers, poor and middle peasant masses, kulak-gentry groups, intelligentsia, etc.21
In order to have at least one real linguist in the Academy, Professor Buzuk [was left free for a time and was compelled, together with Maciukievic,
. . . to study the literary language in a broad sense, i.e., the language of writers, newspapers and the state machine, ... using in the first place the language of proletarian writers, and in the newspapers the language of workers and village correspondents.22
The government did not, however, forget Buzuk's part in the dialectological (expeditions organized by the arrested national-democrats and his trips abroad on which they had sent him. In the fall of 1933, he was arrested. For unknown reasons he was soon released, but by that time he was a changed man. One of his former women pupils, A. Sarkovic, says in her memoirs:
He avoided people. He was often to be seen at the cemetery. He walked up and down between the graves, talking to himself, or sat for hours on a bench, clasping his head in his hands. What was tormenting him? The denouement soon came. Professor Buzuk drenched himself in kerosene and set fire to himself.23
Further Communization
By January 1, 1932, the Academy consisted of twelve institutes, four national sections, a commission for the study of Western Belorussia, a section for "mass work" and regional studies and a postgraduate institute. It had its own printing press, publishing house, library and central botanical garden.
The academic staff numbered 138, including 22 academicians, 60 specialists and 56 researchers. Fifty-eight, or 42 percent, were Party members. According to social background, 13 percent were workers, 37 percent peasants, 27 percent employees and 9 percent artisans. The national composition was: Belorussians (53 percent), Jews (26 percent), Poles (4 percent), Russians (11 percent), Latvians (2 percent), Lithuanians (2 percent) and Germans (2 percent). The Postgraduate Institute numbered 273 students of whom 66.3 percent were Party members and 15 percent Komsomol members.24
Plans for the work of the Academy in 1932 were drawn up on the basis of "instructions contained in Comrade Stalin's last letter on the need to wage a resolute fight for the purity and further development of Marxist-Leninist methodology."25 The results of the Academy's work during its first year under Communist control did not satisfy the leaders of the Belorussian Party Central Committee, which, at the beginning of 1932, passed a special resolution on the work of the Academy, reviewing the tasks confronting it "in the socialist reconstruction of the entire economy, in its capacity as the center of Belorussian socialist culture." It spoke of the need to expose "the mistakes in the work of Volfson, Vydra, Scerbakou and others," to wage "a ruthless struggle against class-hostile/aims" in science, and to preserve the principle of "adhering to the Party spirit in science."
Shortcomings in the Academy's work named in the resolution were the lack of interest shown by the public in science and technology and the failure to implement the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR dated May 13, 1931 on the planning of research work in the BSSR. Arising out of this, the Central Committee outlined a number of "practical measures," of which the most important were:
... that the Cultural Propaganda Section of the Central Committee be instructed to fill the vacancies on the Academy's staff for academic personnel within one month....
... that the Cultural Propaganda Section of the Central Committee and the Executive Commission of the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR be instructed to see to the implementation of the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars dated May 13, 1931 and to punish severely those failing to implement this resolution in practice.26
Thus, the Party was now not only interfering in the elections of academicians, but was even about to bypass the presidium of the Academy, and appoint research personnel. The complete subjection of the Academy to Communist influence was of great importance for the Central Committee as the Party had decided to turn the Academy into a center for controlling all research done in the republic.
At that time, however, the Party still had too few of its own devoted pupils to staff all research institutions and higher educational establishments. Even special measures such as the premature release of students from the Postgraduate Institute had not helped. Of 273 postgraduate students, only ten "shock workers" had so far been released who were sufficiently well trained to carry out independent research.27
Transformed "from a nest of counterrevolutionary national-democrats into a Soviet Academy, a center of proletarian science and national proletarian culture,"28 the Academy could not as yet boast of a single serious achievement, although previously both it and its predecessor, the Institute of Belorussian Culture, had increased the scale of their publications from year to year. In its first issue for 1931, Savieckaja kraina reported that forty-two percent of the entire academic staff of research institutions in the BSSR had produced nothing, having neither books nor articles to their credit. The following explanation for this inactivity was given:
Some researchers have produced nothing because they are afraid of making serious methodological and historical mistakes. This leads to many workers' trying at all costs to get Marxist-Communists to read their works through before consenting to their publication.
On the other hand, Communists such as Volfson and Sqerbakou, fearing to burn their fingers, were in no hurry to publish their own works or to edit those of others. They kept in mind the warning issued by the combined plenum of the Party Central Committee and Central Control Commission in a resolution entitled "On Cultural Construction," which said:
The attention of the entire Party organization is to be directed to the task of intensifying political vigilance over all kinds of hostile onslaughts in academic works, articles, etc.29
According to its plans for 1932, the Academy was called upon to study 273 themes—168 from the social and 105 from the natural sciences. The plan, however, was not fulfilled: anything of value was mainly in the domain of the natural sciences. Most attention was devoted to the publicity and propaganda side. So-called dekadniki, or ten-day campaigns, were held on behalf of the Academy in Vitebsk, Gomel and the Kojdanava district, which on March 15, 1932, was transformed—also for propaganda purposes—into a "national Polish district."30
It was also designed to weaken resistance to the Communization of Belorussian national institutions, by creating the impression that this movement was directed merely against counterrevolutionary and not national elements.
During these campaigns, members of the Academy's staff toured workers' clubs and enterprises to lecture on such subjects as the work of the Academy, class enemies in the sphere of Belorussian historical studies, the Lenin period in philosophy, class warfare and the dictatorship of the proletariat during the Second Five-Year plan, etc. In connection with the establishment of the "national Polish district" of Kojdanava, the Academy's presidium ordered the publication by the Polish section of a special review on the Kojdanava district, using information collected by the expedition of 1931. The review was never published because of a change in the Party's nationality policy, which abolished not only the national Polish district, but also the Polish and other national sections of the Academy.
A movement for the "recruitment of shock workers for science," on the lines . of the "recruitment of shock workers for literature," was launched, though without achieving any particular success. During the above-mentioned campaigns, however, this call was regarded as one of the Academy's "practical measures." At the "KIM" hosiery factory in Vitebsk, for instance, the workers ^responded to the Academy's call to science by detailing off a team of fifteen people "to study the history of the factory and for liaison with the Belorussian Academy of Sciences." The "Krasny metallist" factory nominated two workers for the preparatory section of the Postgraduate Institute.31 The effect such "practical measures" had on "proletarian science" was unimportant for the Communists. What mattered was that the Party had succeeded in driving the academicians out of their secluded studies to mingle with the working masses.
In addition to these campaigns, the "mass" section, which had been set up at the end of 1931, assigned its entire staff of forty-two people to special brigades, which were attached to the most important works in Minsk. In addition, eighty academicians, professors and other specialists were distributed as follows: nineteen people to districts; sixteen to state farms; twenty-eight to collective farms; four to MTS; and thirteen to factories.32 The "mass" section also organized special conferences devoted to the part played by the Academy's institutes in sowing and harvesting.
Realization of the Belorussian Party Central Committee's "Practical Measures" Affecting the Academy
The recruitment of staff for the Academy by the cultural propaganda section of the Belorussian Party Central Committee began with help from Moscow. Since 1924, there had been living in Moscow an outstanding Polish Communist called Tomasz Dombal, a former Communist deputy of the Polish Sejm, who had been imprisoned for his Communist activity and later released in exchange for some Catholic priests arrested by the Bolsheviks in Minsk. At first, the Kremlin used Dombal as chairman of the Peasant's International, the purpose of which, parallel with the Komintern and under its direction, was to effect infiltration into capitalist countries. After the failure of this scheme, Dombal was sent to help Horyn communize the Belorussian Academy of Sciences. He was, of course, elected academician, and the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR on August 29, 1932 confirmed him as First Vice-President of the Academy.33
Dombal made no claims to be a scholar. The purpose of his appointment was political rather than academic, but Dombal did not show as much enthusiasm for it as Horyn. All who met him could confirm that he was in fact quite a likeable person, who was fond of living well and lacked the zeal of a Communist fanatic and dogmatist. In his already quoted work, Krusynski says:
Dombal asserted that he was engaged in an important undertaking—a description of the rivers of Belorussia. In the prevailing Soviet atmosphere of suspicion, the collection of materials and the card-indexing of rivers, their depth, width, speed of current, etc., made Dombal's work suspect.
Krusynski goes on to relate how, when the new buildings of the Academy of Sciences were being erected, a small house was built for Dombal to his plans, not far from the Academy and away from the noise of the town. Its architecture was reminiscent of the West, but, most important of all, a dovecote was built as part of the premises. During the Ezhov purges Dombal was arrested; his work on the rivers of Belorussia was declared to be espionage and the dovecote a station for carrier pigeons.
The filling of academic posts with Communists occurred, not only in the Academy, but also as far as possible in other research institutions. In 1932, the following categories of academic workers in higher educational and research establishments were laid down: (a) in higher educational establishments: professor, dozent, senior assistant, assistant; (b) in research institutions: academician, academic specialist, senior researcher, researcher, assistant. The four titles in group (a) were declared to correspond respectively to the last four titles in group (b).34 At the beginning of 1932, three new institutes appeared—i. e., those of Peat, Polish Proletarian Culture and Jewish Proletarian Culture. The Lithuanian and Latvian sections remained "national sectors."
In his preface to the Academy's working plan for 1933, Horyn stated that special attention would be devoted to the study of the following questions:
… the implementation in our development program of "Comrade Stalin's six conditions," the specialization of the BSSR within the system of the USSR, questions connected with the completion of the fourth year of the First Five-Year Plan and the elaboration of subsequent five-year plans, contemporary class warfare, the role of the nationality question in the period of reconstruction, bourgeois tendencies in contemporary Belorussian literature, class warfare in contemporary linguistics, the preparation of studies on the history of Belorussia, monographs on factories, works and collective farms, the role of village councils in the construction of collective farms, etc.
This testifies to the Academy's definite orientation toward the problems of today. The closest coordination of science with contemporary socialist construction is one of the Academy's most important tasks. Under the nationalist-opportunist leadership of Ihnatouski, the Academy concentrated upon the investigation of problems of ancient and medieval history .... Problems of socialist construction hardly interested it at all-Linguistics, literature, history, ethnography, economics, anthropology and other disciplines were treated by the national-democrats in such a way as to vindicate the reactionary notion of a Belorussian "revival" and counterrevolutionary attempts to restore a bourgeois state.85
Clearly, in 1933 the Academy was expected to devote itself exclusively to work of a propagandist or utilitarian nature.
On August 22, 1933, the Council of People's Commissars confirmed a new constitution for the Academy based on the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of May 13, 1931. According to paragraph 2 of this new constitution, the Academy was to
... fight for a Marxist-Leninist methodology in all domains of science, plan the work and determine the choice of subjects for research in all research institutions working in the BSSR, no matter under whose jurisdiction they are, and exercise systematic control over all such research institutions in the matter of their implementing plans and methods of work.
Despite all its "practical measures," the Communist Party encountered considerable difficulty in coping with the force of national resistance to its offensive against academic freedom in the Belorussian Academy of Sciences. For all its purges and reshuffles, the Academy's staff still failed to satisfy the authorities. Even after it had declared the Academy to be the "sole academic center at a higher level" in the republic, the government of the BSSR had, under Party pressure, to bypass it in such a question as the reform of Belorussian spelling. This reform had been thoroughly prepared by the appropriate departments of the Academy after the Academic Conference of November 1926, but the draft submitted for approval was shelved in connection with the campaign launched against the Academy in 1930, the subsequent purge of its staff and the condemnation of the Academic Conference as a disguised "rally of Belorussian national-democrat counterrevolutionaries."
"Purged" of its "hostile elements," who were in fact skilled linguists, the Institute of Linguistics in 1932 prepared a fresh draft for a reform of spelling and practical grammar, for the examination of which it was proposed to convene a conference of linguists in Minsk. The conference did not meet because the draft failed to satisfy the authorities. It was then urgently revised by the Institute of Linguistics, and published in a more acceptable form on June 28, 1933 in Zviazda, organ of the Belorussian Party Central Committee. Even this, however, was ignored by the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR, in its decree of August 28, 1933 introducing changes into the practical grammar and spelling of^ Belorussian. "More than two thirds of this decree differed from the draft of the Institute of Linguistics of June 28, 1933."36 This was not accidental: on Sept. 16, 1933, Zviazda wrote:
The new spelling is one of the concrete manifestations of the struggle being waged by the Party for the development of a culture that is national in form and socialist in content. Unfortunately, certain comrades do not understand this truth. On the contrary, a tendency has recently become apparent among individual workers to gloss over the mistakes and distortions which have been, and continue to be, made in the Belorussian Academy of Sciences, particularly in the Institute of Linguistics, where the remnants of the national-democrats are persisting in their attempts, on [various pretexts, to promote their ideas.
Three years ago, the Party defeated and expelled from the Academy of Sciences I the Losiks, tastouski's, Niekrasevic's and Cvikievic's. Who, then, has authorized the I people sitting in the Institute of Linguistics so insolently to preserve this legacy? How is it that neither the presidium of the Academy of Sciences nor the Party cell has noticed this or taken any steps to purge the Institute of Linguistics of alien class elements and of their heritage?37
This article was followed by fresh upheavals to justify the "discovery" by the GPU of yet another counterrevolutionary organization—the "Belorussian National Center," which was allegedly connected with the Union for the Liberation of the Ukraine and the Polish army and intended in the fall of 1933 or the spring of 1934 to provoke a revolt in the BSSR. This time, the government arrested in the first place all former deputies of the Polish Sejm who had either fled from Western Belorussia to the BSSR or had appeared there as the result of an exchange of political prisoners between the BSSR and Poland. The arrest of a number of other people followed, including members of the Academy (Professor Buzuk and others). "Polish counterrevolutionary nationalists" (Witkowski, Miastowska and others) were discovered in the Academy's Polish section. In the Jewish section, "the Party had discovered [in 1931—32] a national-opportunist attitude on the part of researchers who were fostering class concord in Jewish national work." There, "thanks to criticism and self-criticism by workers and the toiling masses, under the guidance of the Communist Party," a purge had already taken place of "national-democrat opportunist researchers." Dismissals included those of Raurebe, the national-democrat I. Goldberg and the "national-opportunist" I. Sosis.38
These arrests in Belorussia, like those in the Ukraine, raised once more the problem of training the Party's own "proletarian" cadres in those republics. After hearing reports submitted by the Belorussian and All-Ukrainian Academies of Sciences, the All-Union Council of People's Commissars passed a resolution on this subject noting that, although in 1931—34 the Postgraduate Institute attached to the Belorussian Academy had trained 109 new academic workers, recruitment of fresh candidates was unsatisfactory and 50 people had been rejected during the previous year.39 On the basis of this resolution, the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR on October 27,1934 passed one of its own "on the procedure of training postgraduate students and on the contingent to be accepted in 1934—35," which laid down that
. . . the Belorussian Academy of Sciences accept, as postgraduate students, persons actively engaged in socialist construction who have successfully completed and presented a dissertation for the degree of candidate and also persons who, while they do not hold the degree of candidate, have written academic works in their specialty and are capable of presenting a dissertation for the degree of candidate during their first year's work as postgraduate students.40
The period of training was fixed at three years and the number of students to be accepted in 1934—35 established at thirteen.
In this way, the unsuccessful practice of previous years of recruiting shock workers for science and of training them in special departments in the Postgraduate Institute was discreetly abandoned.
Final Years as a "Belorussian Academy of Sciences"
Constant purges since 1929, vigorous condemnation of the minutest deviations from "Marxist-Leninist methodology," particularly in the humanities, and intervention by state security organs resulting in arrests, banishment to concentration camps or physical extermination, resulted in the complete discouragement of all attempts at independent academic thought. Although the Party had largely succeeded during these years in staffing the Academy with Communists, by no means all these people were Communists by conviction. There was, of course, a fairly considerable group of inveterate Communist fanatics and opportunists, but honest people could also be found among them—men of science who were compelled for its sake to shelter behind a facade of loyalty and even to have a Party ticket in their pocket. Nonetheless, the Academy was already firmly committed to the policy of "socialist construction." A brief survey of the activities of the various departments of the Academy during the last two or three years of its existence as such will show how subservient its work had become to the requirements of the Party.
In 1934, the Institute of Philosophy devoted itself to the following subjects, which the Communists were particularly interested at the time: (1) the Leninist jhilosophical tradition; (2) the exposure of the "reactionary chauvinistic ideology , )f contemporary Fascism"; and (3) the exposure of the "counterrevolutionary lationalistic ideology and practice of Belorussian national-democracy." The following works were published: S. Volfson, Idealohija zahnivajucaha kapitalizmu [The Ideology of Rotting Capitalism); I. Iljusyn, Leninskaja krytyka kantyjanstva neakantyjanstva (A Leninist Critique of Kantianism and Neo-Kantianism); and J. Volfson and I. Iljusyn, Marksycka-leninskaje vucennie ah praletarskim internacyjanalizmie (Marxist-Leninist Teaching on Proletarian Internationalism). A Symposium was being prepared for the press on the "exposure of the nationalist conception of Belorussian national-democracy in history, economics, language, literature, etc." In the official view, the Institute's work "accorded in the closest possible way with the building of socialism in the BSSR."41
Together with the Central Archives of the BSSR, the Institute of History compiled documents on "the counterrevolutionary activity of Belorussian national-democrats during the October Revolution and the Civil War." In response to a resolution of the All-Union Party Central Committee, it began work on a reader on the history of Belorussia, designed as material for students' seminar work and for teachers of secondary schools and higher educational establishments. Priority was given to the work, and the first volume, including materials on Belorussian history until the nineteenth century, came out during 1934.' The following works were also published: P. Horyn, Saviety u 1905 h. (The Soviets in 1905); V. Scerbakou, Klasavaja baracba i histarycnaja navuka й BSSR (Class Warfare and Historical Studies in the BSSR); V. Scerbakou, "Krynicy vyvucennia historyi Bielarusi" (Sources for the Study of Belorussian History), Zapiski Bielaruskaj Akademii Navuk, No. 2; and V. Scerbakou, "Sialanskaje paustafmie Kryceuskaha starastva 1744 h." (The Peasant Rising in the Krichev District in 1744), Zapiski Bielaruskaj Akademii Navuk, No. 3. In addition, the first part of Narysy historyi Bielarusi (Outline of Belorussian History) also appeared, covering the period from the earliest times to the end of the eighteenth century. Meanwhile, Academician Scerbakou was working on the second part.
The Institute of Literature and Art was engaged in "mass work," i. e., delivering papers and lectures of a popular character on Belorussian and Russian literature and art: fifty-five lectures were given during the first half-year. In addition, the Institute contributed reviews to 2viazda and Litaratura i Mastactva, and published selections from the works of P. Trus and A. Ciotka. The preface to the latter collection stated:
This collection does not include those of the authoress's verse, stories and articles which especially emphasize her bourgeois-nationalist views and her leaning toward the kulak economy, or those in which she idealizes petty-bourgeois nationalist parties, particularly the BSH [the Belorussian Socialist Party].
Of the Commission for the Study of Western Belorussia, it was stated that "after the commission had been purged of class-hostile elements, its work revived." The commission's staff was supplemented by five new members. Publications included Frishman's Promyshlennost Zapadnoi Belorussii (The Industry of Western Belorussia), a brochure entitled Abniscannie sialanstva Zachodniaje Bielarusi (The Impoverishment of the Peasantry of Western Belorussia), and a bimonthly information bulletin on Western Belorussia.
The Institute of Biology worked on pressing problems of "socialist agriculture" such as the fight against crop sterility, the protection of potatoes, means of combating agricultural pests and the extra-early sowing of flax.
The Institute of Chemistry, which increased its staff from twenty-one in 1933, to forty-three on October 1, 1934, concentrated its research upon peat, sapropels, phosphorites and limonite.
The Institute of Peat concentrated on the study of the peat resources of the BSSR, the extent and quality of peat deposits and the assessment of the technical possibilities of peat. In April, the Institute organized a special session of the Academy devoted to problems of peat.
The Institute of Psychoneurology conducted investigations into impaired thought processes caused by mental diseases connected with loss of speech, the physiology of the brain using conditioned reflexes, and Huxley's law of biogenetics.
A brief survey of the Academy's work in 1934 reveals that conditions were more or less favorable to the conduct of research of real value in the natural sciences. (The Academy's journal, Zapiski Bielaruskaj Akademii Navuk, dealt primarily with the natural sciences and economics.) The situation was the same in 1935. Plans for this year were not completed: this does not mean, of course, that previous plans had invariably been completed, because in the Soviet Union all plans are of propagandist rather than practical importance.42
The most important publications of the Academy in 1935 included: Institute of Philosophy and Law: Kirusyn, Klasavaja baracba й 2-oj piacihodcy (Class Warfare in $he Second Five-Year Plan); Karaban, Litaraturnaja kancepcyja kontrrevalucyjnaha nacyjanaldemakratyzmu, c. 1 (The Literary Conception of Counterrevolutionary National-Democracy: Part I); Volfson, Suprac rasavaje teoryi (Against the Racial Theory); and Volfson and Iljusyn, Ab praletarskim internacyjanalizmie (Proletarian Internationalism).
Institute of History: V. Scerbakou, Narysy historyi Bielarusi, c. 2 (Outline of Belorussian History: Part II); Lebovic, 133 dni Vienhierskaj komuny (One Hundred and Thirty-three Days of the Hungarian Commune) ;Nikolski and Hrynblat, Zbornik folkloru (A Collection of Folklore); Scerbakou, Kiernazycki and Dudkou, Historyja Bielarusi й dakumantach, t. 2 (A Documentary History of Belorussia: Volume II); Kiernazycki, Historyja haspadarki pryhonnikau и Bielarusi (History of the Serf Economy in Belorussia); V. Scerbakou, Sialanski ruch i kazactva na Bielarusi (The Peasant Movement and the Cossacks in Belorussia); Dauhialla, History ja manufaktury na Bielarusi, t. 2 (History of Industry in Belorussia: Volume II), with a preface by Scerbakou...
Institute of Economics: Rakau and others, Statystycna-ekanamicnaje api-sannie rajonau BSSR (Statistical and Economic Description of the Districts of the BSSR); Revun and others, Razmierkavannie narodnaha dachodu BSSR za 1935 h. (Distribution of the National Income of the BSSR in 1935); Marhielau and others, Ekanamicnaja hieahrafija BSSR (An Economic Geography of the BSSR).
Institute of Literature and Art: Lamciou, Navukovaja hramatykabielaruskaje movy (A Reference Grammar of Belorussian) (in addition to completing the compilation of a Russian-Belorussian practical dictionary).
Commission for the Study of Western Belorussia: the brochure Palitycnyja partyi Polscy, Zachodniaj Bielarusi i Ukrainy (The Political Parties of Poland, Western Belorussia and the Ukraine).
The titles and nature of publications issued by the other institutes are not mentioned in the list appearing in Zapiski Bielaruskaj Akademii Navuk, No. 5, 1936, which merely gives the following results of the plans for 1935:
Subjects for Research
Planned Completed
Institute of Geology and Hydrogeology .... 26 10
Institute of Chemistry ................... 22 18
Institute of Peat ........................ 14 4
Institute of Soil Research................. 22 4
Institute of Biology .................. 34 18
Institute of National Minorities ........... 19 7
Institute of Physics and Mathematics ...... 12 6
The year 1935 was thus marked by a substantial retreat from the undiluted propaganda of previous years. There was an increasingly insistent demand to fill the void which had arisen through abandonment of the heritage of the national-democrats and "bourgeois" scholars and scientists.
Academician Scerbakou, on orders from above, reproved the Institute of Literature and Art for not having produced "any serious theoretical works on the history of literature, apart from the first volume of Historyja Bielaruskaj Litaratury" and because "a number of workers of this institute were still far from ridding themselves of national-democrat influences." The Institute of History was reproved for being "behindhand with the work of compiling a standard textbook on the history of Belorussia," and the Institute of Economics for producing nothing on the "theoretical solution of problems." Generally speaking, the Institute had "played a very insignificant role in planning the economy of the BSSR and had failed to give the State Planning Commission the necessary help in this domain," while the Institute of Psychoneurology had "failed to produce results of any serious import either for the development of science in general pr for day-to-day activity." Institutes of the Academy had done very little to improve the qualifications of their researchers, who had in turn neglected to prepare dissertations: of seventeen people who received the degree of candidate, only eight had presented a dissertation.43
Scerbakoii emphasized the training of young researchers. Between 1931 and 1935, the Academy accepted 457 postgraduate students. Of these, the postgraduate course was completed by 154, of whom 84 were given appointments in the Academy and 59 were sent to other research institutions and higher educational establishments in the BSSR. The numbers specializing in the various subjects were as follows: philosophy (20); history (25); literature and language (26); economics (27); physics and mathematics (12); chemistry (7); soil science (4); geology (5); biology (13); medicine (5) and law (17). However, according to Scerbakoii, little good came of all this, as of the 154 students who completed the course, "only 24 presented a dissertation, and 130 neither wrote nor presented one," and many had been "working for some time in academic institutions without thinking of qualifying."
The entire academic staff of the Academy was split up into the following groups according to qualification: academicians working full time in the Academy (14); doctors of sciences (12); members of institutes (26); candidates of sciences (34); senior researchers (74); and junior researchers (HO).44
As the elimination from the Academy of people whom the regime considered undesirable continued, and as their places were taken by new people, the January 1935 session of the Academy elected a new presidium, approved by the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR on January 30, 1935 and consisting of the following officers: Academician P. Horyn (President); Academician J. Kolas (Vice-President); Professor S. Cudzionak (Permanent Secretary); Academician C. Burstyn, Professor I. Oserovic, academicians S. Volfson, M. Kulahin, P. Pankie-vic and V. Scerbakoii and Professor B. Spencer (members).45 As may be seen, the post of "first vice-president," which since 1932 had been occupied by Dombal, was for some reason left vacant. Presumably orders had been received to leave it unfilled until the Party could again find a suitable candidate.
According to the statutes, the President and Vice-President were elected for three years, but the Party ignored this provision and at the beginning of 1936 recalled their nominee, Horyn, to Moscow. Before this, on October 7, 1935, the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR resolved:
... to remove. S. Cudzionak from the presidium of the Belorussian Academy of Sciences and relieve him of his duties as Permanent Secretary of the Academy; also, to assign the temporary execution of the duties of Permanent Secretary to Academician V. S&rbakou."
This resolution was passed as a new wave of Communist terror was approaching—the period of the Ezhov purges (1936—38), during which the objective If the Party was to create a monolithic Soviet society free of class and national listinctions. Such a name as the "Belorussian Academy of Sciences" did not accord with this new notion of a single "Soviet nation." Despite all the measures lat had been taken, it was a reminder of the existence of the Belorussian people a separate entity—so hateful to the Bolsheviks—and excited the national sentiment of even the Belorussian Communists. It became a matter of urgency change this name, but to do so discreetly in order not to revive the kind of dissatisfaction that had followed the introduction of Russified Belorussian spelling id grammar in 1933.
For this purpose, the Party neatly exploited the opportunity furnished by the provision of a new constitution for the Academy. In its decision of June 9, 1936, the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR resolved:
1. To approve the constitution of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR.
2. To consider the constitution of the Belorussian Academy of Sciences, dated August 22, 1933, as no longer in force.47
The name "Belorussian Academy of Sciences" was thus abolished by a stroke of the pen, to be replaced by a new notion, that of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR, which was not identical with the previous notion. True, unlike the normal Communist practice, no ideological grounds were adduced to justify the change, and for a time the publications of the Academy bore either the one name or the other.
So the tormented existence of the highest research institution of Belorussia—the Belorussian Academy of Sciences (formerly the Institute of Belorussian Culture) — came to an end.*
BELORUSSIAN OPPOSITION TO THE SOVIET REGIME
P. URBAN
In the West, the assertion is sometimes heard that there is no national problem in the Soviet Union, i.e., there are no national conflicts among the peoples subjected to the Soviets. This conclusion is arrived at either under the influence of Soviet propaganda, which argues that all nationalities in the USSR enjoy equal rights, guaranteed by the Soviet Constitution and by Party policy on nationality issues, or alternatively, on the basis of the argument that in the Soviet Union the nationality problem has become, as it were, a relic of the past, thanks to the many years of joint political life shared by the peoples of Russia, and later of the USSR. The purpose of this article is to attempt to demonstrate the groundlessness of such assertions by taking the Belorussian SSR as an example.
To limit the topic to the case of Belorussia is in no way to oversimplify the problem, since the Kremlin's policy toward Belorussia is identical with its policy toward the other national minorities in the USSR. It is true that in the Slav national republics—i.e., Belorussia and the Ukraine—this policy has been carried out further inasmuch as there are greater possibilities for the assimilation of Slav peoples. In general, however, all the non-Russian peoples of the Soviet Union are subject to enforced Russification.
Chronologically, we shall limit ourselves chiefly to the period from the Twentieth Party Congress to April 1958; to make for a better understanding of the topic we are investigating, however, we shall trace in brief outline the earlier policy of the Kremlin toward the national aspirations of the Belorussian people.
The national rights of the peoples of the USSR were violated by the Bolsheviks in the period 1918—21, when, with the aid of the armed forces, they subordinated to Moscow, one after another, the newly-born republics of various peoples formerly subject to tsarist Russia. The place of these independent republics was taken by what were called Soviet national republics, or national federations, the organization of which was decreed from above without any account being taken of the real needs of each nation concerned. At first, the Bolsheviks were forced to make some concessions, which were due in part to the weakness of the Bolsheviks themselves and the unenviable political situation of the new Soviet empire. Thus, just as the NEP was introduced to cope with economic difficulties, so the principle of de-Russification was initiated in national-cultural affairs in order that the non-Russian peoples might have the opportunity to revive and partially develop their national culture and traditions and study their own history.
In the Belorussian SSR, this period was used mainly for the revival of the [national culture and for the training of scholars and sotio-cultural workers. In |a relatively short space of time, the workers of the Institute of Belorussian [Culture—or, after its reform, the Belorussian Academy of Sciences—and of the [Belorussian State Museum had prepared for publication numerous works on the [history of Belorussia, including ethnographic studies and collections of primary materials. Much work was done on the preparation of a Belorussian orthography land on the history of the Belorussian language. In the sphere of literature, verse, prose and drama were successfully developed; literary organizations were formed [which trained a whole galaxy of young poets, writers and literary critics. The [Belorussian State University increased the country's forces of scientific and [cultural workers. In the face of this national rebirth, the ideas of Communism [and socialist construction were relegated to the background.
The turning-point came in 1929-30, with the onset of "Sovietization." In [l929, on Moscow's orders, the Thirteenth Congress of the Belorussian Communist Party declared that "national-democracy" was "the main danger at this stage," thus replacing the earlier position, which had been in force since 1921, that the 4iief threat came from "great-power Russian chauvinism." In the second half f 1929, all the leading Belorussian figures were relieved of their posts; arrests followed in the second half of 1930, followed by the exile or liquidation of the Actims. In 1933-34 and 1936-38, the surviving members of the Belorussian movement in the Academy of Sciences, among professors and students, writers, poets and literary critics, theatrical workers, the teaching profession and even [the peasantry were liquidated in wave upon wave of purges.1
At the same time, the GPU launched an attack against everything Belorussian in the cultural and academic spheres. Works on the political and cultural history of Belorussia which had been published in the twenties were forbidden or even destroyed. These included historical text-books, ethnographical and archeological materials, collections of primary sources and works on linguistics. In this way, Belorussian historiography was liquidated. The Belorussian* repertoire was removed from the stage and replaced by a Russian repertoire. In the sphere of literature, the works of Belorussian writers which raised national issues, or by authors who had fallen foul of the GPU, were forbidden. Belorussian cultural and historical exhibits were thrown out of the museums. The Belorussian orthography was "simplified" by the decree of August 26, 1933, which replaced certain linguistic peculiarities and words by their Russian equivalents.
This process was halted for a while in 1940-41 as a result of the union of Western Belorussia with the Belorussian SSR, and also during the last war. It was taken up again with renewed vigor after World War II, and in particular after 1947, under the effect of the Party Central Committee's decree of 1946 ^51^^g_the newspapers Zvezda and Leningrad? In his speeches of June 1947 and January 1948, Zhdanov outlined a new campaign against "cosmopolitanism," which was designed to encourage "Soviet"—in reality Russian—patriotism in literature, art and historiography.3
In February 1947, on the orders of Moscow, a meeting of the Belorussian Party Central Committee was called to discuss the question of reopening the struggle against "bourgeois nationalism."4 This question was also on the agenda of the Nineteenth Belorussian Party Congress, and was discussed on an all-Union level at the Nineteenth All-Union Party Congress, at which Bagirov condemned the slightest manifestation of national thought among the non-Russian peoples.5 This was followed by fresh bans on the works of some writers—including the new contributions to Belorussian history by the rehabilitated Academician U. Piceta—by the transition in schools from the Belorussian to the Russian language, by a new wave of arrests and exile for members of the Belorussian intelligentsia, and by the infiltration of Russians into Belorussian public and educational institutions. This policy is still being pursued, despite the fact that the Twentieth All-Union Party Congress declared:
In its nationalities policy, the Party has proceeded and continues to proceed from the Leninist position that socialism not only does not liquidate differences and peculiarities, but, on the contrary, guarantees the development and. flourishing of every branch of the economy and culture of all nationalities and peoples. In future, the Party must continue to take the most careful heed of these peculiarities in all its practical works.6
Terrorized by the repressive measures of recent decades, the Belorussian intelligentsia, during its discussion of the directives of the Twentieth Party Congress, hesitated to come out openly in defense of the national rights of the Belorussian people, even though the resolutions of the Congress on the nationalities question appeared to support them in this. For some time, they continued to lend an ear to the central authorities and formulated their national demands with great caution. During its discussion of the directives of the Twentieth Party Congress, the Writers' Union of the BSSR put forward a demand that more attention be devoted to the cultural heritage of the Belorussian people. In mid-March 1956, at a meeting of literary critics, there was talk of reviewing the ban on literature published during the 1920's. These demands, however, were only' vaguely formulated, and did not trangress the limits laid down by the Party.7
First to come out openly in defense of the individual character and traditions of Belorussian literature was the young critic A. Adamovic. Reviewing a monograph by I. Kudryavtsev on the works of Kuzma Corny, Adamovic reproached Kudryavtsev for arguing, on the basis of superficial comparisons, that Corny had imitated Maxim Gorky. Adamovic's intention was to draw attention to the injustice of the Soviet tendency to regard almost all Belorussian writers as uncritical followers of Gorky.8 The next to take up the cause of Belorussian literature after Adamovic were V. Barysienka and J. Psyrkou, whose main attack was directed against the Soviet censorship for arbitrarily altering the thoughts and preative ideas of an author, for cutting and abridging his work, correcting his style and adapting his work, as the process is officially described, to the demands of the present age. In conclusion, Barysienka and Psyrkou demanded that the irbitrariness of editors be combatted and that efforts be made to make literary works available to the reader in their original form.9
Psyrkou made his position more definite on this issue in an article entitled "We lust Study the History of Literature More Deeply,"10 as did R. Skraba in his article "For the Creative Development of Criticism and Literary Studies."11 The Former demanded that more attention be paid to rehabilitated writers, despite (the fact that at one time they had been considered traitors to the people. In addition", he posed the question: Can writers really be erased from the pages of history merely for holding different views on the development of society? Describing the accusations and criticisms of the 1930's as "dirty and vulgar sociologism," which tossed Belorussian authors together with the achievements of ielorussian literature into the dunghill, Psyrkou urged that the history of Belorussian literature in the 1920's be looked at anew, including the activities of the [literary organization Uzvyssa, which had been declared illegal as a "counterrevolutionary nationalist organization" and its member writers condemned as `bourgeois nationalists."
Skraba, for his part, demanded a just interpretation of the prerevolutionary paper Nasa Niva, which played a most significant part in the Belorussian revival and was therefore erased from the historical record by the Bolsheviks. In addition, he demanded the issue of a special publication which would print the results of research and other materials on literary questions and would feature discussions mi the question of Belorussian literary development.
The highlight of the campaign in defense of the Belorussian literary heritage came in 1956 with an article by Dr. Larcanka in which the author departed from the Soviet practice of viewing the development of Belorussian culture only as closely linked with the culture of the Russian nation. Referring to Francisak Skaryna. who in the sixteenth century "started to print books in the simple [language of the people 47 years before the first Russian printer of books, Ivan Fedorov," he exposed the myth of the continual backwardness of Belorussian culture and of its gradual development under the guiding influence of the superior culture of the Russian people.
Dr. Larcanka then discussed the legitimacy of ignoring the Belorussian national regeneration and liberation movement which had characterized the first three decades of this century. He pointed out that not a single writer or literary organization ought to be erased from the history of Belorussian literature, even if they had been nationalist and anti-Soviet, for in spite of their errors, they had done much for the development of Belorussian culture and in their time had fought for the liberation of the Belorussian people from the domination of the tsars.12
Evidence of the growing campaign of self-defense on the part of the Belorussians is not confined to justification of the national literary heritage. The national character of the country's music, its theatrical repertoire, art, history and language were also involved. Thus, the literary front has been only one of many in the general struggle for the people's national rights.
The year 1956 is characterized by the adoption of a more concrete position on the issue. In April, V. Anicenka raised before the Academy of Sciences of the Belorussian SSR the question of printing or reprinting folklore materials.13 After Anicenka came Dr. M. Kacar, who, observing in a letter to the editors of the journal Litaratura i mastactva that many valuable works of art and architecture in the republic were not being preserved, and in a number of cases even wilfully destroyed, put forward the following demands:
An irresponsible attitude toward the ancient culture of Belorussia is a source of legitimate indignation. An immediate improvement is essential in the work of various departments of the Ministry of Culture of the Belorussian SSR whose duty it is to undertake the work of preserving monuments.... Immediate measures must be taken to preserve and restore cultural monuments.14
A little later, this matter was touched upon in an article entitled "We Should Respect the Cultural Treasures of the People," by A. Zaleski, Director of the Department of Ethnography and Folk Art of the Historical Institute of the Belorussian Academy of Sciences, who observed:
How unpleasant it is ... to reflect that even now there is no museum of ethnography, of regional studies, or of history in Minsk. It can be claimed that this is a result of the war. It is, indeed, well known that the Belorussian republic suffered heavy damage under fascist occupation; but for how many years are we going to hide our inactivity behind this fact?15
This situation provoked Belorussian scholars, writers and artists to address a special appeal to the government of the BSSR, demanding a change in the official attitude toward the history and cultural monuments of the Belorussian people. This appeal was signed by Academician N. Nikolski, the writers P. Hlebka and P. Piestrak, the composer J. Cikocki, People's Artist U. Uladzimirski, Dr. M. Kacar and Dr. M. Larcanka.16
The same year saw courageous attempts to defend Belorussian film production. The film studio "Bielarusfilm" and the Ministry of Culture of the BSSR were sharply criticized by Litardtura i mastactva for indifference toward the national aspect of films, sometimes amounting to the simple boycotting of national themes. It appears that in Belorussian studios preference is given to the scripts of Russian writers and that the majority of directors, studio artists and operators are ignorant of and indifferent to Belorussian literature and art. Thus, when they have to make movies dealing with the life of the republic, all links with the national traditions of the people are missing. Referring to this state of affairs, the writer demanded:
The "Bielarusfilm" studio must very seriously, and not merely formally, as sometimes happens, return to Belorussian literature and other branches of Belorussian art.... Every responsible and rank-and-file worker in the studio and in the Ministry of Culture must recognize the simple fact that they are there thanks solely to the fact that there is a Belorussian Soviet state and a Belorussian Soviet nation.
The article also observes with displeasure that for some reason the leading roles in Belorussian films are always given to Moscow and Leningrad actors, while Belorussian actors are left with only episodic, second-rate parts. The writer complains: "In earlier movies, Belorussian actors demonstrated their right to leading roles in Belorussian films. Enough of eating humble pie!"17
In an article entitled "Planned Profits and Uncalculated Losses," S. Aleksandrovic touched on the sore question of the dissemination of the Belorussian printed word. He is indignant at the fact that books in the Belorussian language are being printed in ever smaller editions. As a result, schools possess too few works by Belorussian authors in the original, and young students can become familiar with these works only via Russian translations. The author squarely poses the issue of publishing works by rehabilitated Belorussian writers, literature dealing with historical and regional studies, and popular books and pamphlets on the achievements of notable Belorussians.18
The final sally in defense of the national interests of the people in 1956 was the editorial "We Must React to Criticism," printed in Litaratura i mastactva, which abandons the practice of formulating demands in the form of suggestions, and presents what is virtually an ultimatum. In this conflict with governmental circles, which arose as a result of the indifference of the Ministry of Culture of the BSSR to the demands of the people, the paper does not even hesitate to accuse the staff of this ministry of wilful chicanery on behalf of the Kremlin. It describes them as "executive chinovniks" who do not presume to have opinions of their own, thereby demonstrating the discontent of Belorussian society with their dependence on the Kremlin, which in reality controls national life in the BSSR. Summing up the demands that have repeatedly been put forward for years, the paper insists that measures be taken to solve the problems touched upon, including the preservation of national cultural monuments and the dissemination of Belorussian publications.19
The year 1957 is characterized by a reversion from the more liberal policy of the Twentieth Party Congress to earlier limitations on cultural and national life and to the Leninist principle of partunost, a term signifying "Party spirit," "conformity with Party principles." In Belorussia, this was especially noticeable in the sphere of literature. The reaction of the Party to demands for greater respect for the national literary heritage was evident in the first number of Litaratura i mastactva for 1957, the editorial of which stated that Soviet literature must "decisively expose manifestations of bourgeois ideology" and "develop and perfect revolutionary literary traditions of socialist realism."20
The Party crusade was not felt in all its force, however, until the publication of an article by the historians L. Abecedarski and A. Sidarenka, which under the title "For the Ideological Purity of our Literary Positions" was published in Zviazda, the organ of the Belorussian Communist Party. This was a reply to the demands put forward by Larcanka. Abecedarski and Sidarenka reproach the latter for breaking with the practice of maintaining a shamefaced silence on the national cultural heritage, and for openly defending it. They observe that Larcanka's article contains "much concerning specific artistic and national elements, etc., but there is not one word concerning partiinost in literature and literary studies." A similar charge is leveled against the paper Litaratura i mastactva:
Instead of systematically defending the Leninist principle of partiinost in literature, waging a militant struggle against every distortion of the history of socialist culture and aiding literary and artistic workers to raise their ideo-theoretical level, the paper has set about "reviewing" the dirty washing of the Belorussian nationalists with the object of finding in this reexamination something "positive, valuable and progressive."21
This accusation was immediately followed by the replacement of the paper's editorial staff by new personnel. Only three members of the previous staff remained on the new editorial board.22
The nationality problem in general was raised in an acute form at the third plenum of the governing board of the Union of Writers of the BSSR in Minsk on March 18-19, 1957. The Party line was reaffirmed in the report by the chairman, Piatrus Brouka, and especially in the speech of First Secretary of the Belorussian
Party Central Committee K. Mazurau. Brouka, dwelling on the basic principles of "socialist realism" and examining the achievements of Belorussian Soviet literature, stressed repeatedly and unambiguously the need to fight manifestation of nationalism.23 The main targets of his attacks were Dr. Larcanka, for his article mentioned above, and J. Psyrkou for his sharp strictures of Soviet reactionary criticism in the early 1930's.
Mazurau, for his part, haranguing those critics who "depart from contemporaneity, from everyday literary questions, and who busy themselves only with the study of the literary heritage of the past," gave a simple warning to those Belorussians who had started along the road of "bourgeois nationalism":
Bourgeois nationalists are betrayers of the Fatherland and the worst foes of the construction of socialism in our country. They are agents of American imperialism. In its dirty deeds-, the American intelligence service exploits nationalists, these traitors to their nation. We must therefore be vigilant and give a decisive rebuff to every manifestation of bourgeois nationalism.24
This warning suggests that national resistance is increasing, if it constitutes a threat even to "socialist construction" in the country. It also demonstrates the unchanging character of Soviet accusations: in the 1930's, Belorussian "national democrats" were finding their way into the torture chambers of the GPU, condemned for espionage in the service of Poland and Germany. The plenum adopted the following resolution on the nationality question:
The Plenum underlines that militant partiinost, ruthlessness toward any manifestation of bourgeois and bourgeois-nationalist ideology and fraternal friendship with the great Russian culture are the bases for the activity of Belorussian writers in the future.25
Belorussian nationalism is thus the work of foreign agents, while Russian chauvinism on the cultural level, for some reason, is not. Belorussian writers must "make friends," that is to say, adopt the "great Russian culture," and are deprived of the right to study the cultural achievements of their own people. Nevertheless, the question of the indigenous literary heritage arises again and again. At the same time, it is linked with the question of the Belorussian printed word and the preservation by the nation of its native language, and thus constitutes a complex problem of the first degree of urgency.
After the Party's condemnation of Larcanka's article, the rehabilitated writer Janka Skryhan printed an article in Litaratura i mastactva defending the .purity of the Belorussian literary language. Ridiculing the hybrid jargon of the Soviet Belorussian language, which is used not only in the press, on the radio, in the theater and cinema, but even by some writers, Skryhan demanded that such abnormalities be ended. He also demanded a review of the language on the basis of a critical analysis of literature—in other words, that language should be one of the subjects of literary criticism, a position previously unheard of in Belorussian Soviet literature.26
Even at the above-mentioned plenum of the governing board of the Belorussian Writers' Union, all did not go as smoothly as the Party would have wished it. For example, Larcanka, attacked for his article mentioned above, did not at all agree with the way in which his demands were condemned, and in particular with the criticism of his estimate of the paper Nasa Niva. Adamovic also refused to recognize his "errors." J. Mielez sharply condemned the newly-published Narysy z bistoryji bielaruskaj litaratury (Outline History of Belorussian Literature), which, as usual, ignores the work of the majority of Belorussian writers. Raising the question of the teaching of the history of Belorussian literature in school, he expressed his dissatisfaction with the state of affairs, accusing the Ministry of Education of the BSSR of indifference to the teaching of this subject. Mielez demanded that a resolute struggle be waged against the nihilistic attitude toward Belorussian culture, in particular toward literature and language and the dissemination of Belorussian books, concluding with the statement that if a struggle had to be waged against "bourgeois nationalism," then one also had to be waged against great-power—i.e., Russian—chauvinism.27 In view of the conditions prevailing in Soviet Belorussia, the significance of such a declaration requires no emphasis.
On October 29, 1957, a conference of literary and art workers of the Belorussian SSR took place in Minsk, with the participation of representatives of the Belorussian Party Central Committee and some ministers. This conference, devoted to a survey of the achievements of Soviet Belorussia in the field of national culture, became a tribune for the expression of national claims. Belorussian writers, artists and composers demanded from the platform that national types be created in literature, that a national repertoire be introduced into the theaters and that folk songs and music and the national language be universally respected. The writer M. Luzanin openly declared:
The further development of our culture is intimately linked with the dissemination of the Belorussian language.... One wants to hear the Belorussian language not only in cultural organizations, but also in offices, secondary schools and colleges, to see it on the cigarette pack, the tractor and the work bench.28
This fear for the future of the literature and culture of Belorussia was also evident in the attempts to bring about the rehabilitation of the greatest possible number of Belorussian writers who had been banned. Beginning from the first half of 1956, recollections of the activities and works of such writers began to appear more and more frequently in the pages of Litaratura i mastactva.
In January 1957, there appeared the article "At the Sources of Folk Song" by Ales Bazko, in defense of folk songs and dances, in which the author reproached the workers of raion cultural departments for removing Belorussian folk songs* from the repertoires of amateur music clubs.29 In his letter to the editors of Litaratura i mastactva, M. Stoma discussed the choice of songs being taught in Belorussian primary schools. He was disturbed by the fact that a very small number of Belorussian songs were included and that the senior classes were taught almost exclusively Russian songs.30 Reviewing amateur activities in the Bogu-shevichi Raion, A. Sabaleuski, a special correspondent of Litaratura i mastactva, expressed his displeasure at the fact that only a few Belorussian national songs and dances feature in the repertoire of amateur clubs in the raion, and that even verse by Belorussian poets is recited in a Russian-language translation. In a letter to the same paper, the teacher V. Niesciarovic complained that even in Minsk no phonograph records of Belorussian folk songs or works by Belorussian composers were to be found.31
J. Kremka, in a newsletter headed "A Praiseworthy Concert," ridicules the attitude of concert parties from Minsk to the Belorussian national repertoire. He imagines himself asking them:
"You call yourselves a Belorussian concert party. Why have you not sung a single Belorussian song ... and why have you not uttered a single word of Belorussian? Surely Belorussian literature and music have not become so impoverished that you don't have anything left to sing?"32
The problem of Belorussian songs and dances, of music by Belorussian composers and of the Belorussian theatrical repertoire has been repeatedly raised by the editors of Litaratura i mastactva themselves, as well as by Belorussian composers. It was advanced with fitting seriousness in an editorial entitled "Main Attention to the Belorussian Repertoire," in an article by People's Artist of the BSSR R. Syrma,33 as well as in notes contributed by the composers R. Pukst, M. Aladau, J. Hlebau and H. Citovic, on the occasion of the Second All-Union Congress of Composers.34 Demands for respect for the Belorussian theater were expressed in an editorial in Litaratura i mastactva,35 and in articles by A. Atroscanka and Ales Zvonak,36 all of which concurred in expressing respect and love for the cultural achievements of Belorussia.
Questions of Belorussian film production were dealt with in an article by the senior editor in the movie industry, F. Bondarava, in which she attributed the entire blame for the poor results attained to the Ministry of Culture of the BSSR, which did not even see to it that "Bielarusfilm" was supplied with suitable studios or the requisite directors and actors. Bondarava did not, however, touch on the question of the non-Belomssian character of these movies. This issue was mentioned by the scenario editor of "Bielarusfilm," V. Smal, in an article entitled "National Character in Films." He observed that not only were national themes absent from Belorussian movies, but also the Belorussian language and the Belorussian landscape. The reason for this was that the scenarios were written by Moscow script writers, the films were made by Moscow and Leningrad directors and all the main roles were played by artists from Moscow and Leningrad theaters. Smal demanded that the Belorussian movie should be Belorussian in much more than in name:
National individuality is the artistic form which reflects the content of the film, and is just that valuable contribution which every people has to bring to the common treasury of Soviet socialist culture.37
The cause of historical accuracy was also taken up. Attempts were made to throw new light on the history of the nation and to correct distorted conceptions of the Belorussian historical process, and demands were made for greater objectivity. Such attempts became more and more frequent in the pages of Litaratura i mastactva and other Belorussian journals, and even appeared in the form of monographs. One example is the article "Interesting Materials on Skaryna," by N.Aleksiutovic. In the early seventeenth century, Skaryna attempted to introduce Renaissance ideas into Muscovy: he failed, because Muscovy was not yet ready for the cultural upheavals which Western Europe was then experiencing.38
In his article "An Important Task for Students of Literature," B. Achrymienka also dealt with Skaryna. Criticizing previous works on the history of Belorussian literature, he remarks:
Unfortunately, a thorough study has still not been made of even such an important aspect of old literature as the activity and literary production of F. Skaryna. In Narysy z historyji bieiaruskaj litaratury [by V. Volski, 1957], two pages in all are devoted to this subject. Here, not only do we not find data on the essence and meaning of the great influence of F. Skaryna on the letters and culture of fraternal nations, above all the Russian and Ukrainian, but there is not even any analysis of the literary and journalistic work performed by this outstanding cultural figure of the early decades of the seventeenth century, of whom all Slav nations are proud.
Achrymienka goes on to demand the study and publication of ancient literary texts so as to "do away with the impression of the apparent poverty" of the Belorussian cultural tradition.39
Similar aspirations may be discerned in a note by J. Prakosyn and V. Pratasevic on the late seventeenth and early eighteenth-century cultural figure Ilja Kapijevic. They remark with pride:
Among the cultural figures of the past of whom the Belorussian nation is proud, belongs the teacher of the Petrine epoch, Ilja Kapijevic. This Belorussian devoted all his knowledge and energy to the cause of enlightening the Russian nation.40
The articles by V. Puzikau on the activity of Symon Polacki (1629—80) and by V. Anicenka on the Hramatyka, of Lauren Zizani (late 16th—early 17th century)41 and also the booklet Belorusy v Moskve by Abecedarski42 are noteworthy as constituting attempts to throw a more objective light on the history of Belorussian national culture. The fact is underlined that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Belorussian culture had reached a more advanced stage and was influencing the cultural development of Muscovy. Polacki, for example, struggling with the ignorant obscurantism of the Muscovite clergy, contributed to the development of education, of the secular sciences and of printing in Russia, and laid the foundations for the development of verse and drama in Russian literature; Belorussians created a basis for the development of the Russian theater and introduced much that was new and illuminating into Russian decorative art.43
The question of Belorussian historiography is firmly dealt with in Aleksandrovic's article "Inaccuracy or Outmoded Views?" He openly protests against the falsification of Belorussian history and stresses the need to break with the "tendencies of tsarist days," to cease "projecting into Soviet historical literature the outdated nihilistic views of Russian bourgeois historians concerning the history of the Belorussian people." It is noteworthy that Aleksandrovic protests against the views of Soviet Russian historians, including the Director of the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, A. Sidorov.44
The cause of the greatest resentment, however, in the period under consideration is the virtual or even complete exclusion of the Belorussian language from secondary schools, from the press and from establishments of higher education, offices, the theater and the cinema. The columns of Litaratura i mastactva contained many contributions from members of the Belorussian intelligentsia in defense of their native language and its right to exist. The issue was most fully presented, however, in the article "Respect for the Mother Tongue," by a student in the Department of Journalism of the Belorussian State University, Barys Sacanka.
In Sacanka's approach to the problem, one can feel a sense of pathos and urgency. Noting the tragic situation of the Belorussian language in secondary schools and colleges, including the Belorussian State University, where teaching is carried out entirely in Russian, he quotes Lenin's statement in the early 1920's directed against the enforced Russification which at that time was being carried out by Party organs in the Ukraine. Naturally, this reference to Lenin was made with the aim of protecting the author against being called to account, but at the same time it furnishes a weighty argument against the "Leninist" nationality policy of the Party. Sacanka considers that Lenin's position on the language question should also apply to Belorussia. He writes:
For our Belorussian language to become a part of the daily life of all strata of the population, the first practical step ought to be the introduction of Belorussian as the language of instruction in all educational establishments in the republic.
He concludes his article with the statement: "It is good to know the Russian language also, but the Belorussian language must not drop into the background."45
This anxiety over the fate of their native language was subsequently expressed by the students V. Holub and V. Camiarycki and by the teachers M. Praskovic, K. Sanko and M. Los.46 Fully supporting Sacanka's defense of the native language, they all insistently demanded a change in the Party's language policy. At the same time, they gave further evidence of Russification in the BSSR. For example, Holub notes: "At the moment, there are 58 secondary schools in Minsk: only 10 of these are Belorussian. But is this situation confined to Minsk? The same thing may be said of Gomel, Brest, Mogilev and other cities." Camiarycki writes:
The question of teaching the Belorussian language in all the educational establishments of the republic has long since demanded attention. Only when we hear the living Belorussian language on the lips of teachers and shop assistants, secretaries and engineers, plant directors and ministers, only when we find it in the records of the law courts and in the columns of academic publications, only then will the Belorussian language have taken its rightful place in life.
Praskovic ironically asks why the Belorussian State University is commonly called "the training ground of national cadres" if teaching there is carried on in the Russian language.
Thus, national discrimination and national opposition do exist in the USSR. In the BSSR, this national opposition, or at least a movement to preserve the national identity of the people, has recently started to develop, as the quotations given above demonstrate, into a movement for national revival. It has already some achievements behind it. Among these may be cited the creation of a new Institute of Art, Ethnography and Folklore at the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR, the program of which includes the study of the history of the Belorussian theater, the history of Belorussian fine arts, Belorussian folk literature, etc.;47 the opening at Minsk of a museum of art,48 and at the Minsk School of Art of a lepartment of applied arts; the erection of a building for the future Museum of [istorical and Regional Studies and the formation. of a group of scholars to
Organize this museum;49 and the opening of a department of history at the Polock museum of Regional Studies.50
The State Publishing House of the BSSR plans to publish in Belorussian text-woks on technical subjects for secondary schools and colleges, manuals on the history of Belorussian language and literature, etc.—the first since the early L930's.51 At the Institute of Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR, publication plans include an atlas of Belorussian dialects, a descriptive grammar of Belorussian, a dictionary of Old Belorussian, and a Belorussian-Russian dictionary.52 Monographs already published include Bielaruskaja architektura (Belorussian Architecture), by M. Kacar (Minsk, 1956); Mataryjaly arcbealohii BSSR (Materials Pertaining to the Archeology of the BSSR) (Vol. I, [insk, 1957); Pacbodzannie i historyja bidaruskaj abradnasci (The Origins and history of Belorussian Ritual), by Academician N. Nikolski (Minsk, 1956); Narysy bielaruskaj litaratury XIX st. (Outline of Nineteenth-Century Belorussian Literature), by S. Majchrovic (Minsk, 1957); and Belorusy v Moskve v XVII st. (The Belorussians in Moscow in the Seventeenth Century), by L. Abecedarski (Minsk, 1957). In addition, the previously banned works of the dramatist J. Mirovic were published in 1957; preparations are being made for the publication of the writers F. Bahusevic and V. Dunin-Marcinkievic, and also of writers died in their day for Belorussian nationalism. Litaratura i mastactva reports:
The Presidium of the Writers' Union of the BSSR has adopted a resolution concerning the publication in 1959 of the collected works of the dramatist Uladyslau Halubok and of the prose writer Michas Zarecki. It was also decided to approach the appropriate organs concerning the publication in 1959 of the works of Maksim Harecki. The State Publishing House was also approached concerning the inclusion in its publishing lists for 1959 of the books of the poet Uladzimier Dubouka.53
If it is taken into account that Halubok, Zarecki, Harecki and Dubouka were once condemned as nationalists, and that the latter was also a prominent figure In the national-literary movement and organization known as Uzvyssd, the Joldness and. significance of these resolutions become clear.
Without doubt, these modest achievements were only secured thanks to the opposition of the Belorussian nation, and in the first place thanks to the demands of the Belorussian intelligentsia. It would, however, be a great mistake to link such concessions with some change in the Party's policy on the nationalities question. For the Party, national aspirations are merely the undesirable result of political circumstances, which it will attempt to liquidate at the first opportunity. Seeing the danger to itself which they represent, the Party has more than once, particularly since early 1957, sounded the alarm, justifying its fears chiefly on the theoretical plane rather than using the force of authority. At the moment, however, there are signs that it is returning to its former uncompromising attitude. In the BSSR, these signs include the report of the deputy chairman of the governing board of the Writers' Union of the BSSR, I. Samiakin, delivered before the fourth plenum of the board on April 4 of this year. Samiakin condemned the "incor