"Literature As Propaganda" by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Yevtushenko discusses his thoughts on the intellectual repression under Stalin:

• Under Stalin all art became bleaker and more controlled by the government
• One film depicted happy collective farmers feasting in front of a new power station. The director said that he believed Stalin when he said that this film would help build communism
• How could these intelligent people be deceived by Stalin
• Stalin was charismatic and able to charm even Gorsky
• Stalin wanted people to believe that he was best friends with Lenin. In reality they were not good friends and Stalin distorted Lenin's ideas. Instead of Communism serving man, Stalin made man serve communism.
• Stalin used people as the pawns of communism
• Poets and artists lost interest in their work during this time period
• Stalin's greatest crime was the "corruption of the human spirit"