Writers, like Zamyatin, were among the worst artistic victims of the terror, their ranks suffering at least 1000 executions and another 1000 lifetime imprisonments (Ludwig 1942, 557). Zamyatin saw around him the suppression of art, of heresy. He described it in his essay On the Absence of Proletarian Literature by saying that "Dogma, statistics and agreement prevent anyone's being seized by that illness that is called art, least of all by its complex forms." (Holthusen 1972, 116). The artists, the revolutionaries, the heretics were gone, replaced by what he called "'nimble authors'⁶ [who know]… when to sing hail to the Tsar and when the hammer and sickle- we offer them to the people as literature worthy of the revolution." (Zamyatin 1970, 55). At this he declared "I am afraid that Russia’s only literary future is its past" (Britannica 1987, 893) and decided to take action. Since there were no heretics, he would have to invent them, and so he became a leader of the literary resistance.

While under Lenin, Zamyatin had worked actively in editing, book reviewing, publishing, and the teaching of writing and literature; under Stalin he devoted himself wholly to these activities through which he hoped to guide the young writers of Russia to become literary heretics. Such was the emphasis which he placed on these that he ignored his own work and almost completely stopped writing. Thus several years' worth of potential creativity were not destroyed by censorship but preempted by the battle against censorship (Zamyatin 1970, 14 and Shane 1968, 47). He was active in the All Russian Writers' Union (RAPP) and in an association of writers called the Serapion Brothers founded in the winter of 1920-21 to "combat the total stagnation of intellectual life after the revolution." Zamyatin was the prose teacher at the center of the organization, the Studio for Literature at the House of Art. He was also an important role model and example to the young writers because of his idealism and courage and the directness with which he combated Stalin's oppression despite the terror (Holthusen 1972, 91).

Zamyatin was indeed courageous to attack Stalin's policies so openly, but attack he did, in the name of heresy, and he attacked a lot. He attacked the controlled literature through satire and ridicule in the poetic style of his own essays, such as this excerpt from The Day and The Age:

In America there is a society for the suppression of vice which once decided, in order to prevent temptation, that all the naked statues in a New York museum must be dressed in little skirts like those of ballet dancers. These puritan skirts are merely ridiculous, and do little damage; if they have not yet been removed, a new generation will remove them and see the statues as they are. But when a writer dresses his novel in such a skirt, it is no longer laughable. And when this is done not by one, but by dozens of writers, it becomes a menace. These skirts cannot be removed, and future generations will have to learn about our epoch from tinseled, straw-filled dummies. They will receive far fewer literary documents than they might have. And it is therefore all the more important to point out such documents where they exist. (Zamyatin 1970, 114).

Zamyatin also attacked this literature even more openly, for he was a literary critic, and wrote reviews of books when they came out. Here too, he was blunt and poetic, as in this review of Bely's Petersburg.

In springtime the hurdy-gurdy starts its mournful wailing in the yards, a wretched, frozen bird jumps onto the box to pick out tickets with your fortune, someone shakes his rags, tinkles his bells, and starts a jolly song. But it is sad to hear this song, and frightening to look down into the well of the courtyard; it's all you can do not to shut the window. And when they spread their little rug, and the inevitable rubber boy leaps onto it and starts walking with his head between his legs, you cannot bear it any longer- you are both sorry for the child and repelled by his antics- and you slam the window.

You feel as sorry for Andrey Bely as you read his novel Petersburg as you do for the poor rubber boy. It is no easy task to twist yourself into a pretzel, head between legs, and carry on like that for three hundred pages without respite. A difficult profession- it makes your heart bleed to think of it! (Zamyatin 1970, 17)

This is a very direct attack on the effects of censorship on literature. Zamyatin's message was clearly heard by all who had the opportunity to read his essays, stories or novels, or to see his plays. Despite repeated censoring of his articles, he remained a prominent and vocal literary leader and inspired the creation of many new heretics. He was always proud of the fact that he "never concealed [his] attitude toward literary servility, fawning and chameleon changes of color:...this is equally degrading both to the writer and to the revolution." (Zamyatin 1966, xiii). Zamyatin's activity was dangerous, he knew that, and even regarded it with his own sarcastic humor, saying "I know that I have a highly inconvenient habit of speaking what I consider to be the truth, rather than saying what may be expedient at the moment." (Zamyatin 1966, xviii). He recognized too the irony of the justice system, summarizing it simply with "Thus far I have been in solitary confinement only twice... I have been exiled 3 times... I have been tried only once."⁷ (Zamyatin 1970, 6). He chose to ignore the danger and continue working towards his long-sought tomorrow, and closed a series of short autobiographies with these words, indicative of his perpetual thoughts of the days to come: "And so the circle closes. I still do not know, do not see what curves my life will follow in the future." (Zamyatin 1970, 14). It was then that the hammer fell.

Zamyatin's work had earned him one of the blackest records of any of the active Russian writers. He was dealt a heavy blow by the banning of his play Attila which was probably his most favorite work⁸ (Zamyatin 1966, xv), but his real undoing was We. We is a spectacular work, a dystopia, portraying the horrors of life under absolute fascism. Among its progeny are such famous and important works as 1984, Brave New World, and A Handmaid's Tale. It was written in 1920, and, of course, censored immediately. There is dispute over its exact history; however, it is clear that he was able to read it at a meeting of the Russian Writers' League in 1924, it was distributed secretly through literary circles, and he was able to have an English translation published in that same year. This publication and distribution did not bring down the wrath of the government, nor did its publication in Czech in 1926. However, in 1930 or so, a newspaper in Prague issued an unauthorized publication of part of the Czech text re-translated into Russian. Then the wrath of Stalin’s government came down full force, and "the manhunt organized at the time was unprecedented in Soviet literature." (Zamyatin 1966, xvi). His plays were canceled from theaters, any articles bearing his name were banned, journals of his work were confiscated and his publishers were persecuted (Zamyatin 1966, xv-xvi). The All-Russian Writers' Union was coerced into condemning We on the pretense that it had just been written, as was advertised by the government, and he was forced to resign from the organization, declaring "I find it impossible to belong to a literary organization which, even if only indirectly, takes part in the persecution of a fellow member...." (Zamyatin 1970, 303-4). Then he was forced off of the editing boards of publishing houses, and finally, even English works which he had translated into Russian were forbidden publication. What he called a "writer's death sentence" was in full force; he had no way to write, no recourse for his heresy. This forced him to make one of the most important decisions of his life, and the last: in 1931 he wrote a letter to Stalin requesting to emigrate.

Zamyatin’s letter summarized the effects of the censorship with his usual linguistic beauty and dangerously bold clarity. In it he described his "writer’s death sentence," and correctly blamed it on Stalin’s censorship. The suppression’s success was total, stifling him completely, since "no creative activity is possible in an atmosphere of systematic persecution that increases in intensity from year to year." "Systematic" is the perfect term, for it was a system which worked through censorship, threat and the controlled critics to deliberately and thoroughly cut him off from "all avenues for further work." When this system went into action it worked by, as he listed in the letter, first banning his books from libraries, halting the planned publication of his collected works, then threatening any publishers who attempted to issue his works, any theaters which attempted to perform his plays, and eventually even the publishing houses which attempted to employ him as an editor or translator. At this he noted that the "Literary Gazette announced this accomplishment, adding quite unequivocally: '...the publishing house must be preserved, but not for the Zamyatins.'" Zamyatin also knew, and said in the letter, that this persecution specifically targeted him, singling him out in a manner which he described by writing that "Just as the Christians had created the devil as a convenient personification of all evil, so the critics have transformed me into the devil of Soviet Literature." The creation of "devils" was not an uncommon practice under Stalin, who well understood that by inventing traitors and enemies he could vent the unhappiness of the people and eliminate his personal enemies.⁹ He controlled the critics as well as the press, and thus, as Zamyatin wrote, "In each of my published works these critics have inevitably discovered some diabolical intent.... Regardless of the content of a given work, the very fact of my signature has become a sufficient reason for declaring the work criminal.... Of course, any falsification is permissible in fighting the devil." So, he was forced to leave, now that "the last door was closed to Zamyatin. The writer's death sentence was pronounced and published." So, after this harsh and direct criticism, he concluded his letter with the plea "I beg to be permitted to go abroad with my wife," adding with a last ray of his eternal optimism "with the right to return as soon as it becomes possible in our country to serve great ideas in literature without cringing before little men, as soon as there is at least partial (CONTINUED BELOW)

change in the prevailing view concerning the role of the literary artist" (Zamyatin 1966, xiii-xviii), for he still had faith in the revolution. Amazingly, even after such direct criticism in a letter which Stalin read himself, Zamyatin's request was granted and he was allowed to go free.

Zamyatin hoped that abroad he would be able "...like the Pole Joseph Conrad, to become an English Writer." (Zamyatin 1966, xviii). However, in self-imposed exile in Paris, Zamyatin was sickly and unable to write. In 1924 he had written that "I think that had I not come back to Russia in 1917, had I not lived all these years in Russia, I would not have been able to write" (Zamyatin 1970, 14), and in 1913 he found this to be true: he could not write without Mother Russia. He remained confident, however, that there would be change, and "that that time [was] near, for the creation of the materiel base will inevitably be followed by the need to build the superstructure- an art and literature truly worthy of the revolution." (Zamyatin 1966, xvii). He was mistaken; he did not return to Russia to claim his rightful place in literature. He did not return at all. Zamyatin spent his last years alone in a foreign land. He died in 1937 of a heart ailment and was buried in a small cemetery outside of Paris. News of his death did not reach his beloved homeland. His writing is now known to most scholars, though few of the general populace have heard of him. His most important work, the novel We, is available across the world in 9 languages. It has never been published in Russia.

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6 Zamyatin here is quoting a description of the court artists prominent during the French Revolution.

7 Under the Tsar for At The World’s End. He was acquitted.

8 He described it as "In Atilla I reached the verge of poetry." (Zamyatin 1986, 10)

9 Again note the similarity to 1984, in this case the party’s invention of Goldstein as the devil to vent the people's rage.

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