Gorky Collection -- 20th Century Foreign Cultural

Author: Maxim Gorky (Russia), selected and edited by Yu Yi-zhong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-08-01
Features: This collection includes works by Gorky that have never been read by Chinese readers before, and these works were published in Russia only in recent years. These include political essays such as Two Souls and Untimely Thoughts (excerpts), as well as letters to Lenin, Roman Rolland, Chukovsky, Yagoda, Stalin, and others. Two Souls reflects Gorky's profound reflection on the Russian national spirit for a decade after the 1905 Revolution, serving as a comparative essay on Eastern and Western cultures that is both insightful and, to some extent, biased. Untimely Thoughts was banned in the Soviet Union for 70 years and was only re-published in 1988. In this work written around the time of the October Revolution, Gorky, who had long yearned for and called for revolution, calmly analyzed the process of vulgarizing Marxism alongside the revolutionary tide, sharply criticized the crimes of temporary revolutionaries (true false revolutionaries) who destroyed the rule of law, abused violence, and trampled on culture, and passionately called for the development of production, respect for culture, respect for science and intellectuals, the promotion of humanism, and the establishment of a broad revolutionary united front.