At a new stage

Literary studies and literary criticism in the Soviet Union are at a new stage of their development, which passes under the sign of the historic decisions of the 20th and 22nd Congresses of the CPSU. Now all the necessary conditions are in place for a new upsurge of literary criticism and science. They are determined exclusively by the beneficial atmosphere that the Communist Party created in the country. The liquidation of the cult of Stalin's personality, the defeat of the anti-party group caused a stormy revival in public and scientific life, in ideological work. The program of the CPSU, adopted at the 22nd Congress, inspired the Soviet people for new creative tasks, armed them for a practical struggle for communism, for communist culture. It is known that the cult of Stalin's personality caused great harm to ideological work. In his speech to the 21st Congress, the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU L. F. Ilyichov said: "In the atmosphere of the cult of personality, theory and social sciences could not develop fruitfully. The question was: will theory continue to keep pace with life and illuminate the path of practice, or will it become ossified? At the 20th Congress, the party resolved this issue in favor of the creative development of Marxism-Leninism." These words can be fully applied to literature and art, as well as to literary science. At the general meeting of the Department of Literature and Language at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, I. Anisimov pointed out: "Literary scholars completely agree with these words, because they were convinced from their own experience how difficult it was in the early 1950s to undertake major scientific research, the urgency of which was imperiously dictated by life."