Paths to getting to know the character

In recent years, Soviet criticism and literary studies have been characterized by very lively theoretical discussions and creative disputes. The peculiarity of these disputes lies in the fact that they are conducted not by people who hold opposing political and aesthetic positions, but by like-minded people on the main points, who discuss one or another problem and the possible ways of resolving it. Recently, a lively discussion has developed on the issue of the diversity of forms and styles in the art of socialist realism, on artistic convention, on the modern hero. The polemic about the positive hero is not the first time that this problem has not yet found comprehensive illumination in aesthetic science, and in this circumstance we cannot but see a serious drawback of our work. Now it would be a clear anachronism to argue about whether the positive hero is necessary or unnecessary, whether he should or should not be the center of attention of socialist realist artists. The participants in the creative discussions taking place in the Soviet Union are united in their determined struggle against bourgeois writers and revisionists who vainly try to ridicule and discredit the heroic, affirmative pathos of socialist art.