Ivan Martinov

Many times in my life I have faced fascist censorship and have always successfully escaped its clutches - the claws of the dragon, as we used to say then. But there were two cases when I could not deceive its bloodthirsty gaze and fell between its teeth. Now, I would like to tell you about these two cases in a few words. In 1929, at the beginning of December, the newspaper "RLF" began to be published. From its very first issues, it attracted attention with its militant, revolutionary tone and suddenly won the love of numerous readers, thirsty to hear a progressive word. The bold act of its publishers and editors, fighters for a new proletarian art and literature, was greeted with joy by young, just beginning writers. To create a workers' literary front that would gather the creative forces scattered after the uprising, especially after the April events, and unite and unite them around the slogan of truthful and honest artistic thought - this was the task that the party had set before the handful of communists around the newspaper. The program of the "RLF", expressed in the introductory article of its first issue, and later in other articles, was accepted by all writers close to its work, and soon many other fighters for a new art and literature stood and walked with them in the ranks of its creators. At that time, I, still quite young, a student in the seventh grade of high school, was taking my first uncertain steps in fiction. I had already published poems in a number of progressive newspapers and magazines, mainly student magazines, and I longed for such a newspaper that would fully express my understandings as a communist about art and literature. I greeted the appearance of "RLF" with joy and excitement that such a newspaper was finally starting to be published. Every Wednesday I waited impatiently for it to appear on the newsstands and early in the morning, on my way to school, I secretly bought it, read, reread, even studied by heart many of its materials, some of which I still remember so strongly that they are imprinted in my memory. The following year, in issue 44 of March or April, my first printed story "Unemployment" was published and I remember with what excitement I unfolded the pages of "RLF" to read it on the street. Since then, I have regularly collaborated with the newspaper with poems, stories, reports and other materials. I was accepted by its small team as one of its youngest colleagues and participated, even though I was a student, in all its initiatives and actions.

Early in the morning of December 6, 1929, a new newspaper appeared among the newspapers and magazines on newsstands in Sofia and other cities of the country: "RLF" (Workers' Literary Front). The original title with large painted letters and the peculiar layout suddenly attracted the attention of buyers. From the introductory article "On a Clear Class Position," lovers of fiction understood without hesitation what this newspaper was. But here is the very introductory article, which best speaks of the editorial program: "Today. A clear delineation of two camps. No gap! The civil war very clearly delineates the fronts: on the one hand, the bourgeois intelligentsia, which during the war was shamefully silent or sang hymns of murderous chauvinism, today stands on its clear class position. It spent the civil war, taking part in the campaign against the workers and peasants in the Spitz commandos, and then continues "its heroic work: it sings the exploits of the murderers, denies the proletarian intelligentsia and follows the cultural policy of the current government. On the other hand stands the proletariat itself with its inexhaustible wealth of culture and art, with its intelligentsia, its proletarian writers...", etc. From this introductory article the reader sees that the newspaper "RLF" is a militant, combative literary organ of the party, which appeared in the name of a new culture, a new art, a new literature - the proletarian one. This is particularly strongly emphasized by the other materials in the first issue. Under the introductory article is an announcement about the arrest and imprisonment under the fascist law for the protection of the state of a large number of editors of labor newspapers, whose names make up a whole list. The remaining two columns print the poem "On Post" by Nikola Doronski (pseudonym of Nikola Lankov). This poem excites with the freshness of feeling and especially with the innovative vision of its author: