The Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 radically changed Russian literature. After a brief period of relative openness (compared to what followed) in the 1920s, literature became a tool of state propaganda. Officially approved writing (the only kind that could be published) by and large sank to a subliterary level. Censorship, imprisonment in labour camps, and mass terror were only part of the problem. Writers were not only forbidden to create works that were dissident, formally complex, or objective (a term of reproach), but they were also expected to fulfill the dictates of the Communist Party to produce propaganda on ...(100 of 10831 words)