Abstract

The present stage in the development of our society is marked by serious changes in social morality. The building of communism is entering a new stage. The man of the communist future is taking shape and being perfected before our eyes. Under these conditions, the Party - and this was emphasized at its Twenty-Fourth Congress - requires of a worker in the arts a thorough examination of contemporary life and of its hero to the full extent of his talent, and demands that his ethical convictions and awareness of spirit be developed. Since this is the case, it is natural that literary criticism faces new, lofty tasks: tasks of analyzing literature in connection with those economic, societal, and moral processes which characterize social existence today. This was stated clearly both at the Party Congress and in the Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On Criticism in Literature and the Arts" [O literaturno-khudozhestvennoi kritiki]