Decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks About the opera Great Friendship

Politburo Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks On the opera The Great Friendship of V. Muradeli dated February 10, 1948 was published in the Pravda newspaper on February 11, 1948. The resolution condemned formalism in music and proclaimed the opera The Great Friendship (1947) by Vano Muradeli. "Vicious anti-artistic work." In addition, in particular, it was stated: “The storyline of the opera, claiming to portray the struggle for the establishment of Soviet power and the friendship of peoples in the North Caucasus in 1918-1920, is historically false and artificial. From the opera, the misconception is created that such Caucasian peoples as Georgians and Ossetians were at that time at enmity with the Russian people, which is historically false, since the Ingush and Chechens were an obstacle to establishing the friendship of peoples in that period in the North Caucasus. ”

It was decided:

1. To condemn the formalistic trend in Soviet music, as anti-people and leading in practice to the elimination of music.
2. To propose to the Propaganda and Agitation Directorate of the Central Committee and the Committee on Arts to achieve the correction of the situation in Soviet music, the elimination of the shortcomings indicated in this resolution of the Central Committee, and the development of Soviet music in a realistic direction.
3. Encourage Soviet composers to be conscious of the high demands that the Soviet people make for musical creativity, and, having set aside everything that weakens our music and hinders its development, provide such an upsurge of creative work that will quickly advance Soviet musical culture and lead to the creation of in all areas of musical creativity of high-grade, high-quality works worthy of the Soviet people.
4. To approve the organizational measures of the corresponding party and Soviet bodies aimed at improving musical affairs.

Somewhat earlier, a secret version of the Resolution was approved, which included more specific paragraphs ^[1] . According to this option, including:

• Chairman of the Committee on Arts under the Council of Ministers Mikhail Khrapchenko was removed from office;
• The organizing committee of the Union of Soviet Composers was accused of being a "hotbed of a formalistic, anti-people trend in contemporary music", of "clamping down on criticism and self-criticism", in promoting "unrestrained praise of the works of a small group of composers to please friendly relations";
• In view of the above criticism, the Organizing Committee of the Union of Soviet Composers and its Presidium were dissolved. A.I. Khachaturian , V.I. Muradeli and L.T. Atovmyan are suspended from leading work in the Union of Composers . Boris Asafiev was appointed the chairman of the new Organizing Committee of the Union of Composers, Tikhon Khrennikov (Secretary General), Marian Koval and Vladimir Zakharov were included in the secretariat;
• The composition of the music section of the Stalin Prizes Committee was replaced ( Boris Asafiev and Tikhon Khrennikov were appointed chairman and deputy). Including in the section were introduced (without specifying) musicians from the Union republics.

For several weeks between the approval of the secret version of the Decree and the publication of the open, the musicians were checked ^[1] , in particular formalist composers ( Dmitry Shostakovich , Vissarion Shebalin and others), Muzgiz .

After the Decree, the organizational and musical activity of many large Soviet composers was limited.

The resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU of May 28, 1958 On the correction of errors in the assessment of the operas "Great Friendship", " Bogdan Khmelnitsky ", "With all my heart" stated that the Decree of 1948 "generally played a positive role in the development of Soviet musical art", but recognized what

assessments of the work of individual composers, the data in this decision, in some cases were unproven. There were flaws in V. Muradeli’s opera Great Friendship that deserved business criticism, but they did not give any reason to declare the opera an example of formalism in music. Talented composers vol. D. Shostakovich, S. Prokofiev, A. Khachaturian, V. Shebalin, G. Popov, N. Myaskovsky and others, in some of whose works incorrect tendencies were shown, were indiscriminately called representatives of the anti-people formalistic trend.

In the decree, contrary to historical facts, an artificial opposition of some peoples of the North Caucasus to others was allowed in connection with criticism of the opera Muradeli. Some incorrect assessments in the said resolution reflected the subjective approach to individual works of art and creativity by I.V. Stalin.