Maxim Gorky (1868-1936)

His born name was Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, he was a famous Soviet writer, poet, critic, political commentator and social activist. Born on March 28,1868 to a carpentry family in lower Novgorod, central Russia, after his father died at the age of 4, he lived with his mother in his grandfather’s house. He spent his childhood in tormented adversity. He went to school for only 2 years. Through stubborn self-study, he has acquired knowledge of the European classical literature, philosophy and natural sciences. In 1884, he aimed to realize his dream of university study and came to Kazan. He participated in a Narodnik study group and read many books and newspapers, including Marxist works. Gorky’s years of wandering began in 1888 and lasted for five years, during this period, he journeyed aimlessly and in 1891, he visited the Tbilisi (Tiflis) Railway Repair Factory, met the progressive workers here, and began his own literary creation activities. In September 1892, he published his first short story, titled as “Makar Chudra” based on folk tales, with the signature of “Maxim Gorky”. Since then, he became a professional writer, and his works were published in major Russian newspapers.

From the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, Gorky got in touch with the Iskra newspaper led by Lenin, closely linked with the Social-Democratic Labor Party, and gradually accepted the Marxist world view. In the spring of 1901, he published the famous “Song of the Stormy Petrel”. In 1903, he was almost assassinated by the Tsar’s secret police.

From 1901 to 1905, Gorky mainly wrote plays, and successively wrote a series of important plays, such as The Philistines, The Lower Depths, Summerfolk, The Children of the Sun and Barbarians.

During the first Russian Revolution from 1905 to 1907, Gorky actively participated in the revolution.

In 1905, he not only fought against the Tsardom with his pen and ink, but also raised money and weapons for the insurgents during the armed uprising of workers in Moscow in December. This year, he met with Lenin for the first time in Petersburg and joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party. After the failure of the first revolution, Gorky visited the United States and Western Europe to publicize the Russian Revolution and raise funds for the Party. During his time in the United States, he wrote a collection of political commentaries such as My Visit and a feature “In America” which exposed and criticized the capitalist system.

In 1906, Gorky wrote the novel “The Mother” and the play “Enemies” which was highly praised by Lenin. After returning from his visit to the United States in 1906, Gorky lived in Capri, Italy, until 1913. During this period, he not only wrote a series of political articles attacking the United States, such as “The City of the Yellow Devil”, but also a number of articles criticizing the decadence and defection of Russian intellectuals after the failure of the revolution, such as "The Destruction of Personality”, “Cynicism” (1908), and others. He was once close to the Bogdanov and his reactionary group, influenced by the idealist philosophy, and accepted the theory of “God-Building”. Under Lenin’s personal attention and criticism, he gradually realized his mistakes and separated himself from the activities of this “Recallists” group (Otzovists).

Gorky theoretically explored the characteristics of new proletarian literary creation methods and put forward the view of combining realism with romanticism. From 1907 to 1917, Gorky created a lot of works. At the end of 1913, he returned to Russia and started living in St. Petersburg. In 1914, he edited and published the Collection of Proletarian Writers. In the same year, after the outbreak of the World War I, he denounced the war and the trend of social chauvinism. He was among the leading founders of the monthly magazine Chronicle (1915-17), which exposed the predatory nature of the imperialist war, and in 1915 he also established his publishing house “The Sail” (Par us), thus dedicated himself to introduce the culture of various nationalities.

During the preparation and implementation of the October Revolution in 1917, Gorky argued that the proletariat in Russia at that time should first form an alliance with intellectuals’ class which represented the advanced scientific and technological forces, arm the people with scientific and technological knowledge, thus create the conditions for the future revolution. Therefore, he opposed the socialist revolution shortly after the February Revolution and disagreed with the Bolshevik Party. He published a group of political articles entitled “Untimely Thoughts”, accusing the Bolshevik Party and Lenin.

From 1918 to 1921, he made a comprehensive reflection on his ideological mistakes, actively invested in various cultural activities, proposed and personally presided over the establishment of a variety of magazines, a new cultural team, and the establishment of his new publishing company World Literature Press. From the summer of 1921 to 1928, Gorky recuperated in Sorrento, Italy, due to his illness. He did a lot of work to cultivate young writers and unite writers of different styles, actively publicized the achievements of the Soviet Union, condemned the activities of the white guards against the Soviet regime, and successively completed the last autobiographical trilogy My Universities, Recollections of Tolstoy (1919-1923), Vladimir Lenin (1924-1930), the novel The Artamonov Business (1925), so forth.

After returning to Russia in 1928, Gorky travelled the whole country twice and wrote a long reportage titled as “Journey to the Soviet Union”. In 1931, he settled in Moscow and created scripts such as Yegor Bulychov and Others, Dostigayev and Others, and the Novel Life of Klim Samgin. He continued to theoretically explore the creative methods of Soviet literature, published a series of articles which advocated the thought trend of “socialist realism”, and clarified the basic principles of this literature creation method comprehensively and brilliantly. In 1934, he presided over the first Congress of Soviet Writers and was elected as the first president of the Soviet Writers’ Union.

On June 18, 1936, Gorky died of pneumonia.