A vast amount of the fiction published following the death of Stalin was devoted to the contemporary scene, as previous chapters have indicated. Writing became increasingly involved with the actual problems of Soviet society and, at its boldest and frankest, with criticism of an ossified establishment that maintained itself through corruption, intrigue, lies, and naked force. Public hypocrisy, ritualistic glossing over of the truth, and the use of obfuscating ideological formulas were attacked sometimes directly, more often indirectly, through the portrayal of characters with troubled consciences or, conversely, highly developed powers of moral and ethical self-justification. Implicit in most of this writing was a plea that institutionalized myths be undermined by the truth. Literature was coming closer to life as it is actually lived under Soviet conditions and evaluating it more honestly. This development led many critics to complain that writers had now adopted a “one-sided approach to life phenomena,” so that “gloomy and musty” episodes recurred in story after story. What really bothered these critics was the fact that, in opening and exploring previously forbidden areas, a new literature of critical realism was making serious inroads in canonical socialist realism.

The concept of socialist realism requires that the interests of the individual be closely identified, either explicitly or implicitly, with the interests of the state. As literature became more concerned with private lives, however, this identification became looser and more remote, and often disappeared altogether. Among the best writers, for example, the Communist Party virtually vanished from fiction. Until the middle fifties, party cadres had been omnipresent in works with a contemporary setting – solving problems, giving sage advice, inspiring by example, and often performing the role of a kind of collective deus ex machina.