Compared to such lions as Maksim Gor'ky or Nobel Prize winner Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, Fedor Gladkov occupies a modest place in the history of Soviet literature. In fact, with the decline of communism, it is difficult to imagine that anyone would still read his work, save for a few literary scholars or historians specializing in socialist realism. Yet, it is fair to say that without Gladkov, Soviet literature would probably have looked different. For decades, his first significant work, Tsement (Cement, first serialized in Krasnaia nov' [Red Virgin Soil], 1925), ranked as a major achievement of Soviet literature, serving as a model for the so-called production novel of the 1930s. Even though he did not succeed in repeating this success, Gladkov continued to play a prominent role as a critic and literary administrator. Perhaps this very prominence explains why he eventually fell into oblivion. The author of many articles...