The novelette which gave a name to the post-Stalin period was Ilya Ehrenburg's The Thaw…. Ehrenburg in this work provided a concise guide to the themes and theses of post-Stalin literature; as a matter of fact his work sums up so neatly in credible artistic form the main points of "de-Stalinization" that one is obliged to assume a degree of political guidance, direct or indirect, in its writing. The argument of The Thaw … runs as follows: 1) Soviet life has become cold and rigid; let us warm up toward one another. 2) Soviet political and industrial heroes are often tyrants indifferent to the popular weal; let us expose them. 3) People are important, and they exist as individuals; let us cherish each one. 4) Emotions are real and cannot always be neatly catalogued and contained in rational categories; let us feel them: love, pity, fear, envy. It is a fine argument, indeed...