SOURCE: "Literary Policy in Stalin's Last Year," in Soviet Studies, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3, July, 1976, pp. 391-405.

In the following essay, Frankel discusses the period of "liberalization" regarding literary activity during Stalin's last year in power.

In recent years Western scholars have been deeply interested in determining the nature and degree of change which has taken place in the Soviet Union since Stalin's death. Numerous works have analysed and assessed the transformation of post-Stalin Russia: changes in economic policy, in the effectiveness of group pressures on policy-making, in the use and role of terror, and in the area of public discourse, debate, and cultural creativity. But relatively little effort has been made to establish a reliable gauge with which to measure change. Studies of what was happening in specific areas of interest during the late Stalin years—studies in detail—have been few and far between, so that comparisons...