Author: Anton Vatcharadze

Introduction

Andre Paul Guillaume Gide (1869-1951)  was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. At the time of his death, his obituary in The New York Times described him as "France's greatest contemporary man of letters". In 1936 Paolo Iashvili dedicated a poem full of hatred and curses to this world-known writer, the reason for which must be sought in the communist, terror-creating, state system…

In this article, we will touch on the part of the large-scale strategy set by Stalin for strengthening the international authority of the Soviet Union, which included the elimination of cultural inequality and the attempt to propagate Soviet culture in the West, and gather like-minded people. We will consider these processes in terms of the close and, to some extent, paradoxical relations between the Soviet Union and the Nobel laureate writer Andre Gide. We will review Gide's journey to Georgia and the sad consequences that followed. Based on documentary sources, we will describe the vicious Soviet system, which ordered many worthy people, including Paolo Iashvili, to reprimand a critical French colleague in order to save his friends and himself. The system that forced a colleague and maybe a friend - the responsible secretary of the Union of Writers, Davit Demetradze - to assess the suicide of Paolo Iashvili as a "provocative act" and despite that, the system also punished him...

In his famous address to the directors of enterprises on February 4, 1931, Stalin said: "The old history of Russia, by the way, was constantly blamed for backwardness... everything: military, cultural, state, industrial, economic backwardness... We are behind the advanced countries by 50-100 years. We should run this road in ten years. Either we will be able to do it, or they will bow to us" (Сталин: "О задачах...").

On October 26, 1932, Stalin met with Maxim Gorky and a group of Soviet writers, whom he called "engineers of human souls" (Инженеры человеческих душ). The chieftain was well aware of the importance of the ideological influence of literature on people's moods and vision, therefore, with this meeting and evaluation, he emphasized the special role of writers in the formation of public opinion (Фрадкин: 149).

A key part of the Stalinist strategy was to present only the strengths of the Soviet presence outside the borders of the USSR and to hide the shortcomings. It is for this purpose that the Union of Writers launched a grand campaign to invite famous foreign writers to the Soviet Union: men such as Bernard Shaw, Romain Rolland, Andre Gide, Louis Aragon, Lion Feuchtwanger, Henri Barbusse, and others.

Source: Literaturuli Sakartvelo (Literary Georgia), No. 12, 1936.

The Chieftain met some of the writers himself and attempted to charm them with his charisma. The harsh reality and hardships of the Soviet Union were based on the methods of the "Potemkin villages" tested about one hundred and fifty years ago, which is why a number of writers, after returning to their homeland, passionately dedicated their work to the Soviet Union and Stalin.

Andre Gide's cooperation with the Soviet Union dates back to the 1930s. During this period, he published a number of laudatory letters about communist ideology (although he did not officially join the party). In 1936, he gave a speech at the funeral of Maxim Gorky (Gorky died on June 18, 1936), Then he was invited to the Union of Writers of the Soviet Union. A trip to "Sunny Georgia" was also arranged for him, where Paolo Iashvili, Mikheil Javakhishvili, Titsian Tabidze and others served as guides.

Returning to France, Gide wrote the book "Return from the Soviet Union" (Retour de l'U.R.S.S.). Gide's disillusionment with what he saw in the Soviet Union was so great that after the publication of this book, until the end of his life, he refrained from all political and public activities and rarely voiced his own positions. Later, in his 1949 anthology “The God that Failed”, Andre Gide described his earlier enthusiasm for the doctrine of Communism: "In the miserable modern world, the plan of the Soviet Union seemed to me to bring salvation... Everything convinced me of this, my opponents Instead of persuasion, useless arguments made me angry. If giving up my life was necessary to consolidate the success of the Soviet Union, I would give it up without hesitation” (Koestler: 231). Gide also spoke about the reasons that led to his disappointment with communism: "under no circumstances is it allowed for human morals to decline as communism has managed to do. It is impossible to imagine the tragedy of humanity, morality, religion and freedom in a communist country, where man has been degraded beyond ideology.” (Heggy: 353).

"Return from the Soviet Union" by Andre Gide

The most desirable and celebrated "fervent friend and companion" of the Soviet Union was suddenly and quite blatantly turned into an anti-socialist element and enemy. In 1931-1933, Andre Gide was at the zenith of his popularity in France, and his "friendship" with the USSR must have been one of the most impressive successes of Soviet cultural diplomacy... But despite the dizzying "burrow" of universal well-being, in which Andre Gide was wrapped during his visit to the Soviet Union, where he was taken to model collective farms, construction sites, demonstration kindergartens, etc. He was able to see reality. In his book "Return from the Soviet Union" published in 1936, he wrote: "In the Soviet Union it has been decided once and for all that there should be only one opinion on any issue. However, people's thinking is formed in such a way that this conformity is not a burden for them, it is natural, they do not feel it and do not think that it is hypocritical. Are these the people who made the revolution? No, these are the ones who benefited from it. Every morning, “Pravda” provides [information to the people], clearly filtering what they need to know, what they need to believe, and what they don't. It turns out that when you talk to one Russian, it's like you're talking to all of them... You feel sorry for those who stand in lines for hours, and they think it's normal. Bread, vegetables, and fruits seem to be of poor quality, but nothing else. The pieces, the things you see, look terrible, but there is no choice... The most important thing at this time is to convince people that they are happy... to convince people that everyone else is less happy than them... their happiness is in their belief, in their illusion, in their ignorance…” (Жид: 18). “The best way to move forward is to listen... don't commit such lowliness and betrayal, it means you yourself will die together with the friend you want to save... as a result - total distrust... Everyone is watching each other, themselves and they are watching him too. Innocent childish titillation can kill you, that's why they avoid talking to children. The best way to avoid being overheard is to overhear yourself." (Жид: 119). 

Andre Gide's book went through ten editions and was translated into fourteen languages, and the epithets "enemy of socialism", "renegade", "pasquiliant" and "Trotskyist" were immediately added to his name in the Soviet Union.

Andre Gide and the Soviet Pioneers, 1936. (source from the Internet #1)

What caused such a radical transformation of Andre Gide's opinions?

"Neither the luxury of the reception, the "temptations'', nor the comfort and the huge fee prevented Andre Gide, despite not knowing the Russian language, to see in Soviet life what many other famous visitors to the country of advanced socialism did not notice or did not want to notice..." (Kharitonova: 186). However, it would probably not be correct to assume that Andre Gide saw the true face of the regime prevailing in the country only at the expense of his insight and critical vision. Even before his visit to the Soviet Union, in 1935, at a congress held in Paris under the auspices of the protection of culture, Andre Gide became close to the anti-Stalinist opposition and supported the release of the writer and politician Victor Serge (Victor Kibalchich), who had been exiled to Orenburg. Serge was in favor of the so-called "Left Opposition'' and was subjected to exile. Only with the personal support of Romain Rolland and Gide himself, was it possible to "withdraw" him from the USSR. After his release, Serge twice wrote an open letter to Andre Gide: "...don't close your eyes, look at what is happening behind the flexible and expensive propaganda, parades, marches, congresses..." Andre Gide expressed his position regarding Serge's case he reported to the Soviet diplomat V. Potemkin and asked him to assist in reviewing the case. Potemkin warned the chairman of the overseas commission of the Union of Writers, an influential and powerful Soviet functionary, Mikhail Koltsov, who did not consider this fact to be of any importance. He was very involved in creating the image of Gide as a supporter and defender of communism and, in turn, convinced the higher authorities of Andre Gide's unconditional loyalty. In the end, Koltsov's reckless behavior brought disastrous results: in 1937, the Politburo obliged Koltsov to respond to Gide in a literary form. Koltsov realized that he was being slandered, and the party was blaming him for the insulting "outburst" by Gide. He did not respond to this "call" with a separate article and tried to justify himself in his memoirs "Spanish Diary" (Испанский дневник). This did not help the once successful Soviet functionary, and he was shot in 1940 (Kharitonova: 187). In the great plan of strengthening the pro-Stalinist spirit, the congress of writers held in Paris in June 1935 should have been one of the most important events. The chairman of the congress was "friend of the Soviet Union" Andre Gide. As M. Koltsov recalled, Andre Gide would show his distaste for the Soviet Union and communism in every possible way.

He was dissatisfied with the composition of the Soviet delegation and categorically asked Koltsov and A. Shcherbakov (in 1934-1936, Secretary of the Union of Writers of the USSR - ed.) to bring Pasternak and Babel. According to Gide, only Pasternak and Babel were real writers, and only they had the right to present Russian literature at the congress. As a result of Andre Gide's insistence, they were actually summoned and brought to the Congress on the last day (Петрова: 213). The connection between Gide, Pasternak, and Babel was not interrupted until Gide’s visit to the USSR in 1936, he refused to meet with other Soviets. As Andre Gide himself noted: "Only they tell the truth, everyone else is bribed." (Фрадкин: 68) and spent hours talking to Pasternak at the country house. Andre Gide writes, "his eyes finally opened after visiting Tbilisi" (Фрадкин: 250). According to the writer Malraux, in Georgia, Gide was in the company of Titsian Tabidze, Paolo Iashvili, Mikheil Javakhishvili, and Besarion Zghenti, who embraced their own counter-revolutionary attitudes. 

As we can see, in the Soviet Union, various justifications for Gide’s behavior were sought. It seems that in Georgia he had a meeting with a counter-revolutionary who returned from exile (it is not known with whom), who translated Sergei Yesenin's banned anti-Soviet poem into French (Фрадкин: 69). When Gide started preparing for the publication of the book, the information reached the Kremlin immediately. Among the informants was a prominent writer, Ilya Ehrenburg. Koltsov recalls in his book that André Gide's secretary Pierre Erbar, who accompanied him on his trip to the USSR, was thoughtful and worried about the "old man" (Gide), because he reacted twice to everything, and the second reaction was always the opposite of the first. Ilya Ehrenburg also expressed public concern about the anti-Soviet content of the book. He took it upon himself to personally interview and reconsider the publication of the book for Gide, and as it is known from the documents, their meeting really took place. During his speech, Ehrenburg made a special emphasis on the current events in Spain, where the civil war was raging, and the USSR was involved in the anti-Franco coalition and was helping the Second Spanish Republic. Ehrenburg tried to get Gide to visit Spain, where he met the representative of the autonomous government of Catalonia, J. Miravillier who also had to "process" and convince him not to publish the book. 

Gide did not go to Spain, but the book was still published (Kharitonova: 189). As we can see, several attempts to hinder its publication were unsuccessful. For the top Soviet leadership, the book was translated into Russian under the rubric "secretly", and Gide was expelled from the ranks of friends of the USSR and severely and mercilessly reprimanded in Soviet publications. It was a severe failure for Soviet cultural diplomacy. Michael David-Fox has an interesting opinion on the reasons for Andre Gide's defection in his book "Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941". Gide's hopes that communism would finally free sexuality from social constraints ended in failure. The decriminalization of homosexuality after the Bolshevik Revolution excited Gide and his circle of associates. In 1931, he wrote in his diary: "The time will come, I think, when there will be profound changes in the expression of love." David-Fox asserts that the real reason for Andre Gide's visit to the Soviet Union was his meeting with Stalin to talk about eliminating a number of shortcomings in the Soviet Union, including improving the condition of people of different orientations. But, as is known, Stalin did not meet Andre Gide for a face-to-face conversation (though they appeared together on the podium of the mausoleum and publicly addressed the gathering), one of the probable reasons being Gide’s sexual orientation (Дейвид-Фокс: 225). Naturally, such a passage caused Stalin's immediate negative reaction, and it was after this that a large-scale campaign against Gide began throughout the Soviet Union, despite the fact that Gide's essay itself was not available to readers. 

The response of the Soviet Union to Gide

In 1936 deputy head of cultural and educational affairs of the central committee presented a  report in Kremlin that Andre Gide has already published the preface of his book in the newspaper “Vandread”. Bureaucrat quoted Gide: “Maybe initially I was wrong? The person who tracks the evolution of the USSR might ask himself - who is being changed - the USSR or I? And under USSR he presumes the ruler” (Харитонова: 189). Naturally, such a passage caused Stalin’s immediate negative reaction and exactly after that started a widescale campaign against Gide in the whole Soviet Union despite the fact that Gide’s books were not available to the general public. The initial article “Tears and laugh of Andre Gide” was published in “The Pravda” newspaper (Смех и слезы Андрэ Жида) (Правда: 4) followed by “Where did Andre Gide come back in the USSR?” (Куда Андрэ Жид возвратился из СССР) published in “Literaturuli Gazeti” (literary newspaper) on 6th December 1936. In this last article “scandalous” book was described as follows: the book of tearful, double Gide presented him as a weak, unstable and mirrorless person. Maybe, he wrote this anti-USSR pasquill under the impact of our brutal enemies - the French branch of the Trotsky-Fascist band; And to ease his “individualist” conscience he was clinically sobbing. Much worse, all this lie is more terrible (Литературная газета: 6).”

Publication of Gide's new books was banned, and existing ones were removed from libraries. From Ehrenburg's book "Books for Adults'' (Книга для взрослых), a pathetic paragraph about Andre Gide was removed. Stalin's favourite Persian poet at the time, Lakhuti, was commissioned to write a second article on Gide (he had praised him in the first). Gide was laughed at by his western colleagues – Feuchtwanger and Rolland (Фрезинский: 252).

On December 13, A. Arosiev (Chairman of the All-Union Society of Cultural Relations (ВОКС)) presented his conclusion in the Kremlin, who did not hesitate and accused his competitors from the Foreign Commission of the USSR. Arosiev noted that he was against Gide's visit to the Soviet Union from the beginning. Among the reasons for Gide's defection, he primarily singled out his personal unscrupulousness and vacillating character, peculiarities of the organisation of the visit, as well as Gide's close relationship with such anti-Soviet writers as Pasternak and Pilniak. Arosiev pointed to the need to draw adequate, appropriate conclusions and concluded the report with the opinion that much stricter controls should be imposed on the invitation of "known foreigners". Soon such control was really established (Kharitonova: 191).

One of the main goals of the Spanish Anti-Fascist Congress of Writers on March 21, 1937, was to compromise Andre Gide and deny the facts described in the book. Almost all the Soviet delegates condemned and mocked the "renegade Jew" in their speech. Despite the pressure of the Soviet delegation, only the Spanish Jose Bergamin from the foreign writers said: "Andre Gide's book is insignificant in itself, but the fact that it appeared in the days when the fascists are destroying Madrid gives it a tragic significance... It is an unjust and unworthy attack on the Soviet Union and on Soviet writers. This is not a criticism, this is a lie. Russian and Spanish people are known for their solidarity during difficult exam days. Let us be silent about the unworthy behaviour of the author of this book." (Фрадкин: 235).  Soviet pressure was also caused by the fact that Gide's rebuke in Spain would resonate in Latin America, where Trotsky was at that time (and, presumably, he actively distributed Gide's book denouncing the Soviet Union and Stalin - ed.). Danger from the "Trotskyist counter-revolution" was to be expected from Latin America, with Stalin considering it a great threat to the regime. Consequently, the release of Gide's book and the reaction to it, can be considered another stage in the history of the Kremlin's strengthening of its international positions and the confrontation between Trotskyism and Stalinism.

The anti-Gide movement was accompanied by a natural reaction from his side, and in June 1937 he published "Corrections", where he pointed out the facts and interpretations, which he refrained from in his book "Return from the USSR". The "corrections" turned out to be even more acute and critical: "Stalin fears only those who are honest and incorruptible... Soon Stalin will be always right because there will no longer be people around him who have ideas. This is the peculiarity of despotism - the tyrant approaches not the thinking people, but the subordinates." (Фрезинский: 253).

Andre Gide

The Soviet visitors knew that Andre Gide, imbued with an anti-bourgeois spirit, did not like pre-planned officialdom, therefore, they planned the visit with premeditated spontaneity, which still did not work. During the almost two-and-a-half-month visit, from June 16 to August 24, 1936, a whole campaign was planned to "popularize" Gide's work among the Soviet population: for example, 300,000 postcards were printed with his image, which caused Gide's indignation. A continuous chain of banquets, receptions, and meetings with the participation of high-ranking party officials once again convinced Gide that conformism and the petty-bourgeois spirit had finally been revived in the USSR. Representatives of the NKVD constantly accompanied Gide and his companions, which would be another clear signal of totalitarianism for the Frenchman. After the first month spent in Moscow, Petersburg, and other places, it was the turn of the leader's homeland... Andre Gide's trip to Georgia was described in detail in the Georgian press of that time. Almost the entirety of the issue of July 31, 1936 was devoted to the visit, in the newspaper Literaturuli Sakartvelo ("Literary Georgia"), which Donald Rayfield refers to as "Beria's mouthpiece" (Rayfield: 337). The publication reported that on July 16, Andre Gide and his entourage had a festive reception at the club named after Dzerzhinsky (located at No. 4 Besiki Street). Aristo Tchumbadze delivered the opening speech in French: "He briefly touched on the past of Georgia, which was devastated by tsarism and the Mensheviks, comrade A. Tchumbadze told the guests about the economic and cultural progress of Georgia, its prosperity, which the workers of our republic achieved under the leadership of the Communist Party, based on the wise instructions of the great Stalin."

"- If you spend a few days in our country, you will see our successes, our happy, pleasant life. You will also make sure that every Georgian writer, every art worker, at the first call of the party, is ready to take up arms to defend the socialist homeland" (lit. Georgia: 1).

There are several documents preserved in the Writers' Union Fund of the National Archives of Georgia regarding Andre Gide's visit: one of them is an invitation card, which briefly describes the program of the meeting.

Source: National Archives of Georgia, Fund of the Union of Soviet Writers of Georgia, No. 8, Inventory No. 1, Case No. 544, p. 7.

The second document is a letter that Akaki Tatarishvili, the chairman of the Union of Soviet Writers of Georgia, and Jajanashvili, the head of the administrative-financial department of the union, sent to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia on August 3, 1936, in the name of Beria. In the letter, Tatarishvili requests reimbursement of the money for the concert for the State Philharmonic Theater of Variety Groups (Гофилект - Государственный филармонический театр эстрадных коллективов), which was organized by Andre Gide on Beria's initiative. There, Tatarishvili reminds him of the promise, according to which the Transcaucasian People's Commissariat of Finance (Закнаркомфин) would pay for the concert, and notes that the concert participants appeal to the Union of Writers with complaints, and they do not have any money to repay the debt. From the letter, we learn that the academic choir of Kirile Patchkoria held a concert for the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia.

Akaki Tatarashvili was also executed, a party functionary who held the highest positions at different times: he was the chairman of the art committee under the Council of People's Commissars, the People's Commissar of Education of Georgia, the People's Commissar of Finance, etc. In 1937, Tatarishvili was accused of "being a member and one of the leaders of the terrorist and malicious-subversive organization of the right-wing Georgian Counterrevolutionaries." On the instructions of the centre of the organization, he engaged in harmful activities in the field of financial management and cultural front. He led harmful counter revolutionary activities among youth and writers” and was shot on November 14 of the same year. It is difficult to say whether the reason for Tatarishvili's repression was the letter written to Beria on August 3, 1936, in a stern tone, although this may also have contributed to his repression.

Source: National Archives of Georgia, Fund of the Union of Soviet Writers of Georgia, No. 8, Inventory No. 1, Case No. 544, p. 8.

Andre Gide's journey continued traditionally: from July 18, he visited Kakheti - Telavi, Tsinandali, and Sighnaghi. The agenda was similar everywhere: meetings with farmers and peasants, long and tiring speeches, and of course, Georgian wine. Newspaper articles about Gide's trip to Kakheti are full of propaganda, glorification of the Soviet country, and sometimes even criticism of Gide's native France (where communism has not yet won): "The workers informed the writer that we still have time for sports training, we often organise football, basketball, it is a great passion, Also, with chess among us. "We peasants don't even have a clue about chess," said Andre Gide." (Lit. Georgia: 1).

Gide probably stayed in Kakheti for a few days, because Literary Georgia provides us with the following information about his visit to Gori, which took place on July 24. Of course, he was brought to Stalin's birthplace (the big museum had not yet been built in Gori - ed.), after which Andre Gide sent a telegram to Stalin from Gori and expressed his admiration for the impressions received in the leader's homeland. On the same evening, Andre Gide visited Staliniri (Tskhinvali), and then he stopped in Borjomi, from where he went to Adjara. Before leaving for Sukhumi, Andre Gide told the press representatives: "My impressions are so many, so beautiful, clear and colorful that it takes a certain period of time to understand them and clearly express what I felt, especially since I still have to visit one of the most beautiful parts of Georgia - Abkhazia." (lit. Georgia: 1).

Writers Titsian Tabidze, Konstantine Lortkifanidze, and the responsible secretary of the Union of Writers - Davit Demetradze accompanied Andre Gide to Sukhumi. According to "Literary Georgia", the conversation with the writers of Gide was mainly related to the translation of modern Georgian writers and their publication in France, for which the French guest made abundant promises. On the other hand, the Writers' Union of Georgia promised to draw up a publication plan, select the best works for translation, and use the experience of Russian authors, and translators of Georgian poetry - Pasternak, Tikhonov, and Anatolsky. The conversation touched on the prose translation of "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" found in St. Petersburg archives, and many other bilateral promises were made (Lit. Georgia: 2). On the front pages of the newspapers of that period, the speech delivered by Andre Gide in the club named after Dzerzhinsky and his personal letter to comrade Lavrentiy Beria:

Source: Literary Georgia, No. 12, July 31, 1936.

However, the pathos towards Gide changed radically in December, after his “sickening" book was published, and the news reached Georgia. In addition to Paolo Iashvili's poem, Valerian Mgaloblishvili's article - Iudas Ambori (“Judas's Kiss”): [Andre Gide's defamation of the USSR] (No. 287, December 1936) was published in the "Communist" newspaper, the same article was reprinted in the Sabchota Achara ("Soviet Adjara") newspaper (No. 289, December 1936 ). In addition to these articles, the “Pravda” article "Andre Gide's laughter and tears" was translated and published in Literary Georgia.

The publication of the book found a resonance in the Georgian emigration to Europe: the central printing organ of the party committee of the exiled government of Georgia - the newspaper Brdzolis Khma ("Voice of the Battle") - responded to the fact in its December 1936 issue: "...Andre Gide raised his authoritative voice in favour of the Soviet Union at every convenient opportunity, and was one of his best defenders. The Bolsheviks also highly valued his friendship and praised his name." After that, the newspaper cited several passages from Andre Gide's published book, already mentioned in the article - "When you talk to one Russian, you seem to be talking to all of them", and the passages where Gide described the life of people: "A beautiful stable, a wonderful stall, an exemplary piggery and a hen house of the last achievement. Each hen has its own number attached to its leg and has its own nest for laying eggs, and each laid egg is kept in the register. But if you step over the boundary wall, you will see a row of hideous huts; Each eye, which is two and a half meters long and two meters wide, houses four spirits... Dinner in the canteen of the "Sovkhoz" costs two manats, which is completely affordable for those who earn 75 manats a month. they take. They are forced to be satisfied with only bread or dried fish" (Voice of the Battle: 6).

After Andre Gide's visit, almost everyone around him was subjected to repression. Three great writers, Titsian Tabidze, Mikheil Javakhishvili, and Paolo Iashvili (indirectly) fell victim to Stalin's terror. The responsible secretary of the Union of Writers, Davit Demetradze, was shot (source #2 from the Internet). The latter, on July 28, 1937, presided over the "joint meeting of the part-group and part-organization of the Union of Soviet Writers of Georgia", which was established as one of the points: "Comrade Demetradze's statement about the provocative suicide of the enemy of the people Paolo Iashvili is accepted, the party-group and the party-organization point out that the exposed enemy of the people Paolo Iashvili escaped from political justice. In response to this provocative act, the leadership of the Union of Writers will further intensify class vigilance in order to expose to the end such rascals as P. Iashvili, who may still be in our ranks under the guise of a Soviet writer." At the same session, Davit Demetradze raised the issue of checking the members of the Union of Writers in order to find out their "political-creative" face. (Archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, former Communist Party Archive Fund No. 897, Inventory No. 1, Case No. 1, p. 73.)

Source: Archives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, former Communist Party Archive Fund No. 897, Inventory No. 1, Case No. 1, p. 73.

Minutes of the NKVD “Special troika”, by which David Demetradze was sentenced to be shot and his personal property confiscated. Preserved in the archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia.

Minutes of the NKVD “Special troika”, by which Akaki Tatarashvili was sentenced to be shot and his personal property confiscated. Preserved in the archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia.

It is difficult to directly connect the visit of Andre Gide and the book published in France to the repression of these people, though it is a fact that the reputation of Georgia and Beria personally was significantly damaged by the "return from the Soviet Union". In his work, Gide presented a Georgia different from the socialist reality, a place where "there are palaces built according to the latest technology for horses, pigs, and chickens, and people are crammed in such huts, which in cultured countries do not even serve as pigsties." (Voice of Battle: 6). Therefore, it is likely that the work of all those people who surrounded Gide and allowed the writer to "see" the reality, would be evaluated unfavourably in the eyes of the party leadership of the Georgian SSR.

The responsible secretary of the Union of Writers of Georgia - repressed Davit Demetradze (sitting, first from the right). (Source from the Internet No. 3)

Akaki Tatarishvili. (source from the Internet No. 4)

Donald Rayfield in his book "Stalin and his Hangmen'' directly relates the repression of writers to Andre Gide's visit: "In 1936, Georgian writers competed with each other to host Andre Gide when he visited Tbilisi, Tskaltubo, and Sokhumi with a group of French communists. The writers, who greeted Gide with lavish feasts and no less lavish praise, were accused of being agents of fascism when Gide published his polite but scathing anti-Soviet critique, “Return from the USSR”. The best prose writer in Georgia, Mikheil Javakhishvili, sacrificed himself to death with one phrase: "Andre Gide has good ideas." It was too late to take those words back. Paolo Iashvili admitted that the hospitality and generosity of visiting famous people was his incurable sin and wrote the poem "Andre Gide - the traitor"... but in vain. Whatever they had to do, Georgian poets could not save themselves from the hell that Beria had arranged for them in May 1937." (Rayfield: 337).

Concluding remarks 

From the end of 1936, the campaign against Andre Gide equalled the campaign to glorify him. Gide's personal insults were aligned with the dogma spread at the beginning of the Great Terror, equated with established traditions of ideological condemnation of enemies. The leitmotif of this whole campaign was the idea of ​​how an enemy can be hidden under the mask of a class friend. It turns out that Gide was always a bourgeois and a "Trotskyist-fascist". At the same time, all accusations were found to be correlated with Gide's sexual orientation. Boris Lavrenov wrote about the writer's "sick and depraved taste", and Ilya Ehrenburg referred to Andre Gide several times as "an evil renegade with an old, damaged conscience". Of course, Gide was not killed in Georgia either, Paolo Iashvili's poem full of contempt and curses, Mgaloblishvili's Iudas Ambori, etc. Officially these works echoed the party line - the fulfilment of the assignment that the writers received from the party.

For a long time, Andre Gide was condemned in the Soviet Union. The first person who dared to refer to Gide as a human being during Khrushchev's thaw was Ilya Ehrenburg, who dedicated an article to him in his memoirs: "People, years, life" (Люди, годы, жизнь). However, there was no talk of re-publishing Gide's books, especially "The Return"... and only when the Soviet Union was collapsing, in 1990, Andre Gide's writings again saw the light of day in the Soviet space (Фрезинский: 253).