Russian intellectuals are beginning to robel against tho C.P.S.U. control of all art life. Notable among them is Shostakovich, the world famous composer who has been under fire before in the time of Stalin, he signed the lotter which was criticised by Ilyichov, Party boss of cultural affairs, This letter virtually called for the right of conflicting tendoncies in art forms and was signed by a host of intellectuals including: Constantin Simonov, Kornoi Chukovsky and Ilya Shrenburg (all writers), artist Vladimir Favosky, sculptor Sergei Konnenkov, and Nobel Prize-winning chemist Nikolai Simyonov.
The Party got its own back by attacking Shostakovich's latest work — his 13th symphony — in the newspaper Sovioct Culture. This saids "Under the banner of struggle against the personality cult, somo creative artists have started rump aging through the garbage pit in our backyard and do not wish to see what is heppenning on the main lines of development of our life." The symphony was perf= ormod twice the woek before Xmas, but the tcolevision broadcast of the second performance wam cancelled, There was a rush for tickets and tho audience gave Shostakovich and Yevtushenko, on whose poems the symphonies five movements are based, a 25 minute ovation, Thus we see that Khrushchov's liberalisation 4s rather skin-deep and, more important, that there is a spirit of rovolt which has beon encouraged by 'destalinsation', The latter point made have a signi*-ance which is not so obvious just now — all great intelloctuals movoments of port 49e1. revolt, and especially those which eventually bring the massos inte actiom in a authoritarian states, start in litorary and artistic circles.