Telephone Conversation with M.A. Bulgakov, April 18, 1930

Source: Tom 17

On April 18, around 6-7 in the evening, he [Bulgakov -- Ed.] came running, agitated, to our apartment (with Shilovsky) on Bolshoy Rzhevsky Lane and told the following. He had lain down after lunch to sleep, as usual, but immediately the telephone rang, and Lyuba (L.E. Belozerskaya, the writer's wife -- Ed.) called him over, saying it was someone from the CC asking for him.

M.A. did not believe it, deciding it was a prank (such things were done at the time), and, disheveled and irritated, picked up the receiver and heard:

"Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov?"

"Yes, yes."

"Comrade Stalin will speak with you now."

"What? Stalin? Stalin?"

And immediately he heard a voice with a distinct Georgian accent.

"Yes, this is Stalin speaking with you. Good day, Comrade Bulgakov (or -- Mikhail Afanasyevich -- I don't remember exactly)."

"Good day, Iosif Vissarionovich."

"We received your letter. We read it with the comrades. You will receive a favorable reply to it... But perhaps it's true -- you are asking to go abroad? Have we really become so tiresome to you?"

(M.A. said that he so little expected such a question -- indeed he had not expected the call at all -- that he was taken aback and did not answer right away):

"I have been thinking a great deal lately -- can a Russian writer live outside his homeland? And it seems to me that he cannot."

"You are right. I think so too. Where would you like to work? At the Art Theater?"

"Yes, I would. But I spoke about it, and they refused me."

"Then submit an application there. It seems to me they will agree. We should meet and talk with you."

"Yes, yes! Iosif Vissarionovich, I very much need to speak with you."

"Yes, we must find time and meet, without fail. And now I wish you all the best."

From the memoirs of E.S. Bulgakova.

Source: Bulgakov M. Collected Works: In 10 volumes. Vol. 10. Moscow, 2000. Pp. 260-261.

NOTE

The letter mentioned in the conversation was sent by Bulgakov to the government of the USSR on March 28, 1930 (see ibid., pp. 279-287). In it, the writer describes his situation in the words "I am now destroyed," "my works are hopeless," "the impossibility of writing is tantamount for me to being buried alive." Citing numerous devastating reviews of his works, he writes, among other things:

"I demonstrate with documents in hand that the entire press of the USSR, and together with it all the institutions charged with controlling the repertoire, throughout all the years of my literary work have unanimously and WITH EXTRAORDINARY FURY proven that the works of Mikhail Bulgakov cannot exist in the USSR.

And I declare that the press of the USSR is ABSOLUTELY RIGHT...

The struggle against censorship, whatever form it may take and under whatever regime it may exist, is my duty as a writer...

And finally, the last features of my ruined plays 'The Days of the Turbins,' 'Flight,' and of the novel 'The White Guard': the persistent depiction of the Russian intelligentsia as the best stratum in our country... Such depiction is entirely natural for a writer bound by blood to the intelligentsia.

But such depictions lead to the result that their author in the USSR, together with his heroes, receives -- despite his great efforts TO STAND IMPARTIALLY ABOVE THE REDS AND THE WHITES -- the certificate of a White Guardist, an enemy, and having received it, as everyone understands, can consider himself a finished man in the USSR...

I ASK THE GOVERNMENT OF THE USSR TO ORDER ME TO LEAVE THE BORDERS OF THE USSR WITHOUT DELAY, ACCOMPANIED BY MY WIFE LYUBOV YEVGENYEVNA BULGAKOVA.

I appeal to the humanity of Soviet power and ask that I, a writer, who cannot be useful in his own homeland, be magnanimously released to freedom..."

The fact of Stalin's conversation with the writer quickly became known in "intelligentsia circles." A curious account of it "third-hand" was recorded in the Agent Intelligence Summary of the 5th Department of the Secret-Operational Directorate of the OGPU, dated May 24, 1930, No. 61:

"The Letter of M.A. Bulgakov.

In literary and intelligentsia circles there is a great deal of talk about Bulgakov's letter.

As they say, the matter went as follows:

...the telephone rings in BULGAKOV's apartment.

'Are you Comrade Bulgakov?'

'Yes.'

'Comrade STALIN will speak with you (!)'
BULGAKOV was fully convinced this was a hoax, but waited.

After 2-3 minutes he heard a voice in the receiver:

'I apologize, Comrade BULGAKOV, that I could not reply to your letter quickly, but I am very busy. Your letter interested me greatly. I would like to speak with you personally. I do not know when that will be possible, since, I repeat, I am extremely overburdened, but I will notify you when I can receive you. But in any case, we will try to do something for you.'"

On April 19, 1930, Bulgakov was enrolled as an assistant director at the Moscow Art Theater. The meeting with Stalin that they had agreed upon never took place. Stalin's attitude toward the writer is also evidenced by the following episodes. According to the Vakhtangov Theater actor O. Leonidov, "Stalin attended 'Zoya's Apartment' [a play by Bulgakov -- Ed.] a couple of times. He said with an accent: 'A good play! I do not understand, I absolutely do not understand why they keep permitting it and then banning it. A good play, I see nothing wrong with it.'" In February 1932, Stalin watched a production of A.N. Afinogenov's play "Fear," which he did not like.

"...In a conversation with representatives of the theater, he remarked: 'Now you have a good play, "The Days of the Turbins" -- why is it not being performed?' They answered him with embarrassment that it had been banned. 'Nonsense,' he objected, 'it is a good play, it should be staged, stage it.' And within ten days an order was given to restore the production..." (ibid., pp. 293, 329).