The Union of Soviet Writers and the Regional Committee of the CPSU(b) of the Volga-German Republic: The “Party’s Case” against Frederik Anneveldt (1934 – 1935)

Abstract

Based on archival documents, the article reconstructs the socio-political situation and the spiritual and moral atmosphere in which the Union of Soviet Writers of the Volga-German Republic found itself on the eve of the “Ezhovshchina”. The constant “purges” of the party increased fear, suspicion, and the search for “enemies of the people” and “accomplices the class enemy”. After the assassination of S. M. Kirov on December 1, 1934, the scale and ruthlessness of the party “purges” increased dramatically. Russian German writers who were members of the Bolshevik Party inevitably came under attack in the course of these internal party repressions. The writers’ tragic situation is examined in detail using the example of the “party’s case” against 51-year-old poet Frederik Anneveldt (1934–1935). He was expelled from the party for actions that the leading party bodies of the Volga-German Republic classified as “aiding and abetting the class enemy”, without taking into account any of his explanations and excuses. Moreover, the leading party bodies completely ignored his poetic work written in the spirit of “socialist realism”, and his active participation – through his creative writing – in the party’s propaganda work among the Germans of the Volga region. With his removal from the party, Anneveldt’s expulsion from the Union of Soviet Writers of the USSR inevitably followed.