SOURCE: "Selections from a Jewish Classic Writer," in Soviet Literature, September, 1947, pp. 63-64.

In the following essay, published before Bergelson's arrest, a Soviet publication presents the author as a hero of socialist literature.

David Bergelson is a distinguished Jewish writer of the modern school whose novels rank with the classics of Jewish literature.

Bergelson's books are a product of a life's close scrutiny of complex social relations. His first short stories were published in the dark days of reaction that followed the defeat of the Russian revolution of 1905 and describe the life of the nouveaux-riches and their hangers-on in remote provincial towns, their cynical double dealing in human feelings and relations, stagnant traditions which corrupt the human soul. His works are permeated with bitter contempt for "petty shopkeepers", as Gorky called this group of society, and great compassion for his heroes, young people, hopelessly perishing in a contaminating...