Even now I sometimes ask myself, How did I manage to survive? I don't think that the trip to America had anything to do with it. That wasn't it. I think it was the films. I am sometimes asked, "How could you participate in such film projects, you so-and-so, as The Fall of 1 48
Berlin and Unforgettable 19 19? • And even accept prizes for these unseemly things?"
My reply is that I can expand the list of shameful enterprises with music composed by me, for instance the revue at the Leningrad Music Hall called War Game "Casualties." They used song and dance to agitate for antiaircraft defense. I wrote songs, fox trots, and so on. Chekhov used to say that he wrote everything but denunciations. And you see, I agree with him. I have a very unaristocratic point of view.
But naturally, there was another nuance, so to speak, in this case
· with the film industry, and that nuance turned out to be rather important. The point is that for us film is the most important art form. As you know, Lenin said that. And Stalin confirmed that profound and just thought and put it into action.
Stalin was in charge of the film industry personally. The results are known. And it's not my concern to delve into it. My own firm conviction is that film is an industry and not an art, but my participation in this industry of national importance saved me. More than once or twice.
Stalin wanted our film industry to put out only masterpieces. He was convinced that under his brilliant leadership and personal guidance it would do so. But let's not forget "The cadres determine everything." t So the leader and teacher worried about the cadres. He had his own confused notions about who could do what, and he decided that Shostakovich could write film scores. And he never changed his mind. Considering the situation, it would have been irrational for me to refuse to do film work.
Khrennikov, taking heart after the historic resolution, decided that my song was sung and my time was over. My operas and ballets were not being produced. My symphonies and chamber music were banned.
Now all he had to do was squeeze me out of film work and then my end would be nigh.
*These films, praised by the press and glorified by awards, depict Stalin as a wise and brave leader. Stalin saw them many times, relishing his personal portrayal. Shostakovich wrote film sc:orcs throughout his creative life, beginning in 1928 (for the famous New Babylon). He worked on forty films, which is no mean feat. However, the true significance of this output will become clear when one remembers that in the Soviet Union there were years in which only a few films were released, and the production of each film was under the personal control of Stalin. Shostakovich received money and prizes for his film music, but his feelings in his late years about this form of art, and his participation in it, were ambivalent, to say the least.
t "The cadres determine everything" is one of Stalin's aphorisms.
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And so Khrennikov and his friends actively brought my end closer. I wouldn't speak of this with such assurance if I hadn't learned about it accidentally. I don't like gossip and when people try to tell me who said what about me, I usually try to stop the conversation. I have been told about the moves Khrennikov made toward having me liquidated. I don't lend credence to these stories. But once I witnessed a rather interesting conversation.
Here's what happened. Khrennikov called me in to the Composers'
Union on some matter. I came, and we had a leisurely conversation.
Suddenly the phone rang. Khrennikov, on the intercom, said to his secretary: "I told you not to disturb us!" But her reply made our hereditary shop clerk quiver. He became so agitated that he jumped up and waited for his caller, holding the receiver respectfully.
Finally Comrade Khrennikov was put through. It was Stalin calling. These coincidences do happen in real life. Namely, Stalin was calling about me, and Khrennikov was so confused that he forgot to see me out of his office and I heard the entire conversation.
Out of politeness, I turned away and began a close examination of Tchaikovsky's portrait on the wall. I scrutinized Tchaikovsky, and he stared back. The classic and I studied each other, but to tell the truth, I was· also listening closely to Khrennikov's conversation.
This was the situation. When Khrennikov learned that I had been commissioned to do the music for several important films, he wrote a complaint to the Party's Central Committee. He didn't realize that he was complaining to Stalin about Stalin. And Stalin was letting him have it. Khrennikov gulped and tried to say something in his defense.
But what defense could there be-obviously, he admitted that he had been wrong. Ever since that day, I can reproduce Pyotr Ilyich's beard faultlessly.
But otherwise, films have generally meant nothing but trouble for me, beginning with my first one, New Babylon. I'm not talking about the so-called artistic side. That's another story, and a sad one, but my troubles on the political side began with New Babylon. No one remembers this any more and the film is considered a Soviet classic and has a wonderful reputation abroad. But when it was first shown, KIM* interfered. The KIM leaders decided that New Babylon was
*KIM-the Communist International of Youth, tJ:ie young people's division of the Comintern.
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counterrevolutionary. Things could have ended very badly, and I was only in my early twenties then. And there was trouble with every other film. When we were doing Girlfriends, Pravda published a list of fourteen people who had allegedly planned Kirov's death. Raya Vasilyeva was on that list. She was the screenwriter of Girlfriends. Now, you might ask: What does the screenwriter have to do with the composer?
And I'll reply: And what did Raya Vasilyeva have to do with Kirov's murder? Nothing. But she was shot nevertheless.
Something worse happened with Friends, a film about Betal Kalmykov, a man famous in those days. They proclaimed Betal Kalmykov an enemy of the people, and all the people involved with the film shook in their boots. And so on.
No, this was more than I could take, particularly since I had to work with' geniuses like Mikhail Edisherovich Chiaureli. Whenever he went over budget, Chiaureli called Beria* and explained the financial situation this way: "You know, we need more money. Films are complicated. A location shot, coming and going, and a million's gone. We need more money." And Beria would arrange it. He and Chiaureli understood each other.
Chiaureli also went to America, so that the progressive American community would have the opportunity to get to know this outstanding cultural leader. His elaborate creations made it possible for me to live through the hardest years.
Well, everything is still ahead. "I look ahead without fear," Pushkin said in the bad times of tsarism. I can't repeat his statement with confidence. Sometimes someone will subtly hint, After all, the historic resolution on the opera The Great Friendship has been rescinded.
First of all, one judges by actions, not words. And as for actions, there are plenty of sad examples. I won't talk about other composers now, let them speak for themselves. But the Thirteenth Symphony+
*KIM-the Communist International of Youth, the young people's division of the Comintem.