FROM THE HISTORY OF SOVIET CHESS COMPOSITION
Автор: Юрий Авербах, на английском языке.

In 1963, when in our country a fight against abstract art has been developing at full speed, I was invited, as deputy-president of the USSR Chess Federation, to come to comrade F. Mulikov.

He was an official of the sport sector in the ideological department of the Party Central Committee, which controlled all kinds of sport, including chess. "Do you know professor Dmitry Petrov?" he asked me.

I answered: "Yes, of course." I knew, that Petrov was a player and a noted composer of studies.

"Petrov is trying to meet comrade Suslov. He asserts that in chess you also have abstract art." At that time comrade Suslov was a Chief of the ideological department.

It is necessary to explain, that in the early twenties Alexandre Herbstman, one of the main theoreticians of chess composition, made a try to divide all our composers of studies into three groups - realists, romantics and abstractionists. In the first group he put some composers whose studies looked as positions from actual play, in the second - some composers whose ideas expressed romantic ideas, and in the third - whose studies were far away from practice.

This division is rather artificial and has never been used practically. Only sometimes in our literature we can see such definitions as realism and romanticism.

After more than thirty years, Petrov recollected Herbstman's theoretical ideas to attack composers, who, in his opinion, evaluated his studies too lowly. Especially for comrade Mulikov I wrote a detailed explanation, completely refuting Petrov's accusations. Comrade Mulikov was satisfied. The meeting of Petrov with Suslov did not take place. Our composers could sleep quietly.

But not every time we had such happy end. In different ideological skirmishes and fights our composers were attacked and suffered numerous losses.

I intend to speak about some of these cases. From the history of chess it is well known that chess composition is developing independently, now approaching to actual play, now moving away from it. This conclusion is important. We must keep this in mind in order to understand what happened to chess composition in the USSR.

Since 1924 our chess organisation gets financial support from the state. To justify it, N. Krylenko and other people at the head of our chess organisation proclaimed political slogans like "Chess is a powerful weapon of the proletarian culture" or "Chess to the workers".

Of course it raised the status and role of chess in our country and attracted a lot of people to this game.

Very soon a number of promising young players appeared. Simultaneously appeared a number of young people who started to compose studies and problems. It seems that our young composers went to the top world level earlier than the young players.

But inclusion of chess in state politics had also negative consequences. Chess composition, which formerly was far away from politics, turned into an arena of bitter ideological, one can say, even class struggle.

The first blow our composition received at the beginning of the thirties. One of the leaders of the Soviet problemists Lazar Salkind (1886-1945) proved to be a "Menshevik" and was brought to trial. And public prosecutor at this political trial of the "Mensheviks" was Nicolai Krylenko, the same Krylenko, who was the chief of our chess organization. Salkind was sentenced and spent 8 years in the Gulag.

This "black spot" fell on all our problemists. It was named as a loss of the "proletarian watchfulness" At the same time the magazine "Shakhmaty in SSSR" ("Chess in USSR"), informed readers that in chess Salkind was also engaged in a subversive activity, he persuaded some composers to publish their problems in the bourgeois press!

At the beginning of 1936 in the magazine "Shakhmaty in SSSR" an article appeared with an eloquent name "Confusion in the composition". The authors of it were the already famous grandmaster Mikhail Botvinnik and the Editor-in-chief of the magazine Lev Spokoiny. A few months before, the official newspaper "Pravda" had published an article with a similar name, "Confusion instead of music", with sharp criticisms of the great composer Dmitry Shostakovich. He was accused of formalism.

"It is the proper time to reconsider the ideological positions of our composers" declared the authors, "and to point out their mistakes and errors. At first it must be done by the chess players".

The authors agree with the opinion that chess composition is a sister of practical play and pathetically ask: "Who, if not a brother, should instruct his sister if she lost the right way^"

But an instruction can be given in different ways, kindly or with help of a stick. The authors preferred the second one, as more convincing and clear.

"The basis of chess is practical play" - they said categorically - "All the rest, theory of the openings, problem, study are playing a subordinate role and are only necessary when they help to the develop practical play."

Defining their comprehension of problems and studies, the authors immediately take the offensive: "All modern trends in composition, in the first place in two-movers, which is spreading with an exceptional force by the Soviet composers can be defined by means of two words - a formalistic trickery".

And further: "Against formalism there should be proclaimed a merciless fight, as it has already been done at the front of art."

As I have already said, chess composition is developing in its own way, now approaching to actual play, now going away from it. This going away from practice the authors named formalism and they called to a crusade against it.

The composers attempted to defend themselves. Soon after, the same magazine published an answer to the critics, which was written by the noted problemist Mikhail Barulin. This article had the name "Confusion in minds". He tried to defend an independent way of chess composition from actual play.

The same number of the magazine contained a short answer of Botvinnik and Spokoiny. It began with such words: "The readers will themselves understand where the confusion is - in composition or in the mind of the authors.", and ended with an open threat: "If comrade Barulin thinks that his problem activity is absolutely autonomous and self-sufficing that's bad not for the mass chess movement and not for composition which will develop jointly with actual play; so much the worse for comrade Barulin and for similar composers, who are good for nothing. Theory of art for art's sake is resolutely condemned in the USSR, and our composers are well aware of it.

We suppose that the Ispolburo of the USSR Chess Section shall say its weighty word, which will determine the farther development of our problem and study composition."

A "weighty" word has been said: "It is necessary to reorganize the work of the Soviet chess composition in such a way" - it was written in the degree of the Ispolburo - "that, with the freedom of creative work, it proceeds within the common limits of chess realism and with close ties to the practical chess game." All this struggle with "the deviations" in composition happened against the background of the terrible events; from the end of 1934, after the killing ofKirov, the wave of repression took a drive in our country, to achieve a peak in 1937. In the latter year, L. Spokoiny was arrested and disappeared in the Gulag.

I thought that Botvinnik should be ashamed of this article, especially of its categorical, destructive tone. Not at all! He got it placed in his four-volume work, published in the middle of the eighties. Botvinnik only added that the chess part of this article was written by him and the ideological part by Spokoiny.

In the late thirties our chess composers suffered heavy losses. One of the leading Soviet composers of studies, Sergei Kaminer (1908-1938), working as an engineer in the chemical industry, uas executed. Together with his mother, the problemist Petr Moussoury (1911-1937) was executed. One of the brothers Platov, Mikhail (1883-1942), was convicted as "enemy of the people" and died in the Gulag. In 1938, one of the brothers Kubbel, Arvid (1889-1938), was executed. Later, in 1941, Mikhail Barulin (1897-1943) was arrested and died in the Gulag. After Stalin's death, all of them were posthumously rehabilitated.

At the same time it was discovered that "die Schwalbe", the problem magazine issued in fascist Germany, had published original problems of three Soviet composers: R. Alexandrov, A. Rotinjan and R. Kofman. The first two were expelled from our chess organization. Kofman, who had sent his problems two years before, was disqualified for half a year. And Ispolburo issued a special decree - onwards problems and studies must be sent abroad to foreign magazines only through the editorial office of the newspaper "64".

In 1950, Dmitry Petrov published in "Shakhmaty v SSSR" an article with a sharp attack against noted composers, accusing them, as you can guess, of formalism, saying that their studies are very far away from actual play and not interesting to chess players. It is necessary to mention that, after the Second World War, in our country, ideological discussions took place, which were inspired by the special decrees of the Party's Central Committee. Most of them ended by persecutions or even repression against some people.

In our case, a broad discussion was organized about ways of developing Soviet studies. The popular newspaper "Soviet sport" published an article of master Vasilly Panov. In this article he repeated the accusations of Petrov that our composers are far away from practice and occupy formalistic positions.

As a result, a big conference was held. Composers and players, masters and grandmasters were invited to take part in it. I was also present there.

The first speaker, a representative of "Soviet Sport", started with pathos to stigmatize and attack formalism. After he finished, I asked him a tricky question - what he means when speaking about formalism in chess composition. The speaker was evidently confused. A pause fell. Then the President of our federation, who was the chairman of this conference, lent a helping hand to the speaker. He said:

"What do you want from the representative of "Soviet Sport"? Of course he does not know anything about this question. But he is for unity. For unity of form and content!"

What did the representative of "Soviet Sport" not know, being a writer himself? The point is that unlike formalism in the belles-lettres, where form plays a big, if not main role, in chess composition the formalists are people looking for new ideas who do not care about form.

A study of S. Kaminer (II price, "Trud", 1935) Kel, Ng6, Ngl pp: a2, f2, h2 - Kf7, Ba3, Bdl pp: a5, c7, e6, g5 White wins.

A final of a game Botvinnik-Kaminer ( 1924) Kh4, Rd4, Bb7, Nc6 pp: b4, g3, h2 Kg8, Rc2, Nf2, Bf8 pp: a6, g7, h7 Black wins.

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