The rise and fall of Avant-garde

The 1920s’ Avant-garde school of artists was ultimately destroyed as class enemies—for hooliganism and pornography

In the fall of 1929, a huge rally gathered in the Kharkiv Central Club of Proletarian Students. Over 700 students were protesting against the “hooliganism” and “pornographic” performances of Valerian Polishchuk and were prepared to fight decisively against this advance of the class enemy in literature.

An official from the propaganda department of the district Party committee warned about the rabid opposition that class enemies were launching on the ideological front. Speakers from the student bodies of Kharkiv post-secondary institutions—institutes of people’s education, people’s husbandry, technology, medicine and veterinary medicine—demanded that the activities of “polishchuks” be stopped. As one worker by the name of Volodchenko from the electro-mechanical factory declared that they did not need writers like Polishchuk.

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