“Why should we add your book to the atomic weapons arrayed against us by our enemies. Publication of your book would help our enemies.”Vasily Grossman 1960s
“Ivan tells Anna: "I used to imagine that being embraced by a woman… as something so wonderful that it would make me forget everthing… [But] happiness, it turns out, will be to share with you the burden I can't share with anyone else.”Vasily Grossman Source: Everything Flows
“Our Soviet writer must be guided in his world only by the need of the people, useful for the society.”Vasily Grossman 1960s
“Your book contains direct analogies between us and the Hitlerite fascists. You book incorrectly describes our people, communists. Could we have won the war with the kind of people you describe? In your book you say positive things about religion, God, Catholicism. Your book defends Trotsky. You book is full of doubts about the legitimacy of our Soviet system.”Vasily Grossman 1960s
“Everyone who has read your book are unanimous in their judgment. They all think it is politically harmful for us. There is no point in giving it for an evaluation to the writers Fedin, Leonov, Ehrenburg, etc. The reviewers could have made a mistake in their aesthetic judgment but they were unanimous in their political judgment, and I have no doubt that their political judgment is absolutely correct.”Vasily Grossman 1960s