"Socialist Romanticism"

To "mobilize the workers and peasants for socialist construction," Moscow's party line in literature calls for "socialist romanticism." Last week, a Czech newsman and poet named Arno Kraus turned out such an item, made Page One of Prague's Lidove Noviny (People's Newspaper) with it:

Crowd after crowd left the factory gates

Workmen with their caps pushed back,

The girls' eyes glistening with love.

And the hands in their caressing

Spoke of human gentleness under the

rough skin.

But with the kiss with which the girl

welcomed her lover

I heard an eager question:

"Have the shockworkers in the second,

foundry entered into competition

with those of the first?

After all, that's where Tonda is,

And he boasted that in performance

he'll stick you in his pocket, beat you

with his hand tied behind his back.

I joshed him, because I know that you

are the best of the lot,

And that you can put your nose to the

grindstone

Until the bones in the body crunch with

iron."

In the answer of the young foundryman

lover--

[His being was plunged deep into the

eyes of his girl]--

I sensed his double-love of life

When he said: "We beat the record,

Joe, Vasek and I, by twenty percent."

There was love in those words

And no limits between good work and a

good wife.

Blood began to well up within me

When she embraced him, her eyes

aflame:

"You, my boy, are the best of all."

That's how I saw it that day--

A vast, beautiful life.

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