Fadeev, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich (1901–1956)

Russian novelist. He wrote Razgrom/The Nineteen (1927) about Siberian Red guerrillas during the Civil War, and Molodaya Gvardiia/The Young Guard (1945). As general secretary of the Soviet Writers' Union 1946–55, Fadeev took a prominent part in the campaign led by Communist Party secretary Zhdanov in the name of socialist realism against unorthodox trends in literature. However, his own work sometimes attracted official sanction for not stressing the central role of the party. Fadeev espoused Stalinism; when this fell into disfavour after the dictator's death, he committed suicide.