RAPP

abbreviation of Rossiyskaya Assotsiatsiya Proletarskikh Pisateley, English Russian Association of Proletarian Writers association formed in the Soviet Union in 1928 out of various groups of proletarian writers who were dedicated to defining a truly proletarian literature and to eliminating writers whose works were not thoroughly imbued with Communist ideology. Under the leadership of Leopold Averbakh, RAPP managed to get control of the literary scene in 1929, when it received official sanction for its program of establishing the Soviet First Five-Year Plan as the sole theme of Soviet literature. The mechanical literature written on assignment that resulted from RAPP's dictatorship led to an official about-face in 1932, when RAPP was liquidated and an all-inclusive Union of Soviet Writers was founded. See also Proletkult; Writers' Union of the U.S.S.R.