organization formed in 1932 by a decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that abolished existing literary organizations and absorbed all professional Soviet writers into one large union. The union supported Communist Party policies and was the defender and interpreter of the single Soviet literary method, Socialist Realism. Besides establishing fees, privileges, and other benefits for writers, it maintained institutes for training young writers, provided vacation houses and resorts for its members, and acted as a liaison between the party and its own ranks. It also had the power to reprimand and even punish writers who failed to follow its artistic mandates.

The union held its First All-Union Congress in 1934 and thereafter met at irregular intervals. It operated a publishing house and also managed several periodicals, including Novy Mir (“New World”), the leading literary journal of the U.S.S.R. The main union actually encompassed several local unions, including one for each of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union. After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the main union was split into several groups and ceased to exist as a single entity.