Alexander was born in the town of Skopin , in Ryazan Oblast . He joined the CPSU in 1922 . He obtained a degree in journalism in 1924 , the year that he published his first play . In the 1920s he was a member and later director of the Proletkult 's theatre . He turned away from the Proletkult in the late 1920s , and became in the early 1930s the chief drama theoretician of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers . He wrote 26 plays , but he is best known for '' Fear '' ( 1931 ) and '' Mashenka '' ( 1941 ) . His work was attacked in 1936 and he was expelled from the CPSU in 1937 , but he was never purged , and was rehabilitated in 1938 . He continued writing until his death in a German air raid in 1941 . He was married with American ballerina Jenny Marling ( Schwartz ) . Her first husband was John Bovingdon
purged
Great Purge
Alexander Afinogenov