How steel was tempered is one of the most famous "revolutionary novels" in communist countries. Fadeev, a Soviet writer, once spoke highly of this work: "There is no such pure, touching and energetic image in the whole Soviet literature for the time being", which sholokhov called "a textbook of life". But in the eyes of some western scholars, this is just a myth concocted by Stalin's propaganda agency. Mark Slonim said it was "simple in writing and loose in structure", while Le Fei Ershov said it was "concise and lively, with almost only verbs".