This article is devoted to the evaluation of the creative heritage, worldview positions and personality of the great classicist of the Soviet era – Maxim Gorky. In the search of truth in the fate of the writer, the author brings to the reader’s attention the both enthusiastic and extremely negative views of domestic and foreign Gorky scholars not only on his talent as a writer, but also on his «mysterious» personality, calling Gorky «a writer without a biography». However, the researchers’ focus is primarily the worldview of «the proletarian writer» – the reasons of his strength and weakness, insights and delusions. The author of the article believes that Gorky has not yet been properly read and understood. He will have to be revisited and redefined from the perspective of the new times and archives opened, to understand the reasons of his worldview disagreements and the changed concepts.