Classics of Russian Literature | The Tribune - Vladimir Maiakovsky, 1893–1930 (Lecture 27)

Lecture 27: To create the literature of the new—and of the soon-to-be spotless— world of socialism, which would prepare the way eventually for complete communism, Maiakovsky joined in the new organization called Proletarian Culture (Proletkul’t). This organization was to include genuine workers, who could write with a new proletarian class consciousness. Alas, despite their consciousness, their writing was abominable. Maiakovsky, on the other hand, had a brilliant poetic talent, and his verse became an important part of the work that the Soviet government presented to the world as proof of the creative force of socialism. His evocation of the Sun to visit the proletarian poet, his cry for a creative surge from ‘the army of the arts,” even his paeon to the futuristic (albeit bourgeois) architecture of the Brooklyn Bridge, all stoked the fires of passionate socialism. This view was quite a contrast with Gorky’s attachment to the best of world culture that had existed before the revolution.

Suggested Reading:
Vladimir Maiakovsky, The Bedbug and Selected Poetry, edited and with commentary by Patricia Blake; translated by Max Hayward and George Reavey.
Lawrence Stahlberger, The Symbolic System of Majakovskij.