Mayakovsky 1930

Aleksandr Rodchenko     Public Mourning at the Funeral for Vladimir Mayakovski     1930

“She loves me…she loves me not.

I tear my hands, scatter the broken fingers…loves me not

As we scatter the random riddling heads of daisies

Tumbling through summer.

Though I adopt the smooth chin and greying hair,

The silver, tinkling out the change of years,

I hope, I know that age will never bring

The final shame of prudent commonsense.

It’s after one and you must be asleep.

The milky way is like a silver river.

I’m in no hurry. There’s no need

To wake you or disturb you with telegrams or thunder…

See how much peace the world can give.

The sky is wrapped in stars, the gift of night.

At such a time you rise, and find you speak

To all the years, the future, and the world.

It’s after one and you must be asleep.

Or maybe you can feel the night as well.

I’m in no hurry. There’s no need

To wake you or disturb you with telegrams or thunder.”

From the Suicide Note of Vladimir Mayakovsky     1930

There were two revolutions in Russia in 1917 – the first in February, the second in October. The February Revolution swept away the thousand-year rule of the Tsar.

Artists and intellectuals who relied on the old aristocracy for their privileged status were also swept away. But many artists welcomed the revolution.

The poet Mayakovsky remained on the streets throughout the February days – going to where he heard gunfire, staying with the people on the move:

Mayakovsky was born in 1893 in the village of Bagdadi in Georgia. At the age of 12 he was expelled from school for taking part in a demonstration.

Mayakovsky went to Moscow in 1906 after the death of his father. In 1907, at the age of 14, he joined the Bolsheviks.

He was sent to prison in 1909 for distributing leaflets. On his third arrest he was sent down for 11 months. He left prison determined to become a poet and artist, and left the Bolshevik Party.

In 1911 he began to study art in Moscow, and very quickly became involved with the Futurists. It was during this period that he found his voice and produced his greatest lyrical poetry, including the personal manifesto to struggle and to love, A Cloud in Trousers.

But by the early 1920s a bureaucracy was becoming entrenched within Soviet society. Mayakovsky wrote a scathing satire on the bureaucracy called “Re Conferences”. Lenin made a speech saying how much he agreed with Mayakovsky, and that bureaucracy was eating away at the workers’ state.

With the declaration from Stalin that socialism was possible in one country, the counter-revolution began. The bureaucracy became a new ruling class, workers’ democracy was eroded and the left was suppressed.

The crushing of experimental art to replace it with art of the committee, dictated by decree, was a symptom of the revolution’s defeat, which was complete by 1928.

Mayakovsky continued to write, act in films, produce plays and design advertising posters. But by the late 1920s he was broken. In 1928 he put on his own exhibition, 20 Years Work, to show how much he had given to the revolution. It was ignored. On 9 April 1930 he read his poem “At the Top of My Voice” to students who shouted him down for being obscure.

On 14 April 1930 he put a bullet into his brain.

Tens of thousands followed his coffin at the funeral in Moscow at a time when Stalin was denouncing him.

https://socialistworker.co.uk/features/vladimir-mayakovsky-the-poet-of-the-revolution/

To read Mayakovsky’s poetry go to www.marxists.org/subject/art/literature/mayakovsky/index.htm