Vladimir Mayakovsky: The 'raging bull' and the 'whipped dog'

Vladimir Mayakovsky’s literary genius was not always confined to Agitprop poster propaganda and homages to the ideals of the Revolution. It occasionally trod tortuous and tormented personal trails as well, when he let slip the revolutionary fervor and offered a glimpse into the vexed abyss of his self – manifested morbidly yet movingly in this unfinished poem penned on the day he took his own life:

Past one o’clock. You're probably in bed.
The Milky Way is like Oka of silver
No need for me to rush. I have no reasons left
to stir you with the lightnings of my cable ferver.
And so they say, the incident dissolved.
The Love Boat smashed up on the dreary routine.
We’re even. There’s no use in keeping the score
of mutual hurts, affliction and spleen.
Look here, the world exudes an eerie calm.
The sky bequeathed to us its constellations.
In periods like this I’d like to be the one
with ages, history and the creation.

Unlike most writers who have sworn allegiance to a political ideology or movement, Mayakovsky’s artistic vision, in its heyday, seldom betrayed any perceptible tussle between irreconcilable impulses. The image of conflicting loyalties engaged in ceaseless battle to gain ascendancy was never a hallmark of his poetic vision. The intriguing picture of the artistic conscience torn apart by the act of subordinating his art to political objectives did not fit Mayakovsky. Ardent revolutionary was in harmony with the thwarted lover, at times overlapping but mostly inhabiting separate spheres. Raw exhortations to the proletariat coexisted effortlessly with the avant-garde finesse of futurism. Official recognition and public adulation followed, and the infinite variety and experimental verve were feted by the establishment as long as the Trotskyite axiom of Party not commanding the “domain of art” held sway. But the onset of high Stalinism, with its intolerance towards any real or perceived deviation from the dogma of socialist realism, rang the death knell for Soviet avant-garde art.

The shift in the milieu and its dreadful aftermath did not set Mayakovosky on any course of realignment vis-à-vis how his poetry would relate to the Revolution. There is scant evidence of any expressed desire to renege on his political ideals either. His poetic destiny, or at the very least its political manifestation, would continue to be linked inextricably to the sentiment he had expressed long ago, as a budding poet striving to reaffirm his commitment in the frenzy of the Revolution:

“To accept or not to accept? There was no question for me….My Revolution"
(I Myself)

However, the Stalinist assault on the ‘decadent’ formalist tendencies in Mayakovsky’s work did make a dent in his exalted status as the leading exponent of the Soviet art. The sense of disillusionment that beset him in his later life left its scars on him. The constant scrutiny and hounding by Stalinist apparatchiks took its toll on his creativity, and may have contributed to his decision to end his own life. In a gripping article in The Haaretz newspaper, Dalia karpel strikes at the heart of the troubled poet’s unresolved, and ultimately fatal, predicament: “Mayakovsky, the ‘raging bull of Russian poetry …..is also the ‘whipped dog’, in pain and tormented…”