PEOPL E, YEARS AND LIFE
503
cepted the R evolution at once. He was not only carried away-he
was completely absorbed by the building of a socialist society. He
never made any concessions in anything and, when certain people
tried to bring him to heel, he snapped back: "'Tum your faces to
the village.' That's the slogan they've launched. To your lyres, my
poet friends! But understand, I've only one face--a face not a
weatht'rvane. You can't mix ideas with water; water's for turkeys to
wet their feet. A poet without ideas has never even lived. What do
you think I am? A parrot, or a turkey?" He was never in conflict
with the Revolution; that's an invention of people who will stop at
nothing in their struggle against communism. Mayakovsky's trouble
was not the clash between poetry and Revolution, but the attitude
of his LEF to art: "Let the poets moan, dribbling at the mouth,
twisting their lips in contempt. I, striking out my soul, shout about
what's needed in the time of socialism." At the time, one of the
newspapers changed the words: "I, without humbling my soul,"
instead of "I, striking out my soul," but Mayakovsky restored the
original text, which gives us the clue to his poetic and human
achievement.
Mayakovsky liked Leger; they had something in common in
their understanding of the role of art in contemporary society. Leger
was enthralled by machinery and urbanism. He wanted art in his
everyday life, and did not go to museums. He painted good pictures
which, in my view, are decorative and do not in any way diminish
our love of Van Gogh or Picasso, but which undoubtedly reflect
modern times. For a number of years, Mayakovsky waged war
against poetry not only in manifestoes and articles; he also tried to
destroy verse with verse. The LEF magazine published a death
sentence on
art~n
the "so-called poets," "so-called artists" and
"so-called directors." Instead of traditional art, painters were advised
to concern themselves with the aesthetics of machinery, textiles and
pots and pans; directors were advised to organize folk festivals and
demonstrations and say goodbye to the footlights, while poets were
advised to leave lyrics alone to write for newspapers, and compose
texts for posters and advertisements.
It wasn't so easy to give up poetry, even though Mayakovsky
was a strong-willed man. But there were times when he desisted
from his own expressed policy. In 1923, when LEF was still de-
