"Lenin lives" (was Mr. Mayakovsky too died in the gulag)

[Luciano Di Cocco]

It would be very interesting if somebody could sat if Mayakovsky was accustomed with the last article or Rosa L. or not.

For what is worth, when I first read the Mayakovsky elegy of Lenin (in Italian in the late seventies) I immediately thought of Rosa L. last article. I admit I had a significant bias, as at the time I was close to the Italian New Left, which admired Rosa L., despised Stalin and had mixed feelings about Lenin. My naïve reading was that Mayakovsky was saying that Lenin (stressing not Vladimir Ilich) was the Revolution, in a metaphysical and quasi-religious sense.

The final tone of the Luxemburg's article is openly apocalyptic:

"Tomorrow the revolution will “rise up again, clashing its weapons,” and to your horror it will proclaim with trumpets blazing: I was, I am, I shall be!". Apparently it seems to me more closely related to Christian than Jewish tradition.

In the Italian left wing Rosa L. was seen as a hero and a martyr from her death.

How was Rosa L. considered in the first Soviet state? Was a paraphrase from Rosa L. recognizable in the first Soviet state?

Rosa L. was officially condemned by the Third International in the March/April 1925 session which by the way in the closing part stated: "Every deviation from Leninism is at the same time a deviation from Marxism", and ironically never cited in the condemnation the famous phrase:

" Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of a party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always the freedom of the dissenter. Not because of the fanaticism of "justice", but rather because all that is instructive, wholesome, and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effects cease to work when "freedom" becomes a privilege " (Die russische Revolution. Eine kritische Würdigung, Berlin 1920)

In the Italian left wing Rosa Luxemburg was connected more with socialism than with communism.

By the way, the original poem "Die Revolution" was first published in the United States in the extremely short lived German language paper "Di Revolution" published by Joseph Weydemeyer. I don't know if it was widely know or if it was a personal Luxemburg's favourite.

> Dear Luciano Di Cocco,
> 
> Nice work!  Revelation 1:8 (mentioned in the note you quote) reads
> (NRSV): "'I am the Alpha and the Omega,' says the Lord God, who is and
> who was and who is to come, the Almighty."  Note the three time
> frames, and that this, too, is one of the "I am" sayings, only in this
> case revealed to John of Patmos rather than passed on in a gospel.
> And again, there is a certain eternal quality, as I mentioned
> earlier.  This quality is often represented on Byzantine, Rusian,
> Russian, and other Orthodox icons with three Greek letters inscribed
> on the cruciferous halo about the head of Jesus: ho, ō, n (ο, ω, Η
> - or variants of these).  Translated roughly, this is: "the one who
> be."  These are precisely the words from Revelation just quoted ("ho
> theos, HO ŌN, kai. . . ").  In other words, the Septuagint
> approximation of YHWH ("Egō eimi HO ŌN" - Exodus 3:14).
> 
> With regards to the list -
> Daniel Rancour-Laferriere

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------