The Dialectic of Constancy

We must, we must remember the Mayakovskian traditions. After all, what is Mayakovsky? Above all, a life – and only after that literature. This is why Mayakovsky is a great artist. A great life makes him a great artist. A great revolution, the greatest of all revolutions on earth, by its social, as well as philosophic, aesthetic, and economic significance. The revolution took place here in Russia, but it belongs to the whole world and is equal to the whole world. Had this revolution not taken place, a giant like Mayakovsky – whose significance, like that of the revolution, is worldwide – would not have appeared. I know of no other poet who is both a national and world poet to the same degree.