The Political Culture of a Poet

It has been an article of faith in Mandelstam studies that he conceived an early antagonism for Soviet life and became an outcast. This chapter surveys the political language of journalism and poetry from 1918 until the collision with Stalin in 1934. Combining literary analysis, biography, and a forensic survey of his publishing record, it analyses his ideological positions. The profile of the writer in this revisionist account is of commitment to cultural revolution and professional involvement. In the late 1920s as the Proletarian movement and class warfare became entrenched, he sought to establish his credentials as a writer ‘made’ by the revolution, courting controversy at the end of New Economic Policy with views on state-sponsored translation as a tool of progress. His defence of expertise as the right means to enlighten cut across political trends, leading to a clash with fellow writers and Stalin.