V. I.   Lenin

150

To:   A. V. LUNACHARSKY


Written: Written on May 6, 1921
Published: First published in 1957 in Kommunist No. 18. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1976, Moscow, Volume 45, pages 138c-139a.
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.README


Aren’t you ashamed to vote for printing 5,000 copies of Mayakovsky’s “150,000,000”?

It is nonsense, stupidity, double-dyed stupidity and affectation.[1]

I believe such things should be published one in ten, and not more than 1,500 copies, for libraries and cranks.

As for Lunacharsky, he should be flogged for his futurism.

6/V.

Lenin


Notes

[1] The poem “150,000,000” had signs of V. V. Mayakovsky’s early futuristic trend: it was written in a mannered style and cast in a complicated form; he denied the classical heritage and extolled futurism as the only literary trend consonant with the times.


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