The Iron Messiah
Vladimir Kirillov, The Iron Messiah. 1918
Kirillov (1880-1943), was one of the "proletarian" poets of the Revolution who, with Gastev and Gerasimov, exalted the machine as the savior of Russia. In this Promethean vision, technology both destroys with its "cleansing flame" the corrupt and soft "old world" (including thrones and prisons) and creates the dynamic processes-modern labor and mass production-that will free mankind from the fetters of nature.
There he is the savior, the lord of the earth,
The master of titanic forces-
In the roar of countless steel machines,
In the radiance of electric suns.
We thought he would appear in a sunlight stole,
With a nimbus of divine mystery,
But he came to us clad in gray smoke
From the suburbs, foundries, factories.
We thought he would appear in glory and glitter,
Meek, blessedly gentle,
But he, like the molten lava,
Came-multiface and turbulent...
There he walks o'er the abyss of seas,
All of steel, unyielding and impetuous;
He scatters sparks of rebellious thought,
And the purging flames are pouring forth.
Wherever his masterful call is heard,
The world's bosom is bared,
The mountains give way before him,
The earth's poles together are brought.
Wherever he walks, he leaves a trail
Of ringing iron rail;
He brings joy and light to us,
A desert he strews with blossoms.
To the world he brings a new sun,
He destroys the thrones and prisons,
He calls the peoples to eternal fraternity,
And wipes out the boundaries between them.
His crimson banner is the symbol of struggle;
For the oppressed it is the guiding beacon;
With it we shall crush the yoke of fate,
We shall conquer the enchanting world.
Source: George Z. Patrick, ed., Popular Poetry in Soviet Russia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1929), p. 216.