Bolshevik Rule
Tsvetaeva did not participate in any political or
literary movements, but she did use the freedom
provided by the times to experiment with new
forms of poetry, making innovative use of words
and rhythms. However, after the triumph of the
Bolsheviks, literary experimentation was gradu-
ally suppressed in favor of socialist realism, one
of the reasons Tsvetaeva felt herself to be out of
tune with the new Soviet Union created by the
Bolsheviks.
The first few years of Bolshevik rule, called
‘‘War Communism,’’ were also a time of starva-
tion and poverty for many, including Tsvetaeva,
her property having been confiscated. Members
of the elite like Tsvetaeva, unless they joined the
Bolsheviks, were denounced as bourgeois, in a
way a totally inappropriate term for Tsvetaeva,
who had no interest in money or material
possessions.
Russian E ́migre ́s
Many Russian intellectuals and aristocrats fled
the country after the revolution and civil war,
establishing e ́migre ́ communities in Paris,
Prague, and Berlin in the 1920s. These commun-
ities contained representatives of various prere-
volutionary movements and schools of thought,
from monarchists and conservatives to liberals
and non-Communist socialists. Tsvetaeva found
she did not fit in well with such thinkers because
she was not inclined to adhere to any movement
and would even praise Soviet poets if she
admired their poetic abilities, much to the dis-
may of her fellow Russian exiles.Russia under Stalin
In consolidating their power, the Bolsheviks,
especially under Joseph Stalin, repressed dissent
and resorted to mass arrests of those labelled
counterrevolutionary. They also established a
secret police force called first the Cheka and
then the NKVD (later to be called the KGB).
Tsvetaeva’s husband became an agent of the
NKVD, but this did not save him when he
returned to the Soviet Union, where he was
quickly arrested and executed. Upon returning
to the Soviet Union herself in 1939, Tsvetaeva
found a society filled with fear, even in the arts
allowing no deviation from the rules set down by
the Communist Party, which essentially meant
that Tsvetaeva could no longer publish her
works, because she would not conform to the
rules. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet
Union in June 1941 as part of World War II, she
felt that the situation had indeed worsened, as
she now had German bombs to fear in addition
to her other hardships, and she also worried thatCOMPARE
&
CONTRAST 1920s: Russia is in turmoil, having just
endured a revolution and civil war, and is
beginning to pose a threat to the West
because it is led by a Communist Party dedi-
cated to the destruction of capitalism.
Today:Iraq is in turmoil, suffering through
an ongoing war, and extremist elements now
based there pose a threat to the West.
1920s:The Soviet Union establishes a closed
society, censoring literature and other works.
Today:With the rise of the Internet, infor-
mation and literature flow much morefreely, though attempts to block the flow of
information are still seen in places like
China.
1920s:In the wake of World War I, the
collapse of empires, and revolution in Rus-
sia, intellectuals like Tsvetaeva experiment
with new ideas and attitudes and are much
freer in their personal relationships.
Today:The freedom that began a hundred
years before continues to lead to new exper-
imentation of various sorts in the arts and in
personal relationships.AnAttemptatJealousy