Works of Soviet expression both at the time of the 1917 Revolutions and beyond reveal the juxtaposition of two sentiments swirling around the actual uprising: glory and grief.

The speaker in Vladimir Mayakovsky’s 1917 poem, “Our March” conveys a sense of acceleration of the Russian spirit. “Too slow, the wagon of years, / The oxen of days — too glum / Our god is the god of speed / Our heart — our battle drum,” the speaker says. As this drum and rhythm pulled the rebellion on with strong force, power systems began to break down easily and quickly. As Thompson notes in the textbook, the tsarist regime fell quite suddenly due to a loss of ingrained obedience and gratitude within the people. Between the February and October revolutions, sense of urgency accelerated more under the Bolshevik slogan “Peace, Land, and Bread.”

This acceleration contrasted with the disheartening stagnation that Mayakovsky writes of, and that was expressed in the movie, Forward March, Time!. The speaker declares that there was “never a land of greater grief” than Russia. Yet, glory appeared on the horizon. The speaker of “Our March” exclaims, “Rainbow, give colour and girth / To the fleet-foot steeds of time.” This defiant idea that time could stomp out grief is further expressed in the refrain in Forward March, Time! with the words, “Move on, my land… Many things worn out be erased!” The “geniuses gone” and other oppressive forces will give way to the unleashed expression of grief from the common people, and it will be glorious. “Nameless heroic crowds” emerge around the grieved and impoverished populace.

Although this rainbow may have ultimately proved an illusion, glory and pride remain even after grief returns. The heartbeat still marches on passionately, even if it goes nowhere good. Mayakovsky perhaps expresses the enduring defiant sense of glory best in “My Soviet Passport,” when the speaker finishes the poem saying, “I pull it / from the pants / where my documents are: / read it — / envy me — / I’m a citizen / of the USSR!