“No liberty of the press exists in Russia and so none but a poet recognized by the Government can get his verses published… In justice to Russian letters it must be said that all talented Russian authors have abstained from writing, or at any rate, from publishing their works during the rule of the proletariat, so that only the official poets, the literati hired by the Government, have their say.”
The only Soviet-approved poet they single out for derision is Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893 – 1930, pictured above), who is quoted liberally.
