The artist Isaak Brodsky standing beside a portrait of Vladimir Lenin painted for the Conference Hall at Smolny, 1927
If the Socialism is Authoritarian; if there are Governments armed with economic power as they are now with political power; if, in a word, we are to have Industrial Tyrannies, then the last state of man will be worse than the first
Oscar Wilde, 1891, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Before The USSR rises
and there is something tragic in the fact that as soon as man had invented a machine to do his work he began to starve. This, however, is, of course, the result of our property system and our system of competition. One man owns a machine which does the work of five hundred men. Five hundred men are, in consequence, thrown out of employment, and, having no work to do, become hungry and take to thieving. The one man secures the produce of the machine and keeps it, and has five hundred times as much as he should have, and probably, which is of much more importance, a great deal more than he really wants. Were that machine the property of all, every one would benefit by it. It would be an immense advantage to the community. All unintellectual labour, all monotonous, dull labour, all labour that deals with dreadful things, and involves unpleasant conditions, must be done by machinery. Machinery must work for us in coal mines, and do all sanitary services, and be the stoker of steamers
The Soul of Man under Socialism Entrance here
Glory to you, inescapable pain
The gray-eyed king died yesterday
The autumn evening was sultry and red
My husband returned and quietly said
"You know, they brought him back from the hunt
They found his corpse by the old oak tree
I pity the queen. He was so young
In just one night her hair turned white
He found his pipe on the mantelpiece
And went out to his nighttime shift
I'll go and wake my daughter now
I'll look into her little gray eyes
While outside the rustling poplars say
"Your king is no longer upon this earth
11December 1910, Tsarskoe Selo
Footage taken from Sátántangó (1994) directed by Béla Tarr