During the Second World War, Soviet writers were urged to ‘equate the pen with the bayonet’, in other words, to use their literary talent as a weapon against the enemy. In its original context, Vladimir Maiakovskii's 1925 poem ‘Domoi!’ (Homewards!), however, it was not the idea of the word as a weapon which was uppermost in his comparison of pen and bayonet, but the idea of the mass production of poetry in accordance with the state's plan. In the poem Maiakovskii expresses the wish that he should be given tasks for the year by Gosplan (the state planning agency), that his lips should be padlocked at the end of the working day, and that Stalin should report to the Politburo about recent increases in the understanding of poetry. The tone of the poem is humorous and ironic, but the readiness of the poet, even in jest, to give up his artistic freedom is alarming. The meaning of the desire to equate the pen with the bayonet can, therefore, be interpreted as a wish to write to order, a rejection of autonomy.

It is the aim of this book to explore the extent to which poets in wartime actually did ‘write with the bayonet’, producing work which conformed to official expectations, and also the ways in which poets were able to set their own agenda, taking advantage of the greater creative freedom the war afforded them.