PBC0131: alienation from world order

PBC 131 expresses Bolsheviks’ sense of alienation from and frustrations with the world order until the conclusion of Russia’s civil war. Speaking as though observing Earth through a telescope, authors reflect on the chaotic otherness of the contemporary world order. “It seems,” says one writing during World War I, “what is it to me,/ that somewhere/ in the storm-world/ they went and concocted a war?” (W311). This sense of distance is expanded elsewhere to the point where the planet’s very existence is in doubt: “But my hair stands on end from horror/ At the thought that there was not and is no world” (W59).