PBC0184: hope for new life

PBC 184 expresses bright optimism on the part of Bolsheviks for new life, even among “peasant Rus’” where the struggle for Russia’s “awakening” (W72), and even “resurrection” (W150), is also taking place. In 1919, in the depths of the civil war, one poem asks, “How soon will renewed Rus’ sing new, victorious songs?” (W421). Russia in PBC 184 is much more than a sleepy land filled with swamps: “Again I believe in rough force,/ That Rus is no grave,/ No putrid swamp,/ No putrid, infected fog,/That it will come alive” (W436).