Click on title for German original

THE MOSCOW WORKERS TAKE POSSESSION OF THE GREAT METRO
ON APRIL 27TH 1935

We have heard that 80,000 workers
Built the Metro, many of them after their regular daily jobs
Often throughout many nights. Throughout this year
Young men and women were seen climbing out of the tunnels
Laughing, taking pride in their work clothes,
Soiled with dirt and drenched with sweat.
All difficulties -
Subterranean streams, the pressure of tall buildings,
Landslides - were overcome.  In the decoration
No effort was spared.  The best marble
Was brought in from afar, the most beautiful woods
Carefully crafted. The beautiful cars
Were finally running almost silent through the tunnels
Lit bright as day: for such demanding customers -
Only the very best.  
Now that the train line was built according to the most ideal models
And the owners came to view
And to ride on it, they were the very same
Ones who had built it.
There were thousands there, who walked about
Viewing the enormous halls, and in the trains
Great masses of people rode by, their faces -
Men, women and children, old people as well -
All turned towards the stations, for the stations
Were all built differently, from different stone
In different styles, and the lights, too
Came always from another source. Those who entered the cars
Were pushed back into the interior by the happy jostling crowd,
Since the front seats were the best
For viewing the stations.  At every station
The children were raised high. As often as possible
The passengers stormed outside and regarded
The workmanship with a joyous intensity.  They felt the columns
And examined their smoothness, with their shoes
They made their way over the stone floors,
To see if the stones had been set correctly.  Streaming back to the cars
They inspected the wall paneling and put their hands
On the window glass.  Continually
Women and men pointed  - uncertain if it was the right one -
To the places where they had worked: the stones
Bore the traces of their hands. Every face
Was truly visible, more than in any other train I have seen.
Even the tunnels were lighted, no meter of work
Went unlit. And all this
Had been built in a single year and by so many workers  
As no other train in the world. And no
Other train in the world had so many owners

For this wonderful project saw
What none of its predecessors in many cities over many ages
Had ever seen: that the owners of the project were its workers.
Where had this ever occurred before, that the fruit of their labor
Went to those, who had done the labor?  Where ever
Before had the people who erected it not been driven
Out of the finished structures?
When we watched them riding in their cars
The works of their own hands, we knew
That this was the great image that the classic authors -
Shaken to their core -  had foreseen.


(1935)

 

Brecht’s paean to the Moscow Metro, the showpiece of Stalin’s first Five Year Plan.  The initial section of the Metro actually took three years to complete.  At the time, the Metro was considered a marvel of modernity; the lighting design especially was considered a technological breakthrough for its time. –  The classical authors of Communism are Marx, Engels and  Lenin.

 

 

Click on title for German original

 

 

EPITAPH FOR GORKY

Here lies
The ambassador from the abject slums
The describer of the tormentors of the people
As well as their opponents
Who was educated in the universities of the highways and byways
The low born one
Who helped abolish high and low
The teacher of the people
Who learned from the people

(1936)