Russian Avant-Garde.- Mayakovsky (Vladimir Vladimirovich) 150,000,000, first edition, one of 5000 copies, original tan wrappers, rebacked, some creasing and minor tears to extremities, preserved in folding chemise and slip-case, Moscow, GIZ, 1921; and 2 others including a later edition of the first, 8vo (3)

⁂ 150,000,000 describes the struggle between millions of noble Soviet workers and the wicked Capitalists led by President Woodrow Wilson. It was published anonymously after Mayakovsky decided to dedicate his poetry to the Masses rather than to the glorification of the self. "150,000,000 speak with my lips," begins the poem; "No one is the author of my poem." But no one could mistake his voice throughout the work. Boris Pasternak did not care for it, and Lenin dismissed the epic agitprop poem as "stupid, monstrously stupid, and pretentious" and tried to suppress it. It is now considered one of Mayakovsky's important works.