Page:Knight (1975) Past, Future and the Problem of Communication in the Work of V V Khlebnikov.djvu/178

170 context, how Khlebnikov's view of the Revolution as a breaking- in of the primeval world found at least some support in the wider ferment of ideas of the period. We have noted already McLuhan's idea of the age of Radio as an "electric return to the tribal paleolithic age, to the world of the hunter". This idea, if accepted, would seem to complement the Marxist view of the future as a kind of "return" to the stateless, tribal "primitive communism" of the past. In any event—whatever our opinion of the validity of such views-merely to appreciate that they have been and can be held is to realize the peculiar inadequacy of critics such as Renato Poggioli, who fail to grasp how Khlebnik- ov's yearning for the distant past could possibly have co-existed with any real commitment to the future.

A widespread view of the relationship between Russian Futurism and the Russian Revolution is that it was essentially a "mistake", on the part of the poets, to see any connection at all. Having noted that Futurism began to disintegrate between 1914 and 1916, Markov expresses this view when he explains: The Revolution brought new blood to the movement, because Futurists, mistakenly, associated themselves with the revolution and expected now no obstacles in their development. A far more perceptive view of the relationship is presented by Erlich, who sees the "aesthetic" or "cultural" revolution as an integral part of the social revolution:

The Revolution of 1917 did not confine itself to a thorough overhauling of Russia's political and social structure; it also shook loose fixed patterns of behaviour and accepted moral codes and philosophical systems. This cultural upheaval was not a mere by-product of political revolution; it was spurred and accelerated, rather than brought about, by the breakdown of the old regime.