Look Who it Was Random video

Soviet Man - a poem

1,675 views · Published 28 December 2015 · 2:53 · Indexed 18 October 2026

Channel: Proletarian TV · 2015 · Education

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Comrade Rob Amos, from the Southwest region of the CPGB-ML, reads the moving poem 'Soviet Man' to comrades at the CPGB-ML's celebration of the 98th anniversary of the Great Socialist October Revolution - held on November 7th 2015 in Saklatvala Hall, Southall.

Both the poem itself and the brief biographical sketch of the poet (follow the link here:  http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=1165) illustrate as clearly as any lecture just what the revolution meant to the working classes of the USSR – and why the Soviet Union was such a beacon to the oppressed masses all over the world.

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Is this a man I know? We’ve met before,
We’ve stood together at the tram-car’s door,
And by the loudspeaker out in the street.
It may be youth or age his looks attest,
In civvies or a soldier’s greatcoat dressed,
Too rushed for time he is acquaintances to greet.


We wait for the morning paper, he and I:
And how’s Madrid?
Any more raids today?
The Chinese? Got to Shanghai yet?
Has that
Poltava crèche started to admit?
(Oh, he’s a family man and literate – 
He never misses a bit of news, I bet!)


And everywhere you go, he’s there again – 
He’s going to Turkmenia by train,
He’s flying northward to the polar floes;
There, while the sea breaks underneath the ice,
He makes tea on a primus, cooks and fries,
Ready for work, no matter where he goes.


And always, everywhere, he feels at home,
‘Neath burning sun, in the freezing Arctic night,
He does his bit wherever he may roam,
Wherever he may be, he kindles light ...


He works on blueprints, ploughs and sows and reaps.
What songs he sings! About the far-off sea,
Of caravans and ships, or samovar tea,
Or planes. He sits on city councils too.


He sings in choirs and plays a concert grand,
He smiles from photos printed through the land;
A stranger, yet he seems well known to you.


Married, a bachelor, middling, thin or fat,
Born forty, thirty, twenty years before,
In Minsk, Odessa, Kharkov, Leningrad.
Look! There he goes in cities small and big
Wearing a labour badge or lilac sprig,
Upon his breast; to meet you always glad.


He loves the crowded, teeming, bustling squares,
A glass of wine with friends he gaily shares – 
He’s a social fellow, citizen of our land ...


Whether he looks at me from the printed page,
Or from my mirror – 
No matter what’s his age,
I’ve known him from my youth – this Soviet man!


by Vadim Strelchenko, 1938


Poem and sketch reproduced from Immortality, Verses by Soviet poets who laid down their lives in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, published in 1978. Poem translation by Gladys Evans.

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Harpal Brar introduces the meeting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSHf-3SyxnA

N Korean Minister (sings!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdcLDhOQSos

Gary on the role and meaning of Stalin to British Youth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBuhUec7esQ

Yanal on Assad, the Russians and Syria:
https://youtu.be/DGWn47jJBF0

Cuba, Angola, Guantanamo and October!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua6t91oshp4

Marcus Garcia of Venezuelan Embassy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shAuHHze0Dw

Poem: Soviet Man:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDqxoLyyNiI

Bristol Ukraine AntiFascist Solidarity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXrsG9fw-Rs
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