Editing Vladimir Mayakovsky (section)

====1929–1930====
[[File:Mayakovsky and Fedor Tarasov.jpg|thumb|left|240px|Mayakovsky at his 20 Years of Work exhibition, 1930]]
In 1929, the publishing house Goslitizdat released ''The Works by V. V. Mayakovsky'' in 4 volumes. In September 1929 the first assembly of the newly formed REF group gathered with Mayakovsky in the chair.<ref name="timeline"/> But behind this façade the poet's relationship with the Soviet literary establishment was quickly deteriorating. Both the REF-organized exhibition of Mayakovsky's work, celebrating the 20th anniversary of his literary career and the parallel event in the Writers' Club, "20 Years of Work" in February 1930, were ignored by the [[Russian Association of Proletarian Writers|RAPP]] members and, more importantly, the Party leadership, particularly [[Stalin]] whose attendance he was greatly anticipating. It was becoming evident that such experimental art was no longer welcomed by the regime, and that the country's most famous poet was increasingly losing favor with the higher echelons of the Party.<ref name="mikhaylov"/>

Two of Mayakovsky's satirical plays, written specifically for Meyerkhold Theatre, ''[[The Bedbug]]'' (1929) and (in particular) ''[[The Bathhouse]]'' (1930) evoked stormy criticism from the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers.<ref name="poets"/> In February 1930 Mayakovsky joined RAPP, but in [[Pravda]] on 9 March, a leading member of RAPP, [[Vladimir Yermilov]], writing "with all the authority of a 23 year old who had not seen the play but had read part of the script"<ref>{{cite book |last1=McSmith |first1=Andy |title=Fear and the Muse Kept Watch, The Russian Masters - from Akhmativa and Pasternak to Shostakovich and Eisenstein - Under Stalin |date=2015 |publisher=New Press |location=New York |isbn=978-1-59558-056-6 |page=49}}</ref> categorised Mayakovsky as one of the 'petit bourgeois revolutionary intelligentsia', adding that "we hear a false 'leftist' note in Mayakovsky, a note which we know not only from literature....".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Woroszylsk |first1=Viktor |title=The Life of Mayakovsky |date=1971 |publisher=The Orion Press |location=New York |pages=438–84}}</ref> This was a potentially deadly political accusation, in that it implied an intellectual link between Mayakovsky and the [[Left Opposition]], led by [[Leon Trotsky]], whose supporters were in exile or prison. (Trotsky was known to admire Mayakovsky's poetry).<ref>{{cite book |last1=McSmith |first1=Andy |title=Fear and the Muse Kept Watch, The Russian Masters - from Akhmativa and Pasternak to Shostakovich and Eisenstein - Under Stalin |date=2015 |publisher=New Press |location=New York |isbn=978-1-59558-056-6 |page=44}}</ref> Mayakovsky retaliated by creating a huge poster mocking Yermilov, but was ordered by RAPP to take it down. In his suicide note Mayakovsky wrote "Tell Yermilov we should have completed the argument."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Woroszylsk |first1=Viktor |title=The Life of Mayakovsky |date=1971 |publisher=The Orion Press |location=New York |page=527}}</ref>

The smear campaign continued in the Soviet press, sporting slogans like "Down with Mayakovshchina!" On 9 April 1930 Mayakovsky, reading his new poem "At the Top of My Voice", was shouted down by the student audience, for being 'too obscure'.<ref name="dic_90"/><ref name="katanyan">{{cite web | author=Katanyan, Vasily| date=1985| url=http://feb-web.ru/feb/mayakovsky/kmh-abc/0.htm?cmd=0|title=Mayakovsky. The Chronology, 1893–1930 // Маяковский: Хроника жизни и деятельности. | publisher=Moscow. Sovetsky Pisatel Publishers| access-date=1 May 2015}}</ref>