A Poet of the Communist Event

Vallejo is a poet who testifies that something important has taken place in the world. He understood communism as the possibility of reconciling the human being with history, with nature and with himself. If human history was a tale of scarcity and social exploitation, communism could turn it into a productive, just, and egalitarian action. Vallejo celebrated the advances of modernity, but questioned the concentration of capital, the new culture of consumption, and the dominant interests of the centers of power. This chapter addresses how Vallejo’s poetry shows the communist attemp to change the world, but also underlines the painful simulacrum of a set of dark forces that systematically prevent it.