Portrait of the West seen from the Kremlin: César Vallejo’s journey to the USSR

Abstract

The book that César Vallejo wrote after his travels to URSS is a review of different aspects in soviet society. This book, far from appear as a panegyric of socialist social organization, brings several topics to the reader, who must rethink his own culture from another perspective. So, Vallejo exposed several mechanisms of the capitalist system while he supported an inevitable change. Soviet Union appears under a very positive perspective in Rusia en 1931, but it is not due to a naïve attitude of the poet. Instead, he shows a clear conscience about the mistakes of occidental societies to achieve a fairer world, especially to the most disadvantaged segments of the population.