Alexander Blok (1880-1921), the last major poet of the Russian Silver Age, a member of the intelligentsia and a scion of the landed aristocracy who joined the revolution, wrote his still-controversial 'The Twelve' in January 1918. A poem of stark contrasts of lyrical and colloquial, of shifting rhythms, fragments of prayers, slogans and slang, of mockery and violence, cruelty and pain, exultation and pity, it is set in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution as a snow storm buries the past, and twelve Red Guards march through the desolate streets of St Petersburg dispensing violence and murder, and a snow-wreathed figure of Christ bearing a bloodied flag appears at their head--an image that surprised and troubled the poet himself. An earlier version of this translation was published in the anthology The Silver Age of Russian Culture (Ardis, 1975). In 2020 with the centenary of Blok's death (7 August 1921) in mind it was completely revised.