A poet never quite at home in his contemporary environment, Max Vološin found an artistic purpose and a large audience during the Russian civil war. His poems on war and revolution were widely read, spread, and even used as propaganda by both the Bolsheviks and their opponents in the White armies. Sharing the Symbolist worldview of life-creationthat ascribed power to the poetic word, Vološin merged his status as a poet-theurge with his personal political neutrality. This paper discusses how Vološin utilized the image of the Self for artistic creativity as well as for physical survival.