Josef Vissarionovich Stalin 1940
Kremlin
Red Square
Mockba 1
CCCP
December 1940
Happy New Year Comrade,
“Start at the beginning and finish at the end”. Not as complex as some of Vladimir Illyich’s didactics perhaps, but an appropriate maxim for this vehicle of communication.
If I had thought that last year (The 18th Congress of the party “The greatest genius of humanity, teacher and ‘vozhd’, who leads us towards communism, our very own Stalin”, my 60th birthday with both the Order of Lenin and the Hero of Socialist labour) was impossible to follow, I would, uncharacteristically, have been wrong.
You must have seen Time Magazine from January where I was named their Man of the Year 1939! “ World shattering” it said, perhaps they are premonitive.
Svetlana, my little sparrow, was fourteen in February and we had a party out at the Dacha in Kuntsevo. She really is a chip off the old block and issued me with lots of orders for the day signing them Svetlana Stalina (the boss). She invited all of the gang -Lev, Vyacheslav, Nikita, Lazar, et al. How they like to spoil her, they must have misheard and thought her presents could soften steel.
March saw a conclusion to the last four months of unpleasantness with our Finnish neighbours when they finally conceded that maybe the fence had been in the wrong place between our properties. They even gave us Karelia as a goodwill gesture. Not our most successful winter outing, which makes me all the happier about the détente with our new, found German friends.
Also in March, Lavrenty was very busy in Poland, Ukraine and Belarus and told us that he has found over 20,000 nationalist and counterrevolutionary activists. He can be very untrusting and insisted we all sign some order or other freeing up their camp space. I have a nasty feeling this may come back to haunt us.
I heard that Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov died and was buried in Novodevichy cemetery. I didn’t go to the funeral, as I had never bothered to answer his request to emigrate. I thought “The White Guard” was one of the best Russian plays of all time and, although I could never admit it in public, some of the stuff we banned really was quite funny.
On a brighter note, the deal Molotov struck meant we could annex Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania and get whole tracts of Romania Vis a Vis Northern Bucovina and Bessarabia, or Moldova if you prefer. I may have to rethink my taste for Kindzmarauli but suspect the collectivisation of their agriculture will not sweeten their red wine too much. Another spin off from this Ribbentrop pact is that I have been forced to stop screening Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky, which is such stirring stuff, at least for the time being. As part of educating the proletariat this year’s hot release is the third part of the Gorky Trilogy “My Universities” quite well done by Donskoi but hardly going to inspire major patriotic zeal.
The International labour May Day parade in Red Square from atop the Lenin’s mausoleum witnessed the prototypes of the Petlyakov VI 100 bomber, T34 tank and Yak1 fighter plane. I keep wondering if they are a waste of money now that Germany is at war with France and England. By the way, did I tell you my son Vasily has been promoted to Captain in the air force and at only twenty years old?
June saw my work on “work” reach conclusion with the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet that not only got us back to a seven-day week and eight-hour days, but also got rid of the mandatory dismissal for absenteeism. Too many saboteurs and dissidents have been using this clause as an escape to more bourgeois employment. They must think I was born yesterday or that my name is Stari (old) not Stalin.
August finally saw us rid of Lev Davidovitch, or Judas Trotsky as I prefer to call him, when he was murdered in Mexico with an Alpine ice axe - slightly ironic when you consider their climate compared to ours. He was still waiting for the revolution in the West while we are busy building Socialism in our country.
I see Eugene Lyons finally published his book about me “Stalin: Czar of all the Russias“. Although much of what he said is charming I am unhappy with the title and amazed at how simple Americans are. He just repeated everything I told him “ No one man or group of men can dictate. Decisions are made by the party….”. Khrushchev told me a good one - I should have told him “Did you know they have taken the word gullible out of Webster’s dictionary?” "Omigod" he would have replied, “Have they really?”
September - the Germans were bombing London and have signed a deal with the Japanese and Italians. Molotov has a mole in Tokyo who tipped us off about the latter and in the end I think we acted surprised enough. I asked Molotov to tell Herr Hitler that with our agreement we expect to know in advance of such manoeuvrings when next they meet.
November - The 23rd anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution
Molotov was asked to go to Berlin in November to placate them over Bessarabia - Adolf was worried that we got a bit too close to the black stuff in Romania. He was trying to sort things when Mr Churchill’s RAF dropped a couple of bombs close enough that they had to use an air raid shelter! Asked our man in London to convey our serious displeasure to HMG at such a hostile act
Now the year is drawing to a close I plan to go to the new Tchaikovsky hall to hear The Moscow State Academic Philharmonic as Schostakovich has finally finished his 7th symphony.
I read the transcript of Roosevelt’s Christmas address “The Nazi masters of Germany have made it clear that they intend not only to dominate all life and thought in their own country, but also to enslave the whole of Europe, and then to use the resources of Europe to dominate the rest of the world.” How he must wish he had a pact like ours.
Josef Vissarionovich Stalin
Red Square
Mockba 1
CCCP
December 1940
Happy New Year Comrade,
“Start at the beginning and finish at the end”. Not as complex as some of Vladimir Illyich’s didactics perhaps, but an appropriate maxim for this vehicle of communication.
If I had thought that last year (The 18th Congress of the party “The greatest genius of humanity, teacher and ‘vozhd’, who leads us towards communism, our very own Stalin”, my 60th birthday with both the Order of Lenin and the Hero of Socialist labour) was impossible to follow, I would, uncharacteristically, have been wrong.
You must have seen Time Magazine from January where I was named their Man of the Year 1939! “ World shattering” it said, perhaps they are premonitive.
Svetlana, my little sparrow, was fourteen in February and we had a party out at the Dacha in Kuntsevo. She really is a chip off the old block and issued me with lots of orders for the day signing them Svetlana Stalina (the boss). She invited all of the gang -Lev, Vyacheslav, Nikita, Lazar, et al. How they like to spoil her, they must have misheard and thought her presents could soften steel.
March saw a conclusion to the last four months of unpleasantness with our Finnish neighbours when they finally conceded that maybe the fence had been in the wrong place between our properties. They even gave us Karelia as a goodwill gesture. Not our most successful winter outing, which makes me all the happier about the détente with our new, found German friends.
Also in March, Lavrenty was very busy in Poland, Ukraine and Belarus and told us that he has found over 20,000 nationalist and counterrevolutionary activists. He can be very untrusting and insisted we all sign some order or other freeing up their camp space. I have a nasty feeling this may come back to haunt us.
I heard that Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov died and was buried in Novodevichy cemetery. I didn’t go to the funeral, as I had never bothered to answer his request to emigrate. I thought “The White Guard” was one of the best Russian plays of all time and, although I could never admit it in public, some of the stuff we banned really was quite funny.
On a brighter note, the deal Molotov struck meant we could annex Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania and get whole tracts of Romania Vis a Vis Northern Bucovina and Bessarabia, or Moldova if you prefer. I may have to rethink my taste for Kindzmarauli but suspect the collectivisation of their agriculture will not sweeten their red wine too much. Another spin off from this Ribbentrop pact is that I have been forced to stop screening Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky, which is such stirring stuff, at least for the time being. As part of educating the proletariat this year’s hot release is the third part of the Gorky Trilogy “My Universities” quite well done by Donskoi but hardly going to inspire major patriotic zeal.
The International labour May Day parade in Red Square from atop the Lenin’s mausoleum witnessed the prototypes of the Petlyakov VI 100 bomber, T34 tank and Yak1 fighter plane. I keep wondering if they are a waste of money now that Germany is at war with France and England. By the way, did I tell you my son Vasily has been promoted to Captain in the air force and at only twenty years old?
June saw my work on “work” reach conclusion with the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet that not only got us back to a seven-day week and eight-hour days, but also got rid of the mandatory dismissal for absenteeism. Too many saboteurs and dissidents have been using this clause as an escape to more bourgeois employment. They must think I was born yesterday or that my name is Stari (old) not Stalin.
August finally saw us rid of Lev Davidovitch, or Judas Trotsky as I prefer to call him, when he was murdered in Mexico with an Alpine ice axe - slightly ironic when you consider their climate compared to ours. He was still waiting for the revolution in the West while we are busy building Socialism in our country.
I see Eugene Lyons finally published his book about me “Stalin: Czar of all the Russias“. Although much of what he said is charming I am unhappy with the title and amazed at how simple Americans are. He just repeated everything I told him “ No one man or group of men can dictate. Decisions are made by the party….”. Khrushchev told me a good one - I should have told him “Did you know they have taken the word gullible out of Webster’s dictionary?” "Omigod" he would have replied, “Have they really?”
September - the Germans were bombing London and have signed a deal with the Japanese and Italians. Molotov has a mole in Tokyo who tipped us off about the latter and in the end I think we acted surprised enough. I asked Molotov to tell Herr Hitler that with our agreement we expect to know in advance of such manoeuvrings when next they meet.
November - The 23rd anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution
Molotov was asked to go to Berlin in November to placate them over Bessarabia - Adolf was worried that we got a bit too close to the black stuff in Romania. He was trying to sort things when Mr Churchill’s RAF dropped a couple of bombs close enough that they had to use an air raid shelter! Asked our man in London to convey our serious displeasure to HMG at such a hostile act
Now the year is drawing to a close I plan to go to the new Tchaikovsky hall to hear The Moscow State Academic Philharmonic as Schostakovich has finally finished his 7th symphony.
I read the transcript of Roosevelt’s Christmas address “The Nazi masters of Germany have made it clear that they intend not only to dominate all life and thought in their own country, but also to enslave the whole of Europe, and then to use the resources of Europe to dominate the rest of the world.” How he must wish he had a pact like ours.
Josef Vissarionovich Stalin
posted by Author designate at 8:20 PM
1 Comments:
You are funny! I do hope you get published!
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