Stalin's Push for Immortality

The anthem of Marx (“Internationale”) began: “Arise, ye prisoners of starvation . . . .” Since Lenin died, committed to a hospital, and all the leaders of Marxism-Leninism who could claim Stalin’s post were later annihilated by Stalin, he became the leader of the prisoners of starvation.

My only comment is that the Russian word “leader” applies to personalities like Moses in the Bible (or The Book of Exodus).

However, in the 1930s, a new prophet (in Germany) named Hitler asserted that the Germans were suffering not because they were prisoners of starvation, but because they were as strong, capable, and handsome as Hitler was, yet there were miscreants among them who interfered with them and their lives. In short, Hitler became “the leader of Germany” in 1933.

So Stalin was not divinely alone now. In 1944, he replaced the Soviet national anthem. It no longer began, “Arise, ye prisoners of starvation,” but instead began, “The unbreakable union of free republics had been linked forever by the great Rus.” At the word “Rus,” Marx would have fainted, had he been alive. “Rus” means here the sacred ancient country from which the Russians originated. So, the international brotherhood of prisoners of starvation of all nations had been linked forever by the great sacred Rus!

After Rome destroyed Judea, the persecution of Jews became easy. Accordingly, Marxists (Marx was a baptized Jew), Leninists (Lenin was mistaken for a Jew because he mispronounced the Russian “r”) and other leftists regarded Jew-baiting as the ugliest form of criminality.

And here Pravda announced (on Jan. 13, 1953) that some Soviet physicians (Jews) were “spies and killers under the mask of academic physicians.”

The universe Stalin had been living in had an obvious defect. Suppose he would die. There were some who said that this was impossible. But just suppose he died. What then? His portraits may be removed along with other relics of his immortality. This is what happened after he died, and in Khrushchev’s report, read to “meetings of working people,” Stalin was represented not as Moses, but as a ruthless tyrant and murderer.

Stalin was ruthless to anyone who had any ambition, mental independence, a view of his own. On the other hand, he protected Molotov as his No. 1 man (second only to Stalin himself) and piled on him top posts and rewards since 1917 to 1949, that is for 32 years. But in 1949, when Molotov was 59, he “gave up his post as foreign minister.” That was how a foreign correspondent of The New York Times put it. Other such mysterious shifts of exemplary subordinates followed.

The name “Molotov” no longer suited Stalin because it was a “revolutionary pseudonym,” of course. “Molot” means “sledge hammer” in Russian. As the “Internationale” of Marx put it, “Raise higher your sledge hammer and strikes the iron while it’s hot!”

Shortly before Stalin’s death, his subordinates like Sledge Hammer had been replaced by those creating Stalin’s new universe. After Stalin died, they were retired and received homes in a countryside settlement. They worshipped the dead Stalin as God.

One of them (invited by his neighbors out of curiosity) began to praise Stalin, which was impossible in a gentle society after Stalin’s death. Then the poet Evgeniy Vinokurov said in a conciliatory tone: “Well, if the whole truth is to be told, he drank a lot of blood.”

Some of the guests giggled. The worshiper of Stalin turned deadly pale. “How can you speak in such a tone about him?” he hissed.

The host could barely put out the fire.

So what had been going on in the last years of Stalin’s life? Let us first recall the first 11 years of his life, when his father died and his mother, bearing the Russian (not Georgian!) name Ekaterina, had been pouring all her love on her only son, Joseph, and chose for him an ecclesiastical career in the Georgian Orthodox Church. In those days, definitive was not “nationality,” but “faith” or “creed.” Joseph was not just a Russian, but an Orthodox priest who matriculated at the theological seminary of the capital of Georgia.

Joseph (whether at the age of 11 or 74) wanted his mother back; he wanted the world Orthodox Church; he wanted to be God for all Orthodox believers. This is why he replaced sledge hammer: the name was too Marxist-Leninist. But Stalin died four years too early.

Ironically, Marxism-Leninism is flourishing in China — and claims a universal appeal. As “Internationale” puts it: “We will destroy the entire old world of coercion!”

You can e-mail me at navlev@cloud9.net.