Hymns to Stalin

Stalin’s humility is well known to readers of this blog. Despite this humility, his subjects would routinely compose fawning poems about him. Stalin found this embarrassing. What’s a dictator to do?

Have them published in the official Party newspaper, of course.

I recently found the following hymns to Stalin, originally published in Pravda during Stalin’s long reign, in Richard Wurmbrand’s book Marx And Satan. Wurmbrand was not a Communist; the book title probably gives that away, I suppose; but since he was extensively tortured by the Communists we can forgive him for that.

The following first appeared in Pravda in 1935:

He commands the sun of the enemies to set.
He spoke, and the East for friends became a great glow.
Should he say that coal turns white,
It will be as Stalin wills …
The master of the entire world – remember – is now Stalin.

This next one appeared a number of years later:

I would have compared him to a white mountain – but the mountain has a summit.
I would have compared him to the depths of the sea – but the sea has a bottom.
I would have compared him to the shining moon – but the moon shines at midnight, not at noon.
I would have compared him to the brilliant sun – but the sun radiates at noon, not at midnight.

And lastly, my personal favourite, from August 1936:

O great Stalin, O leader of the peoples,
Thou who broughtest man to birth,
Thou who purifiest the earth,
Thou who restoreth the centuries,
Thou who makes bloom the Spring,
Thou who makes vibrate the musical chords.
Thou, splendour of my Spring, O Thou
Sun reflected from millions of hearts.

Gotta love the King James language there. I wonder how that translates into Russian?