Click on the headline to link to a guest review article on the Soviet poet Osip Mandelstam, especially a close reading of his "Epigram Against Stalin" for which he paid dearly with his life.
Markin comment:
As a follower of the great anti-Stalinist, pro-communist fighter, and Bolshevik Revolution leader, Leon Trotsky, I am all too familiar with the "night of the long knives" Moscow Trials period described here. Our Russian Left Oppositionists (Communists) forebears fought Stalin politically, as best they could. Mandelstam fought with his pen, as best he could. Although a vast gulf separates his ideas from ours we can appreciate his anti-Stalin poem. The story behind it is fascinating, as laid out in the article. Stalin, not known as one of nature's noblemen, obviously would chaff under this poem. When the deal went down Mandelstam, unlike someone like Boris Paternak, paid with his life for his art. We definitely can appreciate that.
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