Word: stalins
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Grand gestures and heroic sacrifices come naturally to the Poles, along with an alarming capacity for martyrdom. The 19th century playwright Stanislaw Wyspianski called long-suffering Poland "the Christ of nations" because of its capacity for anguish. Joseph Stalin is said to have remarked that bringing Communism to Poland was "like trying to saddle a cow." He did it anyway, but a nation of rebellious, romantic anti-Russian Catholics proved to be troublesome from the beginning. Most Poles never
...outlasted most of the rulers who were his contemporaries and governed the world's largest country longer than anyone but Stalin. Yet the private life of Leonid Brezhnev, like that of most Soviet higher-ups, is among the most carefully guarded of state secrets. There are no handy biographical sources in the Soviet Union. When Brezhnev came to power in 1964, Westerners were unable at first to determine even the basic facts. Was his wife named Lyudmila or Victoria? (It is the latter.) Did he have two children or three? (Western sources say three, though Soviet references list only...
...music of Aram Il'yich Khachaturian (1903-1978) has Armenian and Middle Eastern elements. The second movement has long drones, eloquent turns. It approaches the inspired, improvised style of Arab and Indian performers. The infustion of folk elements won it the Stalin Prize (now called the State Prize) in 1941; but the continued development of Khachaturian's almost brash individuality caused him to be censured, along with Prokofiev and Shostakovich (Khachaturian's teacher...
...goals. He wants to examine the many major issues facing the church, and how it must react, but he seems reluctant to provide the sort of tough devil's advocacy that such an investigation demands. The result is a book of pulled punches. The book's title comes from Stalin's famous reply, when told of the pope's likely opposition to a Soviet move: "How many divisions has the pope?" With a bit of clever wordplay, Nichols seems intent on making it mean not only the pope's military divisions, but his moral and spiritual divisions as well. Ironically...
...YOUR'RE A FUCKING CAPITALIST! Does your daddy own a factory?" she yelled from atop the steps. "You like Stalin! You want to kill Jews," came the response, from a woman whose placard read "Feed Brezhnev to the Workers." For 45 minutes, a dozen from each side kept the shouting match alive, sometimes with a little shoving, the dialectic turned physical. For years, Harvard's Spartacus Youth League have held their weekly study session and speeches; for years they've been ignored by all but regular readers of Workers Vanguard. But last week they picked a topic explosive enough actually...