by Osip Mandelstam November 1933

 World War 2   Why did the USA get involved?  Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941)  Why did the USA join the Europe fight?

 World War 2   Why did the USA get involved?  Japanese attacks Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941)  Why did the USA join the European fight?  North Africa(November 7, 1942)  Europe (June 6, 1944)

Germany – Adolf Hitler Soviet Union – Joseph Stalin  Why would a famous poet speak out against Stalin, who did so much to defend the USSR in WW2?  August 23, 1939 ~ Molotov-Ribbentrov Pact  Between Germany and USSR  Signed one week before the beginning of WW2 (Poland invaded)  Created for their own political agendas, but both Hitler and Stalin planned to rule parts of Europe while ignoring each other  Stalin only joined the Allies when Hitler betrayed him  Germany invades USSR (June 22, 1941)  Hitler is blamed for millions of deaths in WW2, but Stalin was responsible for even more deaths in USSR (most of which were his own people)

 1922 ~ Stalin became General Secretary of the Soviet Union  Acquired more and more power until he beat down all political opposition  1928 ~ Stalin revamped the USSR economic plan  Heavy economic suffering  Millions of people sent to correctional labor camps in desolate locations of USSR  ~ Soviet Famine  6 to 8 million people die of starvation  ~ Great Purge  Capture and execution of anyone suspected of opposition  1 million politicians and civilians shot to death  ~ World War 2 (1/3 of total WW2 deaths!)  Over 23 million Soviet Union deaths (1/3 of total WW2 deaths!)

Osip Mandelstam (author of “Stalin Epigram”)  Born in Poland, but raised in Soviet Union  Father was a leather merchant and his mother was a teacher of music  Abandoned his education and wrote poetry instead  Initially supported the Russian Revolution, but disagreed with many idealistic perspectives  Published 5 books of poetry from 1913 to 1928, each book becoming more and more liberal  November 1933 ~ published “Stalin Epigram”  Lived his final years in work camps, serving sentences for counter-revolutionary activities  Died December 27, 1938, in a Russian labor camp

Our lives no longer feel the ground under them. At ten paces, you can’t hear our words. But whenever there’s a snatch of talk it turns to the Kremlin mountaineer, the ten thick worms of his fingers his words like measures of weight, the huge, laughing cockroaches on his top lip, the glitter of his boot-rims. Ringed with a scum of chicken-necked bosses, he toys with the tributes of half-men. One whistles, another meows, a third snivels. he pokes out his finger, and he alone goes boom. He forges decrees in a line like horseshoes, one for the groin, one the forehead, temple, eye. He rolls the executions on his tongue like berries. He wishes he could hug them like big friends from home.