Stalin. A leader and a Poet

At the Project, we honour the great heroes of the working class, and Josef Stalin stands among them. He played a vital role in the Russian Revolution and was instrumental in establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union.
In his youth, as his class consciousness developed, Stalin studied at the Gori Church School in Georgia and even trained for the Russian Orthodox priesthood. However, as he immersed himself in the works of Chernyshevsky, Marx, and Engels, his views on religion shifted, and he became increasingly radicalised.
During this formative period, he wrote the following poem.

From a home to a home, he went,
Knocking on other folks’ doors,
With him, his oaken string instrument
And his unpretentious old song.

And in his song, and in his song,
As pure as sunlight’s shining gleam,
A profound truth was resounding,
A transcendental daydream.

Hearts that had turned into rock
He managed to make beat again;
Numerous minds he awoke
That, in deep darkness, had napped.

But people who’d forgotten God,
Their hearts holding darkness within,
A poison cup, filled to the top,
Offered him for a drink.

They said to him, “You, the cursed,
Here, bottoms up, empty this!
To us, that song of yours is foreign,
And we don’t want that truth of yours!”