Marxism For Dummies (4)

The Corsican was never really Gallic.
The Austrian was not remotely Prussian.
Jugashvili (let's put this in italics)
could not be, in a month of Sundays, Russian.

The point of Communism is, it's global,
or else it's nothing. Swimming or it's dead,
like sharks, it fans out (kind of like Chernobyl).
Like peanut butter, it was made to spread.

This in-one-country nonsense once held sway
(Archangel, all the way to Kazakhstan),
but when he died, his system blew away,
as do all systems centred in one man.

Napoleon's snowball stopped with "Viet Cong".
The wonder is, it lasted quite so long.

 

Author's Note

Author Notes
(1) The Corsican: Napoleon Bonaparte was a native of Corsica, which belonged to Sardinia at the time of his birth. As a young man, he was aggressively anti-French.
(2) The Austrian: Hitler was Austrian, and gravitated towards the Bavarians of southern Germany. He never understood, nor was ever understood by, the German northerners.
(3) Jugashvili: This was Stalin's real surname, and it immediately identifies him as a Georgian, from the Caucasus. Ethnically, he was as remote from the Russians as (say) a Mexican is from a Connecticut Yankee.
(4) it's global: The whole raison d'être of Communism is, the workers of the world have more in common with one another than they have with their own Capitalists.
(5) in-one-country: In 1927, once he had secured power for himself, Stalin announced that the Russian brand of Communism would now be known as "Socialism in one country". He did this for two reasons: (1) to spite Trotsky, who was the champion of internationalism and (2) to build a personal empire which he could dominate.
(6) Archangel ... Kazakhstan: Geographical points at the farthest extremes of Stalin's Asian empire.
(7) Napoleon's snowball: The novel "Animal Farm", by George Orwell, is an allegory of Stalin's tyranny. The cruel, power-hungry pig Napoleon represents Stalin, whereas the intelligent but eccentric pig, Snowball, is Trotsky.
(8) Illustration: Low's famous cartoon (1939), showing Hitler and Stalin greeting each other over the dead body of Poland. They look remarkably alike, don't they?