An Inclusive Litany

2/5/96

Translated excerpts of a poem, from the Spanish-language edition of the collected works of Pablo Neruda, written on the occasion of Joseph Stalin's death in 1953. The character of Neruda was portrayed with great deference in Il Postino (The Postman), a film that garnered critical praise as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture of 1995.
To be men! That is
the Stalinist law!
...We must learn from Stalin
his sincere intensity
his concrete clarity
...Stalin is the noon,
the maturity of man and the peoples.
Stalinists, Let us bear this title with pride.
...Stalinist workers, clerks, women
take care of this day! The light has not vanished.
the fire has not disappeared,
there is only the growth of
light, bread, fire and hope
in Stalin's invincible time!
...In recent years the dove,
Peace, the wandering persecuted rose,
found herself in his shoulders
and Stalin, the giant one,
carried her at the heights of his forehead.
...A wave beats against the stones of the shore.
But Malenkov will continue his work.

[Ed.: In May 1940, on Joseph Stalin's orders, Mexican Communist muralist David A. Siqueiros led a massed attack on exiled Russian Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky's residence in which Trotsky's grandson was shot and a young guard was kidnapped and murdered. (Trotsky would be assassinated three months later, also on Stalin's orders.) Siqueiros, who faced nine separate criminal charges, was mysteriously released on bail. Neruda used his position as Chilean consul in Mexico City to convey a Chilean passport to Siqueiros, who subsequently fled the country, thus squelching a major part of the Trotsky murder investigation. For the rest of his life, Neruda expressed great pride in this action.]