The Heirs of Stalin

Mute was the marble. Mutely glimmered the glass.
Mute stood the soldiers on guard, bronzed by the breeze.
Thin smoke curled above the coffin.
And breath seeped through the chinks
as they bore him out the mausoleum doors.
Slowly the coffin floated, grazing the fixed bayonets.
He also was mute -- he also! mute and dread.
Grimly clenching his embalmed fists,
only pretending to be dead, he spied from inside.
In his memory he wished to engrave each of his pallbearers:
young recruits from Ryazan and Kursk,
sortie, a rise from the grave,
and reach out to these unreasoning youths.
He was scheming something, had merely dozed off to rest.
And I, addressing our Government, petition them to double,
and triple the soldiers on guard by his slab,
lest Stalin rise again and, with Stalin, the past.

I don't refer to the past, so holy and gracious,
of Turksib, and Magnitka, and the flag hoisted over Berlin.
By the past, in this case, I've in mind neglect
of the good of the people, false accusations,
the arrest of innocent men.
We sowed our crops honestly.
Honestly we smelted metal,
and honestly we marched, falling into the ranks.
But he feared us. Believing in the great goal,
he judged an odious means
good enough to that great end.
He was far-sighted. Skilled in the art of political strife,
he left many heirs on the globe.
I fancy an telephone installed in that coffin:
Stalin give directions to Enver Hoxha,
Where else from that coffin does the cable lead!
No, Stalin has not given in. He thinks he can outwit death.
We bore him out of the mausoleum.
But how, out of Stalin, shall we bear Stalin's heirs!
Some of his heirs trim roses in retirment
secretly thinking their discharge is temporary.
Others, from rostrums, even heap abuse on Stalin
but, at night, hanker after the good old days.
No wonder Stalin's heirs seem stricken
with heart attacks these days. They, one the stalwarts,
detest this time of empty prison camps
and halls packed with people listening to poets.
The party forbids me to be smug.
"Why Bother?" some urge me -- but I can't be quiet.
While the heirs of Stalin walk this earth,
Stalin, I fancy, still lurks in the mausoleum.
-Evgeny Evtushenko

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