It is often said that there‘s nothing in it,
It annoys and bores you,
Yet today I saw in the newspaper
A charming scene.
With top hat, prayer book,
Spouse and trust in God,
One sees little father Stalin
Piously trudging to his church.
The text venomously states:
This is how the pious Christian
In the Netherlands and the whole world
Now views Stalin’s Bolsheviks.
I don‘t believe much of what the newspaper
Wants to tell us these days,
They often try to present the true image
In a very different way.
Nowadays, one listens for the truth
To Moscow and to London,
And yet, in this drawing,
I found something truthful.
People no longer believe, as they used to,
In Stalin’s atrocities,
In mismanagement and his reign of terror,
Burdened with blood and guilt.
They know that painter Hitler
Designed and painted
With deceptive brushes,
His scenes of lies.
He portrays himself as a divine hero,
The protector of churches,
Who shelters lands, peoples, and faith
Under his angelic wings.
And Hitler has also designed
Many delightful visions of the future,
For example, how he brings prosperity
To cities and villages.
He paints this and paints that,
Promises to all people
A life full of bliss,
Exactly as they wish.
And he designed a clever plan,
A painting of dreams,
He wanted to reach an agreement
With England.
England at sea, and we on land
Will rule the world,
We will be, just like England,
A people and race of masters.
He continues to paint black on black
The cruel Bolshevism,
How Stalin eats every morning
In dreadfully wild sadism
For his breakfast two monks,
And then two nuns,
Instead of coffee, he drinks blood,
Truly, it’s not made up.
Meanwhile, many people
Came to a firm conviction:
He has not shown the truth,
It was truth distorted.
And now Stalin takes the brush
Into his own hands,
Erasing Hitler’s “paintings”
Erasing Hitler’s dreams.
He now daily disrupts
Hitler’s calculations,
And crosses future predictions
With many bold lines.
He also corrects the portrait
That Hitler had deceived with,
And now the whole world sees Stalin
With completely different eyes.
Post-Editing: Robert Saunders
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