Gerald Peel
The poem below was printed in the May 1939 edition of the monthly ‘Communist Review’, organ of the Communist Party of Australia. Its author was an organizer for the CPA who developed an impassioned internationalism, writing Party booklets on the Indian and Indonesian people's post-war struggles for independence.
All over the world
They are reviling one man, the enemies of the people,
Dubbing him the murderer of little babies, the betrayer of the revolution.
The vulgar press is dragging his name through mud, the great friend of the
people. Professors and long-haired
intellectuals, whose time is up, are putting on an assumed air of foolish
superiority,
Or sneering ill-at-ease: fearful of surrendering their paltering little
individualities, their precious poses.
The big bosses are spitting unavailing venom,
Giving great advertisement value to their bearded imp, the vain squabbler, the
injured innocence, Because they are afraid of the sword of Stalin,
The Soviet Justice.
Why do they fear this one man, and not the other?
Because he is steel, the father and big brother of the workers of the world, of
the invincible Red Army, the Five-Year Plan.
The puny dictators, wedded to death, tremble before him, the big brother, in
piddling wrath, Wrent their fury on stray objects.
The wrecks of the system, with withered limbs and tortured minds,
The beaten-up Jews, the cheated middle classes, the revolutionary peasantry,
the exploited workers, the oppressed nationalities,
The International Proletariat,
Know him everyday their friend and comrade.
He has mastered the tradition of Marx, Engels and Lenin,
He is uncompromising Limb of the victorious Party, of World Revolution.
Against Soviet Power there will be no appeal.
They fear him, the silent one, the unscrupulous one,
For he is no little scribbler, no vain talker, no senseless screecher
He is more powerful than they.
He, the big-hearted one, the invincible will of the Party,
Has mastered their weapons, has excelled them, has built up an unbreakable Union
which cannot be destroyed,
And those, raging in impotence, revile this sword of Justice,
For it will break up Empires, destroy Oppression and liberate the twisted and
broken suffering of humanity,
The great life armies which will laugh at death.
Communist Review,
May 1939.
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