Author Information
Execration On Nikolai Gorbunov
Once, you served Lenin as his secretary---
noting the words spilled from that bulbous head,
no doubt thrilled to have heard what Lenin said;
but Lenin, despite Bolshevik conceit,
was human, frail, not extraordinary,
and not immortal. He died just as dead
as any stray dog trampled in the street.
Then Stalin came in---Russia's Uncle Joe:
he thought you were a saboteur or spy,
or else a counter-revolutionary;
who, like the murdered Romanovs, must die.
Old Bolsheviks should not have felt surprise:
the state you helped Lenin to build---on lies
and murder---must turn on its own;
on comrades stripped of comradeship, alone,
waiting for that last bullet that should go
right through their brains. The old guard fell.
Later the Party rehabilitated
you, but could that have been appreciated
as you roasted, seared, in the flames of Hell?
