Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin

EF published Anna of All the Russias: A Life of Anna Akhmatova, an account taking in both Tsarist and StalinistRussia and extremes of wealth and poverty.

After Stalin fell from power, with Poem Without a Hero circulating in manuscript, there was serious thought about publishing it.

Relieved from the burden of the Stalin era, AA now began engaging with young writers in poetry readings and literary discussions, so much so as to become a living proof that literature was still alive.

Of Martha's twin quests, that for emotional fulfilment brings her more pain and loss than pleasure, and that for a viable political creed is no more fruitful. She becomes a Communist, and is later dismayed...

HA arranges her discussion under three headings: anti-Semitism, imperialism, and totalitarianism. Together they compose a bleak picture of current trends: the decline of nation-states and of traditional class alliances, and the rise of anti-Semitism, Nazism

For Meanjin she wrote about the current falling-out in Paris between Camus (who had taken an anti-Stalinist line in L'Homme révolté) and Sartre . For Stead neither writer was a good enough Communist...

She observes that she can write at first hand about most of the men who—to-day—are making war, or struggling to prevent it in three continents. The dominant figures of Hitler and Stalin are flanked...

The implicit message of these poems is praise of Stalin , but they did nothing to soften him towards her.

RF published when Mussolini had conquered and exiled Haile Selassie , but before Queen Wilhelmina had fled from home before the invading Nazis , or Russia had switched sides and entered the war against Germany...

The manifesto masks its serious political content with a certain tongue-in-cheek tone: We do not like the way Mussolini has organised his colonial empire. / We do not like the way Hitler has managed his...