Dreams from my Stalin

Comrades X and Y are sleeping in their hotel room in Athens when Comrade Stalin appears smoking his pipe.

” Greetings Comrade Y ,” says Stalin,” What are you two doing here?”

” We are furthering the cause of world revolution to shake off the yoke of US imperialism. We are making a concrete analysis of concrete situations”

“Ah that would cement the ties, comrade. What do the British say, charity begins at home. Comrade, there is much to be done in India. Hunger, poverty, inequality, the scourge of caste, exploitation of the tribal population, unemployment, corruption, lack of access to health-care and education. Go to the villages and tribal areas and work. Promote leaders of working class and peasant backgrounds in your party. Start affirmative action in your own party-make a Dalit person your leader. You have too many Brahmins in the leadership”

Y did not want to let go the rare opportunity of advising Stalin.

“Comrade Stalin, I think you should take the initiative of starting a dialogue with Hitler to avoid any warfare with the Nazis. You should engage with the Nazis and their mass organizations to de-escalate jingoism and war-mongering. Make love not war comrade.”

Stalin took a puff in his pipe and said,” And how should I have proceeded Comrade Y ?”

Y is never short of ideas. He said,” Comrade Stalin your problem in the USSR can only be solved through political dialogue with all stakeholders, the Nazis, the storm troopers, the SS, brown shirts and serial suicide bombers- leave out none. If required sing them a Georgian lullaby.”

” In which book of Marx, Engels, Lenin or Stalin have you picked up this doctrine, Comrade?” asked a curious Stalin.

“Well you know,” said Y,” I went to North Korea, a country I greatly admire. The grand father of the nation there had invented the juche principle. The juche principle adapts the principles of Marx-Engels Lenin Stalin and Mao Zedong’s thoughts to the concrete conditions of Korea by the deft culinary skills of Kim Il Sung and his communist Die Nasty. I have used India’s great Vaishnavite philosophy with the concrete analysis of a concrete situation and formulated the principle of accommodation and appeasement. I call it Strategic Cowardice.If you throw a rock at me, I will return it with love and flowers. I suggest you engage with Hitler and his stakeholders immediately.”

Stalin smiled, “Comrades I must blame this on the revolutionary spirit of Ouzo and Hatzimichalis. Thank God you were not my unsolicited adviser. The Great Patriotic War is over, Hitler has perished, the Nazis are history and the world is now aware of the dangers of a brutal armed conflict.

If Pakistan behaves like a lunatic, the United Nations and the rest of the world will put them in an asylum. There will be no war, I assure you. Now go to sleep.”