The Fredösphere

Andante picks up the continuing debate: did Shostakovich insert secret anti-Soviet messages into his music?  Paul Mitchinson says no.  Mark Jordan says not so fast.  Now that I've finally reached the point that I am really interested in his music, I would love to know the truth.

In any event, we can all agree Shostakovich's life must have been filled with misery and terror, and we cannot judge someone whose suffered under pressure we've never felt.  But his generation's faith in the revolution, long after all evidence pointed to disaster, is a black box to me.  But not to everyone.  Leon Botstein makes a revealing comment in this Andante interview:

Shostakovich was like you or me, an ordinary person without the capacity for heroism. He wanted to have a career, but was always an idealist about Socialism and believed it could build a new world of brotherhood, justice, humanity and the rest. Socialism, after all, has a real point — it's attractive, unlike Nazism.

Yes, Nazism is unattractive, everywhere and at all times.  That explains why Hitler had all those thousands of animatronics at the Nuremberg rallies instead of real live people.

Of course Botstein means Socialism is attractive to himself and others like him.  In 1916, it was almost forgivable to imagine that transferring unlimited power to the State was the way to achieve a just society.  In 2004, it is not.  We succeeded in driving fascism to the fringe; what are we waiting for?