Ylviste (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

No, a lot of people knew that Stalin coul do very bad things but they were all just too afraid to say anything. Take Molotov (Stalins right hand man), hes let his wifer be arrested and didn't say anything because he was afraid of his own well being.

edgar0001 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Es ist so lächerlich, daß man nicht einfach zuhören kann, sondern immer Stalin mit Dreck beworfen wird und Schostakowitsch als sein unterdrücktes Genie dargestellt werden muß. Das hat ja bereits Zwangscharakter in den Massenmedien.

jsb62 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

I take it you didn't bother to notice that Testimony has been to be a fraud, invented by Solomon Volkov. Read Laurel Fay's book. Not that I'm much of a fan of the music, but I do think musicology should be serious.

IngridAtenea (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Gran hombre Shostakovich!!!digno de admiración.

plemax (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Maybe his and Stalin communism has nothing in common (like you know what is Stalin communism is) but it has nothing to do with comments in this video. Total bullshit aimed for Western idiots. You just need to listen his music to be sure that he is a communist who loved his country. Only way after the Stalin's death some information about all that horrible things begin to be public. During WW2 nobody could even think that Stalin would do anything bad to soviet people.

plemax (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

And you are stupid as American of all the times.

DrParkMD517 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

You are just as blind and ignorant as the Soviet officials were back then :-P

shekyb (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

@plemaxread a bit of "testimony", his memoirs, and you ll see that his and stallins communism had nothing in common

plemax (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

What a bullshit about Stalin at the end. Shosty would never said that. Shosty was communist all his live by the way. And all his music is very soviet.

squelchtheory (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

this is a really significant symphony. during world war I, germany surrounded leningrad (seiged) and were torturing the trapped russian people. he wrote the symphony so it would be broadcast to the people in leningrad. to give them hope. lol - althought shostakovich brilliantly inlays a musical commentary against the fascism of germany and mother russia