When safely out of earshot of Russia's secret police, Russia's patient, long-suffering peasants fitted new words to an ancient singsong tune: If there were no winter,
There would be no freezing—// there were no Soviets Hunger'd not be teasing.
In the cemetery,
Red the poppy borders; Stalin leads us all there,
Says it's Lenin's orders.
Never do we dance now,
Never see much gladness; Five-year-plan production
Drives us all to madness.
Last week Russia's city dwellers, always hungry for better times, drew premature cheer from news of the kolkhozes (collective farms). The bread grain crop of wheat and rye was more than half harvested and it had...
