PRESENT

For while old, imperial chains
Had broken at their weakest link.
Now is as good a time as any
to dream much slower now I think.

In truth we’d made a giant leap but in a backward state.
Had western countries followed suit:
For man a more auspicious fate.
Oh, history with its ebbs and flows,
Fast-moving, treacherous tide.
Bureaucracy found fertile ground,
At highest point personified
By an anti-Marxist clique
whose main aim and intention was, to seek
A compromise with hostile forces in the West:
“We’ve made our revolution: now it ’s time to take a rest.
Let socialism in the soviets be our battle-cry.
Peace on earth, goodwill to men: at least we have a try.
Workers of all lands unite?
Tomorrow we will fight the fight.”

And thus spoke up, loud and clear,
The voice of base reaction.
Reflecting bourgeois pressures who
Demanded satisfaction.

Yet each negative has its positive side.
“You’re wrong!” The opposition cried.
“It’s true we’ve made a leap
And we may be tired and weary but
We cannot go to sleep