On the first day of Marxmas, my comrade gave to me: A picture of Leon Trotsky. Two Das Kapitals Three bayonets Fourth International The Five Year Plan Six splinter groups seven strikers swinging Eight Bulganins bulging Nine men in the Kremlin Ten days a-shaking Eleven Lenins leaping Twelve Hunky fascists
note: Some of the references are arcane and make sense primarily to students of communist history and the Stalin- Trotsky split. For example, the Fourth International was the international organization of Trotsky's followers (the Third International aka the Comintern was Stalin's). The reference to nine men in the Kremlin refers to the Politburo. Ten Days that Shook the World. Eleven Lenin's leaping is a delicious alliteration of which I am (still) quite proud forty years on. And twelve Hunky fascists refers to the Stalinist Calumny that the Hungarians who revolted against Soviet tyranny in 1956 were all fascists--- of course, they were no more fascist than the Hungarians who finally freed themselves from Soviet tyranny 1989-1991. RGB