BTW in addition to being a master of the quip, the Greatestst Leader of All Times and Peoples wrote poetry in the 1890s that was considered good enough to get published in the major Georgian literary journals. His poem Morning even made it into a textbook in 1912. I assume the original Georgian version is better than this English translation (from Robert Service's Stalin bio).
MORNING by Yosip Dzhugashvili
The pinkish bud has opened, Rushing to the pale-blue violet And, stirred by a light breeze, The lily of the valley has bent over the grass.
The lark has sung in the dark blue, Flying higher than the clouds. And the sweet-sounding nightingale Has sung a song to children from the bushes.
Flower, oh my Georgia! Let peace reign in my native land! And may you, friends, make renowned Our Motherland by study.
***
If you ask me, I suspect that the Trotsky-derived image of Stalin as a gray, passionless bureaucrat is quite wrong. Trotsky did kind of have an ego problem.
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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