Kremlin, STALIN is drinking.
STALIN: Comrade, why are you drinking when it's night.
What do you fear, your power is the law.
I know of everyone something that kills him.
Behind my back no enemy is alive,
Is he. The dead are sleeping lightly.
They are conspiring in our foundations
And their dreams are the force that's choking us.
Trotsky, the Jew, playing the role of Banquo
The axe stuck in his skull. It is a chair,
And nothing else. Why fear an empty chair.
Koba, why did you need my death.
That was Bucharin, darling of the Party
I needed him as enemy, he was
The best. He learned it well, his lesson, the
Darling of the Party, if under torture.
Two tears for the best enemy. One-sixth
Of our globe is twitching in my fist. And
Will shatter no god knows into which pieces
When death will break my fist at the wrong time.
My arm is short, right. And my arm is longer
Than any arm has ever grown in Russia
And Russia's the dominion of long arms.
It is mere child's play: Paper beats the stone.
No man is heavier than his file, and ink
Drinks blood. The Remington replaced the Mauser
And each file is the Holy Book.
Who'll count the corpses when the graves are empty.
Not until mankind rises from their knees
Out of the blood that we have spilled at the
Last Party Congress, will the monuments bleed.
And what if our seed won't sprout, Lenin.
With blood I've fertilized this country
And forged new industries with human bodies
Ground into bonemeal in my grinders, I
The great Stalin, leader of nations.
I'm the bloodhound. My private property
Two pairs of boots. It's always only one
Who dies, you answered if someone asked you
About your corpses. Did you ever count them.
I am your death, can't count them anymore.
Because they are the ground we're walking on
On our way into your shining future.
Mankind is just a poor material
Ants under your boot. How shall I while Russia's
Sluggish bulk is squatting on my nape
Create the new man if the old one isn't
Liquidated. Yesterday for your tomorrow.
The mass grave is now pregnant with the future
The age is needing men of a new flesh
I'm baking them from their own blood
And no Prometheus will ever cross me
There is still room at the Caucasus rock.
Who am I. Dead is Dead. I am my prison
Where I'm locked up until the day I die.
And who could kill Stalin aside from Stalin.
They hate me and are waiting for my death
And no one risks a word, they all are cowards.
And if I'd sign my own death warrant
Stalin is a traitor kill Stalin
Stalin has ordered it, they will obey
Since no one dares to contradict me.
Or they won't, afraid it is a trap.
What's whispering in the hallways now. Guard.
Treason is human. Am I still a human.
Who besides Stalin could betray Stalin.
In every human there's a Hitler hiding, a
Capitalist, kulak, and saboteur.
I can't wait till he slips out of his skin.
If you'll choke him maybe he'll see reason
Or whipped with hunger, or with fear
Of Asia or rebellion from the sewers.
I know the dreams that waft about, Churchill,
In your brain that has been steeped in whisky:
You exorcise the devil with the devil
One of them has to break the other's neck
Brown against red Red against brown makes white
The corpses carpet of three continents
Upon which you are dancing your last tango.
Whoever doesn't want to love me got to fear me
We're each one dancing on his own dance floor.
My trump's called Hitler, there are no rules to heed
In times of need.
OFFICER: The Germans are attacking, Comrade Stalin.
STALIN: Guards. Tear his tongue out. He is lying.
I should have known it, I before anyone.
A joke, the eagle who trusted the vulture.
And I stand naked facing his divisions
My army has no head. I wished I hadn't
Have them shot, all my best generals.
I had to have them shot, or didn't I.
Suspicion equals guilt, traitors everywhere
Better one death too many than a dagger
In your back. What noise there at my borders.
The Germans are attacking. Who are the Germans
A flock of small fry at Asia's western margin.
Why do I feel cold sweat upon my brow.
Forgotten who I am. The Great Stalin.
I am afraid of my own shadow.
(One after the other, three apparitions enter: LENIN, babbling and screaming after his second apoplexy; TROTSKY, with Macbeth's axe still in his skull, in the turret of a German tank; HITLER, who is barking one of his speeches.)
STALIN: (To Lenin.) There it is, your German revolution you were dreaming of in October. They will drag your corpse from the mausoleum and feed it to their dogs. Fodder for Hitler's German shepherd, that's what you are now, Lenin, for your beloved German working class.
(To Hitler.) Hitler, my friend of yesterday.
Brother Hitler. You're burning down my villages, That's good.
Because they're hating you, they'll learn to love me.
Your trail of blood will wash my name snow white.
You've got your time but not more time than I have.
Go on and conquer. Drive your tanks into the snow
That buries them when its time has come
My back's called Asia, my wolves are waiting
They've learned it well while they were in my gulag.
Your war is now their hope that they will march
To Germany along the tracks your tanks made.
The sluices you have opened, now the flood comes.
And you shall be the first who will be drowned.
The final conqueror is always death.
In a rat's cage you'll see Moscow at last
Before your dead and mine will rise again.
(Enter THE DEAD.)
In: A Heiner Müller reader: plays, poetry, prose. Edited and translated by Carl Weber. PAJ-Book: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984, p. 184-188.
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