See
for the cantata,
http://www.wqxr.org/#!/story/204134-houston-symphony-plays-subversive-shostakovich/
for the libretto in English, ("Comrades! Realistic music is written by people’s composers, while formalistic music is written by anti-people’s composers. May I ask why realistic music is written by people’s composers, and formalistic music is written by anti-people’s composers? Realistic music, comrades, is written by people’s composers just because they, being realists by their natures cannot, nay, cannot help writing realistic music. While anti-people’s composers, being formalists by their nature, cannot, nay, cannot help writing formalistic music. Therefore, the solution is for people’s composers to develop realistic music, and for anti-people’s composers to stop their more doubtful experimenting in the domain of formalistic music...") and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Formalist_Rayok for background on this satire on the CPSU's 1948 "anti-formalist" decree.[1] Let's say--as the Wikipedia article indicates, there is some dispute about this--that it was actually written or at least begun during Stalin's lifetime. Anyway, my POD is that Stalin discovers it, including the part where Stalin offers his musicological insights to the tune of *Suliko* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suliko (How does Stalin discover it? Let's say betrayal by a close friend in whom Shostakovich had confided.)
What happens to Shostakovich? Of course, we all know from Mandelstam's example what can happen when "private" expressions of anti-Stalinist feelings in art get reported to Stalin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin_Epigram but there are a couple of differences: (1) Shostakovich unlike Mandelstam had an international reputation, often appeared at world conferences to support the Soviet "peace" campaign, etc. and (2) having one's pronouncements on music being made fun of isn't quite the same thing as being denounced as a mass murderer. (On second thought, the international reputation works both ways, because it brought Shostakovich into frequent contact with foreigners, which would make accusations of spying easier.) Of course, in between arrest on the one hand and "nothing worse than a private warning to Shoatakovich" on the other, there are intermediate possibilities: he isn't arrested, he remains a member of the Union of Composers, etc. but he clearly falls out of favor, can't have any new works performed, etc. (Similar to what happened to Pasternak, who in the last years of Stalin's life was limited to translation work; he could only write his own poetry and prose "for the drawer.")
[1] This decree was nominally directed against Muradeli's opera "The Great Friendship" but actually against a number of composers, including Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Khachaturian. See
http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv12n2/muradeli.htm Muradeli's opera was found politically as well as musically defective: it represented the Georgians and Ossetians as having at first fought the Russians after the Revolution, though soon to be reconciled with Soviet power. This was incorrect, said the resolution: these peoples had fought side by side with the Russian people for Soviet power from the beginning. The only peoples who "hindered the friendship of peoples" in the North Caucasus were the Chechens and Ingush (who, as the resolution did not state but everyone knew, had been deported en masse during the Second World War, and their republic wiped from the map).
http://www.wqxr.org/#!/story/204134-houston-symphony-plays-subversive-shostakovich/
for the libretto in English, ("Comrades! Realistic music is written by people’s composers, while formalistic music is written by anti-people’s composers. May I ask why realistic music is written by people’s composers, and formalistic music is written by anti-people’s composers? Realistic music, comrades, is written by people’s composers just because they, being realists by their natures cannot, nay, cannot help writing realistic music. While anti-people’s composers, being formalists by their nature, cannot, nay, cannot help writing formalistic music. Therefore, the solution is for people’s composers to develop realistic music, and for anti-people’s composers to stop their more doubtful experimenting in the domain of formalistic music...") and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Formalist_Rayok for background on this satire on the CPSU's 1948 "anti-formalist" decree.[1] Let's say--as the Wikipedia article indicates, there is some dispute about this--that it was actually written or at least begun during Stalin's lifetime. Anyway, my POD is that Stalin discovers it, including the part where Stalin offers his musicological insights to the tune of *Suliko* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suliko (How does Stalin discover it? Let's say betrayal by a close friend in whom Shostakovich had confided.)
What happens to Shostakovich? Of course, we all know from Mandelstam's example what can happen when "private" expressions of anti-Stalinist feelings in art get reported to Stalin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin_Epigram but there are a couple of differences: (1) Shostakovich unlike Mandelstam had an international reputation, often appeared at world conferences to support the Soviet "peace" campaign, etc. and (2) having one's pronouncements on music being made fun of isn't quite the same thing as being denounced as a mass murderer. (On second thought, the international reputation works both ways, because it brought Shostakovich into frequent contact with foreigners, which would make accusations of spying easier.) Of course, in between arrest on the one hand and "nothing worse than a private warning to Shoatakovich" on the other, there are intermediate possibilities: he isn't arrested, he remains a member of the Union of Composers, etc. but he clearly falls out of favor, can't have any new works performed, etc. (Similar to what happened to Pasternak, who in the last years of Stalin's life was limited to translation work; he could only write his own poetry and prose "for the drawer.")
[1] This decree was nominally directed against Muradeli's opera "The Great Friendship" but actually against a number of composers, including Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Khachaturian. See
http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv12n2/muradeli.htm Muradeli's opera was found politically as well as musically defective: it represented the Georgians and Ossetians as having at first fought the Russians after the Revolution, though soon to be reconciled with Soviet power. This was incorrect, said the resolution: these peoples had fought side by side with the Russian people for Soviet power from the beginning. The only peoples who "hindered the friendship of peoples" in the North Caucasus were the Chechens and Ingush (who, as the resolution did not state but everyone knew, had been deported en masse during the Second World War, and their republic wiped from the map).