Customer Reviews

Best of Communism: Revolutionary Comm Songs

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I like this CD. It's passionate and an interesting historical find. Recommended for Russian enthusists, history buffs, or true Marxist/Socialists. On a side note(directed at the previous reviewer), please have the courtesy to review the CD only if you have it or have heard it. Please do not attempt to turn this into a political forum.

The CD had all the songs I was looking for but they were all in Magyar. Unless you speak magyar I don't sugest it

Contrary to what another reviewer wrote about the fourth song "Onward Red Guards, Proletarians", this is not an adaptation of a nazi tune. It was written by Leonid Petrovitsch Radin in a Moscow cell in 1897 and it played an important role in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 in Russia. The version on this CD is good. It is also knowned in German under the name Brüder Zur Sonne Zur Freiheit and in English under the name Boldly comrades in steps... There is also a French version (Hardi camarades !) but it is the Russian original version that is the best (Smelo Tovarishchi, V'Nogu) which was often sung during Bolshevik proclamations...

This album is interesting for the genuine revolutionary songs that are for once well orchestrated. However the lasts tunes are a lot less interesting since they date from the stalinist period and have never been sung by any revolutionnary... Otherwise, it would have been a 5 stars.

Sound was not good at all, there are a few good songs on the CD.

When doing reviews sometimes one gets the feeling that you don't have much new to offer about a particular item, but here I can honestly say that my perspective is invaluable because I have to be one of the least communistic, socialistic people on this earth. I despise statism in all its forms and am a diehard classical liberal. That being said, beautiful is beautiful and this music is both cheerful and inspiring. Try not playing track 8 and 14 repeatedly. I bet a multitude of listeners will agree with me that they are rare and pleasing songs.

In fact, that I cannot discern a word of this CDs' lyrics is a point in its favor because, were it otherwise and I comprehended its message, I'm sure that it would grate on me. With politics, I've argued before with plenty of people that you don't just ignore the history you don't like or what isn't warm and fuzzy. Hearing Lenin's voice makes this CD a primary source document and adds to its worth. Even if you hate Lenin the recording remains a rope to the past and it is one we should not cut. Communists do just about everything poorly but I have to say that some of their musical ventures were worthwhile--just look at Prokofiev and Shostakovich (of course I do realize that they would have created even greater works had they not been terrorized by the bureaucratic authorities). Regardless, this is an exquisite recording.

This CD is a compilation of the songs and marches of the Communist workers' movement in Hungary. It demonstrates the people's support for their Communist government leaders. A must have for Communists, those who study Socialist countries, or any worker who wants a better world. Workers of the World, Unite!

Although I am not a fan of communism, this is a great compilation of all of Communism's greatest hits. Yes, this is great music to start all of your meetings will. Your comrades and you will speak of all of the pains and woes of the common working man until the next rising. A must buy comrade.

This collection of socialist anthems does indeed bear some formal resemblance to the marches of the Third Reich, most notably track 4 (Onwards Red Guard, Proletarians), the tune of which was adapted from a Nazi march. For those conversant in Magyar, however, the similarities end there. The lyrics of these Hungarian anthems, like most communist anthems, pointedly express aspirations for internationalism and the empowerment of all peoples. This is a critical contrast with Nazi anthems which, in proclaiming the superiority of a single people and nation over all others, are in fact closer in spirit to the patriotic odes of the United States. Would a disc of the US Marines marching band thus make an equally good companion recording? Whatever the case, perhaps the most interesting contextual value of this recording is how poignantly it demonstrates the radical disjunction between the proclaimed intent of communism and the far darker reality of its implementation and practice. To this end, a lyric sheet would certainly strengthen the package. But, even without it, the recording and historical values of this disc are strong (as is to be expected from the Hungaraton label), especially for those of us who've come to the realization that the cold war ended roughly a decade ago. And most importantly, by reminding us that "all labour is good", this recording makes for excelent house-cleaning music.

I received another DVD and therefore can offer no review.

This is a collection of songs which accompanied meetings and events organized by the Communist Party of Hungary. But many of them were sung by Communists in other parts of the Soviet Block as well as in Western Europe and America. Listening to them one gets the idea of what it was like to be forced to take part in annual May-Day marches or to witness Party congresses after the bloody supression of the uprising of Hungarian workers in 1956. Not less significantly, the songs illustrate musical predilections of people who supported, organized, and run Gulag anihilation camps. A collection of Nazi songs would be a fitting companion CD.