Joseph Stalin, record collector
Joseph Stalin 1938 By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R80329 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5368597
Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union, was a music lover who enjoyed special privileges. He could enforce his musical tastes on the Russian people, and in some cases he did so. He was the bane of composers such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich, accusing them of formalism, and forcing them to conform to socialist realism in their works.
On this week's Classics of the Phonograph, Saturday at 11 am on WILL-FM, we will hear some of the music he hated, and some he loved.