I, Stalin

Gentlemen of the celestial assembly!

I am standing here today in front of you. Not because I wanted to-it is you who have dragged me here. Not to express my regrets-my second wife's death apart, regrets I have none. Not to justify myself-I need no justification. Not to prevent future historians from spreading even more lies about me-being dead, what do I care? Not so that you may acquit me-I know full well you won't. Not because I believe you exist; as a historical materialist, I do not. To quote the great Marx, religion is the opium of the masses. Heaven and hell are but fables the self-styled "upper classes," using those lick-spittles, the priests, have invented to keep those masses in their place.

And not to glorify my own role in history, not inconsiderable as it may have been. But solely to help ensure, as far as I can, that memory of the way the first-ever government of the proletariat, by the proletariat, for the proletariat, came about, overcame all obstacles, and triumphed, should not perish from the face of the earth.

So I hereby submit my res gestae. A summary, unembellished but truthful, of my deeds in the material world, the only really existent one. From this time forth I never will speak word.

I, Joseph Stalin 6 March 1953.