The USSR’s fanatical Communist ideology crushed the spirit of its people and ultimately murdered millions of them. The Soviet Union was a wretched curse on mankind and, as with traditional curses, it may not be at an end. Because with film we can go straight into the mind of the masses!” - Jonathan Bowden, “ Hans-Jürgen Syberberg: Leni Riefenstahl’s Heir” why he’d been spared, Stalin said, “Shostakovich can write film music. Every musician that Shostakovich was at the Moscow Conservatory with in one particular year was shot.
