Page "Boris Pasternak" Paragraph 3

After Joseph Stalin was acclaimed as leader of the CPSU in 1929, Pasternak became further disillusioned with the Party's tightening censorship of literature.

Still unwilling to conform, Pasternak remained a close friend of Anna Akhmatova and Osip Mandelstam.

Mandelstam recited his searing indictment of Stalin, the Stalin Epigram, to Pasternak soon after its composition in late April 1934.

After listening, Pasternak told Mandelstam, " I didn't hear this, you didn't recite it to me, because, you know, very strange and terrible things are happening now: they've begun to pick people up.

I'm afraid the walls have ears and perhaps even these benches on the boulevard here may be able to listen and tell tales.

So let's make out that I heard nothing.