Great music - terrible libretto - what is the best opera with the worst libretto.

[Master Jacques]

OK, but one problem here is that both Shostakovich and Roslavets (who suffered under that régime even worse than did Shostakovich himself) began as fans of it until it began to come back and bite them - so yes, Shostakovich's relationship with Communism as distinct from the régime that purported to promulgate it is a far from simple matter but, rather than "clandestinely anti-Communist" per se, it would hardly be a matter of surprise were he clandestinely anti-the régime given certain of its conduct.

A wise and useful distinction: it's our mistake to conflate 'Communist' with 'Soviet' when it comes to how artists felt about one, the other, or both.

And it is indeed far from simple, as Bryn's quote from McBurney demonstrates. The 5th Symphony finale can indeed enshrine more than one thought. Though sometimes I feel we're in danger of over-interpreting DSch's constant self-quotations (sometimes, as in the 13th Quartet's reliance on the King Lear music, it is surely because the music was too good not to be recycled) that probably isn't the case here.

[RichardB]

it's our mistake to conflate 'Communist' with 'Soviet' when it comes to how artists felt about one, the other, or both.

I used the formulation "anti-communist" to make clear that this was the spin put on to Shostakovich's work by Western, and particularly American, commentators, for whom it was indeed convenient to conflate these things, for obvious reasons.