September 6, 1947

Greetings to Moscow, the capital of our country, on its 800th anniversary.

The entire country is today celebrating this significant day. It is celebrating it not formally, but with feelings of love and reverence, because of the great services Moscow has rendered our country.

The services which Moscow has rendered are not only that it thrice in the course of the history of our country liberated her from foreign oppression – from the Mongolian yoke, from Polish-Lithuanian invasion and from French incursion. The service Moscow rendered is primarily that it became the basis for uniting disunited Russia into a single state, with a single government and a single leadership. No country in the world can count on preserving its independence, on real economic and cultural growth, if it has not succeeded in liberating itself from feudal disunity and strife among princes. Only a country which is united in a single, centralized state can count on the possibility of real cultural and economic growth, on the possibility of firmly establishing its independence. The historic service which Moscow rendered is that it has been and remains the basis and the initiator in the creation of a centralized state in Russia.

But this is not the only service that Moscow has rendered our country. After Moscow, by the will of our great Lenin, was again proclaimed the capital of our country, it became the banner bearer of the new, Soviet epoch.

Moscow is today not only the inspirer in the building of the new, Soviet social and economic order, which substituted the rule of Labour for the rule of capital and rejected the exploitation of man by man. Moscow is also the herald of the movement for the liberation of toiling mankind from capitalist slavery.

Moscow is today not only the inspirer in the building of the new, Soviet democracy, which rejects all, direct or indirect, inequality of citizens, sexes, races and nations, and ensures the right to work and the right to equal pay for equal work. Moscow is also the banner of the struggle which all the working people in the world, all the oppressed races and nations, are waging to liberate themselves from the rule of plutocracy and imperialism. There can be no doubt that without this policy Moscow could not have become the centre of organization of the friendship of nations and of their fraternal cooperation in our multi-national state.

Moscow is today not only the initiator in the building of the new way of life of the working people of the capital, a life free from want and wretchedness suffered by millions of poor and unemployed. Moscow is also a model for all the capitals in the world in this respect. One of the gravest sores of the large capitals of countries in Europe, Asia and America are the slums in which millions of impoverished working people are doomed to wretchedness and a slow and painful death. The service which Moscow has rendered is that it completely abolished these slums and gave the working people the opportunity to move out of their cellars and hovels into the apartments and houses of the bourgeoisie and into the new comfortable houses which have been built by the Soviet authorities.

Lastly, the service Moscow renders is that it is the herald of the struggle for durable peace and friendship among the nations, the herald of the struggle against the incendiaries of a new war. For the imperialists, war is the most profitable undertaking. It is not surprising that the agents of imperialism are trying, in ‘one way or another, to provoke a new war. The service which Moscow renders is that it unceasingly exposes the incendiaries of a new war and rallies around the banner of peace all the peace-loving nations. It is common knowledge that the peace-loving nations look with hope to Moscow as the capital of the great peace-loving power and as a mighty bulwark of peace.

It is because of these services that our country is today celebrating the 800th anniversary of Moscow with such love and reverence for her capital.

Long live our mighty, beloved, Soviet, Socialist Moscow! J. Stalin

("Soviet Calender 1917 - 1947")