| Nothing Can Stop Us | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Compilation album by | ||||
| Released | March 1982 | |||
| Recorded | 1980–1981 | |||
| Genre | Progressive rock, pop rock | |||
| Length | 39:51 | |||
| Label | Rough Trade | |||
| Producer | Various | |||
| Robert Wyatt chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Official audio | ||||
| "Born Again Cretin" on YouTube | ||||
Nothing Can Stop Us is a compilation album by Robert Wyatt released in 1982.
Consisting primarily of tracks released as singles and B-sides during the late 1970s and early 1980s, it only contains one Wyatt composition (the opening track "Born Again Cretin"). The rest of the songs are cover versions, a selection of musically and thematically disparate songs by a very varied collection of original artists, including Ivor Cutler, 1940s protest songs, Billie Holiday, "The Red Flag", and Spanish-language numbers (including a version of "Caimanera/Guantanamera"). There is a rendition of Chic's "At Last I Am Free".
The two songs not previously issued as singles are "Born Again Cretin" (taken from an NME compilation cassette) and "The Red Flag" (which was previously unreleased.) This was the only full-length LP released by Wyatt in the ten years between Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard (1975) and his fourth solo studio album Old Rottenhat (1985)
In 1979, Peter Blackman read his poem Stalingrad (about the Soviet Union's fight against Nazi Germany during the Battle of Stalingrad) to an enthusiastic audience that included Jack Dash, a famous communist trade unionist and leader of many British dock workers. After hearing Blackman perform the poem, Wyatt convinced him to record it. [1] The recording ended up as the B-side of Wyatt's 1981 single Stalin Wasn't Stallin' , a cover of a Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet song about the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The lyrics of which praise the Soviet people and especially Joseph Stalin (the Soviet leader of the time and namesake of the city of Stalingrad, where the battle happened) for fighting back against the Nazi invaders. Wyatt recorded the cover to remind the Western World that although they were enemies of the Soviet Union during the Cold War during the 1980s, they were allies of them against the bigger enemy of the Nazis during World War II in the 1940s when the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet wrote and recorded the original Stalin Wasn't Stallin.
In America, Nothing Can Stop Us was released on CD paired with Old Rottenhat under the title Compilation. [2]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [3] |
| Robert Christgau | B+<ref name='wyatt</td'> |
</ref"> "Robert Christgau: CG: wyatt". robertchristgau.com.</ref>
| rev3 = Pitchfork Media | rev3Score = 8.4/10 [4] }}
The song "Born Again Cretin" is sampled in the 1999 Italian single "Re-Born Again Cretin" by Almamegretta and Dub Colossus, featuring the vocals of Julianna, which originally appeared on the 1998 album Robert Wyatt e Noi - The Different You, a compilation on CPI Records.
The sleeve artwork is by Wyatt's wife Alfreda Benge.
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that enabled those two powers to partition Poland between them. The pact was signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939 by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and was officially known as the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Unofficially, it has also been referred to as the Hitler–Stalin Pact, Nazi–Soviet Pact or Nazi–Soviet Alliance.
The Tehran Conference was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943, after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. It was held in the Soviet Union's embassy in Tehran, Iran. It was the first of the World War II conferences of the "Big Three" Allied leaders. It closely followed the Cairo Conference which had taken place on 22–26 November 1943, and preceded the 1945 Yalta and Potsdam conferences. Although the three leaders arrived with differing objectives, the main outcome of the Tehran Conference was the Western Allies' commitment to open a second front against Nazi Germany. The conference also addressed the 'Big Three' Allies' relations with Turkey and Iran, operations in Yugoslavia and against Japan, and the envisaged post-war settlement. A separate protocol signed at the conference pledged the Big Three to recognize Iran's independence.
Robert Wyatt is a retired English musician. A founding member of the influential Canterbury scene bands Soft Machine and Matching Mole, he was initially a kit drummer and singer before becoming paraplegic following an accidental fall from a window in 1973, which led him to abandon band work, explore other instruments, and begin a forty-year solo career.
The history of the Soviet Union between 1927 and 1953 covers the period in Soviet history from the establishment of Stalinism through victory in the Second World War and down to the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. Stalin sought to destroy his enemies while transforming Soviet society with central planning, in particular through the forced collectivization of agriculture and rapid development of heavy industry. Stalin consolidated his power within the party and the state and fostered an extensive cult of personality. Soviet secret-police and the mass-mobilization Communist Party served as Stalin's major tools in molding Soviet society. Stalin's methods in achieving his goals, which included party purges, political repression of the general population, and forced collectivization, led to millions of deaths: in Gulag labor camps and during famine.
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and Southeast Europe (Balkans) from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945. It was known as the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union and some of its successor states, while everywhere else it was called the Eastern Front.
Ivor Cutler was a Scottish poet, singer, musician, songwriter, artist and humorist. He became known for his regular performances on BBC radio, and in particular his numerous sessions recorded for John Peel's influential eponymous late night radio programme, and later for Andy Kershaw's programme. He appeared in the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour film in 1967 and on Neil Innes' television programmes. Cutler also wrote books for children and adults and was a teacher at A. S. Neill's Summerhill School and for 30 years in inner-city schools in London.
"Stalin Wasn't Stallin' " was a song written in 1943 by Willie Johnson and originally recorded by the a cappella gospel group the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet in 1943. Robert Wyatt recorded a cover of the song in 1980.
Vasily Semyonovich Grossman was a Soviet writer and journalist.
German–Soviet Union relations date to the aftermath of the First World War. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, dictated by Germany ended hostilities between Russia and Germany; it was signed on March 3, 1918. A few months later, the German ambassador to Moscow, Wilhelm von Mirbach, was shot dead by Russian Left Socialist-Revolutionaries in an attempt to incite a new war between Russia and Germany. The entire Soviet embassy under Adolph Joffe was deported from Germany on November 6, 1918, for their active support of the German Revolution. Karl Radek also illegally supported communist subversive activities in Weimar Germany in 1919.
Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili was the eldest of Joseph Stalin's three legitimate children, the son of Stalin's first wife, Kato Svanidze, who died nine months after his birth. His father, then a young revolutionary in his mid-20s, left the child to be raised by his late wife's family. In 1921, when Dzhugashvili had reached the age of fourteen, he was brought to Moscow, where his father had become a leading figure in the Bolshevik government, eventually becoming head of the Soviet Union. Disregarded by Stalin, Dzhugashvili was a shy, quiet child who appeared unhappy and tried to commit suicide several times as a youth. Married twice, Dzhugashvili had three children, two of whom reached adulthood.
Neo-Stalinism is the promotion of positive views of Joseph Stalin's role in history, the partial re-establishing of Stalin's policies on certain issues and nostalgia for the Stalin period. Neo-Stalinism overlaps significantly with neo-Sovietism and Soviet nostalgia. Various definitions of the term have been given over the years.
Life and Fate is a novel by Vasily Grossman, written in the Soviet Union in 1959 and published in 1980. Technically, it is the second half of the author's conceived two-part book under the same title. Although the first half, the novel Stalingrad, written during the rule of Joseph Stalin and first published in 1952, expresses loyalty to the regime, Life and Fate sharply criticises Stalinism. In 2021, the critic and editor Robert Gottlieb, writing in The New York Times, referred to Life and Fate as "the most impressive novel written since World War II."
Propaganda in the Soviet Union was the practice of state-directed communication to promote class conflict, internationalism, the goals of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the party itself.
Old Rottenhat is the fourth studio album by Robert Wyatt. It was released in November 1985, and in 1993 it was reissued in its entirety as part of the CD Mid-Eighties. The album was produced and performed solo by Wyatt, and is dedicated to Michael Bettaney, a UK MI5 intelligence officer who in 1984 was convicted for acting as an agent-in-place for the Soviet Union.
After the Nazis rose to power in Germany in 1933, relations between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union began to deteriorate rapidly. Trade between the two sides decreased. Following several years of high tension and rivalry, the two governments began to improve relations in 1939. In August of that year, the countries expanded their economic relationship by entering into a Trade and Credit agreement whereby the Soviet Union sent critical raw materials to Germany in exchange for weapons, military technology and civilian machinery. That deal accompanied the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which contained secret protocols dividing central Europe between them, after which both Nazi forces and Soviet forces invaded territories listed within their "spheres of influence".
German–Soviet Axis talks occurred in October and November 1940 concerning the Soviet Union's potential entry as a fourth Axis Power during World War II. The negotiations, which occurred during the era of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, included a two-day conference in Berlin between Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and Adolf Hitler and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. The talks were followed by both countries trading written proposed agreements.
After the United Kingdom, France, and Italy signed the Munich Agreement with Germany on 30 September 1938, an agreement which "provided 'cession to Germany of the Sudeten German territory' of Czechoslovakia, despite the existence of the 1924 alliance agreement and the 1925 military pact between France and the Czechoslovak Republic, a reason for which it is also known as the Munich Betrayal," almost a year later, the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany on 23 August 1939. In addition to stipulations of non-aggression, the treaty included a secret protocol that divided territories of Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland into German and Soviet Union "spheres of influence", anticipating potential "territorial and political rearrangements" of these countries. In October and November 1940, German-Soviet talks about the potential of joining the Axis took place in Berlin, but nothing came from the talks since Hitler's Ideological goal was Lebensraum in the East.
Entertainer and activist Paul Robeson's political philosophies and outspoken views about domestic and international Communist countries and movements were the subject of great concern to the western mass media and the United States Government, during the Cold War. His views also caused controversy within the ranks of black organizations and the entertainment industry.
Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before... is a compilation of Rough Trade's artists covering classics from the label's back-catalogue. It was released to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the legendary indie label, in late 2003. A limited edition 7" split single featuring "Ride It On" by Delays and "Lions After Slumber" by The Veils was released to promote the album.
Peter Blackman (1909–1993) was a Caribbean communist, scholar, civil rights activist, and Christian missionary. After challenging a racist rule in which white missionaries earned more than their black counterparts, Blackman resigned as a priest and dedicated himself to both communism and black civil rights activism. He was a key member of the Negro Welfare Association and the League of Coloured Peoples, and an active member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). During his career as a communist party activist, he became close friends with American civil rights leaders Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Bois. He worked as a radio broadcaster for the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) during the Second World War for their Caribbean services, however in 1950 he was fired from his job for having communist beliefs. Afterwards he joined the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) and volunteered to write letters for people with learning disabilities. In his later life he dedicated his time to writing poetry.
