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In 1943, a meeting took place between Dmitri Shostakovich and Iosif Stalin to choose the new Soviet anthem, at which another composer called Aleksandrov was also present. Aleksandrov's anthem, not [Shostakovich]'s, had been chosen by the "Great Leader and Teacher", but apparently when Stalin criticised Aleksandrov's arrangement, Aleksandrov's cringing response was that time was short and so his deputy, Knushevitsky, had done the arranging, and it was Knushevitsky's fault. Fearing Knushevitsky's imminent sacking and imprisonment, the quick-thinking Shostakovich jumped in to castigate Aleksandrov in front of Stalin, an extraordinary thing to do, saying that Aleksandrov was accusing his subordinate unjustly and behind his back. After a pipe-puffing pause Stalin's response was to say to Aleksandrov: "Really, professor, this isn't very nice . . ." After the musicians had left, Stalin reputedly declared to Molotov: "That Shostakovich seems to be a decent man."
[Solomon Volkov] is no psychologist, and many of his musings do little to clarify anything (for example, that which suggests Shostakovich suffered from a Christ complex), although they do raise interesting issues of the manner and nature of the dictator's control over how outsiders perceived Shostakovich (as in the author's belief that the 'Soviet Artist's Response to a Just Criticism' article was actually written by Stalin), and by extension how Stalin controlled the intelligentsia in general. Unhappily the book doesn't reproduce the 'Just Criticism' article as an appendix, nor does it reproduce the 1936 'Muddle instead of Music' review, also attributed to the "Great Teacher and Leader", a comparison with which is used as the basis for the assertion that Stalin wrote both.