“Жить Стало Лучше“ - Soviet Patriotic Song

“Жить стало лучше“/“Zhit’ stalo luchshe“ (Life Has Become Better) is a Soviet patriotic folk song that inspired the State Anthem of the Soviet Union. The song originated from a Stalin quote at the first meeting of the Stakhanovite movement, which was a Soviet worker movement that aimed to strengthen proletarian bonds and increase production by working harder and more effeciently through a system called “socialist emulation.“ During this meeting, Stalin said the famous line during a speech: “Life has become better, comrades. Life has become more joyous. And when life becomes joyous, work too becomes joyous.“ In 1936, the opening lines of that quote served as inspiration for a patriotic song written by Vasily Lebedev-Kumach and composed by Alexander Alexandrov. The opening bars of Alexandrov’s composition would come into use again in around 1938, when Alexandrov wrote the music that would serve as the melody for the State Anthem of the Union of Soviet Socialist Re