Soviet mass song is built on easily-sung major-key melodies and a strong marching pulse, scored for solo voice answered by large choirs, brass bands and military ensembles. Most are bright and forward-looking, but the wartime repertoire includes deeply lyrical minor-key gems. The thick male-choir and military-band sound gives the unmistakable feeling that the state itself is singing.

In the 1930s, under Stalin-era socialist realism, the state deliberately cultivated a song genre called 'massovaya pesnya' (mass song). Composers such as Isaak Dunayevsky, Matvei Blanter and Alexander Alexandrov mass-produced songs for film and radio, and the Red Army Choir (Alexandrov Ensemble) acted as their loudspeaker. The goal was to push music praising labour, the motherland and the leader into every corner of daily life.

Listen for the 'call and response' structure, where a soloist sings a line and a huge choir answers it. Even over a marching four-beat, wartime songs use shifts between minor and major to draw tears. The pairing of brass-band horns with accordion creates a distinctive 'Soviet' timbre.

Mark Bernes singing 'Tyomnaya Noch' (Dark Is the Night, 1943) is the ideal entry point and shows the lyrical side of the wartime repertoire. For the heroic side, hear the Red Army Choir's 'Sacred War' (1941); the album of Alexandrov Ensemble recordings goes deeper.

Many tunes the world hears as timeless 'Russian folk songs' are in fact Soviet mass songs with named professional composers and exact release years. 'Million Roses', for instance, was a hit for the Soviet star Alla Pugacheva, not an anonymous folk tune.