great Starover Blue & party line in Pale Fire

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes IPH (a lay Institute of the Preparation for Hereafter) and mentions the great Starover Blue who reviewed the role planets had played as landfalls of the soul:

We heard cremationists guffaw and snort

At Grabermann's denouncing the Retort

As detrimental to the birth of wraiths.

We all avoided criticizing faiths.

The great Starover Blue reviewed the role

Planets had played as landfalls of the soul.

The fate of beasts was pondered. A Chinese

Discanted on the etiquette at teas

With ancestors, and how far up to go.

I tore apart the fantasies of Poe,

And dealt with childhood memories of strange

Nacreous gleams beyond the adults' range. (ll. 623-634)

Starover is Russian for "Old Believer." In his article Sotsial-demokraticheskaya dushechka (“The Social-Democratic Darling,” 1905) Lenin compares Comrade Starover (the pen name of Alexander Potresov, 1869-1934, one of the leaders of the Menshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party) to the heroine of Chekhov’s story Dushechka (“The Darling,” 1899):

«Тов. Старовер очень похож на героиню чеховского рассказа „Душечка“. Душечка жила сначала с антрепренёром и говорила: мы с Ванечкой ставим серьёзные пьесы. Потом жила она с торговцем лесом и говорила: мы с Васечкой возмущены высоким тарифом на лес. Наконец, жила с ветеринаром и говорила: мы с Колечкой лечим лошадей. Так и тов. Старовер. „Мы с Лениным“ ругали Мартынова. „Мы с Мартыновым“ ругаем Ленина. Милая социал-демократическая душечка! в чьих-то объятиях очутишься ты завтра?»

In his book Shag vperyod, dva shaga nazad: Krisis v nashey partii ("One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: A Crisis in Our Party," 1904) Lenin pairs Starover with Axelrod, Trotsky and Plekhanov:

Но, разоблачая узость и ограниченность всех других движений, кроме социал-демократического, мы обязаны разъяснять проле­тариату, что по сравнению с абсолютизмом даже конституция, не дающая всеобщего избирательного права, есть шаг вперед и что поэтому он не должен предпочитать суще­ствующий порядок такой конституции". Товарищи Мартынов, Либер и Махов не со­глашаются с этим и отстаивают свою позицию, на которую нападают Аксельрод, Ста­ровер, Троцкий и еще раз Плеханов. Тов. Махов успел при этом еще раз побить самого себя.

Gradus (the name of Shade's murderer) means in Latin step (an ancient Roman unit of length). According to Shade, IPH could at least compete with churches and the party line:

Among our auditors were a young priest

And an old Communist. Iph could at least

Compete with churches and the party line.

In later years it started to decline:

Buddhism took root. A medium smuggled in

Pale jellies and a floating mandolin.

Fra Karamazov, mumbling his inept

All is allowed, into some classes crept;

And to fulfill the fish wish of the womb,

A school of Freudians headed for the tomb. (ll. 635-644)

In Canto Four of his poem Shade speaks of the things that he loathes and pairs Freud with Marx:

Now I shall speak of evil as none has

Spoken before. I loathe such things as jazz;

The white-hosed moron torturing a black

Bull, rayed with red; abstractist bric-a-brac;

Primitivist folk-masks; progressive schools;

Music in supermarkets; swimming pools;

Brutes, bores, class-conscious Philistines, Freud, Marx,

Fake thinkers, puffed-up poets, frauds and sharks. (ll. 922-930)