The poem had asked for peasants to oppose in every way the regime's agricultural policies: it had been issued as the last wave of brutal collectivization was taking hold of the rural landscape.
According to Orthodox priest Fabian Seiche, while in prison, Gyr was not treated for any illnesses he had, was often starved, and even tortured.
[2][3] Literary critic Alex Ștefănescu [ro] finds that the poem is "full of drama, of great expressive power" in which "communism itself is transfigured and appears as a metaphysical evil".
It is about a cry of revolt against communism, in the tragic years when our peasants were forcibly dispossessed of their land by the Soviet occupiers, in complicity with the Romanian communists".
Așa, ca să bei libertatea din ciuturi și-n ea să te-afunzi ca un cer în bulboane și zarzării ei peste tine să-i scuturi, ridică-te, Gheorghe, ridică-te, Ioane!