The Court of the Red TsarUK £ © David King aa Rares 9 °780753 Joseph Stalin Nadezhda Stalin _ Ekaterina and Klim Voroshilov HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR BRITISH BOOK AWARDS Who was the boy from Georgia who rose to rule the Empire of the Tsars? Who were his Himmler, Goring, Goebbels? How did the ‘top ten’ families live? In this history of Stalin’s imperial court, the fear and betrayal, privilege and debauchery, family life and murderous brutality are brought blazingly to life. ‘The most civilised and elegant chronicle of brutality and ruthlessness I have ever read’ Ruth Rendell, Daily Telegraph Books of the Year “Extraordinary . . . this book will provide new insights on every page’ Anne Applebaum, Evening Standard ‘This grim masterpiece . . . the personal details are riveting’ Antonia Fraser, Mail on Sunday ‘Horrific, revelatory and sobering .. . 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Fei. Saeeeetl Eee ka160 Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar ‘White Guardists’ arrested for planning terrorist acts even before Kirov was assassinated, were sentenced to death by the Supreme Court's Military Collegium under the presidency of Vasily Ulrikh, a bullet-headed Baltic German nobleman who became Stalin's hanging judge. Another twenty-eight were shot in Kiev. On the 8th, Nikolai Yezhov, accompanied by Agranov, returned to Moscow from Leningrad to report for three hours on their hunt for the ‘terrorists’. Despite the tragedy and the dangerous signs that even Bolsheviks were soon to be shot for Kirov’s murder, the life of Stalin’s circle continued normally if sombrely. After the meeting with Yezhov, Molotov, Sergo, Kaganovich and Zhdanov dined with Stalin, Svetlana and Vasily, the Svanidzes and Alliluyevs at his flat as usual on 8 December. Svetlana received presents to help her recover from the loss of her beloved ‘Second Secretary’, Kirov. Stalin ‘had got thinner, paler with a hidden look in his eyes. He suffers so much.’ Maria Svanidze and Anna Alliluyeva bustled round Stalin. Alyosha Svanidze warned Maria to keep her distance. It was good advice but she did not take it because she thought he was just jealous of a relationship that possibly included an affair in the distant past. There was not enough food so Stalin called in Carolina Til and ordered her to rustle up more dinner. Stalin hardly ate. That night, he took Alyosha Svanidze, with Svetlana and Vasily, to spend the night at Kuntsevo while the others went on to Sergo’s flat. Since Stalin had declared within a couple of hours of Kirov’s death that Zinoviev and his supporters were responsible, it was no surprise that Yezhov and the NKVD arrested a ‘Leningrad Centre’ and a ‘Moscow Centre’, lists drawn up by Stalin himself. Nikolaev, interrogated to ‘prove’ the connection with Zinoviev, admitted a link on 6 December. Zinoviev and Kameney, Lenin’s two closest comrades and both ex-Politburo members who had saved Stalin’s career in 1925, were arrested. The Politburo were shown the testimonies of the ‘terrorists’. Stalin personally ordered Deputy Procurator-General Vyshinsky and Ulrikh to sentence them to death. All the witnesses remember that, as Yury Zhdanov puts it, ‘everything changed after Kirov's death’. Security was massively tightened at a time when the informality of Stalin’s court with its sense of fun, its bustling ambitious women, and scampering children, seemed more important than ever to comfort the | ni Renae 1020-1 0a Stalin kisses his daughter Svetlana on holiday, early 1930s. He adored -kles and red hair resembled his mother Keke, but her her: h intelligence and obstinacy came from Stalin himself. He called her ‘the Boss’ and let her give mock orders to his henchmen. He was affectionate ... until she started to grow up. Nadya was much less affectionate, more strict and puritanical with the children: when she gave birth to their first son, she walked to hospital. She had a special relationship with the fragile and truculent Vasily — but she was primarily a Bolshevik career woman who left the upbringing of her children to nannies. Here she holds Svetlana, who longed for her love.Stalin built his power slowly, informally, and charmingly — despite the rigid fagade of Party Congress, Central Committee and Politburo. 'The real business took place behind the scenes in the Kremlin’s smoky corridors. Here in 1927, Stalin chats at a Party Congress with allies Sergo Ordzhonikidze and (right) Premier Ale: Rykov. But Rykov soon opposed Stalin's el harsh policies — and paid the supreme penalty | | | z | a | | ee ; i eee ee Sr peetreere oct ji 3 ms - | 7op Stalin and his driver in the front with Nadya in the back of one of the Kremlin limousines: these were usually Packards, Buicks and Rolls-Royces. Nadya and Stalin lived | ascetically, but he personally took great trouble to assign cars and apartments to his henchmen ~ and even sometimes to their children. Each family received about three cars. {oove left Stalin and Nadya enjoyed cosy, loving holidays on the Black Sea, though both had fiery tempers and there were often rows. The rulers of Soviet Russia were a tiny oligarchy who tended to holiday and dine constantly together: here are the Stalins on the right with the plodding Molotov and his clever; passionate Jewish wife, Polina, Stalin and Nadya laughed at Molotoy. But the dictator never forgave Polina’s friendship with Nadya. Stalin had been the dominant Soviet leader since the mid-Twenties~ but not yet dictator. ght. Here, at a Party Congress, Stalin holds court amongst his grandees: Sergo Ordzhonikidze (front lefi) and Klim Voroshilov turn to face him while the laughing Kirov (standing, to right of Stalin), along with Kaganovich and Many of his magnates were powerful in their own r Above right At Zubalovo, their country house near Moscow, the Stalins and the other top families enjoyed idyllic weekends. Here, Stalin comes in from the garden, carrying Svetlana j Mikoyan (far right) and Postyshev (second from left).After her tragic death, Nadya lay in state. Stalin never recovered from her suicide and avenged himself on those whom he believed had encouraged her he crippled me’ he said. He sobbed when he saw her in her coffin. ‘Don’t ery Papa’, said Vasily, who was holding his hand Nadya’s funeral: Stalin walked for a while behind the surprisingly traditional coffin, but then drove on to the cemetery. His chief of personal security, Pauker, a Jewish former hairdresser nged the orchestras that can be seen on the right from the Budapest Opera, at Below Stalin leaving the Kremlin’s Great Palace with two of his closest allies: Sergo Ordzhonikidze, the flamboyant, irascible and emotional scourge of his enemies, who was said to be ‘the perfect Bolshevik’, and to resemble a ‘Georgian prince’, stands in the middle. Mikhail ‘Papa’ Kalinin (with walking stick), the Soviet Head of State, was a genial, womanising ex- peasant. Kalinin opposed Stalin — he was lucky to survive. Sergo confronted Stalin and found himself cornered. (ice ea ed Above Lazar Kaganovich, a brawny and handsome Jewish cobbler, was Stalin’s coarse stic, cruel and intelligent deputy in the 1930s. Here, during the ene famine that accompanied collectivisation, he personally leads an expedition into the Siberian countryside to search for grain hidden by peasants. The pace of Stalin’s campaigns was punishing: Kaganovich below, in middle) falls asleep afterwards surrounded by his officials and secret policemen. Left The magnates were so close they were like a family: “Uncle Abel’ Yenukidze (left) was Nadya’s godfather, Stalin’s old friend, a senior official and a sybaritic bachelor with a taste for ballerinas. Stalin came to resent his familiarity, Voroshilov on the right, dapper, good-natured, stupid, envious and brutal, made his name in the Battle of Tsaritsyn and, in 1937, supervised the massacre of about 40,000 of his own officers.Holidays were the best time to get to know Stalin: there was frantic -corded by 7 networking amongst the ndees the secret police in a special private even the most trivial activ album given to him afterwards: it shows : vt 3 politically significant if they the surprising intimacy and informality I Hithenourtiers Gloseto tt srought the courtiers close to the if his life during the holiday months. He ghee a aaah a age bo Boss. Young Lavrenti Beria, varticularly enjoyed picnics. Here, he - : I Joyer E Georgian leader and vicious sadist, and Voroshilov (in braces) go camping : F offered to help weed the gardens: above). He adored gardening, weedin: y placing an axe in his helt (above), at his Sochi dacha (lefi) — he loved roses, Secres he told Stalin that there was no tree but mimosas were his favourites. He was that he would not chop down less keen on hunting, but here sets off Aas en . 3 Stalin understood. with (from left) Budyonny, Voroshiloy and his Chekist crony Evdokimoy. Stalin with Lakoba and Kirov, embarking on a fishing and shooting trip on the Black Sea which was to end in a mysterious assassination attempt — did Beria arrange it? Above Stalin inspects the fishing catchMolotoy, Premier during the 1930s and the second most important leader after Stalin, who enjoyed teasing him was dominated by his wife Polina to whom he wrote passionate love letters Here, on holidays he plays tennis with his family; in winter, he pulled his spoilt daughter on her sledge. But this Soviet Robespierre believed in terror and never regretted signing the death warrants of the wives of his friends. Stalin nicknamed him ‘Molotstein’ or more fondly ‘our Vecha’. This is how Stalin ruled his Empire: with his family and friends around him, sitting out in the sun at the Sochi dacha, reading hundreds of pages and writing his orders in a red crayon, while his henchmen fight brutal duels for his favour. Beria stands like a guard behind him, having already fallen out with his patron Lakoba (right), while Svetlana (who called Beria “Uncle Lara’) plays around them. Within five years, Lakoba and his entire family were dead. _ On the Brink, 1934-1936 161 bereaved Vozhd. Yet the atmosphere had changed for ever: on 5 December, Rudzutak thought he saw Stalin pointing at him and accusing this proudly semi-educated Old Bolshevik of having ‘studied in college so how could his father be a labourer?’ Rudzutak wrote to Stalin ‘I wouldn't bother you with such trifles but I hear so much gossip about me, it’s sad, it’s reached you.’ Yan Rudzutak was an intelligent Latvian, a Politburo member and Stalin ally, an alumni of ten years in Tsarist prisons, with ‘tired expressive eyes’, a ‘slight limp from his hard labour’, and an enthusiastic nature photographer, but he clearly felt a chill from Stalin who no longer trusted him. ‘You're wrong, Rudzutak,’ Stalin replied, ‘I was pointing at Zhdanov not you. I know well you didn’t study at college. I read your letter in the presence of Molotov and Zhdanov. They confirmed you're wrong.’ Soon after the assassination, Stalin was walking through the Kremlin with a naval officer, past the security guards who were now posted at ten-yard intervals along the corridors, trained to follow every passer-by with their eyes. ‘Do you notice how they are?’ Stalin asked the officer. ‘You’re walking down the corridor and thinking, “Which one will it be?” If it’s this one, he’ll shoot you in the back after you’ve turned; if it’s that one, he’ll shoot you in the face.’ see On 21 December, shortly before these executions, the entourage arrived at Kuntsevo to celebrate Stalin’s fifty-fifth birthday. When there were not enough chairs at the table, Stalin and the men started moving the places and carrying in other tables, adding more place settings. Mikoyan and Sergo were elected ‘tamada’. Stalin was still depressed by the loss of Kirov but gradually regained his spirits. Yet when Maria Svanidze prepared a poem to read, Alyosha banned her from reading it, perhaps knowing that its sycophancy, or its obvious request for a ladies’ trip to the West, would irritate Stalin.* The dinner was shchi, cabbage soup, then veal. Stalin served soup for the guests, from the Molotovs, Poskrebyshev (with new * Maria’s poem’s reveals both the devotion and cheekiness of Stalin’s female courtiers: ‘We wish much happiness to our Dear Leader and endless life. Let the enemies be scared off. Liquidate all Fascists ... Next year, take the world under your sway, and rule all mankind. Shame the ladies can’t go West to Carlsbad. It’s all the same at Sochi.’208 Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar Meanwhile, the third Ordzhonikidze brother, Valiko, was sacked from his job in the Tiflis Soviet for claiming that Papulia was innocent. Sergo swallowed his pride and called Beria, who replied: ‘Dear Comrade Sergo! After your call, I quickly summoned Valiko ... Today Valiko was restored to his job. Yours L. Beria.’ This bears the pawprints of Stalin’s cat-and-mouse game, his meandering path to open destruction, perhaps his moments of nostalgic fondness, his supersensitive testing of limits. But Stalin now regarded Sergo as an enemy: his biography had just been published for his fiftieth birthday and Stalin studied it carefully, scribbling sarcastically next to the passages that acclaimed Sergo’s heroism: ‘What about the CC? The Party?’ Stalin and Sergo returned separately to Moscow where fifty-six of the latter’s officials were in the toils of the NKVD. Sergo however remained a living restraint on Stalin, making brave little gestures towards the beleaguered Rightists. ‘My dear kind warmly blessed Sergo,’ encouraged Bukharin: ‘Stand firm!’ At the theatre, when Stalin and the Politburo filed into the front seats, Sergo spotted ex- Premier Rykov and his daughter Natalya (who tells the story), alone and ignored, twenty rows up the auditorium. Leaving Stalin, Sergo galloped up to kiss them. The Rykovs were moved to tears in gratitude.* At the 7 November parade, Stalin, on the Mausoleum, spotted Bukharin in an ordinary seat and sent a Chekist to say, ‘Comrade Stalin has invited you on to the Mausoleum.’ Bukharin thought he was being arrested but then gratefully climbed the steps. Bukharin, the enchanting but hysterical intellectual whom everyone adored, bombarded Stalin with increasingly frantic letters through which we can feel the screw tightening. When writers fear for their lives, they write and write: ‘Big child!’ Stalin scribbled across one letter; ‘Crank!’ on another. Bukharin could not stop appealing to Stalin, about whom he was having dreams: ‘Everything connected with me is criticized,’ he wrote on 19 October 1936. ‘Even for the birthday of Sergo, they did not propose me to write an article ... Maybe I’m not honourable. To whom can I go, as a beloved person, without expecting a smash * ‘Men have gone to heaven for smaller things than that,’ wrote Oscar Wilde in De Profundis about Robbie Ross waiting amongst the crowd at Reading Station and being the only one to step forward and raise his hat as the disgraced writer travelled to Reading Gaol. The stakes were even higher for Sergo. 1934-1941 friendship was suffocating: After s death, Sergei Kirov, handsome, going Leningrad boss, became Stalin’s closest friend — here, he holidays with Stalin and Svetlana at Sochi. But there was tension when Kirov became dangerously popular, Did Stalin arrange his death? ae Even before Kirov’s assassination, Andrei Zhdanov, ebullient, burly yet frail, pretentious, self-important and ruthless, became Stalin’s favourite ~ the only other magnate who qualified as his ‘fellow intellectual’. Here, Zhdanoy joins the family, probably at the Coldstream dacha (from left): Vasily, Zhdanoy, talin and Yakoy. Right On the same lin and Svetlana. Svetlana occasion,The Court of the Red Tsar in the mid-1930s. Stalin is surrounded by his male comrades and the circle of outspoken, bossy women who ultimately became over-familiar and paid the price. On 21 December 1934, still reeling from the assassination of Kiroy, the courtiers, family and grandees gathered for Stalin’s birthday at his Kuntsevo dacha and were photographed by General Vlasik. Lakoba and Beria arrived late, (Back row standing, from left): Stan Redens, Kaganovich, Molotoy, Alyosha Svanidze, Anna Alliluyeva Redens; Vlas Chubar, Dora Khazan (married to Andreyev); Andrei Andreyev; Zinaida Ordzhonikidze; Pavel Alliluyev Middle Row): Maria Svanidze; Maria Kaganovich; Sashiko Svanidze; Stalin; Polina Molotoya; Voroshiloy. (Front row): unknown, possibly Shalva Eliava; Lakoba; possibly Lakoba’s wife; Sergo Ordzhonikidze; Zhenya Alliluyeva; Bronislava Poskrebysheva; unknown; and at the bottom front Beria, Mikoyan and Poskrebyshev. Stalin’s women: his beaming mistress Zhenya Alliluyeva sits at his feet in her li said what she liked to Stalin and it made her enemies. Pretty Bronislava Poskrebysheva, sits to the right of Zhenya. Bronislava’s daughter claims she was also Stalin’s mistress. she was liquidated. onetheless grandees ate in the avant-loge behind the box in between scenes. Here, in the former imperial box at the Bolshoi, sits (from left): Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Stalin, Sergo Ordzhonikid Mikoyan and their wives. Stalin’s mother K ed the same sardonic and mocking wit as her son. They were not close but Stalin sent dutiful letters, leaving Beria to act as his surrogate son, Shortly before her death when he was on holiday in gia, Beria arranged for him to visit the ailing Ke Former friends, now bitter rivals, Beria and Lakoba sit behind mother and son in her bet ce om.Lefi Like three boulevardiers in the sun, The two most depraved monsters of Stalin’s court. Atthe 17th Gi 1934 when they joined the leadership (but ngress in Beria, Caucasian viceroy (centre) hosts Voroshiloy and Mikoyan (right) in Tiflis for the Rustaveli Festival at the height of before their rise to supreme power), Beria the Terror, 1937. and Yezhoy, a rising Central Committee official, hug for the camera. Yezhov was an ambitious fanatic, good-natured if prone to illness, a bisexual dwarf who one until he was was liked by ev promoted to NKVD boss in 1936 and me Stalin’s frenzied killer: Beri Below A Jewish jeweller’s son with a knowledge of poisons, and ruthless be ja was ambition, Genrikh Yagoda was the NKVD boss who had reservations about an unscrupulous but able and intelligent the ‘Terror, Stalin threatened to punch secret policeman. In 1938, he was him in the face. Yagoda enjoyed the brought to Moscow to destroy Yezhov good lifer collecting wines, stowing whose execution he supervised. orchids, courting Gorky’s daughter-in- law, amassing ladies underwear, and buying German pornographic films and igarette holders. Left to right: Yagoda in uniform, Kalinin, Stalin, Molotoy, Vyshinsky, Beria obscene Léfi Ascendant grandee Yezhov (hugging his adopted daughter Natasha) and his promiscuous literary wife Yevgenia, who Marshal Semyon Budyonny, swaggering Sent Wiin Maile ern ects Bae to Mikhail Sholokhoy, enter powerful friend, Sergo Ordzhonikidze. Cossack horseman and hero of ain their ‘Tsaritsyn, famous for his handlebar moustaches, white teeth and equine level Yezhov would soon help Stalin harass Sei became the ‘black widow’ of Stalin’s of intelligence, poses with Kaganovich z0 to his death. Yevgenia Yezhova on the left and Stalin amongst swooning emales. Bi C roved a aI - fetiialel EUG yONN prayesat nettGh circle: many of her lovers; inéluding general th ae Stalin's cave ; ; mpneral shar mpstor Sis 8 cayalty Babel, died because of their connections foberchesen their daughter Natashz cronies, but he was happiest breeding iced herself to try to save horses, which he believed were more useful than tanks. Above right Sergo and YezhovAs the Terror gained pace, Sergo Ordzhonikidze clashed with Stalin. A shot rang out in Sergo’s flat. His apartment wher ious death solved 2 myste! problem for Stalin who rushed to his Kremlin Sergo was lifted onto his table for this photograph. Stalin, Zhdanov (in a comical anti-headache bandage), Kaganovich, Mikoyan and Voroshilov pose with the body. Kaganovich and Mikoyan were especially close to Sergo and look particularly shocked. In 1937, at the height of the Great Terror, two young ma Yezhov, now NKVD boss in full uniform as Commissar-General of State Security (second from right) and (far right) his friend Nikita Khrushchev, newly appointed Moscow boss and later one of Stalin’s successors, accompany Molotoy, Kaganovich, Stalin, Mikoyan and Kalinin. Stalin trusted the ruthless bumpkin Khrushchev who described himself as the leader’s ‘pev’. He idolised Stalin. ate: join the leadershi Stalin regarded himself as an intellectual. He persuaded the famous novelist Gorky to return to become the regime’s great writer, giving him a mansion in Moscow and two dachas outside Gorky’s house became the literary venue for the Politburo who visited regularly. There, Stalin told writers to become ‘engineers of human souls’. Here, Stalin and Molotov (second from lef) take tea with Gorky. When Stalin became disenchanted with Gorky, his death in 1936 proved convenient. When she tipsily dropped a cream cake on his tunic, Poskrebyshey fell in love with a pretty, glamorous and well-connected young doctor Bronislava who became familiar with Stalin and his family. But her Jewish, Lithuanian origins, her friendship with Yezhov’s wile and, worst of all, her distant connection to Trotsky led to her arrest by Beria and execution. Poskrebyshev wept when he heard her name, but remained working at Stalin’s side, on good terms with Beria — and managed to remarry. Poskrebyshev with Bronislava (right) and her sister More powerful than many a magnate, Stalin’s chef de cabinet for most of his reign. This Alexander Poskrebyshey (right) v former male nurse and master of detail ran the office and kept the secrets while at the leader's dinners, Stalin challenged him to drinking contests, nicknamed him the ‘commande: n-chief? and laughed when he was dragged vomiting from the table.Poskrebyshev ran the politics but General Nikolai Vlasik, Stalin’s chief bodyguard and court photographer, ran his home life. This hard-drinking debauchee with a harem of ‘concubines’, also acted as Vasily Stalin’s father figure. Here, just before the war, is Vlasik, on the left with Stalin’s doomed son Yakov, probably at Kuntsevo Stalin remained close and affectionate with Svetlana but, by her early teens at the end of the 1930s, she was maturing early and this alarmed her father. When she sent him this photograph of her sporting her Young Pioneer’s uniform he sent it back scrawling, ‘Your expression is not suitable for someone your age.’ When she fell in love with an older man in the middle of the Second World War, Stalin was appalled and it destroyed their relationship for ever. Henceforth his fondest epithet to her was ‘You little fool” Slaughter: Yezhov the Poison Dwarf, 1937-1939 209 in the teeth? I see your intention but I write to you as I wrote to Illich [Lenin] as a really beloved man whom I even see in dreams as I did Illich. Maybe it’s strange but it’s so. It’s hard for me to live under suspicion and my nerves are already on edge.’ Finally, on a sleepless night, he wrote a poem, an embarrassing hymn to ‘Great Stalin!’ Bukharin’s other old friend was Voroshilov. The two had been so close that Bukharin called him his ‘honey seagull’ and even wrote his speeches for him. Klim had presented him with a pistol engraved with his love and friendship. Voroshilov tried to avoid Bukharin’s letters: ‘Why do you hurt me so?’ he asked Klim in one letter. Now in real danger, Bukharin wrote a long plea to Klim in which he even announced that he was ‘delighted the dogs [Zinoviev and Kamenev] were shot ... Forgive this confused letter: a thousand thoughts are rushing around inside my head like strong horses and I have no strong reins. | embrace you because I am clean. N Bukharin.’ Voroshilov decided he had to end this ghost of a friendship so he ordered his adjutant to copy the letter to the Politburo and write: ‘I enclose herewith, on Comrade Voroshilov’s orders, Comrade Voroshilov’s reply to Bukharin.’ Voroshilov's reply was a study in amorality, cruelty, fear and cowardice: To Comrade Bukharin, I return your letter in which you permit yourself to make vile attacks on the Party leadership. If you were hoping ... to convince me of your complete innocence, all you have convinced me of is that henceforth I should distance myself from you ... And if you do not repudiate in writing your foul epithets against the Party leadership, I shall even regard you as a scoundrel. K Voroshilov 3 Sept 1936. Bukharin was heartbroken by ‘your appalling letter. My letter ended with “I embrace you”. Your letter ends with “scoundrel”.’ Yezhov was creating the case against the so-called Leftists Radek and Pyatakov, but by December, he had also managed to procure evidence against Bukharin and Rykov. The December Plenum was a sort of arraignment of these victims and, as always with Stalin, a test of the conditions necessary to destroy them. Stalin was the dominant will, but the Terror was not the work of one man. One can hear the evangelical enthusiasm of their blood-lust that sometimes totters on the edge of tragicomedy. Kaganovich even told a Stalinist shaggy-dog story.480 Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar 1941-1945 oversized ‘white cotton gloves, the tips of the fingers of which hung limply and flapped about’. Sikhs guarded the doorways. Beria, who was there incognito, insisted that the NKVD search the British Legation, which was supervised by him personally with that glossy ruffian Tsereteli. ‘There simply cannot be any doubt,’ wrote a British security officer, Beria ‘was an extremely intelligent and shrewd man with tremendous willpower and ability to impress, command and lead other men.’ He disdained anyone else’s opinion, becoming ‘very angry if anyone opposed his proposals’. The other Russians ‘behaved like slaves in his presence’. i Once Beria had signed off, Stalin arrived, but when a valet tried to take his coat, a bodyguard overreacted by reaching for his pistol. Calm was quickly restored. A cake with sixty-nine candles stood on the main table. Stalin toasted ‘Churchill my fighting friend, if it is possible to consider Mr Churchill my friend’ and then walked round to clink glasses with the Englishman, putting : : Sere ie re ; ; 2 : F and generals in an almost collegiate atmosphere before success allowed him to play his arm around his shoulders. Churchill answered: ‘To Stalin the military genius. Here, Stalin runs the war assisted by (standing, from lefi): Bulganin (in Great!’ When Churchill joked that Britain was ‘becoming pinker’, uniform), Mikoyan, Khrushchev, Andreyev, Voznesensky, Voroshiloy (in uniform) and Stalin joked: ‘A sign of good health.’ Kaganovich; (seated, from left): Shvernik, Molotov, Beria and Malenkov. At the climax, the chef of the Legation cuisine produced a creation that came closer to assassinating Stalin than all the German agents in all the souks of Persia. Stalin was making a toast when two mountainous ice-cream pyramids were wheeled in with ‘a base of ice one foot square and four inches deep’, a religious nightlight inside it and a tube rising ten inches out of the middle on which a plate supporting a ‘a vast ice-cream’ had been secured with icing sugar. But as these creations approached Stalin, Brooke noticed that the lamp was melting the ice and ‘now looked more like the Tower of Pisa’. Suddenly the tilt assumed a more dangerous angle and the British Chief of Staff shouted to his neighbours to duck. ‘With the noise of an avalanche the whole wonderful construction slid over our heads and exploded in a clatter of plates.’ Lunghi saw the nervous Persian waiter ‘stagger sideways at the last moment’. Pavlov in his new diplomatic uniform ‘came in for the full blast! ... splashed from head to foot’ a crisis Stalin assumed the role lin worked with his m; Stalin was shocked and bewildered by Hitler’s attack, but a he believed was made for him: supreme warlord. Initially ates ne ‘The outstanding military partnership of the war: in late 1942, after his bungles had caused a but Brooke guessed ‘it was more than his life was worth to stop series of unnecessary disa Stalin appointed Georgi Zhukoy his deputy. He admired his interpreting’. Stalin was unblemished. military gifts, energy and brutal drive. Zhukov played a decisive role in the victories of ‘Missed the target,’ whispered Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal. Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad and Berlin. At the victory parade, Stalin allowed Zhukov to At the final meetings next day, Roosevelt explained privately to take the salute, but afterwards jealousy and paranoia led him to demote and humiliate his greatest gener side by his ‘pol Here in 1945, Stalin places Zhukov on his right, but is flanked on the other Stalin that, since he had a Presidential election coming up, he itical’ Marshals, Voroshiloy, who proved brave but inept, and Bulganin, who rose ruthlessly but without trace to become heir apparent,Stalin as the arbiter of the Grand Alliance, playing Roosevelt against Churchill: here at Teheran in 1943, a grinning Voroshilov stands behind his master while General Alan Brooke (behind Churchill and Roosevelt glances sardonically at their unsavoury ally. Churchill and Stalin at Yalta, followed by General Vlasik. At the Potsdam Conference, Stalin, resplendent in his white Gencralissimo’s uniform, poses with Churchill, who was about to be thrown out by the British electorate, and the new US President Harry Truman who informed him that America had the Bomb. Stalin despised Truman, missed Roosevelt, and thought Churchill the strongest of the capitalists. 10, Botowing Street, Whitehar. 1 THE PRIME MINISTER OF INGTON CHURCHILL M.P. AND - VOROSHILOV AT THY Cl AT TEHRAN, IRAN 2INov, (94-3 Mewrhak Vernrila bry Y Co grettate ye. Z oe. Tn. Raia Minigten : Dn& ye. Yawtbak Verbtlow? Vonink yy a L ee (sp Oe he fre Velt ang “ye Oey The Pe site: Ao Ge bitin ve IO Nov. 14-3 Price Mi é , ee Rugg te At Teheran, Churchill presented the Sword of Stalingrad to an emotional Stalin who passed it to Voroshilov who dropped it. Stalin sent Voroshilov to apologise to Churchill. A blushing Voroshiloy grabbed Hugh Lunghi, a young English diplomat, to inter pret. Voroshilov apologised, then wished Churchill a happy birthday. The British Prime Minister thought the Marshal was angling for a party invitationAt Potsdam, Stalin placed Beria in charge of the race to get the Bomb, the In 1938, when he promoted him to NKVD boss and brought him to Moscow, Stalin chose I g g 3 2 greatest challenge of his career — he could not afford to fail. Here, Beria and Beria’s house himself. Only Beria was allowed this sumptuous nobleman’s mansion (now the Molotov visit the sights in the ruins of Hitler’s Berlin, flanked by secret ‘Tunisian Embassy). His wife and son lived in one wing; his own rooms and offices were in policemen Krugloy (left) and Seroy, the expert on deportations. another: here many of his female victims were raped. When one refused him and was presented by a guard with the usual bouquet, Beria allegedly snarled: ‘It’s not a bouquet, it’s a wreath.” Just across from the Kremlin, the hideous colossus, the House on the Embankment, with its own cinema, built for the government in the early 1930s, was decimated during the 19; many of its inhabitants were shot. In the morning the doorman told the survivors 7 Terror when who had been arrested overnight, Here Natalya Rykova saw off her father for the last time. Stalin’s family, such as Pavel and Zhenya Alliluyey, lived here; after the war Svetlana and Vasily had flats here. In 1949, death stalked the elegant, pink Granovsky apartment block close to the Kremlin where the younger magnates lived in palatial apartment: Bulganin on the fifth floor, Malenkoy on the Khrushchev and E ae a mae fourth. Beria was often to be seen waiting at Beria and family around 1946. Beria was a rapist and sadist — but a delightful 5 ‘i “4 i Bete a as the gates in a black limousine for his friends father-in-law and grandfather. His blonde, clever and long-suffering wife, Nina : ss ara s . Khrushchev and Malenkov. (second from left) was the most beautiful of all the grandees’ spouses ~ Stalin treated her like a daughter, Svetlana Stalin was in love with his handsome. dashing son Sergo (far left) whom Stalin also liked. But Sergo married Gorky’s lissom granddaughter Martha Peshkova (far right), much to Svetlana’s ire.STALIN’S RESIDENCES Lefi His main Moscow house, Kuntsevo, the place where he died. Like from 193 most of his residences, it was painted a gloomy khaki green Middle His favourite holiday house before the war: Sochi (viewed from outside the security gate), and (inset) inside the courtyard Bottom The centre of all his houses was always the vaulted dining room where he enjoyed long Georgian feasts with his henchmen, this one at Sochi. On the left his specially built paddling pool since he did not like swimming Opposile page SVALIN’S FAVOURITE SOUTHERN HOUSES From top: his post-war holiday headquarters, Coldstream; the millionaire’s mansion in Sukhumi; and Museri.Over-promoted, alcoholic, unstable, cruel War: The Triumphant Genius, 1942-1945 481 and terrified, General Vasily Stalin 7 abandoned two wives whom he treated could not discuss Poland at this meeting. The subordination of abysmally and tried to win his father’s favour the fate of the country for which the war was fought to American machine politics can only have encouraged Stalin’s plans for a tame Poland. At the last plenary meeting, it was a sign of the by denouncing air force officers, often with fate results. Stalin, ashamed of his wartime debauchery and hi-jinks, demoted him. Vasily feared that after his father’s death, amateurism and immediacy of this intimate conference that Bulganin and Khrushchev would kill him: he Churchill and Stalin discussed Polish borders using a map torn preferred the bottle or suicide. Girls flocked out of The Times. The dangers of these meetings for Stalin’s to the “Crown Prince’. entourage were underestimated by the Westerners until Churchill’s interpreter Birse presented his opposite number Pavlov with a set of Charles Dickens. Pavlov uneasily accepted the present. ‘You're getting very close to our Western friends,’ smiled Stalin to Pavlov’s anxious discomfort. On 2 December, Stalin, ‘satisfied’ that the Allies had finally promised to launch Overlord in the spring, flew out of Teheran and changed out of his Marshal’s togs at Baku aerodrome, re- emerging in his old greatcoat, cap and boots. His train conveyed him to Stalingrad, his only post-battle visit to the city that had played such a decisive role in his life. He visited Paulus’s headquarters but his limousine drove too fast down the narrow streets strewn with heaps of German equipment. It collided with a woman driver who almost expired when she realized with whom she had crashed. She started crying: ‘It’s my fault.’ Stalin got out and calmed her: ‘Don’t cry. It's not your fault. Blame the war. Our car's armoured and didn’t suffer. You can repair yours.’ Afterwards he headed back to Moscow. After the war, General Vasily Stalin persuaded General Vlasik to give him his exquisite townhouse not far from the Kremlin. eee Stalingrad, Kursk and Teheran restored Stalin's zealous faith in his own infallible greatness. ‘When victory became obvious,’ wrote Mikoyan, ‘Stalin got too big for his boots and became capricious.’ The long boozy dinners started again: Stalin began to drink again, playing the ringmaster of a circus of uncouth hijinks, but in the mass of information he received from Beria, there was always much to worry him. Beria arrested 931,544 persons in the liberated territory in 1943. As many as 250,000 people in Moscow attended Easter church eo d services. He delivered the phone intercepts and informer reports Power and family: the heir apparent Zhdanov. At the end of the war, a tired but cheerful to Stalin who read them carefully. Here the Supremo learned how Stalin sits between the two rivals: the flabby, vicious and pusillanimous ‘clerk’, Malenkov Eisenstein was cutting his new movie, Ivan the Terrible, Part Two, who was nicknamed ‘Melanie’ for his broad hips — and (right) smiling, alcoholic Zhdanov. because the Tsar’s murders reminded him of Yezhov’'s Terror Kaganovich sits on the lefi. (Back row, left to right): unknown, Vasily Stalin, Svetlana, ‘which he couldn’t recall without shuddering ...’ The message was Poskrebyshey. Stalin pushed Svetlana to marry Zhdanoy’s son. But the struggle between Zhdanov and Malenkov ended in a massacre.SCN 528 Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar Bolshakov’s big decision was which film to show. This he judged by trying to guess Stalin’s mood. He observed the leader’s gait, intonation of voice and sometimes, if he was lucky, Vlasik or Poskrebyshev gave him a clue. If Stalin was in a bad mood, Bolshakov knew it was not a good idea to show a new movie. Stalin was a creature of habit: he loved his old favourites from the thirties like Volga! Volga! or foreign films such as In Old Chicago, Mission to Moscow, the comedy It Happened One Night, or any Charlie Chaplin. Stalin now possessed a new library of American, English and German films that had until recently been the property of Goebbels. If Stalin was in a bad mood, one of the Goebbels films would please him. He liked detective films, Westerns, gangster films — and he enjoyed fights. He banned any hint of sexuality. When Bolshakov once showed him a slightly risqué scene involving a naked girl, he banged the table and said: ‘Are you making a brothel here, Bolshakov?’ Then he walked out, followed by the Politburo, leaving poor Bolshakov awaiting arrest. From then on, he cut even the slightest glimpse of nudity. Stalin ordered Bolshakov to interpret the foreign films. Yet Bolshakov spoke only pidgin English. He therefore spent much of his time preparing for these midnight sessions by having interpreters go over the film for him and then learning the script. This was a challenge because at any time, he had hundreds of films to show Stalin. Thus his interpretation was usually absurdly obvious and very late, long after it was clear what the character had already said, The Politburo laughed and teased the flustered Bolshakov on his translations. Beria pointed at the screen and called out: ‘Look he’s started running ...’ All laughed — but Stalin, who evidently enjoyed this farce, never demanded a proper interpreter. In 1951, Bolshakoy asked Stalin to approve the Tarzan film: one imagines his translation of Tarzan’s jungle-swinging shriek and courting grunts with Jane thoroughly entertained his audience. If Bolshakov showed the old favourite, Volga! Volga!, Stalin liked to show off how well he knew it and would perform every part just before the actor. If Stalin was in a good mood, Bolshakov had the chance to choose a new Soviet movie. Stalin remained the censor of the entire industry: no movie could be shown without his personal approval. When he was in the south for months, no decision 1945-1953 Afier victory, Stalin fell ill with a series of minor strokes or heart attacks. Here, the clearly ailing Generalissimo arrives to rest, accompanied by the porcine Vlasik.On 12 August 1945 Generalissimo Stalin cheerfully leads his magnates for the parade Mikoyan, Ukrainian viceroy Khrushchev, Malenkovy, Beria in Marshal's uniform, Molotov with Vlasik behind him). Zhdanoy, in Colonel-General’s uniform, was Stalin’s heir apparent and cultural supremo who attacked the arts after the war. Stalin promoted his son Yury and wanted him as his own son-in-law, But the charlatan geneticist Trofim Lysenko (far lefi) proved the nemesis of the Zhdanovs. Opposite page The exhausted Stalin gloomily leads Beria, Mikoyan and Malenkoy through the Kremlin to the Mausoleum for the 1946 May Day parade. In this nest of vipers, they walked arm in arm, but their friendships were masks: each would liquidate the others. Stalin now loathed Beria and mocked Malenkov for being so fat he had lost his human appearance. When Beria tormented dapper Mikoyan at Stalin’s dinners by hiding tomatoes in his well-cut suits and squashing them Mikoyan started bringing a spare suit.Top As the struggle for the succession builds up, Stalin leads the mourni t Kalinin’s funeral in 1946. (Front row, from left): Beria, Malenkov, Stalin and Molotoy. Behind Molotoy stands the ill and frail Zhdanov at the height of his power. Zhdanov’s two protégés, Voznesensky and Kuznetsoy, are both to the right behind Malenkoy’s shoulder. Kaganovich is behind Molotoy. Boltom The death of Zhdanoy, Stalin’s friend and favourite, here in an open coffin, unleashes the vengeance of Beria and Malenkov against his faction. Stalin, Voroshiloy and Kaganovich follow the coffin, That night, at the funeral supper, Stalin became drunk nov gone he had lost his only intellectual equal. Here, in late 1g alin sits with the older anovich, Molotov and Voroshilov, while an intrigue is being prepared behind them amor 1. After ten years without a single top leader being shot, Beria (second row, far le (second row, second from Jefi) helped Stalin murder his two appointed successors, Kuznetsov (second row between Molotov and Stalin) and Voznesensky (second row between Stalin and Voroshiloy) in the “Leningrad Case’ Left Summertime chez Stalin: natty Mikoyan in whites with ‘you handsome’ and doomed Kuznetsov, Molotov and Poskrebyshev in uniform. Bottom Athis seventieth birthday gala on stage at the Bolshoi, Stalin stands between Mao ‘Tse-tung and Khrushchey, whom Stalin summoned from Ukraine to offset Malenkov and BeriaOpposite page SVALIN’S RESTLESS LAST HOLIDAY IN 1952 He effectively ruled Russia for months on end from his new house at New Athos in the late forties — this was his favourite (top). He also returned to a house where he had enjoyed a happy holiday with Nadya after Vasily’s birth in 1921 the Likani Palace, which once belonged to ‘Tsar Nicholas II’s brother Grand Duke Michael (middle). When Khrushchev and Mikoyan visited, they had to share a room. He spent weeks in this remote house at Lake Ritsa (bottom) He was now so frail that his guards built these green metal boxes (inset) containing special phones so that Stalin could call for help if he was taken ill on his daily strolls, All his life, Stalin slept on the big divans that were placed in virtually every room of all his houses. This is the sofa at Kuntsevo on which he died on 5 March 1 Left Plotting the destruction of Molotov and Mikoyan, the aging but determined Stalin watches Malenkoy give the chief report at his last public appearance at the Nineteenth . While organising the anti- semitic Doctors’ Plot, he ordered his secret Congress in 195; police to torture the doctors: ‘Beat, beat and beat again!” he shouted. But he still found time to play with his grandchildren... The fight for power began over the deathbed. On the right Khrushchev and Bulganin (alongside Kaganovich and Mikoyan) face Beria and Malenkoy (alongside Molotov and Voroshiloy) across Stalin’s body. Beria seemed to have won the struggle for succession, but he fatally underestimated KhrushchevThe Dangerous Game of Succession, 1945-1949 §29 could be made so he had to see all the new films when he returned. As Stalin approached, Bolshakov took up position outside the cinema. He once frightened Stalin by lurking in the shadows: ‘Who are you? What are you doing?’ Stalin barked. ‘Why are you hiding?’ Stalin scowled at Bolshakov for weeks afterwards. Taking his seat in the front row with his guests around him, usually mixing a spritzer of Georgian wine and mineral water, he always asked: ‘What will Comrade Bolshakov show us today?’ Bolshakov announced the movie, sat down at the back and ordered the projectionists to begin. Once, one of them dropped and broke part of the projector, which spread mercury on the floor. They were accused of attempting to assassinate the Generalissimo.* Stalin talked throughout the film. He enjoyed cowboy films, especially those directed by John Ford and admired Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable but he also ‘cursed them, giving them an ideological evaluation’, recalled Khrushchev, ‘and then ordering new ones’. Stalin admired the actors, frequently asking ‘Where’ve we seen this actor before?’ After the war, actors and directors often joined Stalin’s dinners, particularly the Georgian director of films featuring the heroic leader, Mikhail Chiaureli, and the actors who often played him, Mikhail Gelovani (who did Stalin with a Georgian accent) and Alexei Diky (increasingly after the war, with a Russian accent). ‘You’re observing me thoroughly,’ Stalin told Gelovani. ‘You don’t waste time do you?’ He once asked Diky how he would ‘play Stalin’. ‘As the people see him,’ replied the actor. ‘The right answer,’ said Stalin, giving him a bottle of brandy. When the film was over, Stalin always asked his fellow intellectual: ‘What will Comrade Zhdanov tell us?’ Zhdanov gave his * Mercury poisoning had a special pedigree at Stalin’s court: Yezhov had sprayed his own office with mercury and claimed that Yagoda was trying to poison him. + A recent biography of John Wayne claims the film star’s symbolism as an American hero and enemy of Communism infuriated Stalin who suggested that ‘Duke’ should be assassinated. When Khrushchev visited Holywood in 1958, he is said to have explained to Wayne: ‘That was the decision of Stalin in his last mad years. When Stalin died, I rescinded the order.’ The story is based on rumour; it sounds like the sort of grim joke Stalin favoured in his cups. If true, it is hard to image why Wayne survived — and why Khrushchev did not use the tale against Stalin in his memoirs. Stalin at the 1927 Congress: unshaven, pockmarked, sardonic, sarcastic and utterly vigilant, the supreme poli an, the messianic egotist, fanatical Marxist, and superlative mass- murderer, in his prime,