Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  But Stalin’s courtiers noticed that his triumph had turned his head. “He became conceited,” said Molotov, “not a good feature in a statesman.” His prestige was so great that he was absolute in all matters: his mere words were taken as “Party orders and instantly obeyed.” Yet he now ruled in a very different way: he “stepped aside from direct ruling,” said one of his officials, and assumed the Olympian mantle of a paramount leader, like the old Chairman Mao, who liked to guide his men with anecdotes, signs and hints. He used secrecy, caprice and obscurity to maintain his mastery over his younger, stronger, ambitious magnates. He dominated his entourage by mystery.

  “He never gave direct orders,” wrote his Georgian boss, Charkviani, “so you had to make your own conclusions.” Stalin understood that “it doesn’t matter what part of the pool you throw a stone, the ripples will spread.” He once showed his Abkhazian leader, Mgeladze, his beloved lemon trees again and again until the apparatchik finally understood and declared that Abkhazia would produce lemons for the whole USSR.

  “Now you’ve got it!” smiled Stalin. Unless he was in a temper, he usually ended his orders: “Do as you wish” but no one mistook his meaning. If, on the other hand, he gave a direct order, writing “I don’t think my reasons need to be discussed, they are perfectly clear,” or simply shouted his wishes, he was instantly obeyed. In the MGB, the mere mention of the Instantsiya justified any act of barbarism.

  However, the Generalissimo was also weaker and older than before. Shortly before the victory parade, Stalin had experienced some sort of heart attack or what Svetlana called “a minor stroke,” hardly surprising given the strain of warlordism on his remarkably durable metabolism. “Certainly overexhausted,” observed Molotov, Stalin already suffered from arthritis but it was the hardening of his arteries, arteriosclerosis, that reduced the flow of blood to the brain and could only impair his mental faculties. After returning from Potsdam, he fell ill again, making him feel weaker at the very moment when his position was strongest. They brought him under the power of doctors, a profession he despised and which he had corrupted (making his own physician Vinogradov testify at the show trials during the thirties). Poskrebyshev, the ex-nurse, became his secret doctor, prescribing pills and remedies.

  These contradictions gave Stalin a deadly unpredictability, lashing out at those around him. The hopes and freedoms of the war made no difference to his belief that the problems of the USSR were best solved by the elimination of individuals. The poverty of his empire compared to the surging wealth of America dovetailed with his own feeling that his powers were failing, and the inferiority complexes of a lifetime.

  Usually “calm, reserved and patient,” he often “exploded instantly and made irrelevant and wrong decisions.” Khrushchev said, “after the war, he wasn’t quite right in the head.” He remained a supreme manipulator though it is likely that the arteriosclerosis exacerbated his existing tempers, depression and paranoia. He was never mad: indeed, his strangest obsessions always had a basis in real politics. Yet mortality made him realize the sterility he had created inside himself: “I’m a most unfortunate person,” he told Zhukov, “I’m afraid of my own shadow.” But it was this supersensitivity that made him such a frightening but masterful politician. His fear of losing control of his empire was based on reality: even in his own Politburo, Mikoyan felt the war was a “great school of freedom” with no need to “return to terror.”

  Stalin despised this laxity. He even joked about it when he sent some writers to tour conquered Japan and asked Molotov if they had departed. It turned out they had put off the trip: “Why didn’t they go?” he asked. “It was a Politburo decision. Maybe they didn’t approve of it and wanted to appeal to the Party Congress?” The writers left quickly. But he sensed this lax attitude all around him.

  “He was very jittery,” said Molotov. “His last years were the most dangerous. He swung to extremes.” He was jealous of Molotov and Zhukov’s prestige, suspicious of Beria’s power, and disgusted by the soft smugness of his magnates: even when he was ill and old, he was never happier than when he was orchestrating a struggle. It was his gift, his natural state. Some backs would have to be broken.2 Stalin ruled “through a small group close to him at all times” and formal “government ceased to function.” Even on long holidays away from Moscow, he maintained his paramount power by directing each portfolio through his direct relationship with the official in question, and no one else. His interventions were almost deliberately capricious and out of the blue.

  More than ever, his courtiers had to know how to handle him but first, they had to survive his nocturnal routine. It is no exaggeration to say that henceforth Stalin ruled, from Berlin to the Kurile Islands, from the dinner table and the cinema. The defiance of time itself is the ultimate measure of tyranny: the lights in his capitals—from Warsaw to Ulan Bator, from Budapest to Sofia—shone throughout the night.

  The magnates met at the Little Corner after which the Generalissimo always proposed a movie. He led his guests along the red-and-blue-carpeted corridors to the cinema which had been luxuriously built in the old winter garden on the second floor of the Great Kremlin Palace. Beria, Molotov, Mikoyan and Malenkov remained his constant companions but his proconsuls in Finland and Ukraine, Zhdanov and Khrushchev, often visited too.

  Then there was the whole new court of European vassals: his favourites were the Polish leader Boleslaw Bierut, “polite, well-dressed, well-mannered,” a “perfect gentleman with women” but a ruthless Stalinist with “a fanatical faith in the dogma,” his deputy Jakob Berman, the Czech President Clement Gottwald, Hungary’s Matyas Rakosi. The prouder Yugoslavs, Marshal Tito and Milovan Djilas, were less liked. Each of them was honoured to come to Moscow to pay homage and receive Stalin’s sacerdotal wisdom and imperial commands. They too had to learn how to behave in the cinema and at dinner.

  The sight of the Generalissimo and his guards approaching was a terrifying one for any young official who happened to be walking along these corridors. The plain-clothed guards walked twenty-five steps in front and two metres behind Stalin, while the uniformed guards followed him with their eyes. Amid this phalanx of myrmidons, walking noiselessly but quickly and jauntily, with a heavy, pigeon-toed step, came the potbellied emperor with his fine mountain man’s head, his sloping shoulders, the tigerish creases of his roguish smile. Anyone who saw him approaching had to stand back against the wall and show their hands. Anatoly Dobrynin, a young diplomat, once found himself in this dilemma: “I pressed my back against the wall.” Stalin “did not fail to notice my confusion” and asked “who I was and where I worked.” Then “stressing his words by a slow moving of the finger of his right hand” before Dobrynin’s face, he declared, “Youth must not fear Comrade Stalin. He is its friend.” Dobrynin shuddered.

  The walk to the cinema took a few minutes. Decorated in blue, there were rows of soft upholstered armchairs set in pairs, with tables between each seat with mineral water, wine, cigarettes, boxes of chocolates. The carpet was grey with rugs on it. Before Stalin arrived, the Politburo took their seats, leaving the front row empty. They were met by the Minister of Cinema, Ivan Bolshakov, who had run the film industry since 1939 and became a vital but comical presence in the entourage. Bolshakov was terrified of Stalin since his two cinematic predecessors had been shot. As Stalin got older, the cinema became an obsessive ritual, as well as an aid, and venue, for governing.

  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 unt
il 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, Bolshakov asked Stalin to approve the film Tarzan: 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 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.244

  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.”245

  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 pompous verdict followed by Molotov’s laconic judgement and Beria’s sarcastic jokes. Stalin enjoyed joking about the auteurs: “If Comrade [director or screenwriter]’s no good, Comrade Ulrikh’ll sign his death sentence.”

  Bolshakov once called Beria and Molotov to ask if Zhukovsky, a film about the aviator, could be launched on Air Force Day, but Stalin, on holiday, had still not seen it. It was his decision not theirs, they replied, so Bolshakov launched the film. When Stalin returned, he watched Zhukovsky and then said: “We know you decided to put it on the screens of the USSR! They want to trick me but it’s impossible.” Bolshakov froze. On whose authority, asked Stalin? Bolshakov replied that he had “consulted and decided.”

  “You consulted and decided,” repeated Stalin quietly. He got up and walked to the door, opened it and repeated: “You decided.” He went out, leaving a doom-laden silence. Then he opened the door again, smiling: “You decided correctly.” If Stalin hated the film, he would simply walk out but not before teasing Bolshakov.

  Bolshakov made notes of all these august critiques. In the morning, he called the directors or scriptwriters and passed on the comments without specifying their source but no doubt his quivering voice and breathless awe made it obvious.246

  Stalin imposed politics on film but also film on reality. Djilas noticed how he seemed to mix up what was going on “in the manner of an uneducated man who mistakes artistic reality for actuality.” He revelled in films about murdering friends and associates. Khrushchev and Mikoyan repeatedly sat through a British film, no doubt one of the Goebbels collection, about a pirate who stole some gold and then, “one by one,” killed his accomplices to keep the swag.

  “What a fellow, look how he did it!” exclaimed Stalin. This was “depressing” for his comrades who could not forget that, as Khrushchev put it, “we were temporary people.” Stalin’s isolated position made these films increasingly powerful. After the war, Stalin wanted to impose taxes on the peasants even though the countryside was stricken with famine. The whole Politburo sensibly opposed this, which angered Stalin. He was convinced the peasants could afford it: he pointed to the plenty shown in his propaganda movies, allowing him to ignore the starvation. After seeing the movie on Catherine the Great’s admiral, Ushakov, Stalin became obsessed with building a powerful fleet, quoting a character in the film who says: “Land forces are a sword in one hand, sea forces a sword in the other.”

  He often insisted on seeing two movies in a row and afterwards, around 2 a.m., would say: “Let’s go and get something to eat,” adding “if you have time” as if there was any choice in the matter.

  “If that’s an invitation,” replied Molotov, “with the greatest satisfaction.” Then Stalin turned to his guests, often Tito or Bierut: “What are your plans for tonight?” as if they would have any at that hour. Stalin laughed. “Hmm, a government without a state plan. We’ll take a bite.” The average “bite” lasted the interminable six hours until dawn.3

  Stalin ordered the omnipresent Poskrebyshev to summon the cars but when they were delayed, he trembled “with rage, shouted, his features distorted, sharply motioned and poured invective into the face of his secretary who was . . . paling as if he had heart failure.” Poskrebyshev rounded up other guests. The guests had to prepare for the dinners, resting in the afternoon because “those sleeping at Stalin’s table came to a bad end,” said Khrushchev.247 Sometimes he invited his Georgian film directors and actors to liven up the party: “Do you know if Chiaureli and Gelovani are in Moscow now?”

  Foreign guests rode with Stalin who always sat in the fold-up seat right behind the driver and sometimes turned on a light above him to read. Molotov usually took the other folding seat with the favourite, Zhdanov, and any other guests in the back seats. Beria and Malenkov, “that pair of scoundrels” as Stalin called them, always shared a car.248 As the cars sped out of the city at the speed that Stalin relished, he planned the route, taking “strange detours” to confuse terrorists.

  After driving ten miles up the Government Highway, they reached a barrier, turned left and approached a clump of young fir trees. After another checkpoint, they entered the gates of Kuntsevo. Once inside, they passed a big map in the hall where Stalin, Zhdanov and Molotov stopped to make grand geopolitical statements and capricious decisions. Zhdanov, his rival Malenkov and Voznesensky always had their notebooks ready to record Stalin’s orders while Molotov and Mikoyan, Old Bolsheviks, regarded themselves as above such sycophancy.

  The lavatories were in the basement and when the guests washed before dinner, Molotov jok
ed at the urinals: “We call this unloading before loading!” This lavatory was one of the only rooms in Moscow where the magnates could indulge in honest discussion: Beria and the others whispered to each other about the tedium of Stalin’s tales of his Siberian exile. When he claimed to have skied twelve kilometres to shoot twelve partridges, Beria, already coming to loathe Stalin, insisted, “He’s just lying!”

  They entered the roomy dining room with a long table with about fourteen covered chairs along each side; there were comfortable chairs alongside it, high windows with long drapes, and two chandeliers and lights set in the walls. As in all Stalin’s houses, the walls, floors and ceilings were made of light Karelian pine panelling. It was so clean, so “dead quiet” and so “isolated from the other world,” that visitors imagined they were “in a hospital.”