“Might it not be thought cynical if it seemed we’d disposed of these issues, so fateful to millions of people, in such an offhand manner?” said Churchill, half guilty at, and half revelling in, the arrogance of the Great Powers.
“No, you keep it,” replied Stalin. The document was taken seriously enough for Eden and Molotov to negotiate for two more days about the percentage of Soviet influence in Bulgaria and Hungary, both raised to 80 percent, and Stalin did stick to his part of the deal on Greece but that was because it suited him. The percentages agreement was, from Stalin’s point of view, surely a bemusing attempt to negotiate what was already a fait accompli.
The climax of the visit was Stalin’s first public appearance at the Bolshoi since the war began, accompanied by Churchill, Molotov, Harriman and his daughter Kathleen. When they arrived at the theatre, the lights were already dimmed—Stalin usually slipped in after the play had started. When the lights went up and the audience saw Stalin and Churchill, there were “thunderous cheers and clapping.” Stalin withdrew modestly but Churchill sent Vyshinsky to bring him back. The two stood there together, beaming amid cheering so loud it was “like a cloudburst on a tin roof.” Stalin and Molotov then shepherded their guests into the avant-loge where a dinner for twelve was laid out. Quaffing champagne, Stalin performed like a roguish old satyr, charming and chilling his guests in equal parts. When Molotov raised his glass to the “great leader,” Stalin quipped: “I thought he was going to say something new about me.” Someone joked that the Big Three were like the Trinity.
“If that’s so,” said Stalin, “Churchill must be the Holy Ghost. He flies about so much.”228 When Churchill finally left on 19 October, having made little progress over Poland, Stalin personally came to the airport to see him off, waving his handkerchief. 5
Stalin was now enjoying the power of victory—and the bullying showman who emerged was not a pretty sight. His respectful gaiety with Churchill metamorphosed into threatening drunkenness with the less powerful such as Charles de Gaulle. In December, the Frenchman visited Moscow to sign a treaty of alliance and mutual assistance. In return, Stalin wanted French recognition of Bierut’s Polish government which de Gaulle refused to give. By the time of the banquet, the negotiations were stuck. This did not stop Stalin getting swaggeringly drunk, to the horror of the gloomy de Gaulle. Stalin complained to Harriman that de Gaulle was “an awkward and clumsy man,” but that did not matter because they “must drink more wine and then everything will straighten out.”
Stalin, swigging champagne, took over the toasts from Molotov. After praising Roosevelt and Churchill, while pointedly ignoring de Gaulle, Stalin embarked on a terrifying gallows tour of his entourage: he toasted Kaganovich, “a brave man. He knows that if the trains do not arrive on time”—he paused—“we shall shoot him!” Then: “Come here!” Kaganovich rose and they clinked glasses jovially. Then Stalin lauded Air Force Commander Novikov, this “good Marshal, let’s drink to him. And if he doesn’t do his job properly, we’ll hang him.” (Novikov would soon be arrested and tortured.) Then he spotted Khrulev: “He’d better do his best, or he’ll be hanged for it, that’s the custom in our country!” Again: “Come here!” Noticing the distaste on de Gaulle’s face, Stalin chuckled: “People call me a monster, but as you see, I make a joke of it. Maybe I’m not horrible after all.”
Molotov collared his French opposite number, Bidault, with whom he began arguing over the treaty. Stalin gestured at them, calling out to Bulganin: “Bring the machine guns. Let’s liquidate the diplomats.” Leading his guests out for coffee and movies, Stalin “kept hugging the French and lurching around,” noticed Khrushchev who was also present but had avoided a threatening toast. He was “completely drunk.” While the diplomats negotiated, Stalin drank more champagne. Finally in the early hours, when de Gaulle had gone to bed, the Russians suddenly agreed to sign the treaty without recognition of Bierut. De Gaulle was rushed back into the Kremlin where Stalin first asked him to sign the original treaty. When de Gaulle angrily retorted: “France has been insulted,” Stalin cheerfully called for the new draft which was then signed at 6:30 a.m.
As the fastidious Frenchman left, Stalin called for his interpreter and laughed: “You know too much. I’d better send you to Siberia!” De Gaulle looked back one last time: “I saw Stalin sitting alone at a table. He had started eating again.”
The same exuberant victor presided over a series of dinners and banquets for the visiting Yugoslavs that winter. Stalin was outraged that the Yugoslav Politburo member Milovan Djilas had complained about the rape and pillage of the Red Army. Stalin regarded any criticism of the army as an attack on himself. He drunkenly lectured the Yugoslavs about his army “which pushed its way across thousands of miles” only to be attacked “by none other than Djilas! Djilas whom I received so well!” In the absence of the man himself, Djilas’s wife, Mitra Mitrovic, one of the delegates, caught his eye and he “proposed toasts, joked, teased, wept” before kissing her repeatedly, jesting salaciously: “I’ll kiss you even if the Yugoslavs and Djilas accuse me of having raped you!”
When Stalin invited some American officials to the Kremlin cinema, he moved to sit between the leading Westerners but then he turned round to Kavtaradze: “Come on, boy, sit next to me!”
“How can I?” answered Kavtaradze. “You’ve guests.”
Stalin waved his hand, adding in Georgian: “Fuck them!”
That New Year’s Eve, Stalin and his magnates, along with General Khrulev, saw in 1945 with an all-night, singing and dancing Bacchanal. 6
43
The Swaggering Conqueror: Yalta and Berlin
When Stalin eyed the great prize of Berlin, he decided to change the way he ran the war: there would be no more Stavka representatives in charge of fronts. Henceforth, the Supremo would command directly.
Zhukov was to command the First Belorussian Front that was to fight the five hundred miles to Berlin. Six million Soviet soldiers were massed for the Vistula–Oder offensive. Two weeks later, Koniev was plunging into the “gold” of industrial Silesia, Zhukov had expelled the Germans from central Poland, and Malinovsky was fighting frenziedly for Budapest. The Second and Third Belorussian Fronts broke into East Prussia, Germany itself, in a fiesta of vengeance: two million German women were to be raped in the coming months. Russian soldiers even raped Russian women newly liberated from Nazi camps. Stalin cared little about this, telling Djilas: “You have of course read Dostoevsky? Do you see what a complicated thing is man’s soul . . . ? Well then, imagine a man who has fought from Stalingrad to Belgrade—over thousands of kilometres of his own devastated land, across the dead bodies of his comrades and dearest ones? How can such a man react normally? And what is so awful about his having fun with a woman after such horrors?”
Roosevelt and Churchill had been discussing the next Big Three meeting ever since July 1944. Stalin was reluctant: when, in September, Harriman suggested a meeting in the Mediterranean, Stalin retorted that his doctors had told him “any change of climate would have a bad effect,” this from a man who distrusted doctors intensely. Molotov could go instead. Molotov politely insisted that he could never replace Marshal Stalin.
“You’re too modest,” said Stalin drily. They agreed on Yalta. By 29 January, Zhukov was on the Oder. As German forces counter-attacked the Soviet bridgeheads, Roosevelt and Churchill were being greeted on 3 February at Saki air-force base in the Crimea by Molotov, in stiff white collar, black coat and fur hat, and Vyshinsky, resplendent in his diplomatic uniform, who hosted a “magnificent luncheon” on their way to Yalta.1
Stalin himself had not yet left Moscow but he had approved Beria’s arrangements in a memorandum so secret that key names were left out and only filled in by hand. The conference would be guarded by four NKVD regiments and defended by arrays of AA guns and 160 fighter planes. Stalin’s security was described thus: “For the guarding of the chief of the Soviet delegation, besides the bodyguards under Comrade Vlasik, there are additionall
y 100 operative workers and a special detachment of 500 from NKVD regiments.” In other words, Stalin himself had a bodyguard of about 620 men but in addition, there were two circles of guards by day, three circles by night, and guard dogs. Five districts spanning twenty kilometres had been “purged of suspicious elements”—74,000 people had been checked and 835 arrested. With its towns deserted and ruined after the depredations of the Nazis and the deportation of the Tartars, it was no wonder Churchill dubbed Yalta “The Riviera of Hades.”
On Sunday morning, 4 February, Stalin boarded his green railway car, accompanied by Poskrebyshev and Vlasik, travelling south via Kharkov. His residence, the Yusupov Palace, once the home of the Croesian transvestite prince who had assassinated Rasputin, was ready for the Soviet delegation with its twenty rooms and its 77-square-foot hall. Everything had been brought down from Moscow including plates, cutlery and the trusty waiters of the Metropol and National hotels. Special bakeries made bread and special fishermen delivered fresh fish. “A special ‘Vch’ high frequency telephone and Baudot telegraph as well as an automatic telephone station of 20 numbers . . . possible to increase to 50” had been set up so that Stalin could “call Moscow, the fronts, and all towns.” He could avail himself of a bomb shelter that could withstand 500kg bombs.
Stalin immediately received his delegates in the study, Beria’s room being almost next door, while the younger diplomats stayed in the adjoining wing. Sudoplatov delivered psychological portraits of the Western leaders, Molotov evaluated intelligence and again, Sergo Beria claimed he was on bugging duty. This time, they even used positional directional microphones to listen to FDR as he was wheeled outside.
At 3 p.m., Stalin229 called on Churchill at his residence, the fantastical palace of Prince Michael Vorontsov, an Anglophile who had created a unique architectural pot-pourri of Scottish baronial, neo-Gothic and Moorish Arabesque. He then drove to Roosevelt’s white granite Livadia Palace, built in 1911 as the summer home of the last Tsar.230 At dinner that night, Roosevelt misjudged Stalin’s prickly self-image when he confided that his nickname was “Uncle Joe.” Stalin was offended, muttering, “When can I leave this table?”
He was assured it was a joke. At 4 p.m. next day, the conference opened in the Livadia’s ballroom. Sitting between Molotov and Maisky, chain-smoking cigarettes, Stalin greatly impressed the young Andrei Gromyko, his Ambassador to America who later became Brezhnev’s perennial Foreign Minister: he “missed nothing” and worked “with no papers, no notes,” using a “memory like a computer.” It was during these plenary meetings that Stalin delivered his most famous one-liner. As always with his jokes, he repeated it frequently and it entered the political vernacular as an expression of force over sentiment. They were discussing the Pope.
“Let’s make him our ally,” proposed Churchill.
“All right,” smiled Stalin, “but as you know, gentlemen, war is waged with soldiers, guns, tanks. How many divisions has the Pope? If he tells us . . . let him become our ally.”‡
In the evenings, Stalin held little parties to meet his entourage, where Gromyko noticed how he “exchanged a few words with each member,” and moved from group to group, making jokes, remembering all fifty-three delegates by name. There were meetings every morning and evening: he was often crushing to his advisers if they did not do their job. Hugh Lunghi, once again interpreting at the conference, heard him saying, “I don’t trust Vyshinsky but with him all things are possible. He’ll jump whichever way we tell him.” Vyshinsky reacted to Stalin “like a frightened hound.”
When Roosevelt was ill, Stalin, Molotov and Gromyko visited him for twenty minutes. Afterwards, coming down the stairs, “Stalin suddenly stopped, took the pipe out of his pocket, filled it unhurriedly and as if to himself said quietly, ‘Why did nature have to punish him so? Is he any worse than other people?’ ”
He had always distrusted Churchill but Roosevelt seemed to fascinate him. “Tell me,” he asked Gromyko, “what do you think of Roosevelt? Is he clever?” Stalin did not hide his fondness for FDR from Gromyko which amazed the young diplomat because his character was so harsh that he “rarely bestowed his sympathy on anyone from another social system.” Only occasionally did he “give way to positive human emotions.”
The next day, 6 February, they met to discuss the painful subject of Poland and the world organization that would become the UN. Russia would take eastern slices of Poland in exchange for grants of German territory in the west. Stalin assented only to include a few Polish nationalists in his Communist-dominated government. When FDR said the Polish elections had to be “beyond question like Caesar’s wife,” Stalin quipped,
“They said that about her but she had her sins.” Stalin explained the Russian obsession with Poland: “Throughout history, Poland has served as a corridor for enemies coming to attack Russia”—hence he wanted a strong Poland. If Beria’s son can be believed, his father came into his room that day saying, “Joseph Vissarionovich has not moved an inch on Poland.” They approved the three zones of occupation in a demilitarized and de-Nazified Germany. The Americans were pleased by Stalin’s repeated promise to intervene against Japan, agreeing to his demands for Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands.
On the 8th, after another meeting, they dined with Stalin at the Yusupov Palace where their opening speeches became more and more emotional as the Big Three, all aged by the war, contemplated their victory. Stalin rose to the occasion, toasting Churchill, “a man who is born once in a hundred years, and who bravely held up the banner of Great Britain. I’ve said what I feel, what I have in my heart, and of what I’m conscious.” Stalin was “in the very best of form,” wrote Brooke, “and was full of fun and good humour.” Stalin, who fooled no one when he described himself as a “naïve . . . garrulous old man,” ominously toasted the generals “who are recognized only during a war and whose services after the war are quickly forgotten. After the war, their prestige goes down and the ladies turn their back on them.” The generals did not yet realize he meant to forget them himself.
This epic dinner boasted one unusual guest: Stalin invited a delighted Beria, who was beginning to find his secret role constricting. Roosevelt noticed him and asked Stalin: “Who’s that in the pince-nez opposite Ambassador Gromyko?”
“Ah, that one. That’s our Himmler,” replied Stalin with deliberate malice. “That’s Beria.” The secret policeman “said nothing, just smiled, showing his yellow teeth” but “it must have cut him to the quick,” wrote his son, who knew how he longed to step onto the world stage. Roosevelt was upset by this, observed Gromyko, especially since Beria heard it too. The Americans examined this mysterious figure with fascination: “He’s little and fat with thick lenses which give him a sinister look but quite genial,” said Kathleen Harriman while Bohlen thought him “plump, pale with pince-nez like a schoolmaster.” The sex-obsessed Beria was soon discussing the sex life of fishes with the boozy, womanizing Sir Archibald Clark Kerr. When he was thoroughly drunk, Sir Archibald stood up and toasted Beria—“the man who looks after our bodies,” a compliment that was not only inappropriate but bungled. Churchill considered Beria the wrong sort of friend for HM Ambassador: “No, Archie, none of that. Be careful,” he waved his finger.
On 10 February, at Churchill’s dinner, Stalin proposed George VI’s health with a proviso that he had always been against kings because he was on the side of the people. Churchill, somewhat irritated, suggested to Molotov that in future he should just propose a toast to the “three Heads of State.” With only twelve or so at dinner, they discussed the upcoming British elections, which Stalin was sure Churchill would win: “Who could be a better leader than he who won the victory?” Churchill explained there were two parties.
“One party is much better,” Stalin said. When they talked about Germany, Stalin regaled them with a story about the country’s “unreasonable sense of discipline” which he had told repeatedly to his own circle. When he arrived in Leipzig for a Communist conference, the Germans had a
rrived at the station but found no ticket collector so they waited for two hours on the platform until he arrived.
After a final dinner in the Tsar’s billiard room at Livadia, Molotov escorted Roosevelt back to Saki, getting onto the presidential plane, the Sacred Cow, to say goodbye.
Churchill spent the night on the Franconia in Sebastopol harbour, flying out next day. Stalin was already on his train to Moscow. Budapest fell two days later.231
Stalin had won virtually all he wanted from the Allies and this is usually blamed on Roosevelt’s illness and susceptibility to Stalinist charm. Both Westerners stand accused of “selling out Eastern Europe to Stalin.”232 Roosevelt’s courtship of Stalin and discourtesy to Churchill were misguided. FDR was certainly ill and exhausted. But Stalin always believed that force would decide who ruled Eastern Europe which was occupied by 10 million Soviet soldiers. He himself told an anecdote after the war which reveals his view of Yalta. “Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin went hunting,” Stalin said. “They finally killed their bear. Churchill said, ‘I’ll take the bearskin. Let Roosevelt and Stalin divide the meat.’ Roosevelt said, ‘No, I’ll take the skin. Let Churchill and Stalin divide the meat.’ Stalin remained silent so Churchill and Roosevelt asked him: ‘Mister Stalin, what do you say?’ Stalin simply replied, ‘The bear belongs to me— after all, I killed it.’ ” The bear is Hitler, the bearskin is Eastern Europe.2
On 8 March, amid operations to clean up Pomerania, Stalin summoned Zhukov to Kuntsevo for a strange meeting that marked the apotheosis of their close, touchy partnership. The Supremo was ill and “greatly over-exhausted.” He seemed depressed. “He had worked too much and slept too little,” thought Zhukov. The Battle for Berlin was his last great effort. Afterwards, he could no longer sustain that tempo of work. He was not alone: Roosevelt was dying; Hitler almost senile; Churchill often ill. Total war took a total toll on its warlords. The Stalin who emerged from the war was both more sentimental and also more deadly.
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