Simon Montefiore - Stalin

The overriding rule was to conceal nothing from Stalin: Zhdanov neutralized his crisis in Leningrad, Khrushchev, his youthful Trotskyism, by submissive confession to Stalin. Stalin’s eye for any weakness was aquiline: when Vyshinsky felt ill and walked out of a diplomatic meeting, Stalin heard about it instantly and phoned his subordinate, Gromyko: “What happened to Vyshinsky? Was he drunk?” Gromyko denied it. “But the doctors say he’s an alcoholic… Oh well all right!” 7

After dinner, Stalin solemnly toasted Lenin whose illuminated bust flickered on the wall: “To Vladimir Illich, our leader, our teacher, our all!” But this sacerdotal blessing ended any remaining decorum. When foreigners were not present, Stalin criticized Lenin, the hero who had turned against him: he even told young Sergo Beria stories about Lenin’s affairs with his secretaries. “At the end of his life,” Khrushchev thought he “lost control over what he was saying.” It was probably after 4 a.m.; the guests were desperately drunk, tired and nauseous but the omnipotent insomniac was awake, vigilant and almost sober.

There was a short rest to wash their hands, another opportunity to roll their eyes at Stalin’s latest peccadillo: the magnates chuckled at the ever-increasing number of locks on the doors and whispered about another of Stalin’s boasts of his drinking exploits: “You see, even in youth, he’d drink too much!” Then it was back to the dinner which now sank to the level of a Neanderthal stag night.

Sometimes Stalin himself “got so drunk he took such liberties,” said Khrushchev. “He’d throw a tomato at you.” Beria was the master of practical jokes along with Poskrebyshev. The two most dignified guests, Molotov and Mikoyan, became the victims as Stalin’s distrust of them became more malicious. Beria targeted the sartorial splendour of the “dashing” Mikoyan. Stalin teased him about his “fancy airs” while Beria delighted in tossing Mikoyan’s hat into the pine trees where it remained. He slipped old tomatoes into Mikoyan’s suits and then “pressed him against the wall” so they exploded in his pocket. Mikoyan started to bring spare pairs of trousers to dinner. At home, Ashken found chicken bones in his pockets. Stalin smiled as Molotov sat on a tomato or Poskrebyshev downed a vodka full of salt that would make him vomit. Poskrebyshev often collapsed and had to be dragged out. Beria once wrote “PRICK” on a piece of paper and stuck it onto Khrushchev’s back. When Khrushchev did not notice, everyone guffawed. Khrushchev never forgot the humiliation.

Sometimes Svetlana popped in during dinner but could not hide her embarrassment and distaste. She thought the magnates resembled “Peter the Great’s boyars ” who had almost killed themselves with drink to entertain the Tsar at his drunken “Synod.”

After dinner, “Stalin played the gramophone, considering it his duty as a citizen. He never left it,” said Berman. He relished his comic records, including one of the “warbling of a singer accompanied by the yowling and barking of dogs” which always made him laugh with mirth. “Well, it’s still clever, devilishly clever!” He marked the records with his comments: “Very good!”

Stalin urged his grandees to dance but this was no longer the exhilarating whirligig of Voroshilov and Mikoyan tripping the light fantastic. This too had become a test of power and strength. Stalin himself “shuffled around with his arms spread out” in Georgian style, though he had “a sense of rhythm.”

“Comrade Joseph Vissarionovich, how strong you are!” chirped the Politburo. Then he stopped and became gloomy: “Oh no, I won’t live long. The physiological laws are having their way.”

“No no!” Molotov chorused. “Comrade Joseph Vissarionovich we need you, you still have a long life ahead of you!”

“Age has crept up on me and I’m already an old man!”

“Nonsense. You look fine. You’re holding up marvellously…”

When Tito was present, Stalin waved away these reassurances and looked at his guest whose assassination he would later order: “Tito should take care of himself in case anything happens to him. Because I won’t live long.” He turned to Molotov: “But Vyacheslav Mikhailovich will remain here.” Molotov squirmed. Then, in a bizarre demonstration of his virility, Stalin declared: “There’s still strength in me!” He slipped both arms around Tito’s arms and thrice lifted him off the floor in time to the Russian folk song on the gramophone, a pas de deux that was the tyrannical equivalent of Nureyev and Fonteyn.

“When Stalin says dance,” Khrushchev told Mikoyan, “a wise man dances.” He made the sweating Khrushchev drop to his haunches and do the gopak that made him look like “a cow dancing on ice.” Bulganin “stomped.” Mikoyan, the “acknowledged dancer,” still managed his wild lezginka , and “our city dancer” Molotov immaculately waltzed, displaying his unlikely terpsichorean talent. Ever since the thirties, Molotov’s party trick had been gravely slow-dancing with other men to the guffaws of Stalin: his last male partner, Postyshev, had been shot long ago.

Polish security boss Berman was amazed when the Soviet Foreign Minister asked him to slow-dance to a waltz. “I just moved my feet in rhythm like the woman,” said Berman. “Molotov led. He wasn’t a bad dancer. I tried to keep in step but what I did resembled clowning more than dancing. It was pleasant but with an inner tension.” Stalin watched from the gramophone, grinning roguishly as Molotov and Berman glided across the floor. It was Stalin who “really had fun. For us,” said Berman, “these dancing sessions were a good opportunity to whisper to each other things that couldn’t be said out loud.” Molotov warned Berman “about being infiltrated by various hostile organizations,” a warning prearranged with Stalin. [251] This male slow-dancing symbolizes the sinister degeneracy of Stalin’s dictatorship but it was not unique. In November 1943, at President Roosevelt’s Thanksgiving party in Cairo, just before their departure to meet Stalin in Teheran, there was a shortage of female dancers. So Churchill happily danced with FDR’s military assistant General Edwin “Pa” Watson.

There were rarely women at these dinners but they were sometimes invited for New Year’s Eve or on Stalin’s birthday. When Nina Beria was at Kuntsevo with her husband, Stalin asked her why she was not dancing. She said she was not in the mood so Stalin went over to a young actor and ordered him to ask Nina to dance. This was to tease the jealous Beria who was furious. Svetlana hated her visits to these orgies. Stalin insisted she dance too: “Well go on, Svetlana, dance! You’re the hostess so dance!”

“I’ve already danced, Papa. I’m tired.” Stalin pulled her hair, expressing his “perverse affection in its brutish form.” When she tried to flee, he called: “Comrade Mistress, why have you left us poor unenlightened creatures without… direction? Lead us! Show us the way!”

When Zhdanov moved to the piano, they sang religious hymns, White anthems and Georgian folk songs like “Suliko.” When Georgian actors and directors such as Chiaureli were present, the entertainment was more elevated. Chiaureli’s “imitations, songs, anecdotes made Stalin laugh.” Stalin loved singing and was very good at it. The two choirboys, Stalin and Voroshilov, joined Mikoyan, Beria and Zhdanov at the piano. [252] They were so pleased with these sessions that they made a record of this murderous boy band with Voroshilov on lead vocals, backed up by Zhdanov on piano. There one can actually hear the fine voices and tinkling piano of a night at Kuntsevo. This remarkable recording is in the possession of the Zhdanov family.