Simon Montefiore - Stalin

As Kirov headed back to Leningrad, Stalin despatched Zhdanov to Moscow to supervise the first Writers’ Congress. This was Zhdanov’s first test, which he passed with flying colours, managing, with Kaganovich’s help, to cope with Gorky’s demands and Bukharin’s hysteria. Zhdanov reported every detail to Stalin in twenty-page letters in a fastidious hand that showed their close relationship and the younger man’s new eminence. (There seems to have been an unspoken competition among his men to write the longest letters: if so, Zhdanov was the winner.) Like a schoolboy to his tutor, Zhdanov boasted of his good work: “The opinion of all the writers—ours and foreigners—was good. All the sceptics who predicted failure now have to admit the colossal success. All the writers saw and understood the Party’s attitude.” He admitted, “the Congress cost me a lot in terms of my nerves but I think I did it well.” Stalin appreciated his openness about his weaknesses. 18Once the Congress was over, Zhdanov even had to apologize to Stalin that “I didn’t write to you. Congress took so much time…” but he also apologized for writing “such a long letter—I can’t do it any other way.”

By now the other leaders had gone off on holiday: “Molotov, Kaganovich, Chubar and Mikoyan left today. Kuibyshev, Andreyev and me stayed.” Zhdanov, not even a Politburo candidate, and new in the Secretariat, was left in charge of the country, signing decrees himself. Here was another sign that the Politburo’s importance was shrinking: proximity to Stalin was the source of real power. [73] After the Seventeenth Congress, formal Politburo meetings became gradually less frequent. Often a Politburo sitting was really just Stalin chatting with a couple of comrades: Poskrebyshev’s minutes are simply marked “Comrades Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich—for” and the others were sometimes telephoned by Poskrebyshev who marked their votes and signed his “P” underneath. By the end of the year, there was one meeting in September, none in October and one in November. Soviet Russia was enjoying its last months of oligarchy and approaching the first of dictatorship. 19

Zhdanov, one of the more fragile of Stalin’s workhorses, was exhausted: “I ask for one month’s holiday in Sochi… I feel very tired,” he wrote to Stalin. Of course he would work on their beloved history: “During the holiday, I’d like to look through the textbooks on history… I’ve already looked through the second-level textbooks—not good. A big greeting to you, dear Comrade Stalin!” 20

What was Stalin’s mood in this calm before the storm? He was frustrated by the NKVD’s blunders and the “whining” of Party bigwigs. On 11 September, Stalin complained to Zhdanov and Kuibyshev about misguided secret-police coercion: “Find out all the mistakes of the deduction methods of the workers of the GPU… Free persecuted persons who are innocent if they are innocent and… purge the OGPU of people with specific ‘deduction methods’ and punish them all—‘whoever they may be’ [in Stalin’s words: ‘without looking at their faces’].” 21

A few days later, a sailor defected to Poland. Stalin immediately ordered Zhdanov and Yagoda to enforce the punishment of the sailor’s family: “Inform me at once that 1. members of sailor’s family were arrested and 2. if not, then who is guilty for the mistake [of not having done so] in our Organs and has the culprit been punished for this betrayal of the Motherland?” The tension was rising too in his relationship with Kirov. 22

On 1 September, Stalin despatched the Politburo around the countryside to check the harvest: Kirov was sent to Kazakhstan where there was a strange incident which might have been an assassination attempt or meant to resemble one. The circumstances are murky but when he returned to Leningrad, four more Chekists were added to his NKVD guard, bringing it to about nine men who worked in shifts at different locations. This made Kirov one of the most guarded of all the Soviet leaders and he did not like it, sensing it was another attempt to separate him from his trusted local Chekists, particularly his bodyguard Borisov, middle-aged and overweight but loyal. After their tour, Sergo and Voroshilov joined Stalin on holiday while Zhdanov inspected Stalingrad, whence he managed another thirteen-page letter, showing his toughness by demanding, “Some workers must be sent to trial here.” He signed off heartily: “A hundred times: Devil curse the details!”

When Stalin returned to Moscow on 31 October, he again longed to see Kirov who was arguing against Stalin’s plan to end bread rationing on which he depended to feed Leningrad’s huge population. Kuibyshev was Kirov’s ally: “I need your support,” he wrote from Leningrad. On 3 November, Maria Svanidze recorded Stalin arriving in his apartment with Kaganovich while the “absurd fat” Zhdanov ran along behind him. He rang a reluctant Kirov and invited him to Moscow “to defend the interests of Leningrad.” Stalin gave the phone to Kaganovich who “talked Kirov into coming down.” Maria said that Stalin really just wanted to “go to the steambath and joke around with him.”

A few days later, Kirov drove out with Stalin and his son Vasily to Zubalovo to watch a puppet show put on by Svetlana, and then played billiards. Khrushchev, attending the Politburo as a rising star, witnessed “an exchange of sharp words” between Stalin and Kirov. Khrushchev was shocked that the Vozhd behaved “disrespectfully to another Party member.” Svanidze noticed Stalin was “in a bad mood.” Kirov anxiously returned to Leningrad: he longed to discuss the rising tension with his friend: “I haven’t seen Sergo in such a long time.” 23

On 7 November, there was another sign of the apparent thaw. At the diplomatic reception in the Andreevsky Hall, presided over by Stalin, Kalinin and Voroshilov, the traditional Red Army oompah band packed up and were replaced, to the amazement of all, by Antonin Ziegler and his Jazz Revue. The wild swing music seemed completely out of place and no one knew whether they should dance or not. Then the light-footed Voroshilov, who was taking dancing lessons in cabaret jazz, started to foxtrot strenuously with his wife Ekaterina Davidovna. 24

On 25 November, Kirov rushed back to Moscow for the Plenum, hoping to consult with Ordzhonikidze. 25Sergo did not make it to the Plenum. Earlier that month, visiting Baku with Beria, he was suddenly taken ill after dinner. Beria took Sergo back to Tiflis by train. After the 7 November parade, Sergo fell ill again with intestinal bleeding, then suffered a serious heart attack. The Politburo sent three specialists down to examine him but they were confounded by his mysterious symptoms. Sergo was nonetheless determined to return for the Plenum but Stalin formally ordered him to “strictly fulfill doctor’s instructions and not return to Moscow before 26 November. Don’t take your illness lightly. Regards. Stalin.”

When Beria was involved, it was indeed foolish to take one’s illnesses lightly: Stalin perhaps did not want Sergo and Kirov to meet at the Plenum. Beria, who had offered to use his axe for Stalin, was already aware of the Leader’s disillusionment with Sergo. He was to prove adept with poisons. Indeed, the NKVD already boasted a secret department of medical poisoners under Dr. Grigory Maironovsky but Beria needed little help in such matters. He truly brought the venom of the Borgias to the court of the Bolsheviks. 26But Stalin himself brooded about poison; reflecting on venomous intrigues at the eighteenth-century Persian court, which he was studying, he had earlier scribbled on his pad during a Politburo meeting: “Poison, poison, Nadir Khan.” 27

After the Plenum, on the 28th, Stalin personally escorted Kirov to the Red Arrow train, embracing him in his compartment. 28Kirov was back at work in Leningrad the next day. On 1 December, he started work at home, preparing a speech, then, wearing his worker’s peaked cap and raincoat, he set off from his apartment on foot to his office. He entered the grand neoclassical Smolny Institute by the public entrance. At 4:30 p.m., Kirov, followed by his bodyguard Borisov, walked up to his third-floor office. Old Borisov fell behind, either from unfitness or being strangely delayed by some Chekists from Moscow who appeared at the door.