Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

  “It’s the work of a provocateur,” Khrushchev replied. Stalin accepted his judgement. He soon placed him in charge of Agriculture. “Stalin treated me well.” Having destroyed the Leningrad connection, and undermined Molotov and Mikoyan, the “two scoundrels” were perfectly placed for the succession. Khrushchev was recalled to balance their power. However, this plan did not quite work because Khrushchev became “inseparable” from Beria and Malenkov. The Khrushchevs and the Malenkovs289 lived close to one another at Granovsky while Beria’s limousine seemed to be constantly parked on the street waiting for them. Sometimes he hailed the young Khrushchevs as they went to school: “Look at you! The very image of Nikita!”

  The threesome joked about Stalin’s plan while betraying one another to him. After Malenkov had failed to master the impossible job of Agriculture, Andreyev took it over but was then discredited and forced to recant, marking the end of his career. Now Khrushchev was in charge but his plan for gigantic agricultural centres, “agrotowns,” rebounded on him. Stalin, Beria and Malenkov forced him to recant publicly. Molotov and Malenkov wanted him sacked but Beria, who underestimated the “round-headed fool,” intervened to save him. Stalin protected Khrushchev, tapping his pipe on his head—“it’s hollow!” he joked.

  On 5 September, Stalin began his holiday in Sochi where Beria joined him for a barbecue of shashlyks to celebrate the Bomb which, along with the destruction of the Leningraders, had temporarily returned him to favour. But it would not last. Stalin’s distrust of the men around him was now overwhelming. He moved south to New Athos, the smallest and cosiest of his houses, where he spent most of his last holidays.

  When the Supreme Soviet announced the Soviet Bomb, Stalin mused to his young confidant Mgeladze about the new world order: “If war broke out, the use of A-bombs would depend on Trumans and Hitlers being in power. The people won’t allow such people to be in power. Atomic weapons can hardly be used without spelling the end of the world.” He was so happy that he burst into song, singing “Suliko” accompanied by Vlasik and Poskrebyshev, in a rendition that hit the notes perfectly, just like Beria’s Bomb.

  “Chaliapin sang it a little better,” beamed Stalin.

  “Only a little bit better,” chorused his companions.

  Old Stalin was thinking more and more about Nadya. Walking in the gardens with Mgeladze, Stalin lamented his disasters as a parent. First there was Yasha: “Fate treated Yakov badly . . . but he died a hero,” he said. Vasily was an alcoholic: “He does nothing, but drinks a lot.” Then Svetlana, his feminine alter ego, “does whatever she wants.” This most destructive of husbands was sensitive enough about Svetlana’s marriages: “Morozov was a good fellow but for Svetlana, it wasn’t love . . . It’s just fun for her. She walked all over him . . . Naturally this made the marriage unsuccessful. Then she got married again. Who knows what next? . . . Svetlana can’t even sew on a button, the nannies didn’t teach her. If her mother had raised her, she’d be more disciplined. You understand, there was always too much pressure on me . . . No time for the children, sometimes I didn’t see them for months . . . The kids didn’t get lucky. Ekaterina!” He fondly mentioned his first wife Kato, then “Oh Nadya, Nadya!” Mgeladze had never seen Stalin so sad. “Comrade Wolf, I ask you not to say a word about what you’ve heard.”3

  55

  Mao, Stalin’s Birthday and the Korean War

  On 7 December 1949, Stalin arrived back in Moscow in time for two momentous events: the arrival of the new Chinese leader, Chairman Mao Tse-tung, and the celebration of his own seventieth birthday. At noon on 16 December, Mao, who had taken Peking in January, arrived at Yaroslavsky Station where he was met by Molotov and Bulganin in his Marshal’s uniform.290 The visit started as awkwardly as it ended. Mao invited the Russians to a Chinese meal on the train but Molotov refused. Mao sulked, the beginning of a sulk as monumental in its way as the Great Wall itself. Over-awed by Stalin’s greatness but also contemptuous of his consistent lack of support and misreading of China, the tall, gangling Mao was taken directly to one of Stalin’s dachas, Lipki.

  At 6 p.m., Mao and Stalin met for the first time at the Little Corner. The two Communist titans of the century, both fanatics, poets, paranoics, peasants risen to rule empires whose history obsessed them, careless killers of millions, and amateur military commanders, aimed to seal America’s worst nightmare: a Sino-Soviet treaty that would be Stalin’s last significant achievement. Yet they observed each other coolly from the Olympian heights of their own self-regard. Mao complained of being “pushed aside for a long time.”

  “The victors are never blamed,” answered Stalin. “Any ideas or wishes?”

  “We’ve come to complete a certain task,” said Mao. “It must be both beautiful and tasty.”

  A cantankerous silence followed. Stalin appeared baffled by this enigmatic allusion which meant a treaty that was both symbolic and practical, standing for both world revolution and Chinese national interests. Stalin’s first priority was protecting his Far Eastern gains, agreed at Yalta and confirmed in the old Sino-Soviet Treaty. He would sign a new treaty if it did not alter the old one. Mao wished to save face before signing away Chinese lands. This was stalemate. Mao suggested summoning Chou En-lai, his Premier, to complete the negotiations.

  “If we cannot establish what we must complete, why call for Chou?” asked Stalin.

  They parted: Mao claimed Stalin refused to see him but he had his own reasons to wait. He remained miserably in Moscow for several weeks before the two sides came together, grumbling bitterly that there was “nothing to do there but eat, sleep and shit.” The prim Russians were shocked at Mao’s scatological jokes both in person and on their bugs.

  “Comrades,” said Stalin, “the battle of China isn’t over yet. It’s only just beginning.” Beria joked to the others that Stalin was jealous of Mao for ruling a bigger nation.

  Mao was not completely ignored: Molotov, Bulganin and Mikoyan visited him at the dacha. Stalin wondered if the Chinese enigma was a “real Marxist.” Like an abbot testing a novice, Molotov patronizingly tested Mao’s Marxist knowledge, deciding the Chairman was a “clever man, a peasant leader, something like a Chinese Pugachev”291 but not a real Marxist. After all, Molotov repeated prissily to Stalin, Mao “confessed he had never read Das Kapital. ” 1

  On 21 December, Mao and the entire Communist world gathered at the Bolshoi to celebrate the birthday of their supreme pontiff. Something between a religious pilgrimage and an imperial triumph, a royal wedding and a corporate junket, the festivities cost 5.6 million roubles and attracted thousands of pilgrims. Stalin, torn between contempt for their worship and craving for it, played the modest curmudgeon as Malenkov, always at the forefront of the basest acts of idolatry, tried to persuade him that “the people” expected a celebration—and to accept a second Hero of the Soviet Union star.

  “Don’t even think of presenting me with another star,” he growled.

  “But Comrade Stalin, the people . . .”

  “Leave the people out of it.” But he finally accepted the medal and happily reviewed the arrangements. The archives contain the extraordinary preparations: President Shvernik headed the “Committee for Preparations of Comrade Stalin’s Birthday” which self-consciously contained “ordinary workers,” magnates, marshals and artists such as Shostakovich, who gravely debated the creation of an Order of Stalin, the guest list, placement—and a Stalin gift pack. At a total cost of 487,000 roubles, every delegate was to receive a dressing gown, slippers, razor and a set of Moskva soap, talc and scent (the proudest creation of Polina Molotova, now in jail).

  In Pravda, Khrushchev hailed Stalin’s “sharp intransigence to rootless cosmopolitans,” the Jews. Poskrebyshev praised Stalin’s brilliance at growing lemons. The wives of the magnates brought their own presents—Nina Beria made walnut jam “as a little souvenir . . . of your mother,” to which Stalin wrote a thank-you letter:

  “As I eat your jam, I remember my youth.”

 
Beria rolled his eyes: “Now you’ll be lined up for this chore every year.”

  Famous artistes and élite children rehearsed their tributes. Parents had never been pushier: Poskrebyshev managed to land his daughter Natasha the plum role of reciting an idolatrous ditty then presenting Stalin (who had ordered the death of her mother) a bouquet. At the Bolshoi, ballerinas practiced “curtsies to the God.”

  At the Little Corner, the night before, Stalin changed the placement so that he was no longer in the centre but Malenkov insisted he had to be in the front row. He pointedly placed himself between Mao and Khrushchev, the new favourite. Later he felt pressure on his neck, then staggered from a dizzy spell, but Poskrebyshev steadied him. He would not call the doctors. Poskrebyshev prescribed one of his remedies.

  The next night, the packed Bolshoi awaited the magnates. Stalin’s exotic entourage, including Mao, Ulbricht of Germany, Rakosi of Hungary and Bierut of Poland, mingled in the avant-loge until everything was ready. When they trooped out, the audience applauded madly. Stalin sat to the left of centre under a jungle of scarlet banners and a giant portrait of himself. Then the endless speeches started, hailing the birthday boy as a genius. Stalin gestured to General Vlasik and whispered that guests were to speak in their own languages, an internationalist gesture by “the father of peoples.” Togliatti spoke in Italian which he translated into Russian himself. Mao’s address, in his surprisingly high-pitched voice, won a standing ovation. Stalin was exhausted from standing up so often. Then the schoolgirls, in their Pioneer dresses, emerged led by Natasha Poskrebysheva to recite their poem. Poskrebyshev winked at his daughter who scampered up and presented the bouquet of red roses: “Papa and Stalin both loved red roses,” she says.

  “Thanks ryzhik, redhead, for the roses!” Stalin said and pointed at his devoted Poskrebyshev who beamed with pride.

  The party reassembled for a huge banquet at the Kremlin’s Georgievsky Hall and for a concert starring the tenor Kozlovsky, the ballerina Maya Plisetskaya and the soprano Vera Davydova. Vlasik personally checked their dressing rooms for assassins or bombs. When she danced, Maya noticed “the Emperor’s bewhiskered face in the first row at the long festive table facing away from the stage and half turned to me [with] Mao next to him.”2

  Mao’s superlative sulk was wearing thin. Face had been saved. When he tried to call Stalin, he was told he “was not at home and it would be better to talk to Mikoyan.” Finally, on 2 January, Stalin sent Molotov and Mikoyan to begin negotiations. Chou En-lai292 arrived on the 20th and started to negotiate with the new Foreign Minister, Vyshinsky, and Mikoyan. Mao and Chou were invited to the Kremlin only to be reprimanded by Stalin for not signing a critique of U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s recent speech.

  When Mao grumbled about Stalin’s resistance to the treaty, Stalin retorted: “To hell with that! We must go all the way.” Mao sulked even more. In the limousine out to Kuntsevo, the Chinese interpreter invited Stalin to visit Mao.

  “Swallow your words!” Mao hissed in Chinese to the interpreter. “Don’t invite him!” Neither of the titans spoke for the entire thirty-minute drive. When Stalin invited Mao to dance to his gramophone, a singular honour for a visiting leader, he refused. It did not matter: the game of poker was over. While reserving for himself the supreme priesthood of international Communism, Stalin allowed Mao a leading role in Asia.

  At the banquet at the Metropol Hotel on 14 February, after the treaty was signed, Stalin pointedly denounced Titoism—and Mao continued his heroic sulk. The two giants barely spoke: “sporadic” exchanges subsided into “endless pauses.” Gromyko struggled to keep the conversation going. Stalin may not have liked Mao but he was impressed: “Of the Marxist world, the most outstanding is Mao . . . Everything in his Marxist-Leninist life shows principles and drive, a coherent fighter.” The alliance was immediately tested on the battlefields of Korea.3

  Kim Il Sung, the young leader of Communist North Korea, now arrived in Moscow to ask Stalin’s permission to invade South Korea. Stalin encouraged Kim but shrewdly passed the buck to Mao, telling the Korean he could “only get down to action” after consulting with “Comrade Mao Tse-tung personally.” In Peking, the nervous Mao referred back to Stalin. On 14 May, Stalin cunningly replied, “The question should ultimately be decided by the Chinese and Korean comrades together.” He thus protected his dominant role but passed the responsibility. Nonetheless, his magnates were worried by his reckless challenge to America and failing powers of judgement. At 4 a.m., on Sunday, 25 June 1950, North Korea attacked the south. Driving all before them, the Communists were soon poised to conquer.

  On 5 August, a weary, ageing Stalin departed by special train for his longest holiday so far. It was to be four and a half months, brooding on his anti-Jewish case, on his anger towards Molotov and Mikoyan, distrust of Beria, and dissatisfaction with the ruthlessness of Abakumov’s MGB— while the world teetered on the brink thousands of miles away in Korea.

  No sooner had he arrived to rest than disaster struck in the faraway peninsula. Stalin had withdrawn from the UN to protest against its refusal to recognize Mao’s China instead of Taiwan as the legitimate government but President Truman called Stalin’s bluff by convening the Security Council to approve UN intervention against North Korea. The Soviet Union could have avoided this but Stalin wrongly insisted on boycotting the session, against Gromyko’s advice. “Stalin for once was guided by emotion,” remembered Gromyko. In September, the powerful U.S. counter-attack at Inchon, under the UN flag, trapped Kim’s North Koreans in the south and then shattered their army. Once again, Stalin’s testing of American resolve had backfired badly—but the old man simply sighed to Khrushchev that if Kim was defeated, “So what. Let it be. Let the Americans be our neighbours.” If he did not get what he wanted, Russia would still not intervene.

  As the Americans advanced into North Korea towards the Chinese border, Mao desperately looked towards Stalin, fearing that if they intervened and fought the Americans, their Sino-Soviet Treaty would embroil Russia too. Stalin replied, with Nero-like nonchalance, that he was “far from Moscow and somewhat cut off from events in Korea.” But on 5 October, Stalin fired off a telegram of blunt realpolitik and shameless bluff: America was “not prepared . . . for a big war” but if it came to it, “let it happen now and not in a few years when Japanese militarism will be restored.” Thus Stalin pulled the sting out of Mao’s reservations and pushed his ally one step closer to war.

  Mao deployed nine divisions but despatched Chou to Stalin’s holiday house, probably New Athos, to discuss the promised Soviet air cover for the Chinese troops. On 9 October, a tense Chou, accompanied by Mao’s trusted protégé, the fragile but talented Lin Piao, later his doomed heir apparent, faced Stalin, Malenkov, Beria, Kaganovich, Bulganin, Mikoyan and Molotov.

  “Today we want to listen to the opinions and thinking of our Chinese comrades,” Stalin opened the meeting. When Chou stated the situation, Stalin replied that Russia could not enter the war—but China should. Nonetheless, if Kim lost, he offered the North Koreans sanctuary. He could only help with military equipment. Chou, who had been counting on Soviet air cover, gasped. Afterwards, Stalin invited the Chinese to a Bacchanal from which only Lin Piao emerged sober.

  This was one of the occasions when Beria disagreed with Stalin and, as ever, he was the most daring in expressing himself. When he came out of the meeting on sending Chinese forces into Korea, he found the Georgian boss, Charkviani, waiting outside: “What’s he doing?” Beria, who understood the nuclear threat, exclaimed nervously. “The Americans will be furious. He’ll make them our enemy.” Charkviani was amazed to hear such heresy.

  “It’s hard for me to trust a man 100% but I think I can rely on him,” Stalin reflected to Mgeladze over dinner, having manoeuvred Mao into fighting the Americans without Soviet air cover.

  On 19 October, Mao deployed his waves of Chinese cannon fodder to throw back the surprised Americans. Henceforth, even when the front finally stabilized
along the 38th Parallel and the North Koreans begged for peace, Stalin refused to agree: attrition suited him. As he told Chou at a later meeting, in a phrase that illustrates Stalin’s entire monstrous career, the North Koreans could keep on fighting indefinitely because they “lose nothing, except for their men.”4

  While the old Generalissimo basked in the sun pulling the strings in Korea, he was also killing his own men. On 29 September, Kuznetsov and Voznesensky were tried at the Officers’ Club in Leningrad before an MGB audience. Before the trial finally started, the accused were ordered to leave Zhdanov out of their testimony. The main accused were sentenced to death by shooting next day and the Politburo endorsed the sentences. “He’d sign first,” admitted Khrushchev, “and then pass it around for the rest of us to sign. We’d sign without even looking . . .” Did they sign the death list over dinner on the veranda?

  Kuznetsov defiantly refused to confess, which outraged Stalin and embarrassed Abakumov:

  “I’m a Bolshevik and remain one in spite of the sentence I have received. History will justify us.” The accused were said to have been bundled into white sacks by the Chekists and dragged out to be shot. They were killed fifty-nine minutes after midnight on 1 October, their families exiled to the camps.

  There is some evidence that Stalin marked the lists with symbols specifying how they were to die. Voznesensky may have been kept alive for a while because Stalin later asked Malenkov: “Is he in the Urals? Give him some work to do!” Malenkov informed Stalin that Voznesensky had frozen to death in the back of a prison truck in sub-zero temperatures.