Stalin stories from life. Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovich - interesting biography facts

This life was born hopelessly. An illegitimate son assigned to a seedy drunkard shoemaker. Uneducated mother. Little Coco didn't get out of the puddles near Queen Tamara's hill. [Cm. article Stalin's Parents and Family.] Not just to become the ruler of the world, but how can this child get out of the lowest, most humiliated position?

Nevertheless, the culprit of his life bothered him, and, bypassing church regulations, they accepted the boy from a non-clerical family - first to a theological school, then even to a seminary.

From the heights of the darkened iconostasis, the God of Hosts sternly called to the new novice, spread out on the cold stone slabs. Oh, with what zeal the boy began to serve God! how I trusted him! During his six years of study, he hammered home the Old and New Testaments, the Lives of Saints and church history, and diligently served at liturgies.

Here, in the “Biography”, there is this photograph: a graduate of the theological school Dzhugashvili in a gray cassock with a round closed collar; matte, as if exhausted by prayers, the adolescent oval of the face; his long hair, prepared for the priestly service, is strictly combed, humbly anointed with lamp oil and let down over his ears - and only his eyes and tense eyebrows betray that this novice will probably go to the metropolitan.

Stalin while studying at the theological seminary

And God deceived... The sleepy, hateful town among the round green hills, in the windings of Medjuda and Liakhvi, fell behind: in noisy Tiflis, smart people had long been laughing at God. And the ladder that Coco tenaciously climbed led, it turns out, not to heaven, but to the attic.

But the seething bully age demanded action! Time was running out - nothing was done! There was no money for a university, for civil service, for starting a trade - but there was socialism that accepted everyone, socialism that was accustomed to seminarians. There was no inclination towards the sciences or the arts, there was no skill in crafts or theft, there was no luck in becoming the lover of a rich lady - but she called everyone with open arms, accepted and promised everyone a place - the Revolution.

Joseph Dzhugashvili. Photo from 1896

Here, in the “Biography,” he advised including a photo from this time, his favorite shot. Here he is, almost in profile. He doesn’t have a beard, a mustache, or sideburns (he hasn’t decided what yet), but simply hasn’t shaved for a long time, and everything is picturesquely overgrown with lush male growth. He is all ready to rush, but does not know where. What a sweet young man! An open, intelligent, energetic face, not a trace of that fanatical novice. Freed from oil, the hair perked up, adorned the head in thick waves and, swaying, covered what may have been somewhat unsuccessful in it: the forehead was low and sloping back. The young man is poor, his jacket was bought second-hand, a cheap checkered scarf fits his neck with artistic license and covers his narrow, painful chest, where there is no shirt. Isn’t this Tiflis plebeian already doomed to tuberculosis?

Every time Stalin looks at this photograph, his heart is filled with pity (for there are no hearts that are completely incapable of it).

How difficult everything is, how everything is against this glorious young man, huddled in a free cold closet at the observatory and already expelled from the seminary!

(He wanted to combine both for insurance; he went to Social Democratic circles for four years and continued to pray and interpret the catechism for four years - but they still expelled him.) For eleven years he bowed and prayed - in vain, he cried for lost time... The more decisively he shifted his youth to the Revolution!

And the Revolution also deceived... And what kind of revolution was that - the Tiflis one, a game of boastful self-conceit in cellars drinking wine? Here you will disappear, in this anthill of nonentities: no proper promotion through the steps, no seniority, but who will talk to whom. The former seminarian hates these talkers more bitterly than governors and policemen. (Why be angry with those? They serve honestly for a salary and naturally must defend themselves, but there can be no excuse for these upstarts!) Revolution? among Georgian shopkeepers? - will never! And he lost the seminary, lost the right path of life.

And to hell with this revolution, in some kind of poverty, in workers drinking away their pay, in some sick old women, in someone’s underpaid pennies? - why should he love them, and not himself, young, smart, beautiful and - bypassed?

Only in Batum, for the first time leading along the street about two hundred people, counting onlookers, Koba (that was his nickname now) felt the germination of grains and the power of power. People followed him! – Koba tried it, and he could never forget the taste. This was the only thing that suited him in life, this was the one life he could understand: you say - and people should do it, you indicate - and people should go. There is nothing better than this, higher than this. This is beyond wealth.

A month later, the police changed their minds and arrested him. Nobody was afraid of arrests then: what a deal! They’ll keep you for two months, then you’ll be released, and you’ll be a sufferer. Koba handled himself well in the common cell and encouraged others to despise their jailers.

But they grabbed him. All his cellmates were replaced, and he sat. What did he do? No one was punished like that for trivial demonstrations.

Passed year! - and he was transferred to the Kutaisi prison, to a dark, damp cell. Here he lost heart: life went on, but he not only did not rise, but descended lower and lower. He coughed painfully from the prison dampness. And even more justly he hated these professional loudmouths, the darlings of life: why is the revolution so easy for them, why are they not kept for so long?

Meanwhile, a gendarmerie officer, already familiar from Batum, arrived at the Kutaisi prison. Well, have you thought enough, Dzhugashvili? This is just the beginning, Dzhugashvili. We will keep you here until you rot from consumption or correct your behavior. We want to save you and your soul. You were there five minutes before, priest, Father Joseph! Why did you join this pack? You are a random person among them. Say you're sorry.

He really was sorry, how sorry he was! His second spring in prison was ending, his second prison summer was dragging on. Oh, why did he give up his modest spiritual service?

How in a hurry he was!.. The most unbridled imagination could not imagine a revolution in Russia earlier than in fifty years, when Joseph would be seventy-three years old... Why would he need a revolution then?

Yes, not only for this reason. But Joseph had already studied himself and recognized his unhurried character, his solid character, his love for strength and order. So it was precisely on solidity, on slowness, on strength and order that the Russian Empire stood, and why was it necessary to shake it?

And the officer with the wheat mustache came and came. (Joseph really liked his clean gendarme uniform with beautiful shoulder straps, neat buttons, piping, and buckles.) In the end, what I am offering you is public service. (Iosif would have been irrevocably ready to go into government service, but he spoiled things for himself in Tiflis and Batum.) You will receive support from us. At first you will help us among the revolutionaries. Choose the most extreme direction. Among them – move forward. We will treat you with care wherever we go. You will give us your messages in such a way that it does not cast a shadow on you. What nickname will we choose?.. And now, in order not to expose you, we are transporting you to a distant exile, and you leave from there right away, that’s what everyone does.

And Dzhugashvili decided! And he placed the third bet of his youth on the secret police!

In November he was deported to the Irkutsk province. There, among the exiles, he read a letter from a certain Lenin, known from Iskra. Lenin had broken away to the very edge, now he was looking for supporters, sending out letters. Obviously, he should have joined him.

Joseph left the terrible Irkutsk cold for Christmas, and even before the start Japanese war I was in the sunny Caucasus.

Now a long period of impunity began for him: he met with underground members, wrote leaflets, called to rallies - others were arrested (especially those he did not like), but he was not recognized, he was not caught. And they didn’t take me to war.

And suddenly! - no one expected it so quickly, no one prepared it, organized it - but She came! Crowds went around St. Petersburg with a political petition, great princes and nobles were killed, Ivano-Voznesensk went on strike, Lodz rebelled, “ Potemkin“- and the manifesto was quickly squeezed out of the Tsar’s throat, and still the machine guns on Presnya were still knocking and the railways froze.

Koba was amazed and stunned. Was he wrong again? Why can't he see anything ahead?

The secret police deceived him!.. His third bet was beaten! Oh, if only we could give him back his free revolutionary soul! What kind of hopeless ring is this? - to shake the revolution out of Russia, so that on its second day your reports will be shaken out of the secret police archives?

Not only was his will not steel then, but it completely split in two, he lost himself and saw no way out.

Young Joseph Stalin. Photo from 1908

However, they shot, made some noise, hung themselves up, looked around - where is that revolution? She's gone!

At this time, the Bolsheviks adopted a good revolutionary method of expropriation. Any Armenian moneybag was given a letter asking him to bring ten, fifteen, twenty-five thousand. And the moneybags brought it so that they wouldn’t blow up his shop or kill his children. It was a method of struggle - such a method of struggle! - not scholasticism, not leaflets and demonstrations, but real revolutionary action. The clean-cut Mensheviks grumbled that robbery and terror were contrary to Marxism. Oh, how Koba mocked them, oh, he drove them away like cockroaches, that’s why Lenin called him “a wonderful Georgian”! - exes are robbery, but revolution is not robbery? ah, varnished purists! Where does the money come from for the party, and where does it come from for the revolutionaries themselves? A bird in the hands is better than a pie in the sky.

Of the entire revolution, Koba especially fell in love with the exes. And here no one except Koba knew how to find those only faithful people, like Camo who will obey him, who will shake his revolver, who will take away the bag of gold and bring it to Koba on a completely different street, without coercion. And when they raked out 340 thousand in gold from the forwarders of the Tiflis bank - so this was still a proletarian revolution on a small scale, and fools are waiting for another, big revolution.

And the police did not know this about Kobe, and such a pleasant average line between the revolution and the police still remained. He always had money.

And the revolution already took him on European trains, sea ships, showed him islands, canals, medieval castles. It was no longer a stinking Kutaisi cell! In Tammerfors, Stockholm, London, Koba looked closely at the Bolsheviks, at the obsessed Lenin. Then in Baku I breathed in the vapors of this underground liquid, boiling black anger.

Vladimir Lenin. Pre-revolutionary photo

And they took care of him. The older and more famous he became in the party, the closer he was exiled, no longer to Baikal, but to Solvychegodsk, and not for three years, but for two. Between the links they did not interfere with the revolution. Finally, after three Siberian and Ural exiles, he, an implacable, tireless rebel, was driven... to the city of Vologda, where he settled in a policeman’s apartment and could travel by train to St. Petersburg in one night.

But on a February evening in nine hundred and twelve, his younger Baku comrade Ordzhonikidze came to him in Vologda from Prague, shook him by the shoulders and shouted:

"Coco! Coco! You have been co-opted into the Central Committee!”

On that moonlit night, swirling with frosty fog, thirty-two-year-old Koba, wrapped in a doha, walked for a long time around the yard. Again he hesitated. Member of the Central Committee!

After all, here Malinovsky- member of the Bolshevik Central Committee - and deputy of the State Duma. Well, let Lenin especially love Malinovsky. But this is under the Tsar! And after the revolution, today’s member of the Central Committee is a faithful minister. True, don’t expect any revolution now, not in our lifetime. But even without a revolution, a member of the Central Committee is some kind of power. What will he do in the secret police service? Not a member of the Central Committee, but a small spy. No, we must part with the gendarmerie.

Fate Azef like a giant ghost swayed over his every day, over his every night.

In the morning they went to the station and went to St. Petersburg. They were captured there.

Joseph Stalin. Photo from 1912

The young, inexperienced Ordzhonikidze was given three years in the Shlisselburg fortress and then additional exile. Stalin, as usual, was given only exile, three years. True, it’s a bit far away - Narym region, this is like a warning. But communication routes in the Russian Empire were well established, and at the end of the summer Stalin returned safely to St. Petersburg.

Now he has shifted the pressure to party work. I went to see Lenin in Krakow (it was not difficult for an exile). There's a printing house, there's a May rally, there's a leaflet - and at the Kalashnikov Exchange, at a party, they busted him (Malinovsky, but this was learned much later). The Okhrana got angry - and now they drove him into real exile - under the Arctic Circle, in Kureyka's pen. And they gave him a sentence - the tsarist government knew how to create merciless sentences! – four years, it’s scary to say.

And again Stalin hesitated: for what, for whom, did he refuse a moderate, prosperous life, from the protection of the authorities, and allow himself to be sent to this damn hole? “Member of the Central Committee” is a word for a fool. There were several hundred exiles from all the parties, but Stalin looked at them and was horrified: what a vile breed these professional revolutionaries are - firebrands, wheezes, dependent, insolvent. It wasn’t even the Arctic Circle that Caucasian Stalin was afraid of, but being in the company of these lightweight, unstable, irresponsible, negative people. And in order to immediately separate himself from them, disconnect him - yes, it would be easier for him among the bears! - he married a Cheldonian woman with a body like a mammoth, and a squeaky voice - but it’s better to have her “hee-hee-hee” and a kitchen with stinking fat than go to those meetings, disputes, scrapes and comradely courts. Stalin made it clear to them that they were strangers, cut himself off from them all and from the revolution too. Enough! It’s not too late to start an honest life even at thirty-five; at some point you have to stop running around in the wind, pockets like sails. (He despised himself for having spent so many years messing around with these clickers.) So he lived, completely separately, did not touch either the Bolsheviks or the anarchists, they moved on. Now he was not going to run away, he was going to honestly serve his exile to the end. Yes and war began, and only here, in exile, could he save his life. He sat with his chick, hiding; they had a son. But the war never ended. Use your fingernails or teeth to stretch out an extra year of exile—this weak king couldn’t even give real deadlines!

No, the war did not end! And from the police department, with which he had become so accustomed, his card and his soul were handed over to the military commander, and he, knowing nothing about Social Democrats or members of the Central Committee, called up Joseph Dzhugashvili, born in 1879, who had not previously served military service , – into the Russian Imperial Army as a private. This is how the future great marshal began his military career. He had already tried three services, the fourth was about to begin.

He was taken on a sleepy sled along the Yenisei to Krasnoyarsk, from there to the barracks in Achinsk. He was thirty-eight years old, and he was nothing, a Georgian soldier, huddled in an overcoat from the Siberian frosts and being carried as cannon fodder to the front. And his whole great life was to end near some Belarusian farm or Jewish town.

But he had not yet learned how to roll up an overcoat roll and load a rifle (later he did not know either a commissar or a marshal, and it was inconvenient to ask), when telegraph tapes arrived from Petrograd, from which strangers hugged each other in the streets and shouted in the frosty breath: “Christ risen!" The king - abdicated! The Empire was no more!

How? Where? And they forgot to hope and gave up counting. Joseph was taught correctly in his childhood: “Thy ways are mysterious, O Lord!”

I can’t remember when Russian society, all its party shades, had such unanimous fun. But for Stalin to rejoice, another telegram was needed, without it the ghost of Azef, like a hanged man, kept swinging overhead.

And a day later that dispatch came: The security department was burned and destroyed, all documents were destroyed!

The revolutionaries knew that they had to burn them quickly. There, probably, as Stalin realized, there were many like him, many like him...

(The security guard burned down, but for the rest of his life Stalin looked askance and looked around. With his own hands he leafed through tens of thousands of archival sheets and threw entire folders into the fire without looking through. And yet he missed it, it almost opened in the thirty-seventh. And every fellow party member who was later given up brought to trial, Stalin certainly accused him of being an informer: he learned how easy it is to fall, and it was difficult for him to imagine that others would not be insured too.) February Revolution Stalin later refused the title of great, but he forgot how he himself rejoiced and sang, and flew on wings from Achinsk (now he could desert!), and did stupid things and through some provincial window sent a telegram to Lenin in Switzerland.

He arrived in Petrograd and immediately agreed with Kamenev: this is what we dreamed about in the underground. The revolution has been accomplished, now we need to strengthen what has been achieved. The time has come for positive people (especially if you are already a member of the Central Committee). All forces to support the provisional government!

So everything was clear to them until this adventurer arrived, not knowing Russia, deprived of any positive uniform experience, and, choking, twitching and burring, he climbed with his April theses, completely confused everything! And finally he spoke to the party, dragged it to July coup!

This adventure failed, as Stalin correctly predicted, and the entire party almost died. And where has the rooster courage of this hero gone now?

He fled to Razliv, saving his skin, and the Bolsheviks were being smeared with the latest curses. Was his freedom really more valuable than the authority of the party? Stalin openly expressed this to them at Sixth Congress, but did not gather the majority.

In general, the seventeenth year was an unpleasant year: there were too many rallies, the one who lies the best is carried around, Trotsky never left the circus. And where did they come from, the talkative talkers, like flies to honey? We didn’t see them in exile, we didn’t see them on exiles, we hung around abroad, and then they came to rip people’s throats and get into the front seat. And they judge everything like fast fleas. The question hasn’t even arisen in life, hasn’t been posed – they already know how to answer! They laughed offensively at Stalin and didn’t even hide it. Okay, Stalin didn’t get involved in their disputes, and he didn’t get into the stands, he kept quiet for now. Stalin didn’t like this, he didn’t know how to throw out words in a race to see who was bigger and louder. This is not how he imagined the revolution. He envisioned the revolution: taking leadership positions and getting things done.

These pointy beards laughed at him, but why did they decide to blame everything difficult, everything thankless, on Stalin? They laughed at him, but why did everyone in the Kshesinskaya palace get sick with their stomachs and send no one else to Petropavlovka, namely Stalin, when it was necessary to convince the sailors to give up the fortress to Kerensky without a fight, and leave for Kronstadt again? Because the sailors would have thrown stones at Grishka Zinoviev. Because you need to be able to talk with the Russian people.

It was an adventure October revolution, but it was a success, okay. It was a success.

Fine. For this we can give Lenin an A. What will happen next is unknown, but for now it’s good. People's Commissariat? Okay, let it be. Draw up a constitution?

OK. Stalin took a closer look.

Surprisingly, it seemed that the revolution was completely successful in one year. It was impossible to expect this - but it was a success! This clown, Trotsky, also believed in world revolution, Treaty of Brest-Litovsk didn’t want to, and Lenin believed it, ah, book dreamers! You have to be an ass - to believe in the European revolution, how long they lived there themselves - they did not understand anything, Stalin drove through once - he understood everything. Here you need to cross yourself, that yours was a success. And sit quietly.

Think.

Stalin looked around with sober, unbiased eyes. And I thought about it. And I clearly understood that these phrase-mongers would ruin such an important revolution. And only he alone, Stalin, can guide it correctly. By honor, by conscience, he was the only real leader here. He impartially compared himself with these playwrights, jumpers, and clearly saw his superiority in life, their fragility, his stability. He differed from all of them in that understood people. He understood them there, where they connect with the earth, where basis, in that place I understood them, without which they do not stand, will not stand, and what is higher, what they pretend to do, what they show off - this is superstructure, doesn't solve anything.

It’s true, Lenin had an eagle flight, he could simply surprise: in one night he turned - “the land to the peasants!” (and then we’ll see), one day he came up with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (after all, it’s not like it hurts a Russian, even a Georgian, to give up half of Russia to the Germans, but it doesn’t hurt him!). Oh NEP don’t say it at all, this is the trickiest thing of all, it’s not a shame to learn such maneuvers.

What was above all in Lenin, super-remarkable: he held real power very tightly only in his own hands. Slogans changed, topics of discussion changed, allies and opponents changed, but complete power remained only in one’s own hands!

But there was no real reliability in this man; he faced a lot of grief with his household, getting entangled in it. Stalin correctly sensed in Lenin flimsiness, flamboyance, and finally a poor understanding of people, no understanding at all. (He checked this on his own: whichever side he wanted, he turned, and from this side only Lenin saw him.) For the dark hand-to-hand combat that is true politics, this man was not suitable. Stalin felt himself more stable and firmer than Lenin, as much as sixty-six degrees of Turukhansk latitude is stronger than fifty-four degrees of Shushenskaya latitude. And what did this book theorist experience in life? He did not go through low rank, humiliation, poverty, direct hunger: even though he was a poor man, he was a landowner.

He never left exile, he was so exemplary! He hasn’t seen real prisons, he hasn’t even seen Russia itself, he spent fourteen years hanging around in exile. What he wrote, Stalin didn’t read more than half of it, he didn’t expect to become smart. (Well, he also had wonderful formulations. For example: “What is a dictatorship? Unlimited government, not restrained by laws.” Stalin wrote in the margins: “Good!”) Yes, if Lenin had a real sober mind, he would have been from the first days Stalin came closest, he would have said: “Help! I understand politics, I understand classes, I don’t understand living people!” But he couldn’t think of a better way to send Stalin as some kind of grain commissioner, somewhere in a corner of Russia. The person he needed most in Moscow was Stalin, and he Tsaritsyn sent...

And for the whole Civil Lenin settled down to sit in the Kremlin, he took care of himself. And Stalin had to wander for three years, driving around the whole country, sometimes shaking on horseback, sometimes in a cart, and freezing, and warming himself by the fire. Well, it’s true that Stalin loved himself during these years: like a young general without a rank, all fit and slender; leather cap with an asterisk; The officer's overcoat is double-breasted, soft, with a cavalry cut - and not buttoned; chrome boots, tailored to fit the foot; the face is smart, young, clean-shaven, and only a molded mustache, not a single woman can resist (and his third wife is a beauty).

Of course, he didn’t pick up a saber and didn’t get in front of bullets, he was more valuable to the Revolution, he’s not a man Budyonny. And when you come to a new place - to Tsaritsyn, to Perm, to Petrograd - you will be silent, ask questions, straighten your mustache. On one list you write “shoot”, on another list you write “shoot” - then people really start to respect you.

And to tell the truth, he showed himself to be a great military man, as the creator of victory.

This whole gang that climbed to the top, surrounded Lenin, fought for power, they all presented themselves as very smart, and very subtle, and very complex. It was their complexity that they boasted about. Where two and two made four, they muttered in unison that there was one more tenth and two hundredths. But the worst of all, but the nastiest of all, was Trotsky. It’s just that Stalin had never met such a vile person in his entire life. With such mad conceit, with such pretensions to eloquence, but never honestly argued, he never had “yes” - so “yes”, “no” - so “no”, necessarily: and so - and so, neither so - no way! No peace to be made, no war to wage - what reasonable person can understand this? What about arrogance? Like the Tsar himself, he bounced around in the salon carriage. But where do you get into the leadership if you don’t have a strategic streak?

This Trotsky burned and baked so much that at first, in the fight against him, Stalin lost his temper and betrayed the main rule of all politics: do not show at all that you are his enemy, do not show irritation at all. Stalin openly disobeyed him, scolded him in letters, and verbally, and complained to Lenin, and did not miss an opportunity. And as soon as he found out Trotsky’s opinion, decision on any issue, he immediately put forward why it should be quite the opposite. But you can't win like that. And Trotsky kicked him out like a city stick: he kicked him out of Tsaritsyn, kicked him out of Ukraine. And one day Stalin received a harsh lesson that not all means in the struggle are good, that there are forbidden methods: together with Zinoviev, they complained to the Politburo about the arbitrary executions of Trotsky. And then Lenin took several blank forms and signed along the bottom, “I will continue to approve!” - and immediately handed it over to Trotsky in front of them to fill out.

The science! Ashamed! What were you complaining about?! You cannot appeal to complacency even in the most intense struggle. Lenin was right, and as an exception, Trotsky was also right: if you don’t shoot without a trial, nothing at all can be done in history.

We are all human, and feelings push us ahead of reason. Every person has a smell, and you act by smell even before your head. Of course, Stalin was mistaken in opening up against Trotsky ahead of time (he never made such a mistake again). But the same feelings led him in the most correct way to Lenin. If you think with your head, you had to please Lenin, say “oh, how right! I’m for it too!” However, with an unerring heart, Stalin found a completely different way: to be rude to him as harshly as possible, to push him like an ass - they say, he is an uneducated, uncouth, wild person, accept it or not. It wasn’t that he was rude - he was rude to him (“I can still be at the front for two weeks, then let’s rest” - who could Lenin forgive for this?), but it was precisely this way - unbreakable, unyielding - that won Lenin’s respect. Lenin felt that this wonderful Georgian was a strong figure, such people were very needed, and then they would be needed more. Lenin listened to Trotsky a lot, but he also listened to Stalin. If he displaces Stalin, he will also displace Trotsky. He is to blame for Tsaritsyn, and he is to blame for Astrakhan. “You will learn to cooperate,” he persuaded them, but he also accepted that they did not get along. Trotsky came running to complain that there was prohibition throughout the republic, and Stalin was drinking the royal cellar in the Kremlin, that if they found out at the front... - Stalin laughed it off, Lenin laughed, Trotsky turned away his little beard, and left with nothing. They removed Stalin from Ukraine - this is how they gave the second People's Commissariat, the RKI.

It was March 1919. Stalin was in his forties. Who else would have had a shabby RKI inspection, but with Stalin it rose to the main People's Commissariat! (Lenin wanted it that way. He knew Stalin’s firmness, steadfastness, incorruptibility.) It was Stalin who was entrusted by Lenin to monitor justice in the Republic, the purity of party workers, down to the most important ones. By the nature of the work, if we understand it correctly, if we give our soul to it and do not spare our health, Stalin now had to secretly (but quite legally) collect incriminating materials on all responsible workers, send inspectors and collect reports, and then lead the purges. And for this it was necessary to create an apparatus, to select throughout the country the same selfless, the same steadfast, similar to themselves, ready to work secretly, without obvious reward.

Painstaking work, patient work, long work, but Stalin was ready for it.

It is rightly said that forty years is our maturity. Only here do you finally understand how to live, how to behave. Only here did Stalin feel his main strength: the power of an unspoken decision. Inside, you have already made a decision, but whose head it concerns does not need to know it ahead of time. (When his head rolls, then let him know.) The second force: never believe other people’s words, and do not attach importance to your own. You need to say not what you will do (you yourself may not know, it will be clear what it is), but what calms your interlocutor now. The third force: if someone cheated on you, don’t forgive him, if you grabbed someone with your teeth, don’t let him go, don’t let him go under any circumstances, even if the sun goes back and the heavenly phenomena are different. And the fourth strength: not to direct your head on theory, this has never helped anyone (you’ll come up with some kind of theory later), but to constantly think about who you’re on the path with now and to what milestone.

So the situation with Trotsky gradually improved - first with the support of Zinoviev, then with Kamenev. (Emotional relationships were created with both of them.) Stalin realized that with Trotsky he was worrying in vain: a person like Trotsky should never be pushed into a hole, he himself will jump and fall. Stalin knew his stuff, he worked quietly: he slowly selected personnel, checked people, remembered everyone who would be reliable, waited for an opportunity to raise them, move them.

The time has come - and sure enough! Trotsky himself fell on trade union discussion- he made a fool of himself, he was rude, he angered Lenin - he doesn’t respect the party! - and Stalin is just ready with whom to replace Trotsky’s people: Krestinsky- Zinoviev, Preobrazhensky – Molotov, Serebryakova – Yaroslavsky. We joined the Central Committee and Voroshilov, and Ordzhonikidze, all their own. And the famous commander-in-chief staggered on his crane legs. And Lenin realized that Stalin alone stood for the unity of the party like a rock, but he didn’t want anything for himself, didn’t ask for anything.

A simple-minded, handsome Georgian, this is what touched all the presenters, that he did not climb onto the podium, did not strive for popularity, for publicity, like all of them, did not boast of his knowledge of Marx, did not quote loudly, but worked modestly, selected the apparatus - a solitary comrade, very firm , very honest, selfless, diligent, a little ill-mannered, rude, a little narrow-minded. And when Ilyich began to get sick, Stalin was elected general secretary, just as Misha Romanov had once been elected to the throne, because no one was afraid of him.

It was May 1922. And another would have calmed down, sat and rejoiced. But not Stalin. Another person would have read Capital and taken notes. But Stalin only stretched his nostrils and realized: the time is desperate, the gains of the revolution are in danger, not a minute can be lost: Lenin will not retain power and he himself will not transfer it into reliable hands. Lenin's health has deteriorated, and maybe this is for the better. If he stays with the management, you can’t vouch for anything, nothing is reliable: twitchy, hot-tempered, and now still sick, he became more and more unnerving and simply interfered with work. It interfered with everyone's work! He could scold a person for no reason, put him under siege, or remove him from an elected post.

The first idea was to send Lenin, for example, to the Caucasus, for treatment, the air there is good, the places are remote, there is no telephone with Moscow, telegrams take a long time, there his nerves will calm down without government work. And assign to him to monitor his health a trusted comrade, a former expropriator, the Kamo raider. And Lenin agreed, negotiations were already underway with Tiflis, but somehow it was delayed. And then Kamo was crushed by a car (he chatted a lot about exes).

Then, worried about the life of the leader, Stalin, through the People's Commissariat of Health and through professor-surgeons, raised the question: after all, a bullet that is not removed - it poisons the body, it is necessary to do another operation, to remove it. And he convinced the doctors. And everyone repeated what was necessary, and Lenin agreed - but again it dragged on. And he just left for Gorki.

“We need firmness towards Lenin!” – Stalin wrote to Kamenev. Both Kamenev and Zinoviev, his best friends at that time, completely agreed.

Firmness in treatment, firmness in the regime, firmness in removal from business - in the interests of his own precious life. And in removal from Trotsky. AND Krupskaya also curb, she is an ordinary party comrade. Stalin was appointed “responsible for the health of Comrade Lenin” and did not consider this a menial task for himself: to deal directly with the attending doctors and even nurses, to tell them which regime would be most useful for Lenin: the most useful thing for him would be to prohibit and forbid, even if he got worried. The same is true in political matters. He doesn’t like the bill regarding the Red Army - pass it, he doesn’t like the bill about the All-Russian Central Executive Committee - pass it, and not give in for anything, because he is sick, he cannot know what is best. If something insists on doing it quickly, on the contrary, do it more slowly and put it aside. And it may even be rude, very rude to answer him - this is how the Secretary General is out of directness, you can’t break your character.

However, despite all the efforts of Stalin, Lenin recovered poorly, his illness dragged on until the fall, and then the dispute escalated over the Central Executive Committee-All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and it did not take long for dear Ilyich to get to his feet. He only stood up in order to restore a cordial alliance with Trotsky in December 22 - against Stalin, of course. So there was no need to get up for this, it was better to lie down again. Now the doctor’s supervision is even stricter: don’t read, don’t write, don’t know about matters, eat semolina. Dear Ilyich came up with the idea to write secretly from the Secretary General political testament– again against Stalin. He dictated for five minutes a day, he was not allowed more (Stalin did not allow it). But the general secretary laughed in his mustache: the stenographer tapped-tap-tap with his heels, and brought him the obligatory copy. Here Krupskaya had to be punished as she deserved, - dear Ilyich fumed - and the third blow! All efforts to save his life were of no avail.

He died at a good time: Trotsky was just in the Caucasus, and Stalin announced the wrong day of the funeral there, because there was no need for him to come: it was much more decent, and very important, for the general secretary to pronounce the oath of allegiance.

But Lenin left a will. From him, the comrades could have created discord and misunderstanding, they even wanted to remove Stalin from the General Secretary. Then even closer Stalin became friends with Zinoviev, he proved to him that obviously he would now be the leader of the party, and let him XIII Congress makes a report from the Central Committee, as a future leader, and Stalin will be a modest general secretary, he doesn’t need anything. And Zinoviev showed off on the podium, made a report (that’s all there was to it, where to choose him and who to choose, there is no such post - “party leader”), and for that report he persuaded the Central Committee not to even read the will at the congress, not to remove Stalin, he already corrected.

All of them in the Politburo were very friendly at that time, and all were against Trotsky. And they refuted his proposals well and removed his supporters from their posts. And another general secretary would have calmed down. But the tireless, vigilant Stalin knew that peace was still far away.

Was it good for Kamenev to remain in place of Lenin as the head of the Council of People's Commissars? (Even when Kamenev and he visited the sick Lenin, Stalin reported to Pravda that he walked without Kamenev, alone. Just in case. He foresaw that Kamenev would not last forever either.) Isn’t it better - Rykova? And Kamenev himself agreed, and Zinoviev too, that’s how they lived together!

But soon a big blow came to their friendship: it was discovered that Zinoviev-Kamenev were hypocrites, double-dealers, that they only strive for power and do not value Lenin’s ideas. I had to tighten them up. They became the “new opposition” (and the chatterbox Krupskaya got into it too), and Trotsky, beaten and beaten, calmed down for now. This was a very convenient situation. Here, by the way, Stalin developed a great cordial friendship with his dear Bukharchik, the first party theorist. Bukharchik spoke, Bukharchik provided the basis and justifications (they give - “an attack on the kulak!”, And Bukharin and I give - “a bond between the city and the countryside!”). Stalin himself had no claim to fame or leadership, he only monitored the voting and who was in what position. Many of the right comrades have already been in the right positions and voted correctly.

Zinoviev was removed from Comintern, Leningrad was taken away from them.

And it would seem that they would reconcile themselves, but no: they have now united with Trotsky, and that crook came to his senses for the last time and gave the slogan: “industrialization.”

And Bukharchik and I give - party unity! In the name of unity, everyone must submit! They exiled Trotsky, silenced Zinoviev and Kamenev.

This was also very helpful Lenin set : Now the majority of the party consisted of people who were not infected by the intelligentsia, not infected by the previous squabbles of the underground and emigration, people for whom the former height of the party leaders no longer meant anything, but only their current face. Healthy people, loyal people, rose from the ranks of the party and occupied important positions.

Stalin never doubted that he would find such people, and in this way they would save the gains of the revolution.

But what a fatal surprise: Bukharin, Tomsk and Rykov also turned out to be hypocrites, they were not for party unity! And Bukharin turned out to be the first confusion, not the theorist. And his cunning slogan of “a link between the city and the countryside” concealed a restorationist meaning, surrender to the fist and the breakdown of industrialization!.. So here they were, finally, the right slogans were found, only Stalin was able to formulate them: attack on the fist And accelerated industrialization! And – party unity, of course! And this vile company of “rightists” was also swept away from the leadership.

Bukharin once boasted that a certain sage concluded: “lower minds are more capable of governing.” You made a mistake, Nikolai Ivanovich, together with your sage: not inferior - healthy. Sound minds.

What kind of minds were you? processes showed. Stalin sat on the gallery in a closed room, looked at them through the mesh, chuckled: what kind of talkers they once were! what a power it once seemed! and what have we come to? got so wet.

It was knowledge of human nature, it was sobriety that always helped Stalin. He understood the people he saw with his eyes. But he also understood those whom he did not see with his eyes. When there were difficulties in 1931-32, there was nothing in the country to wear or eat - it seemed that if you just come and push from the outside, we will fall. And the party gave the command - to sound the alarm, there is a danger of intervention! But Stalin himself never believed the slightest bit: because he also imagined those Western chatterboxes in advance.

It is impossible to count how much strength, how much health, how much endurance it took to cleanse the party, the country from enemies and purify Leninism - this is an infallible teaching that Stalin never betrayed: he did exactly what Lenin had outlined, only a little softer and without fuss.

So much effort! - but still it was never calm, it was never like no one interfered. Then that crooked-lipped sucker Tukhachevsky jumped in, saying that because of Stalin he Didn't take Warsaw. Either with Frunze it didn’t work out very well, the censor blinked, then in the trashy story they presented Stalin on the mountain as a standing dead man, and they also clapped, idiots. Then Ukraine's bread rotted, Kuban fired sawn-off shotguns, even Ivanovo went on strike.

But Stalin never lost his temper, after the mistake with Trotsky - never again. He knew that the millstones of history were grinding slowly, but they were turning.

And without any formal fuss, all the ill-wishers, all the envious people will leave, die, and be ground into manure. (No matter how those writers offended Stalin, he did not take revenge on them, he did not take revenge for this, it would not have been instructive. He was waiting for another opportunity, the opportunity will always come.) And the truth is: whoever in the civil war commanded even a battalion, even a company in units, those who were not loyal to Stalin - everyone went somewhere, disappeared. And the delegates of the Twelfth, and the Thirteenth, and the Fourteenth, and the Fifteenth, and the Sixteenth, and the Seventeenth Congresses, as if simply following the lists, went to places where you couldn’t vote or speak. And they cleaned out the troublemaker Leningrad twice, a dangerous place. And even friends, like Sergo, had to be sacrificed. And even diligent assistants, like Berry, How Yezhov, I had to clean it up later. Finally, they reached Trotsky and cracked his skull.

The main enemy on earth is gone and, it seems, a respite has been deserved?

But Finland poisoned her. For that shameful trampling on the isthmus I was just ashamed in front of Hitler - he walked around France with a cane! Ah, an indelible stain on the genius of a commander! These Finns, a thoroughly bourgeois hostile nation, should be sent in trains to Kara-Kum, including small children, he would sit by the telephone, writing down reports: how many have already been shot and buried, how many are still left.

And troubles kept coming and going just in bulk. Hitler deceived, attacked, such a good alliance was destroyed due to bewilderment! And the lips trembled in front of the microphone, “brothers and sisters” burst out, now you can’t erase them from history. But these brothers and sisters ran like sheep, and no one wanted to stand to the death, although they were clearly ordered to stand to the death. Why didn't they stand? why didn’t they stand right away?!.. It’s a shame.

And then this departure to Kuibyshev, to empty bomb shelters... What positions I mastered, I never bent, the only time I succumbed to panic - and in vain. I walked from room to room and called for a week: have you already rented out Moscow? have you already passed it? – no, we didn’t pass!! It was impossible to believe that they would stop - stopped!

Well done, of course. Well done. But many had to be removed: it would not be a victory if rumors spread that the Commander-in-Chief was temporarily leaving. (Because of this, I had to photograph a small parade on November 7.) And Berlin radio rinsed dirty sheets about the murder of Lenin, Frunze, Dzerzhinsky, Kuibysheva, Gorky - cities higher! Old enemy, fat Churchill, a pig for Chokhokhbil, flew in to gloat and smoke a couple of cigars in the Kremlin. The Ukrainians changed it (there was such a dream in 1944: to evict all of Ukraine to Siberia, but there was no one to replace it, it was too much); changed Lithuanians, Estonians, Tatars, Cossacks, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Latvians - even the support of the revolution, Latvians! And even native Georgians, protected from mobilizations, seemed not to be waiting for Hitler! And only the Russians and the Jews remained faithful to their Father.

So even the national question laughed at him in those difficult years...

But, thank God, these misfortunes also passed. Stalin corrected many things by outplaying Churchill and Roosevelt-holy. Since the 1920s, Stalin has not had such success as with these two bunglers. When he answered their letters or went to his room in Yalta, he simply laughed at them.

State people, how smart they think they are, but they are dumber than babies. Everyone asks: what will we do after the war, and how? Yes, you send planes, send canned food, and then we’ll see how. You give them the floor, well, the first pass, they are already happy, they are already writing it down on a piece of paper. You pretend to be softened by love, but they are already twice as soft. I got from them for nothing, not for a sniff: Poland, Saxony, Thuringia, Vlasovites, Krasnovtsy, Kuril Islands, Sakhalin, Port Arthur, half of Korea, and entangled them on the Danube and the Balkans. The leaders of the “village owners” won elections and immediately went to prison. And they quickly turned Mikolajczyk down, Benes and Masaryk’s hearts gave out, Cardinal Mindszenty confessed to the atrocities, Dimitrov in the Kremlin heart clinic he renounced the absurd Balkan Federation.

And all the Soviets who returned from European life were put in camps. And - there for the second ten years all those who served only one sentence each.

Well, it seems everything is finally starting to get better!

And when even in the rustle of the taiga it was impossible to hear about any other version of socialism - a black dragon crawled out Tito and blocked all prospects.

Like a fairy-tale hero, Stalin was exhausted in cutting off more and more growing heads of the hydra!..

How could one go wrong with this Scorpio soul?! - to him! connoisseur of human souls! After all, in 1936 they already held me by the throat and let me go!.. Ay-ya-ya-ya-ay!

With a groan, Stalin lowered his feet from the ottoman and grabbed his already bald head. An irreparable annoyance stung him. I was rolling around mountains, but I stumbled on a stinking hillock.

Joseph tripped over Joseph...

Kerensky, who was living somewhere somewhere, did not interfere with Stalin at all. Let Nicholas II return from the grave or Kolchak- Stalin had no personal grudge against all of them: open enemies, they did not shy away from offering some kind of their own, new, better socialism.

The best socialism! Different from Stalin! Brat! Socialism without Stalin is ready-made fascism!

It’s not that Tito will succeed in anything – nothing can work out for him. Like an old farrier, who had ripped open a lot of these bellies, cut off countless of these limbs in chicken huts, along the roads, looks at the little white medical trainee - that’s how Stalin looked at Tito.

But Tito stirred up long-forgotten trinkets for fools: “workers’ control”, “land to the peasants”, all these soap bubbles of the first years of the revolution.

The collected works of Lenin have already been replaced three times, and the Founders’ works twice. Everyone who argued, who was mentioned in the old notes, fell asleep long ago - everyone who thought about building socialism differently. And now, when it is clear that there is no other way, and not only socialism, but even communism would have been built long ago if not for the arrogant nobles; not false reports; not soulless bureaucrats; not indifference to public affairs; not the weakness of organizational and explanatory work among the masses; not left to chance in party education; not slow pace of construction; no downtime, no absenteeism in production, no production of low-quality products, no poor planning, no indifference to the introduction of new technology, no inactivity of research institutes, no poor training of young specialists, no avoidance of young people from being sent to the wilderness, no sabotage of prisoners, no loss of grain in the field, no waste of accountants, no theft at bases, no cheating of supply managers and store managers, no greed by drivers, no complacency of local authorities! ne liberalism and bribes in the police! ne abuse of housing stock! nah impudent speculators! no greedy housewives! nah spoiled children! no tram talkers! no criticism in literature! no dislocations in cinematography! - when it is already clear to everyone that kamunism is on the right road and is not far from completion, - this cretin Tito sticks out with his Talmudist Kardel and declares that kamunism must be built differently!!!...

8 interesting and funny facts about Stalin related to one or another of his decisions regarding the USSR.

From the memoirs of one of Stalin’s guards, A. Rybin.

1) In Kharkov, after the opening of one of the largest plants in the whole country, such an incident happened. Night shift. Office of the Chief Engineer. In the office sits the Chief Engineer himself and a young guy who has just graduated from university. After some time, the Chief Engineer is about to leave the office and says to the young man: “If anyone calls, pick up the phone, tell me I’ll be there soon.” The story goes that the Chief Engineer went out into the men's room that night. And here is a young guy sitting in the office alone. The phone rings. He, as the Chief Engineer ordered him, picks up the phone and says, “Hello.”

In the next minutes it is difficult to imagine the position of the young man. Just imagine, someone with a Georgian accent introducing himself as Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin began to ask the young man about the activities of the plant. Here's the thing, you can't guess Stalin Whether it was Stalin or not, the young man decided to address him as Stalin himself.
“I’m sorry, but to answer these questions, you need to talk to the Chief Engineer, he came out, but he should be here by now,” said the young man.
To which the interlocutor referred to the need for an urgent answer to his question and said that he had little time, he would not be able to call back and asked the young man, “and you, as the Chief Engineer, a young man, can answer that the plant’s products will be manufactured in the time we need and the plant will have time to deliver them to the right points throughout the country?”
— I’m sure that yes, Joseph Vissarionovich. The plant is doing everything perfectly well, there are no problems or deviations from the norm.
- Well, then we agreed, you gave me your word.
It was interesting to know the reaction of the Chief Engineer himself when he returned from the toilet. For him, as they say, “nothing foreshadowed trouble.”
And the next morning, an order comes from somewhere at the top of the USSR to the director of the plant that the young man should be transferred to the position of Chief Engineer, and the Chief Engineer himself should be fired or demoted.
So our character worked as the Chief Engineer for a long time, and then became the director of the plant.

2) One day Stalin It was reported that Marshal Rokossovsky had a mistress and this was the famous beautiful actress Valentina Serova. And, they say, what are we going to do with them now? Stalin took the pipe out of his mouth, thought a little and said:
- What will we, what will we... we will envy!

3) On trips Stalin often accompanied by the guard Tukov. He sat in the front seat next to the driver and had a way of appearing to be asleep on the way. Someone Voroshilov, riding with Stalin in the back seat, looked back several times, first at the guard, then at Stalin, loudly (so that the guard could hear) remarked:
- Comrade Stalin, I don’t understand which of you is protecting whom?
“That’s another thing,” answered Joseph Vissarionovich, “he also tries to stuff his pistol into the pocket of my overcoat every time - take it, just in case!”
Security guard Tukov did not even change his position; he still sat with his eyes half-closed.

4) The designer of artillery systems V. G. Grabin told me how on the eve of 1942 Stalin invited him and said:
— Your gun saved Russia. What do you want - a Hero of Socialist Labor or a Stalin Prize?
- I don’t care, Comrade Stalin.
They gave both.

5) Stalin walked with the First Secretary of the Central Committee of Georgia A.I. Mgeladze along the alleys of the Kuntsevo dacha and treated him to lemons, which he grew himself in his lemon garden:
- Try it, you grew up here, near Moscow! And so several times, between conversations on other topics:
- Try them, good lemons! Finally it dawned on the interlocutor:
- Comrade Stalin, I promise you that in seven years Georgia will provide the country with lemons, and we will not import them from abroad.
- Thank God, I guessed it! - said Stalin.

6) In 1939, watching the film “The Train Goes East.” The film is not so hot: a train is traveling, constantly stopping at various stations and all the passengers joyfully sing a song at each station..
- What station is this? - asked Stalin.
- Demyanovka - answered the person responsible for viewing Bolshakov
“This is where I’ll get off,” said Stalin and left the hall.

7) During the war, troops under the command of Bagramyan were the first to reach the Baltic. To make this event more pathetic, the Armenian general personally poured water from the Baltic Sea into a bottle and ordered his adjutant to fly with this bottle to Moscow to see Stalin. He flew away. But while he was flying, the Germans counterattacked and drove Bagramyan off the Baltic coast. By the time the adjutant arrived in Moscow, they were already aware of this, but the adjutant himself did not know - there was no radio on the plane. And so the proud adjutant enters Stalin’s office and pathetically proclaims: “Comrade Stalin, General Bagramyan is sending you Baltic water!” Stalin takes the bottle, twirls it in his hands for a few seconds, after which he gives it back to the adjutant and says: “Give it back to Bagramyan, tell him to pour it out where he took it.”

8) A candidacy for the post of Minister of Coal Industry was discussed.
They suggested the director of one of the Zasyadko mines. Someone objected:
- Everything is fine, but he abuses alcohol!
“Invite him to me,” said Stalin. Zasyadko came. Stalin began to talk to him and offered him a drink.
“With pleasure,” said Zasyadko, poured a glass of vodka: “To your health, Comrade Stalin!” - He drank and continued the conversation.
Stalin took a sip and, watching carefully, offered a second drink. Zasyadko - drink a second glass, and not in either eye. Stalin suggested a third, but his interlocutor pushed his glass aside and said:
- Zasyadko knows when to stop.
We talked. At a meeting of the Politburo, when the question of the candidacy of the minister again arose, and again it was announced that the proposed candidate was abusing alcohol, Stalin, walking with a pipe, said:
- Zasyadko knows when to stop!
And for many years Zasyadko headed our coal industry...

9) When developing the Pobeda car, it was planned that the name of the car would be “Motherland”. Having learned about this, Stalin ironically asked: “Well, how much will we have a Motherland?” The name of the car was immediately changed.

10) In the first months after the end of the war, Major General Alexei Sidnev reported to Stalin on the state of affairs. Stalin looked very pleased and nodded twice in approval. Having finished his report, the military commander hesitated. Stalin asked: “Do you want to say anything else?”
“Yes, I have a personal question. In Germany, I selected some things that interested me, but they were detained at the checkpoint. If possible, I would ask you to return them to me.”
"It's possible. Write a report, I will impose a resolution.”
The Major General pulled out a prepared report from his pocket. Stalin imposed the resolution. The petitioner began to thank him warmly.
“No need for gratitude,” remarked Stalin.
After reading the resolution written on the report: “Give the major his junk back. I. Stalin,” the general turned to the Supreme Commander: “There is a typo here, Comrade Stalin. I’m not a major, but a major general.”
“No, everything is correct here, Major,” answered Stalin

I apologize for the somewhat one-sided nature of my blog due to the decent amount ofmaterials about Stalin. It’s just that now I’m thinking about a big article about the leader of the peoples and therefore I’m pouring through a lot of literature. Whether I will write an article or not is still a question, but if I come across something interesting along the way, I drag it to the blog.

So, today again on the blog is an article by Felix Chuev, a Soviet Russian writer who specialized in biographies of Soviet military and political figures.

PART ONE

Chuev,Felix Ivanovich

M I didn’t have a chance to talk with dozens of people who worked with I.V. Stalin or at least met him. Some of it was included in my books, articles, poems, but, of course, not all.

Often in friendly conversations I would tell what I had heard over the years. Friends convinced me that it would be lost, forgotten, I needed to write it down... This is what I remembered...

Zasyadko

A candidacy for the post of Minister of Coal Industry was discussed. Proposed director of one of the Zasyadko mines. Someone objected:

- Everything is fine, but he abuses alcohol! “Invite him to me,” said Stalin. Zasyadko came. Stalin began to talk to him and offered him a drink. “With pleasure,” said Zasyadko, poured a glass of vodka: - To your health, Comrade Stalin! - He drank and continued the conversation.

StalinHe took a sip and, watching carefully, offered a second one. Zasyadko - drink the second glass, and not in either eye.Stalinsuggested a third, but his interlocutor pushed his glass aside and said:

- Zasyadko knows when to stop

We talked. At a meeting of the Politburo, when the question of the minister’s candidacy again arose, and again it was announced that the proposed candidate was abusing alcohol,Stalin, walking with his pipe, said:

- Zasyadko knows when to stop!

And for many years Zasyadko headed our coal industry...

Longevity problem

Academician A.A. Bogomolets put forward the theory of longevity, andStalingave him an institute for this business. However, the academician himself died in 1946, having lived only 65 years.

- He fooled everyone! - saidStalinupon learning of his death

Grain procurement

Once, during a discussion of grain supplies, in the early 30s, the secretary of one of the regions joked, saying that his region could not supply more grain:

As the French say, even the most beautiful woman cannot give more than what she has.

Stalin corrected:

But she can give twice

Bulganin

After the war N.A. Bulganin was appointed Minister of Defense, and he began to prepare to take part in the parade - to learn to ride a horse. They brought him the most tame mare, and he trained in the Kremlin courtyard. Came outStalin, looked and said:

- You are sitting on a horse like the head of a military trade!

Immediately the civilian appearance of Bulganin with a beard and military uniform appears... The parade began to take place in cars.

"Still with a sense of humorStalin eYou won’t refuse!” laughed Colonel General A. N. Ponomarev, who told me this episode.

Mao

Introducing film actor Boris Andreev, who played the main role in the film "The Fall of Berlin", to Mao Zedong,Stalin said:

- Here is the artist Boris Andreev. He and I took Berlin together.

The writer Mikhail Bubennov, the author of the then famous “White Birch”, who was present at this reception, told me about this.

When Mao Zedong wasBecome on, he asked permission to settle 20 million Chinese in the Soviet Far East.

“I have enough of my own 200 million,” answeredStalin.

No nicknames

Stalincame to a performance at the Art Theater. Stanislavsky met him and, holding out his hand, said:

- Alekseev, - calling his real name “Dzhugashvili,” Stalin answered, shaking the outstretched hand and walked to his chair.

Artist and people

After the opera, where one of the roles was performed by the artist Bolshakov and not entirely successfully, Stalin asked:

- What is he, People's Artist of the USSR? - Yes, Comrade Stalin. - What a generous people we are! - Stalin remarked.

Reisen

The singer Reisen was Stalin's favorite. He noticed him back in the thirties and transferred him from Leningrad to Moscow. Reisen sang at all government concerts. Poskrebyshev called him:

- Mark Osipovich, you sing today, we will send a car for you - No, you know, I can’t: I was fired from the Bolshoi Theater

But Poskrebyshev knew: Stalin would notice that the concert took place without Reisen.

- We will send a car for you, Mark Osipovich. ...

Stalin walked in the Kremlin office. Bespalov stood at attention in front of him. When Reisen entered the office, Stalin, pointing at him, asked:

- Who is this? - Reisen, Comrade Stalin. — People's Artist of the Soviet Union? - Yes, Comrade Stalin. - And who are you? - Who is he? - People's Artist of the Soviet Union Mark Osipovich Reisen! — Soloist of the Bolshoi Theater? - That's right, Comrade Stalin. - And who are you? - Chairman of the Committee for Arts Bespalov! - Who is he? - People's Artist of the Soviet Union, soloist of the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR Mark Osipovich Reisen! - He’s a soloist, and you’re shit! Go away!

"Ivan Susanin"

A new production of Glinka's opera "Ivan Susanin" was being prepared at the Bolshoi Theater. The members of the commission, led by Chairman Bolshakov, listened and decided that it was necessary to film the finale “Hail, Russian people!” - churchism, patriarchalism... They reported to Stalin.

“We’ll do it differently,” said Stalin, “we’ll leave the ending, we’ll remove Bolshakov.”

Forced stop

Various people who happened to watch films with Stalin told me many episodes on this topic. Here's one of them. In 1939 we watched The Train Goes East. The film is not so hot: a train rides, stops...

— What station is this? - asked Stalin — Demyanovka “This is where I’ll get off,” said Stalin and left the hall.

"Kremlin chimes"

It turns out that a feature film was also made based on N. Pogodin’s play “The Kremlin Chimes”. Stalin looked at him and said:

- What, there wasn’t a Russian to start this clock?

The fact is that the role of the person who adjusted the main clock of the country in the film was played by a Jew. The picture didn't work, so we never saw it.

"Unforgettable 1919"

After the government screening of the film Unforgettable 1919, everyone was waiting for what Stalin would say. But he was silent. And only, leaving the hall, he said:

- Too much light! That's all.

The filmmakers turned to Beria to clarify the meaning of these words.

- There are no two suns! - Lavrenty Pavlovich interpreted.

There was a lot of Lenin and Stalin in the film, and Lenin had to be trimmed. Although, most likely, Stalin had something else in mind: pomp, separation from reality...

Writers

Stalin said:

“You cannot pass judgment on a work of art; you can only argue about it.”

When the publishing house "Soviet Writer" was created, Stalin said that this was the publishing house of the Writers' Union and now Pushkin and Tolstoy would have nowhere to publish. We need another publishing house. This is how the publishing house “Khudozhestvennaya Literatura” arose.

Party worker Polikarpov was informed that they wanted to send him to work as an executive secretary at the Writers' Union. Polikarpov begged:

“I’m used to working with normal people, but writers are drunkards, completely uncontrollable...

When Stalin was informed about this, he said:

— Tell Comrade Polikarpov that I have no other writers.

Irakli Andronikov deftly portrayed various figures and knew how to copy Stalin. He found out about this and at the meeting asked to portray him.

- You - I don’t dare! - Andronikov said, making a hand gesture with an imaginary pipe

Awards

Writer Vera Panova was nominated for the Stalin Prize for her new novel - for the third time after she received first and second degree prizes consecutively for her previous novels. The committee, after reading the novel, decided not to award her the prize this time. But Stalin intervened:

- Let's give it - third degree. But tell Comrade Panova that we don’t have a fourth degree.

Stalin asked Fadeev why the writer S. Zlobin was not nominated for the Stalin Prize for his novel “Stepan Razin”. Fadeev replied that Zlobin is not engaged in public work, he is nowhere to be seen...

- Or maybe he’s writing at this time? - asked Stalin

Secretaries

Stalin called the Writers' Union, but they could not connect him with either Fadeev or Surkov - or with anyone from the leadership. Only their secretaries answered. Stalin asked the members of the Politburo:

— Why did the Roman Empire perish? - And he answered: - Because secretaries began to manage it!

Demyan Bedny

Stalin told Demyan Bedny:

- Do you know why you are a bad poet? Because poetry should be sad.

Conversation with Pasternak

At night the phone rang in Pasternak’s apartment:

— A certain Stalin is speaking to you. Boris Leonidovich, what do you think about the poet Mandelstam?

Pasternak knew that Mandelstam was arrested and said:

- Joseph Vissarionovich, let's talk about something else “Comrade Pasternak,” answered Stalin, “in our time we defended our friends better!” - And hung up

They say that after the death of Mandelstam, Pasternak’s conscience tormented him all his life...

Think about yours

The artist Abrikosov shouted at a reception in the Kremlin:

- To your health, Comrade Stalin! - and drank a glass of vodka in one gulp.

Stalin quietly told him:

- Think about yours

- Why do you finish all your glasses? It will be uninteresting to talk with you.

S.V. told me about this. Mikhalkov

All - For, One - Against

For one of his symphonies, the composer Golubev was nominated for the Stalin Prize at Zhdanov’s suggestion. Everyone knew whose protégé he was, and had no doubt that he would receive the prize, and first degree at that. When the lists of laureates were brought to Stalin for signature, he asked:

- Golubev... Symphony... All for, one against. And who is this one? — Shostakovich, Comrade Stalin “Comrade Shostakovich understands music more than we do,” said Stalin and crossed Golubev off the list of laureates. The symphony was indeed weak, but everyone voted for...

The son of the king - "peacemaker"

Emperor Alexander III, on one of his trips, sinned with a certain special person of simple rank, whom he asked to inform him if someone was born to her. In due time, the sovereign received notification that a boy was born. In response, the highest telegram came: “Give the youth the name Sergius, my patronymic, surname - by nickname.”

And so it was born Sergey Aleksandrovich Mirotvortsev. At one time, he managed to avoid the tragic fate of the royal family, because he did not talk about his origins. However, later, in the thirties, the security officers discovered whose offspring he was and began to prepare for his future fate an destiny appropriate to the era.

The paper about him was received by Stalin, and he wrote the following resolution on it: “It’s not his fault that his father was such a whore.” S.A. Mirotvortsev became a professor, had merits and received the Stalin Prize.

Molotov said that Stalin was joked about by the Politburo when he was sailing on the Black Sea on the steamship Trotsky:- How long will you continue to ride Trotsky? From Odessa, however, Trotsky sailed abroad forever on the steamer Ilyich. Maybe it's an accident...

And when even before that he was leaving with a huge amount of luggage on a low-speed train for exile in Alma-Ata, he found out from Stalin:

- The quieter you go, the further you'll get? “The further you go, the quieter you will be,” Stalin clarified.

And Budyonny...

Stalin went on vacation to the Caucasus. He was accompanied by his comrades. The train stopped in Rostov-on-Don. This was in the early thirties, and they were not yet very zealous with security. Voroshilov got out of the carriage. The people on the platform did not expect the appearance of the People's Commissar of Defense and gasped in amazement:

— Voroshilov!!!

The head of government followed him, and the even more taken aback people exclaimed:

- !!!Molotov

Well, when Stalin appeared on the platform, people seemed to line up and applaud.

Stalin, as usual, raised his hand, welcoming and at the same time stopping the ovation. When the noise died down, the hesitant Budyonny suddenly appeared from the vestibule. And on the platform some Cossack exclaimed:

- And Budyonny, fuck your mother!

It seemed that after Stalin left, nothing could happen - but no! Everyone laughed in unison, including Stalin himself. From then on, when the Stalinist leadership gathered together and Semyon Mikhailovich appeared, Stalin invariably said:

- And Budyonny, fuck your mother!

During the Battle of Moscow, he told Stalin that there were no new checkers, and the cavalrymen were given old ones with the inscription “For the Faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland”

- Do they chop off German heads? - Stalin asked Budyonny.

- They are chopping, Comrade Stalin. - So God grant these checkers for the faith, the king and the fatherland! - said Stalin

We're tired of waiting...

- I ask you, Comrade Stalin, to punish him! - And where he? - asked Stalin. “With us,” answered Beria.

After a while this comrade appeared at the door

“Sit down, otherwise we’ve been waiting for you,” said Stalin.

Grade

Designer of artillery systems V.G. Grabin told me how on the eve of 1942 Stalin invited him and said:

— Your gun saved Russia. What do you want - a Hero of Socialist Labor or a Stalin Prize? - I don’t care, Comrade Stalin They gave both

"There will be oil..."

During the war, Stalin instructed Baibakov to open new oil fields in a fairly short time. When Baibakov objected that this was impossible, Stalin replied:

- If there is oil, there will be Baibakov, if there is no oil, there will be no Baibakov!

Soon new deposits were discovered in Tataria and Bashkiria.

Vannikov

Vannikov was suddenly released from prison during the war, brought to Stalin, who appointed him People's Commissar. Vannikov said:

- Tomorrow I will report to the People's Commissariat, yesterday's prisoner. What authority will I have among my subordinates? “We will take care of your authority,” answered Stalin. “Found the time to sit!”

In the morning, when Vannikov arrived at work, there was Pravda on his desk with a Decree awarding him the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

Landing

Front-line soldier L.D. Petrov, who was friends with Molotov’s son-in-law, told me how during the war our troops, dressed in fascist uniforms, were dropped into the Autonomous Republic of the Volga Germans. “Our people” were greeted as if they were our own - they were expected... By the decision of the State Defense Committee, this entire autonomous national entity was evicted, and the airborne unit received the title of guards.I don’t know that resettled Germans were as indignant at their fate as, say, Chechens or Crimean Tatars. At the anniversary of Rasul Gamzatov in 1993, I sat on the presidium next to Dzhokhar Dudayev and heard him proudly announce that during the war the Chechens presented Hitler with a white horse. But they denied it before!

Four rams

Pilot Boris Kovzan is a unique hero of the Great Patriotic War, who made four (!) air rams and remained alive. He told me how, after being awarded the Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union, Stalin invited him and asked him about everything in detail. I asked what Kovzan was going to do next

“I’ll return to my unit and continue to fight,” answered the fighter pilot hacked to pieces with metal. “I think you’ve already fought enough,” said Stalin. “But it wouldn’t hurt to study at, say, an academy.” “I can’t handle it, Comrade Stalin,” Kovzan honestly admitted. - And you give me your word that you will study! - I promise, Comrade Stalin. - How are things at home? — Just now my son was born - Congratulations! The country needs people. When the pilot went out into the yard, a car was waiting for him, and in the back seat he found a large box containing diapers, undershirts - everything for a newborn...

Kovzan returned to his unit and was called by a higher general:

- What do we do? “To serve,” answered the pilot.” —What word did you give to Comrade Stalin? “He knows everything,” thought Kovzan. He had to enter the academy, where he did not answer a single question during the entrance exams, and was accepted.

Doubt

Marshal of the Armored Forces Katukov said that once in Stalin’s office he mentioned the name of General Ivanov.

—Isn’t this the Ivanov who betrayed his nation? - Stalin asked.

Previously, Ivanov had a Jewish surname

“The same one,” answered Katukov. —Won’t he change the Russian nation?

What do we do?

Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army A.M. Vasilevsky showed I.V. Stalin has a whole folder of slander against Army General I.D. Chernyakhovsky. They talked about the fact that he has many women.

- What do we do? - Vasilevsky asked. - What do we do? What do we do? - Stalin thought. - We will be jealous!

Tsunami

After the war, a strong tsunami on the Kuril Islands killed 28 thousand people, among whom were many military personnel. In one military unit, a soldier with a banner remained alive. When this was reported to Stalin, he decided to nominate the soldier for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The authorities talked to the soldier, and he said that during the natural disaster he was thinking about how to survive, but the banner only got in the way, and he just happened to be near it. Stalin, having learned about this, said:

- What a pity that we don’t have a reward for honesty! And he still ordered the soldier to be encouraged. Marshal A. M. Vasilevsky ordered to sew him a uniform from officer's material and give him leave home for 30 days, not counting the journey.

ETERNAL GLORY

General A.I. Ryzhkov told how the words first appeared in the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief: “Eternal glory to the heroes who died in battles for the honor and independence of our Motherland!”

— Let's go with A.M. Vasilevsky to Stalin. Our draft order included: “Eternal memory...”

Stalin read it and suggested replacing “memory” with “glory”: “Memory gives to the church,” said Stalin

Church

Patriarch Alexy of All Russia approached Stalin with a request to allow him to open a church in Moscow.

“Open up,” said Stalin. “Russian mothers have someone to pray for, someone to cry for.”

Encouraged, the patriarch dared to ask permission to open religious educational institutions. Stalin allowed the opening of theological schools, and about seminaries he said: “History knows of cases when good revolutionaries came out of theological seminaries! However, they are of little use. You see, I studied at the seminary, and nothing good came of it.”

The former head of the Yugoslav guard Momo Djuric told me about this [Momcilo Djuric during the war - Tito's head of security, after the war - a political immigrant in Moscow - FV] - he had the opportunity to fly on the same plane with our patriarch and even drink vodka with him.

Here is another interesting episode on this topic

During the First World War, one surgeon was seriously wounded. Realizing that he had almost no chance of survival, he made a vow that if he did not die, he would serve God. And he survived. And he kept his vow, becoming a village priest. During the Second World War, he joined the partisans and, as the most competent, became the chief of staff of a partisan detachment, but since there were wounded and sick, he had to remember his first profession. And he saved many.

At a reception in the Kremlin in honor of distinguished partisans, he was introduced to Stalin, who was told his story. Stalin asked what he would do after the war. He replied that he would return to his parish. Stalin apparently wanted to turn him to medical activities, and he said: " Eh , what a surgeon we have lost in you!” “And what a shepherd the church has lost in you, Joseph Vissarionovich!” answered the pop partisan surgeon.

Colleague

A prominent figure in the Orthodox Church, who at one time studied with Stalin at the Tiflis Theological Seminary, came to Moscow from Paris. I wanted to see my fellow student and, having received an invitation, asked what clothes would be better to come in - church or secular?

“It’s better in the world,” they advised him. ...We met warmly. Then Stalin touched the guest’s civilian suit and said: “You’re not afraid of God, but you’re afraid of me?”

Clarified

The head of Military Publishing House, General Marinov, looked like a Georgian, black-haired, curly, with a mustache. During his report, Stalin looked at him carefully and then asked:

— What is your nationality, Comrade Marinov?

Marinov did not dare to tell the leader of the people that he was Georgian, but he found a way out:

- I am a Georgian Jew, Comrade Stalin. To which Stalin replied: - Comrade Marinov, I know this: either a Georgian or a Jew.

Reply to Churchill

During the negotiations there were disputes about post-war borders, and Churchill said:

- But Lviv has never been a Russian city! “But there was Warsaw,” Stalin objected.

Reply to Harriman

Harriman asked Stalin at the Potsdam Conference:

— After the Germans were eighteen kilometers from Moscow in 1941, you probably now enjoy sharing defeated Berlin? “Tsar Alexander I reached Paris,” Stalin answered.

Bottle of Baltic water

As a result of the offensive operation, Soviet troops reached the Baltic Sea, the commander, General Bagramyan, decided to please Stalin by sending him a bottle of Baltic water. But while this bottle reached the Kremlin, the Germans managed to recapture the bridgehead and push our troops from the coast. Stalin already knew about this and, when he was handed the bottle, said:

— Return it to Bagramyan, comrade, and let him pour it into the Baltic Sea?

Tomatoes

During your visit All-Union Agricultural Exhibition Stalin noticed that the tomatoes on display had spoiled, and when they got into the car, he reminded:

— Don’t forget to remove the tomatoes! But only tomatoes - I didn’t say anything else.

Great teacher

Chiang Kai-shek called Stalin a “great teacher,” to which Stalin remarked:

- Me too, children!

Stories by Mgeladze A.I.

I returned from military training in Tbilisi. I met there with Akaki Ivanovich Mgeladze, the former First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Georgian Party in the last years of Stalin’s life. I retell it to Molotov

Akakiy Ivanovich recalled how he dined with Stalin at his dacha in Borjomi, and he said:

- Let's invite Khrushchev. - And he called. Khrushchev left, but for some reason he was gone for a long time. Finally he comes and says: - Comrade Stalin, it’s a disgrace, they’re driving away herds of sheep, they’ve blocked the road! - And turns to Mgeladze: - You give orders that these shepherds be punished!

But everything worked out, not a single shepherd was hurt.

Stalin had bottles.

- I want to drink to our dear comrade Stalin! - Khrushchev exclaimed.

Everyone poured wine, Khrushchev approached Stalin:

- Comrade Stalin, I want to drink vodka for you, because you can’t drink some sour meat for such a person! - And stung himself a full glass of vodka. Drank. Everyone drank wine. In short, he drank vodka alone and quickly fell asleep on the sofa. Stalin said:

- Well, now we can talk calmly “Hmm, yes,” said Molotov. — Did Khrushchev like to drink? — I ask Vyacheslav Mikhailovich -Didn’t stand out at that time

Mgeladze also spoke about Suslov

Stalin called: “He’s coming for treatment, pay attention to him, he has tuberculosis, treat him better.”

I received it well. And he talked so much about Stalin: “Understand, it’s only thanks to Stalin that we have all risen this way, only thanks to Stalin we have everything. I will never forget Stalin’s fatherly attention to me. If it weren’t for Stalin, I would have died of tuberculosis. Stalin me pulled me out, Stalin is forcing me to undergo treatment and is treating me!” Maybe he hoped that Mgeladze would pass all this on to Stalin?

Well, what did he say about Stalin in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev times, published in the newspapers... Suslov

Lemons

Stalin walked with the First Secretary of the Central Committee of Georgia A.I. Mgeladze along the alleys of the Kuntsevo dacha and treated him to lemons, which he grew himself in his lemon garden:

- Try it, you grew up here, near Moscow! And so several times, between conversations on other topics: - Try them, good lemons! Finally it dawned on the interlocutor: - Comrade Stalin, I promise you that in seven years Georgia will provide the country with lemons, and we will not import them from abroad - Thank God, I guessed it! - said Stalin

SergoKavtaradze

The famous Georgian Bolshevik Sergo Kavtaradze was out of work for a long time. It was as if they had forgotten about him. He and his wife occupied a room in a communal apartment, where a neighbor constantly scolded him for leaving the light on in the toilet or not emptying the trash can. And after the war, a phone call:

- Sergo, is that you? Are you alive? Who's speaking? Lavrentiy says! - Hello, Lavrenty Pavlovich! - Oh, what a shame! Just Lavrentiy... Forgot your old friends, you don’t call, you don’t come in! And we are sitting, remembering old friends, Comrade Stalin asks: “Where is our Sergo Kavtaradze?” I called my office and they told me you were in Moscow. Come to us, I will send a car for you.

And soon Kavtaradze found himself at the same table with Stalin and Beria. We sat and Stalin said:

- And now, Sergo, let’s go to you and see how you live - Comrade Stalin, it’s already late, and if I had known, I would have told my wife, she would have prepared something... “And we’ll take a bottle of wine and quietly, modestly go,” said Stalin

And let's go. In one car - security, in the second - Beria, in the third - Stalin and Kavtaradze, in the fourth - a bottle with security...

Kavtaradze called. His neighbor opened the door:

- Not only does he not turn off the light in the toilet, he also comes at three in the morning!

From behind, from behind Kavtaradze’s shoulder, a man in a hat, pince-nez and white muffler looked out. The neighbor immediately disappeared. Security entered the corridor, blocking the entrances and exits. Kavtaradze wanted to go first to wake up his wife, but Beria beat him to it. He opened the door to the room, stuck his head in with his hat, pince-nez and muffler, and said slyly:

- Who came to see you!

Stalin didn't stay long. The guests have left. The next morning, at the entrance to the bathroom, Kavtaradze said to his neighbor who was lingering there:

- You need to wash yourself quickly! - I obey! - said the neighbor and stood up Soon Molotov called and informed Kavtaradze that he had been appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USSR to Romania

Appreciated Khrushchev

When, at a meeting of the Politburo after the war, he expressed his thoughts on the construction of agricultural cities - gas, water supply, etc. - Stalin listened, came up to him, stroked his bald head and said:

- My little Marx!

On Lake Ritsa

The former commandant of the Bolshoi Theater, and in fact one of Stalin’s guards, A. Rybin, told me how he and Stalin went to Lake Ritsa. We set off in full confidence that everything at the dacha was ready to receive the leader. But, as usual with us, everything turned out to be wrong - there was even nowhere and nothing to sleep on. We lay down right on the shore - in sleeping bags. In the middle of the night, Stalin woke up.

- Well, you snore! - he told the guards, took his sleeping bag and went to sleep alone - He was such a simpleton, this Stalin! — I remember A. Rybin’s phrase verbatim

Sometimes Stalin, rolling up his trousers with stripes, walked barefoot in the water. I asked A. Rybin whether Stalin had six toes on his feet, which I read about in one “democratic” publication at the height of perestroika. Rybin was even taken aback:

- If it were, we would probably immediately pay attention...

On his trips, Stalin was often accompanied by his guard Tukov. He sat in the front seat next to the driver and had a habit of falling asleep on the way. One of the Politburo members, riding with Stalin in the back seat, remarked:

- Comrade Stalin, I don’t understand which of you is protecting whom? “What is that,” answered Joseph Vissarionovich, “he also put his pistol in my raincoat - take it, just in case!”

In "Metropol"

Stalin arrived at the Metropol restaurant. The foyer was empty - the security officers did their best. And only the cloakroom attendant rushed out to meet him:

- Allow me to help, Joseph Vissarionovich? “Perhaps I can still do this myself,” said Stalin, taking off his overcoat

Sergei Mikhalkov sat, looking at Stalin all the time, as if calling him to pay attention. Stalin sensed this and said to Mao Zedong:

- And this is a writer. It's impossible not to notice him! - referring, apparently, to the tall height of Sergei Vladimirovich Mikhalkov

Molotovsat, as usual, next to Stalin. Seizing the moment when Vyacheslav Mikhailovich came out, Mikhalkov sat down next to Stalin. Molotov returned and, noticing that his place was taken, stepped aside. But Stalin said:

- Comrade Mikhalkov, it’s difficult to sit on two chairs!

Petru Groza

Romanian Prime Minister Petru Groza said to Stalin after the banquet:

- You know, I love women very much. “And I love communists very much,” answered Stalin.

The only one, and the one...

Stalin told the leader of the Czechoslovak communists and the first president of Czechoslovakia, Klement Gottwald:

“You are the only decent person in your entire country, and he’s a drunkard!”

% accuracy

Stalin asked meteorologists what percentage of forecast accuracy they had

- Forty percent, Comrade Stalin - And you say the opposite, and then you will have sixty percent

Kartlinsky

The poet Semyon Olender said:

“In the twenties, I wrote a poem in which I cursed both Stalin and Trotsky—there was an irreconcilable struggle between them. I took it to Komsomolskaya Pravda. The poems came to Nadezhda Sergeevna Alliluyeva. We didn’t know that she was Stalin’s wife, we knew that her husband worked for the Central Committee.

A few days later, someone who introduced himself as Kartlinsky called me and said that he did not understand my position in the poems: I scold both Stalin and Trotsky at the same time.

“I don’t like both of them,” I answered. - Do you want to become a Soviet Lermontov? So remember that you are not Lermontov, and Comrade Stalin is not Nikolai Romanov! - And hung up.

Then I found out that Kartlinsky is one of Stalin’s pseudonyms. They finally called me to Dzerzhinsky, and that was the end of the matter.

Blame the war

After the battle of Stalingrad, Stalin examined the city, or rather, what was left of it. Suddenly, at the intersection of two former streets, a truck drove into the leader’s car. The driver is a woman. I saw Stalin and burst into tears.

“Don’t cry,” Stalin began to reassure her, “nothing happened to my car, it’s armored.” Correct yours! - And he turned to the policemen who ran up: - Don’t touch her, she’s not to blame, the war is to blame.

"Spiel"

There was a period when Stalin worked at his dacha for a long time and did not go anywhere. We decided to take him for a ride around Moscow at night. The accompanying person was punished:

- Remember everything that Comrade Stalin says, where and on what occasion!

When they returned, the chief asked the attendant:

- Well, what did you say? — He was silent, silent the whole way. - Or maybe he said something after all? — It seems like there’s only one word... “Spiel!” - Spire? Where did he say this? — When we passed Smolenskaya Square. ... At this time, a new “high-rise” was being built on Smolenskaya. The next day, the builders gathered and decided: no decorations at the top, the building should be crowned with a strict spire!

Golden Star

After the victory in 1945, noting the exceptional merits of I.V. Stalin in the Great Patriotic War, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided:

1. Rename the capital of the USSR, Moscow, to the city of Stalin 2. Award I.V. Stalin the title of Generalissimo of the Soviet Union. 3. Award I.V. Stalin the second Order of Victory 4. Award I.V. Stalin the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Stalin categorically rejected these decisions. On the first point, he was supported, and this was enough for Moscow to remain Moscow. The issue of the Generalissimo was discussed several times, and Rokossovsky added the final touch:

- Comrade Stalin, you are a marshal, and I am a marshal, you cannot punish me!

Stalin smiled and waved his hand. And then more than once I regretted that I agreed:

“I’m a politician, not a military man, why do I need this title?”

They were also convinced with the Order of Victory. But he never accepted the Gold Star.

“I do not qualify for the status of Hero of the Soviet Union,” said Stalin. - I haven’t accomplished any feat!

Artists painted him with two stars - the Hero of Socialist Labor and the Hero of the Soviet Union, but there is not a single similar photograph, because the Golden Star of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin until the end of his life was kept in the Awards Department of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, and it was first seen on a red pillow behind the coffin ...

Reply to school teacher

Stalin's former school teacher sent him a letter asking him to give him a loan of five thousand rubles from the state to build a house. A package arrived from Stalin on which was written: “To the People’s Teacher.” Back then, there was no such title, but this teacher began to be called only that.

In the letter, Stalin replied that we do not have a law according to which the state could lend such money. “Usually I don’t take fees for my works, but now I’ve taken and sent you three thousand. I don’t have any more, unfortunately. But I’ll call the First Secretary of your party, Beria, so that he can find an opportunity to provide you with the missing two thousand.”

- He couldn’t contact me right away! - said Beria.

The house was built...

To be continued...

Stalin served his sentence six times. He received only one term for political reasons. All the rest were imprisoned for robbery.

9

In 1941, the Germans captured Stalin's eldest son Yakov. They firmly believed that they would be able to exchange the son of the leader of the USSR for the German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus. Stalin refused to negotiate with them. In 1943, Jacob died under mysterious circumstances at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Northeast Germany. Most historians believe he was killed because his father refused to negotiate. Later, Stalin confessed to his daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva: “The Germans offered me to exchange Yasha for one of their own. I refused. Will I bargain with them? In war it’s like in war!”

8

This saying is usually attributed to Stalin. However, no one has found where or when he said this. Moreover, it is very similar to the phrase from the novel “Black Obelisk”, written by Remarque in 1956: “the death of one person is death, and the death of two million is just statistics.” Most likely, this is a deliberate lie, started after Stalin’s death with the aim of discrediting him and based on the principle “well, everyone knows...”

7

When developing the Pobeda car, it was planned that the name of the car would be “Motherland”. Having learned about this, Stalin ironically asked: “Well, how much will we have a Motherland?” The name of the car was immediately changed.

6

Not the least role in the creation of the state of Israel was played by Stalin’s support at the vote on a resolution at the UN, which is why national mourning was declared in this country after the death of the leader.

5 Unfit for military service

As a child, Stalin suffered a severe hand injury; his left limb did not fully extend at the elbow and outwardly appeared shorter. Because of this, he was declared unfit for military service in 1916.

4 Respect for the dog’s work

Julbars is the name of a dog who served as a sapper on the fronts of World War II. In the spring of 1945, the dog was injured and was unable to take part in the Victory Parade on Red Square. Stalin ordered the dog to be carried across the square on his overcoat.

3

2 What he didn't like

He couldn't stand erotic and sexual scenes in movies, it made him angry! Joseph did not allow anyone to use his things and objects. Even if there were many guests in the house, it was impossible to hang other clothes on its nickel-plated hanger. Despite the fact that he was an atheist, he did not like literature with atheistic content. His studies at the theological seminary probably had an effect. Stalin did not like the smells coming from the kitchen. Therefore, during the construction and planning of his dachas, the kitchen was greatly removed.

1 Half the fleet

After the victory of the Second World War, Comrade Stalin and Churchill discussed what to do with the German fleet. Joseph Vissarionovich proposed dividing it between states, but the Englishman insisted on flooding it. “So you’ll flood your half,” Stalin snapped.

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Dzhugashvili) (1979-1953). State, military and political figure of the Soviet Union. In principle, an entire article could be devoted to him, but here I would like to highlight several interesting facts about Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8. Why did he die?

9.

10.

1. During the war, Stalin did not excuse his sons, but also sent them to the front, like all ordinary citizens.

2. Stalin resigned three times. but his request was rejected.

3. On March 5, 1953, in addition to Stalin, the Soviet composer Sergei Prokofiev also died, but since all attention was focused on Joseph Vissarionovich, the death of the famous composer went unnoticed.

4. When Stalin was shown a new car called “Rodina,” he asked ironically how much “Rodina” would cost. After this, the car was renamed “Victory”.

5. Joseph Stalin loved to read and for him it was normal to read 200-300 pages daily.

6. Stalin did not like to drink, especially vodka, but when it came to alcohol, he drank only wines of the Tsinandali and Teliani brands.

7. After Stalin's death, all geographical names containing his surname were renamed, for example Stalingrad and Stalin Peak. But street names were not included in this purge.

8. Why did he die? Joseph Stalin? And he died from a hemorrhage in.

9. During the Victory Parade, on the orders of Stalin himself, a wounded army dog ​​was carried in his overcoat.

10. Stalin was the last in Russia who bore the title of Generalissimo and the only one who had the title of “Generalissimo of the Soviet Union.” Now there is simply no such title.

11. In January 1940 and January 1943, Stalin became “Person of the Year” according to the American magazine “Time”.

12. In addition to Russian and Georgian, Stalin knew ancient Greek and Church Slavonic languages ​​very well.

13. Joseph Vissarionovich was arrested, more than once.

14. Vasily, Stalin's son, was nominated for the rank of general 12 times, but Stalin constantly withdrew the nomination.

15. And the last interesting fact about Stalin for today. Archive of V.I. Stalin was destroyed after the death of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.