Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  Stalin attended a new play on Peter the Great by Alexei Tolstoy, another newly returned émigré writer who, besides Gorky, was the richest author of the Imperium. Count Tolstoy, an illegitimate and renegade nobleman, had returned to Russia in 1923 where he was hailed as the “Worker-Peasant-Count. ” This literary gymnast specialized in understanding Stalin, boasting, “You really do have to be an acrobat.” His Peter the Great play, On the Rack, was attacked by Bolshevik writers. Stalin left shortly before the end, accompanied to his car by the crestfallen director. Sensing Imperial disapproval, the play was attacked viciously inside the theatre until the director returned triumphantly to announce: “Comrade Stalin, in speaking with me, passed the following judgement: ‘A splendid play. Only it’s a pity Peter was not depicted heroically enough.’ ” Stalin received Tolstoy and gave him “the right historical approach” for his next project, a novel Peter the Great.

  This routine was repeated exactly when Kaganovich rejected a new production by the avant-garde theatrical director Meyerhold and was pursued to his car by the disappointed artist. Yet he protected the Yiddish actor Solomon Mikhoels. Like eighteenth-century grands seigneurs, the magnates patronized their own theatres, their own poets, singers and writers, and defended their protégés69 whom they “received” at their dachas and visited at home. “Everyone goes to see someone,” wrote Nadezhda Mandelstam in her memoirs that provide a peerless moral guide to this era. “There’s no other way.” But when the Party turned against their protégés, the grandees abandoned them swiftly. 10

  The artists were fascinated by Stalin: Pasternak longed to meet him. “Can I meet you?” wrote the poet Gidosh eagerly. Meyerhold appealed to Stalin for a meeting which he said would “lift my depression as an artist” and signed it “Loving you.”

  “Stalin not here now,” wrote Poskrebyshev.11

  On 30 July, a month after Hitler’s Night of the Long Knives, Stalin headed down to the Sochi dacha where he was meeting his old favourite, Kirov, who had no wish to be there, and his new one, Andrei Zhdanov, who must have been honoured to be invited. There were four of them because Zhdanov brought along his son, Yury, Stalin’s future son-in-law, a young man whom the Vozhd was to regard as an ideal Soviet man. They had gathered to write the new history of Russia.

  Already ill and exhausted, Kirov was the sort of man who wanted to go camping and hunting with friends like Sergo. There was nothing relaxing about a holiday with Stalin. Indeed, escaping from holidays with Stalin was to become a common experience for all his guests. Kirov tried to get out of it but Stalin insisted. Kirov, realizing that “Stalin was conducting a struggle of wills,” could not refuse. “I’m not in a happy mood,” he told his wife. “I’m bored here . . . At no time can I have a quiet vacation. To hell with it.” This was hardly the attitude Stalin needed or expected from “my Kirich” but had he read such letters, they would have confirmed his already ambiguous feelings for Kirov.12

  The three leaders and the boy “sat at a table on the balcony in gorgeous weather on the enclosed veranda” of the huge Sochi house with its courtyard and its small indoor pool for Stalin. Servants brought hors d’oeuvres and drinks. “The four of us came and went,” says Yury Zhdanov. “Sometimes we went into the study indoors, sometimes we went down the garden to the wooden summerhouse.” The atmosphere was relaxing and free and easy. In the breaks, Kirov took Yury picking blackberries which they brought back for Stalin and Zhdanov. Every evening Kirov returned to his dacha and the Zhdanovs to theirs. Sometimes the lonely Stalin went home with them. “There were no bodyguards, no accompanying vehicles, no NKVD cars,” says Yury Zhdanov. “There was just me in the front, next to the driver and my father and Stalin in the back.” They set off at dusk and when they turned on the lights, they saw two girls hitchhiking by the roadside.

  “Stop!” said Stalin. He opened the door and let the girls get into the middle seats of the seven-seater Packard. The girls recognized Stalin: “That’s Stalin!” Yury heard one whisper. They dropped the girls off in Sochi. “That was the atmosphere of the time.” It was about to change.

  However informal it might have been, Zhdanov, like Beria, was one of the few magnates who could have brought his son to attend a meeting with Stalin even though the teenager had known him since he was five. “Only Zhdanov received from Stalin the same kind of treatment that Kirov enjoyed,” explained Molotov. “After Kirov, Stalin loved Zhdanov best. He valued him above everyone else.”13

  Attractive, brown-eyed, broad-chested and athletic, though asthmatic, Zhdanov was always hearty and smiling, with a ready supply of jokes. Like Kirov, a sunny companion, he loved to sing and play the piano. Zhdanov already knew Stalin well. Born at the Black Sea port of Mariupol in 1896, Andrei Alexandrovich Zhdanov, a hereditary nobleman (like Lenin and Molotov), was the scion of Chekhovian intellectuals. Son of a Master of Religious Studies at the Moscow Religious Academy, who worked, like Lenin’s father, as an inspector of public schools (his thesis was “Socrates as Pedagogue”), and of a mother who had graduated from the Moscow Musical Conservatoire and was herself the daughter of a rector of a religious academy, Zhdanov was the sole representative in top Party circles of the nineteenth-century educated middle class. His mother, a gifted pianist, taught Zhdanov to play well too.

  Zhdanov studied at a church school (like Stalin), dreamed of being an agriculturalist, then at twenty attended the Junior Officers’ Training College in Tiflis. This “acquainted him with Georgian culture and songs.” He grew up with three sisters who became Bolsheviks: two of them never married and became revolutionary maiden aunts who lived in his house, dominating Zhdanov and greatly irritating Stalin. Joining the Party in 1915, Zhdanov won his spurs in the Civil War as a commissar, like so many others. By 1922, he ran Tver, then Nizhny Novgorod, whence he was called to greater things.

  Straitlaced and rigid in Party matters, his papers reveal a man of meticulous diligence who could not approach a subject without becoming an encyclopaedic expert on it. Despite never completing higher education though he attended Agricultural College, Zhdanov was another workaholic obsessive, who voraciously studied music, history and literature. Stalin “respected Zhdanov,” says Artyom, “as his fellow intellectual,” whom he constantly telephoned to ask: “Andrei, have you read this new book?”

  The two were always pulling out volumes of Chekhov or Saltykov-Shchedrin to read aloud. Jealous rivals mocked his pretensions: Beria nicknamed him “The Pianist.” Zhdanov and Stalin shared religious education, Georgian songs, a love of history and classical Russian culture, autodidactic and ideological obsessions, and their sense of humour—except that Zhdanov was a prig.70 He was personally devoted to Stalin whom he called “Joseph Vissarionovich” but never “Koba.” “Comrade Stalin and I have decided . . .” was his favourite pompous way to begin a meeting.14

  On the veranda or in the summerhouse, they discussed history, epoch by epoch, on a table spread with revolutionary and Tsarist history textbooks. Zhdanov took notes. The supreme pedagogue could not stop showing off his knowledge.71 Their mission was to create the new history that became the Stalinist orthodoxy.

  Stalin adored studying history, having such happy memories of his history teacher at the Seminary that he took the trouble in September 1931 to write to Beria: “Nikolai Dmitrievich Makhatadze, aged 73, finds himself in Metechi Prison . . . I have known him since the Seminary and I do not think he can present a danger to Soviet power. I ask you to free the old man and let me know the result.”15 He had been a history addict ever since. In 1931, Stalin decisively intervened in academia to create the historical precursor of “Socialist Realism” in fiction: henceforth, history was not what the archives said but what the Party decreed on a holiday like this. “You speak about history,” Stalin told his magnates. “But one must sometimes correct history.” Stalin’s historical library was read and annotated thoroughly: he paid special attention to the Napoleonic Wars, ancient Greece, nineteenth-century relations between Germany, Britain and Russia, and a
ll Persian Shahs and Russian Tsars. A born student, he always mugged up on the history of that day’s issue.16

  While Zhdanov was in his element in the discussions in Sochi, Kirov was out of his depth. It is said that Kirov tried to escape by saying, “Joseph Vissarionovich, what kind of a historian am I?”

  “Nevermind. Sit down,” replied Stalin, “and listen.” Kirov got so sunburnt he could not even play gorodki: “However strange, for most of the day, we are busy. This isn’t what I expected for recreation. Well, to Hell with it,” he wrote to a friend in Leningrad. “I’ll just take to my heels as soon as possible.” Yet Yury Zhdanov recalled “happy warmth” between Stalin and Kirov who swapped earthy jokes which Zhdanov received in prim silence. Yury still remembers Stalin’s Jesus joke: they were working in the summerhouse, which stood under a big oak tree, when Stalin glanced at his closest friends: “Look at you here with me,” he said, pointing at the tree. “That’s the Mamre tree.” Zhdanov knew from his Bible that the Mamre tree was where Jesus assembled his Apostles.72

  There may have been a more sinister development that worried Kirov: some time when he was out of town, Moscow tried to remove his trusted NKVD boss in Leningrad, Medved, a close family friend, and replace him with a thuggish ex-criminal, Evdokimov, one of Stalin’s rougher drinking pals on southern holidays. Stalin was trying to loosen Kirov’s local patronage, and perhaps even control his security. Kirov refused to accept Evdokimov. 17

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

  By now the other leaders had gone off on holiday: “Molotov, Kaganovich, Chubar and Mikoyan left today. Kuibyshev, Andreyev and me stayed.” Zhdanov, not even a Politburo candidate, and new in the Secretariat, was left in charge of the country, signing decrees himself. Here was another sign that the Politburo’s importance was shrinking: proximity to Stalin was the source of real power.73 Soviet Russia was enjoying its last months of oligarchy and approaching the first of dictatorship. 19

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Kirov turned right out of the stairwell and passed a dark-haired young man named Leonid Nikolaev, who pressed himself against the wall to let Kirov pass—and then trailed along behind him. Nikolaev pulled out a Nagan revolver and shot Kirov from three feet away in the back of the neck. The bullet passed through his cap. Nikolaev turned the pistol on himself and squeezed the trigger, but an electrician working nearby somehow knocked him down and the second bullet hit the ceiling. Borisov the guard staggered up breathlessly, gun drawn impotently. Kirov fell face down, head turned to the right, his cap’s peak resting on the floor, and still gripping his briefcase—a Bolshevik workaholic to the last.

  Several minutes of chaos followed in which witnesses and police ran in every direction, seeing the same events differently and giving conflicting evidence: even the gun was variously seen on the floor and in the assassin’s hand. There seems to be a special sort of miasma in the air at terrible events and this one was no different. What matters is that Kirov lay lifeless on the floor near the unconscious Nikolaev. Kirov’s friend Rosliakov knelt beside him, lifting his head and whispering: “Kirov, Mironich.” They lifted Kirov, with Rosliakov holding his lolling head, on to a conference table, with the blood seeping from his neck leaving a trail of heroic Bolshevik sacrament down the corridor. They loosened his belt and opened his collar. Medved, the Leningrad NKVD boss, arrived but was stopped at the door by Moscow Chekists.