Wide Angle 28 - Court of the Red Tsar

“The biggest fear that people in a cannibal society would harbor would be that of sleeping. One could never be sure that one would wake up if one slept soundly. “Are you hungry, I know the look in your eye, you are hungry, stay away from me”. – Jerry Seinfeld.

Hi All,
It has become warmer here with temperatures between 10 to 15 degrees which means no thermals and single jackets. So wondrous the human body is – if it was this cold in India, we would have been shivering – like Einstein said, everything is relative. Anyway, hope the last Wide Angle stirred something in you – didn’t hear from too many people. This week I write about this fantastic book that I read over a period of 5 weeks. It is 600 page long but very interesting which meant I was able to finish it – been quite a while since I have read such a long book. The book is called “Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar” and is written by Simon Sebag Montefiore. The author is a British historian and has travelled extensively through the ex Soviet empire in the nineties after it collapsed. He also did an extensive study of the Stalinist times through interviews with different people associated with that period and studying recently opened archives of the key players of Stalin’s regime. From these, he has constructed a fascinating inner world of Stalin’s court and the narration of the major historical events through the eyes of this court.

I had briefly touched upon Stalin in Wide Angle 5 i.e. Animal Farm where I had written that Animal Farm was an allegory for what turn the Communist revolution took under Stalin. When I finished reading this book, I can almost relate everything that is described in Animal Farm to events in the book that I am writing about. Wonder how George Orwell was so well informed. For the communists, Stalin is God, the Karats and Yechurys and Achutanandans of the world have pictures of Stalin in their offices. Karunanidhi has even named his name after Stalin. However, for most accounts, Stalin is placed up there with Hitler in terms of deaths caused (20 million deaths directly caused excluding WW2). I really wonder how ideology can blind people so much that they worship a mass murderer – after reading this book, I was mostly disgusted by Stalin and co but I was also impressed the way he led the Soviets to victory in WW2. In today’s column, I will touch upon a few aspects of Stalin’s life from this book and while doing so highlight what an unbelievable world these people lived in and what havoc they caused to so many lives while building a great empire.

Beginnings:
Stalin was born in 1878 in a vassal state of the Tsarist Russian empire called Georgia. This state is distinctly un-Russian with historically being a different kingdom with its own culture. People from Georgia are more like Sicilians with vengeful attitudes, quirky natures and emotional cores. Born to a cobbler, Stalin became associated with the Bolveshiks (Communism started in Russia with this name) around 1905 and steadily climbed up its ranks through repeated imprisonments and exiles by the Tsarist forces during the long struggle for the Revolution. He became Lenin’s close confidant along with Trotsky and after capture of power, became a member of the government. On Lenin’s death, Trotsky was named as his successor but it was Stalin with his ruthless drive and partnerships who managed to become Premier in 1924.

The initial years of power:
In his initial years as Premier, Stalin was more of a first among equals rather than being the complete dictator he later became. He had many close buddies who were his partners during the revolutionary struggle – Molotov who later became PM and then foreign minister during WW2, Kaganovich (Jewish) who ran railways and was Stalin’s Deputy, Sergo Ordzhonikidze who was his close friend and Heavy Industries Minister, Bulganin who was Defense minister, Voroshilov who was a defense commissar, Yagoda who was his secret police chief and ran the NKVD (predecessor of KGB) and Andrei Zhdanov who was his friend and a fellow intellectual of caliber equal to Stalin. I have named all these people because what follows next is what happened to them. These were magical times for the friends and the book describes these folks as the Magnates of the empire. The revolution was new and they all were building up a country with the newest dogma around which was a religious creed to them – Bolshevism. Life was about working hard and partying hard with Stalin often leaning on them for advice and support. These magnates worked feverishly planning the five year plans, executing them, then holidaying for weeks in country houses (Dachas in Russian) with Stalin.
Stalin was married to Nadya Alliluyeva at that time though this marriage was rocky with both being unable to connect to each other. The wives of the magnates were also very strong during this phase with each boasting of personal connect with Stalin and joining in the court as well as parties. Most of the wives were also important post holders in the Communist Party as well as Government.

Turning point:
Something snapped in Stalin when his wife Nadya committed suicide, she was depressed due to which she took this step. She was survived by three children with Svetlana being the youngest and most favorite of Stalin. From this point, Stalin became the ruthless person inside which led to so much havoc. He considered many of the wives being instrumental or at least not having prevented this suicide which was to have an effect later.

Collectivization/anti Kulak drive:
Before the death of Nadya and during the sweet years of co-existence with the magnates, the Communist party had started with something called “Collectivized farming”. This meant that there was going to be no private property from now on and all farmers had to collect on a communal farm where they would raise crops together and be paid accordingly. This was resisted by the Kulaks (term used for the relatively affluent farmers in Russia). This resistance was met by tremendous force by the party which resulted in deportation and massacre of hundreds of thousands of farmers. In their zeal to collect the targeted quotas of grains, the party workers squeezed every grain out of reluctant farmers often branding even a small farmer as a “kulak”. Public trials of kulaks were common and so were executions. This brought about a tremendous famine in the countryside due to botched up farming production which emptied villages and towns and killed a few million people. The book describes the total apathy and denial shown by Stalin and his magnates who thought the negative reports were simply fabrications by the enemies and ordered even stringent measures.

The Terror:
Around 1933, the behavior of Stalin towards his court started changing with his patience for opposition running thin. This is where Yezov (Blackberry) stepped in, he was a bisexual dwarf who was also a sadist. The terror officially started around 1936 when they first arrested a couple of “rightist” peers of Stalin - Rykov and Bukharin and arranged show trials for them. Both of them were executed with their families also sent to slave labor camps. Yezov was relentless in his pursuit of “enemies of the people” and soon turned his attention to liquidating the regional bosses of the party along with their families. Then they turned their attention to the Army where most of the top generals were arrested. One of the most brilliant generals and Chief of Staff Tukhachevsky was arrested, tortured and executed for being a Trotskyite and this was followed with a purging of the Army off its top generals. Through this period, Stalin kept ticking and signing off lists of people who were to be arrested and liquidated. The chain was such that the arrested people were tortured brutally and made to denounce others who were in turn arrested and tortured to reveal other names.
After this, Stalin turned his attention to the wives of his closest comrades and many of them were arrested and killed. The wife of his closest confidant Poskrebyshev called Bronka was arrested and Poskrebyshev never got out of this shock though he continued to serve Stalin with the same intensity. In most of the cases, Stalin encouraged the comrades whose wives were arrested to remarry. The Terror also touched his own family wherein his brothers in law Stanislav Redens and Alyosha Svanidze were arrested and tortured and then sent to slave camps. The terror of course ended by taking the life of the person who had caused most of it – Yezov. This coincided with the rise of a remarkable secret policeman Lavrenti Beria who arrested Yezov and took over his role and became Stalin’s closest confidante.
It was during this time that Sergo who was Stalin’s closest friend was so harassed by the Party that he committed suicide.

The War:
Stalin knew that he was no match for Hitler in a fight since the army was recently purged off its best generals so he got Molotov to negotiate a non-aggression pact with Germany. Of course, Hitler betrayed them and attacked Russia in Operation Barbarossa in 1941. The book describes the moments before the invasion when Stalin was getting detailed reports of German troop mobilization on his borders but chose to ignore them and threatened anyone who tried to show it up. When the attack happened, Stalin went into a depression for a day when the magnates seriously thought of replacing him. He was back though and was soon directing operations. The first year was disastrous for the Soviets with defeats everywhere and German tanks in sight of the Kremlin. These disasters were primarily caused because of the amateurish magnates leading troops on the front and making a hash of it. Soon Stalin realized his folly and handed the war effort over to Marshal Zukov and other professional Generals who reversed the war first at Stalingrad and then at Kursk (the biggest tank battle in history). However, he took a momentous decision before this when they were in two minds whether to evacuate Moscow or not – Stalin stayed put working from an underground railway station while bombings happened overhead.
The strategy of throwing in millions of men (not caring for lost lives) into the effort along with breakneck production of armaments at gun point worked and the Russians drove back the Germans out of their territory and eventually captured Berlin. This is where Stalin was at his most glorious and became a world statesman along with Roosevelt and Churchill. It was at this point that the Terror had also stopped. It was soon to restart.

The Jew Massacre:
After the war started the Cold War with America. In Stalin’s mind, the Jews who were omnipresent in his party and government as well as arts and society were potentially American agents and this belief led to disaster. Many Jewish intellectuals, artists, scientists were arrested by Beria, tortured and murdered. This terror also touched Molotov’s very talented wife Polina who was accused of being a “Jew spy” and arrested and sentenced to slave labor. At this point around 1948-49, Stalin was fatigued due to the stresses of the war and was increasingly becoming senile and paranoid. This helped Beria who played up these fears and had many more people killed. Even Zhdanov who was Stalin’s peer and a gifted intellectual fell out of favor and died of severe disease ignored by his friend.

The Doctor’s plot:
The most ridiculous episode of this entire show was the Doctor’s plot which happened from 1951 up to Stalin’s death in 1953. Stalin suspected that the top doctors of his regime were involved in a plot to kill his magnates (Zhdanov’s death was pinned on them) and this led to arrest, torture and execution of many a top doctors in the state. His closest doctor who was also the family doctor of the entire cabinet Vinogradov was arrested and tortured simply because he had suggested that Stalin take it easy due to his health and age. The architect of this all was Beria and his people especially Abekumov who was another rising star of NKVD. This drama continued up to Stalin’s death.

Death:
Before his death, the magnates and their lifestyles had become very depraved. There used to be drinking sessions every night that lasted till dawn where Stalin made everyone drink till they puked or passed out. Beria had a special office where he brought and raped women. Most of the magnates had looted priceless articles from all over the world. Some months before Stalin’s death, his attention had now turned to Molotov and Mikoyan who were being excluded from meetings and it was almost certain that they were next in line to be arrested. Suddenly, Stalin suffered a stroke. His bodyguards called the magnates who came in and saw but did not have the courage to call a doctor since if Stalin woke up, he would nix them for trying to challenge him. Nothing happened for 12 hours after which they called doctors. Stalin had lost a lot of faculty by then and eventually died. Beria was most likely to succeed him but Molotov and Khruschev had him arrested through General Zukov and he was shot soon after. As all know, Khruschev succeeded Stalin and opened up the regime for the better till it got closed back under Brezhnev.
This is where the book ends and the prologue states where all the prime actors and their descendants are today.

Analysis:
Don’t have much to analyze here, I am more amazed about how someone can cause so much damage to multitudes and still live with a clear conscience not to mention strut around. How can people go about normally - the magnates that - is knowing what they were doing to their closest comrades. How can the suffering of so many not affect the people in charge who continued to inflict it? I believe that ideology (which includes religion as well) does this to people where nothing can come in the way of achieving that glorious utopia which really is nothing but the satisfaction of fantasies and egos of a few people who are at the helm of it – ideology is nothing but a tool for use by these people. The strangest part is that children of Zhdanov, Molotov, Beria all respect Stalin till date despite knowing what he did to them and others. Most of the people he executed cried “Long live Stalin, long live Bolshevism” before they were shot. I thank God that these ugly regimes were destroyed along with the eclipse of the ideology as well. Their remnants still lurk around in India, hope they continue to remain scantly relevant the way they are.

I know it was a long write up, it was very painful for me to write because there was so much content and I didn’t know what to keep and exclude. This was the best I could do in terms of brevity. Hope you enjoyed reading.