What more can be said about a tyrant who has already been the subject of countless biographies? As Montefiore proves, the answer is “a lot.” The British author mined the archives and published as well as unpublished memoirs, and interviewed the surviving wives and children of Stalin’s henchmen. The result is an incredibly rich, detailed portrait of the man and the members of his inner circle that dwells less on politics than personal behavior that knew no bounds. It’s as chilling for its glimpses of ostensible normalcy–Stalin as the concerned father or friend–as for its excruciating descriptions of terror.
Beginning with life in the Kremlin “village,” where Politburo members and their families dropped in on each other, partied, gossiped and shamelessly curried favor with the boss, Montefiore chronicles Stalin’s routine–his penchant for late-night dinners and movies, his preoccupation with arranging vacations for his entourage and his obsession with destroying “traitors.” “Death solves all problems,” Stalin said. But he insisted that his army of willing torturers extract confessions first, taking a morbid interest in the agonies of his victims, especially in their final moments. Stalin wasn’t an aberration of Bolshevism, but simply took it to its logical extreme. As Montefiore points out, his victims were killed “not because of what they had done but because of what they might do.” By that logic, anyone could be next on the list.
And almost everyone was. Along with Ukrainian peasants, “class enemies,” writers, the military and the party faithful, Stalin targeted members of “the court,” often starting with their wives. The longer he lived, the more his inner circle felt threatened–and he reveled in their fear. At a reception for visiting French leader Charles de Gaulle in late 1944, he toasted one Politburo member by saying he’d be shot if he didn’t make the trains run on time, and his Air Force commander by saying he’d be hanged if he didn’t do his job properly. “People call me a monster, but as you see, I make a joke of it,” he explained to his appalled guest. Ha, ha.
Stalin may have helped speed his own death. When he collapsed from a stroke, his Jewish doctors weren’t there to help since they were under arrest for their role in the infamous “doctors’ plot”–another product of his frenzied imagination. His personal doctor’s crime: suggesting his patient should rest. Luckily for the remaining members of his entourage, the great leader, as always, knew better.
