Charm
Stalin had the potential to be utterly charming. He could negative the most caustic of his remarks and unruffle the most ruffled feathers with his irresistible magic. (E.g. having Churchill characterise him as ‘splendid’ after having, only shortly before, offended him to the point of storming out). He was generous to the point of giving away his own flat. He also kitted his colleagues out with US made fridges and some of the first TV’s. Taking a special interest in his own beneficence he came in person to check the heating system in a mansion he had given to Beria.
However Stalin’s charm was but a shallow veneer. It operated more effectively as a cynical political tool. He did kindness much better from a distance. Proximity to Stalin was usually lethal. Stalin’s friendship was suffocating as is amply demonstrated in his relationship with Sergei Kirov. After his wife Nadya’s suicide, Stalin wanted to be with Kirov all of the time.
Beneath the surface, however, lurked resentment, poisonous jealousy and mistrust. Bukharin’s widow said of Stalin that he was able to love and hate the same person
‘because love and hate born of envy...fought with each other in the same breast’.
Stalin’s relationship with Kirov thawed and Kirov was assassinated in suspicious circumstances with Stalin taking over the murder investigation. Kirov’s bodyguard, at the time of the assassination, was subsequently to be the sole casualty in a mysterious raven van crash.
Stalin’s glib charm did not come with the ability to relate to others or feel empathy. Stalin’s complete mistrust of everyone permeated his entire character. He once said of himself,
‘I trust no one, not even myself’.
Cynicism and lack of trust
What loneliness is more lonely than distrust? –George Eliot
Stalin was cynical and mistrustful of everyone. He characterised everything as a personal betrayal. He described his wife (after her suicide), as having left him ‘like an enemy’. He was alone even amongst his entourage and was prepared not only to make minatory remarks but to order the execution of any of his colleagues. He was determined always to get others before they could get him.
Bearing this in mind he often felt the need to make his associates feel uncomfortable or collect incriminating information on them. This allowed him to keep his potential enemies (ie. everyone) in check, to pre-empt their potential attacks and have some ammunition to bring them down
His secret police chief Yagoda’s execution involved his successor, Yezhov. Yezhov was in turn killed under orders from his successor Beria. In this cutthroat world of his own creation Stalin, in the years before his death, began collecting evidence from victims of Beria’s sexual assaults in an effort to be ready for Beria.In this culture of mistrust Stalin’s responses (ruthless and unbalanced) inadvertently created the world in which his fears of betrayal were well founded.
Final act
In the later stages of Stalin’s rule denuded of his charm, wearied from decades of tyrannical rule and war and suffering ill health Stalin became a caricature. One is reminded of the ending of Scarface. Tony Montana like Stalin sees the emptiness of life at the top, becomes increasingly paranoid and prone to violent outbursts and excess.
Stalin used bacchanalian dinners to force his colleagues to drink to loosen their tongues and loose control. Stalin’s mistrust and sadism created an oppressive atmosphere where his men had to pretend to drink and the entire Soviet Union was rule from the cinema and dinner table. Pranks and bullying were all part of Stalin’s entertainment at these events. Stalin would get so drunk that he might throw a tomato at Khruschev.On one occasion a drunken Stalin fired off a shotgun recklessly, barely missing one of his colleagues and hitting his bodyguard.
After Stalin’s long time doctor, Vinogradov, examined Stalin he discovered his health had greatly deteriorated. Hypertension, arteriosclerosis and disturbances in cerebral circulation (causing cysts in the frontal lobe) afflicted the Vozhd. Stalin’s illness made him increasingly paranoid and angry. He ordered his medical records destroyed and Vinogradov became an enemy of the people. The fabrication of a doctor’s conspiracy and widespread arrests of doctors followed.
‘The story of the bananas sums up the governing style of the ageing Stalin.’(Montefiore)
After Stalin peeled a banana which turned out not to be ripe he ordered the arrest of banana importers and ordered the sacking of the new trade minister. A few days later Stalin was still talking about the bananas. Stalin attacked everything –Jews, doctors, banana importers, etc.
At this ageing extreme Stalin's pathology is brought into sharp focus. Stalin ultimately could trust no one and this corrosive mistrust is what shaped him. Mistrust of his colleagues.Mistrust of himself when the Germans invaded and he abandoned his position holing himself up in his Dacha. He bugged all of his magnates homes, he delighted in their mutual hatred of each other and had to be consulted on every decision no matter how small. Under the exhausting weight of all of this brutality Stalin felt what he described as a 'holy fear'. He valued his privacy, felt alone among his friends and felt the need to bring everybody into his own disgusting and brutal inner world. If he was brutal, disgusting and willing to turn on people the world had to be too.
(Source: Court of the Red Tsar)
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