BBC - History - World Wars_ Humanising Stalin

Adolf Hitler reading a newpaper in December 1924

This page has been archived and is no longer updated.Find out more about page archiving.

Humanising Stalin?By Simon Sebag Montefiore

Last updated 2011-02-17

History portrays Stalin as an inhumane and vicious leader - but he was a man as well as a

monster. Do we betray his victims by noting his human side, or will the full picture help guard

us against potential tyrants in the future?

Received ideas... Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung were among the greatest monsters of human history.

People will usually agree that Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung were among the greatest monsters of

human history. All are considered such peerless villains that they have become brand names of demonology, cited

glibly by politicians and serving as raw material for that most futile of parlour-games - the sweepstakes of

demonology - who killed the most people?

But is this a productive way to examine historic figures of this magnitude? Or is it time to look again at some of the

received ideas of the past 50 years?

Shock factorThe recent German movie on Hitler, The

Downfall (2004), raised many of the

ghosts that will forever haunt Germans -

and many of the memories that still

stalk the world about Germany. It was

acclaimed by many critics, although

denounced by others as subversive and

unsettling, and certainly it shocked a

number of its viewers.

It did not, however, shock with its depiction of the Fhrer's brutality, his unleashing of a war of extermination, his

industrial slaughter of millions of Jews and Slavs. Nor did it reveal the usual shocking figure of Hitler - ranting,

screaming, foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog in his bunker - as the Russians closed in on Berlin. Far from it.

- a tired, gentle, ailing warlord, listening to music ...

The film shocked Germans because it depicted a 'new' Hitler - a tired, gentle, ailing warlord, listening to music, taking

tea with his devoted secretaries (on whose memoirs the film is based), being caring and sensitive to his mistress

(later-wife) Eva Braun, talking about art and architecture.

BBC - History - World Wars: Humanising Stalin? http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/coldwar/stalin_01.shtml

1 of 5 9/14/2015 4:26 AM

Stalin with members of his inner circle

Stalin with Vyacheslav Molotov (left) - whose cars he selected

In Germany, this was denounced as a dangerous, ominous sign of Nazi revanchism, while in the British media it was

held up as a warning that the Germans, 50 years after post-war reconstruction and re-education of Germany, and the

obsessive rejection of every part of Nazism, were now starting to see acceptable sides to Hitler.

Getting past the mythWe should, however, remember that

there is nothing new, really, about this

supposedly humanised portrait of Hitler.

It has always been well known that after

ordering more slaughter on the Eastern

Front, or exploding in paroxysms of

saliva-flecked rage at his generals, Hitler

sometimes took well-mannered tea and

cakes with his assistants, and would also

take the opportunity to bore on about his

taste in painting (though the dragon-breath of his acrid halitosis must have somewhat diminished the charm).

... the challenge for historians is to explain the rise, fanaticism and maintenance of power ...

It is perhaps worth recognising, instead, that the movie in fact marks a radically positive change in our understanding

and collective memory of the great monsters of past eras, as well as of the present time. Not just of Hitler, but of

other grotesques as well - men such as Genghis Khan, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein. And of course, Stalin.

In writing about men such as Stalin, the challenge for historians is to explain the rise, fanaticism and maintenance of

power of these leaders, but the task is made difficult by the many clichd myths that surround them. The truth is also

often obscured by those who insist that these diabolical revolutionaries can be portrayed only as inhuman devils, and

not as wicked but practical politicians, or as degenerate but subtly rounded humans.

Often when a new book or film on Hitler appears, for example - such as the one described above - if any hint is shown

of any positive side to him, there is uproar that he is being humanised. And a recent BBC documentary that showed

interviews with Osama bin Laden's school pals, shocked many as it revealed their memories of his charm, elegance,

intelligence.

What the archive revealsUntil now Stalin

has been the

most elusively

shadowy of these

dark legends. But

newly-opened

archives suddenly

allow us to paint

a more human

picture of him

than ever before. They expose depravity, perversion, luxury and sadism, in a self-righteous world of murder by quota

and by personal vendetta - all symptoms of a rotten creed imposed by violence.

Ivan the Terrible was his true 'teacher' ...

We learn that Stalin studied history carefully and voraciously. He read not only about Russian Tsars but also Persian

Shahs. At various times he compared himself to Peter the Great. Ivan the Terrible was his true 'teacher' - his own

word - and there were many parallels between them. At the height of the Terror, he said Ivan's mistake had been to

kill too few of the boyars.


2 of 5 9/14/2015 4:26 AM

Stalin with his children Vasily and Svetlana

Levranti Beria plays with Svetlana while Stalin works

We see how he worked. He was not the bureaucrat that Trotsky told us about, but immensely industrious nonetheless,

and he interfered in everything from the number of cars the family of Vyacheslav Molotov (a trusted political ally) had

to the number of urinals on the streets of Moscow.

And what is made very clear is that killing and repression were utterly essential to the Soviet system - all the leaders

were perfectly aware of this. Indeed they believed in it, and their personal letters and Stalin's private notes are filled

with lists of deportees and executions. The archives show how the Great Terror was directly initiated and run by Stalin

and an inner core of grandees, and that it was utterly random in its killing.

The intimate worldThe archives, however, also reveal

more human aspects of Stalin. He

was ashamed of his eldest son,

irritated by his fragile son Vasily, and

absolutely devoted to his daughter

Svetlana, whose homework he

checked nightly - although things

changed radically when she grew up.

The archives are full of letters from

her when she was a child, in which

she pretends she is dictator of Russia. It appears that Stalin and the whole Politburo pretended to obey her orders.

...he loved Goethe, Balzac, Hugo, Last of the Mohicans...

There were other human aspects of the man - his womanising (never without a mistress even as a penniless exile),

his intellectualism (he loved Goethe, Balzac, Hugo, Last of the Mohicans), his warmth towards his subordinates (he

chose the house of the chief of the security service, Levranti Beria, personally, and used to tuck his children into bed),

his fine singing voice.

Among all this a note of warning should be sounded, though, and we of course also need to question our fascination

with the intimate world of monsters. As the New Yorkerreview of the current author's recent biography of Stalin puts

it:

Any biography of a tyrant runs the risk of humanising its subject to the point of appearing to mitigate his crimes.

To inform and warnSo should we know about

the human side of Stalin?

It is an important question

- but for years, popular

history has coasted along

on the myth that the Nazi,

Soviet and Maoist regimes

were murder-sprees by

lone madmen. And this is

nonsense. Historians have

two missions. The first is to inform readers how and why these men ruled and killed. The second is to deliver warnings

from the past.

If he had been merely a charmless psychopath, he would never have even risen to power ...

If we simply present Hitler or Stalin as satanic psychopaths, there is no warning. We learn nothing about them, or

their cultures, or why those nightmares happened. Instead it is the intimate approach to Stalin that is key to creating

a new paradigm of that regime - and it is this personal approach that is in fact the correct way to understand


3 of 5 9/14/2015 4:26 AM

Stalin with his children and Andrei Zhdanov

Leninism-Stalinism.

The new archives show that even though the men who surrounded Stalin were fanatical Marxists and enthusiastic

killers, his own power was personal and informal. The old picture of Stalin is absurd. If he had been merely a

charmless psychopath, he would never have even risen to power, yet alone maintained himself at the top of the tree.

He was a grotesque alright, but also a complex and subtle bundle of contradictions. The devil is in the detail.

It is patronising to censor personal, possibly agreeable, details of these monsters, as if readers are not qualified to

decide for themselves what to make of them. In this way history becomes at best clich, at worst propaganda.

Most readers can make the necessary judgements for themselves about what a man is like, based on the available

information. Certainly, a writer or historian must be meticulous in scholarship - a book that concentrated on Hitler's

sketches or Stalin's poetry, while ignoring their brutality, would be iniquitous. But we owe the reader a complete

picture.

Responsibility mattersFurthermore, the closer one comes

to Stalin - as man, father, lover -

the more disgusting he appears to

become. Far from humanising a

monster, the 'intimate picture'

revealed by the newly opened

archives, as the New Yorker says,

'actually throws the cold-hearted

murderousness with which Stalin

pursued power into sharper relief'

... facts about the intimate humanity of Joseph Stalin are indeed shocking ...

Character is not just about readable fascination. Character matters because responsibility matters. Germany

redeemed itself because it faced the truth of Hitler's charm, popularity - and criminality. Stalinism, by contrast,

overshadows Russia still, because Russians have never faced any guilt wider than that of Stalin - no truth, therefore

no redemption.

Plutarch, the master of personal history, explained in his 'Life of Nicias' that 'detail' is never 'unnecessary', because it

contains fundamental truths: ' passing on the essence that promotes the appreciation of character and

temperament.'

Yes, the inconvenient facts about the intimate humanity of Joseph Stalin are indeed shocking. And they are meant to

be.

Find out moreBooks

Stalin: Breaker of Nations by Robert Conquest (Viking, 1991)

Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia by Orlando Figes (Allen Lane/ Penguin Press, 2002)

A History of the Soviet Union 1917-1991 by Geoffrey Hosking (Fontana, 1992)

Stalin, The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Stalin: A Biography by Robert Service (Macmillan, 2004)

About the author


4 of 5 9/14/2015 4:26 AM

Simon Sebag Montefiore is a writer and television presenter. He spent much of the 90s travelling through the

ex-Soviet Empire, and wrote widely on Russia, especially for the Sunday Times, New York Times and Spectator. His

Potemkin: Prince of Princes (2000) was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson, Duff Cooper and Marsh Biography prizes.

His Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar won the History Book of the Year Award at the British Book Awards 2004.


5 of 5 9/14/2015 4:26 AM

Documents

BBC - History - World Wars_ Humanising Stalin