Just before telling his henchmen this story, the ageing Stalin had suffered a similar accident to that of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney in 2006: while showing off his shooting skills, he had misfired, closely missing Politburo grandee Anastas Mikoyan and peppering two of his guards. Already beginning to hate and scorn the ailing dictator in the postwar years, Beria and Khrushchev had heard this story of Stalin’s exploit repeatedly. They did not believe it. “After dinner,” writes Khrushchev, “we were spitting with scorn in the bathroom: ‘So Stalin claimed to have skied 12 versts in winter, shot twelve partridges, skied back 12 versts and returned, another 12 versts, shot another twelve partridges and skied another 12 versts home—48 versts on skis!’” (48 versts equals 32 miles.) “Listen,” exclaimed Beria, “how can a man from the Caucasus who never had the chance to ski, travel a distance like that? He’s lying.” Khrushchev agreed: “Of course, he was lying! I’d seen with my own eyes that Stalin couldn’t shoot at all!” In fact, in the 1920s and early 1930s, Stalin enjoyed hunting on holiday, though he regarded it as a waste of time.
151
After the debacle of the 1942 Kharkov offensive, Stalin gave Khrushchev a dressing-down. “During the First World War,” he said, “when one of the armies was encircled in East Prussia, the commander of the neighbouring army fled to the rear. He was put on trial—and hanged.”
152
In 1930, Merzliakov was accused of being a kulak, one of the richer peasants, whom Stalin was determined to liquidate in his brutal war on the peasantry. He appealed to Stalin: “I think you won’t have forgotten how I was.” Stalin responded: “I knew Mikhail Merzliakov at the time of my exile in the village of Kureika where he was my guard 1914–16. He only had one order—to look after me (the only exile in Kureika at the time). It is clear I could not have ‘friendly’ relations with Merzliakov. But I have to testify that even if our relations were not ‘friendly,’ they were not hostile as usual between guard and exile. It seems to me this can be explained by Merzliakov’s lip-service to his duties without the usual police zeal, he didn’t spy on me, didn’t persecute me… colluded in my long absences and often criticized his officers for his ‘tedious’ orders… So in 1914–16, Merzliakov distinguished himself from other policemen. It is my duty to testify this before you.”
153
Stalin poses with his trademark black fedora at a rakish angle, in his usual position at the centre in the back, flanked by Spandarian and Kamenev. Sverdlov also stands in the back row, while at the front, sitting on the floor, is Sverdlov’s little son Andrei, who later became one of Stalin’s top NKVD investigators and torturers.
154
Stalin was to repeat this philosophy in the early 1920s. Kamenev called it “Stalin’s Theory of Sweet Revenge” after his defeat by the dictator in the mid-1920s. But he did not take it, or Stalin, seriously until it was too late.
155
Spandarian was allowed to move to Krasnoyarsk in August, but it was too late. Stalin inquired after his friend but the letters went astray.
156
Fyodor was apparently not the only person punished for Stalin’s absence. This author received a letter from Mrs. Eva Purins of Downham Market, Norfolk, who writes that her great-grandmother, an exile named Jefinia Nogornova, was imprisoned in Krasnoyarsk for “helping to hide Stalin.” If true, it must have been on this occasion.
157
There were so many meetings, day and night, on every street corner that the ever adaptable Russian language coined the verb
158
On 26 February, Shlyapnikov declared, “There is no and will be no revolution,” but once it developed, he and Molotov managed to relaunch
159
She was the lissom Polish ballerina who became Nicholas II’s first and only real mistress while he was heir to the throne. He had been in love with her, but when he fell for Alix of Hesse, who became Empress Alexandra, he continued to back Kseshinskaya’s rise to become the dominant prima ballerina of the Mariinsky. Afterwards, she entered an imperial
