“All right,” smiled Stalin, “but as you know, gentlemen, war is waged with soldiers, guns, tanks. How many divisions has the Pope? If he tells us… let him become our ally.”‡
In the evenings, Stalin held little parties to meet his entourage, where Gromyko noticed how he “exchanged a few words with each member,” and moved from group to group, making jokes, remembering all fifty-three delegates by name. There were meetings every morning and evening: he was often crushing to his advisers if they did not do their job. Hugh Lunghi, once again interpreting at the conference, heard him saying, “I don’t trust Vyshinsky but with him all things are possible. He’ll jump whichever way we tell him.” Vyshinsky reacted to Stalin “like a frightened hound.”
When Roosevelt was ill, Stalin, Molotov and Gromyko visited him for twenty minutes. Afterwards, coming down the stairs, “Stalin suddenly stopped, took the pipe out of his pocket, filled it unhurriedly and as if to himself said quietly, ‘Why did nature have to punish him so? Is he any worse than other people?’”
He had always distrusted Churchill but Roosevelt seemed to fascinate him. “Tell me,” he asked Gromyko, “what do you think of Roosevelt? Is he clever?” Stalin did not hide his fondness for FDR from Gromyko which amazed the young diplomat because his character was so harsh that he “rarely bestowed his sympathy on anyone from another social system.” Only occasionally did he “give way to positive human emotions.”
The next day, 6 February, they met to discuss the painful subject of Poland and the world organization that would become the UN. Russia would take eastern slices of Poland in exchange for grants of German territory in the west. Stalin assented only to include a few Polish nationalists in his Communist-dominated government. When FDR said the Polish elections had to be “beyond question like Caesar’s wife,” Stalin quipped,
“They said that about her but she had her sins.” Stalin explained the Russian obsession with Poland: “Throughout history, Poland has served as a corridor for enemies coming to attack Russia”—hence he wanted a strong Poland. If Beria’s son can be believed, his father came into his room that day saying, “Joseph Vissarionovich has not moved an inch on Poland.” They approved the three zones of occupation in a demilitarized and de-Nazified Germany. The Americans were pleased by Stalin’s repeated promise to intervene against Japan, agreeing to his demands for Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands.
On the 8th, after another meeting, they dined with Stalin at the Yusupov Palace where their opening speeches became more and more emotional as the Big Three, all aged by the war, contemplated their victory. Stalin rose to the occasion, toasting Churchill, “a man who is born once in a hundred years, and who bravely held up the banner of Great Britain. I’ve said what I feel, what I have in my heart, and of what I’m conscious.” Stalin was “in the very best of form,” wrote Brooke, “and was full of fun and good humour.” Stalin, who fooled no one when he described himself as a “naive… garrulous old man,” ominously toasted the generals “who are recognized only during a war and whose services after the war are quickly forgotten. After the war, their prestige goes down and the ladies turn their back on them.” The generals did not yet realize he meant to forget them himself.
This epic dinner boasted one unusual guest: Stalin invited a delighted Beria, who was beginning to find his secret role constricting. Roosevelt noticed him and asked Stalin: “Who’s that in the pince-nez opposite Ambassador Gromyko?”
“Ah, that one. That’s our Himmler,” replied Stalin with deliberate malice. “That’s Beria.” The secret policeman “said nothing, just smiled, showing his yellow teeth” but “it must have cut him to the quick,” wrote his son, who knew how he longed to step onto the world stage. Roosevelt was upset by this, observed Gromyko, especially since Beria heard it too. The Americans examined this mysterious figure with fascination: “He’s little and fat with thick lenses which give him a sinister look but quite genial,” said Kathleen Harriman while Bohlen thought him “plump, pale with pince-nez like a schoolmaster.” The sex-obsessed Beria was soon discussing the sex life of fishes with the boozy, womanizing Sir Archibald Clark Kerr. When he was thoroughly drunk, Sir Archibald stood up and toasted Beria—“the man who looks after our bodies,” a compliment that was not only inappropriate but bungled. Churchill considered Beria the wrong sort of friend for HM Ambassador: “No, Archie, none of that. Be careful,” he waved his finger.
On 10 February, at Churchill’s dinner, Stalin proposed George VI’s health with a proviso that he had always been against kings because he was on the side of the people. Churchill, somewhat irritated, suggested to Molotov that in future he should just propose a toast to the “three Heads of State.” With only twelve or so at dinner, they discussed the upcoming British elections, which Stalin was sure Churchill would win: “Who could be a better leader than he who won the victory?” Churchill explained there were two parties.
“One party is much better,” Stalin said. When they talked about Germany, Stalin regaled them with a story about the country’s “unreasonable sense of discipline” which he had told repeatedly to his own circle. When he arrived in Leipzig for a Communist conference, the Germans had arrived at the station but found no ticket collector so they waited for two hours on the platform until he arrived.
After a final dinner in the Tsar’s billiard room at Livadia, Molotov escorted Roosevelt back to Saki, getting onto the presidential plane, the
Churchill spent the night on the
Stalin had won virtually all he wanted from the Allies and this is usually blamed on Roosevelt’s illness and susceptibility to Stalinist charm. Both Westerners stand accused of “selling out Eastern Europe to Stalin.”[232] Roosevelt’s courtship of Stalin and discourtesy to Churchill were misguided. FDR was certainly ill and exhausted. But Stalin always believed that force would decide who ruled Eastern Europe which was occupied by 10 million Soviet soldiers. He himself told an anecdote after the war which reveals his view of Yalta. “Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin went hunting,” Stalin said. “They finally killed their bear. Churchill said, ‘I’ll take the bearskin. Let Roosevelt and Stalin divide the meat.’ Roosevelt said, ‘No, I’ll take the skin. Let Churchill and Stalin divide the meat.’ Stalin remained silent so Churchill and Roosevelt asked him: ‘Mister Stalin, what do you say?’ Stalin simply replied, ‘The bear belongs to me—after all, I killed it.’” The bear is Hitler, the bearskin is Eastern Europe.2
On 8 March, amid operations to clean up Pomerania, Stalin summoned Zhukov to Kuntsevo for a strange meeting that marked the apotheosis of their close, touchy partnership. The Supremo was ill and “greatly over- exhausted.” He seemed depressed. “He had worked too much and slept too little,” thought Zhukov. The Battle for Berlin was his last great effort. Afterwards, he could no longer sustain that tempo of work. He was not alone: Roosevelt was dying; Hitler almost senile; Churchill often ill. Total war took a total toll on its warlords. The Stalin who emerged from the war was both more sentimental and also more deadly.
“Let’s stretch our legs a little, I feel sort of limp,” said Stalin. As they walked, Stalin talked about his childhood for an hour. “Let’s get back and have tea. I want to talk something over with you.” Encouraged by this surprising intimacy, Zhukov asked about Yakov: “Have you heard about his fate?”
Stalin did not answer. His son Yakov tormented him.
After about a hundred steps in silence, he answered in a “subdued voice”: “Yakov won’t be able to get out of captivity. They’ll shoot him, the killers. From what we know, they’re keeping him separately… and persuading him to betray his country.” Stalin was silent again, then he said, “No, Yakov would prefer any kind of death to betraying the Motherland.” He was proud of his son at last but did not know he had been dead for almost two years. Stalin did not eat but sat at table: “What a terrible war. How many lives of our people borne away. There’ll probably be few families who haven’t lost someone dear to them.” He talked about how he liked Roosevelt. Yalta had been a success.
Just then Poskrebyshev arrived with his bag of papers and Stalin turned to Berlin: “Go to Stavka and look at the calculations for the Berlin operation…” Three weeks later, on the morning of 1 April, Stalin held a conference with his two most aggressive marshals, Zhukov of the First Belorussian Front and Koniev of the First Ukrainian, at the Little Corner. “Well. Who’s going to take Berlin: we or the Allies?”
“It’s we who’ll take Berlin!” barked Koniev before Zhukov could even answer.
“So that’s the sort of man you are,” Stalin grinned approvingly. Zhukov was to assault Berlin from the Oder bridgeheads over the Seelow Heights; Koniev to push towards Leipzig and Dresden, with his northern flank thrusting towards southern Berlin parallel to Zhukov. The Supremo of ambiguity allowed them both to believe that they could take Berlin: “without saying a word,” Stalin drew the demarcation line between the fronts into Berlin—then stopped and erased the line to the south of Berlin. Koniev understood this allowed him to join in the storming of Berlin—if he could. “Whoever breaks in first,” Stalin teased them, “let him take Berlin.” That very day, in what one historian has described as “the greatest April Fool in modern history,” Stalin reassured Eisenhower that “Berlin has lost its former
