Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

Steeped in the classics, despising new-fangled art, Zhdanov embarked on a policy that would have been familiar to Tsars Alexander I and Nicholas I. Victory had blessed the marriage of Russianness and Bolshevism: Stalin saw the Russians as the binding element of the USSR, the “elder brother” of the Soviet peoples, his own new brand of Russian nationalism very different from its nineteenth-century ancestor. There would be no new freedoms, no foreign influences, but these impulses would be suppressed in an enforced celebration of Russianness.

The Leningrad journals were the natural place to start because they published the works of the satirist Mikhail Zoshchenko, whom Stalin had once read to his children, and the poetess Anna Akhmatova, whose passionate verses symbolized the indestructible dignity and sensitivity of humanity in terror and war. Zhdanov’s papers reveal in his own words what Stalin wanted: “I ask you to look this through,” Zhdanov asked the Master, “is it good for the media and what needs to be improved?”

“I read your report. I think it’s perfect,” Stalin replied in crayon. “You must hurry to publish it and then as a book. Greetings!” But “there are some corrections”—which expressed Stalin’s thinking: “if our youth had read Akhmatova and been educated in such an atmosphere, what would have happened in the Great Patriotic War? Our youth [has been] educated in the cheerful spirit able to win victory over Germany and Japan… This journal helps our enemies to destroy our youth.”[259]

On 18 April, Zhdanov launched his cultural terror, known as the Zhdanovshchina, with an attack on the Leningrad journals. In August, the literary inquisitor travelled to Leningrad to demand: “How weak was the vigilance of those citizens in Leningrad, in the leadership of the journal Zvezda, for it to publish, in this journal, works… poisoned with the venom of zoological hostility to the Soviet leadership.” He castigated Akhmatova as this “half-nun, half-harlot or rather harlot-nun whose sin is mixed with prayer,” a grotesque distortion of her own verses. He followed this up with attacks on film-makers and musicians. At a notorious meeting with Shostakovich and others, “the Pianist” tinkled on the piano to demonstrate easily hummed people’s tunes, a vision as absurd as Joseph II admonishing Mozart for writing “too many notes.” Yury Zhdanov went to the theatre with his father and Stalin. When they talked to the actors afterwards, the cast boasted that their show had been acclaimed in Paris:

“Those French aren’t worth the soles of your shoes,” replied Stalin. “There’s nothing more important than Russian theatre.”

Bantering playfully, the omnipotent double act, Stalin and Zhdanov, held conversazione to guide writers and film directors. On the night of 14 May 1947, they received Stalin’s two favoured literary bureaucrats, the poet Simonov and the hack novelist Fadeev, the head of the Writers’ Union. Stalin first set the pay for writers. “They write one good book, build their dacha and stop working. We don’t begrudge them the money,” laughed Stalin, “but this can’t happen.” So he suggested setting up a commission.

“I’ll join!” declared Zhdanov, showing his independence.

“Very modest!” Stalin chuckled. As they discussed the commission, Zhdanov opposed Stalin thrice before being overruled, another example of how his favourite could still argue with him. Stalin teased Zhdanov fondly. When “the Pianist” said he had received a pitiful letter from some writer, Stalin joked: “Don’t believe pitiful letters, Comrade Zhdanov!”

Stalin asked the writers: “If that’s all, I’ve a question for you: what kind of themes are writers working on?” He launched into a lecture about “Soviet patriotism.” The people were proud but “our middle intelligentsia, doctors and professors don’t have patriotic education. They have unjustified admiration for foreign culture… This tradition comes from Peter… admiration of Germans, French, of foreigners, of assholes”—he laughed. “The spirit of self- abasement must be destroyed. You should write a novel on this theme.”

Stalin had a recent scandal in mind. A pair of medical professors specializing in cancer treatment had published their work in an American journal. Stalin and Zhdanov created “courts of honour,” another throw-back to the Tsarist officer class, to try the professors. (Zhdanov chaired the court.) Stalin set Simonov to write a play about the case. Zhdanov spent an entire hour giving literary criticism to Simonov before Stalin himself rewrote the play’s ending.[260]

In August, Bolshakov, the cinematic impresario, showed Stalin a new movie, Ivan the Terrible, Part Two. Knowing from MGB reports that Eisenstein compared The Terrible with Yezhov, Stalin rejected this “nightmare,” hating its lack of Russian pride, its portrayal of Ivan (and the length of his kisses, and beard). Eisenstein shrewdly appealed to Stalin. At 11 p.m. on 25 February 1947, Eisenstein and his scriptwriter arrived in the Little Corner where Stalin and Zhdanov gave them a master class on national Bolshevism, a most revealing tour d’horizon of history, terror and even sex. Stalin attacked the film for making the Tsar’s MGB, the Oprichnina, resemble the Ku Klux Klan. As for Ivan himself, “Your Tsar is indecisive—he resembles Hamlet,” said Stalin. “Tsar Ivan was a great wise ruler… wise… not to let foreigners into the country. Peter the Great’s also a great Tsar but treated foreigners too liberally… Catherine, more so. Was Alexander I’s Court Russian?… No, it was German…” Then Zhdanov gave his own view, with its interesting reflection on Stalin’s own nature:

“Ivan the Terrible seems a hysteric in the Eisenstein version!”

“Historical figures,” added Stalin, “must be shown correctly… Ivan the Terrible kissed his wife too long.” Kisses, again. “It wasn’t permitted at that time.” Then came the crux: “Ivan the Terrible was very cruel,” said Stalin. “You can show he was cruel. But you must show why he needed to be cruel.” Then Zhdanov raised the crucial question of Ivan’s beard. Eisenstein promised to shorten it. Eisenstein asked if he could smoke.

“It seems to me there’s no ban on smoking. Maybe we’ll vote on it.” Stalin smiled at Eisenstein. “I don’t give you instructions, I merely give you the comments of a viewer.”[261]

Zhdanov’s campaign to promote Russian patriotism was soon so absurd that Sakharov remembered how people would joke about “Russia, homeland of the elephant.” More ominously, the unleashing of Russian nationalism and the attacks on “cosmopolitans” turned against the Jews.

49. THE ECLIPSE OF ZHUKOV AND THE LOOTERS OF EUROPE The Imperial Elite

Early in the war, Stalin realized the usefulness of Soviet Jewry in appealing for American help but even then the project was stained with blood.[262] Stalin then ordered Beria to set up the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, controlled by the NKVD but officially led by the famous Yiddish actor, Solomon Mikhoels, “short, with the face of a puckish intellectual, with a prominent forehead and a pouting lower lip,” whom Kaganovich had perform King Lear for Stalin. When Mikhoels toured America to raise support for Russia in April 1943, Molotov briefed him and Stalin emerged from his office to wave goodbye. The JAFC was supervised by Solomon Lozovsky, a grizzled Old Bolshevik with a biblical beard who was the token Jew in the highest echelons of Molotov’s Foreign Commissariat.

The ghastly revelations of the Nazi Holocaust, the Mikhoels tour and the attractions of Zionism to give the Jewish people a safe haven, softened the stern internationalism of even the highest Bolsheviks. Stalin tolerated this but encouraged a traditional anti-Semitic reaction. When casting Ivan the Terrible, Part Two, Bolshakov openly rejected one actress because “her Semitic features are clearly visible.” Anyone too Jewish-looking was sacked.

When the advancing Soviet Army exposed Hitler’s unique Jewish genocide, Khrushchev, the Ukrainian boss, resisted any special treatment for Jews staggering home from the death camps. He even refused to return their homes, which had meanwhile been occupied by Ukrainians. This habitual anti-Semite grumbled that “Abramoviches” were preying on his fiefdom “like crows.”

This sparked a genuine debate around Stalin. Mikhoels complained to Molotov that “after the Jewish catastrophe, the local authorities pay no attention.” Molotov forwarded this to Beria who, to his credit, was sympathetic. Beria demanded that Khrushchev help the Jews who “were more repressed than any others by the Germans.” In this he was taking a risk since Stalin had decreed that all Soviet citizens suffered equally. Stalin later suspected Beria of being too close to the Jews, perhaps the origin of the rumour that Beria himself was a “secret” Jew. Molotov forwarded Beria’s order. Khrushchev agreed to help his “Abramoviches.”