Stalin: A Biography

father. This account has Moscow Party City Committee Secretary Alexander Shcherbakov, not Voznesenski, as having made the proposal for Molotov to take over the leadership.

22. Yu. Gor’kov, Gosudarstvennyi Komitet Oborony postanovlyaet, p. 501.

38. Fighting On

1. G. K. Zhukov, Vospominaniya i razmyshleniya, vol. 2, pp. 126–7.

2. R. Overy, Russia’s War, p. 171.

3. There is nothing in the memoirs of Molotov, Kaganovich, Khrushchev and Zhukov — men who knew him very well in the war — to contradict this point.

4. G. K. Zhukov, Vospominaniya i razmyshleniya, vol. 2, p. 344.

5. Ibid., p. 346.

6. Ibid., p. 347.

7. Ibid., pp. 348–9.

8. Ibid., p. 361.

9. Ibid. This statement, like many others, was censored in the 1969 edition and allowed to be published only in its 1995 successor.

10. Ibid., p. 367.

39. Sleeping on the Divan

1. S. Beria, Beria, My Father, p. 154.

2. G. K. Zhukov, Vospominaniya i razmyshleniya, vol. 3, pp. 215–16.

3. A. M. Vasilevski: interview in G. A. Kumanev (ed.), Ryadom so Stalinym, p. 242.

4. S. Beria, Beria, My Father, pp. 153–4. This story was told to Sergo Beria by his mother, who spoke to Yakov.

5. Ibid., p. 155.

6. ‘Dnevnik M. A. Svanidze’ in Iosif Stalin v ob”yatiyakh sem’i, p. 159.

7. Testimony of Alexei Kapler: E. Biagi, Svetlana, p. 21.

8. Ibid., p. 27.

9. ’Dnevnik M. A. Svanidze’: Iosif Stalin v ob”yatiyakh sem’i, p. 161.

10. Ibid., p. 158.

11. S. Allilueva, Tol’ko odin god, p. 320.

12. Ibid., p. 326.

13. Ibid., pp. 129–30.

14. S. Beria, Beria, My Father, p. 150.

15. S. Allilueva, Dvadtsat’ pisem k drugu, pp. 163–6.

16. Ibid., pp. 166–7.

17. Ibid., pp. 167–8.

18. Ibid., p. 169.

19. S. Beria, Beria, My Father, p. 152.

20. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 5078.

21. V. Alliluev, Khronika odnoi sem’i: Alliluevy. Stalin, p. 97.

22. Ibid.

23. I. A. Valedinskii, ‘Vospominaniya o vstrechakh s t. I. V. Stalinym’, pp. 69–70.

24. See below, pp. 456–7.

25. G. K. Zhukov, Vospominaniya i razmyshleniya, vol. 3, p. 109.

26. He let no one know of his physical weaknesses with the exception of Churchill. Preparing to meet the British Prime Minister in autumn 1944, he wrote: ‘The doctors don’t advise me to undertake long trips. For a certain period I need to take account of this’: Perepiska predsedatelya Soveta Ministra SSSR s prezidentami SShA i prem’er-ministrami Velikobritanii vo vremya velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, vol. 1, p. 262. Even this remark, however, cannot be taken at face value. Stalin would do anything to make the mountain come to Mohammed; he always tried to get Churchill and Roosevelt to do the travelling.

27. ‘Dnevnik M. A. Svanidze’ in Iosif Stalin v ob”yatiyakh sem’i, pp. 158–60, 169, 174, 177.

28. Ibid., p. 168.

29. Ibid., p. 175.

30. L. Vasil’eva, Deti Kremlya, p. 261; V. Alliluev, Khronika odnoi sem’i: Alliluevy. Stalin, p. 128 (where it is mentioned that her parents-in-law never forgave Yevgenia for marrying again so quickly after Pavel’s death).

31. L. Vasil’eva, Deti Kremlya, p. 261.

32. L. M. Kaganovich, Pamyatnye zapiski, p. 33; Tak govoril Kaganovich, pp. 49–50. The date of death is given variously as 1924 and 1926. See also S. Allilueva, Tol’ko odin god, p. 331.

33. L. Kaganovich, Tak govoril Kaganovich, p. 49. Sergo Beria, however, claimed that the identity of Stalin’s lover was not Kaganovich’s sister or daughter but his niece: see S. Beria, Beria, My Father, p. 166. As yet there is no corroboration of this assertion.

34. Molotov. Poluderzhavnyi vlastelin, pp. 181 and 191.

35. ‘Dnevnik M. A. Svanidze’ in Iosif Stalin v ob”yatiyakh sem’i, p. 170.

36. Kira Allilueva: interview, 14 December 1998.

37. See the recollection by A. P. Alliluev as given to R. Richardson, The Long Shadow, pp. 142–3.

38. J. von Ribbentrop, Zwischen London und Moskau. Erinnerungen und letzte Auchzeichnungen, p. 25.

39. Testimony of A.T. Sergeev to F. Chuev: Molotov. Poluderzhavnyi vlastelin, p. 359.

40. G. K. Zhukov, Vospominaniya i razmyshleniya, vol. 3, p. 108.

41. N. K. Baibakov, Ot Stalina do Yel’tsina, pp. 80 and 83.

42. See K. Charkviani’s account summarised by Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, p. 101.

40. To the Death!

1. G. K. Zhukov, Vospominaniya i razmyshleniya, vol. 3, p. 14.

2. Ibid., p. 23.

3. Ibid., p. 32.

4. Ibid., p. 45.

5. Ibid., p. 46.

6. Ibid., p. 61.

7. Ibid., p. 59.

8. See W. Moskoff, The Bread of Affliction.

9. Official military postcard, 6 January 1944.