Khrushchev gives a simple explanation for Stalin's behaviour. "He suffered terribly from loneliness. He needed people around him all the time. When he woke up in the morning, he would immediately summon us, either inviting us to the movies or starting some conversation which could have been finished in two minutes but was stretched out so that we would stay with him longer. This was an empty pastime for us. It's true that sometimes State and Party questions were decided, but we spent only a fraction of our time on those. The main thing was to occupy Stalin's time so he wouldn't suffer from loneliness. He was depressed by loneliness and he feared it."
So the likes of Khrushchev, Beria, Malenkov , Bulganin, Mikoyan, Molotov, Kaganovich and Voroshilov could expect to spend up to eight hours of their busy days keeping Stalin company. Khrushchev details how absurd and pointless their activities could be.
They would often begin their evening by meeting in the Kremlin cinema. Stalin would select a movie for them to watch- usually from the West, and mostly American. "The films didn't have subtitles, so the Minister of Cinematography, I.I. Bolshakov would translate them out loud. He would translate them from all languages. Actually, he didn't know any of these languages. He had been told the plot in advance. He would take pains to memorize it and then would 'translate' the movie. We often joked about his translations, Beria especially. In many of the scenes, Bolshakov would simply get the plot wrong, or else he would just explain what anyone could see was happening on the screen: 'Now he's leaving the room...Now he's walking across the street.' Beria would then chime in and give Bolshakov some help: 'Look! He's started running! Now he's running!'"
