Stalin’s Court: Part 2 (of 2)
While reading accounts of court life during the Stalin years may seem like nothing more than harmless fun, these details actually play a vital role in our understanding of Stalin and his rule, for they clearly illustrate the personalities of this Bolshevik Tsar and his court. These men, who controlled the destinies of many of the world's people, were representative of their country's system, not least because it was these men who imposed that system in the first place. One should not be surprised, then, that the Soviet Union was a corrupt, cruel and depraved country, as its ruling elite possessed these very qualities.
These qualities were so obvious that even a passionate and devoted communist like Milovan Djilas could not fail to recognize them. Although what happened at the banquets he attended was not the only reason for his subsequent disillusionment, it is certainly true that a large part of his disenchantment came from witnessing the conduct of "Stalin and his group of cold, calculating conspirators" on these occasions.
The Djilas who first met Stalin was an awed idealist. For Djilas and his kind, "He was the incarnation of an idea, transfigured in Communist minds into pure idea, and thereby into something infallible and sinless. Stalin was the victorious battle of today and the brotherhood of man of tomorrow."
While he would gradually recognize Stalin and his cronies for what they were, he was initially enraptured. Stalin was a God. "I myself referred many times in discussions to the crystal clarity of his style, the penetration of his logic and the harmony of his commentaries, as though they were expressions of the most exalted wisdom. But it would not have been difficult for me, even then, to detect in any other author of the same qualities that his style was colourless, meagre, and an unblended jumble of vulgar journalism and the Bible."
A few years later, though, and Djilas had become repulsed by dining with Stalin and his entourage. It was not "the penetration of his logic" that he noticed, but rather "Stalin's age, the "conspicuous signs of his senility" and "his...anti-Semitism." Originally he observed that "Stalin had a sense of humour- a rough humour, self-assured, but not entirely without finesse and depth." Now, however, he saw that with the "real Stalin...his wit now turned into malicious crudity, and his exclusiveness into intolerance."
Even so, Stalin's rule was unchallenged. His closest associates were in awe of him and obeyed him unquestioningly. This could be seen in their toadying behavior during these banquets- as Khrushchev said, "We were all victims of Stalin's will." The obvious question, then, is how had Stalin managed to so control and so dominate men who themselves were used to controlling and dominating others? His daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, provides the answer. "The fact is that besides being bound to him by a common cause they were under the spell of his extraordinary personality which carried people away and was utterly impossible to resist."
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