We all know Stalin as a cruel, vengeful, merciless tyrant. But hardly anyone tried to imagine him as a lover. Nevertheless, the revolutionary did not suffer from a lack of female attention. He charmed some of the fair sex, while others simply demanded. What are they, wives and mistresses of Comrade Stalin?
Kato Svanidze
They say that Stalin's first wife was so shy that she hid under the table if her husband unexpectedly returned home in the company of friends.
Joseph met Katerina through her brother Alexander - the future revolutionary met him at the Tiflis Theological Seminary, they studied together. Stalin, who at that time was 24 years old, fell head over heels in love with Kato, a simple Georgian woman from a poor family. By the way, the girl at that time was only 16.
His proposal to marry was accepted by the Svanidze family, but only on the condition that the couple play a church wedding, which happened in 1906. In the same year, Katerina gave birth to a son, Yakov. In 1907, a woman died either from tuberculosis or from typhoid fever. Stalin was so upset by the death of his wife that he jumped into the burial pit at her funeral.
But the ardent love for Kato did not save her relatives. In the 1930s, Katerina's brother and Stalin's friend fell victim to repression and died in custody. Alexander's wife died of a heart attack after hearing the news of her husband's death.
Maria Kuzakova
After Kato's death, Stalin was exiled to Siberia. In 1911, Maria Kuzakova, a young widow with children, let the revolutionary into the house as a tenant. Their relationship eventually became more intimate - the woman became pregnant. But in 1912, Stalin's exile ended, and he hurried back to revolutionary activity, without waiting for the birth of her son, whom his mother named Kostya.
Lydia Pereprygina
During his exile in 1914, Stalin met another peasant girl, Lidia Pereprygina. For two years, an adult man lived in the same house with a 14-year-old girl, who during this time managed to give birth to two children. The first child died. But the second, born in April 1917, was registered as Alexander Dzhugashvili.
The villagers accused the revolutionary of seducing a minor - the situation could only be corrected by marriage. Nevertheless, Stalin left the village as soon as the opportunity arose.
Both Maria and Lida repeatedly turned to Joseph for help in writing, but to no avail. But in the 1930s, they were forced to sign a document that forbade the disclosure of information about who exactly was the father of their children.
Nadezhda Alliluyeva
This marriage lasted for 12 years. Stalin met Nadya when she was still a child - in those days he spent a lot of time with her mother, who, by the way, was a married woman. Once a man saved a baby when she was drowning.
They met again when Stalin was 37 years old and he returned from Siberia - Nadia at that time was 16 years old and she fell in love with her savior without memory. Despite the fact that this marriage was concluded for love, everything ended tragically - Nadezhda committed suicide with a shot to the heart. The maid found the dead mistress on the floor next to the bed.
There are many theories about Nadia's suicide. Some people say that she could not stand the callousness and cruelty of her husband. There is information that Stalin forced a woman to have about 10 abortions. There is also a hypothesis that says that Nadia was actually the daughter of a tyrant, which he once told her about - a fragile girl could not survive this.
Olga Lepeshinskaya
Ballerinas and typists - such were the passions of men in Soviet times. Olga Lepeshinskaya never admitted whether she really shared a bed with the leader, but there were different rumors.
There are also obvious things: Stalin always visited the Bolshoi Theater in those days when Olya performed there. He gave her luxurious bouquets, invited her to keep company at various receptions. In 2004, Olga only said that all the ballerinas were fascinated by Joseph - everyone knew about his malice and revenge, but sometimes the dictator could dress in the skin of a lamb.
Vera Davydova
But there are much less doubts about the opera singer Vera Davydova. In 1983, her memoirs entitled "Confessions of Stalin's Mistress" were published in London, which said that the artist's relationship with the leader lasted 19 years. By the way, the Davydova family did not recognize the veracity of the publication.
In 1932, Vera, who at that time was a married woman, found a note in her coat pocket in which she was invited to a secret date. The driver, who was waiting for the singer outside, took her directly to Stalin's house, where he gave her coffee to drink and then turned off the lights for a more intimate conversation.
Subsequently, Vera was simply called and brought to the house, and Joseph ordered her to undress. Davydova says that she had no right to refuse, no one asked about her wishes. By the way, the revolutionary thanked the woman in his own way: during the relationship, the singer received a two-room apartment in Moscow, and was also awarded the Stalin Prize three times.
Valya Istomina
Perhaps the most difficult test fell on the lot of Valentina. She was Stalin's personal housewife and was originally intended for Nikolai Vlasik, the head of Stalin's personal guard. At one time, many men courted her, including the notorious head of the NKVD, Lavrenty Beria. But when the gaze of the leader himself fell on Valya, all the other applicants quickly retreated.
Valentina was immediately sent to a Moscow dacha in Kuntsevo, where she set the table and made a bed for Stalin alone. The tragedy happened later, 17 years later. Once the dictator fell ill, and his beloved woman did not come to take care of him - just at that moment she was attacked and raped by Beria and Vlasik.
Having learned about everything, Stalin ordered Valya to be sent to the Kolyma camp, where she was expected to die for "treason." Vlasik was also arrested and sent into exile, but Beria was spared. Fortunately, immediately upon arrival in Magadan, the woman found out that Stalin ordered her to be returned, since he could not live without her - Valya headed back to Moscow.
The daughter of a tyrant from a previous marriage, Svetlana Alliluyeva, once wrote in her diary that until the end of her days, Valentina considered Stalin to be the best man on Earth.
Favorite women of Joseph Vissarionovich
... We do not want heavenly truth,
It is easier for us to lie on earth.
Joseph Dzhugashvili.
1896 poem translated
from Georgian F. Chuev
When on the night of November 9, 1932, by pulling the trigger of a miniature "Walter", Stalin's second wife passed away, he was not yet fifty-three. For a man - a flowering age. From the 52-year-old Ivan the Terrible, who was one of the idols of the "leader of all peoples", his seventh wife gave birth to Tsarevich Dimitri, and the restless tsar sent his ambassador to England to woo his eighth wife.
Iosif Vissarionovich did not marry for the third time, but it would be unfair to believe that he turned into a misogynist. Although his personal life was carefully hidden from prying eyes.
Those who had a chance to communicate with Stalin almost unanimously note his charm, and many considered him handsome. “I also liked Stalin in everyday life, if I met him at his dinners. - Khrushchev recalled after he debunked the Stalinist "cult of personality." “It was such a casual family dinner, with jokes and stuff. Stalin at these dinners was very humane, and I was impressed by it. "IN personal life Stalin was very modest, he dressed simply, - adds Mikoyan, who only towards the end of the leader's life fell out of favor with him. “Civilian clothes suited him very well, emphasizing even more his simplicity.” “He has a lovely smile,” notes Korney Chukovsky, the creator of Barmaley. “Stalin knew how to charm people,” Beria’s son testifies. “In general, Stalin was handsome,” states Molotov, the second person in the Stalinist hierarchy. “Women should have been attracted to him. He was successful."
And he really had success with women. And in 1918 in Petrograd, one of them awarded him with a venereal disease (presumably gonorrhea). When Molotov was asked about this, he smiled:
- Well, it was.
Ekaterina Georgievna, the mother of Joseph Dzhugashvili, unhappy in her personal life (her husband, a shoemaker, drank like a shoemaker), predicted a career for her son as a clergyman and, until her last days, blamed him for disobedience. He, having already become the "autocrat of All Rus'", rarely saw her, although he repeatedly visited the Caucasus on vacation. His letters to his mother, also infrequent, are written as if according to a template, and rarely in any of them notes of filial love break through:
“September 29, 1933.
Hello my mom! How do you feel, how do you live? I received your letter. It's good that you don't forget us. Now I feel good and healthy. If you need anything, let me know. What you order, I will do. Your Soso."
One involuntarily recalls the characterization given to his idol by the “Stalin Commissar” Kaganovich: “Stalin did not recognize any personal relationships. For him, there was no love, so to speak, for a person as a person. He had a love for faces in politics."
And further. During the autopsy, doctors found that the left hemisphere of Stalin's brain, which is responsible for the thought process, is larger than the right hemisphere, which forms emotions.
Stalin surrounded his mother with care, but the care of strangers. He settled in Tbilisi in the former palace of the governor-general, where she, deeply religious and alien to luxury, occupied one small and dark room. Here the son was only once, in 1935. Was old Kete looking for such a care? God knows.
Stalin did not come to the funeral of his mother, who died on July 4, 1937: the closed trial over Marshal Tukhachevsky, commanders Yakir, Uborevich, Eideman, Kork and Putna. They were shot. Next in line were Bukharin, Rykov... Up to their necks.
A wreath was laid on the grave of Ekaterina Georgievna Dzhugashvili, located on Davidova Hill next to the grave of Griboyedov, with the inscription on the ribbon: “To my dear and beloved mother from the son of Joseph Dzhugashvili (from Stalin).”
I was there. A funicular was laid from Tbilisi to the mountain. The unremarkable grave of a simple Georgian woman who gave birth to the evil genius of the twentieth century. Before which rose even Churchill.
In his personal archive, Stalin kept only documents to which he wanted to restrict access or which evoked in him some unknown associations and feelings. For example, in the drawer of his desk, under an old newspaper, they found Bukharin's note, written before the execution. “Koba,” Nikolai Ivanovich turned to an old friend, “why did you need my life?”
Among other papers, Stalin also kept in his archive a letter from a woman who was completely unknown to him, not very literate, although thousands and thousands of letters were sent to his name, which found their rest in the folders of the archives of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, ministries and departments. The letter was received by Stalin's secretariat in April 1938 from Muscovite M. Mikhailovskaya, who, as follows from a rather inconsistent text, is busy with the fate of a certain Praskovya Georgievna Mikhailovskaya, the wife of her nephew. She disappeared in broad daylight in Moscow, where she came from the Saratov region to fulfill the behest of her recently deceased mother: to hand over her childhood photographs to Stalin.
“I met Pasha and her mother,” writes Mikhailovskaya, “during the first years of the Revolution. She was a tall, slender black-eyed Georgian beauty. To my question to her mother - why is Pasha so black, because. mother was bright, Pasha's mother answered: her father was Georgian. But why are you alone? To this question, Pasha's mother replied that Pasha's father devoted himself to serving the people, and this was Stalin.
If you remember your youth and early youth (and this is never forgotten), then you, of course, remember the little black-eyed girl whose name was Pasha. She remembers you well. Your mother spoke Georgian, and Pasha remembered these words: "Dear dear baby."
I looked carefully at Pasha and I see that she has your face, comrade Stalin. Same general expression open bold face, the same eyes, mouth, forehead. It became clear to me that Pasha is close to you by blood.”
In the "first years of the Revolution" Pasha was 18 years old. This means that she was born in 1899, when Stalin was expelled from the last class of the Tiflis Theological Seminary. Is it a coincidence?
On March 20, 1938, Praskovya Georgievna handed over a letter addressed to Stalin and her children's cards to the reception of the Central Committee of the party, and disappeared a few days later. “She left me yesterday at 10 am and did not return. All day and all night I waited for her. I am terribly worried that something bad has happened to her. She could have been hit by a tram; wanting to get a meeting with you, she, driven by the futility of this, could commit suicide. By your order, it is not difficult to find Pasha.
On the other hand, it is difficult to say what happened to Praskovya Georgievna and M. Mikhailovskaya, given that Mikhailovskaya's letter to Stalin came from the NKVD along with a "top secret" forwarding note. Either the leader caressed the fruit of his sinless youth, taking a vow of silence in return, or he erased it into camp dust along with his aunt, who found out what she was not supposed to know. But he kept her letter, just as he kept Bukharin's note.
When Anna Alliluyeva, the sister of Stalin's second wife, and Yevgenia Zemlyanitsyn, the wife of her brother, Stalin's daughter Svetlana, were arrested in 1948, she asked her father about the reasons for the arrest. “Knew too much, talked too much. And this plays into the hands of the enemies, ”answered Joseph Vissarionovich, whom Bukharin called “Genghis Khan with a telephone.”
According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Ekaterina Svanidze, Stalin's first wife, "looked at her husband as a demigod." Though there didn't seem to be anything special about it. “Height is two arshins and a half inches (this is about 160 cm. - L.B.). The physique is average. The second and third toes of the left foot are fused. Hair, beard and mustache are dark. The nose is straight and long. The forehead is straight and low. The face is elongated, swarthy, with pockmarks. This is how he, twenty-three years old, appeared to the police officers at the beginning of the twentieth century. But in the personal file of Joseph Dzhugashvili, who was arrested in 1912, he is Ryaboy, he is Koba, he is Zakhar Milikyan, he is Nisharidze, he is Stalin, his height is determined to be 1 meter 74 cm, which is by no means small for that time. Yes, and in the photographs he does not look short. However, women have their own ideas about the virtues of men.
Ekaterina, about whom little is known, was originally from the same village of Didi-Lilo near Tiflis, where Stalin's father was also from. In 1904, the already well-known revolutionary Iosif Dzhugashvili escaped from his first Siberian exile and settled in his native Georgia, where he soon secretly married his father's countrywoman and the most beautiful girl in the village of Didi Lilo. Judging by the few photographs that have survived, Ekaterina Svanidze was indeed a woman with an outstanding appearance. Apparently, Stalin sincerely loved her. But in 1907 she died: either from typhus, or from pneumonia, or - there is such a version - from transient consumption (in the twenties, Stalin was found to have chronic, no longer active tuberculosis, which he acquired in the underground and could give to wife). Stalin took the loss hard. “He was very sad. The pale face reflected the mental suffering that the death of a faithful life friend caused to this so callous person, ”recalled a contemporary.
Just as hard, however, he survived the death of his second wife. “They thought then that he would kill himself or go crazy,” testifies Stalin's niece Kira Pavlovna Politkovskaya. The leader was monogamous, and with what he got used to, it was difficult to part, and if he parted, then without regret. Including clothes. “There was nothing to bury him in,” Molotov said. “The sleeves that were frayed at the uniform were hemmed, cleaned ...”.
Ekaterina Semyonovna Svanidze was buried according to the Orthodox rite. In the photograph depicting her in a coffin, Stalin, still with a small beard, stands at the head of the head, lowering his head in rebellious whirlwinds.
“This creature softened my stone heart,” Iosif Dzhugashvili said to his friend at the cemetery. - She died, and with her died the last warm feelings for people.
Kato left the baby Jacob to her husband, who experienced the tragic fate of being the son of a "great leader and teacher." He got to know his father closely only in 1921, when, as a fourteen-year-old teenager, he was sent from Georgia to Moscow. And before that, he lived serenely in the family of his maternal aunt Alexandra Svanidze.
The brother of Stalin's first wife and his wife, initially welcomed by the leader, were then repressed. They were arrested together in 1937. Alexander Semenovich, whom relatives often called by the underground nickname Alyosha, died in prison in 1942, and Maria Anisimovna, who idolized Stalin, died on a distant island of the Gulag archipelago. Their son, named Jonrid in honor of the American journalist John Reid, author of the famous book about the October Revolution, Ten Days That Shook the World, did not escape arrest and exile.
Between the death of his first wife and his second marriage, Stalin lived for twelve years as a bean. The life of a professional revolutionary, not rich in events, was diversified only by arrests, exiles and escapes from them. And it is not for nothing that they say: single - that mad. When in 1912, Joseph Vissarionovich, who once again escaped from exile, settled in St. Petersburg in the same apartment with Molotov, he recaptured his girlfriend Marusya from Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, which Stalin's slander did not fail to recall at the end of his life.
Lazar Kaganovich, whose name was originally named Moscow Metro and for whom Stalin forever remained an infallible idol, having already exchanged the tenth decade of his life, he once said to the poet and collector of Stalin's people's commissars Felix Chuev:
- And that, perhaps, Stalin had some attachments. His wife died before the revolution. And he married Nadezhda Sergeevna in the nineteenth year. Until the nineteenth year, he had the right to love anyone.
Exiled for the second time after his escape at the end of 1910 to the small Arkhangelsk town of Solvychegodsk, Stalin settled in the house of the widow Matryona Prokopyevna Kuzakova, who had five children from a legal marriage. They were all fair-haired, and the sixth, an illegitimate child, had raven hair. He was named Konstantin Stepanovich Kuzakov.
“I did not immediately ask my mother about my father,” Kuzakov recalled. - She was a kind woman, but with an iron character. And very reasonable - until her last days. When I nevertheless plucked up the courage and asked if what they say about me was true, she replied:
- You are my son. Never talk to anyone about anything else."
Truly a smart woman. Unlike the chatty relatives of the wives of Joseph Vissarionovich.
Stalin did not forget about his Solvychegodsk passion. He, as the Count of Monte Cristo, secretly supported his second son. Konstantin Stepanovich rose to high positions in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, edited the speeches of delegates at party congresses (then stepping back on the podium from the text approved by the editorial commission is all the same as “a step to the left, a step to the right is considered an escape”). When clouds gathered over him, and clouds smelling of lead (his deputy in the Central Committee of the party, for whom he vouched, was accused of transferring Soviet nuclear secrets to the Americans), Stalin delivered a verdict:
- I see no reason to arrest Kuzakov.
And although Konstantin Stepanovich saw his great father close up many times, but, being also reasonable person did not dare to speak to him.
After the death of Stalin, Kuzakov was appointed editor-in-chief of television. And the leader's niece, Kira Politkovskaya, who returned from exile, worked here as an assistant director. Relatives met.
“And the Stalinist children showed no interest in me,” said Kuzakov.
In February 1913, Stalin was arrested for the seventh and last time and exiled to the Turukhansk Territory - first to the machine (small settlement) Kostino, and then under the very Arctic Circle - to the machine Kureika (now in the Krasnoyarsk Territory). After this arrest and this exile, the time will come for him to be arrested and exiled. By the way, the daughter of Marina Tsvetaeva served her Soviet exile in the same place as Stalin, and heard from the natives about his connection with one of the local peasant women.
Kureika, with only eight houses and 67 inhabitants, is the only place of exile from which Stalin did not escape. Although the conditions for this were, which he himself indirectly admitted in 1930. His former Kurei guard Mikhail Merzlyakov was going to be dispossessed. He wrote to Stalin, recalling his friendly relations with him in the pre-revolutionary years. Iosif Vissarionovich rescued the former gendarme from trouble by sending a note to the party control commission: “In “friendly” relations with Mikh. Merzlyakov I could not be. However, I must testify that if my relationship with him was not "friendly", then it was not hostile either. Mich. Merzlyakov did not spy on me, did not poison me, did not find fault, looked through his fingers at my frequent absences.
At first, Iosif Vissarionovich and Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov, the future chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, driven into Kureika with him, settled in one hut, but soon quarreled. “Now I see my friend in different apartments, we rarely see each other,” Sverdlov wrote in May 1914. And this despite the fact that they were the only political exiles among the illiterate natives in a deaf machine.
Stalin moved to the impoverished hut of the Pereprygins, where there were no adults, but only orphaned teenagers and children lived. But a lot - two girls and five boys. The tenant occupied an extension, the entrance to which was only through the hut. “A small square room, in one corner there is a wooden trestle bed, opposite there are fishing and hunting tackle: nets, whetstones, hooks. Not far from the window is an oblong table littered with books, a kerosene lamp hangs above the table. In the middle of the room there is a small “potbelly stove” with an iron pipe,” this is how the exiled Bolshevik woman, who once visited him in Kureika, remembered Stalin’s dwelling.
When in 1956 Khrushchev began "the fight against the cult of personality and its consequences," he instructed the then chairman of the KGB of the USSR, Serov, to delve into Stalin's past. The Chekists, among other things, reported: “According to the story of citizen Perelygina, it was established that I.V. Stalin, while in Kureika, seduced her at the age of 14 and began to cohabit. In this regard, I.V. Stalin was called to the gendarme Laletin to bring him to criminal liability for cohabitation with a minor. I.V. Stalin gave his word to the gendarme Laletin to marry Perelygina when she became an adult. As she said in May of this year. Perelygin, she had a child around 1913 who died. In 1914, a second child was born, who was named after Alexander.
But February Revolution, the gendarmes were outlawed, and the revolutionary word of honor given to one of them lost its force. Stalin went to Petrograd to make a socialist revolution, and Perelygina (aka Pereprygina - passports were not issued in Kureika, and names were recorded by ear) married a local peasant, Davydov, who adopted the third of Stalin's surviving sons.
Unlike the Kuzakovs, Iosif Vissarionovich did not take any part in the fate of Lydia Perprygina and Alexander Davydov. Although Alexander's son Yuri claimed (already after his father's death in 1987) that Stalin twice - at the end of the Civil War and in the early thirties - tried to drag his father to Moscow. But without an illiterate mother.
The KGB memorandum was read and endorsed by members of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, but not one of them, even on his deathbed, said a word about this episode of the biography of their own fallen idol. For, as Kaganovich said, "the personal has no social significance." The Bolshevik leaders were not Puritans. Sergo Beria, the son of Stalin’s Malyuta Skuratov, who on the street chose concubines, including youngsters, through the windows of a limousine, recounted Stalin’s recollection from the first post-revolutionary years: “I was in one of the offices of the Central Committee, when I suddenly saw Krupskaya approaching, all in tears . To my perplexed question, she replied: “Vladimir Ilyich slept with all the girls of the secretariat, but this was not enough for him. Now he has opted for other places. I demand that the Central Committee take action, because with its unworthy behavior it will discredit the entire government. I was stunned, although I knew that Vladimir Ilyich was bleeding at that time. Then the leader did not particularly care about the indiscreet looks of his guards. At the meeting of the Central Committee, the peasants rolled with laughter and “came to the conclusion that he is certainly guilty, but Krupskaya is even more guilty: having assumed numerous party duties, she ignores her marital duty. We release her from all assignments and remind her that the main task of the party is to be the wife of Vladimir Ilyich. Krupskaya left the meeting room, slamming the door loudly.
Sometime during the Great Patriotic War the chief political commissar of the Red Army, Mekhlis, asked Stalin: what are we going to do - one of the marshals changes "front-line wives" every day. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief paused sternly, and then chuckled:
- We'll be jealous!
"The favorite of the party", according to Lenin, the forty-year-old Bukharin became attached and tied a fourteen-year-old girl to himself, who married him, however, already twenty years old.
Stalin turned his head to his second and last official wife in 1917. He was nearly thirty-eight, she was nearly sixteen. He did not wait for her to come of age and made her his wife, not allowing her to finish the gymnasium, although they officially registered the marriage only in March 1919, when Nadezhda Sergeevna Alliluyeva turned eighteen.
The daughter of a revolutionary, she was born and spent her childhood in Georgia. Her mother, Olga Evgenievna - either a Georgian, or, according to family legend, a gypsy - was a woman who was fond of and more than once instructed her husband's horns. Nevertheless, having learned about her daughter's connection with Joseph Vissarionovich, whom she deeply respected and regularly sent him parcels to Kureika, she called her a fool. Father, Sergei Yakovlevich, a longtime friend of Stalin, did not oppose this strange marriage, rather he was proud: the “wonderful Georgian,” as Lenin described Joseph Vissarionovich in one of his letters, became one of the key figures in the political arena.
Not being a beauty, Nadezhda Sergeevna was pretty and charmed with her youth and large dark eyes. “They say that Nadia was a very cheerful girl, laughter. But I didn’t find it anymore, ”recalled her niece.
In 1918, Alliluyeva joined the Bolshevik Party and, together with Stalin, as his secretary, went on a special train to defend Tsaritsyn (later Stalingrad, and now Volgograd) from the Whites. Endowed with extraordinary powers by Lenin, Stalin showed remarkable organizational skills and his usual cruelty. Is it not Nadenkina’s “long dryish fingers”, as their daughters remember them, who printed Stalin’s dispatches to Lenin, which looked like ultimatums: “I myself, without formalities, will overthrow all commanders and commissars who ruin the cause. That's what the interests of the case tell me." The "overthrown" commanders and commissars were loaded onto a barge, and the barge was sunk in the Volga.
The honeymoons on blood ended, Nadezhda Sergeevna returned with her husband to Moscow and entered the secretariat of the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Lenin, who knocked out an apartment in the Kremlin for the newlyweds. A romantic high school student who, although raised in a revolutionary, but quite well-to-do family, was brought up in Chekhov, having touched the mysteries of big and dirty politics (“She was entrusted with work of the most secret nature,” and Lenin, giving “top secret” instructions, said: “Let it Alliluyeva will do it, she will do everything well”), withdrew into herself, enclosing her fragile inner world from rough reality (“Mom was very secretive and proud,” her daughter Svetlana considered).
“I have absolutely nothing to do with anyone in Moscow,” Nadezhda Sergeevna wrote in one of her letters in 1926. - Sometimes it’s even strange: for so many years not to have close friends, but this, obviously, depends on the character. And, strangely, I feel closer to non-party people (women, of course).”
She sincerely believed in the cleansing mission of the revolution, tried to follow the ideal of a new woman gleaned from books, who devoted herself entirely to the cause of the struggle for a bright future for the working people, and was very upset by the inconsistency of the established cruel world order with her ideas. Stalin, who had long abandoned romantic ideas about the revolution, Stalin, in whom “the last warm feelings for people died”, and only a “stone heart” and an irrepressible thirst for power remained, he could not understand his “Tatka”, as he called his wife in letters, and "very much disliked" when she interfered in his affairs.
Khrushchev, who studied with Nadezhda Alliluyeva at the Industrial Academy, recalled: “I felt sorry for Alliluyeva and purely humanly. She was so different from Stalin! She was a nice person. Yes, and modest in life. She came to the academy only by tram, left with everyone else and never got out as a “wife big man". And the daughter-in-law of Kamenev, one of Stalin's friends and enemies, had a different opinion: “Very uninteresting. Gray. Boring. She looked older than her years. In general, it was noticeable that she was a little "that". As they say now, with violets in my head. “She had the skull of a suicide,” Maria Svanidze, the wife of Alliluyeva’s brother, wrote in her diary the opinion of a doctor who performed a post-mortem X-ray of Nadezhda’s body.
“Mom was never at home near us,” Svetlana Iosifovna stated. “In those days, it was generally indecent for a woman, and even a party member, to spend time around children.” And Stalin needed a wife at home. He hated women who dried themselves in the herbarium of the class struggle. Lenin’s wife Krupskaya, a model of such a woman dried up by the revolution, Stalin hated and motivated his feelings in this way: “Well, because she uses the same toilet as Lenin, I should appreciate and recognize her just like Lenin? ".
At the request of her husband, Alliluyeva intended to leave her job in the secretariat of the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. The head of the secretariat Fotieva complained to Lenin.
"If he doesn't show up for work tomorrow, let me know and I'll talk to him," Vladimir Ilyich threatened.
Alliluyeva went to work. Upon learning of this, Lenin commented:
- Asian!
To be just a wife, even the wife of the "great Stalin", Nadezhda Sergeevna was not given. She allowed herself to own opinion, often differing from the opinion of Stalin, and this left a painful imprint on the relationship between the two loving friend friend of people. Quarrels interspersed with reconciliations followed one after another. There was no reason behind it. Stalin could not talk to his wife for a month because she, 22 years younger than him, for a long time did not dare to switch from “you” to “you” in addressing him. Nadezhda gave birth to her first child not in the Kremlin hospital, where everything was ready for childbirth, but in an ordinary maternity hospital on the outskirts of Moscow, before leaving the Kremlin in the determination to leave her husband forever.
But she left him forever only after eleven years.
There are several versions of the cause of the death of Nadezhda Sergeevna Alliluyeva. One of them is another quarrel at a banquet hosted by Voroshilov in honor of the 15th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. As if tipsy, Stalin aptly threw bread rolls into the neckline of the wife of either the future Marshal Tukhachevsky or the future Marshal Yegorov, who was sitting opposite. Daughter Svetlana says that her mother was offended when, at this ill-fated banquet, Stalin shouted to her:
- Hey you, drink!
- I'm not "hey" to you!
Molotov considered unbridled jealousy to be the cause of Nadezhda Alliluyeva's suicide. “Jealousy, of course. I think it's completely unfounded. The barber was the one he went to for a shave. The wife was unhappy with this. A very jealous person." Equally, let's add, like Stalin. When one day he caught his wife walking along the path of the dacha in Zubalov in the company of Bukharin, then, sneaking up behind Nikolai Ivanovich, he hissed: "I'll kill you!" And he killed him as the organizer of the right-wing Trotsky bloc.
Khrushchev, referring to the head of the Stalinist guard Vlasik, puts forward his own version. After a quarrel at a banquet at Voroshilov's, Nadezhda Sergeevna, reassured by Molotov's wife Zhemchuzhina (later repressed), began to look for her husband by phone: he left the Voroshilovs, but did not return home. I called the dacha in Zubalovo. The novice on duty reported to her ingenuously:
- Comrade Stalin is here.
- Who's with him?
- Gusev's wife is with him.
According to those who saw her, the wife of Sergei Ivanovich Gusev ( real name- Yakov Davidovich Drabkin), one of the associates of Stalin and Voroshilov in the Civil War, was a very beautiful woman.
The lifeless body of Nadezhda Sergeevna was first discovered by the housekeeper of the Stalinist family, Karolina Vasilievna Til, who went to wake Alliluyeva for breakfast. “Mom was covered in blood next to her bed; in her hand was a small pistol "Walter", brought to her once by Pavlusha (brother) from Berlin. The sound of his shot was too faint to be heard in the house. She was already cold. The rose that Nadezhda had stabbed into her hair when she was going to the banquet was lying by the door. Then she, already cast from cast iron, was placed on the grave of Nadezhda Sergeevna.
There were persistent rumors that Stalin's wife did not shoot herself, but was shot by her husband in a fit of anger. In any case, the family doctor of the Stalinist family, I.N. Kazakov refused to sign the suicide act of Nadezhda Sergeevna, being sure that the shot was fired from a distance of several steps. Academician Boris Zbarsky, who embalmed Lenin's body, said: "Whatever happens next, I will not embalm him (Stalin)." He did not have to give up his words: he, as a "cosmopolitan", was arrested a year before the death of the leader and released only nine months after his death.
When a researcher of the Kremlin elite Larisa Vasilyeva turned to the KGB of the USSR with a request to provide her with Alliluyeva’s case, she was told that “Stalin gave the order not to open a criminal case” on the death of N.S. Alliluyeva.
It was rumored that Nadezhda left Joseph a suicide letter of a political nature. In 1932, the millstones of collectivization and dispossession were in full swing, the country was gripped by famine. Dissatisfaction with Stalin's policies grew, and the closest person to the leader ended up on the other side of the barricades. But this letter, if there was one, was not read by anyone except the addressee.
The death of his wife shocked Stalin. At the moment of farewell before the funeral, he said with tears in his eyes:
- Don't save...
There is a legend that in the late autumn of 1941, when all the vital objects of Moscow had already been mined in case it was surrendered to the Germans, and the dacha in Zubalovo had been blown up, Stalin stopped by at night to visit his wife’s grave at the Novodevichy cemetery. What were Joseph Vissarionovich and Nadezhda Sergeevna silently talking about?
Apparently, in the first years after the death of Nadezhda Sergeevna, Iosif Vissarionovich did not abandon his intention to acquire a new wife. In any case, there is evidence from Vera Alexandrovna Davydova, a singer at the Bolshoi Theater, which Stalin liked to visit: “Stalin did propose to me. I refused, citing my strong marriage and my loyal love for the leader, incompatible with everyday love. The leader was satisfied with her explanations. Vera Davydova became a People's Artist of the USSR and the Georgian SSR, three times a laureate of the Stalin Prize and died in her husband's homeland - in already independent Georgia in 1993.
Stalin made no more attempts to bind himself with the bonds of Hymen. And it doesn’t befit a “great leader and teacher” to roll a wedding in old age: you won’t end up with gossip and slander. And this could cause irreparable damage to the image of the disinterested “father of the people”, crystallized over the years of work, day and night caring for his well-being to the detriment of even his personal life. Stalin regretted that in his famous speech to the graduates of the military academies on May 4, 1935, putting forward the slogan “Cadres decide everything,” he forgot to add: “Our leaders came to power as horsemen and remain so to the end. They are driven solely by the idea, but not by acquisition.
“After the death of Nadezhda Sergeevna,” Khrushchev recalled, “for some time I met a young beautiful woman, a typical Caucasian, at Stalin’s. She tried not to meet us on the way. Only her eyes sparkle, and immediately she disappears. Then I was told that this woman was Svetlanka's tutor. But this did not last long, and she disappeared. From some of Beria's remarks, I realized that it was his protégé. Well, Beria, he knew how to select "teachers." We are talking here about Alexander Nikolaevna Nikashidze, the sister-mistress in Stalin's house, a lieutenant, and then a major of state security. She did not know how to cook, spoke Russian poorly, but superbly followed the children and relatives of Stalin and pawned them to her stern father and - on duty - Beria. She was funny and good-natured and willingly eavesdropped on the telephone conversations of the wards. However, when Molotov was asked if his phone was tapped, he, once the second man in Stalin's empire, replied:
“I think I have been eavesdropped all my life.
Sashenka Nikashidze was replaced by Valentina Vasilievna Istomina. She - the only one - humanly, like a woman, mourned the deceased leader. Molotov recalled: “Valentina Istomina is already at the dacha. She brought dishes. And if she was a wife, who cares?
The officer of the Stalinist guard remembered her, a beauty, as “a sweet, charming, incredibly slender and tidy woman who knew how not only to maintain tact and accuracy in everything, but also ethical standards of behavior.” Not knowing her position at the Stalinist court, the guards tried to flirt with her. “Valentina Vasilievna honorably got out of the situation, cooling the streams of expressions of lovers with exactly found quiet and hard word". At the same time, the state security officer was struck by the fact that "none of the alleged suitors received penalties." This was out of the ordinary in a country where whistleblowing has become a cornerstone of the regime.
Stalin died on March 5, 1953 at 21:50 from a cerebral hemorrhage. Beria went out into the corridor and ordered:
- Khrustalev, the car!
A new era has begun.
Svetlana Alliluyeva recalled: “Valentina Vasilievna Istomina came to say goodbye - Valechka, as everyone called her, - the housekeeper who worked for her father at this dacha for eighteen years. She fell on her knees near the sofa, fell headlong on the dead man's chest, and wept aloud, as in a village. For a long time she could not stop, and no one interfered with her. Valechka for last years knew much more about him and saw more than I, who lived far away and aloof. And up last days of her own, she will be convinced that there was no better person in the world than my father.
It was a short but apparently happy marriage. Because he was in love...
With her future husband, Joseph Dzhugashvili, Catherine was introduced by her brother Alexander, who, like Joseph, was passionate about religion - both studied at the seminary - and ... politics.
First of all, the enamored Joseph found it necessary to introduce the chosen one to his mother. Keke liked her son's bride and received a blessing for marriage.
Then such things were still important for the future Soviet dictator.
An amazing thing is that dozens of books have been written about Stalin and his personal life. But at the same time, almost nothing is known about his first woman.
I happened to meet the descendants of those who personally knew both Joseph himself and his Kato. At the beginning of the last century, this was the name given to the future ruler of one-sixth of the land and his greatest love.
From their stories and memoirs, I will try to recreate the story of the life and death of Ekaterina Svanidze.
She was an extraordinary woman. Already because for the sake of her, the former seminarian Dzhugashvili went down the aisle.
On the night of July 16, 1906, in the monastery of St. David, located in Tiflis on Mount Mtatsminda, the wedding of the 19-year-old daughter of a Tiflis peasant and the 26-year-old son of a shoemaker from Gori took place. Dzhugashvili then just joined the Bolshevik Party and was not at all alien to the joys of family life.
At that time, Joseph was already in an illegal position.
And therefore the wedding took place secretly and at night. The only priest who agreed to perform the ceremony was Soso's classmate at the seminary.
The young Bolshevik had to get married under a false name. According to his passport, he was listed as Galiashvili.
A series of pseudonyms began ...
Only four months will pass, and Ekaterina Svanidze will be able to fully experience what it means to be the wife of a revolutionary.
On November 13, the police, who were looking for Joseph, will come to her apartment on Freilinskaya Street. He was at that time in Baku. Therefore, the gendarmes - not to leave empty-handed - arrested Kato.
The formal reason for the arrest was that Svanidze showed her maiden passport to the police, although her marriage was no longer a secret to anyone.
On the eve of the new, which became the last in her life, Svanidze was released. The petition was written by her relatives. The woman was in her fifth month of pregnancy, and the Tiflis police, perhaps, simply took pity on the unfortunate wife of Joseph Dzhugashvili. Who, to his credit, also signed the petition. True, he appeared in it as a cousin of the arrested.
© photo: Sputnik / RIA Novosti
And three months later, the parents had to flee from Tiflis. The reason for the escape was a raid on a mail coach, which the young father organized on Erivan Square in Tiflis.
As a result of the attack, 250 thousand rubles were stolen - a huge amount for those times.
However, later it turns out that the tsarist police became the true organizer of the famous robbery. All stolen banknotes were marked, and when trying to exchange them abroad, many wanted revolutionaries were arrested.
Only Soso escaped detention, who at that moment was again hiding in Baku. Subsequently, such luck will give rise to talk that he was a secret police officer.
But such conversations will arise later. In the meantime, the spouses had a normal, if you do not take into account the need to hide, life.
Catherine was offended by her mother-in-law, whom she called "the old woman." The reason was familiar to any young family: Keke refused to look after Yakov while her daughter-in-law and son were in Baku.
Kato had to turn to relatives for help, whose house would later become home for Jacob.
The only way Catherine could help her son was with the money that she gave to her relatives. The woman was a popular dressmaker in Tiflis, who dressed the wife of the chief of police himself.
Maybe that's why in the end the relationship between Keke and Kato did not work out? Stalin's mother was just a simple laundress. And the son's wife sheathed the entire city nobility.
Who knows if female rivalry quarreled between the two main women of Joseph?
© photo: Sputnik / Galina Kmit
During her stay in Baku, Ekaterina Svanidze fell ill with transient consumption. Her husband brought her back to Tiflis and returned to Baku again.
He arrived in the capital of Georgia only a day before the death of his wife, on November 21, 1907. The next day Svanidze was gone.
The marriage of Soso and Kato, as friends called the young, lasted a little over a year. According to contemporaries, Joseph truly loved Catherine.
Perhaps because she began to behave correctly from the first day - she looked at her husband from the bottom up, not exposing his words to the slightest doubt and not even daring to think that her Soso, who was forced to hide from the police every now and then and leave his young wife in loneliness, maybe something is wrong.
Although, of course, there were people who said otherwise. So, a certain Peter Mozhnov, who knew the owner of the Baku refuge Soso and Keto, recalled that "Joseph, returning home drunk, scolded his wife last words and kicked...
At the funeral of Ekaterina Svanidze, held at the Kukiya cemetery in Tiflis, Joseph Dzhugashvili told a friend: "This creature softened my stony heart; she died, and my last warm feelings for people died with her."
When the coffin with the body of Catherine was lowered into the ground, Joseph threw himself into the grave. One of Dzhugashvili's friends, Gerontius Kikodze, who was present at the funeral, had to go down to the grave and pull out the inconsolable comrade almost by force.
A year after the death of his wife, Iosif Dzhugashivli took on a pseudonym, by which he went down in history, to this day forcing him to talk not only about himself, but also about his family members.
Soso Dzhugashvili became Joseph Stalin.
There are many assumptions about why Dzhugashvili chose this particular pseudonym. Personally, I am close to the version associated with the death of Ekaterina Svanidze.
Joseph's "heart of stone" was now beating in steel man. Who thought only about power.
Ekaterina Svanidze's brother Alexander, the one who made Joseph's meeting with his first wife, became a fiery revolutionary. He was the Minister of Finance of Soviet Georgia, worked for several years in Geneva, returning from which he headed Vneshtorgbank in Moscow. He and his wife were among the most trusted people in Stalin's house.
In 1937, Svanidze was arrested and soon shot. His wife, having received the news of her husband's death, died of a broken heart.
All ties to the past were severed. No one even dared to mention the name Svanidze in Stalin's house.
The name of Catherine began to sound from the lips of Stalin only in the last years of his life, when he fell in love with remembering his youth, Georgia and his first love ...
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was an irreconcilable owner and a powerful man in relations with his wives and numerous mistresses. However, they turned a blind eye to his tough character, wanting to be close to the leader of the peoples.
Some ladies of the leader's heart were silent for a long time. Only after the publication of the book of Stalin's daughter and some other books did some details of his personal life become known.
Faktrum introduces the reader to women who have found a place in the harsh and sometimes callous heart of the leader of the peoples.
Joseph Vissarionovich was officially married twice. His first wife was a Georgian Kato Svanidze, who gave birth to his son Jacob in 1907 and died shortly thereafter. The second time, Stalin married seventeen-year-old Nadezhda Alliluyeva, and at that time he was already 40 years old. After the suicide of his second wife, Stalin did not tie the knot, but did not deny himself the pleasure of spending time with beautiful women.
Lydia Pereprygina
In 1913–1916, Iosif Vissarionovich was in exile in the village of Kureika, where he lived in the Pereprygins' house. With a fourteen-year-old girl named Lydia, he struck up a love relationship. During cohabitation with Stalin, she gave birth to two children, but one boy died when he was very young, and the second was born after the future leader left Kureika.
Upon learning of the seduction of his young sister, Iona Pereprygin turned to the police, but Stalin escaped punishment by promising to marry Lydia when she became an adult. However, Joseph Vissarionovich did not keep this word.
Matryona Kuzakova
A few years before his second exile, Stalin was serving his sentence in Solvychegodsk. There he met the deacon's daughter Matryona, a widow with small children. Seeing that it was difficult for a woman to cope with the housework herself, Iosif Vissarionovich began to help her and very soon became very close. As a result of the relationship, the couple had a son, whom Stalin never saw. Having left Solvychegodsk and a few years later, having taken a high post, Iosif Vissarionovich bought Kuzakova a good apartment in the capital.
Artist Vera Davydova
Stalin's relationship with the soloist of the Bolshoi Theater Davydova began when he had long been married to Nadezhda Alliluyeva. After one of the performances, the actress was taken to the leader, who congratulated her on her successful performance. After that, their acquaintance continued. In the fall of 1932, Stalin invited Davydova to his home for dinner, after which they spent a night together.
The subsequent successes of Vera Davydova were explained by many as an affair with Stalin. There was a rumor among the people that only for this reason Davydova received the title of People's Artist and numerous awards. It was also rumored that it was Joseph Vissarionovich who gave her a luxurious three-room apartment in the center of Moscow.
The romance of Davydova and Stalin lasted for 19 years, despite the fact that both the leader and the artist were officially married. For a long time, Stalin persuaded Vera not to live with her husband, saying that he himself was walking and was not worthy of her. But she did not agree to file for divorce. Shortly after the start of the Great Patriotic whole The Bolshoi Theater and its troupe were evacuated to Kuibyshev, where Davydova was supposed to go. However, her husband did not let her go and persuaded her to go with him to Tbilisi. Stalin agreed to this. And after the end of the war, when Davydova returned to Moscow, their meetings became very rare, the last of them took place in 1952.
After the death of Vera Davydova, Leonard Gendlin's book "Confessions of Stalin's mistress" was published in the West, which described in detail the romance between the artist and the leader.
Housekeeper Valentina Istomina
Already after the death of his wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Joseph Vissarionovich brought his own housekeeper Valentina Istomin closer to him. At that time, he was in dire need of female support and received it from Istomina. She was so close to the leader that he trusted only her, only she brought him food and medicine, and those close to the leader even called her "Mistress of the Master". The woman was inseparably with the leader until his death, becoming his last, albeit not official, wife.
After the death of Joseph Vissarionovich, Valentina received a personal pension and stopped working.
Rosa Kaganovich
The list of Stalin's mistresses also includes a certain Rosa Kaganovich, the daughter of one of the closest associates of the leader Lazar Kaganovich. It was he who introduced his daughter to Joseph Vissarionovich a few years after the death of Nadezhda Alliluyeva. Lazar Kaganovich expected that Stalin, having fallen in love with his beautiful daughter, would soften and stop believing that everyone and everywhere was persecuting him, but this never happened.
Other women of the chief
Many experts attribute to Joseph Vissarionovich novels with famous actresses and singers. They say that Stalin was close to the ballerinas Marina Semyonova and Olga Lepeshinskaya, singers Natalia Shpiller and Valeria Barsova. However, these rumors are based on the fact that these artists received undeserved privileges, awards and built their careers too quickly. Neither Stalin himself, nor his inner circle, these novels were either refuted or confirmed.
Wives and mistresses of Stalin. Stalin's own children and adopted son
Not much is known about Stalin's first wife, Ekaterina. And quite a bit the spouses had a chance to live together. Some historians and psychologists believe that Stalin did not like his eldest son Yakov, convinced that it was his birth that undermined the health and strength of poor Kato, untimely bringing her to the grave.
Stalin's first wife - Ekaterina Svanidze
The second time the harsh underground Koba decided to tie the knot after the revolution. His wife was Nadezhda Alliluyeva, the daughter of his old friends, to whom Stalin wrote as cheerful letters as possible even from Turukhansk exile.
For Olga Evgenievna.
I am very, very grateful to you, dear Olga Evgenievna, for your kind and pure feelings towards me. I will never forget your caring attitude towards me! I am waiting for the moment when I will be released from exile and, having arrived in St. Petersburg, I will personally thank you, as well as Sergey, for everything. After all, I only have two years left.
I've received the parcel. Thank you. I ask only one thing - do not spend more on me: you yourself need the money. I will be pleased if you send from time to time open letters with views of nature and so on. In this accursed region, nature is scarce to the point of disgrace - in the summer the river, in the winter the snow, that's all that nature gives here - and I foolishly yearned for the views of nature, even on paper.
My regards guys and girls. I wish them all the best.
I live like before. I feel good. He is quite healthy - he must be used to the local nature. And our nature is harsh: three weeks ago, the frost reached 45 degrees.
Until the next letter.
Yours, Joseph November 5, 1915S. Rybas, speaking about the defense of Tsaritsyn and Stalin's ruthlessness at that time, notes: “His loneliness was brightened up by his seventeen-year-old wife Nadezhda, he got married to her in a civil marriage in March, just on the eve of the Council of People's Commissars moving to Moscow. (They will register the marriage only after a year.)
Hope had a strong character, Stalin was not as easy with her as it might seem at first glance. She and her husband were connected not only by childhood and girlish impressions of a romantic hero who often appeared in her parents’ apartment, but also by an almost mystical connection: he saved her life when, as a small child, she fell off the embankment in Baku and almost drowned: Koba threw himself into the sea and pulled him out. Her saved life was partly his now.
In Tsaritsyn, Nadezhda worked in Stalin's secretariat and saw to the smallest detail his daily cruel work. In relation to the case, their views completely coincided.
Finally ended Civil War and it became possible to equip not a marching, but ordinary life. There is a lot of evidence that Stalin really liked the role of the head of the family. Nadezhda gave birth to her husband two children - son Vasily in 1921 and daughter Svetlana five years later.
“In the Kremlin, at the Trinity Gate, in house 2 on Kommunisticheskaya Street, the Stalin family occupied a small apartment, where all the rooms were walk-throughs,” Rybas reconstructs the life of the leader. - It is curious that in the hallway there was a tub of pickles, the owner loved them. Vasily and Artem (Stalin's adopted son, Artem Fedorovich Sergeev.) lived in the same room, the eldest son Yakov lived in the dining room. Stalin did not have his own workplace there. The furniture here was simple, the food too.”
Stalin with Nadezhda Alliluyeva
Stalin with his daughter Svetlana
Simple food was served according to an established ritual that the whole family willingly obeyed: “Dinner was unchanged. First, the cook Annushka Albukhina solemnly placed a tureen in the center of the table, in which the same grubs were served day after day - cabbage soup with cabbage and boiled meat. And for the first - cabbage soup, and for the second - boiled meat. For dessert - sweet, juicy fruits. Iosif Vissarionovich and Nadezhda Sergeevna drank Caucasian wine at dinner: Stalin respected this drink. But the real holiday for children were those rare cases when the grandmother, Stalin's mother, sent walnut jam from sunny Georgia. The owner of the house came home, put the parcel on the dining table, took out liter jars of delicacy: “Here, our grandmother sent this.” And he smiled into his mustache.
Nadezhda Sergeevna worked in the editorial office of the Revolution and Culture magazine attached to the Pravda newspaper, and in 1929 she began studying at the textile faculty.
The nephew of Stalin's wife, V.F. Alliluyev, claimed that his aunt had a difficult character - she was quick-tempered, jealous of her husband and demanded constant attention from him, which Stalin, busy with party and state affairs, of course, could not give her. In addition, she suffered from frequent migraines, the reason for which many relatives and friends called the wrong structure of the bones of the skull. “Apparently, a difficult childhood was not in vain, Nadezhda developed a serious illness - ossification of the cranial sutures. The disease began to progress, accompanied by depression and headache attacks. All this had a noticeable effect on her mental state. She even went to Germany for a consultation with leading German neurologists… Nadezhda threatened to commit suicide more than once.” Although migraines and depression can be the result of both increased susceptibility and nervous overstrain ...
And with all this, the nephew of the leader's wife testifies that in the relationship between Stalin and his wife there was both sincerity and warmth. “... Once, after a party at the Industrial Academy, where Nadezhda studied, she came home completely ill from the fact that she drank some wine, she became ill. Stalin put her to bed, began to console her, and Nadezhda said: “But you still love me a little.” This phrase of hers, apparently, is the key to understanding the relationship between these two close people. Our family knew that Nadezhda and Stalin loved each other.”
Indeed, the correspondence between them reveals warm relationship. These are the letters they exchanged in the autumn of 1930, when Stalin was vacationing in the south.
Got a letter. Books too. English self-instruction manual of Moscow (according to the Rosenthal method) I did not find here. Look well and come. I have already started my dental treatment. They removed the unusable tooth, grind the side teeth, and, in general, the work is in full swing. The doctor is thinking of finishing all my dental work by the end of September. I haven't gone anywhere and don't plan to go anywhere. I feel better. I'm definitely getting better. I send you lemons. You will need them. How are things with Vaska, Satanka?
Kisses hard, a lot, a lot. Your Joseph.
Hello Joseph!
Received a letter. Thank you for the lemons, of course, come in handy. We live well, but quite already in winter - tonight it was minus 7 Celsius. In the morning all the roofs were completely white with frost. It is very good that you bask in the sun and treat your teeth. In general, Moscow is all noisy, knocking, torn, etc., but all the same, everything is gradually getting better. The mood of the public (in trams and other public places) is tolerable - buzzing, but not evil. All of us in Moscow were entertained by the arrival of the Zeppelin (the Rigid Airship Graf Zeppelin flew to Moscow on September 10, 1930): the spectacle was really worthy of attention. All Moscow stared at this wonderful car. Regarding the poet Demyan, everyone whined that he donated little, we deducted one-day earnings. I saw the new opera "Almas", where Maksakova absolutely exclusively danced the Lezginka (Armenian), I have not seen a dance so artistically performed for a long time. I think you will like the dance very much, and the opera too. Yes, nevertheless, no matter how I searched for your copy of the textbook, I did not find it, I am sending another copy. Don't worry, I couldn't find it anywhere. In Zubalovo, the steam heating is already working, and in general everything is in order, obviously, they will finish soon. On the day the Zeppelin arrived, Vasya rode a bicycle from the Kremlin to the airfield across the city. He coped well, but, of course, he was tired. You are very smart not to travel around, it is risky in every way.
Kiss you. Nadia.
Hello Joseph!
How is your health? Comrades who arrived (Ukhanov and someone else) say that you look very bad and feel yourself. I know that you are getting better (this is from letters). On this occasion, the Molotovs attacked me with reproaches, how could I leave you alone and the like, in fact, completely fair things. I explained my departure by occupations, but in essence, this, of course, is not so. This summer, I did not feel that you would be pleased with the extension of my departure, but vice versa. Last summer it was very felt, but this is not. Of course, there was no point in remaining in such a mood, since this already changes the whole meaning and benefit of my stay. And I think that I did not deserve reproaches, but in their understanding, of course, yes. The other day I was at the Molotovs, at his suggestion, to get information. This is very good. Because otherwise I only know what is in print. In general, there is little pleasant. As for your arrival, Abel says t. t., I didn’t see him, that you will return at the end of October; are you going to sit there for that long? Answer, if you are not very dissatisfied with my letter, but by the way, as you wish.
Best wishes. Kiss. Nadia.
Received a package from you. I am sending you peaches from our tree. I am healthy and feel the best. It is possible that Ukhanov saw me on the very day when Shapiro sharpened eight (8!) of my teeth at once, and my mood was then, perhaps, unimportant. But this episode has nothing to do with my health, which I consider to have recovered radically. Only people who do not know the business can reproach you for taking care of me. In this case, the Molotovs turned out to be such people. Tell the Molotovs for me that they made a mistake about you and committed injustice. As for your assumption about the undesirability of your stay in Sochi, then your reproaches are just as unfair as the reproaches of the Molotovs about you are unfair. Yes, Tatka. I will arrive, of course, not at the end of October, but much earlier, in mid-October, as I told you in Sochi. In the form of conspiracy, I started a rumor through Poskrebyshev that I could only come at the end of October. Abel, apparently, fell victim to such a rumor. I don't want you to call about it. Tatka, Molotov and, it seems, Sergo know about the date of my arrival. Well, all the best.
Kisses hard and a lot. Your Joseph.
P.S. How are the guys?
Hello Joseph!
Once again I start with the same - I received a letter. I'm glad you're doing well in the southern sun. It’s not bad in Moscow now either, the weather has improved, but there is a certain autumn in the forest. The day goes by quickly. As long as everyone is healthy. Well done for eight teeth. I compete with my throat, Professor Sverzhevsky performed an operation on me, cut out 4 pieces of meat, I had to lie down for four days, and now I can say that I have come out of a complete repair. I feel good, I even got better while lying with my throat. The peaches were amazing. Is it from that tree? They are remarkably beautiful. Now, with all your reluctance, you will soon have to return to Moscow, we are waiting for you, but we are not in a hurry, have a better rest.
Hello. Kiss you. Nadia.
P.S. Yes, Kaganovich was very pleased with the apartment and took it. In general, I was touched by your attention. Just returned from the conference of drummers, where Kaganovich spoke. Very good, as well as Yaroslavsky. After there was "Carmen" - under the direction of Golovanov, wonderful. ON THE.
...Something from you no news in Lately. I asked Dvinsky about the mail, he said that he had not been there for a long time. Probably, the trip to the quail carried away or just too lazy to write. And in Moscow there is already a snow blizzard. Now it's spinning all over. In general, the weather is very strange, cold. Poor Muscovites will feel cold, because until 15.X. Moskvotop gave the order not to drown. Patients are invisible. We are engaged in a coat, because otherwise you have to tremble all the time. In general, things are going well for me. I feel very good too. In a word, now I have already passed the fatigue from my "round the world" trip, and in general, the affairs that caused all this fuss also gave a sharp improvement. I heard about you from an interesting young woman that you look great, she saw you at Kalinin's at dinner, which was wonderfully cheerful and disturbed everyone, embarrassed by your person. I am very happy. Well, don't be angry for the stupid letter, but I don't know if you should write in Sochi about boring things, which, unfortunately, are enough in Moscow life. Get well soon. Best wishes. Kiss. Nadia.
P.S. Zubalovo is absolutely ready, it turned out very, very well.
Got your letter. You've been praising me lately. What does it mean? Good or bad? I have no news, unfortunately. I live well, I expect the best. We've got bad weather here, damn it. I'll have to flee to Moscow. You're hinting at some of my trips. I inform you that I have not gone anywhere (absolutely anywhere!) and I am not going to go.
Kisses a lot, hard, a lot. Your Joseph.
Quite a few such letters have been preserved, sometimes with touching postscripts from children to “daddy”. Stalin's adopted son, Artem Sergeev, recalled that Iosif Vissarionovich did not cause any fear in the children and was very calm about the inevitable pranks. Once Artyom managed to pour tobacco into a tureen. When Stalin tried the resulting muck, he began to find out who had done it. And he said to Artyom: “Have you tried it yourself? Try. If you like it, go to Karolina Georgievna, so that she always adds tobacco to cabbage soup. And if you don't like it, don't do it again!"
And Zubalovo, about which Nadezhda writes, is the favorite country house of the leader. “In 1919, Stalin occupied an empty red-brick house with Gothic turrets, surrounded by a two-meter brick fence,” Rybas writes. - The dacha was two-story, Stalin's office and bedroom were on the second floor. On the first floor there were two more bedrooms, a dining room and a large veranda. About thirty meters from the house there was an office building, where the kitchen, garage, security room were located. From there, a covered gallery led to the main building.
Numerous relatives lived in Stalin's house - the elder Alliluyevs, their children and other relatives with their children and households. Party comrades came to visit. Svetlana later said that this family home circle allowed her father to have a constant source of "incorruptible impartial information." But above all, he rested in this circle with his soul and simply enjoyed life.
I. Stalin, Svetlana and L. Beria in the leader's country house
“Our estate was transformed endlessly,” Svetlana recalled. - Father immediately cleared the forest around the house, cut down half of it - clearings formed; became lighter, warmer and drier. The forest was cleared, followed, raked a dry leaf in the spring. In front of the house was a wonderful, transparent, all white young birch grove, where we children always picked mushrooms. An apiary was set up nearby, and next to it, two clearings were sown every summer with buckwheat for honey. The areas left around the pine forest - slender, dry - were also carefully cleaned; strawberries and blueberries grew there, and the air was somehow especially fresh and fragrant. It was only later, when I became an adult, that I understood this peculiar interest of my father in nature, a practical interest, fundamentally deeply peasant. He could not simply contemplate nature, he had to manage in it, to forever transform something. Large areas were planted with fruit trees, strawberries, raspberries, and currants were planted in abundance. At a distance from the house, they fenced off a small clearing with bushes with nets and bred pheasants, guinea fowls, turkeys there; ducks swam in a small pool. All this did not arise immediately, but gradually blossomed and grew, and we, the children, grew up, in essence, in the conditions of a small landowner's estate, with its village life - mowing hay, picking mushrooms and berries, with fresh annual "our" honey, " their" pickles and marinades, "their" bird.
True, all this household was more occupied by the father than by the mother. Mom only made sure that huge lilac bushes bloomed near the house in spring, and planted a whole avenue of jasmine near the balcony. And I had my own little garden, where my nanny taught me to dig in the ground, plant seeds of nasturtiums and marigolds.
But back in 1928, the first thunderstorm broke out over Stalin's cozy family world. The eldest son Yakov, raised by the sister of the deceased mother, was at that time a student at the Institute of Transport Engineers. And suddenly he passionately fell in love, decided to marry a girl named Zoya Gunina. Not only Stalin was against it, but all the relatives: first you need to finish your studies. “... The father of this marriage did not approve, but Yakov acted in his own way, which caused a quarrel between them,” Svetlana recalled.
Jacob tried to shoot himself...
An angry Stalin wrote to Nadezhda: “Tell Yasha from me that he acted like a hooligan and blackmailer, with whom I have and cannot have anything in common. Let him live where he wants and with whom he wants.
On November 7, 1932, Nadezhda Sergeevna appeared in public for the last time. N. Khrushchev, her classmate, recalled this: “Nadya Alliluyeva was next to me, we talked. It was cold. Stalin at the Mausoleum, as always, in an overcoat. The hooks of the overcoat were unbuttoned, the floors swung open. A strong wind blew. Nadezhda Sergeevna glanced at her and said: “Here’s mine, he didn’t take a scarf, he’ll catch a cold, and we’ll get sick again.” It turned out very homely and did not fit in with the idea of Stalin, the leader, who had already grown into our consciousness ... "
On the night of November 9, Nadezhda Alliluyeva shot herself. Khrushchev would later say: “She died under mysterious circumstances. But no matter how she died, some actions of Stalin were the cause of her death ... There was even a rumor that Stalin shot Nadya ... "
Moreover, in the era of the exposure of the cult, there were even witnesses of the last minutes of Nadezhda's life, to whom she allegedly managed to tell who pulled the trigger, and conjured to keep it a secret ...
According to Svetlana's memoirs, there was a quarrel between her parents at a festive banquet in honor of the 15th anniversary of October. Stalin threw Nadezhda: “Hey, you! Drink!” And she exclaimed: “I don’t hey!” and ran out from the table. She was not seen again.
The body of Nadezhda Sergeevna was discovered in the morning by the housekeeper Karolina Vasilievna Til - Stalin's wife was covered in blood on the floor near the bed, and a small “Walter”, once presented to her by her brother, was clutched in her hand. The frightened housekeeper called the nanny, together they called the head of security, followed by Molotov and his wife, Voroshilov, Yenukidze ... Stalin came out to the noise and heard: “Joseph, Nadia is no longer with us ...”
The head of security, General N. S. Vlasik, recalled: “Stalin's wife, Nadezhda Sergeevna Alliluyeva, a modest woman, rarely made any requests, dressed modestly, unlike the wives of many responsible workers. She studied at the Industrial Academy and paid much attention to children ... In 1932, she died tragically. Joseph Vissarionovich deeply experienced the loss of his wife and friend. The children were still small, Comrade Stalin could not pay much attention to them due to his employment. I had to transfer the upbringing and care of the children to Karolina Vasilievna. She was a cultured woman, sincerely attached to children.”
Trotsky explained the death of Nadezhda as follows: “On November 9, 1932, Alliluyeva died suddenly. She was only 30 years old. As for the reasons for her unexpected death, the Soviet newspapers were silent. In Moscow, they whispered that she shot herself, and talked about the reason. At the evening at Voroshilov's, in the presence of all the nobles, she allowed herself a critical remark about the peasant policy that led to famine in the countryside. Stalin loudly responded to her with the most rude abuse that exists in the Russian language. The Kremlin servants drew attention to the excited state of Alliluyeva when she returned to her apartment. After a while, a shot rang out from her room. Stalin received many expressions of sympathy and moved on to the agenda.
Khrushchev in his memoirs calls jealousy the main reason: “We buried Alliluyeva. Stalin looked sad as he stood at her grave. I do not know what was in his soul, but outwardly he mourned. After Stalin's death, I learned the story of Alliluyeva's death. Of course, this story is not documented in any way. Vlasik, Stalin's head of security, said that after the parade everyone went to dine with the military commissar Kliment Voroshilov in his large apartment. After parades and other similar events, everyone usually went to Voroshilov for dinner.
The parade commander and some members of the Politburo went there directly from Red Square. Everyone drank, as usual on such occasions. Finally, everyone dispersed. Stalin also left. But he didn't go home. It was too late. Who knows what time it was. Nadezhda Sergeevna began to worry. She began looking for him, calling one of the dachas. And she asked the duty officer if Stalin was there. “Yes,” he replied. “Comrade Stalin is here.” - "Who is with him?" - He replied that a woman was with him, called her name. It was the wife of a military man, Gusev, who was also at that dinner. When Stalin left, he took her with him. I was told that she is very beautiful. And Stalin slept with her at this dacha, and Alliluyeva learned about it from the officer on duty.
In the morning - when, I don’t know for sure - Stalin arrived home, but Nadezhda Sergeevna was no longer alive. She didn't leave any note, and if there was a note, we were never told about it."
“Stalin's wife shot herself,” testified Artem Sergeev. I was 11 years old when she passed away. She had wild headaches. On November 7, she brought Vasily and me to the parade. Twenty minutes later she left - she could not stand it. She appears to have had a malalignment of the cranial bones, and suicide is not uncommon in such cases. The tragedy occurred the next day, November 8th. After the parade, Vasya and I wanted to go out of town. Stalin and his wife were visiting Voroshilov. She left the guests early and headed home. She was accompanied by Molotov's wife. They made two circles around the Kremlin, and Nadezhda Sergeevna went to her room.
She had a tiny bedroom. She came and went to bed. Stalin came later. Lie down on the sofa. In the morning Nadezhda Sergeevna did not get up for a long time. Went to wake her up and saw her dead.”
On November 11, 1932, the funeral of Nadezhda Alliluyeva took place in Moscow. Farewell took place in one of the halls of GUM. According to the memoirs of the adopted son of the leader Artem Sergeyev, Stalin then, without hiding, sobbed. Subsequently, he said: “She crippled me for life ...” Stalin's wife was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.
On November 18, 1932, a letter from Stalin was published in the Pravda newspaper: “I offer my heartfelt gratitude to the organizations, institutions, comrades and individuals who expressed their condolences on the death of my close friend and comrade Nadezhda Sergeevna Alliluyeva-Stalina.” condolences Soviet leader expressed by the wives of other leaders of the country - E. Voroshilova, P. Zhemchuzhina, Z. Ordzhonikidze, D. Khazan, M. Kaganovich, T. Postysheva, A. Mikoyan, as well as the leaders themselves - B. Molotov, S. Ordzhonikidze, V. Kuibyshev , M. Kalinin, L. Kaganovich, P. Postyshev, A. Andreev, S. Kirov, A. Mikoyan and A. Yenukidze. A special obituary was sent by students of the Industrial Academy, where Nadezhda studied, N. Khrushchev was among the signatories.
On March 24, 1933, Stalin wrote a letter to his mother: “Hello, my mother! I received your letter. I also received jam, churchkheli, figs. The children were very happy and send you thanks and greetings. It's nice that you feel good, cheerful. I'm healthy, don't worry about me. I'll take my share. I don't know if you need money or not. Just in case, I am sending you five hundred rubles. I also send photographs of myself and my children. Be healthy, my mother. Don't lose your spirits. Kiss. Your son Soso. Children bow to you. After the death of Nadia, of course, my personal life is harder, but nothing, a courageous person must always remain courageous.
Muscovites considered the sculpture on the roof of house No. 17 on Tverskaya Street to be the image of the ballerina Lepeshinskaya, installed by order of Beria
Regarding Stalin's personal life after the death of Alliluyeva, there are different opinions. Bodyguard A. Rybin stated: “In moral terms, the leader was pure like no other. After the death of his wife, he lived as a monk. Similarly spoke about the life of Stalin and Molotov.
Although, according to L. Gendlin's sensational book "Confessions of Stalin's mistress", the iron Koba by no means denied himself carnal pleasures. The text of "Confession..." is presented as a fictionalized memoir of the opera singer V. Davydova (The actress's relatives characterize the book as a fake.), soloist of the Bolshoi Theater. According to these peculiar memoirs, she became the mistress of the leader immediately after the death of Nadezhda Sergeevna and this relationship continued until Stalin's death. At the same time, other women constantly appeared at the leader, either famous actresses, or even simple waitresses. Relations between the rivals were openly hostile, but they were ready to unite for the sake of hatred for the one that the leader favored the most:
“After the performance “Quiet Don”, I went to the buffet to drink a glass of tea. Stalin's retired mistresses had dinner there: Barsova, Shpiller, Zlatogorova, Lepeshinskaya. Passing by my table, Bronislava Zlatogorova deliberately touched the tablecloth, the dishes with hot food collapsed on the floor. I didn't get burned by accident. The women laughed.
“We, Verochka, will still get you out of the Bolshoi Theater,” Barsova, short-legged fat woman, said bitterly.
- Leave me alone!
Women were united by hatred.
- You can complain to the mustachioed dad! Lelechka Lepeshinskaya shouted hysterically.
- Mare, how much does I.V. pay you for each visit? Shpiller screeched.
The life of the Soviet elite appears in "Confession ..." as a continuous series of orgies. Stalin's mistress all the time has to escape from the harassment of other people's commissars, or even give in to them so that they are not slandered, arrested ... And they also regularly take her to be present during the cruel interrogations of "enemies of the people", including those who have recently achieved, successfully or not, the favors of a beautiful opera prima.
“In Moscow, at the Leningradsky railway station, I was met by the gloomy Poskrebyshev, gray with anger ... Savoring every word, he joyfully said:
- By the verdict of the Military Collegium, the traitor Tukhachevsky was shot.
I staggered. Strangers, Poskrebyshev with the guards, put me on a bench. Nobody wanted to spare Stalin's mistress. They all needed me only for the bed ...
“In the morning you should be at I.V.’s dacha.”
There is also an opinion that the leader's bed was warmed by the housekeeper Valentina, who worked at the dacha in Kuntsevo.
| |
