FOREIGN POLICY REVEALED
Stalin exposed his grasp of world affairs to Kaganovich and Molotov in connection with a crisis developing over East Africa, where, on October 3, 1935, after prolonged tensions and border clashes, a large Italian army stationed in Eritrea invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia) without a declaration of war. This was the Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Italy had lost the African territory in 1896 in a humiliating military defeat at Adwa. Italian forces, meeting fierce resistance, used aerial bombardment of villages and mustard gas against tribesmen.183 On October 7, the League of Nations pronounced Italy the aggressor and began the process of imposing sanctions, but the League’s failure to punish Italy would soon be manifest. During the League debate, a Czechoslovak spectator shot himself.
Stalin was taking it in stride. “Kalinin reports that the foreign affairs commissariat doubts the possibility of grain exports and other products from the USSR to Italy in view of the dispute in Abyssinia,” he wrote from Sochi during the buildup to the invasion. “I think that these doubts of the foreign affairs commissariat derive from their non-understanding of the international situation. The conflict is not so much between Italy and Abyssinia as between Italy and France, on one side, and England on the other. The old Entente is no more. In its place, two ententes are forming: the entente of Italy and France on one side and the entente between England and Germany on the other. The worse the brawl between them, the better for the USSR. We can sell grain to one and the other, so they can fight. It is not at all advantageous for us now if one side smashes the other. For us it is advantageous for their brawl to be as long as possible, without a quick victory by one over the other.”184
In reality, Britain and France were on one side, and, increasingly, Italy and Germany on the other.
When Litvinov had requested permission to walk demonstratively out of the Assembly of the League of Nations to protest its failure to elect the USSR representative (himself) as one of the six vice presidents, Stalin had agreed (“Let the Assembly eat the Abyssinian kasha”). But when Litvinov’s walkout induced the British and French to scramble to include him in the League’s presidium, Stalin erupted to Kaganovich and Molotov over the easy acceptance of the face-saving gesture. “Litvinov was frightened by his own proposal and hurried to extinguish the incident,” he fumed. “Litvinov wants to follow the British line, but we have our own line.” Stalin called the League’s leadership “thieves” who “did not treat the USSR with the proper respect,” and charged Litvinov with being guided “not so much by the interests of the USSR as by his own overwhelming pride.”185
On October 26, Tukhachevsky—not seen at the German embassy since Hitler’s ascent—appeared at the farewell reception for departing counselor Fritz von Twardowski. “Tukhachevsky was unusually frank and cordial,” Twardowski reported. “His remarks were full of the greatest respect for the German army, its officer corps, and its organizational capacity, which led him to express the view that the new German Reich army would be fully prepared for war already this year, or at latest next year.” Twardowski pushed back against such an idea, but the deputy defense commissar persisted: “If it should come to war between Germany and the Soviet Union, which would be an appalling misfortune for both nations, Germany would no longer be confronted with the old Russia; the Red Army had learned a great deal and done a great deal of work.” Twardowski noted that Tukhachevsky had volunteered that “if Germany and the Soviet Union still had the same friendly political relations they used to have, they would be in a position to dictate peace to the world.”186
KEKE
On holiday, Stalin again suffered from stomach pains and caught influenza.187 Very unusually, he stopped in to see his septuagenarian mother.188 Since he had become a widower for the second time, his letters to Keke had changed. “Greetings, Mother Dear, I got the jam, the ginger, and the churchkhela [Georgian candle-shaped candy],” he had written in 1934. “The children are very pleased and send you their thanks. I am well, so don’t worry about me. I can bear my burden. I do not know whether or not you need money. I am sending you 500 rubles just in case. . . . Keep well, dear mother, and keep your spirits up. A kiss. Your son, Soso. P.S. The children genuflect to you. After Nadya’s death, my private life has been very hard, but a strong man must always be manly.”189
Stalin was in the company of Beria, who had erected a grandiose marble pavilion over the dictator’s wooden birth hovel in Gori and opened it to the public.190 Beria also instigated approval for construction of a Stalin museum in Gori, next to which were supposed to be a cinema, drama theater, library, hotel, and House of the Collective Farmer. The low estimate for the total cost nearly equaled Gori’s annual budget (900,000 rubles).191 Keke was still living under Beria’s care, in the single room on the ground floor of the former tsarist viceroy’s palace, where Georgia’s Council of People’s Commissars had its offices. She ventured to the market dressed in black, a widow for more than a quarter century now, and shadowed by secret police. Beria’s wife, Nino, visited her regularly. In June 1935, Svetlana and Vasily had paid a visit. The children were staying with “Uncle Lavrenti” for a week and, according to Svetlana, saw their grandma for half an hour. Neither Svetlana nor Vasily understood Georgian; they communicated through their half brother, Yakov. Svetlana would recall being shocked at the sight of Keke’s spartan metal bed. Keke was ill (she received them while in bed, as demonstrated by photographs, which Stalin permitted to be published).192 Stalin’s own visit—a further indication that she was ill—took place on October 17. There is plausible hearsay from her attending physician that Stalin asked, “Mother, why did you beat me so hard?” and that she responded, “That’s why you turned out so well.”193
Stalin’s Georgian origins had been muted over time, with his features softened in photographs (his long pointed nose was reduced, his arched left eyebrow lowered, his chin moved forward, his face made oval).194 Three days after the visit, Pravda’s correspondent interviewed Keke, and on October 21 Poskryobyshev passed a draft of his article to the dictator with a request to publish it. “I won’t undertake to approve or reject,” Stalin answered. “It’s not my business.”195 The article appeared in Pravda (October 23). “The 75-year-old Keke is affable, cheerful. . . . ‘He came unexpectedly, without warning. The door opens and he walks in. He kissed me a long time, and I reciprocated. How do you like our Tiflis? I asked him.’” The newspaper further quoted her as saying, “‘I worked each day and raised a son. It was hard. . . . We ate poorly. . . . An exemplary son! . . . I wish everyone such a son!’”196