Soso was old, sclerotic and forgetful, yet until his death aged seventy-four, on 5 March 1953, the ageing choirboy remained the peerless politician, paranoid megalomaniac and aberrant master of human misery on a scale only paralleled by Hitlerite Germany. Responsible for the deaths of around 20 to 25 million people, Stalin imagined he was a political, military, scientific and literary genius, a people’s monarch, a red Tsar.
Perhaps the young Stalin should have the last word. In August 1905, Soso, aged twenty-seven, mocked just such a deluded megalomaniac in a rarely read but weirdly self-prophesying article for Proletariatis Brdzola. “Before your eyes,” he writes, “rises the hero of Gogol’s story who, in a state of aberration, imagined he was the King of Spain. Such,” concluded the young Stalin, “is the fate of all megalomaniacs.”{264}
Stalin’s Names, Nicknames, Bylines and Aliases
Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili, Ivanov, Soso, Pockmarked Oska, Soselo, The Caucasian, Beso, The Milkman, Koba, The Pockmarked One, Petrov, The Loper (Geza), Ivanovich, The Staggerer (Kunkula), Koba Ivanovich, Pockmarked (Chopura), Besoshvili, David, Ivan Ivanovich Vissarionovich, The Priest, Galiashvili, Father Koba, Simon Jvelaya, Giorgi Berdzenoshvili, K. Kato, K. Stefin, Gaios Besovich Nizheradze, Ioska Koriavyi (Joe Pox), Organez Totomiants, K. St., Zakhar Melikiants, K. Safin, Peter Chizhikov, K. Solin, Vasily, Vasiliev, Vasya, Vaska, Koba Stalin, Oddball Osip, J. Djugashvili-Stalin, Osip Koba, J. V. Stalin
Acknowledgements
I have been helped in my work on Stalin by many people in many countries and cities including my publishers all over the world, but especially in places visited by my subject. All have been extraordinarily generous to me in terms of time and knowledge. Needless to say, all the mistakes in this book are mine alone.
I must first thank my godfathers in the writing of Russian history, who have checked my work, improved on it and hopefully taught me how to write better: Isabel de Madariaga was and remains my first historical patroness and my books still, I pray, show the benefits of her strict but benign supervision of my first book on Catherine the Great and Prince Potemkin.
In this book, I have been hugely fortunate that two titans of Soviet history, Robert Conquest and Professor Robert Service, have kindly read the text for errors. I owe much to the professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies at Mt. Holyoke College, Stephen Jones, the chief authority on Georgian socialism, who shared his work with me, answered my questions and diligently corrected the text. Dr. David Anderson, senior lecturer in Arctic Anthropology, University of Aberdeen, corrected my Siberian sections with great generosity and patience. Dr. Piers Vitebsky, head of Anthropology and Russian Northern Studies at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, advised me on Siberian anthropology and allowed me to use one of his photographs. I must also thank Professor Donald Rayfield, who has generously shared with me his wide knowledge of Russian literature, Georgian culture and Bolshevik political history, as well as his contacts in Georgia, and has allowed me to quote his superb translations of Stalin’s poetry in full.
I am very grateful to Professor George Hewitt for his kind help with the languages of the Caucasus and his contacts in Abkhazia, which have been invaluable. I cannot sufficiently thank Dr. Claire Mouradian, based in Paris, who, even though we have never met, placed at my disposal her encyclopaedic knowledge of Caucasian history and her wide contacts with the Georgian/Armenian émigré families, interviewed old witnesses and guided me to new sources.
The bulk of the new material in this work comes from the Caucasus. In Georgia, I must first thank the President and First Lady, Mikheil and Sandra Saakashvili. Tragically the archives of the Georgian Filial Institute of Marxism-Leninism (GF IML) have fallen into disrepair and only the personal decree of the President allowed me access to the sources that form the heart of this book. Natalia Kancheli, a senior aide to the President, and a great supporter, helped make this possible and I am eternally grateful. Gela Charkviani, an old friend and veteran of modern Georgian politics as well as the son of one of Stalin’s confidants, started helping me when I was a war correspondent in early 1990s Caucasia but also gave me access to the manuscript of his father’s memoirs, and found me all my helpers in Georgia. His niece Nestan Charkviani, herself a distinguished historian of Stalinism, helped me enormously in the archives, which she knows well, and in finding new sources and memoirs and interviewing new witnesses; she also read and corrected the text. I owe much to Nino Kereselidze, a fine historian, an industrious researcher and an impressive translator from Georgian. Thanks also to the GF IML’s chief archivist, Vazha Ebanoidze.
Many others helped me in Georgia: Peter Mamradze, another old friend from the turbulence of recent politics, found me new witnesses and shared his knowledge of the Stalin folklore in Georgia. My friend Professor Zakro Megrilishvili again helped me access the unpublished Kavtaradze manuscript, his stepfather’s memoirs, and work out the Tiflis bank robbery. Thanks too to Professor Nugzar Surgoladze. I am deeply grateful to another friend, George Tarkhan-Mouravi, who helped me out of pure friendship and a spirit of curiosity and offered me his contacts, his vast knowledge of sources and his family anecdotes. Professor Vahtang Guruli shared his unique archival research with me. Gia Sulkanishvili helped in small and big matters, and as ever I owe him much. Nick Tabatadze, the head of Rustavi-2, the Georgian television station, gave encouragement and help; his station’s TV report helped me find more witnesses and sources. Thanks to Tamara Megrilishvili, who let me advertise for sources/witnesses in her bookshop, Prospero’s Books, the best between Moscow and Jerusalem; to Leka Basilieia; in Gori, to the director of the Stalin Museum, Gaioz Makhniashvili.
In the archives of Batumi, Adjaria, Memed Jikhashvili, an excellent historian of Transcaucasia but also a piece of history himself, as the nephew of Nestor Lakoba, Stalin’s Abkhazian viceroy, helped me find new sources and pictures that were immensely important for the book.
In Abkhazia, I must thank Slava Lakoba, outstanding historian of Bolshevism, Abkhazia and Caucasia, who was extremely generous in sharing his work and above all his sources. George Hewitt and Donald Rayfield both helped me in this quest, as did Dr. Rachel Clogg.
In Baku, Azerbaijan, thanks to Fuad Akhundov, another old friend and expert on the oil boom and millionaires; to Fikret Aliev and Zimma Babaeva, director and deputy director of the Azeri State Archive (GIA AR and GA AR); and to Memed Jikhashvili too.
In Berlin and Baku, I owe much to Professor Jorg Baberowski, the chief expert on Baku and the violent culture of the Caucasus, who was very generous to me with his knowledge; and to Alexander Freese, for translating from German.
In Vienna, thanks to HSH Prince Karel Schwarzenberg, Peter and Lila Morgan, and Georg Hamann. Lisa Train visited the flat where Stalin stayed and took fine photographs. In Finland, thanks to my editor for his help with Tampere research, Aleksi Siltala; to Vuokko Tarpila; to the writer Aarno Laitinen; and to the Finnish expert on Lenin, Stalin and Finland Antti Kujola. In Sweden, thanks to Per Faustino and all my editors at Norstedts/Prisma, to Martin Stugart of Dagens Nyheter, to researcher Jenny Lankjaer, to Karen Altenberg, to Per Mogren. In Holland, thanks to two distinguished Dutch Stalin scholars, Erik van Ree and Marc Jansen, for their sharing of research. In Cracow, Poland, thanks to the London filmmaker Wanda Koscia and her friend Marta Szostkiewicz for her help.