Joseph was the third child in the family of Vissarion Ivanovich Dzhugashvili and Ekaterina Georgievna, née Geladze.
His older brothers Mikhail and George died in infancy. And he, born with fused toes II-III of his left foot, was “weak” in infancy, but survived. At the age of five, Joseph suffered from smallpox, and a year later he was hit by a phaeton and received a serious injury, the consequences of which were recorded in the “Medical history of the patient of the Kremlin clinic I.V. Stalin": "Atrophy of the shoulder and elbow joints of the left arm due to a bruise at the age of six, followed by suppuration in the area of ​​the elbow joint."
After all, it was a contracture, and not a mysterious “withered hand”!
But biographers speak differently about the personality of young I. Dzhugashvili: he seems to sum up the traits of a choleric, schizoid, cyclothymic, introvert and excitable personality.
Prison, exile, frostbite, escape, a cold with fever for several weeks - this is the “intermediate result” of the beginning of revolutionary activity. It is very possible that this “cold” with a multi-week fever turned out to be a latent outbreak of tuberculosis, since during the autopsy of Stalin’s body in March 1953, Anatoly Ivanovich Strukov discovered cicatricial shrinkage of the apex of the right lung.
Two years later, I. Dzhugashvili was again in exile and fell ill again, this time with typhus, and he was placed in the typhus barracks of the Vyatka provincial zemstvo hospital. He was lucky: at that time, getting into such a barracks was tantamount to... death!
After the revolution, Stalin was plagued by “chronic tonsillitis,” which at that time, with the light hand of Professor D.O. Krylov, belonged to the so-called. “chronioseptic” diseases, but danger lay in wait for Stalin in the form of “chronic appendicitis.”
Now it’s strange to hear such a phrase. But it existed until the 60s. last century!
Stalin is advised by a surgeon with 25 years of experience, head of the surgical department of the Soldatenkovsky (Botkin) Hospital V.N. Rozanov.
He operated on Stalin on March 28, 1921, “the operation was very difficult, in addition to removing the appendix, a wide resection of the cecum had to be done, and it was difficult to vouch for the outcome.” It is noteworthy that the operation began under local anesthesia, but in the middle they switched to deadly chloroform anesthesia, which caused M.V.’s heart to stop four years later. Frunze.
At the beginning of August 1921, Stalin returned to duty again.
He was calm about his own health. It is known how kindly Trotsky treated himself, and his comrade-in-arms A. Joffe once threw a real hysteria due to the fact that he was advised “only” by S. Davidenkov and L. Levin, and not by German specialists! Rykov, Bukharin, Karakhan, D. Bedny, N. Alliluyeva and many, many others went abroad for treatment.
In the spring of 1923, A. Mikoyan, visiting Stalin, saw that his hand was bandaged. Stalin explained that it was “rheumatism,” and Mikoyan persuaded him to go to Sochi for “hot Matsesta hydrogen sulfide baths.” Having received relief, he began to travel to Sochi every year.
In 1930 I.V. Stalin makes Valedinsky his personal doctor, gives him a five-room apartment in Moscow, and appoints him medical director of North Caucasian resorts.
I.A. Valedinsky was Stalin's doctor until 1940. It is noteworthy that during examination in 1927 (ECG, chest x-ray, blood pressure, physical examination) there were no defects in I.A. Valedinsky did not find 48-year-old Stalin.
In 1929-31 Stalin spent two months in Sochi and Nalchik, and he also visited Tskhaltubo.
In 1936, I.A. Valedinsky and Professor B.S. Preobrazhensky, then head of the department of diseases of the ear, nose and throat, was invited to see Stalin, who had a sore throat.
This time, as part of the consultation, he is examined for the first time by the head of the department of faculty therapy of the 2nd Moscow Medical Institute, Professor Vladimir Nikitovich Vinogradov, also a future academician, laureate and honored worker of science, shackled on Stalin’s orders in 1952!
According to A. Normire, in 1937 D.D. Pletnev and L.G. Levin, not being psychiatrists, allegedly diagnosed Stalin with “paranoid psychosis” and were immediately executed.
...The last time Valedinsky examined Stalin was on February 13, 1940 for a sore throat. The leader had a fever, but he worked (the Soviet-Finnish war was going on). He also boasted to Valedinsky that one of these days Vyborg would be taken (it was taken with great difficulty in a month!). In 1944, I.A. Valedinsky became the chief physician of the Barvikha sanatorium of the Kremlin Lechsanupra, and V.N. took charge of Stalin’s health (on Valedinsky’s recommendation). Vinogradov.
Insomnia and arterial hypertension are the two main problems faced by the 65-year-old leader Vinogradov. In 1944, after receiving news of the death of his son Yakov, Stalin developed weakness, apathy, and weakness.
After returning from Potsdam, he began to complain of headache, dizziness, and nausea. There was an episode of severe pain in the heart area and a feeling that the chest was being “pulled together with an iron band.” For some reason, this time it was not Vinogradov who was called to see him, but the chief therapist of the USSR Navy, Professor A.L. Myasnikov, then little known among Moscow therapists, whose main cardiological work was still ahead. It was probably about a myocardial infarction, but Stalin does not comply with the regime.
The attacks repeated at the end of April and in July 1945. The leader was also worried about dizziness and weakness in his legs.
Between October 10 and October 15, 1945, Stalin probably suffered a TIA. As S.I. writes Alliluyeva, in the fall of 1945, her father fell ill and “was ill for a long time and difficultly.” Since she was forbidden to call him, it is believed that Stalin had an episode of aphasia or dysarthria.
And since 1946, the regime of the “steel Stalin” has changed significantly: he began to rarely come to the Kremlin, meetings lasted no more than 2-3 hours, and not 6-8, as in 1929. In 1946, Stalin rested in the south for three months, and in 1949 a sanatorium complex was built for him in Abkhazia (in the area of ​​Ritsa Island), but he did not like it.
In 1949, during the anniversary, Stalin developed dysarthria and weakness in his legs (he walked leaning on the walls, but did not allow himself to be supported).
He is being operated on by the head of the department of the Sokolniki Hospital Lechsanupra Kremlin P.N. Mokshantsev regarding periungual panaritium.
She writes: “... he couldn’t be called healthy, but he didn’t like to be treated: he didn’t trust anyone and, probably most of all, doctors. Stalin was the only invisible patient."
In the early 50s. The always pale leader developed facial hyperemia (arterial hypertension?), and due to almost constant shortness of breath (pulmonary emphysema), he quits smoking. The handwriting changed significantly - it became “senile”, trembling, and at times there was a tremor of the fingers of the left hand.
In 1950-1952 Stalin spent 4-4.5 months in Sochi, from where he returned a month and a half before his death. But the worse he felt, the more he did not trust the doctors.
D. Volkogonov puts the words into the leader’s mouth: “How many emperors, kings, presidents, leaders in history have the court medical curia quietly sent to the next world.” I think everything is simpler: having experienced the effects of chloroform anesthesia in 1921, Stalin felt complete helplessness and dependence not only on the qualifications, but also on the will of the doctor.
In 1922-24. Using the example of Lenin, he could easily see how medical care and “care” of comrades can quickly isolate and deprive them of power.
There were no doctors around him - crafty courtiers (read “Health and Power” by E.I. Chazov!), and V.N. Vinogradov, already favored by the leader on February 26, 1952 (Order of Lenin on his 70th birthday), soon turned out to be an English spy, shackled! But he did everything right: having discovered a deterioration in his health, he recommended that Stalin limit his work as much as possible, and even shared this with a certain doctor in his clinic. The leader seemed to understand that on the path of his unbridled lust for power, the doctors’ conclusion could turn out to be a formidable stumbling block.
And so it began! The former head of the Kremlin's medical department A. Busalov, consultants P. Egorov, S. Karpay, M. Vovsi, V. Zelenin, N. Shereshevsky, E. Gelshtein, N. Popova, V. Zakusov, M. Sereysky, B. Preobrazhensky were arrested , A. Feldman (who carelessly recommended tonsillectomy to Stalin), B. and M. Kogan, B. Zbarsky, B. Shimeliovich and others (37 people). It is believed that Kremlin medicine was then beheaded.
However, this does not mean at all that there was no one to provide medical assistance to Stalin or that these were people with “both left hands.”
The following has been described a hundred times, and I will not repeat it.
I want to focus on just one thing. In good faith on the Internet, the attending physicians I.V. Stalin is accused of incompetence, they say, he was treated entirely by academicians and directors of institutes who did not know how to approach the patient. I leave this to the conscience of the writers.
Let me just remind you that one of the participants in the consultation, director of the Institute of Therapy of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences A.L. Myasnikov was one of the most experienced therapists and clinicians of that time, a brilliant expert in propaedeutics and therapeutic semiotics, and about E.M. Tareeva has nothing to say.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Konovalov (1900-1966), indeed, was the director of the Institute of Neurology of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, but he was also the chief neurologist of the Kremlin Medical and Sanitary Administration and went through the medical profession from a resident to a professor and academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Those who have excess free time can discuss for as long as they like whether the villains gave Comrade Stalin dicumarol or hit him on the head with a felt boot with a brick inside, simulating a stroke.
But what about previous episodes of TIA and arterial hypertension? Is it surprising that a 75-year-old man with hypertension has a stroke? Why plant a garden?
It is known that politics always interferes in the activities of doctors treating top officials of the state, but nowhere was it as unceremonious as in our country (the medical history of Peter the Great, Anna Ioannovna, Peter II, Alexander I, Nicholas I, Alexander III, heir to Tsarevich Alexei Romanov).
This boorish attitude towards doctors (their own, not Western consultants!) was more than learned by subsequent Kremlin rulers. And not from the Kremlin either - all these calls about disputes with patients (who should be admitted better, and which doctors should be punished) from “ministries and departments” are worth it! But the case of I.V. Stalin is very indicative: the leader dictated to the doctors and the doctors wanted the best, but it turned out as always, “Soviet style”!
Original text:
N. Larinsky, 2013

It's a miracle that Stalin was able to live to be 73 years old. He began to have serious health problems back in the 1920s, and after the war he suffered two strokes. The third stroke, which occurred on the night of February 28 to March 1, 1953, was fatal. However, Stalin could have survived that night if not for the criminal inaction of Khrushchev and Malenkov...

There is still an opinion that Stalin's death in 1953 was the result of a conspiracy by his circle. More precisely, by some manipulations of the conspirators: Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev. Stalin's medical record and the reports of his entourage have still not been declassified, and the events of February 28 - March 3, 1953 can only be reconstructed indirectly, based on the notes and sayings of his entourage.
In total, there are 6 versions of Stalin’s death (or rather, apocrypha) and 2-3 versions of the conspiracy of his comrades. The Interpreter's blog will return to their description, but now we will simply describe what Stalin was sick with throughout his life.

From his youth, Stalin had a congenital deformity - a withering left hand, a consequence of Erb's incurable genetic disease. Serious health problems - pain in the muscles of the arms and legs, frequent colds, insomnia - began for him in the late 1920s. He suffered from polyarthritis, and, starting from 1926-27, he first went for treatment to Matsesta, where he took warm hydrogen sulfide baths from natural springs.
Then Stalin traveled to Sochi every year. 17 letters from Stalin to his wife for the period 1929-31 have been published, where he shares his experiences during his vacation. There were about 30 such letters, the rest are still classified. But even in these 17 letters there are mentions of Stalin’s illness. Here are some of them:
September 1, 1929 “In Nalchik I was close to pneumonia. I have “wheezing” in both lungs and still have a cough.
September 2, 1930 “I am gradually recovering.”
September 14, 1931 “My health is improving. Slowly, but it’s getting better.”
Until 1937, Stalin annually traveled to southern resorts for treatment. Then political trials started in Moscow, wars with the Japanese and Finns, the annexation of the Baltic states, Bessarabia, western Ukraine and Belarus - all this forced him to stay in the capital constantly.

On the night of June 22, Stalin slept no more than two hours. On the first day of the war, arriving in the Kremlin at 5:45 am, he worked continuously for 12 hours, ate nothing and drank only a glass of strong tea with sugar during the day. He worked in this mode all the days of the war, sometimes 15 hours a day. Often the guards found him sleeping on the sofa, dressed and wearing shoes. Four intense years without days off or vacation. At the beginning of the war, Stalin was 62 years old, and at its end he was 66 years old.
After the Potsdam Conference (July 17 - August 2), there was no opportunity to rest - on August 6, the Americans dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, and on August 8, the USSR entered the war with Japan.
The overstrain took its toll in the first post-war autumn. Before the war, Stalin's main medical problem was pain in the joints - therefore, during long meetings, he could not sit in one place and paced around the office. The stroke that overtook Stalin between October 10 and 15, 1945 almost killed him.
From Stalin's visitor logs it is clear that in the period from October 8 to December 17, 1945, Stalin was absent from the Kremlin. According to the memoirs of Yuri Zhdanov, the second husband of Svetlana Alliluyeva, in those days Stalin was trying to transfer the powers of the head of state to his father, Zhdanov. For two months he did not communicate with anyone from the management, did not talk on the phone. This stroke did not lead to a cerebral hemorrhage, there was only a blockage of a small vessel in the brain.
After this illness, doctors strongly recommended that Stalin leave Moscow for the southern coast in the fall. He followed this instruction until 1952.

1946 was a turning point. Stalin could no longer bear the previous loads, and began to gradually retire. He spent more and more time at the Kuntsevo dacha, almost ceasing to visit the Kremlin. His daughter Svetlana recalled: “In the summer of 1947, he invited me to vacation in August with him in Sochi. He has aged. He wanted peace. Sometimes he didn’t know what he wanted.”
Stalin also spent the autumn of 1948 in Sochi. While he is vacationing in the south, the dacha is being urgently rebuilt. Stalin actually becomes a recluse and a hostage of his surroundings. Again from the memories of his daughter Svetlana: “In the summer, he moved around the park all day long, they brought papers, newspapers, and tea there for him. In recent years he wanted health, he wanted to live longer.”
His health, despite the gentle regime of work, did not improve. He suffered from hypertension, dizziness and shortness of breath, often caught colds, and the guards were sometimes forced to resort to extreme measures. Bodyguard Rybin, talking about Zhdanov’s funeral, which took place on September 2, 1948, recalls how the guards, on Molotov’s orders, locked Stalin in a room and did not let him out into the garden to water the flowers. Stalin actually ceased to lead the country.
In October 1949, Stalin suffered a second stroke, accompanied by loss of speech. In subsequent years, he was forced to take a long vacation and go south (August-December 1950, August 9, 1951 - February 12, 1952). In the narrow circle of the Politburo, Stalin then acquired the nickname “summer resident.”

In 1951, Stalin began to experience memory loss. Khrushchev recalled that, sitting at the table and addressing a person with whom Stalin had communicated for decades, he suddenly stopped in confusion and could not call him by his last name.
“I remember once he turned to Bulganin and could not remember his last name. He looks at him and says: “What’s your last name?” - “Bulganin!” Such phenomena were repeated often, and this drove him into a frenzy.”
The disease progressed. In the summer of 1952, after examining Stalin, his personal doctor, Academician Vinogradov, discovered a sharp deterioration in his health (progressive cerebral atherosclerosis). He recommended that he give up political activity and retire.
The “Doctors’ Case”, concocted by Stalin’s entourage, only worsened the leader’s condition - his personal physician, academician Vinogradov, was imprisoned, and other representatives of the “Kremlin” followed to the dungeons. Khrushchev, Beria and Malenkov advised Stalin to ignore doctors and self-medicate. Svetlana Alliluyeva recalled:
“I visited him on December 21, 1952, when he turned 73 years old. He looked bad that day. He suddenly quit smoking, and was very proud of it.
He took some pills himself, dropped a few drops of iodine into a glass of water - from somewhere he himself took these paramedic prescriptions. He began to regularly go to the Russian bathhouse, according to an old Siberian habit. With his hypertension, no doctor would have allowed this, but there were no doctors.”


In the fall of 1952, the 19th Party Congress took place. The previous one took place in 1934, and Stalin remained in Moscow, depriving himself of the rest recommended by doctors. Then there was a plenum of the Central Committee. On the opening day of the plenum, October 16, he submitted an application for dismissal from the post of Secretary General, citing “health reasons” as the reason for his request. Maria Kovrigina, who participated in the October plenum, recalls:
“I remembered the tired face of Stalin, who said that he could no longer work as secretary and chairman of the Council of Ministers. I had the impression that we were torturing an old sick man.”
But Stalin did not name an official successor, and this kept the group of Beria, Khrushchev and Malenkov from accepting the leader’s resignation - they understood that one of them would then have to leave the race in the struggle for power, probably through prison (which happened after his death Stalin).
A sick man, removed from solving all, and not just the most important, issues - this is exactly what these people needed Stalin (the same situation would repeat with the late Brezhnev and the late Yeltsin). Each of these people wanted at least a little more time to strengthen themselves in the struggle for power, but, at the same time, not to anger the leader, albeit half-dead, but still.
And Stalin, as Rybin recalls, in the fall of 1952 was already fainting and could not climb to the second floor without assistance.
The last time Stalin was in the Kremlin was on February 17, 1953. From the reception diary it was clear how long his working day lasted: 30 minutes for a meeting with the Indian delegation, 15 minutes for a conversation with Beria, Bulganin and Malenkov. 45 minutes.
Khrushchev, talking about Stalin’s condition in the autumn of 1952 - winter of 1953, mentions that the table in the dining room at his dacha in Kuntsevo was littered with unopened red envelopes, and after Stalin’s death, General Vlasik admitted that he had appointed a special person who opened the packages and sent the contents to those who sent them.


Even the papers sent to Stalin from the Politburo remained unread. Let us remember that at this time the most important political processes were taking place: the case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (the so-called “campaign against cosmopolitanism”), the “doctors’ case”, the purge of the MGB... Who then initiated and led them? Let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet.
February 21 was the last day that Stalin received anyone for work. MGB Lieutenant General Sudoplatov came to see him:
“What I saw amazed me. I saw a tired old man. His hair had thinned considerably, and although he had always spoken slowly, he now spoke as if by force, and the pauses between words became longer. Apparently the rumors about two strokes were true.”
On February 27, 1953, accompanied by security guard Kirillin, he appeared in his box at the Bolshoi Theater at a performance of the ballet Swan Lake. He was alone throughout the performance. After finishing, he went to the dacha.
On the evening of February 28, Stalin had a dinner at his dacha with the participation of Beria, Bulganin, Malenkov and Khrushchev. We'll talk about how it ended in the next article...
(Quotes from the book “Soviet Square” by Rafael Grugman, publishing house “Peter”, 2011).

Molotov was one of the few Bolsheviks of the first conscription who managed to survive the era of Stalinist repressions and remain in power. He held a variety of leading government positions in the 1920s-1950s.

early years

Vyacheslav Molotov was born on March 9, 1890. His real name is Scriabin. Molotov is a party pseudonym. In his youth, the Bolshevik used a variety of surnames when publishing in newspapers. He used the pseudonym Molotov for the first time in a small brochure devoted to the development of the Soviet economy, and since then he has never parted with it.

The future revolutionary was born into a petty-bourgeois family living in the Kuharka settlement in the Vyatka province. His father was a fairly wealthy man and was able to give his children a good education. Vyacheslav Molotov studied at a real school in Kazan. The years of his youth saw the first Russian revolution, which, of course, could not but influence the views of the young man. The student joined the Bolshevik youth group in 1906. In 1909 he was arrested and exiled to Vologda. After his release, Vyacheslav Molotov moved to St. Petersburg. In the capital, he began working for the first legal newspaper of the party, called Pravda. Scriabin was brought there by his friend Viktor Tikhomirov, who came from a merchant family and financed the publication of the socialists with his own money. The real name of Vyacheslav Molotov ceased to be mentioned precisely then. The revolutionary finally connected his life with the party.

Revolution and civil war

By the beginning of the February Revolution, Vyacheslav Molotov, unlike most famous Bolsheviks, was in Russia. The main figures of the party have been in exile for many years. Therefore, in the first months of 1917, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov had great influence in Petrograd. He remained the editor of Pravda and even joined the executive committee of the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.

When Lenin and other leaders of the RSDLP(b) returned to Russia, the young functionary faded into the background and ceased to be noticeable for a while. Molotov was inferior to his older comrades both in oratory and in revolutionary courage. But he also had advantages: diligence, diligence and technical education. Therefore, during the years of the civil war, Molotov was mainly on “field” work in the provinces - he organized the work of local councils and communes.

In 1921, a second-tier party member was lucky to get into the new central body - the secretariat. Here Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov plunged into bureaucratic work, finding himself in his element. In addition, in the secretariat of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) he became a colleague of Stalin, which predetermined his entire future fate.

Stalin's right hand

In 1922, Stalin was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee. Since then, young V. M. Molotov became his protégé. He proved his loyalty by participating in all of Stalin's combinations and intrigues both in Lenin's last years and after the death of the leader of the world proletariat. Molotov really found himself in the right place. He was never a leader by nature, but he was distinguished by his bureaucratic diligence, which helped him in countless clerical work in the Central Committee.

At Lenin's funeral in 1924, Molotov carried his coffin, which was a sign of his hardware weight. From that moment on, an internal struggle began in the party. The “collective power” format did not last long. Three people came forward who claimed leadership - Stalin, Trotsky and Zinoviev. Molotov was always the former’s protégé and confidant. Therefore, according to the drifting course of the General Secretary, he actively spoke out in the Central Committee, first against the “Trotskyist” and then the “Zinovievist” opposition.

On January 1, 1926, V. M. Molotov became a member of the Politburo, the governing body of the Central Committee, which included the most influential persons of the party. At the same time, the final defeat of Stalin’s opponents took place. On the day of the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, attacks took place on Trotsky’s supporters. Soon he was exiled to Kazakhstan as an honorable exile, and then left the USSR altogether.

Molotov was the conductor of Stalin's course in the Moscow City Party Committee. He regularly spoke out against one of the leaders of the so-called right-wing opposition, Nikolai Uglanov, whom he eventually deprived of his post as first secretary of the Moscow City Committee. In 1928-1929 a member of the Politburo himself occupied this position. During these few months, Molotov carried out exemplary purges in the Moscow apparatus. All of Stalin's opponents were fired from there. However, the repressions of that period were relatively mild - no one had yet been shot or sent to camps.

Conductor of collectivization

By smashing their opponents, Stalin and Molotov ensured Koba's sole power by the early 1930s. The Secretary General appreciated the dedication and diligence of his right hand. In 1930, after the resignation of Rykov, the post of chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR became vacant. This place was taken by Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov. Briefly speaking, he became the head of the Soviet government, holding this post until 1941.

With the beginning of collectivization in the village, Molotov again often went on business trips throughout the country. He led the defeat of the kulaks in Ukraine. The state demanded all the peasants' bread, which led to resistance in the villages. In the western regions there were riots. The Soviet leadership, or rather, Stalin alone, decided to organize a “big leap forward” - a sharp start to the industrialization of the country’s backward economy. For this we needed money. They were taken from the sale of grain abroad. To get it, the authorities began to requisition the entire harvest from the peasantry. Vyacheslav Molotov also did approximately this. The biography of this functionary in the 1930s was filled with various ominous and controversial episodes. The first such campaign was an attack on the Ukrainian peasantry.

Ineffective collective farms were unable to cope with the mission entrusted to them in the form of the first five-year grain procurement plans. When bleak harvest reports for 1932 arrived in Moscow, the Kremlin decided to organize another wave of repression, this time not only against the kulaks, but also against local party organizers who had failed to do their job. But these measures did not save Ukraine from famine.

Second person in the state

After the campaign to destroy the kulaks, a new attack began, in which Molotov took part. The USSR has been an authoritarian state since its inception. Stalin, largely thanks to his associates, got rid of numerous oppositionists within the Bolshevik Party itself. Functionaries who found themselves in disgrace were expelled from Moscow and received secondary positions on the outskirts of the country.

But after the assassination of Kirov in 1934, Stalin decided to use this incident as a pretext for the physical destruction of those undesirable. Preparations for show trials have begun. In 1936, a trial was organized against Kamenev and Zinoviev. The founders of the Bolshevik Party were accused of participating in a counter-revolutionary Trotskyist organization. It was a well-planned propaganda story. Molotov, despite his usual conformism, opposed the trial. Then he himself almost became a victim of repression. Stalin knew how to keep his supporters in line. After this episode, Molotov never again tried to resist the unfolding wave of terror. On the contrary, he became an active participant.

By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, of the 25 who worked in the Council of People's Commissars in 1935, only Voroshilov, Mikoyan, Litvinov, Kaganovich and Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov himself remained alive. Nationality, professionalism, personal loyalty to the leader - all this has lost any meaning. Anyone could fall under the NKVD roller coaster. In 1937, the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars made an accusatory speech at one of the Plenums of the Central Committee, in which he called for a tougher fight against enemies of the people and spies.

It was Molotov who initiated the reform, after which the “troikas” received the right to judge suspects not separately, but in entire lists. This was done in order to facilitate the work of the organs. The heyday of repression came in 1937-1938, when the NKVD and the courts simply could not cope with the flow of accused. Terror unfolded not only at the top of the party. It also affected ordinary citizens of the USSR. But Stalin primarily personally supervised high-ranking “Trotskyists,” Japanese spies and other traitors to the motherland. Following the leader, his chief confidant was involved in the consideration of the cases of those who fell into disgrace. In the 1930s, Molotov was actually the second person in the state. The official celebration of his 50th anniversary in 1940 was significant. Then the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars not only received numerous state awards. In honor of him, the city of Perm was renamed Molotov.

People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs

Since Molotov found himself in the Politburo, he was involved in foreign policy as the highest Soviet official. The Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR Maxim Litvinov often disagreed on issues of relations with Western countries, etc. In 1939, a reshuffle occurred. Litvinov left his post, and Molotov became People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. Stalin appointed him just at the moment when foreign policy again became a determining factor for the life of the entire country.

What led to Litvinov's dismissal? It is believed that Molotov in this capacity was more convenient for the Secretary General, since he was a supporter of rapprochement with Germany. In addition, after Scriabin took the post of People's Commissar, a new wave of repression began in his department, which allowed Stalin to get rid of diplomats who did not support his foreign policy course.

When news of Litvinov's removal became known in Berlin, Hitler instructed his wards to find out what the new mood was in Moscow. In the spring of 1939, Stalin still had doubts, but in the summer he finally decided that it was worth trying to find a common language with the Third Reich, and not England or France. On August 23 of the same year, the German Foreign Minister flew to Moscow. Only Stalin and Molotov conducted negotiations with him. They did not inform the other members of the Politburo about their intentions, which, for example, confused Voroshilov, who at the same time oversaw relations with France and England. The result of the visit of the German delegation was the famous non-aggression pact. It is also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, although, of course, this name began to be used much later than the events described.

The main document also included additional secret protocols. According to their provisions, the Soviet Union and Germany divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. This agreement allowed Stalin to start a war against Finland and annex the Baltic states, Moldova and part of Poland. How big was Molotov’s contribution to these agreements? The non-aggression pact is named after him, but, of course, it was Stalin who made all the key decisions. His people's commissar was only an executor of the leader's will. In the next two years, until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Molotov was mainly engaged only in foreign policy.

The Great Patriotic War

Through his diplomatic channels, Molotov received information about the Third Reich's preparations for war with the Soviet Union. But he did not attach any importance to these messages, because he was afraid of disgrace from Stalin. The same intelligence messages were placed on the leader’s table, but they did not shake his belief that Hitler would not dare to attack the USSR.

Therefore, it is not surprising that on June 22, 1941, Molotov, like his boss, was deeply shocked by the news of the declaration of war. But it was he who Stalin instructed to give the famous speech, which was broadcast on the radio on the day of the Wehrmacht attack. During the war, Molotov performed mainly diplomatic functions. He was also Stalin's deputy in the State Defense Committee. The People's Commissar found himself at the front only once, when he was sent to investigate the circumstances of the crushing defeat in the Vyazemsk operation in the fall of 1941.

In disgrace

Even on the eve of the Great Patriotic War, Molotov was replaced as chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR by Stalin himself. When peace finally came, the People's Commissar remained in his position in charge of foreign policy. He participated in the first meetings of the UN, and therefore often traveled to the United States. Outwardly, everything looked fine for Molotov. However, in 1949, his wife was arrested. She was Jewish by origin and was an important person in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Just after the war, an anti-Semitic campaign began in the USSR, initiated by Stalin himself. The pearl naturally fell into her millstones. For Molotov, the arrest of his wife became a black mark.

Since 1949, he began to often replace Stalin, who began to get sick. However, already that same spring, the functionary was deprived of his post as People's Commissar. At the 19th Party Congress, Stalin did not include him in the updated Presidium of the Central Committee. The party began to look at Molotov as a doomed man. All the signs indicated that a new purge of the top leadership was coming in the country, similar to the one that had already shaken the USSR in the 1930s. Now Molotov was one of the first candidates for execution. According to Khrushchev's memoirs, Stalin once spoke out loud in front of him about his suspicions that the former People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs had been recruited by enemy Western intelligence during his diplomatic trips to the United States.

After Stalin's death

Molotov was saved only by the unexpected death of Stalin. His passing was a shock not only for the country, but also for his immediate circle. By this time, Stalin had become a deity whose death was hard to believe. There were rumors among the people that Molotov could replace the leader as head of state. His fame, as well as many years of work in senior positions, had an effect.

But Molotov once again did not claim leadership. The "collective power" again appointed him Minister of Foreign Affairs. Molotov supported Khrushchev and his entourage during the attack on Beria and Malenkov. However, the resulting union did not last long. Disputes about foreign policy constantly arose among the party leadership. The issue of relations with Yugoslavia was especially acute. In addition, Molotov and Voroshilov expressed objections to Khrushchev regarding his decisions to develop virgin lands. The time has passed when there was only one leader in the country. Khrushchev, of course, did not possess even a tenth of the power that Stalin had. The lack of hardware weight ultimately led to his resignation.

But even earlier, Molotov said goodbye to his leadership post. In 1957, he teamed up with Kaganovich and Malenkov in the so-called anti-party group. The target of the attack was Khrushchev, who was planned to be dismissed. However, the party majority managed to defeat the group vote. Revenge of the system followed. Molotov lost his post as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Last years

After 1957, Molotov held minor government positions. For example, he was the USSR ambassador to Mongolia. After criticizing the decisions of the 22nd Congress, he was expelled from the party and sent into retirement. Molotov remained active until his last days. As a private citizen, he wrote and published books and articles. In 1984, the already very old man was able to achieve reinstatement in the CPSU.

In the 1980s, the poet Felix Chuev published recordings of his conversations with the mastodon of Soviet politics. And, for example, the grandson of Vyacheslav Molotov, political scientist Vyacheslav Nikonov, became the author of detailed memoirs and studies on the biography of the Soviet functionary. The former number two in the state died in 1986 at the age of 96.

Joseph Stalin is one of the most controversial personalities in Russian history. Some talk about his contribution to the Victory and restoration of the country, and others talk about terrible repressions. Our review contains several interesting facts about Stalin and photographs of his personal belongings, which can be used to draw a portrait of the Generalissimo.

Date of Birth

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin changed his date of birth from December 18 to December 21 after the occultist Gurdjieff told him that with such a horoscope he would not become a leader.

Features in appearance

Stalin had some physical defects: two fused toes on his left leg and a face scarred by smallpox. While still a boy, Stalin was hit by a phaeton and received serious injuries to his leg and arm. Because of this, his left arm did not extend at the elbow and therefore seemed shorter than his right. Stalin was short - only 160 cm.

Resignation letter

During the first decade of his reign, Joseph Vissarionovich submitted his resignation three times.

Ascetic

In relation to himself, Stalin was a real ascetic. His wardrobe was more than modest, and he wore personal items almost to the last. When his property was described after his death, except for his boots, he only had a pair of boots and two pairs of felt boots.

Personal pistol

Stalin, leaving his dacha, always carried a loaded pistol with him. It was for this reason that his jackets were kept secret. In the jacket, in the inner left pocket, there was a special metal ring with a chain on which the weapon was attached. Upon returning home, Joseph Vissarionovich put the pistol in the sideboard drawer.

Stalin's favorite slippers

They say that Stalin never parted with his slippers; he took them with him on all his trips. In December 1945, when Joseph Vissarionovich was returning from Sochi to Moscow, they forgot to put slippers in his luggage. As soon as this became clear, the slippers were sent to Moscow by plane.

Stalin treated radiculitis with folk remedies

Periodically, Stalin was tormented by attacks of radiculitis. Then he went to the kitchen, where there was a stove with a stove bench, laid bricks on a wide board and lay down to warm up.

Stalin's collection included more than 3,000 records

By 1953, more than 3,000 records had accumulated at the state dacha in Volynsky. These were speeches delivered in different years by Lenin and Stalin himself, anthems of different states, opera, symphony, ballet, chamber and dance music. On the records that he liked, Stalin put a cross.

Stalin Library

Stalin did not collect books. He took them away. His pre-war Kremlin library contained several tens of thousands of volumes. After his death, the books from the Near Dacha were transferred to the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. More than 5.5 thousand volumes. And all with Stalinist notes in the margins.

He also experienced his share of boyhood misadventures...

Tucker R. P. 77

At the age of ten, he was hit by a car and was in a coma for 10 days. Due to poorly treated wounds, he developed blood poisoning and as a result of all this, his left arm stopped bending at the elbow. This is, in any case, how this episode looks like as presented by Stalin himself. This looks implausible, if only because the first car was assembled by Daimler only in 1885, and it is difficult to imagine that just four years later such a car could appear on the streets of a provincial Georgian town.

Neumayr A. P. 331

On the day of Epiphany, many people gathered near the bridge over the Kura River. No one noticed how the phaeton was racing down the mountain, losing control. The phaeton crashed into the crowd, ran into Coco, hit him in the cheek with its drawbar, knocked him off his feet, but, fortunately, the wheels only passed over the boy’s legs. A crowd gathered and carried Coco home in their arms. At the sight of the crippled man, the mother could not hold back her scream. The doctor announced that the internal organs were not damaged. A few weeks later he returned to classes.

S. Goglitsidze.

Quote By: Radzinsky E. P. 36

Stalin himself officially attributed the “left-sided paralysis” of his arm to an accident that happened to him in childhood.

Neumayr A. P. 446

His hand was normal, but he held it like this, some kind of operation apparently took place in childhood. He got hit by a phaeton...

V. Molotov.

Quote By: Chuev F. P. 362

Blood poisoning affected his left hand. The arm began to dry out and was slightly shorter than the right one.

Gray Ya. P. 22

It was rejected for Stalin's army in 1916.

They thought I would be an undesirable element there, he told us, and then they found fault with my hand.

Stalin's left arm did not bend well at the elbow. He damaged her as a child. The bruise on his arm caused suppuration to begin, and since there was no one to treat the boy, it turned into blood poisoning. Stalin was dying.

I don’t know what saved me then, a healthy body or the ointment of a village healer, but I recovered,” he recalled.

But the mark of the bruise on my hand remained for life...

Alliluyeva A.S. (Stalin’s wife’s sister). Memories. M., 1946. P. 29

Professor Pletnev, who repeatedly had the opportunity to personally observe this hand, considered this shortening and functional limitation to be a consequence of an infectious disease suffered in childhood, possibly polio, that is, infantile paralysis. Only after Stalin's death did his daughter Svetlana report that the reason for the shortening and dysfunction of her father's left arm was an error by the obstetrician at his birth. Vandenberg points out that there is a connection between this deficiency and the early syphilitic infection allegedly discovered in clinical studies, but such an assumption seems extremely unlikely.

Neumayr A. P. 446

Stalin crippled his hand during one of the expropriations (as the revolutionaries playfully called expropriations. - E. G.), he was clever and brave. During the seizure of money in Tiflis, he was among those who attacked the crew...

P. Pavlenko.

Quote By: Radzinsky E. P. 64

But be that as it may, Stalin’s left hand remained defective throughout his life and was four centimeters shorter than his right.

Neumayr A. P. 331

The face is covered in smallpox spots, the eyes are brown, the mustache is black, the nose is ordinary. Special features: there is a mole above the right eyebrow, the left arm does not straighten at the elbow.

From a police report

Quote By: Tucker R. P. 123

Trotsky wrote many years later that even at Politburo meetings, Stalin wore a warm glove on his left hand. This further deepened his feelings of inferiority and the need for self-affirmation.

Gray Ya. P. 22

He was an excellent swimmer, but was embarrassed to swim in Kura. He had some kind of defect on his foot, and my great-grandfather, who went to high school with him, once teased him that he was hiding the devil’s hoof in his shoe. But it cost him dearly. Coco didn't say anything then. More than a year has passed. At that time, the main strongman of the school, Tseradze, followed Coco like a dog on a leash. Great-grandfather had already forgotten everything when Tseradze brutally beat him...

K. Dzhivilegov.

Quote By: Radzinsky E. P. 36

I'm reading "The Medical History of I.V. Stalin." On one of the pages it is written: “Splicing the toes of the left foot.”

Radzinsky E. P. 36

Among his many arrests, one, in Batum in 1902, deserves special mention, because in the police archives there is a description of his signs, among which there is, in particular, the following: “Small congenital deformity of the fusion of the second and third toes on the right foot.”

Neumayr A. P. 342

The former commandant of the Bolshoi Theater, and in fact one of Stalin’s guards, A. Rybin, told me how he and Stalin went to Lake Ritsa. We set off in full confidence that everything at the dacha was ready to receive the leader. But, as usual with us, everything turned out to be wrong - there was even nowhere and nothing to sleep on. We lay down right on the shore - in sleeping bags. In the middle of the night, Stalin woke up.

Well, you snore! - he told the guards, took his sleeping bag and went to sleep alone.

He was such a simpleton, this Stalin! - I remember A. Rybin’s phrase verbatim.

Sometimes Stalin, rolling up his trousers with stripes, walked barefoot in the water. I asked A. Rybin whether Stalin had six toes on his feet, which I read about in one “democratic” publication at the height of perestroika. Rybin was even taken aback:

If it were, we would probably immediately pay attention...

Chuev F. I. Soldiers of the Empire: Conversations. Memories. Documentation. M., 1998. P. 544.