He had the blood of millions on his hands. Everyone feared for their lives in front of him. How did he treat his own children? Was he a tyrant or a loving daddy? He supported his descendants, or maybe ... threw logs at their feet? One thing is certain:Yakov, Vasily and Svetlana could only dream of a normal childhood.
In Stalin, the parental instinct came late. His first wife died of typhus when their son, born in 1907, was not even one year old. The future dictator, however, left little Yakov in the care of his grandparents and set off to make a revolution. For years he has not visited or taken any interest in his offspring.
After the revolution, the future leader of the Soviet Union married the young Nadia Alliluyeva. In 1921, their son Vasily was born. In the same year, the adolescent Yakov came to live with them. Soon the family grew even larger thanks to the adoption of Artiom Sergeyev, the son of a revolutionary friend who died while testing Soviet technical innovations. In 1926, the almost 50-year-old Stalin became a father for the last time - his daughter Svetlana was born.
Despite the growing number of children, the family was still not important to the Red Tsar. This is clearly shown by the exchange of views between him and Comrade Yenukiga, described in the biography of the leader by Simon Sebag Montefiore. It was Stalin who was discussing the superiority of the party over the family. When Yenukidze asked about his own children, he shouted, pointing to Nadia: These are her children!
As long as Nadia was alive, the children were only to be her problem. After the death of his wife, Stalin found himself hardly a single father. The photo shows Nadia, her husband and the Marshal of Voroshilov (public domain).
Tyrant for sons
The reluctance towards one's own offspring changed somewhat after Nadia's suicide in 1932. Stalin tried to spend more time with the children. He took them to the theater, sent them fruit. So what if he had exorbitant expectations of his sons?
Stalin had already treated his firstborn with contempt. He considered him to be a slugger and a loser, and his calmness and gentleness he saw as weakness. He even mocked… his suicide attempt . Yakov took his life when the father did not want to accept his wife, support his daughter. The bullet from the pistol only grazed his chest. The dictator ridiculed his son's inaccuracy and, as Rosemary Sullivan tells in her book "Stalin's Daughter":
He then wrote to Nadia from a dacha in Sochi:"Tell Yakov that I think he behaved like a hooligan and blackmailer. From now on, I don't want to deal with him anymore. ”
Yakov left Moscow for 8 years. During this time, he obtained an electrical engineer diploma, although Stalin preferred him to become a soldier. Despite everything, his father contacted him from time to time. For example, he sent him… his own book to read.
The younger son, Vasily, was no more lucky. He was beaten many times by Stalin. The stubborn boy was afraid of his father, whom he worshiped like a god. At the same time, he was giving this god reason to be dissatisfied by abusing his name. But I am Stalin too - tried to defend himself against the wrath of father Vasily. To which he replied:
No, you are not. You are not Stalin and I am not Stalin. Stalin is the Soviet power . Stalin is what he is in the newspapers and portraits, not you or even me.
Sparrow and mushroom
Red and freckled Svetlana was the apple of Daddy's eye. He called it "sparrow", "butterfly" or "bow tie". He did not spare caresses and kissed often. He gladly seated her next to him at the table and fed her with the tastiest morsels from his plate. When they did not spend time together, Stalin and little daughter exchanged affectionate letters. She was called Swietanka in them, he - Papoczka.
A sparrow and papoczka on a walk. The photo, taken in 1933, comes from the promotional materials of Rosemary Sullivan's book "Stalin's Daughter", published by Znak Horyzont (source:EAST NEWS / LASKI DIFFUSION).
Father and daughter even had their own unusual games. Stalin called her "his little housewife". And he was her ... "poor peasant". Stalin claimed that Svetlana was to give him orders instead of asking for anything. These were "commands" like: I order you to let me go to the movies . As Rosemary Sullivan writes:
Stalin would sometimes say, "My little Housewife, take care of the guests," and the girl would immediately come running from the kitchen. The father explained, "When he gets angry with me, he says: ≫I'm going to the kitchen, I'll complain to the cook ≪. I always begged her: Please donate! If you complain to the cook, I'm gone ≪ ”.
The girl could even give orders to members of the Central Committee! But it was clear that she couldn't do anything her father wouldn't let her do. He controlled her to such an extent that ... he made up her friend. Jolka was a better copy of Svetlana and Stalin often used her as a model for his daughter. The girl secretly hated this invisible look-alike.
All these games had strange overtones. This is how Nikita Khrushchev described Stalin's relationship with his daughter: He loved her, but [...] it was the care a cat can feel towards mice. There were also darker sides to their intimacy. When the Soviet leader threw a late night drink, he would sometimes drag his daughter out of bed and drag her hair to the table. There he made her dance and sing in front of a crowd of alcohol-stunned men.
Stalin's seemingly delightful games with his daughter had their dark side. The photo comes from the promotional materials of Rosemary Sullivan's book "Stalin's Daughter", published by Znak Horyzont (source:EAST NEWS / LASKI DIFFUSION).
Who but father?
On a daily basis, the children were under the constant care of nannies and bodyguards. They spent time with their father relatively rarely. By order of Stalin, they could not be pampered or accustomed to luxury.
Stalin had the greatest confidence in the bodyguard, Nikolai Vlasik. This crude man practically stood in for Vasily's father. The boy even introduced his girlfriends to him for approval . Svetlana was most influenced by the energetic nanny Byczkowa.
Every now and then the relatives - the victims of the purges - disappeared from the children's surroundings. Sometimes Svetlana tried to intercede with her father for the disappearing "enemies of the people". He only replied that he was not to play the lawyer. Once her request worked, but on another occasion she heard a barely veiled threat from her father: You also sometimes speak in an anti-Soviet tone!
Vasily Stalin with "both" fathers - Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Vlasik - in 1935 (public domain).
Stalin, to the blackboard!
The dictator took care of the education of younger children. Svetlana and Vasily were sent to the school for members of the establishment. But my son hated science and constantly got himself in trouble. He tried to intimidate the staff by leaving the classroom without permission.
The teacher, who complained directly to the dictator, was told by Stalin not to indulge his son ... But in the end the matter ended with a purge in the institution and the transfer of the unruly student. The seventeen-year-old boy went to an aviation school, where he was to receive a discipline lesson. Instead, he was given a drinking lesson.
During the war, Vasily became a colonel. Stalin did not want to be shot down, so he was initially assigned a ground function. However, he was removed from it, and on the orders of his father, because he demoralized the entire regiment. One of the officers was killed by the drunken games he initiated. It did not break the career of the son of a revolutionary leader:at 24 he was already a general!
Only a daughter (some) consolation
Unlike her brother, Svetlana was a diligent student. Stalin was happy to sign her diary, although he did not approve of the teenager's growing interest in literature. He liked it even less when the girl started wearing skirts above the knee. He asked if she was going to go naked.
The conflict arose when it was necessary to make a decision to study. Svetlana wanted to go to literature, but Stalin did not agree to her "joining this bohemian". He ordered her to choose a story. His daughter resented him for not allowing her to develop in her favorite field. And when she graduated at the age of 23, despite her father's reluctance, she enrolled in a second faculty in Russian literature.
Only once did she prove to a despotic parent that she was better at something than he was. As a teenager, she learned to drive, which Stalin did not. My father couldn't believe it, so she took him for a spin. So she remembered that moment after many years:
He sat down next to me, beaming with joy. His bodyguards sat in the back, pistols in hand. (...) I was so happy. It seemed incredible to me:I was able to do something that my Father could not.
Unlike Vasily, Svetlana gave her father reasons to be proud. Until ... In the photo, Stalin with the children from his second marriage. The photo, taken in 1935, comes from the promotional materials of Rosemary Sullivan's book "Stalin's Daughter", published by Znak Horyzont.
How to become Stalin's son-in-law?
The real father-daughter problems arose when Svetlana began bringing home candidates for her son-in-law. Stalin sentenced her first beloved, screenwriter Alexei Kapler, more than twice her senior, to the Gulag for many years . He accused the lover to his then seventeen-year-old daughter that he was a British spy. When Svetlana convinced him of her love for the artist, he punched her in the face for the first time in his life. And he shouted: look at you. Who would want you? He has a lot of women, stupid!
Another chosen one of his daughter, a Jew, Grigory Morozov, was not accepted by Stalin either. He claimed that the Zionists had set him up. Nevertheless, he finally agreed to the wedding. As we read in the book "Stalin's Daughter": The conversation with his daughter ended angrily:"Chort with you, do what you want."
To Stalin's delight, the marriage soon broke up. After the divorce, he started looking for another son-in-law. He chose Yuri Zhdanov, the son of his party favorite, the author of the famous "Zhdanovshchyna". There was something callous about connecting a daughter who was in love with literature with the son of a man who ruthlessly suppressed Soviet culture ... Svetlana succumbed to her father's persuasion for peace, but this marriage lasted even shorter than the first.
By her father's will, Svetlana married Andrei Zhdanov's son. This marriage was a complete failure. In the photo, Stalin and the creator of the Żdanov Region at the funeral of Kirov in 1934 (public domain).
Death of a son
Yakov, probably trying to return to his fatherly favor, enrolled in a military academy in 1935. He trained as an artilleryman. There is little evidence that the Soviet leader occasionally devoted some time to his firstborn. Speaking at an academy graduate party (in which Yakov also attended), he joked with notes such as "a friend who studied there".
On June 23, 1941, the day after the German invasion, Stalin sent all his sons to the front. Yakov was soon taken prisoner by the Germans. After the Battle of Stalingrad, the Germans tried to use it as a bargaining chip. Apparently they offered to exchange for field marshal Friedrich Paulus. Stalin flatly refused, claiming that each soldier was like a son to him.
In mid-April 1943, Yakov was already dead. He was shot or finally committed suicide. Though his death tormented his father, only now did he seem truly proud of his son. He said he was a real man who preferred death to betrayal of his homeland. The oldest descendant of Stalin had to die for his father to appreciate him ...
It was not until the death of 36-year-old Jakow in captivity that his father appreciated him. The photo was taken just before the German invasion (public domain).
Life after (father's) death
When Stalin died, the lives of his children did not change for the better. Vasily's drunkenness led to his death at the age of only 40. Even before he became an orphan, he confided in his foster brother:
I only have two outputs. A gun or a drink! If I use the gun, I'll put my father in a lot of trouble. But when he dies, Khrushchev, Beria and Bulganin will tear me to shreds. Do you know what it means to live with an ax over your head?
Svetlana was the only member of the family to take part in the vigil in front of the dying Stalin. But four years after her father's death, she changed her surname to Alliluyev - her mother's maiden name. She claimed that the wording of the name Stalin hurt her. And finally, in 1967, she ran away from her father's shadow to… the USA!