Stalin полностью

On April 22, 1935, after concluding meetings in the Little Corner at 7:00 p.m., Stalin went downstairs to his apartment for supper. It was the birthday of Svetlana’s governess, and the relatives had come by. Stalin was said to be in a good mood. During the toasts, Svetlana said she wanted to ride on the new Moscow metro. Her governess, Maria Svanidze, and others were to accompany her and Vasily; Kaganovich sent the party with his deputy. Suddenly Stalin said he wanted to go, too. Molotov was phoned to join. “Everybody was terribly concerned,” Svanidze wrote in her diary. “There was a lot of whispering about the danger of such an outing without proper preparation.”

A now pale Kaganovich suggested that they wait until midnight, when the metro shut down. Stalin insisted they go immediately. They drove in three cars to Moscow’s Crimea Square and descended into the station, waiting for what turned out to be twenty minutes; a train arrived already packed. Workers decoupled the car with the motor and Stalin’s group was off, to Hunters’ Row, the station closest to the Kremlin, where he inspected the station and the escalator; onlookers erupted. Stalin ended up surrounded by well-wishers. Bodyguards and police had arrived and tried to bring order. The crowd smashed an enormous metal lamp. Svanidze was nearly smothered against a column. Vasily was scared for his life. Svetlana was so frightened, she stayed in the train car. We “were intimidated by the uninhibited ecstasy of the crowd,” Svanidze wrote. “Iosif was merry.”

This was an unstaged moment catalyzed by his daughter. Stalin reboarded, traveling to the end of the line, Sokolniki, where he was supposed to get into a waiting automobile, but he decided to stay on board and return to Smolensk Square, where no vehicles were waiting (the train beat them). He and his entourage went on foot toward the Arbat as rain descended and puddles formed. A car finally arrived. Svetlana and Vasily were taken to the Kremlin apartment, where Vasily “threw himself on the bed and cried hysterically.” Stalin headed to the Near Dacha. Evidently, his obsession with possible assassination was in abeyance that evening: regular passengers had been allowed to ride in the train carriage with him from Hunters’ Row.²⁷⁵ “Iosif smiled affectionately the whole time,” Svanidze wrote in her diary. “I think that, despite all his sobriety, he was touched by the people’s love and attention to their Supreme Leader. . . . He once said about the ovations offered to him that people need a tsar, that is, someone to revere and in whose name to live and labor.”²⁷⁶

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COULD STALIN HAVE MURDERED HIS CLOSEST FRIEND? He was capable of anything.²⁷⁷ But who, precisely, would have carried out that mission for him? Medved, who was incompetent, and would himself go to his grave suspecting that Yagoda had organized the murder on Stalin’s behalf?²⁷⁸ Zaporozhets, who broke his leg, took no part in any operational matters after September 1934, and had left town on an extended holiday in the weeks leading up to the critical deed? Borisov, a near invalid who had gotten his bodyguard job only because he was of working-class origin and, for a time, had been a night watchman and was a faithful dog to Kirov? A mystery second gunman in the corridor, who eluded every single witness, as well as the lockdown imposed after the shots were heard? There is no evidence whatsoever that Stalin killed Kirov (despite the work of several commissions under Khrushchev aimed at discrediting the dictator). And there is copious evidence, recorded right before and after the assassination, that Nikolayev did it, and managed to pull it off because of his determination and shoddy NKVD security practices that were, ultimately, traceable to Kirov himself.²⁷⁹ Nikolayev had motive, and opportunity.²⁸⁰ He roiled with grievance and summoned resolve from revolutionary terrorist history and Soviet ideals of a workers’ state and social justice. He plotted out numerous attempts, all of which failed, until finally a combination of planning and luck gave him the chance to fulfill a wish to exact revenge and make history.