Stalin’s existence before Operation Barbarossa had been stolid by comparison, but it was not devoid of female companionship or heavy drinking. A plausible piece of gossip was that Stalin took a fancy to his deceased wife Nadya’s sister-in-law Yevgenia. She saw quite a lot of him in the months after the suicide. Another who did so was Maria Svanidze.27 This was not approved by Maria’s husband Alexander, who thought that it might lead to hanky-panky. Maria made no secret of the fact that she ‘loved Joseph and was attached to him’.28 She was good-looking and worked on stage as a singer:29 she could hardly help attracting Stalin’s attention. But it was Yevgenia who was most gossiped about. In fact Yevgenia, whose husband Pavel Alliluev died in 1938, quickly married an inventor called Nikolai Molochnikov. Although it is doubtful that she and Stalin had a sexual relationship, there remains the suspicion that Yevgenia went off with Molochnikov as a way of avoiding becoming more closely involved with Stalin. Her daughter Kira has said opaquely: ‘She got wed so as to defend herself.’30 But filial piety discouraged her from stating whether it was Stalin’s attentions that she wanted to escape. What is known is that Stalin subsequently rang her several times and that during the Second World War he asked her to accompany Svetlana and other relatives as they were evacuated from Moscow. Yevgenia refused his request on the ground that she had her own immediate family to think about.31
Rumours had other candidates as his lovers in the late 1930s; it was even said that he secretly married again. The person said to have been his wife was named as Rosa Kaganovich. This allegation was peddled by the German Nazi media. Supposedly Rosa was Lazar Kaganovich’s beautiful sister. It was a pack of lies. Lazar Kaganovich had only one sister, Rakhil, who died in the mid-1920s.32 Another suggestion was that it was Lazar Kaganovich’s daughter Maya whom Stalin took to bed. Certainly she was good-looking. But there is no credible evidence. Lazar Kaganovich was not a prude and had no reason as a pensioner to pretend that his daughter had had no relationship with Stalin if this was not true.33
What is beyond doubt is the kind of life enjoyed by Stalin among his male friends. He loved to sing with Molotov and Voroshilov accompanied by Zhdanov on the piano. Molotov came from a musical family and could play the violin and mandolin. When he had been in administrative exile in Vologda before the Great War, he had supplemented his convict’s allowance by joining a mandolin group which went round the local restaurants and cinema. Zhdanov too had a cultural hinterland and joined in the fun at the dacha, and Voroshilov had a decent voice. All had memorised church music as youngsters and, ignoring their atheistic commitment, performed the hymns they loved.34 Stalin’s voice had held up well and he could still take the baritone’s parts.35 He also sang to his daughter Svetlana and his Alliluev nephews and nieces. Kira Allilueva recalled him dandling her on his knee and giving renditions of his favourite tunes.36 Despite later being imprisoned and exiled by his police, she continued to hold her uncle in affection. His joviality in private surroundings had not vanished with his wife’s suicide.
Another form of recreation was billiards. When the Alliluevs visited, Stalin sometimes played against Nadya’s elder brother Pavel. Usually it was a convivial occasion, but not always. Pavel had grown wary of Joseph. The house rule was that losers in any match had to crawl under the table afterwards. One evening in the 1930s Pavel and Joseph lost a match to Alexander Svanidze and Stanisław Redens. Pavel anticipated dangerous resentment and ordered his sons to do the crawling on behalf of himself and Stalin. But Pavel’s daughter Kira was present. ‘This,’ she cried with childish righteousness, ‘is against the rules. They’ve lost, let them crawl under!’ A frightened Pavel strode across to her and struck her with his cue. Stalin could not be allowed to feel humiliated.37
