Category Archives: Soviet Union / Russia

Hospital ship torpedoed by the Nazis – the Sinking of the Armenia

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Seventy years ago in 1941, the Soviet hospital ship, the Armenia, was torpedoed and sunk by the Nazis. It was one of the worse maritime disasters in history. All but eight of the 7,000 passengers perished on a ship designed for not more than a thousand. A comparatively modest 1,514 died on the Titanic (1912) and 1,198 on the Lusitania (1915) yet the sinking of the Armenia on 7 November 1941 is all but lost to history.

Sunk in the Black Sea, the exact location of the wreck is still a mystery and for years, the question remained – was a hospital ship, identified by the Red Cross, a legitimate target?

A stricken city

Designed for 980 passengers and crew, over seven times that number had surged onto the ship in the Crimean port of Yalta that fateful night of 7 November 1941. The reason was blind panic. The Nazi war machine, which had invaded the Soviet Union less than five months before, had overrun the Crimean peninsula and was bearing down on Yalta. People expected the city to fall within a matter of hours. The only possible means of escape for its stricken population was by sea – the roads outside the city having been sealed off by the Germans.

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The Man Who Tried to Bury Stalin

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Fifty years ago today, 31 October 1961, a small but symbolic event took place in Moscow. The embalmed body of former Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, was re-interred behind the Kremlin Wall. It was a symptomatic relegation for the man once known as the Great Leader who, for the eight years since his death, had lain on public display alongside Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Soviet state. The man who ordered that Stalin be reburied under several layers of concrete, was his successor and former protégé, Nikita Khrushchev.

But no amount of concrete can keep down the ghost of Joseph Stalin.

There is no excuse for repression

Fifty years on, few speak of Khrushchev. But Stalin’s shadow still looms large over Russian society. A poll run in April this year, by the VTsIOM (All-Russia Centre for the Study of Public Opinion), found much support for Stalin, the man who ‘received the country with a wooden plough, and left it with a nuclear missile shield’.
In 2009, a new plaque was unveiled at a Moscow metro station that included a line from the former Soviet national anthem: ‘Stalin brought us up to be loyal to people, inspired us to labour and feats’. Imagine today seeing a quote from Hitler in the Berlin underground?

It gets worse – in July 2011, a new statue of Stalin was unveiled in the Russian town of Penza, 390 miles southeast of Moscow. Sixty years ago, Khrushchev went to great pains to have two Stalin statues removed from the same town.

Putin and Medvedev – who won the war?

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The Leningrad Symphony

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On 17 September 1941, Dmitry Shostakovich (pictured) made a radio announcement in which he said, ‘An hour ago, I completed the score of two movements of my new, large symphonic work.’ This new work was his Seventh Symphony, later to be called the ‘Leningrad’.

The siege of Leningrad had just started; it was to last 872 days, or twenty-nine months. Hitler had declared his intention to ‘wipe the city of Petersburg from the face of the earth’. Over a million civilians and soldiers would die – the number of deaths in Leningrad exceeds those who died from the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, and constitutes the largest death toll ever recorded in a single city.

‘Now I am ready to take up arms’

The city authorities had tried to make Shostakovich leave but, loyal to the city, he stayed, working on his composition and volunteering for the People’s Army, stating, ‘Until now I have known only peaceful work. But now I am ready to take up arms.’ But his good intentions were dashed by the military – rejected because of his poor eyesight. But he was allowed instead to take his turn on fire warden duty. The American magazine, Time featured the composer on its cover, wearing a golden helmet and holding a fireman’s nozzle, with the caption, ‘Fireman Shostakovich’. Eventually, he was ordered to leave. On 1 October, with his wife and children and the manuscript of his score stuffed in his suitcase, he bid farewell to the city of his birth. While he was gone, his dog was eaten.

Evacuated to the town of Kuibyshev (modern-day Samara), 900 miles south-east of Leningrad, Shostakovich worked feverishly on the symphony while producing short works to entertain the troops on the frontline, tunes with catchy titles, such as The Fearless Guards Regiment is on the Move. By the end of the year, the symphony was done. Dedicated to ‘…our struggle against fascism, to our coming victory and to my native city of Leningrad’, it received its world première, broadcast to the nation, in Kuibyshev on 5 March 1942, followed by a performance in Moscow three weeks later.

A microfilm of the score was smuggled out of the Soviet Union and flown to Teheran and from there to Europe, where conductors fought for the privilege of conducting the work. It was performed first in London, conducted by Sir Henry Wood, then in New York on 19 July, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. The symphony was an immediate hit and Shostakovich’s face appeared in newspapers and magazines all over the world.

The Symphony Comes to Leningrad

Then came the decision to play the Seventh Symphony in Leningrad itself. It would be, according to Andrey Zhdanov, Stalin’s man in Leningrad, good for the city’s morale. A Soviet plane, dodging the German guns, delivered the score to Zhdanov. The city’s principle orchestra, the Philharmonic, had already been evacuated out of the city but the reserve orchestra, the Leningrad Radio Orchestra, was still available. Its conductor, 42-year-old Karl Eliasberg, was charged with reassembling his musicians. But of its 100 members, only 14 remained. The others had all died or been killed. Replacements had to be found. The call went out urging soldiers who could play an instrument to report for duty.

The score, complex and mammoth, was 75 minutes long and involved a 90-piece orchestra. Given the weakness of the musicians who had gathered for the first rehearsal in March 1942, Eliasberg knew the difficulty of the task that lay ahead. ‘Dear friends,’ he began, ‘we are weak but we must force ourselves to start work.’

And it was hard work – despite extra rations, many, especially the brass players, passed out with the effort of playing their instruments. Eliasberg was tough on his players – those who played badly or, worse, failed to turn up for the three-hour long rehearsals, were docked a bread ration. Through discipline and coaxing, Eliasberg got his skeletal orchestra to perform Shostakovich’s huge work. But only once during rehearsals did the orchestra have enough strength to play the whole work throughout – three days before the big day.

The date for the performance was fixed – 9 August 1942, the date set by the Nazis for a huge party in Leningrad’s Astoria hotel to celebrate their anticipated capture of the city. The invitations had already been printed. They were never sent out.

The Leningrad Première

The Philharmonic Hall was packed – people came in their finest clothes; city leaders and generals took their places. The musicians, despite the warm August temperature, wore coats and mittens – when the body is starving, it is continually cold. Outside, throughout the city, people gathered to listen at loudspeakers. Hours earlier, Leonid Govorov, Leningrad’s military commander since April 1942, ordered a barrage of artillery onto the German lines to ensure their silence for long enough time for the work to be performed without interruption. Loudspeakers, on full volume, pointed in the direction of the Germans – the city wanted the enemy to hear.

‘This performance,’ announced Eliasberg in a pre-recorded introduction, ‘is witness to our spirit, our courage and readiness to fight. Listen, Comrades!’ And the city listened, as did the Germans nearby. They listened as the city of Leningrad reasserted its moral self.

At the end – silence. Then came the applause, a thunderous applause that lasted over an hour. People cheered and cried. They knew they had witnessed a momentous occasion. It was, as Eliasberg described later, the moment ‘we triumphed over the soulless Nazi war machine.’ Later, Eliasberg and his orchestra were invited to a reception hosted by Zhdanov where, laid out before them, was a huge banquet. They gorged themselves, only to be sick soon afterwards.

Years after the war, Eliasberg met some Germans who had been sitting encamped in their trenches outside the city. On hearing the music, they told the conductor, they had burst into tears, ‘Who are we bombing?’ they asked themselves, ‘We will never be able to take Leningrad because the people here are selfless.’

Rupert Colley
Read more about the siege in The Siege of Leningrad In An Hour, published by Harper Press.

Stalin’s Breakdown

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During his thirty years as ruler of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin succeeded in stifling all opposition. There was never a serious threat to his leadership. But there was one occasion, at the end of June 1941, when Stalin suffered what may have been a mental breakdown. When, after three days, his colleagues came for him, he fully expected to be arrested.

But they hadn’t come to arrest him, they’d come to plead with him, begging him to return and take control. Stalin had survived and was to remain in power until his death twelve years later. But what had brought about Stalin’s temporary collapse, and why did his Politburo colleagues fail to bring to an end his murderous rule?

We doubt the veracity of your information

On August 23, 1939, the Nazis and Soviets had signed a non-aggression pact. But both sides knew it was never meant to be more than a postponement of hostilities.

In September 1940, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler’s Foreign Minister, invited the Soviet Union to join the Tripartite Pact, an alliance of initially three Axis powers (Germany, Italy and Japan) that was drawing more nations to its mast, including Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. In response, Stalin sent his foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, to Berlin for talks. The talks failed dismally (Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister for Propaganda, described Molotov and his companions as ‘Bolshevik subhumans’). Molotov returned empty-handed to Moscow whilst Hitler announced plans for the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Over the next few months, Stalin permitted limited fortification of his western border but otherwise was determined not to do anything that might provoke the Germans. Stalin’s spies had forewarned him time and again of the expected attack but he refused to believe it. A German Communist spy, Richard Sorge, based in Tokyo, microfilmed detailed reports on the impending invasion, including troop numbers and even the date – June 22nd. His efforts were dismissed with the curt “We doubt the veracity of your information.”

Stalin even refused to listen to Winston Churchill, who warned him of an imminent attack, dismissing the British prime minister’s advice as provocative. When, on the eve of invasion, a German deserter crossed the border into the Soviet Union and informed the Red Army of the attack, Stalin ordered him shot for spreading misinformation.  Stalin even allowed the continuation of Russian food and metal exports to the Germans, as agreed in the Pact, and forbade the evacuation of people living near the German border and the setting up of defences.

War

At 3 a.m. on June 22, 1941, Stalin went to bed. An hour later, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union.

Stalin’s determination not to prepare for war came at a heavy cost. Within the first day, one quarter of Russia’s air strength had been destroyed – rows of planes sat on the airfields without camouflaged providing the Luftwaffe, the German air force, an easy target. His soldiers were unprepared, often in the wrong place and lacking ammunition. Stalin’s generals believed that Hitler’s main thrust would aim towards Moscow via Minsk and Smolensk. Stalin, thinking he knew best, believed Hitler’s main thrust would be southwards towards the rich resources of the Ukraine, so, accordingly, the bulk of the Red Army was moved south. The generals were proved right but no one dared remind Stalin.

Stalin went into overdrive despite looking, as Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin’s successor, later described him, “a bag of bones in a grey tunic.” Everything went through Stalin – from what journalist wrote what for the Soviet newspaper Pravda, down to the length of bayonet to be manufactured.

On June 28th, news came through that the Germans had taken Minsk, 300 miles into Soviet territory. The road to Smolensk and ultimately to Moscow lay open. Stalin, furious and by now exhausted after days without sleep, paid a visit to his top generals, including Georgy Zhukov. Stalin’s anger reduced Zhukov, a hard-nosed, bull-necked, merciless commander, to tears. Molotov offered Zhukov his handkerchief.

We’ve fucked it up

The very survival of the Soviet Union was at stake and Stalin was at a loss. “Lenin founded our state,” he said despondently as he left, “and we’ve fucked it up.” And with that, he retired to his dacha.

And there he stayed for three days – refusing to answer the telephone, refusing to see anyone. He may well have suffered a form of collapse. He had made some disastrous decisions in the years leading up to the war and now they were coming back to bite him.

During the late 1930s, in an act of paranoia and jealously, he purged his military, getting rid of his ablest field marshals and generals and decimating the officer corp. 40,000 Red Army personnel, deemed politically out of step, were purged. Amongst the victims were men who advocated a reform of the Soviet Union’s military methods, calls that Stalin, on the whole, ignored. Stalin now found himself bereft of his finest military thinkers. Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs, “There is no question that we would have repelled the fascist invasion much more easily if the upper echelons of the Red Army command hadn’t been wiped out. They had been men of considerable expertise and experience.”

But Stalin’s motive for disappearing for three days may have been more sinister. Ivan IV, the sixteenth century Russian tsar, more commonly remembered as Ivan the Terrible, had once faked a disappearance to see how his men reacted, and which ones remained loyal. Stalin, who knew well the history of Ivan the Terrible, may have been employing the same trick.

None more worthy

Either way, after three days, a small delegation came knocking at his door. Headed by Molotov (pictured to Stalin’s right), Lavrentii Beria (Stalin’s Chief of Secret Police), Kliment Voroshilov (Defence, to Stalin’s left) and Anastas Mikoyan (Foreign Trade), they found Stalin sitting at his desk. He had on his face a look of fear. Mikoyan later wrote, “I have no doubt – he decided we had come to arrest him.” Stalin was looking thinner, haggard and hadn’t changed his clothes.

“Why have you come?” he asked.

Molotov stepped forward, “We’re asking you to return to work.”

Stalin dithered, “But can I live up to people’s expectations? Can I lead the nation to a final victory? There may be more deserving candidates.”

“There’s none more worthy,” said Voroshilov.

Molotov told Stalin of their idea to form a State Defence Committee, to which Stalin asked, “Yes, but with whom at its head?”

”You, Comrade Stalin,” came the answer, “You.”

The Politburo were nothing without their leader, and at this time of national crisis only Stalin had the force to lead them out of danger, only Stalin had the strength to unite the vast empire. And thus, Stalin survived.

“We were witness to his moment of weakness,” recalled Beria later, “and for that he’ll never forgive us.”

On July 3rd Stalin delivered his first speech to the nation since the invasion eleven days previously. His usual political rhetoric, whilst still there, was played down, instead he spoke in patriotic terms, pulling together his people to defeat the beast that was now in their midst: “Comrades, citizens, brothers and sisters, men of our Army and Navy! My words are addressed to you, dear friends!” he began. “The Red Army, Red Navy and all citizens of the Soviet Union must defend every inch of Soviet soil, must fight to the last drop of blood for our towns and villages, must display the daring, initiative and mental alertness that are inherent in our people.”

Stalin was back.

Rupert Colley
Read more about the war in World Two In An Hour

Operation Barbarossa – a summary.

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On 22 June 1941, Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union. What followed was a war of annihilation, a horrific clash of totalitarianism, and the most destructive war in history.

Hitler’s intention was always to invade the Soviet Union. It was, along with the destruction of the Jews, fundamental to his core objectives – living-space in the east and the subjugation of the Slavic race. This was meant to be a war of obliteration – and despite the vastness of Russian territory and manpower, Hitler anticipated a quick victory (his generals had predicted ten weeks). So confident the Nazi hierarchy, that they provided their troops with summer uniforms but made no provision for the fierce Russian winter that lay ahead.

Unprecedented, unmerciful, unrelenting

“You have only to kick in the door,” said Hitler confidently, “and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.” Two tons of Iron Crosses were waiting in Germany for those involved with the capture of Moscow. This was always going to be the most brutal war, one which could not be “conducted with chivalry,” as Hitler told his generals, but “conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful, unrelenting harshness.”

Two years earlier, on August 23, 1939, the Nazis and Soviets had signed a non-aggression pact. But both sides knew it was never more than a postponement of hostilities. For the Soviets, it gave them time to build up their defences (in the event little was achieved); and for Hitler the pact gave him time to concentrate on the West (the defeat of France, Britain and elsewhere) before turning his attention eastwards.

May God Bless Our Weapons

Now, in June 1941, with his Western objectives achieved (with the exception of Britain), the time had come.

On the eve of attack, Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister for Propaganda, wrote in his diary, “One can hear the breath of history… May God bless our weapons!”

Stalin’s spies had forewarned him time and again of the expected attack but he refused to believe it. He strenuously forbade anything that might appear provocative to the Germans, even insisting on the continuation of Russian food and metal exports to the Germans, as agreed in the Pact. He prohibited the evacuation of people living near the German border and forbade the setting up of defences. So when, at 4 a.m. on June 22, 1941, Operation Barbarossa was launched, progress was rapid. (Barbarossa was the nickname given to Frederick I, 1122-1190, king of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor).

June 22 was not the most auspicious date on which to launch an attack on the Soviet Union. It was on June 22, exactly 129 years before, that Napoleon started his ill-fated invasion of Russia.

Operation Barbarossa was the largest attack ever staged – over three million Axis troops along a 900-mile front from Finland in the north to the Black Sea in the south. The Germans employed their Blitzkrieg, or lightning attacks, that had proved so successful against Poland and France. Their tanks were advancing 50 miles a day and, within the first day, one quarter of the Soviet Union’s air strength had been destroyed – the Russians had left rows of uncamouflaged planes sat on their airfields, providing easy targets for the Luftwaffe.

By the end of October, Moscow was only 65 miles away; over 500,000 square miles of Soviet territory had been captured and, as well as huge numbers of Soviet troops and civilians killed, 3 million Red Army soldiers had been taken prisoner of war, where, unlike in the West, the rules of captivity held no meaning for the Germans. (Of the five million Soviet PoWs taken during the course of the war, 3½ million were to die of malnutrition, disease and brutality. Those who survived returned home to the Soviet Union to be immediately branded as traitors and, in many instances, sent to the gulag.).

Stalin, once his generals had persuaded him that his country was under attack, controlled the Soviet response. His first acts were to order the execution of those who retreated and to send Vyacheslav Molotov, his foreign minister, to formally announce the war to his people. Molotov’s radio broadcast, relayed across cities by loudspeaker, announced this “act of treachery unprecedented in the history of civilised nations.”

The Great Patriotic War

Stalin attempted to control every aspect of operations but only for the first week before suddenly giving up. “Lenin founded our state,” he declared, exhausted, “and we’ve fucked it up.” This “bag of bones in a grey tunic”, as Nikita Khrushchev later described him, disappeared to his dacha where, many believe, he suffered a mental breakdown. Nothing could be done without him, nothing issued in the way of direction.

When, after three days, his Politburo came for him, Stalin feared he was about to be arrested. Instead, they came to ask him what to do. Once stirred, Stalin re-emerged. On July 3, in his first public address since the invasion, perhaps the most important speech of his life, Stalin spoke of “The Great Patriotic War”.

By the end of June, Finland, Hungary and Albania had all declared war on the USSR. For Finland it was a ‘holy war’, an opportunity to avenge their defeat the previous year.

The sides had been drawn, the invasion launched. What followed was the most ferocious war ever known which was to last three years and claim the lives of over five million Axis troops, nine million Soviet troops, and up to 20 million civilian deaths.

Rupert Colley.
Read more in World War Two In An Hour

Yuri Gagarin – the first man into space

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On 12 April 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to venture into space.

Less than four years before, on 5 October 1957, the Soviets had launched the first satellite, or Sputnik, into space, followed a month later, on 3 November, almost the fortieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, with a second, this time with a cosmonaut of sorts on board – Laika, a dog. Animal lovers throughout the world protested but Laika proved the first of many canines launched into space by the Soviets.

‘Flopnik’

The Americans were shocked by how far the Soviets had raced ahead, and more so when their own launch, on 6 December 1957, resulted in a humiliating failure when their rocket exploded on take-off. ‘Flopnik,’ teased the press. America felt it was fast becoming a ‘second-rate power’ in the Cold War behind the Soviet Union. In response, the US formed NASA and did finally succeed in launching its own rocket in January 1958.

But the ultimate humiliation came on 12 April 1961, when the Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin (pictured), became the first person in space in a round-the-world flight lasting 108 minutes. Originally, the flight was intended to take place on the 13th, but Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, feeling superstitious, brought it forward a day.

Gagarin was the successful candidate from a list of 20 possible names. The fact that he came from humble origins certainly helped. Also, on a more practical level, his height, or lack of it, (5 ft, 2 inches / 1.57 metres) was considered a benefit within the claustophobic confines of the capsule.

The Motherland Hears

Although Gagarin was later to claim, “I was never nervous during the space flight – there were no grounds for it”, not all the canine cosmonauts returned alive, and it was certainly a very high-risk project.

Gagarin’s fully-automated rocket was launched from Kazakhstan soon after nine on the morning of 12 April. Although fully controlled from the ground, Gagarin had been given a sealed envelope containing the necessary codes in order to take control of his rocket – should the need have arisen. But for most of the 108 minutes, all was under control and Gagarin was able to report back, “The Earth is blue… how wonderful. It is amazing” and whistle a tune by Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovich, “The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows”.

Towards the end of the flight, however, the temperature within the capsule soared and Gagarin almost lost consciousness. But on time, Gagarin was able to eject and parachute down came to Earth, landing safely in the Volga River. Khrushchev repeatedly asked, “Is he alive? Is he alive?” When told that his cosmonaut had landed safely, the celebrations began.

With dashing good looks and a radiant smile, 27-year-old Gagarin returned to Earth a hero. Khrushchev was delighted. He had long pumped money into the Soviet space programme, as had the Americans in theirs. Supremacy in space, so the superpowers believed, equated to control of the Earth.

Khrushchev and Gagarin toured around Moscow in an open-top car. Gagarin became feted wherever he went (see the brief video clip below) and was made Hero of the Soviet Union.

Gagarin – the National Treasure

Afterwards, Gagarin was prohibited from going into space again – he had become too much of a national treasure. So he began training as a fighter pilot.

It was during a training flight, on 27 March 1968, that Gagarin’s MiG-15 plane crashed and 34-year-old Gagarin, together with his co-pilot, died. He was buried within the Kremlin walls.

Inquests were held and conspiracies abounded but no one could be sure of the exact circumstances that caused Gagarin’s death. But aviation specialists from Russia have recently, after almost a decade of investigations, concluded that an open air vent within Gagarin’s plane caused him to panic and crash.

Ultimately, it was a sad and premature end to a glorious life for the hero with the beguiling smile.

Rupert Colley.
For more about the space race, read Cold War: History In An Hour
For an excellent picture book on Yuri Gagarin, read Yuri Gagarin – The First Spaceman

Death of Stalin

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Joseph Stalin died 5 March 1953, aged 73, a victim of his own power. So frightened were his staff, that having suffered a stroke he was left to fester for hours before anyone plucked up the courage to check on him.

“I don’t even trust myself.”

In his latter years Stalin’s health had deteriorated and towards the end of 1952 he suffered several blackouts and losses of memory. His sense of paranoia had reached absurd proportions. “I’m finished”, he said in his final days, “I don’t even trust myself.”

Stalin was almost nocturnal, often going to bed in the early hours, obliging his Politburo colleagues to do likewise, and rising around noon. But on 1 March 1953, there was no sign of life all day at the great man’s dacha. His personal staff although increasingly concerned were too fearful to check up on him. Finally, at 11 p.m. they did.

They found Stalin lying on the floor, unconscious and his pyjama bottoms soaked in urine. They rang Lavrentii Beria, Stalin’s Chief of Police, who arrived and bellowed at the staff, “Can’t you see Comrade Stalin is deeply asleep. Get out of here and don’t wake him up.”

But Stalin had suffered a severe stroke. Finally, next morning, on Beria’s orders, a team of doctors arrived, but by then Stalin had been left unattended for twelve hours since the stroke.

“Extremely serious.”

Stalin had become distrusting of doctors and had had most of his personal physicians arrested. So the doctors now on the scene examined their patient in extreme nervousness. They asked Beria’s permission before proceeding with each part of the examination, even asking authorization to unbutton Stalin’s shirt. They wrote a detailed report, summarising, “The patient’s condition is extremely serious.”

Cold compresses were applied, leeches placed behind the ears, various injections made, and medical staff placed on constant watch. Stalin’s colleagues also stayed: Beria, Khrushchev, Molotov and others, pacing the anterooms worried whether their boss would ever wake up and probably more worried that he should wake up and their actions would have to be accounted for.

Stalin’s son, Vasili, appeared briefly, screaming at Beria and the others, “You bastards, you’re killing my father.”

By 5 March, Stalin’s condition had worsened. His breathing had become erratic, his pulse and heartbeat weak, his complexion extremely pale.

The last moments

Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, described in almost religious terms, the last moments: “He suddenly opened his eyes and looked at everyone in the room. It was a terrible gaze, mad or maybe furious and full of fear of death… Then something incomprehensible and frightening happened. … He suddenly lifted his left hand as though he were pointing to something above and bringing down a curse on us all. … The next moment, after a final effort, the spirit wrenched itself free of the flesh.”

Despite injections of adrenalin and the application of artificial respiration, at 21.50 Stalin was declared dead.

Everyone present knelt down and kissed the old man’s hand.

The beaming Chief of Secret Police

Beria could not hide his glee and, having made sure the old man was really dead, spat on the body and bounced out of the dacha “beaming”, according to Khrushchev. Stalin had not named or recommended a successor and Beria felt this was his moment. The fight to succeed Stalin had begun.

Rupert Colley
Read about the Cold War, see The Cold War In An Hour

Mikhail Gorbachev

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Born 2 March 1931, Mikhail Gorbachev was the last leader of the Soviet Union. Rupert Colley offers a summary of Gorbachev’s role in ending the Cold War.

The Youngest First Secretary

Gorbachev was an up and coming star in the Communist Party and, following the death of Leonid Brezhnev in 1982, became a protégé of the new Party leader, Yuri Andropov. But on Andropov’s death in February 1984, the post of First Secretary fell, not to Gorbachev, but to the ageing Konstantin Chernenko. However, Gorbachev spread his influence further so when Chernenko died after only thirteen months as leader, the post finally fell to him. Aged 54, Gorbachev was the youngest First Secretary in Soviet history, and the first to be born after the Russian Revolution of 1917.

His youth and progressive ideas alarmed the Communist hardliners, whose fears were confirmed when Gorbachev ushered in a reformist programme, and introduced into the political lexicon the wordsperestroika (reconstruction) and glasnost (openness). The Soviet’s system inept handling of the Chernobyl crisis highlighted the need for reform.

“I like Mr Gorbachev”

The international community welcomed the appointment of a man who seemed open and not ruled by cloak and dagger diplomacy and mistrust. Margaret Thatcher said of him, “I like Mr Gorbachev, we can do business together.”

Immediately on coming to power Gorbachev was proposing a reduction in the number of nuclear arms held between the superpowers. In November 1985 Gorbachev met US president, Ronald Reagan, for the first time. Reagan, who had referred to the Soviet Union as the “evil empire”, was also impressed by the new man in the Kremlin.

In January 1986 Gorbachev made what is known as his ‘January Proposal’ by proposing a radical strategy for removing all nuclear weapons by 2000. Another meeting with Reagan in October 1986 brought this deadline forward to 1996.

Through their several meetings Reagan and Gorbachev helped ease international tension. Despite their ideological and cultural differences, the two men build a rapport that was to have a real and lasting effect on the ending of the Cold War.

“We can’t go on living like this”

“We can’t go on living like this,” was Gorbachev’s considered summary of life in 1980s Soviet Union. The economy lagged behind that of the West, the people lived in poverty and without hope. The cost of being a superpower was crippling – the commitment to conventional and nuclear arms, the funding of communist regimes elsewhere in the world, and the costly and unpopular war in Afghanistan were all taking its toll on the economy and the everyday lives of the Soviet citizen.

Initially, Gorbachev increased spending on Afghanistan, hoping that a deeper commitment would bring about a decisive outcome and shorten the war. Although Soviet troops did benefit in the short term by penetrating deeper into the Mujahedeen heartlands, they were unable to sustain the initiative and would subsequently lose the ground they fought so hard to win.

Referring to Afghanistan as a “bleeding wound”, Gorbachev admitted defeat and in 1988 announced the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from a conflict that had become their ‘Vietnam’. A year later, in February 1989, the last Soviet soldier left Afghanistan.

At home Gorbachev toured the country, met its workers and, as no Soviet leader had done before, listened.

An “instrument of foreign policy”

On the eve of 1989 Gorbachev delivered a speech to the UN that acted as the starting pistol for the tumultuous change in Eastern Europe. He talked of nations having the right to a freedom of choice: “the threat of force cannot be and should not be an instrument of foreign policy.” As a backup to his words, he promised the withdrawal of troops from the Soviet satellites.

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the break-up of the Eastern Bloc, the Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia (unwilling and resentful Soviet satellites since Stalin’s annexation at the start of the Second World War) all declared themselves independent. But Gorbachev, not wanting to see the break-up of the union, resisted.

In Russia demonstrations in Moscow called for the end of one-party rule. In June 1990 Boris Yeltsin, recently elected Mayor of Moscow, was also elected president of the Russian Federation, stating that Russian legality took precedence over the Soviet Union’s. Yeltsin was determined to finish off the Communist Party, and with it the Soviet Union.

On August 19, 1991, the remaining communist hardliners within the Kremlin decided that Gorbachev was no longer the man to lead the Communist Party. Gorbachev, on holiday on the Black Sea, was declared too ill to perform his duties and placed under house arrest. The hardliners imposed emergency rule but lacked the support to succeed in their coup.

On December 8, 1991, Yeltsin, on behalf of Russia and with other former Soviet republics, formed the Commonwealth of Independent States, the CIS. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had ceased to exist. On Christmas Day the hammer and sickle flag of the Soviet Union was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time as Gorbachev delivered his farewell speech: “The threat of a world war is no more.”

Rupert Colley
Read more about the Cold War in The Cold War In An Hour and The Afghan Wars In An Hour 

The Death of Beria

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On 23 December 1953, Lavrenti Beria was executed. Born in Georgia on 28 March 1899, Beria had risen to prominence during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and, during the 1920s, became a firm favourite of fellow-Georgian, Josef Stalin. In 1938 Beria was appointed head of the dreaded secret police, the NKVD.

‘Perfidy and cunning’

A brutish, inhumane man, he declared in 1937 that enemies ‘of the party of Lenin and Stalin will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed’. He was true to his word and played a major role in Stalin’s Great Purges of the 1930s, sending countless numbers to the gulags or to be executed.

Yugoslavian writer, Milovan Djilas, described Beria’s physical appearance as ‘plump, greenish, and pale, with soft damp hands… with [a] square-cut mouth and bulging eyes behind his pince-nez.’ Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin’s daughter, described him as ‘more treacherous, more practiced in perfidy and cunning, more insolent and single-minded’ than even her own father.

Uncle-figure

A lover of Rachmaninov’s music and a cuddly uncle-figure to Svetlana Alliluyeva, pictured, Beria had his bodyguards abduct young girls off the streets for Beria’s devious sexual pleasure.

Beria had risen through the ranks as first secretary of the Georgian communist party, forcing through collectivisation and quashing nationalistic tendencies. His first task as head of the NKVD, was to purge his predecessor, Nikolai Ezhov, and wind down the Great Terror that had reached a climax in 1937. The worst may have been over but the arrests continued and Beria, according to contemporary accounts, was not shy in getting his hands dirty while interrogating suspects; relishing in the torture and beatings meted out to the unfortunates brought before him.

Appointed deputy prime minister in 1941, Beria’s role mobilised mass slave labour to produce the urgently needed raw materials for the Soviet Union’s war effort.

Beria became Stalin’s most trusted and loyal aide, heaping praise on the ageing dictator, and acting with increasingly ruthlessness to win the praise of his boss. But only as a means of advancing and protecting his own position. As Stalin lay dying in his dacha, in March 1953, Beria appeared distraught, although he fooled no one. As soon as Stalin was declared dead, Beria spat on the old man’s body and left the dacha ‘beaming’.

‘None of us can feel safe’

With Beria now favourite to succeed, other members of the Politburo feared for their safety: ‘As long as that bastard’s alive, none of us can feel safe,’ said one. Beria implemented an amnesty, releasing many from the gulags, but many saw this as mere attempt to impose his claim on succeeding Stalin.

But it wasn’t enough – on 26 June Beria was arrested on trumphed-up charges, such as spying for the British. Nikita Khrushchev (who was to replace Stalin) described Beria’s reaction when arrested: ‘He dropped a load in his pants!’

From his cell, Beria wrote several groveling letters to his Politburo colleagues pleading his innocence and his devotion to the party and the communist cause. Exasperated by the flow of letters, Khrushchev ordered the removal of Beria’s pen and paper.

In December 1953 Beria was tried. The whole case was a mockery but no more than Beria had subjected so many of his victims to. He was, unsurprisingly, found guilty and sentenced to be shot. Beria fell on all fours and begged for mercy. He was taken down and promptly shot. He died as so many of his victims had.

Rupert Colley

The Birth of Stalin

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On 21 December 1879, in Georgia, was born one of the greatest tyrants, Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, better known to history by his adopted name – Stalin, ‘man of steel’. Training to be a priest, Stalin was expelled from his seminary in 1899 and from there followed the revolutionary path of a Marxist.

Stalin is too rude

Following the October Revolution in 1917 and the formation of the Soviet Union, Lenin delegated numerous tasks to his eager protégé culminating in 1922 with Stalin’s appointment as General Secretary of the Communist Party.

But Lenin began to regret his decision and Stalin’s fast-track rise through the party hierarchy believing Stalin to lack the necessary tact and skill for such a post. In January 1923 Lenin penned a secret memorandum suggesting Stalin’s removal from power: ‘I am not sure whether (Stalin) will always be capable of using (his) authority with sufficient caution… Stalin is too rude and this defect… becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead’.

The other man Lenin had in mind was Stalin’s great rival Lev Trotsky. Together with Trotsky, Lenin was planning to use the party congress in April 1923 as his opportunity to have Stalin removed. But in March Lenin suffered a stroke, his third, which confined him to home and effectively ended his political career.

In January 1924 Lenin died. Trotsky may have been the obvious successor but two of his rivals, Lev Kamenev and Grigori Zinoviev, suppressed Lenin’s memorandum and decided to side with Stalin, from whom they felt they had nothing to fear. Trotsky was promptly sidelined and eventually expelled from the party and exiled from the country.

But if Kamenev and Zinoviev thought they could tame the Georgian beast they were wrong. Stalin sided with Nikolai Bukharin to have them removed from the party before turning on Bukharin as well. Between 1936 and 1938 Kamenev, Zinoviev and Bukharin were all put on show trial accused of ridiculous charges, sentenced and executed.

Stalin’s power was now absolute and he was to rule the Soviet Union unopposed, respected and feared until his death, aged 73, in March 1953.

Rupert Colley.