Conversations with Stalin Read online

  Even earlier one could detect a concealed anticipation of the feast among the Soviet officers. Thus they all came predisposed to gorge and to guzzle. But the Yugoslavs went as if to a great trial; they had to drink, despite the fact that this was not in accord with their ‘‘Communist morality,” that is, with the mores of their army and Party. Nevertheless, they comported themselves splendidly, especially considering the fact that they were not used to alcohol. A tremendous exertion of will power and conscientiousness helped them withstand many “bottoms-up” toasts, thus escaping prostration in the end.

  I always drank little and cautiously, using as my excuse headaches, from which I really suffered at the time. Our General Terzić looked tragic. He had to drink even if he did not feel like it, for he did not know how to refuse a Russian confrere who would raise a toast to Stalin just a second after not having spared himself for Tito.

  Our escort seemed even more tragic to me. He was a colonel from the Soviet General Staff, and because he was “from the rear,” the Marshal and his generals picked on him, taking full advantage of their higher rank. Marshal Konev paid no attention to the fact that this Colonel was fairly weak; he had been brought back to work on the General Staff after having been wounded at the front. He simply commanded the Colonel: “Colonel, drink up a hundred grams of vodka to the success of the Second Ukrainian Front!” A silence ensued. All turned to the Colonel. I wanted to intercede for him. But he arose, stood at attention, and drank. Soon globules of sweat broke out on his pale high forehead.

  However, not everyone drank: those who were on duty and in contact with the front did not. Nor did the staff drink at the front, except in moments of a definite lull. They said that during the Finnish campaign Zhdanov proposed to Stalin that he approve of one hundred grams of vodka a day per soldier. From that time on, the custom remained in the Red Army, except that the portion was doubled before attacks: “The soldiers feel more relaxed!” it was explained to us.

  Nor did Marshal Konev drink. He had no superior to order him; besides, he had difficulties with his liver, and so his doctors forbade him to. He was a blond, tall man of fifty, with a very energetic bony face. Though he abetted gluttony, for he held to the official “philosophy” that “the men have to have a good time now and then,” he himself was above that sort of thing, being sure of himself and of his troops at the front.

  The author Boris Polevoy accompanied us to the front as a correspondent for Pravda. Though he became all too easily enthusiastic over the heroism and virtues of his country, he told us an anecdote about Konev’s superhuman presence of mind and courage. Finding himself at a lookout post under fire from German mortars, Konev pretended to be looking through his binoculars, but was actually watching out of the corner of his eye to see how his officers were taking it. Every one of them knew that he would be demoted on the spot if he showed any vacillation, and no one dared point out to him the danger to his own life. And this went on. Men fell dead and wounded, but he left the post only after the inspection was over. On another occasion shrapnel struck him in the leg. They took off his boot, bandaged the leg, but he remained at the post.

  Konev was one of Stalin’s new wartime commanders. He was less an example of rapid promotion than Rokossovsky, for his career was neither as sudden nor as stormy as the latter’s. He joined the Red Army just after the revolution as a young worker, and gradually rose through the ranks and through the army schools. But he, too, made his career in battle, which was typical of the Red Army under Stalin’s leadership in the Second World War.

  Generally taciturn, Konev explained to me in a few words the course of the campaign at Korsun’-Shevchen-kovsky, which had just been completed and which was compared in the Soviet Union with the one at Stalingrad. Not without exultation, he sketched a picture of Germany’s final catastrophe: refusing to surrender, some eighty, if not even one hundred, thousand Germans were forced into a narrow space, then tanks shattered their heavy equipment and machine-gun nests, while the Cossack cavalry finally finished them off. “We let the Cossacks cut up as long as they wished. They even hacked off the hands of those who raised them to surrender!” the Marshal recounted with a smile.

  I cannot say that at that moment I did not feel joy as well over the fate that had befallen the Germans. In my country too Nazism had, in the name of a superior race, inflicted a war devoid of all erstwhile humane considerations. And yet I had another feeling at the time—horror that it should be so, that it could not be otherwise.

  Sitting to the right of this extraordinary personality, I was eager to clarify certain questions that interested me in particular. First of all: Why were Voroshilov, Buděnny, and other high commanders with whom the Soviet Union entered the war shifted from their commanding positions?

  Konev replied: “Voroshilov is a man of inexhaustible courage. But—he was incapable of understanding modern warfare. His merits are enormous, but—the battle has to be won. During the Civil War, in which Voroshilov came to the fore, the Red Army had practically no planes or tanks against it, while in this war it is precisely these machines that are playing the vital role. Buděnny never knew much, and he never studied anything. He showed himself to be completely incompetent and permitted awful mistakes to be made. Shaposhnikov was and remains a technical staff officer.”

  “And Stalin?” I asked.

  Taking care not to show surprise at the question, Konev replied, after a little thought: “Stalin is universally gifted. He was brilliantly able to see the war as a whole, and this makes possible his successful direction.”

  He said nothing more, nothing that might sound like a stereotyped glorification of Stalin. He passed over in silence the purely military side of Stalin’s direction. Konev was an old Communist firmly devoted to the Government and to the Party, but, I would say, staunch in his views on military questions.

  Konev also presented us with gifts: for Tito, his personal binoculars, and for us, pistols. I kept mine until the Yugoslav authorities confiscated it at the time of my arrest in 1956.

  The front abounded in examples of the personal heroism and unyielding tenacity and initiative of the common soldiers. Russia was all last-ditch resistance and deprivation and will for ultimate victory. In those days Moscow, and we with it, abandoned itself childishly to “salutes”—fireworks that greeted victories behind which loomed fire and death, and also bitterness. For this was a joy too for Yugoslav fighters suffering the misfortune of their own country. It was as though nothing else existed in the Soviet Union except this gigantic, compelling effort of a limitless land and multimillioned people. I, too, saw only them, and in my bias identified the patriotism of the Russian people with the Soviet system, for it was the latter that was my dream and my struggle.

  5

  It must have been about five o’clock in the afternoon, just as I had completed my lecture at the Panslavic Committee and had begun to answer questions, when someone whispered to me to finish immediately because of an important and pressing matter. Not only we Yugoslavs but also the Soviet officials had lent this lecture a more than usual importance. Molotov’s assistant, A. Lozovsky, had introduced me to a select audience. Obviously the Yugoslav problem was becoming more and more acute among the Allies.

  I excused myself, or they made my excuses for me, and was whisked out into the street in the middle of things. There they crammed me together with General Terzić into a strange and not very imposing car. Only after the car had driven off did an unknown colonel from the State Security inform us that we were to be received by Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. By that time our Military Mission had been moved to a villa in Serebrennyi Bor, a Moscow suburb. Remembering the gifts for Stalin, I worried that we would be late if we went that far to get them. But the infallible State Security had taken care of that too; the gifts lay next to the Colonel in the car. Everything then was in order, even our uniforms; for some ten days or so we had been wearing new ones made in a Soviet factory. There was nothing to do but be calm and listen to the Colonel, an
d ask him as little as possible.

  I was already accustomed to the latter. But I could not suppress my excitement. It sprang from the unfathomable depths of my being. I was aware of my own pallor and of my joyful, and at the same time almost panic-stricken, agitation.

  What could be more exciting for a Communist, one who was coming from war and revolution? To be received by Stalin—this was the greatest possible recognition for the heroism and suffering of our Partisan warriors and our people. In dungeons and in the holocaust of war, and in the no less violent spiritual crises and clashes with the internal and external foes of Communism, Stalin was something more than a leader in battle. He was the incarnation of an idea, transfigured in Communist minds into pure idea, and thereby into something infallible and sinless. Stalin was the victorious battle of today and the brotherhood of man of tomorrow. I realized that it was by chance that I personally was the first Yugoslav Communist to be received by him. Still, I felt a proud joy that I would be able to tell my comrades about this encounter and say something about it to the Yugoslav fighting men as well.

  Suddenly everything that had seemed unpleasant about the USSR disappeared, and all disagreements between ourselves and the Soviet leaders lost their significance and gravity, as if they had never happened. Everything disagreeable vanished before the moving grandeur and beauty of what was happening to me. Of what account was my personal destiny before the greatness of the struggle being waged, and of what importance were our disagreements beside the obvious inevitability of the realization of our idea?

  The reader should know that at that time I believed that Trotskyites, Bukharinites, and other oppositionists in the Party were indeed spies and wreckers, and that therefore the drastic measures taken against them as well as all other so-called class enemies were justified. If I had observed that those who had been in the USSR in the period of the purge in the mid-thirties tended to leave certain things unsaid, I believed these had to do with nonessentials and exaggeration: it was cutting into good flesh in order to get rid of the bad, as Dimitrov once formulated it in a conversation with Tito. Therefore I regarded all the cruelties that Stalin committed exactly as his propaganda had portrayed them—as inescapable revolutionary measures that only added to his stature and his historic role. I cannot rightly tell even today what I would have done had I known the truth about the trials and the purges. I can say with certainty that my conscience would have undergone a serious crisis, but it is not excluded that I would have continued to be a Communist—convinced of a Communism that was more ideal than the one that existed. For with Communism as an idea the essential thing is not what is being done but why. Besides it was the most rational and most intoxicating, allembracing ideology for me and for those in my disunited and desperate land who so desired to skip over centuries of slavery and backwardness and to bypass reality itself.

  I had no time to compose myself, for the car soon arrived at the gates of the Kremlin. Another officer took charge of us at this point, and the car proceeded through cold and clean courtyards in which there was nothing alive except slender budless saplings. The officer called our attention to the Tsar Cannon and Tsar Bell—those absurd symbols of Russia that were never fired or rung. To the left was the monumental bell tower of Ivan the Great, then a row of ancient cannon, and we soon found ourselves in front of the entrance to a rather low long building such as those built for offices and hospitals in the middle of the nineteenth century. Here again we were met by an officer, who conducted us inside. At the bottom of the stairs we took off our overcoats, combed ourselves in front of a mirror, and were then led into an elevator which discharged us at the second floor into a rather long red-carpeted corridor.

  At every turn an officer saluted us with a loud click of the heels. They were all young, handsome, and stiff, in the blue caps of the State Security. Both now and each time later the cleanliness was astonishing, so perfect that it seemed impossible that men worked and lived here. Not a speck on the carpets or a spot on the burnished doorknobs.

  Finally they led us into a somewhat small office in which General Zhukov was already waiting. A small, fat, and pock-marked old official invited us to sit down while he himself slowly rose from behind a table and went into the neighboring room.

  Everything occurred with surprising speed. The official soon returned and informed us that we could go in. I thought that I would pass through two or three offices before reaching Stalin, but as soon as I opened the door and stepped across the threshold, I saw him coming out of a small adjoining room through whose open doors an enormous globe was visible. Molotov was also here. Stocky and pale and in a perfect dark blue European suit, he stood behind a long conference table.

  Stalin met us in the middle of the room. I was the first to approach him and to introduce myself. Then Teizić did the same, reciting his whole title in a military tone and clicking his heels, to which our host replied—it was almost comical—by saying: “Stalin.”

  We also shook hands with Molotov and sat down at the table so that Molotov was to the right of Stalin, who was at the head of the table, while Terzić, General Zhukov, and I were to the left.

  The room was not large, rather long, and devoid of any opulence or décor. Above a not too large desk in the corner hung a photograph of Lenin, and on the wall over the conference table, in identical carved wooden frames, were portraits of Suvorov and Kutuzov, looking very much like the chromos one sees in the provinces.

  But the host was the plainest of all. Stalin was in a marshal’s uniform and soft boots, without any medals except a golden star—the Order of Hero of the Soviet Union, on the left side of his breast. In his stance there was nothing artificial or posturing. This was not that majestic Stalin of the photographs or the newsreels—with the stiff, deliberate gait and posture. He was not quiet for a moment. He toyed with his pipe, which bore the white dot of the English firm Dunhill, or drew circles with a blue pencil around words indicating the main subjects for discussion, which he then crossed out with slanting lines as each part of the discussion was nearing an end, and he kept turning his head this way and that while he fidgeted in his seat.

  I was also surprised at something else: he was of very small stature and ungainly build. His torso was short and narrow, while his legs and arms were too long. His left arm and shoulder seemed rather stiff. He had a quite large paunch, and his hair was sparse, though his scalp was not completely bald. His face was white, with ruddy cheeks. Later I learned that this coloration, so characteristic of those who sit long in offices, was known as the “Kremlin complexion” in high Soviet circles. His teeth were black and irregular, turned inward. Not even his mustache was thick or firm. Still the head was not a bad one; it had something of the folk, the peasantry, the paterfamilias about it—with those yellow eyes and a mixture of sternness and roguishness.

  I was also surprised at his accent. One could tell that he was not a Russian. Nevertheless his Russian vocabulary was rich, and his manner of expression very vivid and plastic, and replete with Russian proverbs and sayings. As I later became convinced, Stalin was well acquainted with Russian literature—though only Russian—but the only real knowledge he had outside of Russian limits was his knowledge of political history.

  One thing did not surprise me: Stalin had a sense of humor—a rough humor, self-assured, but not entirely without finesse and depth. His reactions were quick and acute—and conclusive, which did not mean that he did not hear the speaker out, but it was evident that he was no friend of long explanations. Also remarkable was his relation to Molotov. He obviously regarded the latter as a very close associate, as I later confirmed. Molotov was the only member of the Politburo whom Stalin addressed with the familiar pronoun ty, which is in itself significant when it is kept in mind that with Russians the polite form vy is normal even among very close friends.

  The conversation began by Stalin asking us about our impressions of the Soviet Union. I replied: “We are enthusiastic!”—to which he rejoined: “And we are not enthusi
astic, though we are doing all we can to make things better in Russia.” It is engraved in my memory that Stalin used the term Russia, and not Soviet Union, which meant that he was not only inspiring Russian nationalism but was himself inspired by it and identified himself with it.

  But I had no time to think about such things then, for Stalin passed on to relations with the Yugoslav Government-in-exile, turning to Molotov: “Couldn’t we somehow trick the English into recognizing Tito, who alone is fighting the Germans?”

  Molotov smiled—with a smile in which there was irony and self-satisfaction: “No, that is impossible; they are perfectly aware of developments in Yugoslavia.”

  I was enthusiastic about this direct, straightforward manner, which I had not till then encountered in Soviet official circles, and particularly not in Soviet propaganda. I felt that I was at the right spot, and moreover with a man who treated realities in a familiar open way. It is hardly necessary to explain that Stalin was like this only among his own men, that is, among Communists of his line who were devoted to him.

  Though Stalin did not promise to recognize the National Committee as a provisional Yugoslav government, it was evident that he was interested in its confirmation. The discussion and his stand were such that I did not even bring up the question directly; that is, it was obvious that the Soviet Government would do this immediately if it considered the conditions ripe and if developments did not take a different turn—through a temporary compromise between Britain and the USSR, and in turn between the National Committee and the Yugoslav Royal Government.

  Thus this question remained unsettled. A solution had to wait and be worked out. However, Stalin made up for this by being much more positive regarding the question of extending aid to the Yugoslav forces.