Conversations with Stalin (11 page)

Beneath me sped a land whose blackness was just emerging from the melting snow, a land riven by torrents and, in many places, by bombs—desolate and uninhabited. The sky, too, was cloudy and somber, impenetrable. There was neither sky nor earth for me as I passed through an unreal, perhaps dream, world which I felt at the same time to be more real than any in which I had hitherto lived. I flew teetering between sky and earth, between conscience and experience, between desire and possibility. In my memory there has remained only that unreal and painful teetering—with not a trace of those initial Slavic feelings or even hardly any of those revolutionary raptures that marked my first encounter with the Russian, the Soviet land and its leader.

On top of everything there was Tito's airsickness. Exhausted, green, he exerted the last ounce of will power to recite his speech of greeting and to go through the ceremonies. Molotov, who headed the reception committee, shook hands with me coldly, without smiling or showing any sign of recognition. It was also unpleasant to have them take Tito to a special villa while putting the rest of us up in the Metropole Hotel.

The trials and tribulations got worse. They even assumed the proportions of a campaign.

The next day, or the day after that, the telephone in my apartment rang. A seductive female voice sounded. “This is Katia.”

“Katia who?” I asked.

“It's me, Katia. Don't you remember? I have to see you. I simply must see you.”

Through my head there quickly filed Katias—but I did not know one of them—and on their heels came suspicion. The Soviet Intelligence Service knew that in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia views on personal morality were strict and they were setting a trap to blackmail me later. I found it neither strange nor new that “socialist” Moscow, like every metropolis, teemed with unregistered prostitutes. I knew even better, however, that they could not make contact with high-ranking foreigners, who were tended and watched here better than anywhere on earth, unless the Intelligence Service wanted it. Apart from these thoughts, I did what I would have anyway; I said calmly and curtly, “Let me alone!”—and I put down the receiver.

I suspected that I was the only target in this transparent and smutty undertaking. Nevertheless, in view of my high rank in the Party, I felt it necessary to ascertain whether the same thing had happened to Petrović and Andrejev, and, besides, I wanted to complain to them man to man. Yes, their telephones had rung too, but instead of a Katia, it was a Natasha and a Vova! I explained my own experience, and practically ordered them not to make any contact.

I had mixed feelings—relief that I was not the only target, but also deepening doubts. Why all of this? It never occurred to me to inquire of Dr. Šubašić whether a similar attempt had been directed at him. He was not a Communist, and it would be awkward for me to display the Soviet Union and its methods in a bad light before him, all the more so since they were aimed against Communists. I was quite certain, though, that no Katia had approached Šubašić.

I was not yet able to draw the conclusion—that it was precisely the Communists who were the butt and the means by which Soviet hegemony was to ensconce itself in the countries of Eastern Europe. Yet I suspected as much. I was horrified by such methods and resented having my character subjected to such manipulation.

At that time I was still capable of believing that I could be a Communist and remain a free man.

Nothing significant occurred in connection with the treaty of alliance between Yugoslavia and the USSR. The treaty was the usual thing, and my job was simply to verify the translation.

The signing took place in the Kremlin on the evening of April 11, in a very narrow official circle. Of the public—if such an expression may be applied to that environment—only Soviet cameramen were in attendance.

The sole striking episode occurred when Stalin, holding a glass of champagne, turned to a waiter and invited him to clink glasses. The waiter became embarrassed, but when Stalin uttered the words: “What, you won't drink to Soviet-Yugoslav friendship?” he obediently took the glass and drank it bottoms up. There was something demagogic, even grotesque, about the entire scene, but everyone looked upon it with beatific smiles, as an expression of Stalin's regard for the common people and his closeness to them.

This was my first opportunity to meet Stalin again. His mien was ungracious, though it did not have Molotov's frigid stiffness and artificial amiability. Stalin did not address a single word to me personally. The dispute over the behavior of the Red Army soldiers was obviously neither forgotten nor forgiven. I was left to go on twirling over the fire of purgatory.

Nor did he say anything at the dinner for the inner circle, in the Kremlin. After dinner we looked at movies. Because of Stalin's remark that he was tired of gunfire, they put on, not a war film, but a shallow happy collective-farm movie. Throughout the showing Stalin made comments—reactions to what was going on, in the manner of uneducated men who mistake artistic reality for actuality. The second film was a prewar one on a war theme: “If War Comes Tomorrow” (“
Esli zavtra voina
. . .”). The war in that film was waged with the help of poisonous gas, while at the rear of the invaders—the Germans—rebellious elements of the proletariat were breaking out. At the end of the film Stalin calmly remarked, “Not much different from what actually happened, only there was no poisonous gas and the German proletariat did not rebel.”

Everyone was tired of toasts, of food, of films. Again without a word, Stalin shook hands with me too, but by now I was more nonchalant and calm, though I could not say why. Perhaps because of the easier atmosphere. Or was it my own inner determination and resolution? Probably both. In any event—life is possible without Stalin's love.

A day or two later there was a formal dinner in Catherine Hall. According to Soviet protocol at the time, Tito was seated to the left of Stalin and to the right of Kalinin, then President of the Supreme Soviet. I was seated at Kalinin's left. Molotov and Šubašić sat opposite Stalin and Tito, while the other Yugoslav and Soviet officers sat around in a circle.

The stiff atmosphere seemed all the more unnatural because all present, except Dr. Å ubaÅ¡ić, were Communists, yet they addressed one another as “Mister” in their toasts and adhered strictly to international protocol, as though this was a meeting of the representatives of differing systems and ideologies.

Aside from the toasts and the protocol, we acted like comrades toward one another, that is, like men who were close to one another, men who were in the same movement, with the same aims. This contrast between formality and reality was all the more drastic because relations between the Soviet and Yugoslav Communists were still cordial, unmarred by Soviet hegemonism and competition for prestige in the Communist world. However, life is no respecter of desires or designs, but imposes patterns which no one is capable of foreseeing.

Relations between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies were still in their wartime honeymoon, and the Soviet Government wished, by observing this formality, to avoid complaints that they were not treating Yugoslavia as an independent nation just because it was Communist. Later, after it had become entrenched in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Government was to insist on dropping protocol and other formalities as “bourgeois” and “nationalist” prejudices.

Stalin broke the ice. Only he could do it, for only he was not exposed to the danger of being criticized for a
faux pas
. He simply stood, lifted his glass, and addressed Tito as “Comrade,” adding that he would not call him “Mister.” This restored real amity and livened up the atmosphere. Dr. Å ubaÅ¡ić, too, smiled happily, though it was difficult to believe that he was doing so sincerely; pretense was not lacking in this politician, who was without ideas and without any stable foundations whatever.

Stalin began to make jokes, to direct sallies and thrusts across the table, and to grumble cheerfully. Once revived, the atmosphere did not flag.

Old Uncle Kalinin, who could barely see, had difficulty finding his glass, plate, bread, and I kept helping him solicitously the whole time. Tito had paid him a protocol visit just an hour or two before and had told me that the old man was not entirely senile. But from what Tito had reported, and from the remarks Kalinin made at the banquet, one could conclude the opposite.

Stalin certainly knew of Kalinin's decrepitude, for he made heavy-footed fun of him when the latter asked Tito for a Yugoslav cigarette. “Don't take any—those are capitalist cigarettes,” said Stalin, and Kalinin confusedly dropped the cigarette from his trembling fingers, whereupon Stalin laughed and his physiognomy took on the expression of satyr. A bit later none other than Stalin raised a toast in honor of “our President,” Kalinin, but these were polite phrases obviously picked for someone who for long had been nothing more than a mere figurehead.

Here, in a rather broader and more official circle, the deification of Stalin was more palpable and direct. Today I am able to conclude that the deification of Stalin, or the “cult of the personality,” as it is now called, was at least as much the work of Stalin's circle and the bureaucracy, who required such a leader, as it was his own doing. Of course, the relationship changed. Turned into a deity, Stalin became so powerful that in time he ceased to pay attention to the changing needs and desires of those who had exalted him.

An ungainly dwarf of a man passed through gilded and marbled imperial halls, and a path opened before him, radiant, admiring glances followed him, while the ears of courtiers strained to catch his every word. And he, sure of himself and his works, obviously paid no attention to all this. His country was in ruins, hungry, exhausted. But his armies and marshals, heavy with fat and medals and drunk with vodka and victory, had already trampled half of Europe under foot, and he was convinced they would trample over the other half in the next round. He knew that he was one of the crudest, most despotic personalities in human history. But this did not worry him one bit, for he was convinced that he was executing the judgment of history. His conscience was troubled by nothing, despite the millions who had been destroyed in his name and by his order, despite the thousands of his closest collaborators whom he had murdered as traitors because they doubted that he was leading the country and people into happiness, equality, and liberty. The struggle had been risky, long, and all the more underhanded because the opponents were few in number and weak. But he succeeded, and success is the only criterion of truth! For what is conscience? Does it even exist? It had no place in his philosophy, much less in his actions. After all, man is the product of productive forces.

Poets were inspired by him, orchestras blared cantatas in his honor, philosophers in institutes wrote tomes about his sayings, and martyrs died on scaffolds crying out his name. Now he was the victor in the greatest war of his nation and in history. His power, absolute over a sixth of the globe, was spreading farther without surcease. This convinced him that his society contained no contradictions and that it exhibited superiority to other societies in every way.

He joked, too, with his courtiers—“comrades.” But he did not do this exclusively out of a ruler's generosity. Royal generosity was visible only in the manner in which he did this: his jokes were never at his own expense. No, he joked because he liked to descend from his Olympian heights; after all, he lived among men and had to show from time to time that the individual was nothing without the collective.

I, too, was swept up by Stalin and his witticisms. But in one little corner of my mind and of my moral being I was awake and troubled: I noticed the tawdriness, too, and could not accept inwardly Stalin's manner of joking—nor his deliberate avoidance of saying a single human, comradely word to me.

Still I was pleasantly surprised when I, too, was taken to an intimate dinner in Stalin's villa. Of course Dr. Šubašić knew absolutely nothing about it. Only we Yugoslav Communist ministers were there, and, on the Soviet side, Stalin's closest associates: Malenkov, Bulganin, General Antonov, Beria, and, to be sure, Molotov.

As usual, at about ten o'clock at night we found ourselves around Stalin's table. I had arrived in the car with Tito. At the head of the table sat Beria, to his right Malenkov, then I and Molotov, then Andrejev and Petrović, while to the left sat Stalin, Tito, Bulganin, and General Antonov, Assistant Chief of the General Staff.

Beria was also a rather short man—in Stalin's Politburo there was hardly anyone taller than himself. He, too, was somewhat plump, greenish pale, and with soft damp hands. With his square-cut mouth and bulging eyes behind his pince-nez, he suddenly reminded me of Vujković, one of the chiefs of the Belgrade Royal Police who specialized in torturing Communists. It took an effort to dispel the unpleasant comparison, which was all the more nagging because the similarity extended even to his expression—that of a certain self-satisfaction and irony mingled with a clerk's obsequiousness and solicitude. Beria was a Georgian, like Stalin, but one could not tell this at all by the looks of him. Georgians are generally bony and dark. Even in this respect he was nondescript. He could have passed more easily for a Slav or a Lett, but mostly for a mixture of some sort.

Malenkov was even smaller and plumper, but a typical Russian with a Mongol admixture—dark, with prominent cheekbones, and slightly pock-marked. He gave one the impression of being a withdrawn, cautious, and not very personable man. It seemed as though under the layers and rolls of fat there moved about still another man, lively and adept, with intelligent and alert black eyes. He had been known for some time as Stalin's unofficial stand-in in Party matters. Practically all matters pertaining to Party organization and the promotion and demotion of officials were in his hands. He was the one who had invented “cadre lists”—detailed biographies and autobiographies of all members and candidates of a Party of many millions—which were guarded and systematically maintained in Moscow. I took advantage of my meeting with him to ask for Stalin's work
On the Opposition (Ob oppozitsii
), which had been withdrawn from public circulation because of the numerous citations from Trotsky, Bukharin, and others it contained. The next day I received a used copy of the work, and it is now in my library.