Interesting facts about Joseph Stalin. Stalin's personality: interesting facts and assessments of contemporaries Stalin, good or bad facts

Reply to Harriman

Harriman asked Stalin at the Potsdam Conference:

Bottle of Baltic water

As a result of the offensive operation, Soviet troops reached the Baltic Sea, the commander, General Bagramyan, decided to please Stalin by sending him a bottle of Baltic water. But while this bottle reached the Kremlin, the Germans managed to recapture the bridgehead and push our troops from the coast. Stalin already knew about this and, when he was handed the bottle, said:

— Return it to Bagramyan, comrade, and let him pour it into the Baltic Sea?

Tomatoes

During your visit All-Union Agricultural Exhibition Stalin noticed that the tomatoes on display had spoiled, and when they got into the car, he reminded:

— Don’t forget to remove the tomatoes! But only tomatoes - I didn’t say anything else.

Great teacher

Chiang Kai-shek called Stalin a “great teacher,” to which Stalin remarked:

- Me too, children!

Stories by Mgeladze A.I.

I returned from military training in Tbilisi. I met there with Akaki Ivanovich Mgeladze, the former First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Georgian Party in the last years of Stalin’s life. I retell it to Molotov

Akakiy Ivanovich recalled how he dined with Stalin at his dacha in Borjomi, and he said:

But everything worked out, not a single shepherd was hurt.

Stalin had bottles.

- I want to drink to our dear comrade Stalin! - Khrushchev exclaimed.

Everyone poured wine, Khrushchev approached Stalin:

- Comrade Stalin, I want to drink vodka for you, because you can’t drink some sour meat for such a person! - And stung himself a full glass of vodka. Drank. Everyone drank wine. In short, he drank vodka alone and quickly fell asleep on the sofa. Stalin said:

Mgeladze also spoke about Suslov

Stalin called: “He’s coming for treatment, pay attention to him, he has tuberculosis, treat him better.”

I received it well. And he talked so much about Stalin: “Understand, it’s only thanks to Stalin that we have all risen this way, only thanks to Stalin we have everything. I will never forget Stalin’s fatherly attention to me. If it weren’t for Stalin, I would have died of tuberculosis. Stalin me pulled me out, Stalin is forcing me to undergo treatment and is treating me!” Maybe he hoped that Mgeladze would pass all this on to Stalin?

Well, what did he say about Stalin in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev times, published in the newspapers... Suslov

Lemons

Stalin walked with the First Secretary of the Central Committee of Georgia A.I. Mgeladze along the alleys of the Kuntsevo dacha and treated him to lemons, which he grew himself in his lemon garden:

SergoKavtaradze

The famous Georgian Bolshevik Sergo Kavtaradze was out of work for a long time. It was as if they had forgotten about him. He and his wife occupied a room in a communal apartment, where a neighbor constantly scolded him for leaving the light on in the toilet or not emptying the trash can. And after the war, a phone call:

And soon Kavtaradze found himself at the same table with Stalin and Beria. We sat and Stalin said:

And let's go. In one car - security, in the second - Beria, in the third - Stalin and Kavtaradze, in the fourth - a bottle with security...

Kavtaradze called. His neighbor opened the door:

- Not only does he not turn off the light in the toilet, he also comes at three in the morning!

From behind, from behind Kavtaradze’s shoulder, a man in a hat, pince-nez and white muffler looked out. The neighbor immediately disappeared. Security entered the corridor, blocking the entrances and exits. Kavtaradze wanted to go first to wake up his wife, but Beria beat him to it. He opened the door to the room, stuck his head in with his hat, pince-nez and muffler, and said slyly:

- Who came to see you!

Stalin didn't stay long. The guests have left. The next morning, at the entrance to the bathroom, Kavtaradze said to his neighbor who was lingering there:

Appreciated Khrushchev

When, at a meeting of the Politburo after the war, he expressed his thoughts on the construction of agricultural cities - gas, water supply, etc. - Stalin listened, came up to him, stroked his bald head and said:

- My little Marx!

On Lake Ritsa

The former commandant of the Bolshoi Theater, and in fact one of Stalin’s guards, A. Rybin, told me how he and Stalin went to Lake Ritsa. We set off in full confidence that everything at the dacha was ready to receive the leader. But, as usual with us, everything turned out to be wrong - there was even nowhere and nothing to sleep on. We lay down right on the shore - in sleeping bags. In the middle of the night, Stalin woke up.

Sometimes Stalin, rolling up his trousers with stripes, walked barefoot in the water. I asked A. Rybin whether Stalin had six toes on his feet, which I read about in one “democratic” publication at the height of perestroika. Rybin was even taken aback:

- If it were, we would probably immediately pay attention...

On his trips, Stalin was often accompanied by his guard Tukov. He sat in the front seat next to the driver and had a habit of falling asleep on the way. One of the Politburo members, riding with Stalin in the back seat, remarked:

In "Metropol"

Stalin arrived at the Metropol restaurant. The foyer was empty - the security officers did their best. And only the cloakroom attendant rushed out to meet him:

Sergei Mikhalkov sat, looking at Stalin all the time, as if calling him to pay attention. Stalin sensed this and said to Mao Zedong:

- And this is a writer. It's impossible not to notice him! - referring, apparently, to the tall height of Sergei Vladimirovich Mikhalkov

Molotovsat, as usual, next to Stalin. Seizing the moment when Vyacheslav Mikhailovich came out, Mikhalkov sat down next to Stalin. Molotov returned and, noticing that his place was taken, stepped aside. But Stalin said:

- Comrade Mikhalkov, it’s difficult to sit on two chairs!

Petru Groza

Romanian Prime Minister Petru Groza said to Stalin after the banquet:

The only one, and the one...

Stalin told the leader of the Czechoslovak communists and the first president of Czechoslovakia, Klement Gottwald:

“You are the only decent person in your entire country, and he’s a drunkard!”

% accuracy

Stalin asked meteorologists what percentage of forecast accuracy they had

Kartlinsky

The poet Semyon Olender said:

“In the twenties, I wrote a poem in which I cursed both Stalin and Trotsky—there was an irreconcilable struggle between them. I took it to Komsomolskaya Pravda. The poems came to Nadezhda Sergeevna Alliluyeva. We didn’t know that she was Stalin’s wife, we knew that her husband worked for the Central Committee.

A few days later, someone who introduced himself as Kartlinsky called me and said that he did not understand my position in the poems: I scold both Stalin and Trotsky at the same time.

Then I found out that Kartlinsky is one of Stalin’s pseudonyms. They finally called me to Dzerzhinsky, and that was the end of the matter.

Blame the war

After the battle of Stalingrad, Stalin examined the city, or rather, what was left of it. Suddenly, at the intersection of two former streets, a truck drove into the leader’s car. The driver is a woman. I saw Stalin and burst into tears.

“Don’t cry,” Stalin began to reassure her, “nothing happened to my car, it’s armored.” Correct yours! — And he turned to the policemen who ran up: “Don’t touch her, she’s not to blame, it’s the war.”

"Spiel"

There was a period when Stalin worked at his dacha for a long time and did not go anywhere. We decided to take him for a ride around Moscow at night. The accompanying person was punished:

- Remember everything that Comrade Stalin says, where and on what occasion!

When they returned, the chief asked the attendant:

Golden Star

After the victory in 1945, noting the exceptional merits of I.V. Stalin in the Great Patriotic War, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided:

- Comrade Stalin, you are a marshal, and I am a marshal, you cannot punish me!

Stalin smiled and waved his hand. And then more than once I regretted that I agreed:

“I’m a politician, not a military man, why do I need this title?”

They were also convinced with the Order of Victory. But he never accepted the Gold Star.

“I do not qualify for the status of Hero of the Soviet Union,” said Stalin. - I haven’t accomplished any feat!

Artists painted him with two stars - the Hero of Socialist Labor and the Hero of the Soviet Union, but there is not a single similar photograph, because the Golden Star of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin until the end of his life was kept in the Awards Department of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, and it was first seen on a red pillow behind the coffin ...

Reply to school teacher

Stalin's former school teacher sent him a letter asking him to give him a loan of five thousand rubles from the state to build a house. A package arrived from Stalin on which was written: “To the People’s Teacher.” Back then, there was no such title, but this teacher began to be called only that.

In the letter, Stalin replied that we do not have a law according to which the state could lend such money. “Usually I don’t take fees for my works, but now I’ve taken and sent you three thousand. I don’t have any more, unfortunately. But I’ll call the First Secretary of your party, Beria, so that he can find an opportunity to provide you with the missing two thousand.”

- He couldn’t contact me right away! - said Beria.

The house was built...

To be continued...

“I know that after my death a heap of rubbish will be placed on my grave, but the winds of history will mercilessly dispel it!” (I.V. Stalin, 1943).

Disputes about the role of Stalin in the history of our state do not subside to this day. You can say a lot of good and bad about the “father of nations”. However, there are facts that you can’t argue with...
1. Stalin's usual reading rate of literature was about 300 pages a day. He constantly educated himself. For example, while undergoing treatment in the Caucasus, in 1931, in a letter to Nadezhda Aliluyeva, having forgotten to inform about his health, he asks to send him textbooks on electrical engineering and ferrous metallurgy.
2. Stalin's level of education can be assessed by the number of books he read and studied. It is apparently impossible to establish how much he read in his life. He was not a collector of books - he did not collect them, but selected them, i.e. in his library there were only those books that he intended to somehow use in the future. But even those books that he selected are difficult to take into account.
In his Kremlin apartment, the library contained, according to witnesses, several tens of thousands of volumes, but in 1941 this library was evacuated, and it is unknown how many books were returned from it, since the library in the Kremlin was not restored. Subsequently, his books were in the dachas, and an outbuilding was built in Nizhnyaya for a library. Stalin collected 20 thousand volumes for this library.


3. The range of education can be assessed from the following data: After his death, books with his notes were transferred from the library at the Blizhnaya Dacha to the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. There were 5.5 thousand of them!
In addition to dictionaries and several geography courses, this list included books by both ancient and modern historians: Herodotus, Xenophon, P. Vinogradov, R. Winner, I. Velyaminov, D. Ilovaisky, K.A. Ivanova, Herero, N. Kareeva, 12 volumes of “History of the Russian State” by Karamzin and the second edition of the six-volume “History of Russia from Ancient Times” by S.M. Solovyov (St. Petersburg, 1896). And also: the fifth volume of “History of the Russian Army and Navy” (St. Petersburg, 1912). “Essays on the history of natural science in excerpts from the original works of Dr. F. Dannsman” (St. Petersburg, 1897), “Memoirs of Prince Bismarck. (Thoughts and memories)” (St. Petersburg, 1899).
A dozen issues of “Bulletin of Foreign Literature” for 1894, “Literary Notes” for 1892, “Scientific Review” for 1894, “Proceedings of the USSR Public Library named after. Lenin", vol. 3 (M., 1934) with materials about Pushkin, P.V. Annenkov, I.S. Turgenev and A.V. Sukhovo-Kobylina, two pre-revolutionary editions of A. Bogdanov’s book “Short Course in Economic Science”, novel by V.I. Kryzhanovskaya (Rochester) “The Web” (St. Petersburg, 1908), book by G. Leonidze “Stalin. Childhood and adolescence" (Tbilisi, 1939. in Georgian), etc.
4. According to the currently existing criteria, Stalin was a Doctor of Philosophy in terms of the scientific results achieved back in 1920. His achievements in economics were even more brilliant and have not yet been surpassed by anyone.
5. Stalin's personal archive was destroyed shortly after his death.
6. Stalin always worked ahead of time, sometimes several decades ahead. His effectiveness as a leader was that he set very distant goals, and the decisions of today became part of large-scale plans.
7. Under Stalin, the country was in difficult conditions, but in the shortest possible time it sharply rushed forward, and this means that at that time there were a lot of smart people in the country. And this is true, since Stalin attached great importance to the minds of the citizens of the USSR.
He was the smartest man, and he was sick of being surrounded by fools; he strove for the whole country to be smart. The basis for the mind, for creativity is knowledge. Knowledge about everything. And never so much has been done to provide people with knowledge, to develop their minds, as under Stalin.

8. Stalin did not fight with vodka, he fought for people’s free time. Amateur sports have been extremely developed, and specifically amateur sports. Each enterprise and institution had sports teams and athletes from among its employees. More or less large enterprises were required to have and maintain stadiums. Everyone played everything.
9. Stalin preferred only Tsinandali and Teliani wines. It happened that I drank cognac, but was simply not interested in vodka. From 1930 to 1953, the guards saw him “in zero gravity” only twice: at S.M.’s birthday. Shtemenko and at the funeral of A.A. Zhdanov.
10. In all cities of the USSR, parks remained from Stalin's time. They were originally intended for mass recreation of people. They had to have a reading room and game rooms (chess, billiards), a beer hall and ice cream parlours, a dance floor and summer theaters.
11. Under Stalin, discussions were freely held on all fundamental issues of existence: on the fundamentals of economics, social life, science. Weismann's genetics, Einstein's theory of relativity, cybernetics, the structure of collective farms were criticized, and any leadership of the country was severely criticized. It is enough to compare what satirists wrote about then and what they began to write about after the 20th Congress.
12. If the Stalinist planning system had been preserved and further rationally improved, and I.V. Stalin understood the need to improve the socialist economy (after all, it was not without reason that his work “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” appeared in 1952), if the task of further improving the standard of living of the people was put in first place (and in 1953 there were no obstacles to this ), by 1970 we would have been in the top three countries with the highest standard of living.
13. The economic backlog that Stalin created, his plans, the people he prepared (both technically and morally) were so outstanding that neither Khrushchev’s foolishness nor Brezhnev’s apathy could waste this resource.
14. During the first 10 years of being in the first echelons of power in the USSR, Stalin submitted his resignation three times.

15. Stalin was similar to Lenin, but his fanaticism extended not to Marx, but to the specific Soviet people - Stalin fanatically served him.
16. In the ideological struggle against Stalin, the Trotskyists simply had no chance. When Stalin proposed to Trotsky in 1927 to hold an all-party discussion, the results of the final all-party referendum were stunning for the Trotskyists. Of the 854 thousand party members, 730 thousand voted, of which 724 thousand voted for Stalin’s position and 6 thousand for Trotsky.
17. Stalin was the greatest expert and authority in the Bolshevik Party on the national issue.
18. Not the least role in the creation of the State of Israel was played by Stalin’s support at the vote on the resolution at the UN.
19. Stalin broke off diplomatic relations with Israel only because something like a grenade was exploded on the territory of the USSR mission in Israel. Mission personnel were injured by this explosion. The Israeli government rushed to the USSR with an apology, but the Stalinist USSR did not forgive anyone for such an attitude towards itself.
20. Despite the severance of diplomatic relations, national mourning was declared in Israel on the day of Stalin's death.
21. In 1927, Stalin passed a decree that the dachas of party workers could not be larger than 3-4 rooms.
22. Stalin treated both the security and the service personnel very well. Quite often he invited them to the table, and one day when he saw that the sentry at his post was getting wet in the rain, he ordered to immediately build a mushroom at this post. But this had nothing to do with their service. Here Stalin did not tolerate any concessions.
23. Stalin was very thrifty with himself - he did not have anything superfluous in clothes, but he wore out what he had.


24. During the war, Stalin, as expected, sent his sons to the front.
25. In the Battle of Kursk, Stalin found a way out of a hopeless situation: the Germans were going to use a “technical novelty” - the Tiger and Panther tanks, against which our artillery was powerless.
Stalin remembered his support for the development of the A-IX-2 explosive and the new experimental PTAB aerial bombs, and gave the task: by May 15, i.e. by the time the roads dry out, produce 800 thousand of these bombs. 150 factories of the Soviet Union rushed to fulfill this order and fulfilled it. As a result, near Kursk, the German army was deprived of striking power by Stalin’s tactical innovation - the PTAB-2.5-1.5 bomb.
26. After the war, Stalin gradually reduced the role of the Politburo to a body for the leadership of the party. And at the 19th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, this abolition of the Politburo was recorded in the new charter.
27. Stalin said that he saw the party as an order of sword-bearers, numbering 50 thousand people.
28. Stalin wanted to remove the party from power altogether, leaving only two matters in the party’s care: agitation and propaganda and participation in the selection of personnel.
29. Stalin said his famous phrase “personnel decide everything” in 1935 at a reception in honor of graduates of military academies: “We talk too much about the merits of leaders, about the merits of leaders. They are credited with everything, almost all of our achievements. This is, of course, false and incorrect.
It's not just about the leaders... To set the technology in motion and use it to its fullest, we need people who have mastered the technology, we need personnel capable of mastering and using this technology according to all the rules of art... That's why the old slogan<техника решает все>... must now be replaced by a new slogan, the slogan that<кадры решают все>».
30. In 1943, Stalin said: “I know that after my death a heap of rubbish will be placed on my grave, but the wind of history will mercilessly scatter it!”

8 interesting and funny facts about Stalin related to one or another of his decisions regarding the USSR.

From the memoirs of one of Stalin’s guards, A. Rybin.

1) In Kharkov, after the opening of one of the largest plants in the whole country, such an incident happened. Night shift. Office of the Chief Engineer. In the office sits the Chief Engineer himself and a young guy who has just graduated from university. After some time, the Chief Engineer is about to leave the office and says to the young man: “If anyone calls, pick up the phone, tell me I’ll be there soon.” The story goes that the Chief Engineer went out into the men's room that night. And here is a young guy sitting in the office alone. The phone rings. He, as the Chief Engineer ordered him, picks up the phone and says, “Hello.”

In the next minutes it is difficult to imagine the position of the young man. Just imagine, someone with a Georgian accent introducing himself as Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin began to ask the young man about the activities of the plant. Here's the thing, you can't guess Stalin Whether it was Stalin or not, the young man decided to address him as Stalin himself.
“I’m sorry, but to answer these questions, you need to talk to the Chief Engineer, he came out, but he should be here by now,” said the young man.
To which the interlocutor referred to the need for an urgent answer to his question and said that he had little time, he would not be able to call back and asked the young man, “and you, as the Chief Engineer, a young man, can answer that the plant’s products will be manufactured in the time we need and the plant will have time to deliver them to the right points throughout the country?”
— I’m sure that yes, Joseph Vissarionovich. The plant is doing everything perfectly well, there are no problems or deviations from the norm.
- Well, then we agreed, you gave me your word.
It was interesting to know the reaction of the Chief Engineer himself when he returned from the toilet. For him, as they say, “nothing foreshadowed trouble.”
And the next morning, an order comes from somewhere at the top of the USSR to the director of the plant that the young man should be transferred to the position of Chief Engineer, and the Chief Engineer himself should be fired or demoted.
So our character worked as the Chief Engineer for a long time, and then became the director of the plant.

2) One day Stalin It was reported that Marshal Rokossovsky had a mistress and this was the famous beautiful actress Valentina Serova. And, they say, what are we going to do with them now? Stalin took the pipe out of his mouth, thought a little and said:
- What will we, what will we... we will envy!

3) On trips Stalin often accompanied by the guard Tukov. He sat in the front seat next to the driver and had a way of appearing to be asleep on the way. Someone Voroshilov, riding with Stalin in the back seat, looked back several times, first at the guard, then at Stalin, loudly (so that the guard could hear) remarked:
- Comrade Stalin, I don’t understand which of you is protecting whom?
“That’s another thing,” answered Joseph Vissarionovich, “he also tries to stuff his pistol into the pocket of my overcoat every time - take it, just in case!”
Security guard Tukov did not even change his position; he still sat with his eyes half-closed.

4) The designer of artillery systems V. G. Grabin told me how on the eve of 1942 Stalin invited him and said:
— Your gun saved Russia. What do you want - a Hero of Socialist Labor or a Stalin Prize?
- I don’t care, Comrade Stalin.
They gave both.

5) Stalin walked with the First Secretary of the Central Committee of Georgia A.I. Mgeladze along the alleys of the Kuntsevo dacha and treated him to lemons, which he grew himself in his lemon garden:
- Try it, you grew up here, near Moscow! And so several times, between conversations on other topics:
- Try them, good lemons! Finally it dawned on the interlocutor:
- Comrade Stalin, I promise you that in seven years Georgia will provide the country with lemons, and we will not import them from abroad.
- Thank God, I guessed it! - said Stalin.

6) In 1939, watching the film “The Train Goes East.” The film is not so hot: a train is traveling, constantly stopping at various stations and all the passengers joyfully sing a song at each station..
- What station is this? - Stalin asked.
“Demyanovka,” answered the person responsible for viewing Bolshakov.
“This is where I’ll get off,” said Stalin and left the hall.

7) During the war, troops under the command of Bagramyan were the first to reach the Baltic. To make this event more pathetic, the Armenian general personally poured water from the Baltic Sea into a bottle and ordered his adjutant to fly with this bottle to Moscow to see Stalin. He flew away. But while he was flying, the Germans counterattacked and drove Bagramyan off the Baltic coast. By the time the adjutant arrived in Moscow, they were already aware of this, but the adjutant himself did not know - there was no radio on the plane. And so the proud adjutant enters Stalin’s office and pathetically proclaims: “Comrade Stalin, General Bagramyan is sending you Baltic water!” Stalin takes the bottle, twirls it in his hands for a few seconds, after which he gives it back to the adjutant and says: “Give it back to Bagramyan, tell him to pour it out where he took it.”

8) A candidacy for the post of Minister of Coal Industry was discussed.
They suggested the director of one of the Zasyadko mines. Someone objected:
- Everything is fine, but he abuses alcohol!
“Invite him to me,” said Stalin. Zasyadko came. Stalin began to talk to him and offered him a drink.
“With pleasure,” said Zasyadko, poured a glass of vodka: “To your health, Comrade Stalin!” - He drank and continued the conversation.
Stalin took a sip and, watching carefully, offered a second drink. Zasyadko - drink a second glass, and not in either eye. Stalin suggested a third, but his interlocutor pushed his glass aside and said:
- Zasyadko knows when to stop.
We talked. At a meeting of the Politburo, when the question of the candidacy of the minister again arose, and again it was announced that the proposed candidate was abusing alcohol, Stalin, walking with a pipe, said:
- Zasyadko knows when to stop!
And for many years Zasyadko headed our coal industry...

9) When developing the Pobeda car, it was planned that the name of the car would be “Motherland”. Having learned about this, Stalin ironically asked: “Well, how much will we have a Motherland?” The name of the car was immediately changed.

10) In the first months after the end of the war, Major General Alexei Sidnev reported to Stalin on the state of affairs. Stalin looked very pleased and nodded twice in approval. Having finished his report, the military commander hesitated. Stalin asked: “Do you want to say anything else?”
“Yes, I have a personal question. In Germany, I selected some things that interested me, but they were detained at the checkpoint. If possible, I would ask you to return them to me.”
"It's possible. Write a report, I will impose a resolution.”
The Major General pulled out a prepared report from his pocket. Stalin imposed the resolution. The petitioner began to thank him warmly.
“No need for gratitude,” remarked Stalin.
After reading the resolution written on the report: “Give the major his junk back. I. Stalin,” the general turned to the Supreme Commander: “There is a typo here, Comrade Stalin. I’m not a major, but a major general.”
“No, everything is correct here, Major,” answered Stalin

In recent years, society's attitude towards I.V. Stalin has been very contradictory. Some admire it, others denote the tyranny and cruelty of the leader.

The cult of Stalin and the ideology itself will be the subject of controversy and disagreement for a long time. Criticism and praise, condemnation and admiration are among the most specific and narrowly focused criteria in assessing any cult personality throughout history. We are accustomed to condemning, judging and criticizing, expressing our opinions in all colors, and unfortunately we increasingly refer to words and speculation rather than verified facts and archival documents. This is how a thoughtless society of “open mouths” is formed - in the sense that they do not know what they are talking about and in what intonations. Let's clarify the situation together.

So, facts about Stalin:

The largest number of unemployed people under Stalin was in the 20s, after the civil war. Their number reached two million people. By the early thirties, this problem was almost completely resolved.

Stalin's usual reading rate of literature was about 300 pages a day. He constantly educated himself. For example, while undergoing treatment in the Caucasus, in 1931, in a letter to Nadezhda Aliluyeva, having forgotten to inform about his health, he asks to send him textbooks on electrical engineering and ferrous metallurgy.

Stalin's level of education can be assessed by the number of books he read and studied. It is apparently impossible to establish how much he read in his life. He was not a collector of books - he did not collect them, but selected them, i.e. in his library there were only those books that he intended to somehow use in the future. But even those books that he selected are difficult to take into account. In his Kremlin apartment, the library contained, according to witnesses, several tens of thousands of volumes, but in 1941 this library was evacuated, and it is unknown how many books were returned from it, since the library in the Kremlin was not restored.

Subsequently, his books were in the dachas, and an outbuilding was built in Nizhnyaya for a library. Stalin collected 20 thousand volumes for this library.

The range of education can be assessed from the following data: After his death, books with his notes were transferred from the library at the Blizhnaya Dacha to the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. There were 5.5 thousand of them! In addition to dictionaries and several geography courses, this list included books by both ancient and modern historians: Herodotus, Xenophon, P. Vinogradov, R. Winner, I. Velyaminov, D. Ilovaisky, K.A. Ivanova, Herero, N. Kareeva, 12 volumes of “History of the Russian State” by Karamzin and the second edition of the six-volume “History of Russia from Ancient Times” by S.M. Solovyov (St. Petersburg, 1896). And also: the fifth volume of “History of the Russian Army and Navy” (St. Petersburg, 1912). “Essays on the history of natural science in excerpts from the original works of Dr. F. Dannsman” (St. Petersburg, 1897), “Memoirs of Prince Bismarck. (Thoughts and memories)” (St. Petersburg, 1899). A dozen issues of “Bulletin of Foreign Literature” for 1894, “Literary Notes” for 1892, “Scientific Review” for 1894, “Proceedings of the USSR Public Library named after. Lenin", vol. 3 (M., 1934) with materials about Pushkin, P.V. Annenkov, I.S. Turgenev and A.V. Sukhovo-Kobylina, two pre-revolutionary editions of A. Bogdanov’s book “Short Course in Economic Science”, novel by V.I. Kryzhanovskaya (Rochester) “The Web” (St. Petersburg, 1908), book by G. Leonidze “Stalin. Childhood and adolescence" (Tbilisi, 1939. in Georgian), etc.

According to the currently existing criteria, Stalin was a Doctor of Philosophy in terms of the scientific results achieved back in 1920. His achievements in economics were even more brilliant and have not yet been surpassed by anyone.

Under Stalin, the country was in difficult conditions, but in the shortest possible time it sharply rushed forward, and this means that at that time there were a lot of smart people in the country. And this is true, since Stalin attached great importance to the minds of the citizens of the USSR. He was the smartest man, and he was sick of being surrounded by fools; he strove for the whole country to be smart. The basis for the mind, for creativity is knowledge. Knowledge about everything. And never so much has been done to provide people with knowledge, to develop their minds, as under Stalin.

Stalin did not fight with vodka, he fought for people’s free time. Amateur sports have been extremely developed, and specifically amateur sports. Each enterprise and institution had sports teams and athletes from among its employees. More or less large enterprises were required to have and maintain stadiums. Everyone played everything.

Stalin preferred only Tsinandali and Teliani wines. It happened that I drank cognac, but was simply not interested in vodka. From 1930 to 1953, the guards saw him “in zero gravity” only twice: at S.M.’s birthday. Shtemenko and at the funeral of A.A. Zhdanov.

In all cities of the USSR, parks remained from Stalin's time. They were originally intended for mass recreation of people. They had to have a reading room and game rooms (chess, billiards), a beer hall and ice cream parlours, a dance floor and summer theaters.

Not the least role in the creation of the State of Israel was played by Stalin’s support in the vote on the resolution at the UN.

Stalin broke off diplomatic relations with Israel only because something like a grenade was exploded on the territory of the USSR mission in Israel. Mission personnel were injured by this explosion. The Israeli government rushed to the USSR with an apology, but the Stalinist USSR did not forgive anyone for such an attitude towards itself.

Despite the severance of diplomatic relations, national mourning was declared in Israel on the day of Stalin's death.

Stalin treated both the security and the service personnel very well. Quite often he invited them to the table, and one day when he saw that the sentry at his post was getting wet in the rain, he ordered to immediately build a mushroom at this post. But this had nothing to do with their service. Here Stalin did not tolerate any concessions.

Stalin was very thrifty with himself - he did not have anything superfluous in clothes, but he wore out what he had.

During the war, Stalin, as expected, sent his sons to the front.

Stalin said his famous phrase “personnel decide everything” in 1935 at a reception in honor of graduates of military academies: “We talk too much about the merits of leaders, about the merits of leaders. They are credited with everything, almost all of our achievements. This is, of course, false and incorrect. It's not just the leaders. ... To set technology in motion and use it to its fullest, we need people who have mastered the technology, we need personnel capable of mastering and using this technology according to all the rules of art... That is why the old slogan<техника решает все>... must now be replaced by a new slogan, the slogan that<кадры решают все>».

In 1943, Stalin said:

“I know that after my death a heap of rubbish will be placed on my grave, but the winds of history will mercilessly blow it away!”

He spoke Georgian, Russian, ancient Greek, and also knew Church Slavonic well from seminary. According to some researchers, he knew English and German; the notes he left in the books were in Hungarian and French. He understood Armenian and Ossetian languages. Trotsky asserted in one of his interviews that “Stalin knows neither foreign languages ​​nor foreign life.”

At the 1945 Victory Parade, the wounded mine-detecting dog Dzhulbars, on Stalin's orders, was carried across Red Square on his overcoat.

Stalin combined business with pleasure. Drinking for him was an opportunity to make his interlocutor loosen his tongue. Having taken a sip of wine, Stalin vigilantly ensured that the guest drank to the bottom, after which he began to ask him provocative questions in order to understand who was in front of him - a friend or an enemy. However, perhaps the “leader of the peoples” simply enjoyed watching his intoxicated interlocutor struggling not to blurt out too much.

It seems that Stalin and versification are “two incompatible things.” But no, in his youth Joseph Dzhugashvili wrote poetry. Moreover, apparently, he had talent. In the book entitled “Collection of the best examples of Georgian literature,” a poem by Stalin (under the pseudonym Soselo) was side by side with the works of Georgian classics. But the year was 1907, so there could be no talk of any “sycophancy” on the part of the publishers.

In 1949, Stalin, having learned that Beria was going to publish a collection of his poems for his 70th birthday, became angry and ordered the work to be stopped. At the same time, he allegedly said to his faithful comrade: “Lavrenty, do you want me to blush like a girl”? Apparently, the iron Stalin was ashamed of his “weakness”, like some schoolgirl!

It is common knowledge that Stalin loved cinema. Cinema halls were set up both in the Kremlin and at each of its dachas. Together with the leader, his closest associates and guests watched the films (receiving an invitation to the session was considered a sign of the Master’s highest regard). Stalin, as an avid connoisseur, enjoyed not only Soviet but also foreign films. For domestic directors, he was a ruthless censor, pointing out which scenes he did not like, which ones needed to be re-shot, and which ones should be cut out altogether.

But the most surprising thing: it turns out that Stalin really liked Westerns! They did not appear in the Soviet box office as ideologically harmful, but the “Father of Nations” himself “swallowed” dozens of them. He especially liked Westerns directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne.

That, however, did not stop Stalin from somehow declaring: “Wayne is an ardent anti-communist, he poses a threat to the cause of socialism, he must be killed.” The comrades looked at each other in confusion: after all, the Master’s word is law! But he grinned and said: “It’s a joke.” And everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

“I know that after my death a heap of rubbish will be placed on my grave, but the winds of history will mercilessly dispel it!” (I.V. Stalin, 1943).

Disputes about the role of Stalin in the history of our state do not subside to this day. You can say a lot of good and bad about the “father of nations”. However, there are facts that you can’t argue with...
1. Stalin's usual reading rate of literature was about 300 pages a day. He constantly educated himself. For example, while undergoing treatment in the Caucasus, in 1931, in a letter to Nadezhda Aliluyeva, having forgotten to inform about his health, he asks to send him textbooks on electrical engineering and ferrous metallurgy.
2. Stalin's level of education can be assessed by the number of books he read and studied. It is apparently impossible to establish how much he read in his life. He was not a collector of books - he did not collect them, but selected them, i.e. in his library there were only those books that he intended to somehow use in the future. But even those books that he selected are difficult to take into account.
In his Kremlin apartment, the library contained, according to witnesses, several tens of thousands of volumes, but in 1941 this library was evacuated, and it is unknown how many books were returned from it, since the library in the Kremlin was not restored. Subsequently, his books were in the dachas, and an outbuilding was built in Nizhnyaya for a library. Stalin collected 20 thousand volumes for this library.

3. The range of education can be assessed from the following data: After his death, books with his notes were transferred from the library at the Blizhnaya Dacha to the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. There were 5.5 thousand of them!
In addition to dictionaries and several geography courses, this list included books by both ancient and modern historians: Herodotus, Xenophon, P. Vinogradov, R. Winner, I. Velyaminov, D. Ilovaisky, K.A. Ivanova, Herero, N. Kareeva, 12 volumes of “History of the Russian State” by Karamzin and the second edition of the six-volume “History of Russia from Ancient Times” by S.M. Solovyov (St. Petersburg, 1896). And also: the fifth volume of “History of the Russian Army and Navy” (St. Petersburg, 1912). “Essays on the history of natural science in excerpts from the original works of Dr. F. Dannsman” (St. Petersburg, 1897), “Memoirs of Prince Bismarck. (Thoughts and memories)” (St. Petersburg, 1899).
A dozen issues of “Bulletin of Foreign Literature” for 1894, “Literary Notes” for 1892, “Scientific Review” for 1894, “Proceedings of the USSR Public Library named after. Lenin", vol. 3 (M., 1934) with materials about Pushkin, P.V. Annenkov, I.S. Turgenev and A.V. Sukhovo-Kobylina, two pre-revolutionary editions of A. Bogdanov’s book “Short Course in Economic Science”, novel by V.I. Kryzhanovskaya (Rochester) “The Web” (St. Petersburg, 1908), book by G. Leonidze “Stalin. Childhood and adolescence" (Tbilisi, 1939. in Georgian), etc.
4. According to the currently existing criteria, Stalin was a Doctor of Philosophy in terms of the scientific results achieved back in 1920. His achievements in economics were even more brilliant and have not yet been surpassed by anyone.
5. Stalin's personal archive was destroyed shortly after his death.
6. Stalin always worked ahead of time, sometimes several decades ahead. His effectiveness as a leader was that he set very distant goals, and the decisions of today became part of large-scale plans.
7. Under Stalin, the country was in difficult conditions, but in the shortest possible time it sharply rushed forward, and this means that at that time there were a lot of smart people in the country. And this is true, since Stalin attached great importance to the minds of the citizens of the USSR.
He was the smartest man, and he was sick of being surrounded by fools; he strove for the whole country to be smart. The basis for the mind, for creativity is knowledge. Knowledge about everything. And never so much has been done to provide people with knowledge, to develop their minds, as under Stalin.

8. Stalin did not fight with vodka, he fought for people’s free time. Amateur sports have been extremely developed, and specifically amateur sports. Each enterprise and institution had sports teams and athletes from among its employees. More or less large enterprises were required to have and maintain stadiums. Everyone played everything.
9. Stalin preferred only Tsinandali and Teliani wines. It happened that I drank cognac, but was simply not interested in vodka. From 1930 to 1953, the guards saw him “in zero gravity” only twice: at S.M.’s birthday. Shtemenko and at the funeral of A.A. Zhdanov.
10. In all cities of the USSR, parks remained from Stalin's time. They were originally intended for mass recreation of people. They had to have a reading room and game rooms (chess, billiards), a beer hall and ice cream parlours, a dance floor and summer theaters.
11. Under Stalin, discussions were freely held on all fundamental issues of existence: on the fundamentals of economics, social life, science. Weismann's genetics, Einstein's theory of relativity, cybernetics, the structure of collective farms were criticized, and any leadership of the country was severely criticized. It is enough to compare what satirists wrote about then and what they began to write about after the 20th Congress.
12. If the Stalinist planning system had been preserved and further rationally improved, and I.V. Stalin understood the need to improve the socialist economy (after all, it was not without reason that his work “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” appeared in 1952), if the task of further improving the standard of living of the people was put in first place (and in 1953 there were no obstacles to this ), by 1970 we would have been in the top three countries with the highest standard of living.
13. The economic backlog that Stalin created, his plans, the people he prepared (both technically and morally) were so outstanding that neither Khrushchev’s foolishness nor Brezhnev’s apathy could waste this resource.
14. During the first 10 years of being in the first echelons of power in the USSR, Stalin submitted his resignation three times.

15. Stalin was similar to Lenin, but his fanaticism extended not to Marx, but to the specific Soviet people - Stalin fanatically served him.
16. In the ideological struggle against Stalin, the Trotskyists simply had no chance. When Stalin proposed to Trotsky in 1927 to hold an all-party discussion, the results of the final all-party referendum were stunning for the Trotskyists. Of the 854 thousand party members, 730 thousand voted, of which 724 thousand voted for Stalin’s position and 6 thousand for Trotsky.
17. Stalin was the greatest expert and authority in the Bolshevik Party on the national issue.
18. Not the least role in the creation of the State of Israel was played by Stalin’s support at the vote on the resolution at the UN.
19. Stalin broke off diplomatic relations with Israel only because something like a grenade was exploded on the territory of the USSR mission in Israel. Mission personnel were injured by this explosion. The Israeli government rushed to the USSR with an apology, but the Stalinist USSR did not forgive anyone for such an attitude towards itself.
20. Despite the severance of diplomatic relations, national mourning was declared in Israel on the day of Stalin's death.
21. In 1927, Stalin passed a decree that the dachas of party workers could not be larger than 3-4 rooms.
22. Stalin treated both the security and the service personnel very well. Quite often he invited them to the table, and one day when he saw that the sentry at his post was getting wet in the rain, he ordered to immediately build a mushroom at this post. But this had nothing to do with their service. Here Stalin did not tolerate any concessions.
23. Stalin was very thrifty with himself - he did not have anything superfluous in clothes, but he wore out what he had.

24. During the war, Stalin, as expected, sent his sons to the front.
25. In the Battle of Kursk, Stalin found a way out of a hopeless situation: the Germans were going to use a “technical novelty” - the Tiger and Panther tanks, against which our artillery was powerless.
Stalin remembered his support for the development of the A-IX-2 explosive and the new experimental PTAB aerial bombs, and gave the task: by May 15, i.e. by the time the roads dry out, produce 800 thousand of these bombs. 150 factories of the Soviet Union rushed to fulfill this order and fulfilled it. As a result, near Kursk, the German army was deprived of striking power by Stalin’s tactical innovation - the PTAB-2.5-1.5 bomb.
26. After the war, Stalin gradually reduced the role of the Politburo to a body for the leadership of the party. And at the 19th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, this abolition of the Politburo was recorded in the new charter.
27. Stalin said that he saw the party as an order of sword-bearers, numbering 50 thousand people.
28. Stalin wanted to remove the party from power altogether, leaving only two matters in the party’s care: agitation and propaganda and participation in the selection of personnel.
29. Stalin said his famous phrase “personnel decide everything” in 1935 at a reception in honor of graduates of military academies: “We talk too much about the merits of leaders, about the merits of leaders. They are credited with everything, almost all of our achievements. This is, of course, false and incorrect.
It's not just about the leaders... To set the technology in motion and use it to its fullest, we need people who have mastered the technology, we need personnel capable of mastering and using this technology according to all the rules of art... That's why the old slogan<техника решает все>... must now be replaced by a new slogan, the slogan that<кадры решают все>».
30. In 1943, Stalin said: “I know that after my death a heap of rubbish will be placed on my grave, but the wind of history will mercilessly scatter it!”