Conversations with Stalin

"Djilas was Tito’s number two, and negotiated with the Kremlin on various diplomatic missions. He’s a terrific source on the grotesque late-Stalin court – the ghastly, drunken, late-night banquets at Stalin’s dacha, the bullying, fear and paranoia; the way the whole Kremlin circle was completely cut off from reality. Stalin had always been suspicious of Leningrad, disliking its Europhile bent and fearing it as an alternative centre of power. After the war he purged the city’s party leadership and cracked down on its intelligentsia, most famously on the poet Anna Akhmatova, whose son, having been released from the Gulag to fight for his country, was sent straight back to the camps. Stalin did not, however, engineer the siege –which is one theory that has been around. I include this book for the benefit of those who regard Stalin and Hitler as political and military geniuses, albeit perverted ones. Together with Hitler’s Table Talk , (if I can sneak in a sixth title), it’s a reminder that both of were not only psychopaths, but the most god-awful bores. Djilas describes Stalin’s senility and gluttony, crude jokes and inane drinking games. Hitler’s Table Talk is a collection of rants to cronies, taken down by secretaries during mealtimes at his various wartime headquarters. Monster is too big a word. I like to think of them as poisonous. Hitler was a poisonous little corporal, really – a town-hall Robespierre. He bangs on about Esperanto, about how many lanes his new autobahns should have, about whether polenta is better for you than rice. He’s a bar-room crank, a petty autodidact with an army at his disposal. People can have a sneaking fascination for the great dictators; these books bring them down to earth. I do think there’s the capacity for sudden change. The Orange revolution in Ukraine , for example, came out of nowhere. Did you spot Putin getting booed the other day at the wrestling competition? Things can change suddenly. I think it’s an anachronism that Russia is stuck with this third-world political system, and I don’t think it will last forever. When I put it to my Russian friends that things are bound to change, they all say – No, the new middle class only cares about the latest model iPad and winterbreaks in Sharm-el-Sheikh. But I’m not sure that will be true forever. Specific issues can still get people out on the streets and very angry. Russia’s quite good at revolutions. I’m always expecting the unexpected in Russia."