History Buffs: The Death of Stalin

[Music] this episode's sponsored by skillshare hello and welcome history buffs my name is nick hodges and today we're gonna have a laugh at the death of stalin based on the french graphic novel of the same name this is a movie about the death and political fallout of one of the most evil human beings in history the dictator of the soviet union joseph stalin who suffered a fatal stroke on the 1st of march 1953. [Music] oh yeah it also happens to be a comedy like seriously this is one of the funniest films i've ever seen and when i started my research i was shocked to find out how some of its craziest moments turned out to be true that was when i knew that i had to make this into an official review so over the course of this video i'll be going to a brief history of stalin's rights to power and reveal this movie was at all accurate now for those of you who haven't seen it you may find the idea of a comedy like this in poor taste but take it from me you should really give it a chance i think it does a great job of being respectful to the period whilst also being able to satirize it authentically life is cruel violent and depressing but sometimes a healthy sense of humor can make all the difference in the world even fighting in something like the death of stalin [Music] on the 6th of march 1953 the world was stunned with the news announcing stalin's death marking the end of his 24-year reign of terror that murdered millions and transformed the soviet union into a superpower while some in the west celebrated others were more apprehensive over what might come next would things change for the better or even possibly for the worse you're on the hades express mister quiet death is nothing to celebrate don't matter who it is seem to be the only one surprised by his death and it appears time just finally ran out for the old [ __ ] i'm sorry but if there's one death you could celebrate it was definitely stalin i know that people like to use hitler as the perfect example of true evil but stalin ranks pretty high up there as well so i don't think he should be overlooked and i'm going to explain this chapter exactly why born in 1878 in the small village of gory in georgia which was then part of the russian empire joseph stalin was originally joseph visarianovich georgesville throughout his young adult life he assumed many identities but the one he ultimately went for was stalin a russian were to conceal his georgian roots and translated to man of steel it was a title that he would certainly live up to the reason for these later name changes was because by 1905 he had joined an underground socialist group called the bolsheviks founded by vladimir lenin they promoted the principles of marxism through propaganda by provoking general unrest mainly through strikes and protests stalin quickly rose through its ranks by raising vast sums of money all of it made through criminal means by this point in his life stalin was little more than a common gangster guilty for extortion kidnapping piracy arson bank robbery and running protection rackets to hide from authorities stalin would use aliases and frequently moved from place to place despite these precautions he was often captured and imprisoned for his crimes before eventually escaping later from the very beginning he was regarded by lenin as a reliable asset to the cause this helped bring stalin into the inner circle and by 1917 the bolsheviks had seized power in russia during the october revolution and stalin found himself in the central committee of the new communist government but over the years and despite his loyal service stalin was passed over for many of its top jobs the truth was that stalin's usefulness as an enforcer was no longer needed he was rightly seen as an uneducated violent thug by many of his peers none more so than leon trotsky whom stalin hated with an abiding passion stalin especially resented trotsky's close relationship with lenin which made him the second most powerful figure in the soviet union this was the reality that stalin was forced to accept for the next few years that was until 1922 when lenin assigned stalin the role of general secretary at first glance it seems like just a desk job but stalin was quick to realize its enormous potential a general secretary was merely intended to keep the books in order and set up appointments but this position also gave him the authority to appoint party members in administrative positions this allowed him to remove his rivals and replace them with his loyal supporters he could also decide who he wanted to inform about key appointments and who not to just so that the majority presence in these committees would always be pushing his agenda this political maneuvering was not lost on lenin but he had suffered a paralyzing stroke on the 25th of may 1922 fearing his imminent death he wrote a secret testament critiquing all the leading party members and recommended removing joseph stalin as general secretary of the communist party when lenin eventually died in 1924 stalin personally organized a grand funeral in his honor by leading the procession stalin was seen by the people as an obvious choice for successor one reason why many who mattered weren't supportive of lenin's favorite protege leon trotsky was because trotsky was purposely given the wrong date for the funeral for the next three years stalin's power base continued to grow and by 1927 stalin was able to expel trotsky from the party forcing him to flee to mexico in exile until his murder in 1940 at the hands of a soviet assassin by 1929 stalin had ousted all of his political rivals making him the de facto leader keeping the title of general secretary he turned his attention to transforming the soviets union into an industrial power reason why was because the ussr had fallen behind many of the western powers with the majority of its people still working the land as peasants and to fix this stalin enacted three aggressive five-year plans to leap forward his nation's productivity in a shorter time as possible the agricultural sector was the first to be radically reformed through collective farming all of the worldly and most successful peasants were stripped of their lands and were labeled by stalin as kulaks five million of them were either exiled to slave labor camps or executed by local secret police the remaining peasants were forced to work on enormous state-run farms where the bulk of their crops and livestock were seized by the government and sent to the big cities to feed factory workers or were sold abroad this collectivization was expected to increase food production but instead it did the exact opposite across the soviet union millions of agricultural workers suffered from extreme privation and consequently died from starvation and disease anyone found stealing food either faced imprisonment or a firing squad forcing some to resort to cannibalism it's unknown how many died in this genocide that's remembered today as the holodomor but it's believed to be up to 10 million news of the family was suppressed in the cities but not even the factory workers were safe from stalin's ruthlessness in an effort to increase productivity in iron steel oil coal and more workers were given extremely high quotas any worker that continued to fail meeting them or made mistakes were also exiled to a work camp or shot now these work camps also known as gulags provided the communist government with an endless supply of slave labor from criminals to political prisoners men women and in some cases even children were forced to work at gunpoint in the most appalling conditions whether it be by chopping trees for lumber or mining for coal all of this was done through grueling 14-hour work days and little protection against the elements the worst gulags were in siberia or in the arctic circle where prisoners were exposed to sub-freezing temperatures during the winter the most notorious and dreaded gulag was kalima according to ann applebaum in a groundbreaking book gulag the name kalimar deserves to be as well known as the name auschwitz food rations were tightly controlled and only given to the most productive workers there was no consideration for the ones who couldn't keep up as they could always be replaced this resulted in a million dying from hunger disease or even simply exhaustion despite its barbaric methods stalin's plans to modernize the soviet union was beginning to work its achievements often exaggerated by propaganda always presented joseph stalin as an infallible leader his portraits were hung in every factory and every home in schools children were taught that their loyalty was to stalin first and their family second this indoctrination was ruthlessly enforced by the nkbd stalin's secret police and everyone was expected to follow this cult of stalin to be unwavering in their love and support for their great leader or else suffer the consequences an example of this can be seen with one of stalin's speeches after he'd finished the whole rumor erupted in thunderous applause but as minute after minute dragged the applause showed no sign of stopping since no one dared to be the first in 1934 stalin further strengthened his grip on power through an even worse act of political repression it was triggered by the death of sergey kirov stalin's loyal friend and colleague although this is unconfirmed it is widely believed that stalin was unsettled the kirov's growing popularity and ordered his assassination and to use kirov's death as a pretext to find his supposed killers in what would come to be known as the great purge stalin ordered the eradication of anyone considered a threat first targeting other party members but soon as swept over all branches of government many high-ranking generals and officers from the soviets military were tortured into giving false confessions and executed next was the educated like writers artists doctors and scientists attention was finally turned onto the lower classes as well regardless of innocence and often at random it came to a point where mass murder was committed just to meet quotas on stalin's lists by the end of it is estimated that up to a million people were killed or sent to the gulags its aftermath paralyzed the soviet union with fear and paranoia crushing any preconception to resist but as much as these crackdowns secured stalin's position they would have disastrous consequences for him later on the 22nd of june 1941 nazi germany and its axis allies invaded the soviet union catching its armed forces completely by surprise at first joseph stalin couldn't believe it in august 1939 he and hitler had signed the nazi soviets pact with both invading poland later in september but only germany being made accountable for it by having war declared upon them by france and britain aside from carving up poland together the pact meant to guarantee peace for at least 10 years and stalin was convinced that hitler wouldn't be reckless enough to open up a second front not without taking care of the british first so when news broke of the attack stalin was so shocked by it that he locked himself away for weeks and refused to talk to anyone during that time the red army and navy were fighting a losing battle the great purge had eliminated many of its best offices and the lack of effective leadership and experience helped pave the way for the axis advance eventually stalin snapped out of his depression and in the early days of fighting took personal control of his armored forces despite having little battle experience and even less strategic and staff work knowledge aside from the gigantic casualties the red army suffered there was a serious problem with the badly led troops retreating and deserting in huge numbers to try and fix this stalin issued the infamous order 227 to re-establish discipline and order in the only way he knew how it instructed all officers and men to take not one step back disgraced soldiers and labour camp inmates were conscripted into what were known as penal battalions and centered the most dangerous part to the line in large numbers they were thrown against german defenses their sinister purpose was to act as human shields and protect the more experienced and valuable soldiers following behind and if an assault failed order 227 required units at the rear of the line to shoot all who retreated stalin figured that the choice between german bullets and soviets bullets would better sway the men in reality this cruel tactic did nothing but waste precious manpower with hundreds of thousands dying under his command for month after month stalin's generals eventually convinced him to rescind order 227 and stepped down as commander arguing that fighting and winning the war would be better left in their hands and he should focus instead on keeping the factories running and being the geostrategic chess player after years of exceptionally bloody fighting that was markedly pitiless the tide finally turned for the soviet union the red army and navy had fully recovered from the early defeats and were better equipped soviet factories worked around the clock to provide tanks aircraft field guns and ammunition stalin's aggressive efforts in industrialization had become the key to winning the war the soviet union was now able to outproduce germany through a war of attrition outnumbered and outgunned the german vermont and as axis allies retreated from soviet soil from eastern europe all the way until the red army were at the gates of berlin only after the capital was in complete ruins the germans eventually surrender the soviets union had emerged victorious in their great patriotic war but the cost was far higher than all the other allied nations combined page 4 with over 25 million soviet lives this figure wasn't lost on stalin in july 1945 president harry truman prime minister winston churchill and joseph stalin attended the potsdam conference to discuss the future of post-war europe the allies expressed their wish to the communist leader to withdraw his troops from the liberated countries of eastern europe a return to its people their freedom but stalin had no interest in doing so and instead chose to absorb these countries and turn them into communist satellite states to create a buffer zone between the west and the east and ensured that the soviet union would never again be so easily invaded when push came to shove the allies didn't have the nerve to get caught up in yet another war and reluctantly abandoned 90 million people under soviet occupation to their fate upon returning to moscow stalin wasted no time in reasserting his authority nearly three million former soviet prisoners of war had survived the horrific conditions of the nazi and axis camps only to face interrogation back home for charges of treason after half were convicted and sent to the gulags not even in his old age did stalin soften with time his reign of terror continued to hold the soviets people hostage for another eight years in his never-ending quest to find traitors but under stalin's vision the soviet union had been transformed into a superpower and its communist ideology will play on the center stage of world politics for the next half century when the movie begins it is 1953 and the people of the soviet union have endured decades of oppression by stalin's secret police which monitored and watched what everyone said or did in order to survive a strict code of silence was followed as he never knew who you could trust or who might turn you in even so this didn't guarantee your safety since many innocent people still ended up on stalin's lists the terrifying truth was that no one was safe and that's exactly how stanan liked it even in his seventies no one would dare challenge his grip on power or even think to defy him but in an ironic twist of fate they would all come back to bite him in the ass on the 1st of march 1953 the general secretary was alone in his bedroom and instructed his staff not to disturb him shortly afterwards the dictator suffered a severe stroke and violently collapsed and what happened next is absolutely true should we investigate should you shut the [ __ ] up before you get us both killed despite hearing suspicious noise the guards were too scared to check the disturbance leaving their great communist leader to line a pathetic puddle of his urine for an entire day when his staff eventually worked up the courage they found an unconscious stalin and debated over what to do rather than calling a doctor they decided to call the politburo instead the communist party's executive committee with the general secretary incapacitated it was up to them to take charge in his absence now the reason why a doctor wasn't called for help first is thanks to yet another of stalin's genius policies we should we should get a doctor yeah yes if only we hadn't put away all those highly competent doctors for trees just a year earlier in 1952 stalin had begun planning another purge one that would specifically target jews known as the doctor's plot jewish doctors were accused of conspiring to murder stalin and other soviets leaders ostracized by an aggressive propaganda campaign hundreds of moscow's doctors lost their jobs and were rounded up tortured and awaited exile to a new series of gulags that stalin was planning to build just for them and seeing the doctors plot through was something that stalin adamantly believed in this of course presented a dilemma for the committee if they got the help of a highly skilled doctor which many of the jewish doctors were and stalin recovered then he might perceive the act as treason after much delay a group of doctors was eventually assembled but there was little they could do the dictator had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died a few days later on the 5th of march 1953 for the first time in decades the polar bureau was without stalin's guidance a reality that unnerved some party members whilst others saw an opportunity out of the executive committee three would emerge in the power struggle that followed stalin's death the first was the deputy general secretary georgie malenkov and his position within the party made him next in the line of succession a role that he didn't hesitate to pursue but he was also aware that holding it wasn't a guarantee he's irreplaceable how can we possibly all right uh let me just think of the people uh as acting general secretary i must step up i must um i must uh take his place while he's um on the floor but you just said he's irreplaceable malinkov knew that his claim meant very little without support from the other party members unless he had some serious muscle backing him the second person was the former head of the nkvd lavrenti beria he had been largely responsible for murdering millions in stalin's purges and oversaw many of the names from that dreaded list shoot her before him but make sure he sees it on this one um kill him take him to his church dump him in the pulpit i'll leave the rest up to you berrier was a total psychopath and relished the power that came with his previous role as stalin's personal executioner who once referred to barrier as my himmler beria also sadistically enjoys beating and raping hundreds of women and little girls this reputation made him the second most feared man in the soviet union and his most hated but no longer under stalin's protection the crimes he had committed in his name had become a liability and if he wanted to survive beria had to immediately take the reins left behind in this power vacuum and ally himself with malinkov and finally the third person was moscow party head nikita khrushchev the very last man anyone suspected would make a power move up until now he had never been particularly ambitious or seen as anything special some party members thought that the only reason khrushchev was even part of the inner circle was simply because stalin thought he was funny he always cracks me up this one despite appearing as the party clown khrushchev treated every joke he ever told with absolute seriousness and just like we see in the film he would ask his wife at the end of the day to write down all the jokes he could remember telling stalin i made a joke about the farmers the stalling love uh yeah he's made a joke about the navy no less no more navy jokes khrushchev's jokey demeanor had always been a strategic move and as long as he kept his head down and stayed in stalin's favor then he had a good chance of surviving but with stalin gone that was no longer a guarantee especially if his rival barrier assumed power through the weak-minded malinkov as the three men plotted and schemed there was another matter they had to deal with stalin's children specifically svetlana and vasily from stalin's second marriage gaining their support would be paramount in winning over the public it was just a matter of who could get to them first svetlana is here i'm here i'm over here for lana svetlana [ __ ] the races started lana they're trying to cut you off it's obvious out of all of stalin's children his favorite was his only daughter svetlana she was the only thing in his life that he showed an ounce of affection towards and despite being a strict father his reasons for being so controlling is most likely due to svetlana's mother nadia who died in 1932. what happened was that nadia found out about the famine sweeping through ukraine and southern russia and on the 8th of november 1932 she confronted stalin at a dinner party and publicly accused him of betraying the soviet people in response he mocked and humiliated her by flicking her with his cigarette stubs in devastation nadia stormed out of the banquet locked herself in her bedroom and shot herself in the head svetlana would inherit her mother's gentle nature and as a result she was loved dearly by the soviet's people unlike her brother vasili he was regarded as a major embarrassment to the stalin family he was a spoiled egotistical drunk who beat his wife and screwed up every job his father ever gave him bacilly was also unpredictable with his behavior and violently acted out there to find out what are you doing to my father you're jackals murderers you kill it basically by silly your father is dead you're dividing the spoils leave his brain alone how old are you i'm old you're not old you're not even a person you're a testicle this is your [ __ ] heartbeat so with stala now dead the first thing the committee saw to was organizing a state funeral just like with lenin stalin's body was to be embalmed for display at the hall of columns for the next three days before his coffin would be taken to his final resting place in lenin's mausoleum whilst all this was going on barrier wasted no time in gathering power firstly berry worked out a deal with malinkov to reappoint him as head of the mbd which he then merged the mgb which would later be replaced by the kgb in 1954 anyway this gave him power over the soviet union's secret police which he re-staffed with his followers shortly after he moved two mbd divisions into moscow and replaced the red army soldiers standing guard this alarmed the executive committee who interpreted it as the planning stages of a potential coup it also didn't help when beria began proposing some rather controversial reforms such as halting mass arrests reducing lengthy prison sentences and even releasing a million political prisoners this proposal was adopted despite the fact that barrier was responsible for most of these victims it seemed that this kind act was just so barrier could distance himself from stalin's regime and the crimes he committed in his name the politburo grew even further suspicious after an uprising occurred in east germany in june 1953 it was when beria proposed the idea of reuniting east and west germany for american compensation in khrushchev's eyes to even suggest this idea was anti-communist and felt that unless something was done soon they were all in danger faced with this he began hatching a plot in order for it to succeed he knew he had to get help from the army at great risk khrushchev confided in his old friend marshall zhukov a highly decorated war hero whose great name would provide the legitimacy he desperately needed i'm gonna have to report this conversation threatening to do harm or obstruct any member of presidium in the process of looking at your [ __ ] face be serious are you in i mean i'm in my [ __ ] thinks he can take on the red army i [ __ ] germany i think i can take a flesh lump in a [ __ ] waistcoat over time khrushchev gathered support from all the party members he was even able to recruit barry's ally malenkov on the 26th of june 1953 the politburo assembled for a meeting unknown to beria zhukov and a group of armed men were waiting nearby to arrest him khrushchev then proposed a motion for barriers dismissal from the party as an anti-communist and a western collaborator beria was stunned by the accusation and very quickly things escalated before the votes could even be counted malinkov panicked and frantically hit the buzzer hiding beneath his desk at the signal zhukov and his men burst into the room and took barrier into custody a few months later he was brought before a special tribunal without representation or a right to appeal he was charged and sentenced to death for treason so many times before beria had been on the other side and condemned countless of innocents to their deaths now that the tables are turned barrier fell to his knees weeping and begged for his life [Applause] there would be no ceremony for stalin's himmler his remains were cremated and buried in the woods near moscow having eliminated his greatest rival khrushchev was mostly left unchallenged and within a few years he ousted malenkov and demoted the other party leaders and by 1956 khrushchev emerged as the new leader of the soviets union and one of his very first acts as leader was to publicly condemn stalin in what would be known as the secret speech on the 25th of february 1956 khrushchev stood before the 20th communist party congress and officially revealed the full scale of stalin's crimes information how many were killed in his purges had been suppressed for decades leaving only rumors and speculations but nobody imagined it could ever be this high that tens of millions had perished at the hands of the very man they had all been conditioned to revere even after a speech khrushchev knew that the path towards complete destalinization was an arduous one the man of steel had cast a long shadow during his life some even now are still under its influence to this day the overriding reason for this is that the ussr did not crash down in flames like the third reich it merely fizzled out [Music] so now that i've covered the death of stalin's historical background let's find out how accurate it actually is the main thing you'll notice is that whilst most of the film is based on real history there's also a lot of creative liberties taken with the timeline sometimes real events that were separated by months or even years appears to all take place within just a few days i'll get more into this a little bit later but for now here are the most interesting things i found in my research starting off with the concept we see at the very beginning although this is based on a real event it didn't occur in the same night of stalin's stroke in 1953 but way back in 1944 the story goes that stalin was listening to the radio and heard a concert playing mozart's piano concerto number 23 and he enjoyed it so much that he called radio moscow to send him a recorded copy the only problem was there was a live broadcast and nothing had been recorded leaving everyone the studio absolutely terrified because if you value your life the last thing you want to do is disappoint stalin so the director decided that the only thing to do was to replay the entire concerto record it and just pray that stalin didn't notice but that meant more than simply reassembling the original orchestra in order for the acoustics to sound the same a similar sized audience would be needed as well okay nobody leave don't believe lock the doors lock those doors if you wouldn't mind just taking your seats again please that would be fantastic take your seat take your [ __ ] seats take your seats don't worry nobody's gonna get killed i promise you sit down do not defy me sit your asses down despite what you see here stalin's real request didn't happen right after the performance but much later when everyone had already gone home and the entire orchestra had to be woken up in the middle of the night and rushed back to the studio to fill in for the audience random civilians were grabbed off the street and were told to sit in however this wasn't the only problem facing the director for example in the movie we see the conductor become so terrified that he faints and knocks himself out forcing the studio to find a second replacement as soon as possible which is kind of true but not exactly what really happened was that the first conductor was too scared to perform so they had to find another the second couldn't perform either because he was too drunk leaving the third and final conductor who worked out just fine and like you see here they came to his house in the middle of the night and brought him to the studio still wearing his pajamas the concerto was successfully recorded and sent to stalin without him ever being the wiser i would also like to point out that the pianist maria eudina is based on a real person and it was specifically her solo that caught the dictator's attention and it moved him so much that he just had to re-listen to it whilst it's true that maria did indeed hate stalin i was publicly critical of him there are a few discrepancies with her character for example she didn't have to be bribed by the director to re-perform for twenty thousand rubles just because that would be a dick move and selfishly endanger the lives of fellow musicians the real story was that the 20 000 rubles was actually a gift given to her by stalin when he received the record along with a personal letter singing her praises and instead of showing appreciation maria chose to stick to her principles a replied back with the most shocking letter which we see stalin in the movie read joseph stalin you have betrayed our nation and destroyed its people i pray for your end and ask the lord to forgive you [Music] tyrant [Music] now this isn't exactly what maria wrote but it's pretty close the real letter wasn't as provocative with its language but it did have the same connotations here's what maria actually said i thank you for your aid i will pray for you day and night and ask the lord to forgive your great sins before the people and the country the lord is merciful and he'll forgive you i gave the money to the church that i attend even though this is tamer than what we see in the movie it still took a lot of balls for her to say that it would certainly be more than enough to have a shot in the film stalin doesn't get that chance because he immediately collapses from a stroke but the real stalin had plenty of time to react to this defiance at first he read the letter aloud to his inner circle who were more than willing to have this pianist arrested but what happened instead was that stalin decided to put the letter aside and the subject was just dropped the thing was that maria eudina was stalin's favorite pianist and he just couldn't bring himself to kill her and it's said that years later maria's concerto was heard on stalin's record player as he lay there dying next let's talk about the dinner party scene with stalin's inner circle and i'm happy to say that this is absolutely true the party elite would regularly meet a stalin's country estate his dacha in the early hours of the morning to discuss politics and state business but even after they were finished stalin encouraged them to stay and keep drinking which of course they always did because you never say no to stalin and they would get absolutely blasted much to the dictator's amusement then stalin would end the day by having everyone sit together in his home cinema and as we see here the man was a huge film buff his favorites were the john ford westerns but he also loves gangster movies too and no matter how drunk or exhausted his fellow comrades were they wouldn't leave until the movie was over another interesting scene i thought i'd mention is when we're introduced to vasily stalin he's shown looking drunk and rather pathetic coaching what appears to be an amateur ice hockey team and the reason given is pretty funny when we play hungary we're allowed to use guns come right general these are the best i could find since the plane crash what plane crash there was never a plane crash was there a plane crash the soviet planes do not crash and stalin's son does not [ __ ] up yes he most certainly did this little story is also pretty accurate vasily stalin was president of the soviet sports club bvs moscow which represented the soviet air force and on july 7 1950 a plane carrying his ice hockey team crashed in a heavy snowstorm and apart from three players who are not on board everyone else was killed terrified with how stalin would react vasily covered everything up replaced the entire team and prayed his dad didn't notice and hilariously enough he never did the only difference here is that the plane crash in the film appears to have happened fairly recently whilst the real one was just a few years before so moving on from there we have the former foreign minister vichy slough molotov despite being a loyal friend and supporter of stalin we are told that years before the dictator had arrested molotov's wife paulina for bogus charges of treason this is also fairly accurate and happened in 1949 just like her husband paulina was also a politician and she befriended golden mayor who arrived in moscow in november 1948 as the first israeli envoy to the ussr as paulina was a jew herself she took her role very seriously and for that reason alone stalin distrusted paulina even so she was such a fanatical communist that her first question upon her release from the gulag was how stalin and when she was told that he had died only a few days before she fainted and she and her husband remained fervent communists to their dying days so anyway one of the few things stalin shared in common with his former enemy adolf hitler was his abiding hatred of jews and it didn't matter how many years paulina had devoted to the communist party her israeli affiliation had her opener spousal to hand of the crimea to soviet jews was enough to convince stalin of an elaborate zionist conspiracy sentence for exile paulina would spend the next five years with no contact with her husband molotov was devastated of course but there was little he could do about it to defend paulina or press stalin risked certain death so he dropped the mata and continued serving the party there's a scene where molotov loudly denounces her as a traitor and a criminal unaware that she's just in the next room he immediately drops the act when they're reunited at least it seems like an act because later on molotov still continues to slag off polina behind her back giving the impression that he's so blinded by his loyalty to the party that he can't accept his wife's innocence which just isn't true the real molotov never stopped loving his wife nor did he forget about her throughout paulina's exile he'd regularly ask barrier for any news about her well-being and it may also not have been barry's idea to release paulina in the first place according to journalist douglas france on the 9th of march the day of stalin's funeral it just so happened to be molotov's birthday when malakoff and khrushchev wished him happy birthday they asked him if there was anything he'd like which molotov coldly replied give me back paulina and a week later she was returned and the last things i'll be covering are all about lavrenti barrier since a few of the film's biggest inaccuracies seem to revolve around him i should first point out that by 1953 he wasn't head of stalin's secret police the nkvd he had been for many years but resigned just before the ministry was disbanded in 1946 and became the ministry of internal affairs the mbd beria seemed a new role as deputy chairman and had some say national security but nothing compared to what he used to that's why when stalin died one of the first things he wanted to do was get that back i think the reason why it's never mentioned in the movie is because they wanted to condense a lot of complex history in order to keep the plot moving the same thing goes with the film's timeline we get the impression that everything between stalin's death to berry's execution all happened within a brief amount of time instead of months apart so for the purpose of pacing they take a lot of creative liberties some of it is harmless like when berries steal stalin's personal files there's no record of him ever doing this but it's perfectly plausible unlike the other stuff we see him do like the bit where barrier orders his secret police to arrest all of stalin's staff and to clear out everything from his dacha seemingly to get rid of evidence that witnesses and is carried to such an extreme that even the agents doing it are executed by other agents now i'm not saying stuff like this never happened but i've been unable to find any evidence to this specifically and to be honest i'm a little confused as what the point of all this is it can't be to cover up stalin's death because it was publicly announced the very next day if it was just to steal stuff i'm also unconvinced why would barrier take such an unnecessary risk when he had bigger fish to fry you might say that was because the real barrier didn't hide his hatred of stalin when he died and wasn't concerned with the consequences which admittedly is true and we do get a small glimpse of this in the movie when we see barrier lean over the dictator's bed when everyone is gone and whisper in his ear you have a nice long sleepover i'll take it from here but you might be surprised to find out that the real barrier wasn't that subtle while stalin was unconscious beria began mocking him in front of everyone and only stopped when stalin briefly regained consciousness which prompted barrier to fall to his knees and kiss his hands begging for forgiveness but apparently when stalin passed out again barrier stood back up and spat and discussed if this is true then it shows how confidently barrier believed that stalin would die and could explain why he looted the dacha in the movie again i'm not convinced that this is true and i couldn't find any evidence but if you guys are able to i would love to read your comments on this i should also point out that in recent years some people believe that stalin may actually have been poisoned by barrier the theory goes that berry had been informed that stalin was secretly planning to kill him so he acted first and although this conspiracy theory isn't featured in the death of stalin i thought you might find it interesting all the same anyway so what else could be said about barrier how about the bit where he orders the nkvd to shut down all the trains to moscow to prevent soviet citizens from attending the funeral which provokes khrushchev to countermount these orders and allow thousands of mourners into the city unaware of this the nkvd opens fire on the crowd and kills 1500 civilians which does some serious damage to berry's popularity the massacre you see here never happened the only thing true about it was that was inspired by a tragic accident on the 8th of march 1953 crowds of mourners were waiting outside the mausoleum to see stalin and the red square was so overcrowded that people struggled to breathe panic soon followed with hundreds crushed to death in the chaos so basically beria had nothing to do with this awful accident but it's rewritten so he gets the blame from a historical perspective this is wrong but from a story standpoint i understand although barrier didn't massacre civilians in this circumstance and he wasn't head of the nkvd as shown at the beginning of the movie he did do all this stuff and more back in the day in order to understand just how much of a monster barrier was the audience needs to actually see it for themselves and while the examples given may be inaccurate at least they are historically authentic for this last chapter i'm going to talk about how the death of stalin was received by the general public and also his cautionary message it is first and foremost a comedy of course and yet despite its dark subject matter it completely pulls it off there are so many moments where i not only cracked up with laughter but was impressed with how historically authentic the jokes were my absolute favorite bit is at the funeral where all the main characters stand in front of stalin's coffin where they try to maintain appropriate funeral etiquette but refuse to stop bitching at each other ask mikita why in god's ass he invited the bishops no i've already explained my time you tell him never mind swap no just swap with me i said no we can make it look like it's part of the ceremony [Music] what the [ __ ] are you doing as you can see the writing and performances perfectly complement each other and this might sound strange but i love the fact that no one attempts to rush an accent most actors can't pull it off convincingly even some of the greatest tend to over exaggerate like i know many of you love gary oldman's russian accent in call of duty world of war but even he will admit that's pretty silly on the ledge shoot him the fact that almost everyone keeps the native accents actually makes sense to me after all the soviet union was an enormous land mass with hundreds of unique regional accents so representing them with a variety of english-speaking ones is rather fitting i mean for example i found it hilarious that joseph stalin's portrayed as a cockney it's rather appropriate given that he spoke russian with a thick georgian accent what took you so long you [ __ ] walk here now delivering on the comedy is one thing but the film also needed to accurately betray just how repressive life was under communism and to that extent it succeeded it did so well in fact that the death of stalin wound up getting banned in russia the topic of stalin still seems to be a controversial issue and has left some russians feeling divided one example of this could be seen when two russian journalists got into an argument about the death of stalin they first began by discussing the film but then the topic turned into whether victory in the second world war should be credited to stalin or to the soviet people and and just see for yourself how that conversation [Music] foreign now a funny thing to know is that the kremlin used this little scrap to justify the ban with the president's press secretary dmitry peskov saying and i quote if these dinosaurs can't keep their emotions in check then what is there to say about everyone else this idea that russians can't handle watching the death of stalin was echoed by the culture ministry who banned it as they felt it was an insulting mockery of the soviet's past but that didn't seem to be the case for at least one cinema in moscow who defied the ban and screened the movie to a full audience most of whom didn't seem to mind you know what that's really nice to hear i mean hopefully this assures the russian government that they simply overreacted and there's nothing to worry about a moscow cinema has been raided by police after it showed the newly released british film the death of stalin the theatre went ahead despite the movie being banned in russia on second thought never mind i would just like to say thanks to a sponsor for today's video skillshare skillshare is an online learning platform with thousands of classes from running a business photography music production interior design and much much more for the curtains at the front comrade do you want rushed not bruce it's good that's ruched not ruched roosh would you stop with this their premium membership gives you unlimited access to a wide selection of high quality classes so you can improve your current skills learn new ones and create something that others will love with sharper cheekbones as requested sharp not sharp sharp not sharp i would like that one destroyed skillshare is also very affordable with an annual subscription of less than ten dollars a month and the first 500 people to sign up at the history buffs link will get their first two months for free so just go to skl dot sh forward slash history buffs or click on the link in the description box below well that about wraps it up my name is nick hodges and thanks for watching history buffs and remember if you like the show help the channel grow if you wish to support history buffs then you can now do so add patreon and as always let me know in the comment section what you thought about the death of stalin and of course what historical movie should i review next in the meantime check out the history buffs twitter and facebook pages for new updates until then i'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: undefined

Views: 3,792,595

Rating: 4.8012633 out of 5

Keywords: joseph stalin, death of stalin, the death of stalin, general secretary, cult of personality, soviet union, steve buscemi, the death of stalin review, joseph stalin speech, joseph stalin documentary, joseph stalin funeral, joseph stalin death, History Buffs, historical accuracy, historical inaccuracy, accurate, inaccurate, NKVD, KGB, MVD, MGB, Russia, The Great Purge, WW2, lavrentiy beria, nikita khrushchev, communism, armando iannucci, Adrian McLoughlin, Steve Buscemi, Jason Isaacs

Id: TG-tG-Wo0Do

Length: 46min 37sec (2797 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 13 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/HenkieVV]

When watching this movie, I kept thinking of the disclaimer at the beginning of The Men Who Stare at Goats: "More of this story is true than you would believe".

[u/DarkKnightOfGotham]

"Aslanov! Ya handsome devil! Stick you in a frock. Fucking ride you raw myself."

"I will take that as a compliment."

"Yeah, don't."

[u/bloodflart]

this movie was surprisingly hilarious, I had no idea what to expect going in

[u/Max2tehPower]

Jason Isaacs as Zhukov was great. That Yorkshire accent made it hilarious.

[u/Brice-de-Venice]

I know the drill. Smile, shake hands and try not to call them cunts

[u/apple_kicks]

I'd love this film to become a trilogy. With the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

Then just when you think its over with the third, a sneaky prequel of the Russian royals and drunk Rasputin

[u/menevets]

HIT IT!!! KICK IT!!! PLAY BETTER YOU NINNIES!!!

[u/untranslatable]

There's a reason Putin shut down a theatre in Moscow rather than let them show this movie. The only thing more telling than the hilarious absurdity of the power struggle is the casual brutality.

[u/TheeSweeney]

I like that History Buffs points out inaccuracies, but also often provides reasons why such as pacing or character development.