Stalin: part 1 of 3

Stalin is regarded by many as the bloodiest dictator of the 20th century during his 30-year rule of the Soviet Union 20 million people were murdered and slaughtered he personally signed the death warrant for tens of thousands of victims yet he created an image of himself so powerful but at the height of his reign he was hailed throughout Russia and the West as the father and savior of the Soviet people he was admired as the architect of modern industrial Russia he was seen as the living embodiment of manly strength and virtue he was worshipped as a national hero the Man of Steel Stein regarded himself as the Bolshevik Messiah he was a messianic egotist he created an image of himself which he tried to live by who the ultimate self creation [Music] Stalin's victims lie silent in the Russian soil as many as 20 million lives were cut short by a brutal regime but the people who Joseph Stalin oppressed for a quarter of a century mourned his death his image was that of the father figure [Music] yes for me that was a day the day almost of despair how things are going to get worse as Stalin layin state his people shed tears for the tyrant affected the lives of every family in the Soviet Union so many close relatives I lost many of them because of him I don't know why there's something I can't explain to this day but I cried too yes I wept that wasn't the real Stalin that we hide and others like me were mourning in those days that was the stolid meet the star in Atlanta see the real Stalin worked behind the walls of the Kremlin choosing who would live and who would die hundreds of death lists signed in red ink by Stalin himself sometimes he crossed out a single name saving that single person from extinction [Music] but the myth was strong but its heart was an image of Stalin the father of his nation and its children the silent light to be seen in public assert that friendly fatherly figure so he will often be seen with young children young girls and so on and this was a deliberate image which imitated in some respects the image that the Tsar had forget it before 1917 this photograph started it all Stalin posed with Angelina Marquez over the daughter of a party functionary from Siberia darling was no not the best friend of artists writers and what-have-you and that was well propagated but Stalin is the best friend of children that was it such a familiar image and now there was an illustration to prove that Stalin loved children and this portrait could be seen absolutely everywhere really everywhere they went but yet the believe is here fractured absolutely it is near every member and every Yahoo scooped and while later a sculptor called Lavrov came to my hometown he made a sculpture a girl on Stalin's arm and he called it Thank You comrade stalin for our happy childhood but behind this picture they the other face of Stalin which Angelina discovered one day when she came home from school me nepeta to her mommy's cos my mother greeted me and said Papa has been arrested but don't worry he's not an enemy of the people they'll soon release him but he didn't come back Angelina's father was accused of being a Japanese spy and was executed by firing squad taking one person so that's how my happy life my happy childhood came to an end but the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 1949 the cult of Stalin the father reached its extraordinary climax it was his 70th birthday if Stalin took to the stage first honestly believe me the auditorium was raging it was hysterical screaming everywhere everyone was overcome jubilant there were courses father dearest are the dearest like that this event had been in preparation for months every part of the country sent delegates and competed to send gifts for their beloved leader to celebrate his birthday mr. Feeley loud we performed at the celebrations in the Bolshoi Theatre that went as usual the pioneers came on stage and sang songs and recited poems we'd rehearsed many times the cute earlier [Music] this is precisely the time when Stalin was a Jew lated worshipped like a God and that's precisely what was instilled into the children - and my childhood began with this idea and ended with this idea mission that was just this extravagant adoration didn't come about by accident a harsh and strictly religious childhood had sown the seeds of transformation from man to myth Joseph Stalin was born in a poor family in Georgia in the southern Caucasus his real name was a Yosef frugally from the very beginning Stalin rewrote his own history his birth certificate reveals his true birthday was the 6th of December 1878 not 1879 as he was to later claim Stein almost believed that mystery was necessary for the great man as part of it part of it was that he wanted to conceal a lot about his inglorious early years and so he wanted to invent invent the glorious Stein the man he should have been the Man of Steel he didn't want people to know very much about him the man his parents home in Gori was to become a place of pilgrimage during Stalin's lifetime but what the pilgrims were never meant to find out was the bish shrine covered a cruel and abusive family home Stalin's father a cobbler was a heavy drinker who regularly beat his son his strict and devout mother sent him to a religious school his home life left its mark on the young Joseph his defiant expression is reminiscent of the young Hitler both boys have the same self-confident almost insolent stare Stalin the father figure couldn't have his image ruined by suggestions of an unhappy childhood so he set about creating a happy childhood with a loving mother in case this documentary about his mother revealed any embarrassing truths Stalin stopped it from being completed the Soviet people weren't told that Stalin only saw his mother three times in 14 years for him I must say that Stalin's relationship with his mother was very poor sometimes he even called her an old [ __ ] in front of others or his colleagues these exclusive pictures show Stalin's mother's funeral in 1937 unwilling even at her death to face the woman who really knew him he didn't go to the funeral just sent a wreath to say goodbye [Music] the mobilization she was no peasant woman at the height of his power she said to him it's a pity you didn't become a priest I'm sure that's what she said to him it was very astute and clever was my English cuisine the Poochyena at the age of 14 Stalin won a scholarship to the seminary at tiflis it was here that he met other budding young intellectuals and was introduced to the work of Karl Marx he found his new religion and he also quickly realized something else that the religion he had cast off at spurns had to be replaced by something else especially with the Russian people the Russian people understood the faith Lazar and the fatherland Viru Syria deities the Russian Orthodox faith relied on the potency of its icons images full of the yearning for salvation and happiness hung in every Russian home when Stalin came to power he made sure he destroyed the power of the church and replaced its icon with a new image of salvation Stalin himself so there was an exchanging of icons that was inevitable the whole system of power rested on it as well as a certain face you don't never show to give here for Stalin and the Bolsheviks there was no room for the old faiths [Music] after he left the seminary Stalin got the only ordinary job he ever had at the observatory and tiflis for the next two years these records show that he worked here as a meteorologist but in these dying years of the 19th century stalin caught the revolutionary fever on the face of it it was life as usual for the Czar and his court but his family's 300 year reign was on the brink of extinction [Music] Stalin found his feat in the revolutionary movement in titli's as one of the instigators of this made a demonstration he was arrested police records show that at that point he changed his name and Stalin was born punishment for agitators was exile over the next 20 years he was to be banished six times then he plunged into the underworld always on the run in and out of prisons in and out of exile was an adventurous life fascinating fascinating life of shadows and mirrors mystery it suited Stalin down to the ground [Music] during one of his periods of exile in Sabah Kiev aghoris at the northernmost point of Russia Stalin met and lived with this woman Maria kazakova this film was taken 25 years later here Stalin pursued his revolutionary interests writing and talking with his comrades he also found time to father a son with Maria he kept this liaison secret throughout his years in power I guess cuz I should do what my my father told me that nerdy arms down ins wife often used to visit him and talk to him and one time she said I know that yosef busier on average had a son and I know that son is you Stalin's illegitimate son went on to have a high-powered career within the Communist Party even though Stalin never publicly acknowledged him [Music] and um as you know we can never know but if so which a good ski weekend don't walk you know we when we traveled to serve each giggles a few years ago and went to the house where my father grew up I was shown the cradle in which Stalin and Rocksteady know it in the UK whakatau is really one sin Stalin left his new baby son behind slipped past security and escaped for the sixth time from exile his destination was to join Lenin already the leading figure of the Russian Revolution later this propaganda movie of the October Revolution which shows Stalin as Lenin's right-hand man and confidant but in reality not one single picture can be found of Stalin with Lenin during the crucial days leading to the storming of the Winter Palace Stalin promoted himself when he was in power and many liked her this is hugely exaggerated but Lenin needed the wonderful Georgian as he called Stalin and he needed someone who could get things done like Russia this was Stalin Stalin he won Lenin's respect at that time even if he was never quite the hero in the front rank that he pretended later it was claimed in later propaganda films that Stalin plotted the October uprising alongside Lenin to close revolutionary heroes the truth was very different Darla's invented the image of himself as secondary to Lenin that's nonsense but he was one of the top secret agent secret fixes that Lenin had working for him the point about style in his peerage was he was not Chomsky Trotsky tough an important and celebrated politician was sort of second man and once Stalin came to power he began to create himself and promote himself in that position as number two that was a big myth Stalin was not at the Winter Palace the night the Bolsheviks seized power but because of his secret and shadowy role in the revolution he needed to pretend he was in the thick of the action to prove how important he had been Stalin needed to promote himself as prominent and hence you see endless some films and paintings of Stalin harm standing next to a towering Lenin right at the front of the platform that was myth in real life the very first time Stalin was seen on film alongside Lenin was at Lenin's funeral in 1924 and far from being his closest ally Lenin had already begun to distance himself from Stalin at this time Stalin was barely one of the inner circle but he was seen as useful someone to do the dirty work no one took any notice of Stalin and that's why no one heeded Lenin's will which clearly stated that Stalin should be ousted from the post of general secretary and given a different post [Music] Lenin's political heirs ignored his will in their jostle for power Stalin emerged that the general secretary of the party something many of them would later live to regret even the top scientist just imagine it's perfectly true that Stalin wasn't really anyone special did everyone else in Lenin's entourage was much cleverer and more talented than Stalin nobody had expected to turn out to be a great political figure as yet Stalin was just one amongst many potential leaders of the country but the 45 year old Stalin wasn't quite ready for his grand entrance which cuz I stand before when Stalin came to power he couldn't move or express himself eloquently so he kept a low profile these shots of Stalin on the right in the farmers cab showed that he's at the edge of the group an outsider he needed to learn how to be a leader [Applause] but I'm terrible with the actor code Rodgers taught him to speak in Connecticut he told him he should speak slowly in measured tones we conviction here he taught him what the spiritual leader should be like rules he had to ensure love that incidentally was quite the opposite to Hitler shouting excelled through his temperature Stalin knew he couldn't compete with Hitler and it came to addressing the crannies but he developed his own style he was a shy and a quiet man and yet in the long run he developed a speaking style I'm sexy remarkably effective a lot of humor sir the mandible Garity a good deal of sarcasm he became a very good public speaker he would have applause all the way soon not just because people were being sick authentic but because he somehow managed to get his finger on the pulse of what it was that the crowd in front of him wanted and this was a real skill which he developed and continued when trace in the 1930s [Applause] Stalin was quick to market himself throughout the vast empire of the Soviet Union his speeches were recorded on gramophone archives and shipped out across the country as presents to worthy comrades Stalin was already aware of the power of the media this was just the beginning of the cult of Stalin the man and the myth was soon to become completely detached from each other and no one would come to know this better than the women he married [Applause] Stalin married his first wife his childhood sweetheart Kiki's felids II during his years on the road working for the revolution but she died of tuberculosis in 1907 leaving Stalin he claimed with a permanently broken heart ten years later Stalin married again Nadezhda or Nadya was an ardent communist who to begin with worked alongside him in the Kremlin all the Bolshevik leadership lived here their lives closely entwined but hidden from public view with his second wife Stalin had two children Vasily and Svetlana Stalin and Nadia's marriage was a love match but it could be extremely explosive it was not all one-sided do you think about nanos that she was a child Bolshevik family so the image of her is this sort of angel this pure angel it's corrupted by Stalin and his viciousness it's just nonsense she was a Bolshevik through and through this is one of only two photographs ever taken of the couple together in their 15 years of marriage the picture with the rolls-royce take a good look Stalin is sitting in the front next to the chauffeur and in the backs it's a very lonely hunched up young woman see that sums up her situation precisely she's miles away from him and she's very lonely Nadia wanted a career of her own and to make a contribution to Soviet society away from the hotbed of the Kremlin in 1929 at the age of 30 she studied engineering at the industry academy we know now from documents that she often informed on people who were anti started in the industrial academy to start up to the secret police so again you know not this is not a secure and Sarah that we've been we've led to believe but she did obviously pick up outside knowledge outside the Kremlin hothouse but in fact all of the new that millions of peasants were starving as time in the countryside all the leadership knew it was common knowledge most of them believed was necessary to the revolution but obviously Naji began to worry like other Bolsheviks this this was going too far these were unwanted criticisms from starlings own wife one witness remembers her saying to Stalin I denied you have tortured them all if you tortured me you have tortured the people November 1932 and it was the 15th anniversary of the revolution while Moscow celebrated the famine and hardship in the countryside reached its height at a boisterous party that evening a furious Rao blew up between Stalin and Nadia she sat right office of him with the table more drinking love dancing Georgian wine and Stalin started flirting with an actress at the other end of the table this raged Nadja the young wife is sitting right office of him being totally then they had this route she stood up and she shouted at him shut up shut up shut up in front of everybody and she's ran out of the room Nadia made her way back to their apartment on her own she went off to her room she wrote a letter but attacked Stalin politically and personally [Music] what happened next will never be known for sure but a shot was fired at dawn the next morning the housekeeper burst in found her mistress dead on the floor with a bullet hole in the heart one of your deal in the cornea the opposition immediately said that he killed her that's the story to this day but the family know that she did it by her enemies skirt if she wants your thyroid the official statement said she had died of acute appendicitis [Music] when he saw her lying in her coffin he pushed her away and said she went as an enemy and now on the basis of my experience of life I think he realized she'd seen through them but he wasn't the way he wanted to appear Stalin's youngest two children swetlana and Vasily were left without their mother brought up in the Kremlin Vasily felt the heavy pressure from his father we're seen I think he was constantly afraid of father he was afraid of him as a child and when he was already general life tenors of the air force dripping with metal he was so afraid of father that he literally shook in his boots [Music] but Sealy was made the youngest General in the Armed Forces hated and feared by his comrades only one thing protected him from being thrown out he was his father's son once when we were sitting together he kind of skinful bought himself another one and I said to him Vasya enough stop then he drew his pistol which he always carried with him and he said I have only two ways out the pistol is one and the bottle is the other because I only survived as long as father is alive but the Soviet people didn't know what Stalin's family knew they only knew the myth Stalin was the toast of the Empire the first toast in our house was always to Comrade Joseph Vissarionovich well that was at a time when in schools songs were song about some poems about [Music] [Music] throughout the 1930s under Stalin's leadership the Soviet Union was transformed economically he was able to turn the Soviet Union in a very short period of time into a much more modern state capable by the late 1930s and 1940s of developing sophisticated rocket technology capable by the late 1940s of producing an atomic bomb businesses in those sense of primitive state and the message that Stalin wanted to be heard was clear one man was responsible for all this progress Stalin the supreme father of the Soviet Union a new City Stalingrad was built in his honor [Music] we round this time for us I mean with my circle friends my colleagues Stalin appears to be an ingenious statesman who does everything right nothing [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Applause] we believed we were constructing a new world a new mankind my annoyin main but millions paid the price for this economic miracle hundreds of thousands slaughtered hundreds of thousands sent to the gulag [Music] but thanks to the relentless propaganda machine his public image remained doors started always regarded cinema as the most important modern propaganda tool of all and he took cinema incredibly seriously he's personally supervised dit he personally sentence at every film no film could be shown in the Soviet Union without starred in having worked on the script talked to the director chatter to the scriptwriter often suggested the name of the film rewritten parts of it and then passed it for sharing in fact the real Stalin was never seen by the ordinary Soviet people only a few had the opportunity to see him close-up and then I see a group of people approaching and amongst them was a man of very small stature a look at him and wonder who could that be after a while I realized that it is stolen he had a pockmarked face and his shoulders were very narrow on the portraits he was always depicted as being so broad shouldered so majestically system NATO party no image left the artist studio without approval from Stalin the camera crews were always conscious of how best to present their leader he had a double chin and he knew it and when we filmed him he always tried to hold his chin straight and he looked like this see like this but when he forgot to do it and let go then you could see his double chin and we had to cut out those sequences this is the image of Stalin that history is most familiar with but it isn't Stalin it is in fact the actor Mikhail Galvani who was allowed to play only one part in his film career that of Stalin no he played Stalin so incredibly authentically that once Stalin on being shown a fragment from the film claimed it was he what mattered was that he looked so important on the screen he wanted to everyone to see him and recognized him as a god a leader that was typical of him Stalin loved film but his own taste was for light comedy his clear favorite was the musical vulgar vulgar he watched this film when he was tired had come from meetings he'd say let's watch fog evolving Stalin sent the film as a gift to the American president a puzzled White House wondered whether the film contained a secret message but the director Alexandrov had only one instruction to praise the wonderful life of the Soviet citizens Teresa Harlow Starling I must have loved all of our eyes and actors why does he said the director Alexandrov at one of the receptions take care of Oliver if you don't take care of our luck we'll shoot you of course intended as a joke mayor but the kind of jokes can put the fear of death to make a bar short dependency shortcut okay hit the ordinate Kotori more than a period morning sir Crossing Stalin was of course no laughing matter the daily freight train that carried the deported rolled into the gulag the prison camps from which so few returned but the Stalin myth penetrated even as far as here for me Academy we can remember it was on the transport one of the other started singing I know no other land on earth where your heart beats so freely that was of course well what should I say a bit laughable twenty-eight million was sent to the gulag three million never returned [Music] that was a really popular song everyone sang is we Toulouse Inez we got really worked up when we sang that was our life I hope melodies [Music] disaster struck on the 22nd of June 1941 Hitler invaded the Soviet Union the German advance seemed unstoppable and within three months Hitler's armies were less than 50 miles from Moscow it was a week to the anniversary of the revolution the most important date on the Soviet calendar Stalin wanted the annual parade in Red Square to go ahead as normal his generals argued it was far too dangerous the Soviet army could be obliterated by the Germans his top people that Politburo actually laughed Molotov from the other city all you're joking of course Moscow was actually under fire artillery fire as well as aircraft attack started now I'm not joking this will be such a secret that you and he appointed the general who is going to command this huge secret tongue parade he said you won't even tell me the time at the parade until the parade actually is about to start see I don't even want to know he said and they realized he was serious a week later the parade happened as planned it was an extraordinary achievement this was a classic example of the of Stalin's management of a cult or presentation and this speech had an enormous power on the Soviet people but it just shows both his sort of laid its grasp or presentation but also his nerve you know nerves of steel to risk this and it worked the Soviet people at war with Germany heard what they needed to hear and then the radio operator comes out of the bunker and says Stalin speaking and we ran into the shelter and it wasn't very clear but it was his voice he was speaking from Moscow another Moscow Stalin appealed to Russian patriotism to the spirit of Alexander Nevsky to the great victories of the Czarist era [Music] Indy's our student become in those hours I really felt very close to him in mid-november 1941 Stalin's troops forced a reversal in the war and the German assault on Moscow was beaten off in the following years Stalin was rarely seen preferring his conceivable Dutcher to the Kremlin there was no news footage of Stalin to feed to the people they didn't need it they had the myth but behind closed doors Stalin's paranoia was escalating it would eventually destroy him June 1945 and the war is over it's been almost three years since Stalin has been seen in public but now he could style himself as a general and a victor by the end of the war he believed he was a military genius par excellence that everything he done was was that was that was the sign of absolute martial genius and despite that huge bungles he made her in the war lakenya see when the war was finally over when it had ended with victory Stalin of course became a god a hero someone for whom people were prepared to go into back way in the assault on Berlin on coningsburgh to Europe liberating cities that was an unforgettable music boy in this film directed by mikio giarelli the victorious Stalin flew to Berlin to celebrate its liberation but it was an event in reality that never took place the Politburo gathered round for a preview of the film the film was running my father was sitting at the back of course everybody had their eyes glued to the screen but my father was watching Stalin and observing his reactions because the hen it was a matter of life or death in the episode where Stalin emerges from the big plane and the whole of Berlin kneels down before him my father saw that Stalin slowly raised his hand and wiped tears from his eyes only then could he breathe freely and said to himself I'm saved [Applause] Starlin really did like the pill after the showing he said to my father clapped him on the shoulder and said Bravo lad Robbo or chubby Josh and then he said regretfully if only I had done it and had really gone to Berlin it was another man the military general who was actually there to celebrate the victory in Berlin marshal Zhukov it wouldn't be long before he fell into disfavor with Stalin Stalin's stage was at the Potsdam Conference with the victorious Allies dividing the spoils of war now Stalin was at the zenith of his international career but his paranoia was also at its peak the entire railway track was sealed off for his journey back to Moscow he planned every last detail no one was going to topple him [Music] during the war years Stalin kept out of the limelight he lived almost permanently it is conserve or dacha even his children's sweat Lara and Vasily saw little of him their own lives increasingly cursed by their blood ties to the ruthless dictator Vasily had always had a hot temper and lived on the edge the bottle was his constant companion well he drank it's bitter to speak about it it was his ruin I can remember once when there was a parade of the air force Starling arrived a bit late silly Starling command instead of not saying he was drowning in Moscow but he had said what I think I said it started he wreaked of the bottle but just maintain his words of course no cadets go on purpose even yet on rubber it's the role of solution but Stalin's daughter Svetlana had always been his favorite she was the only person he ever allowed to get close to him he called her his keeper yes I was his favorite but also because I was good at school until I was 16 I didn't cause him any trouble at all and he was very satisfied yeah when younger sure he but when she grew up she started causing nothing but trouble she didn't listen to him she got divorced and he never saw some of his grandchildren contact [Music] Stalin said the propaganda went dedicated himself entirely to his people a popular rhyme was in the Kremlin there burns a light Comrade Stalin works through the night but in fact it was only in the movies that Stalin portrayed by his double was omnipresent modestly receiving his jubilant people I see the vampire baron especially Akemi project by this time the real Stalin was at his dacha fearful of his people his colleagues and his staff he was distrustful his whole life long and the longer he was in power the more power he had the more distrustful he became he thought they wanted to take away his power Stalin believed himself to be surrounded by enemies trusting no one and trusted by no one most of all the old man feared the doctors who treated him Bob said he had the flu the doctor is called in firing up in here as usual he do the examining prescribes medicine which he has with him and leaves there then Stalin calls one of the staff whom he knows and sends him to a chemist outside Moscow to buy the same medicine the one the doctor has left he just throws away a child forget it as the real Stalin retreated the invincible mythological Stalin was all that was left no one could quite treat him as a human being anymore because this made him a very lonely bitter old man he used to say in fact look at me I'm the most powerful man in the world and I can't even have it I can't even find anyone to take a cup of tea with when in March 1953 Stalin Lay Dying in his bed it took over 12 hours for his staff to dare call the doctors there amazed that they then terrified the gap between the tighten they've seen promoted in film and the media and this this son his old fat man paralyzed down one side soaked in urine fighting for breath is so vast they actually are incapable of treating Stalin's funeral was his last grand show but it was nothing more than a facade his son Vasily was drunk and soon he would be thrown out of the army and set out the rest of his life in jail [Music] svetlana Stalin's favorite left the country her father had ruled as a refugee barrier Stalin's Chief of Police only lived for three months after Stalin's death he was executed on the orders of this man Nikita Khrushchev Stalin's successor only three years later he would denounce Stalin as a criminal and had his body removed from the Lenin mausoleum at the dead of night Stalin took at least 20 million people with him to the grave only a few were aware of what was really happening she was the devil incarnate and after Stalin died history was rewritten again the film that helped build the Stalin cult were remade literally blocking him out of the history of the revolution where he had put himself in [Music] erasing the myth drawing an end to the monumental cult of the tyrant [Applause] [Music] Stalin's story continues next Saturday at 10 past 8:00 and check out our guide to the Man of Steel and Channel four dot-com slash history coming up Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins both put in the performances of a lifetime it's got to be in everyone's top 10 the brilliant Shawshank Redemption is next you

Channel: The History Room

Views: 918,966

Rating: 4.5628982 out of 5

Keywords: Stalin, USSR

Id: EORQJhrfPpY

Length: 47min 44sec (2864 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 02 2017