Stalin: A Biography

A week or so after Lenin’s departure Stalin, despite concern that his presence might endanger the family,²¹ moved in with the Alliluevs. By then they had relocated to a more central district and were renting a bigger apartment at 17 Tenth Rozhdestvenskaya Street. There were three rooms, a kitchen and bathroom and the steps into the whole building were ‘luxurious’ and were manned by a uniformed concierge. There was a lift to the fifth floor where the Alliluevs lived. Stalin was given his own room.²² A lot of the time he was alone, as Anna and Nadya had left Petrograd for the summer vacation and Fedya was working as hard as their parents Sergei and Olga.²³ He brought his few possessions — manuscripts, books and a few clothes — in a wicker suitcase. Olga fussed over Joseph (as she called him), insisting that he get a new suit. When Joseph pleaded lack of time, she and her sister Maria went out and bought him one. He asked them to put some thermal pads into the jacket. He also said his throat infection made it uncomfortable to wear a normal collar and tie. Olga and Maria were more than happy to indulge him, and Maria sewed two vertical velvet collars on to the suit. Although he looked no dandy, his appearance certainly became smarter.²⁴

Nadya returned to Petrograd for the start of the school term at summer’s end. She turned sixteen only in September but was already fed up with schooling and had to put up with a certain amount of teasing because of her family’s Bolshevik sympathies.²⁵ Coming back to the flat on Tenth Rozhdestvenskaya, she developed a passion for housework. One day the noise of the tables and chairs being moved around brought Stalin out from his room: ‘What’s happening here? What’s all the commotion? Oh, it’s you! Now I can see that a real housewife has got down to work!’ This flummoxed Nadya, who asked: ‘What’s up? Is that a bad thing?’ Quickly Stalin reassured her: ‘Definitely not! It’s a good thing! Bring some order, go ahead… Just show the rest of them!’²⁶

Stalin liked a woman who looked after the household. He also expected and needed to be admired, and was searching for an enclave in his very busy political life where he could relax. Perhaps he was beginning to take a fancy to Nadya. He might be more than twice her age, but this had not inhibited him with adolescent girls in Siberia. For the time being, however, he went on acting almost as a father to her in the evenings. He read Chekhov’s ‘Chameleon’ and other short stories to the young Alliluevs and recited Pushkin. Maxim Gorki was another favourite. When friends of the youngsters turned up, he was fun with them too.²⁷ Before turning into bed, he resumed his work; and sometimes he was so tired that he dropped off to sleep with pipe still alight: he once singed the sheets and nearly set the flat ablaze.²⁸ But the blend of work and family atmosphere was congenial to him. It was a new experience (if we except the periods of exile). He was in his late thirties. He had seldom had a settled life among people who were fond of him. Among the Alliluevs he found a sanctuary at last. A gap in his feelings was being closed; it was scarcely a surprise that he soon took one of the family as his wife.

Still, though, he had to do much for himself. The Alliluev family was busy every day, and Stalin’s movements were anyway unpredictable. He therefore bought his food on the way back from work. At the corner of Tenth Rozhdestvenskaya Street he would stop at a stall and buy a loaf of bread and some smoked fish or a sausage. This would constitute his dinner — or, if party business had been hectic, his missed lunch.²⁹

Politics, though, was the greater object of his affections. He found his deepest urges satisfied in power and prestige. He had not given up his ambitions as a Marxist theorist. But his current inclinations were towards practical matters such as helping to lead the Central Committee, edit Pravda and plan the manoeuvres of the Bolsheviks in Petrograd. The unpleasantness of his reception by the Russian Bureau in March was far behind him; he was solidly established in the central party leadership. He worked madly. His jobs in the Central Committee and at Pravda involved so much writing with pen or pencil that calluses appeared on the fingers of his right hand.³⁰ With the work came authority. Lenin and Zinoviev were fugitives. Trotski, Kamenev and Kollontai were in prison. The party leadership fell into the hands of Stalin and Sverdlov since they were the only members of the inner core of the Central Committee who were still at liberty. Such a situation would have disconcerted many. But Stalin and Sverdlov overbrimmed with confidence as they sought to repair the damage caused to the party by the July Days — and Stalin relished the chance to show that he had political skills which few in the party had as yet detected in him.