Warlords
Under scrutiny
Personal relationships
Stalin |
* |
Stalin's second wife Nadezhda (Nadya) Alliluyeva committed suicide in 1932, leaving behind a note condemning his policies. Stalin is said to have wept uncontrollably – some commentators have said that he was as hurt by the political betrayal as by the personal loss. Certainly, all of Stalin's personal relationships were subordinate to political or military considerations. A 1941 directive ordered Red Army troops to commit suicide instead of surrendering, and Stalin declared, 'There are no Russian prisoners-of-war, only traitors.' When his own son Yakov was taken prisoner, he announced: 'I have no son called Yakov.' He imprisoned Yakov's wife and even threatened the same to his daughter Svetlana, his favourite, when she asked him why. Yakov is said to have killed himself by running into an electric fence in the German prison camp. Svetlana later defected to the US. At their final meeting, Stalin's mother is said to have told him: 'Son, it would have been better if you had been a priest.'
