The Death of Stalin (

2017

)

Two Russians were walking through the streets of Moscow when one of them turned to the other and said: “Is this it? Have we achieved full communism?”

To which his friend replied: “Oh hell no, things are gonna get a lot worse.”

-Traditional Soviet Joke

To a modern viewpoint, the succession crisis in the Soviet Union following the death of Josef Stalin feels utterly bizarre. How could any nation in the 20th century, and not some backwater kingdom either but one of the two superpowers, not have a system in place to handle succession in the event of the death of its elderly head of state? In the United States, for instance, succession is planed out to a ludicrous degree with an 18-man long line waiting long ready to replace the chief executive should he croak while in office. Hell, the office of vice president has almost no responsibilities besides serving as the backup chief executive (his only other responsibility, casting the deciding vote in the Senate, seldom comes up). However the thing that people need to understand, and the thing I did not understand until I read more deeply into this subject, is that the USSR had less in common with modern nation-states than it did with the court of the Byzantine Empire. In times of powerful emperors, like Stalin, all the various ministers and generals played nice and did as they were told, primarily out of a fear of losing their heads. However, as soon as the emperor died, or if he was replaced by a weak and inexperienced successor, then the long knives came out. It's a fact that an embarrassingly large number of Americans remain ignorant of, partially because the leftists who dominate the education system are not interested in painting an accurate picture of The Soviet Union. Fortunately, with today's film, popular art is starting to pick up the slack a bit.

We begin in Russia on the eve of Stalin's death, with a focus on the horrid existence that the magnates of the Presidium had endured for the better part of the last decade. Each night they have to stay late at Stalin's dacha, playing the same juvenile pranks on each other, being forced to drink and feast to the point of gluttony, stay up late watching American movies that only Stalin seems to have enjoyed, and all the while worrying if some stray comment will draw the dictator's wrath. In the film, this last bit is illustrated when, while at dinner with Stalin, Malenkov mentions one of their peers who was killed off in the purges, which annoys Stalin greatly. Later Malenkov pleads “I can't remember who's alive and who's dead.” Make no mistake, the magnates lived like this for years, with nights like this being the norm even before the end of WWII. It shows, what I see as, the most significant difference between the totalitarian ideology of Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia. Under Hitler, only certain people, ethnic Germans specifically, were considered fully human; in Stalin's Russia nobody, not even the highest-ranking magnates in the presidium were granted that status. Not even the head of the NKVD could relax for a moment because at the slightest whim his vast organization of oppression and terror could be turned against him. All the other differences between these ideologies were ultimately just minor quirks that could be overridden at the dictator's pen-stroke. Even the economic differences, which are usually pointed to as the major distinction between the two were less ironclad than this quirk, as Hitler was happy to nationalize industries that refused to support him and Lenin was willing to institute the capitalistic New Economic Program when it suited his needs.

The scenes before Stalin's death also showcase just what manner of men we're dealing with here. All of them, from the ruthless Beria (the head of the NKVD secret police and Stalin's chief hangman), to Molotov (the foreign minister for whom the Molotov Cocktail is named), to the apparently idiotic Nikita Khrushchev are to a man hard-nosed survivors who have escaped innumerable purges and dangers over their long careers. Despite their commitment to the ideology of Marxist-Leninism, not a single one of them could be considered an idealist. These are men willing to suffering constant indignities and misery if it brings them closer to power, and none of them will back down once the crown is so close to their hands. Only Georgy Malenkov here is depicted as a weak-willed pushover, a characterization that has more to do with dramatic relief than with historical accuracy. For the rest, only their common fear of Stalin's wrath keeps them from each other's throats, and as the film's title's implies that particular obstacle won't be around for long.

Indeed, late that very night, while Stalin is relaxing in his study he finds a note, smuggled inside of a record he'd requested from the Moscow orchestra, telling him in no uncertain terms to fuck off and die already. Being so unaccustomed to such frank language, the old dictator promptly keel's over in shock. Just like in real life, Stalin's death here is almost entirely his own damn fault. The guards outside his study are so terrified of the old man that even when they hear him collapse they don't dare open the door to his study to investigate. Moreover, when he is found the next morning, there are no doctors at hand to examine him. This is because of the recent purge that Stalin initiated targeting doctors (he was afraid of being poisoned by one). As a result, as Kaganovich notes, “All the best doctors are in the gulag or dead.” Once the magnates discover Stalin's condition they are forced to round up whatever medical students and retirees that remain alive and free in Moscow to try and treat their hated dictator. Naturally, by the time they've arrived, it's already too late and Stalin meets his ignominious end. This suits Beria and Khrushchev just fine, as the two are already making arrangements to seize absolute power for themselves.

There is a curious aspect of Soviet communism on display once Stalin's funeral is declared. The people, despite being horrendously victimized by his policies over the years have an adoration of Stalin that borders on worship. Nobody forced the thousands of devoted Russians who flocked to his funeral to display their grief in such a dramatic fashion, indeed the magnates would have rather they stay home so that Moscow could be an open field for their schemes and plots. One has to wonder why they loved him so, and how it is that fear is so easily transmuted to awe and then to love. The love of the common man contrasts nicely with the utter contempt with which most of the Presidium feels for their recently departed master. Beria in particular is eager to completely scrape Stalin's entire program of purges and persecutions in order to play the liberator to the Russian people. So what if he was Stalin's chief executioner? So what if he used his position as head of the NKVD to rape hundreds of women and girls? That was yesterday. Indeed, among the Presidium only Molotov has any love for Stalin whatsoever, the rest are all too eager to bury the former dictator and start undoing the whole apparatus of terror that he'd built and that they were all complicit in.

The film is not, of course, completely historically accurate because at times that would get in the way of delivering jokes. For instance, the great purges that wracked the USSR had winded down considerably after the outbreak of WWII and still more after victory. People were still on their toes, and a new wave of purges was already in the making with the targeted harassment of Doctors and Jews, but the large scale arrests depicted in this film would have been the exception rather than the rule. Were these scenes meant to be showing 1930s Russia they would have been far more reasonable. However, they allow the audience to see a partial glimpse of the unrelenting evil perpetuated by the Soviet system. They also allow a hilarious scene where a frightened composer bids his wife a tearful farewell, thinking he's being collected by the NKVD only to find two men at his door begging him to come and conduct their orchestra.

Other liberties were taken with history for the sake of involving interesting and iconic characters and compressing a complicated political reality into an easily digestible story. In reality, Beria was killed until some months after Stalin's death and funeral, with the political struggle between his faction and Khrushchev's unfolding at a much slower pace than the film depicts. Indeed, even after vanquishing Beria, Khrushchev's domination over the party was by no means secure, as evidenced by the ongoing chaos in Russian foreign policy (the Hungarian Revolution being the most obvious example of the disunited Kremlin at work). Indeed, even after gaining sole supremacy, Khrushchev could not rest easily on the throne, going so far as to launch a preemptive counter-coup against the famed marshal Georgy Zhukov in 1957. Yet these details, while interesting to a historian, do not detract significantly from the overall film on display here. Liberties were taken and the story simplified not to obscure the underlying obscenity of the Stalinist system. The broad thrusts of history are all preserved in The Death of Stalin, and any details that were changed are largely incidental.

As for humor, the Death of Stalin will not be to everyone's liking. Those that cannot accept the tragic absurdity lurking behind some of the most horrendous crimes of the 20th century will no doubt find this film in poor taste. As will those who, to this day, continue to deny the various crimes and atrocities the Soviet Union for ideological reasons. For the rest of us, the film is a riot. The humor is dark and twisted, to be sure, but how else can you tell a joke about Stalin's Russia. As a test, ask yourself if you're the sort who will laugh at jokes like these, if you are then Death of Stalin is most assuredly for you. If not, try yanking the stick from out your ass.