Anyone who bothers with history at all knows that Josef Stalin's reputation was not the easiest thing to defend. The guy probably killed more Soviets than Hitler.
The Ukrainians, as members of the Soviet Bloc, viewed his administration as so draconian, they welcomed the murderous Nazis as liberators and really nice guys when they rolled through the Ukraine in the early '40s.
The news item brings to mind the time in the mid-80s I was invited along with other members of the Canadian press to have lunch with a delegation from Avtoexport. We were going to eat at Josef Stalin's favorite Georgian restaurant in Moscow City Square. Stalin ate there because he was a Georgian. That's the Russian Georgia, not the American one.
Our Soviet hosts, who communicated through interpreters during the formal talks in the Kremlin, unexpectedly switched to very good English when we arrived at the restaurant. We were seated at a long banquet table where at one time Stalin was said to have held his wild vodka-fuelled parties. The guy I was talking with seated me at one end.
The Soviets were great hosts and, following a few toasts and numerous tasty courses, I was moved to ask him if this really was where Stalin liked to eat.
"This is the restaurant where Stalin held most of his private parties," he said. "As a matter of fact, you're seated in his favorite position at the table. It might even be his personal chair."
I didn't know whether the guy was serious or simply trying to freak me out, but I did experience the strange sensation of the hair on my head bristling involuntarily.
Such was Stalin's reputation for history buffs, and I consider myself among those. That is what poor Evgeni Dzugashvili spent his days trying to defend in the courts and in private.
Poor guy.
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