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From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 4/26/2005 4:09 AM
April, 25, 2005

The genius of mediocrity

What would Ekaterina Andreeva say if she had Joseph Stalin's case?

The person, who conceals his stature, can hardly be named great.

It is precisely known about Lenin, that he did not conceal his stature: he was small and dynamical, and his internal greatness was shown literally in each his movement.

We also know about Napoleon, that he almost did not conceal his stature because he was very movable.

It is known about Stalin, that he carefully masked his stature. It was done so carefully in all documentary and other films, that many people today do not know, that Stalin was only slightly taller, than Lenin. Actually, he was of the same stature, but they had absolutely different manners to move. Stalin moved slowly, was silent for a long time with a pipe in his hands, as if he was listening to some voice.

This listening was usually represented as his "thoughtfulness". But it had nothing common with it. Most of all it reminded a condition of prostration. Daniel Andreev assured, that Stalin was a penultimate embodiment of the Antichrist, writes about such conditions of prostration, which the leader had at nights. Apparently, the minutes, when he was standing, having turned his back to the interlocutor, and was silent for several minutes, were the same conditions. Anyway, it had nothing to do to the process of thinking. Look, how Lenin was thinking, having put his hand on his chin - there was something heuristic, creative, and almost ingenious in it. Stalin's poses speak about the opposite.

No one episode is known to us, that Stalin listened to the music – if he did it, only from the governmental box. He also concerned indifferently to philosophy, poetry, art. The phrases, written by him, surprised with limitation and sketchiness - though, I shall not conceal, personally I was surprised with one more circumstance, when I was reading them - with some metaphysical logic. But it has very remote attitude to intelligence and personal talents.

In the same way, with a minimum of the gestures, Stalin was speaking from a tribune choking rapidly (just like sometimes K.U. Chernenko). He did not have not only any oratorical abilities, but also elementary expressiveness in speech. His well-known application, which sounded in the country on the 22 nd of June, 1941 , "Brothers and sisters, I appeal to you", astonishes with improbable indifference. It is quite clear, that this person simply was not able to use a word. If to recognize that "a word is an obvious presence of ability to think", it is possible to imagine, how much Stalin was narrow-minded.

I have Stalin's photo of 1894. He is fifteen years old in it, and it is possible to judge by his features, that this person, probably, has just woken up of eternity. All Stalin's subsequent portraits with moustaches hide his original features; but here we see the face, in which all congenital qualities of this person can be seen clearly. He has an extended skull, what speaks, certainly, about his priest talents. Such people became priests, magicians, sorcerers more often in history. But thus absolutely empty forehead surprises (there is such a feeling, as if there is nothing in it), pointed from top to bottom and at the same time upwards ears, the long chin, the lips in some unclear grimace.

The most terrible in all this is some hating cold sight, with which this child looks at us. In all late photos Stalin is absolutely another. For example, in a photo of 1900 where he is 21 years old, Stalin looks like a nice young man. Hair hides completely his ellipse-like skull (or else he would remind a Buddhist-monk and would be very noticeable). His hair on his face makes a very favorable impression, with almost erotic charm, hiding the face, extended from top to bottom. But thus ears are seen quite well: they are same, as in the first photo.

At last, in all subsequent photos Stalin is represented such, as we have got used to see him: moustaches, combed up hair, single-breasted military jacket with high collar, a pipe in his hands. Moustaches create, perhaps that, good-nature image (a very deceptive one), the hair dress still hides the cone-shaped skull. It is known, that there were a lot of precisely the same "Stalins" with moustaches and combed in the Union . We do not anyone, reminding Lenin, who was individual. There was an uncountable quantity of officials reminding Stalin, and it is even impossible to say, that they copied the Owner. Most likely, in both cases simply certain general type was copied: Stalin was not the one, who we usually thought. Everything, we see in him: moustaches, hair dress, the judicious manner to have conversation and almost a philosophical habit to hold his pipe – is nothing else, but an optical illusion. He had nothing common with himself; he was a carefully masked figure.

One more unattractive for the leader detail was carefully retouched also: a disproportionately wide pelvis, for which long flaps were specially made. Very few people know about this Stalin's feature: so carefully it was concealed. Only looking at those Stalin's photos, in which he was shown in his full stature, it was possible to understand, that we deal with an unman person.

I would not like to become engaged in infernal portrays, but I think, that we would not believe our eyes, if we were shown the real figure of this person and his real face.

It turned out so, that many years later, after I had begun to write this article (guess, why it was not published by the Antistalinists of the 80thies, who became hoarse because of their own vomiting), in the program "Vremya" I found a maiden with a fallen asleep mimicry, in every possible way justifying Stalin and she approved, that he (Stalin) "was not a fool".

Perhaps, he was not a fool, but this maiden certainly was. And who had made her such is another question.

The maiden admired Stalin's skill "to let steam out of a teapot" (not even out of a boiler – but of a teapot, the literal citation of the maiden) and to organize mass reprisals.

It is difficult to say, whether it was her personal belief (anyway, the boiler with seven-ten millions of destroyed people a little resembled a teapot, in which water began to boil), but the fact consists that the idea of justification of Stalin was begun in such a way. It is not excluded, that by 2009, when there is the 130 anniversary of the birth of the tyrant, it will be celebrated and this idea will have even more supporters.

The people, who agree that Stalin "was not a fool", do not quite understand the sense of human talents.

Talents of a person are shown not in ability to subject millions of compatriots to repression (speaking the modern language, not in "political technologies"), but in completely other qualities. A talented person is often defenseless, like a child. He seldom thinks of an applied use of his mind. If it possible to name forming of smart party intrigues and organization of several stages of terror one after another, each of which destroys the previous one, “talents”, they are “talents” of absolutely another sort. But I doubt very much, that Stalin had even such talents, for his cogitative device, apparently, was developed very badly. There is such a feeling, that he was simply listening to some voice, whispering "the correct decision" to him, and he acted in accordance with it. The circumstance is surprising, that he always acted at the necessary moment, but he had never planned them especially. What sometimes seems to be analyticity is actually something else; it a kind of some set of gestures, as though proving the already found decision. Very few people had the idea to ask themselves the question, HOW these decisions had come to his mind; in fact they, so to say, "had arisen from nowhere" and were not the fruit of his personal efforts. I repeat, the solution here can be the most awful: more truly, these decisions were dictated to him directly from him hell.

I think if to look closely even to the style of his reprisals it is possible to see one amazing detail: even here he operated stupidly. There are no smart combinations in how he pressed one with others, no. He did it elementary simply, involving as many people, as possible, as if hoping, that this chain of victims tied with each other would sink in the bottom. Stalin did not use even an agency (except for the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs). He could not have become a good spy anyway. Stalin always gained with mass character of reprisals. The most awful thing was that it was much easier to shoot a hundred people, having accused all of them in a plot, than to shoot one. The matter is that the blame of one person should be proved. And there is no need to prove the blame of millions.

D. Andreev writes in his book, that thus he delivered the food for THE ONE, who had sent him to the earth for execution of the mission, but I believe, that, besides other things, it was also a very technological way of reprisals, contradicting, at first sight, to normal human logic. If he had simply killed his political opponents, it would not have been so effective, as in the case, when he started the huge meat grinder.

Doubtlessly Stalin was one of the most stupid figures in the XX century for me. Primitivism was an immanent property of his nature. Unfortunately, owing to surprising coincidence of circumstances, this primitiveness turned out to be a very effective weapon.

In summary I wish to say, that today's interest to Stalin is a direct product of the democratization, in which the initial humanistic ideals of perestroika have completely burned down. We have received the generation of cynics, for whom some "political technologies" have become much more important, instead of the sense and the purpose of these technologies. Actually, for a long time we live in conditions of existential Stalinism. But it would be necessary to see Stalin's real nature before admiring with him.

The TV narrator, mentioned by me above, was 17 years old, when she began to work in the State Office of the Public Prosecutor, and she had cases of a lot of accused people in her hands. As she said, actions of people are completely identical to their nature fro her. What would she say if she had Joseph Stalin's case?

Andrey Novikov, a member of the Union of journalists of Moscow, a heterodox, for Chechenpress, 24.04.05.

http://chechenpress.co.uk/english/news/2005/04/25/03.shtml