The weary Generalissimo was fuelling his failing energy with “enormous quantities of food suitable for a much larger man.” “He ate at least twice as much as I did,” wrote Mikoyan. “Gradually Stalin began to take a great interest in his food,” recalled Mikoyan. The guests helped themselves, then joined Stalin at the table. Stalin noticed immediately: “What’s she listening to?” If there were no foreign eminences, dinner was served by one of the housekeepers, usually Valechka, and a bodyguard. When one of them was serving tea to Stalin and the Polish leaders, she stopped and hesitated. In the dining room, the maids, plump peasant women wearing white pinafores, like Victorian nurses, emerged with an array of Georgian dishes which they laid on the sideboard or the other end of the long table, then disappeared. Afterwards Stalin apologized to them but blamed Beria. He then fired it in the air and managed to pepper his bodyguards, Colonels Tukov and Khrustalev, with shot. Stalin, old, weak and tipsy, not to mention his frail left arm, first felt “giddy” and fired his gun at the ground, only just missing Mikoyan. “If we don’t shoot them,” said Beria, “the guards’ll eat them!” The Leader, who was probably already drunk, staggered out and called for guns. One evening, Beria suggested that they do some shooting in the garden. The infantilism delighted Stalin: “You’re like little children!” Beria warned: “If anyone tried something like that on me, I’d make mincemeat of them.” Poskrebyshev was regularly pushed in until the guards became so worried that a drunken magnate would drown that they discreetly drained the pond.
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Kulik, famously strong, jumped out soaking and chased Poskrebyshev who hid in the bushes. Khrushchev and Poskrebyshev drunkenly pushed Kulik into the pond-they knew Stalin had lost respect for the buffoon. The standard of drunken horseplay was not much better than a university fraternity house.
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although, not my cup of tea, too dangerous, infantile & imbecile (from Sebag Montefiore) Stalinists perhaps not, but Stalin himself.