0:00:02 > 0:00:04AIR-RAID SIREN ECHOES
0:00:04 > 0:00:09He was a little man, about five foot five.
0:00:09 > 0:00:11In his sixties.
0:00:11 > 0:00:13Rather tubby.
0:00:13 > 0:00:16Enjoyed his drinks and his smokes.
0:00:18 > 0:00:22An unlikely hero perhaps,
0:00:22 > 0:00:26but in the dark days of the 20th century, he helped save Britain.
0:00:26 > 0:00:28This programme contains some strong language.
0:00:30 > 0:00:35And he was one of the biggest mass murderers in history.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38Stalin was his party name.
0:00:43 > 0:00:46We like to think that Britain's survival in the Second World War
0:00:46 > 0:00:51was secured by "Our Finest Hour" in 1940 -
0:00:51 > 0:00:55the Battle of Britain, Churchill's bulldog leadership.
0:00:55 > 0:00:58But more critical was what happened
0:00:58 > 0:01:02on the other side of Europe in 1941 -
0:01:02 > 0:01:06the horrific life-or-death struggle between Nazi Germany
0:01:06 > 0:01:08and the Soviet Union.
0:01:08 > 0:01:14And crucial to the outcome would be the leadership of Stalin.
0:01:15 > 0:01:18Stalin meant "man of steel",
0:01:18 > 0:01:23but the reality of his war in 1941 didn't live up to that name,
0:01:23 > 0:01:28as he lurched from crisis to crisis, coming close to a nervous breakdown.
0:01:34 > 0:01:37It was touch and go.
0:01:37 > 0:01:43In 1941, the Man of Steel blew it.
0:01:43 > 0:01:47His military bungling cost millions of lives,
0:01:47 > 0:01:52he nearly lost Moscow, and almost let Hitler win the war.
0:01:53 > 0:01:58I want to explore how, despite his spectacular mistakes,
0:01:58 > 0:02:04Stalin clung on to power and led an extraordinary fightback
0:02:04 > 0:02:06against Hitler's military machine.
0:02:06 > 0:02:12This is the Second World War from the less familiar Russian perspective -
0:02:12 > 0:02:16a story of dramatic twists and turns
0:02:16 > 0:02:22that helps us understand why Nazi Germany was eventually defeated,
0:02:22 > 0:02:28AND why a Stalinist "Iron Curtain" came down across half of Europe.
0:02:29 > 0:02:39This programme contains some strong language.
0:02:39 > 0:02:43Stalin would be the big winner from World War Two,
0:02:43 > 0:02:48but he had to learn to bend and compromise in order to win.
0:02:48 > 0:02:54He would even enter into perhaps the most bizarre shotgun marriage
0:02:54 > 0:02:57in diplomatic history, sealed with an arch-capitalist
0:02:57 > 0:03:00during a drunken evening at the Kremlin.
0:03:07 > 0:03:12Stalin had a strange, almost seductive charm.
0:03:12 > 0:03:16Winston Churchill, an unremitting enemy of communism,
0:03:16 > 0:03:20responded with respect, at times, even affection,
0:03:20 > 0:03:25towards the man he himself nicknamed Uncle Joe.
0:03:25 > 0:03:29This is the enduring mystery of Stalin -
0:03:29 > 0:03:33the friendly uncle and the Man of Steel,
0:03:33 > 0:03:40a titan of the Second World War, and a monster of the 20th century...
0:03:40 > 0:03:42who got away with it.
0:04:06 > 0:04:12The German invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa,
0:04:12 > 0:04:14started here on the Bug River,
0:04:14 > 0:04:20180 miles east of Warsaw, early on 22nd June 1941.
0:04:22 > 0:04:25And it began as a walk-over.
0:04:30 > 0:04:32Along a front 1,000 miles long,
0:04:32 > 0:04:36more than three million German troops, in three vast army groups,
0:04:36 > 0:04:42surged across the border, and deep into Soviet territory.
0:04:53 > 0:04:58Officially, the Soviet Union called it a "surprise attack",
0:04:58 > 0:05:02but more than that, it was a paralysed defence.
0:05:02 > 0:05:06Paralysed from the very top by the Man of Steel.
0:05:06 > 0:05:11For hours, Stalin would not even allow his commanders to fire back.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14It must surely go down
0:05:14 > 0:05:18as one of the most spectacular military blunders in history.
0:05:24 > 0:05:29By noon on Day One, a quarter of the Red Air Force had been destroyed -
0:05:29 > 0:05:35over 1,200 planes, many of them lined up on the ground, uncamouflaged.
0:05:40 > 0:05:45In Moscow, Stalin was beside himself with incredulous rage,
0:05:45 > 0:05:49lashing out at everyone around him.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52"This is a monstrous crime!
0:05:52 > 0:05:55"Those responsible must lose their heads!"
0:05:56 > 0:06:01But this was a disaster born in his paranoid mind,
0:06:01 > 0:06:06and in the brutal terrorized regime that he had created.
0:06:06 > 0:06:091941 was a damning verdict,
0:06:09 > 0:06:12almost fatal,
0:06:12 > 0:06:15on 20 years of Soviet history.
0:06:23 > 0:06:29Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili seemed an unlikely leader -
0:06:29 > 0:06:33small, with a withered arm and a club foot,
0:06:33 > 0:06:36his sallow face pock-marked from smallpox.
0:06:36 > 0:06:41As a child in dirt-poor Georgia, deep in the Caucasus,
0:06:41 > 0:06:44he was regularly beaten by his shoemaker father.
0:06:50 > 0:06:53Nor did Stalin sound like a leader.
0:06:53 > 0:06:55With his flat, monotonous delivery,
0:06:55 > 0:06:59he was hardly a great orator,
0:06:59 > 0:07:03and he never lost his thick Georgian accent.
0:07:03 > 0:07:08This was an outsider's voice, and faintly ridiculous.
0:07:08 > 0:07:13One British wartime interpreter likened it to Wigan Pier, Lancashire -
0:07:13 > 0:07:18almost as if George Formby had been made dictator.
0:07:22 > 0:07:29TRANSLATION IN BROAD NORTHERN-ENGLISH ACCENT: For a job well done in constructing
0:07:29 > 0:07:32the Moscow Metro, we declare gratitude
0:07:32 > 0:07:36to the whole underground construction collective of engineers,
0:07:36 > 0:07:42technicians and workers, both male and female.
0:07:51 > 0:07:54Stalin wasn't an intellectual
0:07:54 > 0:07:57like Lenin and the Bolshevik elite.
0:07:57 > 0:08:01His doting mother wanted him to become a priest,
0:08:01 > 0:08:04but young Stalin was expelled from seminary.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07He found his true calling as a revolutionary bandit
0:08:07 > 0:08:11in the dying years of Tsarist rule.
0:08:11 > 0:08:13His speciality was bank robberies.
0:08:13 > 0:08:19In one heist in Tbilisi, he and his gang seized a quarter of a million roubles
0:08:21 > 0:08:24and left around 40 guards and bystanders dead.
0:08:24 > 0:08:28But Stalin was a crook with a cause.
0:08:28 > 0:08:33The proceeds of this and other raids helped fund the Bolsheviks
0:08:33 > 0:08:35in their bid for power.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42After the Revolution in 1917,
0:08:42 > 0:08:48Stalin concealed his ambitions behind a facade of dull reliability.
0:08:48 > 0:08:52A backroom boy, not a big hitter.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56He was made General Secretary of the Party.
0:08:56 > 0:09:00Sort of keeper of the card indexes.
0:09:00 > 0:09:03Neither he nor his administrative job
0:09:03 > 0:09:06appeared to pose a threat to rivals,
0:09:06 > 0:09:12but slowly, carefully, Stalin began accumulating power.
0:09:15 > 0:09:20Stalin made a career out of being under-estimated.
0:09:20 > 0:09:26Behind the unimpressive exterior, this was a man with a sharp mind,
0:09:26 > 0:09:33a formidable memory and a capacity to get to the heart of any problem.
0:09:33 > 0:09:38Unlike other dictators, Stalin wasn't a great talker,
0:09:38 > 0:09:41but he was a good listener,
0:09:41 > 0:09:46skilled at reading the tone and thrust of a conversation
0:09:46 > 0:09:49while disguising what he himself really thought.
0:09:49 > 0:09:52At meetings he would say little,
0:09:52 > 0:09:54waiting for his moment
0:09:54 > 0:09:58while doodling obsessively.
0:10:03 > 0:10:06This is one of Stalin's doodles.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10Hard lines, sharp angles, wolfs' snouts.
0:10:10 > 0:10:16A sinister glimpse behind the calm, modest exterior
0:10:16 > 0:10:20into a mind that was savage, vindictive, often paranoid.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27Here was a gangster, a street thug,
0:10:27 > 0:10:30but with a strategic brain
0:10:30 > 0:10:34and absolutely no respect for human life.
0:10:43 > 0:10:48In the power struggle after Lenin's death in 1924,
0:10:48 > 0:10:53Stalin employed his gangster logic to get rid of his rivals.
0:10:55 > 0:11:01He cleverly shifted his political allegiances, allying with the Right to eliminate the Left.
0:11:01 > 0:11:02Trotsky...
0:11:04 > 0:11:10Zinoviev... and then tacking leftward to kill off the Right - Rykov...
0:11:12 > 0:11:15Bukharin.
0:11:17 > 0:11:22And in the 1930s, Stalin stitched up the loyalists and close officials
0:11:22 > 0:11:24who'd helped him rise,
0:11:24 > 0:11:29subjecting thousands to macabre show trials, torture and death.
0:11:30 > 0:11:36Stalin had learnt that a well-timed beating or bullet could get him what he wanted.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44Nowhere was this lesson more brutally applied
0:11:44 > 0:11:47than in his handling of the army.
0:11:51 > 0:11:56Stalin was haunted by history, in particular how Napoleon Bonaparte
0:11:56 > 0:12:01had exploited the French Revolution to jump from corporal to emperor.
0:12:04 > 0:12:08Determined to weed out any upstart "Bonapartist" in his army,
0:12:08 > 0:12:14Stalin appointed a new class of political commissars to watch over his officers.
0:12:19 > 0:12:23And he purged hundreds of progressively minded generals,
0:12:23 > 0:12:29including Mikhail Tukhachevsky - a charismatic early exponent of tank warfare.
0:12:29 > 0:12:33The confession of treason extracted from Tukhachevsky
0:12:33 > 0:12:37was handed to Stalin spattered with blood.
0:12:39 > 0:12:42The Soviet leader was utterly unrepentant.
0:12:44 > 0:12:48"Who's going to remember all this riff-raff in ten or twenty years?
0:12:48 > 0:12:50"No-one."
0:12:50 > 0:12:54Nobody was safe, except Stalin,
0:12:54 > 0:13:02and he controlled the surviving members of his inner circle through raw fear.
0:13:02 > 0:13:05Men like his foreign minister Molotov.
0:13:05 > 0:13:10Western diplomats called him Stone Arse because he was so stubborn,
0:13:10 > 0:13:14but in private, Molotov was totally under Stalin's thumb.
0:13:14 > 0:13:19When Stalin had his Jewish wife Polina thrown in jail,
0:13:19 > 0:13:22Molotov joined the rest of the Politburo
0:13:22 > 0:13:25in voting for her imprisonment.
0:13:28 > 0:13:30Stalin's oldest buddy was Voroshilov -
0:13:30 > 0:13:34a former metalworker who liked dressing up in military uniforms.
0:13:34 > 0:13:40Good company over a few drinks, but really rather thick, and no threat.
0:13:40 > 0:13:45Beria was head of Stalin's secret police.
0:13:45 > 0:13:51He liked to keep his hand in by doing some of the torture himself, using a truncheon.
0:13:51 > 0:13:55Then he relaxed by listening to records of Rachmaninov,
0:13:55 > 0:13:57or raping young women.
0:13:59 > 0:14:04But Stalin liked Beria, because he was a coward who never challenged the boss.
0:14:09 > 0:14:13Stalin had created an apparently unassailable position
0:14:13 > 0:14:17at the pinnacle of an autocratic state.
0:14:17 > 0:14:21But, of course, that system had a fundamental weakness.
0:14:21 > 0:14:23It depended on one man -
0:14:23 > 0:14:28on his strengths, but also on his whims and neuroses.
0:14:28 > 0:14:30A serious misjudgement by Stalin
0:14:30 > 0:14:34could plunge his servile regime into chaos,
0:14:36 > 0:14:38and that's what happened with a vengeance
0:14:38 > 0:14:41when war came in June 1941.
0:14:50 > 0:14:55By June 26th 1941, just four days after Barbarossa began,
0:14:55 > 0:15:00400,000 more Soviet soldiers were trapped as the Nazi pincers
0:15:00 > 0:15:04closed around Minsk, a key stronghold on the route to Moscow.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10EXPLOSIONS
0:15:12 > 0:15:14Barbarossa had hardly come out of the blue.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18Stalin, like everyone else, knew all about Hitler's demands
0:15:18 > 0:15:22for 'lebensraum' - living space for Germany in Russia.
0:15:33 > 0:15:37Stalin gambled on a deal with Hitler. In August 1939,
0:15:37 > 0:15:43he signed a pact with Germany that would carve up eastern Europe.
0:15:43 > 0:15:48Stalin got half of Poland and the Baltic states of Estonia,
0:15:48 > 0:15:50Latvia and Lithuania.
0:15:52 > 0:15:57He now expected Hitler to fight a long war for western Europe
0:15:57 > 0:15:59against Britain and France.
0:16:03 > 0:16:09- 'Ja, der Englander ist getroffen.' - But then Germany sliced through France in a month in 1940.
0:16:09 > 0:16:11Only Britain held out.
0:16:17 > 0:16:21Stalin's gamble had backfired disastrously.
0:16:21 > 0:16:26Victory in the west in 1940 left Hitler free to go east
0:16:26 > 0:16:28for living space in 1941,
0:16:28 > 0:16:33and now Stalin made another colossal error of judgement.
0:16:35 > 0:16:38BELL TOLLS
0:16:45 > 0:16:50In the spring of 1941, Hitler began massing his troops in Poland.
0:16:52 > 0:16:54It was no secret.
0:16:54 > 0:16:56The Kremlin accumulated a bulging intelligence dossier,
0:16:56 > 0:17:00including clear warnings from German deserters and the British.
0:17:02 > 0:17:05But Stalin, always suspicious about the capitalist West,
0:17:05 > 0:17:10assumed that much of the intelligence had been fabricated by Britain,
0:17:10 > 0:17:14with the aim of dragging him into its war with Hitler.
0:17:14 > 0:17:20Stalin refused to go onto a war footing, telling his generals...
0:17:22 > 0:17:26"Germany is busy up to her ears with the war in the West and I am certain
0:17:26 > 0:17:31"that Hitler will not risk a second front by attacking the Soviet Union."
0:17:31 > 0:17:33"Hitler is not such an idiot."
0:17:37 > 0:17:41Stalin didn't grasp that Hitler was intoxicated
0:17:41 > 0:17:44by a megalomaniac vision.
0:17:44 > 0:17:47He assumed that Hitler would act like he did,
0:17:47 > 0:17:52on hard-boiled calculations of national self-interest.
0:17:52 > 0:17:56This was Stalin's fundamental mistake.
0:18:01 > 0:18:07On June 29th, reports reached Moscow that the city of Minsk had fallen.
0:18:11 > 0:18:13It was only a week since the German invasion had begun.
0:18:18 > 0:18:23At this rate, the Germans expected to be in Moscow within a month.
0:18:27 > 0:18:33Suddenly, Stalin seemed to grasp the enormity of the disaster.
0:18:33 > 0:18:35He raged at his generals,
0:18:35 > 0:18:39reducing even Zhukov, his Chief of Staff, to tears.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43But then Stalin crumpled.
0:18:43 > 0:18:46"Everything's lost", he groaned.
0:18:46 > 0:18:50"I give up. Lenin founded our state,
0:18:50 > 0:18:54"and we've screwed it up!"
0:19:06 > 0:19:10Stalin was driven to his dacha on the outskirts of Moscow.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17There, he slumped in shock.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23PHONE RINGS
0:19:23 > 0:19:28Next day, he didn't come in to the Kremlin, or respond to phone calls.
0:19:31 > 0:19:35In the dictator's absence, no-one dared to take any decisions
0:19:35 > 0:19:38or sign any documents.
0:19:38 > 0:19:42Suddenly, there was a chilling vacuum at the heart of power.
0:19:44 > 0:19:48Was this a sinister game?
0:19:48 > 0:19:52The great actor testing the loyalty of his underlings,
0:19:52 > 0:19:56like the man he called his teacher, Ivan the Terrible?
0:19:56 > 0:20:01Waiting, watchful, ready to pounce on anyone who tried to seize power?
0:20:03 > 0:20:05That's certainly possible,
0:20:05 > 0:20:10but I think Stalin had really come close to a nervous breakdown,
0:20:10 > 0:20:14because what he faced was not just military defeat,
0:20:14 > 0:20:17but the collapse of everything he'd worked for within Russia.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20PHONE RINGS
0:20:26 > 0:20:31Stalin had revolutionised his country even more profoundly than Lenin.
0:20:31 > 0:20:37In the late 1920s, he embarked on a frenzied campaign of modernisation.
0:20:37 > 0:20:42The old Russia, dominated by a peasant mentality,
0:20:42 > 0:20:46rooted in the Orthodox religion, would be swept away
0:20:46 > 0:20:50to be replaced by five-year plans,
0:20:50 > 0:20:52collective farms, mass production -
0:20:52 > 0:20:56above all, gigantic steel works.
0:21:00 > 0:21:06It was a steel crusade for the Man of Steel.
0:21:06 > 0:21:11Stalin was determined that his communist state must match up to the capitalist West.
0:21:11 > 0:21:15It was, he claimed, a matter of life or death.
0:21:17 > 0:21:21"We are 50 or 100 years behind the advanced countries.
0:21:21 > 0:21:24"We must make good this distance in ten years.
0:21:24 > 0:21:27"Either we do so, or we shall go under."
0:21:35 > 0:21:38Stalin's Russia did catch up.
0:21:38 > 0:21:44During the 1930s, iron and steel output increased fourfold.
0:21:44 > 0:21:50A country that produced only 700 trucks in 1928
0:21:50 > 0:21:55churned out more than 180,000 in 1938.
0:21:57 > 0:22:02Stalin's Second Revolution dragged Russia into the 20th century.
0:22:02 > 0:22:08But it couldn't have been accomplished without the utter ruthlessness that was his trademark.
0:22:15 > 0:22:19Just as he had eliminated opponents within his inner circle,
0:22:19 > 0:22:24Stalin simply swept away any of the wider Russian population
0:22:24 > 0:22:26who resisted industrialisation.
0:22:26 > 0:22:29Many were packed off to prison camps
0:22:29 > 0:22:32in the Arctic wastes of Siberia.
0:22:32 > 0:22:35This was the notorious Gulag,
0:22:35 > 0:22:40where nearly two million Soviet citizens were incarcerated in 1941.
0:22:43 > 0:22:49The forced collectivisation of agriculture was even more brutal.
0:22:49 > 0:22:54Peasants often fought back against state seizure of their land and livestock.
0:22:54 > 0:22:57As a last act of defiance,
0:22:57 > 0:23:00many killed their own animals.
0:23:00 > 0:23:02Half the Soviet Union's cattle were slaughtered.
0:23:02 > 0:23:09In the famine that followed, an estimated five million people died.
0:23:15 > 0:23:18PHONE RINGS
0:23:22 > 0:23:26This was Stalin's revolution -
0:23:26 > 0:23:28its triumph and its tragedy.
0:23:30 > 0:23:32Now it was all falling apart,
0:23:32 > 0:23:37and Stalin must have known that it was largely his fault.
0:23:44 > 0:23:50On June 30th 1941, with German Panzers rolling towards Moscow,
0:23:50 > 0:23:54the Politburo drove out to Stalin's dacha.
0:23:54 > 0:23:58They found him sitting in an armchair.
0:24:01 > 0:24:06Stalin looked up, haggard and nervous.
0:24:06 > 0:24:10"Why have you come?" he asked,
0:24:10 > 0:24:12apparently suspecting a coup.
0:24:12 > 0:24:17But the men in suits were on a very different mission.
0:24:17 > 0:24:24They wanted Stalin to return to take charge of a new State Defence Committee -
0:24:24 > 0:24:26a sort of War Cabinet.
0:24:26 > 0:24:31The relief on Stalin's face was transparent.
0:24:31 > 0:24:34"But," he asked,
0:24:34 > 0:24:38"can I lead the country to final victory?"
0:24:38 > 0:24:42"There may be more deserving candidates."
0:24:42 > 0:24:45His old crony Voroshilov spoke up -
0:24:45 > 0:24:48"There is none more worthy."
0:24:50 > 0:24:54Nodding, Stalin accepted his new role.
0:24:54 > 0:25:00Even at the moment when Stalin had screwed it all up,
0:25:00 > 0:25:03his yes men hadn't the guts to depose him.
0:25:05 > 0:25:07Or, more exactly and more chilling,
0:25:08 > 0:25:14after a decade in which they'd been both the agents and the victims of Stalinist terror,
0:25:14 > 0:25:18they couldn't imagine Russia without him.
0:25:23 > 0:25:27Now Stalin began to regain his nerve.
0:25:27 > 0:25:34His prime task was to steady the country, dispelling the swirl of rumour and panic.
0:25:34 > 0:25:37One old man in a Moscow street complained,
0:25:38 > 0:25:43"Why hasn't anybody spoken to us on the radio? They should say something, good or bad.
0:25:43 > 0:25:47"But we are completely in a fog."
0:25:47 > 0:25:51On July 3rd, Stalin finally broke his silence,
0:25:51 > 0:25:59with a speech relayed across the country through loudspeakers in factories and streets.
0:25:59 > 0:26:03"Hitler's troops have succeeded in capturing Lithuania,
0:26:03 > 0:26:08"the western part of Belorussia, part of Western Ukraine.
0:26:08 > 0:26:12"A grave danger hangs over our country."
0:26:12 > 0:26:18Stalin's delivery was as flat and toneless as ever.
0:26:18 > 0:26:21His Georgian accent still grated.
0:26:21 > 0:26:25But what he actually said was astounding.
0:26:25 > 0:26:31He frankly admitted that most of the western Soviet Union had been lost.
0:26:31 > 0:26:36He even addressed his people, not just as comrades,
0:26:36 > 0:26:40but as brothers and sisters, and dear friends.
0:26:42 > 0:26:44From the depths of the crisis,
0:26:44 > 0:26:49Stalin was attempting to build a new relationship with his people.
0:26:49 > 0:26:53But behind the soft soap was the old iron fist.
0:26:56 > 0:27:00Stalin intended to terrorize his army into fighting.
0:27:00 > 0:27:05He issued an order, drily known as number 270.
0:27:08 > 0:27:13"Those falling into encirclement are to fight to the last.
0:27:13 > 0:27:19"Those who prefer to surrender are to be destroyed by any available means,
0:27:19 > 0:27:25"while their families are to be deprived of all state allowances and assistance."
0:27:25 > 0:27:29This savage order was Stalin's handiwork, but he got his henchmen,
0:27:29 > 0:27:35including Molotov and Voroshilov, to add their names at the bottom.
0:27:35 > 0:27:40When Stalin's son Yakov was captured, Order 270 was applied to his family.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43His wife Yulia, Stalin's daughter-in-law,
0:27:43 > 0:27:47spent two years under arrest.
0:27:47 > 0:27:51Yakov was later shot at a POW camp near Lubeck -
0:27:51 > 0:27:56whether in an attempt to escape, or as deliberate act of suicide
0:27:56 > 0:27:58has never been clear.
0:28:02 > 0:28:06But flogging his own people was not enough.
0:28:06 > 0:28:10Russia couldn't survive the German onslaught alone.
0:28:10 > 0:28:13The only other power still fighting Germany
0:28:13 > 0:28:17was one that had tried to crush the Russian Revolution.
0:28:17 > 0:28:19Now in an extraordinary U-turn,
0:28:19 > 0:28:23Stalin reached out to the old capitalist enemy.
0:28:30 > 0:28:35Equally amazing, Britain's Prime Minister, a notorious Red-basher,
0:28:35 > 0:28:40was ready to meet Stalin halfway.
0:28:40 > 0:28:44CHURCHILL: 'I see the Russian soldiers guarding the fields
0:28:44 > 0:28:48'which their fathers have tilled from time immemorial.
0:28:48 > 0:28:56'I see, advancing upon all this in hideous onslaught, the Nazi War machine
0:28:56 > 0:29:02'with its clanking, heel-clicking, dandified Prussian officers.'
0:29:03 > 0:29:06It seemed as if Winston Churchill
0:29:06 > 0:29:11was going back on everything he'd been saying in the last 20 years.
0:29:11 > 0:29:15After the Russian Revolution, he even wanted British troops to help
0:29:15 > 0:29:20stamp out what he called the "foul baboonery of Bolshevism".
0:29:22 > 0:29:26By 1941, Churchill's view was changing.
0:29:26 > 0:29:33In part, he recognised that Stalin's Russia was very different from Lenin's anarchic state.
0:29:33 > 0:29:37But this was also a matter of political expediency now,
0:29:37 > 0:29:40because the Soviet Union was his enemy's enemy.
0:29:40 > 0:29:43The day Barbarossa began,
0:29:43 > 0:29:45Churchill told an aide,
0:29:45 > 0:29:50"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favourable reference
0:29:50 > 0:29:53"to the Devil in the House of Commons."
0:30:06 > 0:30:11In telegrams to Stalin, Churchill promised tanks, planes and food.
0:30:16 > 0:30:20But privately, the British didn't think the Russians would last a month
0:30:20 > 0:30:23against the army that had smashed France.
0:30:23 > 0:30:26Then Hitler would turn back on Britain.
0:30:31 > 0:30:36CHURCHILL: 'His invasion of Russia is no more than a prelude
0:30:36 > 0:30:39'to an attempted invasion of the British Isles.
0:30:39 > 0:30:44'He hopes, no doubt, that all this may be accomplished before the winter comes.'
0:30:47 > 0:30:53Today, we assume the Battle of Britain had been decided in 1940,
0:30:53 > 0:30:57but that wasn't how Churchill saw things in 1941.
0:30:57 > 0:31:01Just three days into the German assault on Russia,
0:31:01 > 0:31:04he ordered that Britain's defences
0:31:04 > 0:31:09must be at "concert pitch" for invasion from September 1st.
0:31:14 > 0:31:17In September 1941,
0:31:17 > 0:31:22it did indeed look as if Russia's big cities were doomed.
0:31:22 > 0:31:26In the north, German troops laid siege to Leningrad -
0:31:26 > 0:31:29the old Tsarist city of St Petersburg.
0:31:31 > 0:31:34Hitler ordered it to be destroyed street by street,
0:31:34 > 0:31:36and then razed to the ground.
0:31:40 > 0:31:46Down south, German Panzers encircled Kiev - capital of the Ukraine.
0:31:48 > 0:31:52Out of his depth, Stalin could only bluster and bully.
0:31:52 > 0:31:56Hearing that Nikita Khrushchev, the local party boss,
0:31:56 > 0:31:58was ready to surrender,
0:31:58 > 0:32:02Stalin telephoned him in a rage.
0:32:02 > 0:32:05"You should be ashamed of yourself!
0:32:07 > 0:32:12"Do whatever it takes. If not, we'll make short work of you!"
0:32:20 > 0:32:23Stalin rejected any retreat at Kiev,
0:32:23 > 0:32:27thereby condemning over 600,000 Soviet troops
0:32:27 > 0:32:30to German prisoner of war camps.
0:32:30 > 0:32:33For most, that meant certain death.
0:32:41 > 0:32:43After yet another disaster,
0:32:43 > 0:32:46Stalin was in a state of panic.
0:32:46 > 0:32:52He now sent Churchill an anguished appeal, written in his own hand,
0:32:52 > 0:32:55urging Britain to mount a second front against Hitler,
0:32:55 > 0:32:59a landing by some 30 divisions, several hundred thousand troops,
0:32:59 > 0:33:04in the Balkans or France, before the end of the year.
0:33:04 > 0:33:07But this was pure fantasy.
0:33:07 > 0:33:11Churchill didn't have 30 useable divisions in the whole British Army.
0:33:14 > 0:33:20With no help in sight, Stalin now faced the ultimate threat from Hitler,
0:33:20 > 0:33:25who targeted Moscow itself in an offensive codenamed Operation Typhoon.
0:33:25 > 0:33:30The name proved apt, because the Germans simply blew away the Red Army.
0:33:45 > 0:33:50By October 5th, German tanks were only 80 miles from Moscow.
0:33:52 > 0:33:57Stalin placed veteran general Georgi Zhukov in charge of the defence
0:33:57 > 0:34:02of the Soviet capital, with one of his highly motivational pep talks.
0:34:02 > 0:34:04"If Moscow falls...
0:34:04 > 0:34:07"heads will roll."
0:34:21 > 0:34:26The Germans were now approaching one of the sacred sites of Russian history,
0:34:26 > 0:34:29renowned in literature, music and folk memory.
0:34:31 > 0:34:33Stalin ordered a last stand here,
0:34:33 > 0:34:36on what he called the Mozhaisk Line.
0:34:39 > 0:34:45The Mozhaisk Line was largely a figment of Stalin's imagination,
0:34:45 > 0:34:48but it was rooted in Russian history
0:34:48 > 0:34:52because it ran across the old battlefield of Borodino.
0:34:55 > 0:35:00Borodino was the epic battle between Napoleon's France and Tsarist Russia.
0:35:00 > 0:35:04It was evoked in sound by Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture,
0:35:04 > 0:35:10and immortalised in words by Tolstoy in War and Peace, his classic novel,
0:35:10 > 0:35:13which was being serialized on Radio Moscow.
0:35:13 > 0:35:18Now Russian troops slugged it out with the Germans
0:35:18 > 0:35:24around the very earthworks where their ancestors had fought Napoleon's Grand Army.
0:35:53 > 0:35:59Yet whatever Stalin's wishful thinking, the Russians were driven from the field of Borodino,
0:35:59 > 0:36:04as in 1812, back towards the western outskirts of Moscow.
0:36:12 > 0:36:14This was a critical moment.
0:36:14 > 0:36:19The fate of Moscow, the very outcome of the Second World War,
0:36:19 > 0:36:21hung in the balance.
0:36:27 > 0:36:32Now Stalin wrestled with the same terrible question faced in 1812
0:36:32 > 0:36:35by the Tsar's marshal, Mikhail Kutuzov -
0:36:35 > 0:36:39whether to fight for Moscow, or abandon the city.
0:36:39 > 0:36:47Here in 1812, Kutuzov decided to fall back and sacrifice Moscow,
0:36:47 > 0:36:53in order to preserve his army and ultimately save Russia.
0:36:53 > 0:36:57Now in 1941, Beria took a similar line, arguing,
0:36:57 > 0:37:00"Moscow is not the Soviet Union.
0:37:00 > 0:37:04"Defending Moscow is useless."
0:37:04 > 0:37:09Zhukov, on the other hand, was sure Moscow could be held.
0:37:09 > 0:37:14Stalin, torn between these conflicting views,
0:37:14 > 0:37:20pored over a new biography of Kutuzov, underlining the sentence -
0:37:20 > 0:37:26"Up to the last moment no-one knew what Kutuzov intended to do".
0:37:38 > 0:37:42While Stalin dithered, his staff packed his belongings,
0:37:42 > 0:37:45and made ready a special train.
0:37:47 > 0:37:50Then, on the morning of October 15th,
0:37:50 > 0:37:55Stalin authorised the government to prepare an evacuation to Kuibyshev,
0:37:55 > 0:37:57500 miles east of Moscow.
0:38:00 > 0:38:04According to minutes from the meeting, "Comrade Stalin himself
0:38:04 > 0:38:10"will be evacuated tomorrow or later, depending on the situation".
0:38:10 > 0:38:16Even at this, its most desperate moment, Stalin's regime
0:38:16 > 0:38:20kept up its calculated yet gratuitous cruelty.
0:38:20 > 0:38:26As the Soviet bureaucracy geared up to go, the jails were cleared out.
0:38:26 > 0:38:29One victim was part of Stalin's inner circle.
0:38:31 > 0:38:34Bronya, the wife of Alexander Poskrebyshev,
0:38:34 > 0:38:39Stalin's secretary, the bald little gate-keeper of the Kremlin office.
0:38:39 > 0:38:43Bronya had been imprisoned on trumped-up charges of treason.
0:38:45 > 0:38:47Poskrebyshev was distraught,
0:38:47 > 0:38:50but Stalin did nothing to help.
0:38:50 > 0:38:53"Don't worry", he said sweetly.
0:38:53 > 0:38:55"We'll find you another wife."
0:39:03 > 0:39:08During the evacuation of Moscow, Bronya was executed.
0:39:08 > 0:39:09Choking back his grief,
0:39:09 > 0:39:14Poskrebyshev kept on working for Stalin round the clock.
0:39:17 > 0:39:19"One death is a tragedy -
0:39:19 > 0:39:22"a million deaths are a statistic."
0:39:22 > 0:39:25That cliche is often attributed to Stalin.
0:39:25 > 0:39:28Whether or not he actually said it,
0:39:28 > 0:39:30that's certainly the way he did things -
0:39:30 > 0:39:33inflicting cruelty on a mass scale,
0:39:33 > 0:39:37but also at a personal level on close associates.
0:39:37 > 0:39:42Poskrebyshev, Zhukov, Khrushchev, even his own family.
0:39:44 > 0:39:48This was a man who, I think,
0:39:48 > 0:39:50derived real sadistic pleasure
0:39:50 > 0:39:55from playing with people's minds.
0:40:01 > 0:40:06Stalin's own mind about evacuation was still undecided.
0:40:06 > 0:40:09On October 16th 1941, the people of Moscow woke
0:40:09 > 0:40:12to what seemed like a ghost town.
0:40:12 > 0:40:15No buses, trams or even policemen.
0:40:20 > 0:40:24Across the city, grey snowflakes were falling -
0:40:24 > 0:40:28ashes from the burning of millions of official papers,
0:40:28 > 0:40:30even party cards.
0:40:30 > 0:40:36It seemed that Hitler would soon achieve his dream
0:40:36 > 0:40:39of consigning Bolshevism to the rubbish heap of history.
0:40:42 > 0:40:45Then suddenly, the city became infected with panic
0:40:45 > 0:40:49as news of the evacuation spread.
0:40:49 > 0:40:51Abandoned shops were looted.
0:40:51 > 0:40:55Cars and trucks clogged the roads going east.
0:40:55 > 0:40:58The game seemed to be up.
0:40:58 > 0:41:00One man noted in his diary,
0:41:00 > 0:41:04"Today Moscow is like an ant heap - people loaded down with goods
0:41:04 > 0:41:06"going in all different directions.
0:41:06 > 0:41:10"The Metro is closed, and people are saying it is to be blown up or flooded,
0:41:10 > 0:41:14"and that the Germans will arrive tonight."
0:41:19 > 0:41:24At an outlying railway siding, Stalin's train was ready.
0:41:24 > 0:41:29According to one of his aides, the Soviet leader paced up and down
0:41:29 > 0:41:33in his tattered greatcoat, weaving in and out of the steam,
0:41:33 > 0:41:35still pondering.
0:41:35 > 0:41:37Then he told his staff,
0:41:37 > 0:41:39"No evacuation.
0:41:39 > 0:41:42"We'll stay here until victory."
0:41:45 > 0:41:47The evacuation order was revoked.
0:41:50 > 0:41:54Hundreds of looters were shot, and the capital was placed under martial law.
0:41:56 > 0:42:01No-one can really judge what tipped Stalin's decision.
0:42:01 > 0:42:04Certainly he and Zhukov knew that fresh troops
0:42:04 > 0:42:07were now being rushed west from Siberia.
0:42:07 > 0:42:10But I think that Stalin's ego
0:42:10 > 0:42:14and sense of history also played a part.
0:42:14 > 0:42:19The outsider, the cobbler's son from faraway Georgia,
0:42:19 > 0:42:22thought he could outdo Kutuzov,
0:42:22 > 0:42:25one of the heroes of the Russian past.
0:42:25 > 0:42:30He would save Russia AND save Moscow as well.
0:42:33 > 0:42:39Stalin had now finally taken a grip on the crisis, and on himself.
0:42:39 > 0:42:41His decision to stay in Moscow
0:42:41 > 0:42:46and quell the panic was a critical turning point of World War II.
0:42:46 > 0:42:49Despite appearances, all was not going Hitler's way.
0:42:52 > 0:42:59Hitler had assumed that what he considered the Jew-ridden Bolshevik regime
0:42:59 > 0:43:01would quickly collapse.
0:43:01 > 0:43:06"You only have to kick in the door," he said, "and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down."
0:43:09 > 0:43:12But when Hitler did kick in the door,
0:43:12 > 0:43:17the Soviet Union, though tottering, did not fall.
0:43:17 > 0:43:21And the Russian people, whom in racist contempt
0:43:21 > 0:43:25he dubbed "the Slavic rabbit family", bit back.
0:43:36 > 0:43:42Hitler and his generals underestimated the resilience of Stalin and his state.
0:43:42 > 0:43:47Even more, they underestimated the tenacity of the Russian people.
0:44:00 > 0:44:03An early demonstration of Russian bravery
0:44:03 > 0:44:08had been the defence of Brest in the very first week of Barbarossa.
0:44:08 > 0:44:12The citadel here is still commemorated,
0:44:12 > 0:44:16even by the youth of the 21st century, as a Hero Fortress
0:44:16 > 0:44:19of the Soviet Union.
0:44:24 > 0:44:29The Germans expected to capture it on day one of Barbarossa.
0:44:29 > 0:44:33In fact, a few hundred Russians held out for eight days
0:44:33 > 0:44:39against a whole German infantry division with 10,000 combat troops.
0:44:48 > 0:44:53The Russians battled on in appalling conditions with virtually no water.
0:44:55 > 0:45:00The Germans tried everything - tanks, shells, bombing.
0:45:00 > 0:45:04Eventually they had to winkle out the defenders room by room.
0:45:08 > 0:45:11One Russian soldier, Georgi Karbuk, recalled -
0:45:13 > 0:45:16"The Germans deployed flamethrowers.
0:45:16 > 0:45:21"They simply poked the nozzles into cellar windows and burned everything.
0:45:21 > 0:45:24"Even the bricks melted.
0:45:24 > 0:45:28"Others threw grenades into cellars where families were hiding."
0:45:32 > 0:45:35Ultimately, the German 45th Infantry Division
0:45:35 > 0:45:38did conquer the fortress here at Brest.
0:45:38 > 0:45:42But it had lost nearly 500 men in a week,
0:45:42 > 0:45:47more than it lost in a whole month in France in 1940.
0:45:47 > 0:45:52For the German army, as well as the Russian people,
0:45:52 > 0:45:55Brest was a foretaste of horrors to come.
0:46:00 > 0:46:03TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS
0:46:07 > 0:46:12The will to resist the invaders was just as strong behind the front line.
0:46:13 > 0:46:19Much of Soviet industry lay west of Moscow. Easy pickings for Hitler.
0:46:19 > 0:46:24So the Russians dismantled some 1,500 factories, put them on trains
0:46:24 > 0:46:26together with workers and families
0:46:26 > 0:46:29and then rebuilt them east of the Ural Mountains.
0:46:46 > 0:46:48The scale was incredible.
0:46:48 > 0:46:51Over a million railway wagons were needed.
0:46:51 > 0:46:56Placed end to end, it was estimated that they would've stretched
0:46:56 > 0:47:01right across the country from Poland to the Pacific.
0:47:18 > 0:47:22What made ordinary Russians - soldiers and civilians,
0:47:22 > 0:47:25struggle so tenaciously?
0:47:28 > 0:47:33Here's one story, which I think captures the spirit of Russian resistance in 1941.
0:47:36 > 0:47:40Fleeing the German onslaught on the road to Moscow,
0:47:41 > 0:47:46the war correspondent Vasily Grossman was given shelter by an old peasant woman.
0:47:46 > 0:47:50She used up her tiny stock of supplies, welcoming him
0:47:50 > 0:47:53with a good meal and a roaring fire,
0:47:53 > 0:47:55all the while singing songs.
0:47:55 > 0:48:01She told Grossman of her son fighting at the front and of her nightmares.
0:48:03 > 0:48:09"The Devil came to me last night, and sank his claws into my hand.
0:48:09 > 0:48:13"I started to pray, but the Devil took no notice.
0:48:13 > 0:48:17"So I told him to fuck off, and then he did disappear."
0:48:21 > 0:48:26Grossman was very struck by this typically Russian mix
0:48:26 > 0:48:28of generosity and bloody-mindedness.
0:48:30 > 0:48:34"If we do win in this terrible, cruel war,
0:48:34 > 0:48:38"it will be because there are such noble hearts in our nation.
0:48:38 > 0:48:43"They illuminate all our people with a miraculous light."
0:48:44 > 0:48:48For this old woman, and for millions of Russians,
0:48:48 > 0:48:50their defiance was rooted
0:48:50 > 0:48:56in a deeper sense of homeland, of Russia's history and faith,
0:48:56 > 0:49:00that stretched back long before Lenin and Stalin.
0:49:08 > 0:49:13One popular wartime poem tapped into this mood,
0:49:13 > 0:49:16imagining the ghosts of the old religious Russia
0:49:16 > 0:49:20coming to the aid of Stalin's godless communists.
0:49:22 > 0:49:26"It was as if at the graves in each Russian village
0:49:26 > 0:49:29"Guarding the living with the sign of the cross
0:49:29 > 0:49:32"Our ancestors were gathering to pray
0:49:32 > 0:49:36"For their grandsons who no longer believe in a God."
0:49:41 > 0:49:44With customary opportunism,
0:49:44 > 0:49:48Stalin responded to this resurgent sense of history,
0:49:48 > 0:49:52and Russians, in turn, responded to Stalin,
0:49:52 > 0:49:56or more precisely, to the heroic image of Stalin
0:49:56 > 0:49:58projected by the regime.
0:49:58 > 0:50:01The Man of Steel, the modern Tsar,
0:50:01 > 0:50:06became a symbol for the Russian people of their determination
0:50:06 > 0:50:09to resist the new invaders.
0:50:17 > 0:50:21Stalin accelerated his transformation into nationalist leader.
0:50:21 > 0:50:27His speech for the Revolution Day parade in November invoked Lenin,
0:50:27 > 0:50:31but also the Russian heroes who had repulsed earlier invaders,
0:50:31 > 0:50:35including the Tsarist general Kutuzov.
0:50:41 > 0:50:46The troops paraded through Red Square and marched straight on to the front.
0:50:58 > 0:51:03Moscow was now under almost nightly attack from the Luftwaffe.
0:51:08 > 0:51:11The Kremlin's air-raid shelters had not yet been completed,
0:51:11 > 0:51:16so for a few days Stalin shared the ordeal of ordinary Muscovites,
0:51:16 > 0:51:19dossing down in his greatcoat alongside them
0:51:19 > 0:51:22in one of the Metro stations.
0:51:32 > 0:51:35By December 2nd 1941, German advance units
0:51:35 > 0:51:39were only a dozen miles from the Kremlin.
0:51:39 > 0:51:44Its domes and spires glinted in the pale sun.
0:51:47 > 0:51:52One German medical officer reached a tram stop on the road into the city.
0:51:55 > 0:51:58"There was an old wooden bin attached to the wall.
0:51:58 > 0:52:03"I felt inside and dragged out a handful of old tram tickets.
0:52:03 > 0:52:06"We picked out the Cyrillic letters,
0:52:06 > 0:52:10"which by now we knew spelled 'Moskva'."
0:52:10 > 0:52:15But there was to be no easy ride into Moscow for those German soldiers.
0:52:15 > 0:52:17This vast replica of a tank trap
0:52:17 > 0:52:21marks the end of the line for them -
0:52:21 > 0:52:27the point where Barbarossa, once molten fire, literally froze up.
0:52:44 > 0:52:46Temperatures were now 30 below.
0:52:48 > 0:52:53Tank and plane engines had to be heated for hours before they could be started.
0:52:53 > 0:52:58Many German soldiers lacked winter clothing, even proper gloves -
0:52:58 > 0:53:03victims of Hitler's hubris about a quick victory.
0:53:06 > 0:53:11Seizing their chance, Stalin and Zhukov now planned a dramatic counterattack.
0:53:18 > 0:53:20Before dawn on December 5th,
0:53:20 > 0:53:25Soviet troops ploughed into the frozen Nazi pincers around Moscow.
0:53:25 > 0:53:29GUNFIRE
0:53:37 > 0:53:39Although the Germans weren't routed,
0:53:39 > 0:53:42they were driven back 100 miles.
0:53:42 > 0:53:48At last for the Russians, after six months of defeat, a first victory.
0:53:48 > 0:53:50But could they keep it up?
0:54:02 > 0:54:05Zhukov knew the limits of his army.
0:54:05 > 0:54:10He wanted a targeted strike to save Moscow.
0:54:10 > 0:54:13But Stalin was now on a roll.
0:54:13 > 0:54:18Though no general, he had apparently done what Kutuzov could not do -
0:54:18 > 0:54:22save Russia without sacrificing Moscow.
0:54:22 > 0:54:30And like Hitler when he launched Barbarossa, Stalin now believed his enemy to be ripe for destruction.
0:54:33 > 0:54:38Pacing around his study in the Kremlin, Stalin told his generals,
0:54:38 > 0:54:43"The Germans are taken aback by their defeat near Moscow.
0:54:43 > 0:54:47"Now is just the time to mount a general offensive."
0:54:47 > 0:54:51Zhukov protested that he hadn't the resources to advance
0:54:51 > 0:54:54in this way, all along the front.
0:54:54 > 0:54:57Stalin would have none of this.
0:54:57 > 0:55:01"Our task is not to give the Germans a breathing space.
0:55:01 > 0:55:05"We must drive them westwards without a halt.
0:55:05 > 0:55:09"This will ensure the complete defeat
0:55:09 > 0:55:12"of the Nazi forces in 1942."
0:55:13 > 0:55:18According to Zhukov, nobody else spoke up.
0:55:18 > 0:55:22The dictator had browbeaten his generals.
0:55:22 > 0:55:27The all-out New Year offensive went ahead and Stalin,
0:55:27 > 0:55:31with customary vindictiveness, crossed Zhukov's name off the list
0:55:31 > 0:55:34of those to be honoured for saving Moscow.
0:55:37 > 0:55:42'Along the whole front, the great Russian counter-offensive,
0:55:42 > 0:55:46'which Stalin personally worked out in every detail, springs to life.'
0:55:46 > 0:55:50British newsreels recorded Stalin's great offensive.
0:55:50 > 0:55:55The heroic Russians seemed to be the only ones effectively fighting the Germans.
0:55:59 > 0:56:01Britain was still on the back foot.
0:56:04 > 0:56:08And America, though at last in the war,
0:56:08 > 0:56:12was in disarray after Japan's surprise attack at Pearl Harbour.
0:56:14 > 0:56:19Yet in early 1942, Stalin was sniffing victory,
0:56:19 > 0:56:24and like Hitler, it went to his head.
0:56:24 > 0:56:27Having lost eastern Europe in 1941,
0:56:27 > 0:56:30he was now determined to get it back.
0:56:30 > 0:56:33He told Britain and America that Russia's rewards for victory
0:56:33 > 0:56:38should include eastern Poland and the Baltic states -
0:56:38 > 0:56:41the very territories signed over to him in 1939
0:56:41 > 0:56:45as part of his pact with Hitler.
0:56:45 > 0:56:50Now he wanted his allies to endorse the same dirty deal.
0:56:52 > 0:56:56This obsessive haggling for territorial gain
0:56:56 > 0:57:00may seem bizarrely premature to us now,
0:57:00 > 0:57:06but I think it makes sense if we remember that Stalin, still on a high
0:57:06 > 0:57:08from the success of the winter counter-offensives,
0:57:08 > 0:57:12thought the war might be over within a few months.
0:57:12 > 0:57:16So he was trying to strengthen his hand
0:57:16 > 0:57:19for an upcoming peace conference.
0:57:20 > 0:57:24Russian friendship was vital for Britain.
0:57:24 > 0:57:28But handing over Poland and the Baltic states to the Soviets,
0:57:28 > 0:57:30as Hitler had done, seemed utterly immoral.
0:57:30 > 0:57:36After anguished debate, the British Government dug in.
0:57:36 > 0:57:38So Stalin applied direct pressure.
0:57:38 > 0:57:42He sent Molotov, his tough-guy foreign minister, to Britain,
0:57:42 > 0:57:45to press Russia's case for territory.
0:57:46 > 0:57:52'Early one morning in May, a powerful four-engined Soviet bomber came in to land at a northern aerodrome.
0:57:52 > 0:57:56'Out of it stepped the Soviet people's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Monsieur Molotov,
0:57:56 > 0:57:58'clad in heavy fur-lined flying kit.'
0:57:58 > 0:58:04In front of the newsreel cameras, it was all smiles,
0:58:04 > 0:58:08but behind the scenes, Molotov did not prove an easy guest.
0:58:14 > 0:58:17Conscious, perhaps, that 20 years earlier,
0:58:17 > 0:58:23his host Churchill had tried to strangle Bolshevism in its cradle,
0:58:23 > 0:58:28Molotov and his aides slept with revolvers under their pillows.
0:58:28 > 0:58:31Their rooms were also guarded round the clock
0:58:31 > 0:58:35by grim Russian matriarchs dressed in black.
0:58:42 > 0:58:47Molotov was notorious for his hard-nosed negotiating style,
0:58:47 > 0:58:51but he could not get his way on carving up eastern Europe.
0:58:51 > 0:58:55Churchill would only offer a general treaty of alliance,
0:58:55 > 0:58:58and no promises about territory.
0:59:00 > 0:59:05Molotov cabled the British offer to Stalin contemptuously.
0:59:05 > 0:59:08"We consider this treaty unacceptable
0:59:08 > 0:59:15"as it is an empty declaration which the Soviet Union does not need."
0:59:15 > 0:59:17Molotov assumed Stalin would agree,
0:59:17 > 0:59:19but, back in the Kremlin,
0:59:19 > 0:59:24the mood was changing, as bad news filtered in from the front.
0:59:31 > 0:59:36Buoyed up by over-confidence, and once again riding roughshod over generals like Zhukov,
0:59:36 > 0:59:41in May 1942, Stalin had ordered a reckless new assault
0:59:41 > 0:59:45to recapture Kharkov, second city of the Ukraine.
0:59:50 > 0:59:53After a week of fighting, Khrushchev phoned to report
0:59:53 > 0:59:58that the Soviet forces at Kharkov had driven themselves into a trap,
0:59:58 > 1:00:01and were being encircled by the Germans.
1:00:05 > 1:00:08Stalin refused even to take the call.
1:00:08 > 1:00:10"Put down the phone.
1:00:10 > 1:00:13"As if he knows what he's talking about!"
1:00:33 > 1:00:37It was like June 1941 all over again.
1:00:37 > 1:00:42Only after a quarter of a million men were captured
1:00:42 > 1:00:47and 1,200 tanks were written off did Stalin face the facts.
1:00:49 > 1:00:53With his regime on the ropes once more,
1:00:53 > 1:00:55Stalin called off the offensive,
1:00:55 > 1:00:59and rethought the priorities of his diplomacy.
1:01:03 > 1:01:07Stalin dropped his demands for territory.
1:01:07 > 1:01:12What mattered now was getting the Allies to mount a second front -
1:01:12 > 1:01:15a British and American assault on mainland Europe
1:01:15 > 1:01:18to divert German forces from Russia.
1:01:18 > 1:01:21Stalin cabled Molotov in London.
1:01:21 > 1:01:25He told him to stop protesting, sign the treaty with Britain
1:01:25 > 1:01:30and firm up the Allies' commitment to a second front.
1:01:30 > 1:01:36Molotov was flabbergasted, but the man whom the British regarded as the hardliner
1:01:36 > 1:01:39grovelled abjectly to his boss.
1:01:39 > 1:01:42"I shall act in accordance with the directive.
1:01:42 > 1:01:46"I believe that the new draft treaty can also have positive value.
1:01:46 > 1:01:49"I failed to appreciate it at once."
1:01:49 > 1:01:53'At the Foreign Office, the Grand Alliance was entered into
1:01:53 > 1:01:57'as signatures were appended to the document by the representatives of the high contracting parties.
1:01:57 > 1:02:03'Full understanding was also reached with regard to the creating this year of a second front in Europe.'
1:02:07 > 1:02:11In mid-1942, Hitler resumed his offensive.
1:02:11 > 1:02:17The new campaign was directed southeast to seize Russia's oil in the Caucasus.
1:02:19 > 1:02:22But Stalin still assumed that Hitler's real goal was Moscow.
1:02:27 > 1:02:32Thanks to Stalin's misplaced deployments, the German advance was even swifter than in 1941.
1:02:32 > 1:02:34By the end of the summer,
1:02:34 > 1:02:39the swastika was flying over the highest point in the Caucasus.
1:02:39 > 1:02:43The Red Army had lost another 600,000 prisoners,
1:02:43 > 1:02:46and thousands more tanks.
1:02:55 > 1:02:59The pattern was the same as 1941 -
1:02:59 > 1:03:02armoured pincers, and mass encirclements,
1:03:02 > 1:03:05rants from Stalin about "not one step back",
1:03:05 > 1:03:08and new orders for blocking units
1:03:08 > 1:03:12to shoot those trying to flee.
1:03:12 > 1:03:16In July 1942, with the Red Army collapsing,
1:03:16 > 1:03:19Stalin was once again desperate for help.
1:03:25 > 1:03:26Stalin now really needed Churchill
1:03:26 > 1:03:32to deliver on the promise of a second front in Europe in 1942.
1:03:32 > 1:03:35But nothing seemed to be happening.
1:03:35 > 1:03:40Stalin sensed that he was being betrayed by the old enemy.
1:03:40 > 1:03:42"Personal and Secret.
1:03:42 > 1:03:45"Premier Stalin to Premier Churchill.
1:03:45 > 1:03:49"In spite of the agreed communique concerning the urgent tasks
1:03:49 > 1:03:52"of creating a second front in 1942,
1:03:52 > 1:03:57"the British Government postpones this matter until 1943."
1:03:59 > 1:04:03Relations between London and Moscow were reaching crisis point.
1:04:03 > 1:04:08As the German juggernaut rolled east, rumours swirled around
1:04:08 > 1:04:11about Soviet capitulation and peace talks.
1:04:11 > 1:04:16A new Nazi-Soviet Pact would be a disaster for Britain.
1:04:19 > 1:04:22For the British, Stalin's military blunders
1:04:22 > 1:04:25opened up a terrifying scenario.
1:04:25 > 1:04:29Churchill's Chief of Staff, Alanbrooke, noted in his diary...
1:04:29 > 1:04:35"While we are talking, the Germans are walking through the Caucasus.
1:04:35 > 1:04:39"Our defences in Iraq and Persia are lamentably weak."
1:04:41 > 1:04:47If the Germans smashed through the Caucasus to Iraq and Persia,
1:04:47 > 1:04:51they would grab most of Britain's oil.
1:04:51 > 1:04:56Neutral Turkey would probably throw in its lot with Hitler,
1:04:56 > 1:05:01perhaps even allowing a link-up with Rommel's army in Egypt,
1:05:01 > 1:05:04now steam-rollering towards the Suez Canal.
1:05:04 > 1:05:09The Germans might even join forces with the Japanese to threaten
1:05:09 > 1:05:12India from the west as well as east.
1:05:14 > 1:05:19Nightmares, perhaps, but all too vivid and real at the time.
1:05:19 > 1:05:25In 1941, Russia's collapse threatened to expose the British Isles
1:05:25 > 1:05:28to the Nazi war machine.
1:05:28 > 1:05:33In 1942, the whole British Empire seemed at stake
1:05:33 > 1:05:37because of Stalin's military bungling.
1:05:41 > 1:05:45While Stalin felt betrayed by Churchill over the promise of a second front,
1:05:45 > 1:05:47Churchill doubted Stalin's ability
1:05:47 > 1:05:50to hold out against Hitler.
1:05:50 > 1:05:54Without trust, the alliance was doomed.
1:05:54 > 1:05:58Churchill felt that he and Stalin had to meet face-to-face.
1:06:01 > 1:06:03In the middle of August 1942,
1:06:03 > 1:06:08after a long flight dodging German fighters,
1:06:08 > 1:06:10Churchill arrived in Moscow.
1:06:10 > 1:06:13Churchill was excited to meet Stalin for the first time,
1:06:13 > 1:06:18and keen to get the measure of the man. But he was also anxious.
1:06:20 > 1:06:24He was about to give Stalin an update on the second front that wouldn't be welcome.
1:06:24 > 1:06:29It was, he said, "Like carrying a large lump of ice to the North Pole."
1:06:36 > 1:06:41At seven that evening, Churchill was ushered into Stalin's office.
1:06:41 > 1:06:44First impressions were not flattering.
1:06:44 > 1:06:47At the door was a nervous dwarf -
1:06:47 > 1:06:53actually Poskrebyshev or "Bald Head" as one snooty British official called him.
1:06:53 > 1:06:57And Stalin himself didn't look particularly impressive,
1:06:57 > 1:07:00attired as usual in lilac tunic,
1:07:00 > 1:07:04baggy trousers and long boots.
1:07:04 > 1:07:07This was actually standard Communist Party dress, but to the British,
1:07:07 > 1:07:09he looked a bit of a yokel.
1:07:14 > 1:07:20For Stalin, a gangster from the Caucasus, used to manipulating cronies and underlings,
1:07:20 > 1:07:25having to negotiate with a grandee from the West,
1:07:25 > 1:07:29face-to-face and on equal terms, was a new experience.
1:07:29 > 1:07:37A first test, if you like, of his ability to play in the premier league of international diplomacy.
1:07:37 > 1:07:41And I think that the records of his meetings with Churchill
1:07:41 > 1:07:46throw a revealing light on Stalin's effectiveness as a statesman,
1:07:46 > 1:07:52as he learnt to manage Russia's wartime alliances for his own ends.
1:07:54 > 1:07:58To start with, the meeting was heavy going.
1:07:58 > 1:08:02Stalin admitted the news from the Caucasus was bad.
1:08:02 > 1:08:05Churchill spoke defensively about all the problems
1:08:05 > 1:08:08of mounting a second front in France that year.
1:08:08 > 1:08:11Stalin looked grim.
1:08:13 > 1:08:15"What about a smaller operation?" he asked.
1:08:15 > 1:08:18"Like recapturing the Channel Islands?"
1:08:18 > 1:08:22Churchill said it would be "a waste of seed-corn"
1:08:22 > 1:08:28for the real harvest which would come in 1943.
1:08:28 > 1:08:34Stalin, who was used to wasting tons of seed-corn, replied testily,
1:08:34 > 1:08:40"A man who isn't prepared to take risks cannot win a war."
1:08:40 > 1:08:45But then Churchill revealed that he and the American President Franklin Roosevelt
1:08:45 > 1:08:53had a top secret plan which would be every bit as good as a second front offensive against mainland Europe.
1:08:53 > 1:08:56He drew a sketch of a crocodile.
1:08:56 > 1:09:01Northern France, he said, was Hitler's hard snout,
1:09:01 > 1:09:06but the Mediterranean was his soft belly.
1:09:06 > 1:09:10Churchill promised that in the autumn, British and American troops
1:09:10 > 1:09:14would land in Morocco and Algeria.
1:09:14 > 1:09:18If North Africa was won in 1942, he said,
1:09:18 > 1:09:23we will launch a deadly attack on Hitler next year.
1:09:23 > 1:09:26Stalin was now fully engaged.
1:09:26 > 1:09:29He asked a lot of questions.
1:09:30 > 1:09:33The meeting broke up after 3½ hours.
1:09:33 > 1:09:38The British Prime Minister was driven back to the dacha he had been assigned.
1:09:42 > 1:09:45Churchill was jubilant.
1:09:46 > 1:09:48"My strategy was sound", he crowed.
1:09:48 > 1:09:52First, he had given Stalin the bad news,
1:09:52 > 1:09:55then he'd offered glad tidings.
1:09:55 > 1:09:58Stalin, he said, ended enthusiastic,
1:09:58 > 1:09:59in a glow.
1:10:01 > 1:10:05Churchill declared that Stalin was just a peasant
1:10:05 > 1:10:09whom he knew exactly how to handle.
1:10:09 > 1:10:14Too late, Churchill was warned that the room had probably been bugged,
1:10:14 > 1:10:18and that his comments might well be passed on to Stalin.
1:10:18 > 1:10:21But Churchill wasn't cowed, stalking up to the likely location
1:10:21 > 1:10:24of a microphone and shouting,
1:10:24 > 1:10:30"The Russians, I have been told, are not human beings at all.
1:10:30 > 1:10:35"They are lower in the scale of nature than the orang-utan.
1:10:36 > 1:10:40"Now, let them take that down
1:10:40 > 1:10:43"and translate it into Russian."
1:10:43 > 1:10:49It was a strange echo of Churchill's spluttering 20 years earlier
1:10:49 > 1:10:51about "Bolshevik baboonery".
1:10:51 > 1:10:55Whether his bombast got back to Stalin, we don't know,
1:10:55 > 1:11:00but the next meeting between the two leaders was very different.
1:11:02 > 1:11:07Perhaps Stalin felt insulted by Churchill's taunts, or maybe
1:11:07 > 1:11:12he had seen through the so-called second front in the Mediterranean.
1:11:12 > 1:11:16The evidence isn't clear, but Stalin now played the hard man.
1:11:18 > 1:11:23Sitting back in his chair, eyes half closed, puffing at his pipe,
1:11:23 > 1:11:26he tore Churchill to shreds.
1:11:26 > 1:11:31He dismissed North Africa as an irrelevance.
1:11:31 > 1:11:37He accused Churchill of breaking a firm promise about the second front.
1:11:37 > 1:11:40He even mocked Britain for cowardice.
1:11:42 > 1:11:47"If the British Army had been fighting the Germans as much as the Russian Army,
1:11:47 > 1:11:50"it wouldn't be so frightened of them."
1:11:50 > 1:11:53Churchill was livid!
1:11:53 > 1:11:57He shouted back, giving as good as he got.
1:12:01 > 1:12:05The second meeting ended in icy deadlock.
1:12:23 > 1:12:27Next day at the dacha, Churchill fumed in the garden,
1:12:27 > 1:12:30safely out of range of the bugs.
1:12:32 > 1:12:35"That man has insulted me!
1:12:35 > 1:12:40"From now on, he will have to fight his battles alone.
1:12:40 > 1:12:42"I represent a great country,
1:12:42 > 1:12:47"and I am not submissive by nature."
1:12:51 > 1:12:54This was no longer a policy dispute,
1:12:54 > 1:12:57a row about the second front.
1:12:57 > 1:13:00It was a clash of cultures
1:13:00 > 1:13:02between two proud men
1:13:02 > 1:13:05representing two proud nations.
1:13:05 > 1:13:09Each desperately needed the other,
1:13:09 > 1:13:14but there was a limit to how far either would bend.
1:13:15 > 1:13:20Unlike Stalin, Churchill wasn't surrounded by lackeys.
1:13:20 > 1:13:24The British Ambassador, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr,
1:13:24 > 1:13:28talked back at Churchill hard.
1:13:28 > 1:13:33In a letter later, he recalled how he asked Churchill bluntly
1:13:33 > 1:13:37whether he intended to "flounce off home".
1:13:37 > 1:13:39"All because you are offended.
1:13:39 > 1:13:44"Offended by a peasant who didn't know any better.
1:13:44 > 1:13:46"You are an aristocrat.
1:13:46 > 1:13:49"They are rough and inexperienced,
1:13:49 > 1:13:52"straight from the plough and the lathe.
1:13:52 > 1:13:56"Don't let your pride blur your judgement."
1:13:56 > 1:14:00Noblesse oblige - that was the message.
1:14:00 > 1:14:03Clark Kerr urged Churchill to unbend
1:14:03 > 1:14:07and ask Stalin for another talk.
1:14:07 > 1:14:12But would Stalin unbend as well?
1:14:15 > 1:14:19In fact, for Stalin, the ground was also shifting.
1:14:19 > 1:14:23He had just learned that the Germans had routed Soviet troops
1:14:23 > 1:14:25on the Don River.
1:14:25 > 1:14:29Stalingrad, the great industrial city
1:14:29 > 1:14:33named after the Man of Steel himself, was now in Hitler's sights.
1:14:40 > 1:14:43Round three between Stalin and Churchill
1:14:43 > 1:14:47began at seven in the evening in Stalin's office.
1:14:50 > 1:14:54The two leaders had a polite and business-like final discussion
1:14:54 > 1:14:57about various aspects of the war.
1:14:57 > 1:15:00But as Churchill got up to say goodbye,
1:15:00 > 1:15:04Stalin became Mr Nice Guy all of a sudden.
1:15:06 > 1:15:11"Why don't you come back to my apartment in the Kremlin and have a little drink, hm?"
1:15:17 > 1:15:21The "little drink" mushroomed into dinner with a dictator -
1:15:21 > 1:15:25a six-hour feast washed down with endless bottles of choice wine.
1:15:25 > 1:15:32Stalin introduced Churchill to his daughter Svetlana and watched his reaction with a twinkle in his eye,
1:15:32 > 1:15:37as if to say, "You see, even we Bolsheviks have family life."
1:15:40 > 1:15:43The mood became progressively more unreal
1:15:43 > 1:15:47as conversation lurched from the present to the past.
1:15:47 > 1:15:53Churchill boasted about the military genius of his ancestor the Duke of Marlborough.
1:15:55 > 1:15:59Stalin, with an impish smile,
1:15:59 > 1:16:03said he thought the Duke of Wellington was more talented,
1:16:03 > 1:16:05because he crushed Napoleon,
1:16:05 > 1:16:09who presented the greatest danger in history.
1:16:09 > 1:16:13Then Stalin got on to the collective farms campaign,
1:16:13 > 1:16:17and the criminal resistance of the peasants.
1:16:17 > 1:16:20It was, he said, a terrible struggle.
1:16:20 > 1:16:26Ten million people, all very bad and difficult,
1:16:26 > 1:16:28but necessary.
1:16:35 > 1:16:40He hacked at a pig's head, picking at the flesh with his fingers.
1:16:40 > 1:16:44Churchill had a vivid image of millions of men and women
1:16:44 > 1:16:48being blotted out forever, but he held his tongue.
1:16:49 > 1:16:53"With the World War going on all around us,
1:16:53 > 1:16:57"it seemed vain to moralise aloud."
1:17:03 > 1:17:08This final meeting cemented the alliance.
1:17:08 > 1:17:12Churchill left Moscow with a new confidence in Stalin.
1:17:12 > 1:17:16On the plane home next morning, nursing a massive hangover,
1:17:16 > 1:17:21he murmured, "I was taken into the family. We ended friends."
1:17:21 > 1:17:25'Of Joseph Stalin the Prime Minister has brought back an excellent impression
1:17:25 > 1:17:30'of a great rugged war chief, blunt of speech, with a saving sense of humour.
1:17:30 > 1:17:37'The two formed a friendship which promises well for the victory of the united nations.'
1:17:50 > 1:17:54In the course of the war, Churchill's view of the Soviet Union
1:17:54 > 1:17:58and the threat of what he called "Russian barbarism"
1:17:58 > 1:18:00would yo-yo up and down,
1:18:00 > 1:18:06but he retained his faith that Stalin was a man with whom he could do business.
1:18:06 > 1:18:12For his part, Stalin had played a shrewd game of hot and cold
1:18:12 > 1:18:14with Churchill, knocking him off balance.
1:18:14 > 1:18:17This was a routine Stalin ploy.
1:18:19 > 1:18:24But I believe there was something more behind his Mr Nice Guy act
1:18:24 > 1:18:28when he invited Churchill to his flat.
1:18:28 > 1:18:32Stalin, I think, made a deliberate decision
1:18:32 > 1:18:37to open up, to show a more human side.
1:18:37 > 1:18:41The bruiser had to become a charmer.
1:18:41 > 1:18:46He couldn't afford to let the meeting end on a sour note,
1:18:46 > 1:18:49because Russia's military situation had gone critical.
1:18:54 > 1:18:59The Caucasus and Russian oil fields now seemed within Hitler's grasp.
1:19:03 > 1:19:08The decisive battle would be in the cauldron of Stalingrad,
1:19:08 > 1:19:13where two million Soviet and German troops became locked in a struggle to the death.
1:19:18 > 1:19:21Churchill's much-vaunted offensive in the Mediterranean,
1:19:21 > 1:19:25landing 100,000 troops on the beaches of North Africa
1:19:25 > 1:19:29was a mere sideshow to this horrific climax of the war.
1:19:32 > 1:19:36Having failed to wipe Leningrad and Moscow off the map,
1:19:36 > 1:19:39Hitler was now determined to erase Stalingrad.
1:19:41 > 1:19:45His orders were stark - male population to be destroyed,
1:19:45 > 1:19:48female to be deported.
1:19:57 > 1:20:03Hitler was becoming ever more the control freak as Supreme Commander.
1:20:03 > 1:20:08But Stalin, the Man of Steel, who'd bent towards Churchill,
1:20:08 > 1:20:12was also learning to be less rigid in dealing with his generals.
1:20:15 > 1:20:20Swallowing his old fear of Bonapartism in the army,
1:20:20 > 1:20:23Stalin dismantled the system of political commissars -
1:20:23 > 1:20:27the apparatchiks who could question officers' orders
1:20:27 > 1:20:30on party or ideological grounds.
1:20:30 > 1:20:35Now, commanders were allowed to take decisions for military reasons alone.
1:20:36 > 1:20:40Party hacks like Voroshilov were demoted,
1:20:40 > 1:20:44while Stalin promoted Zhukov to Deputy Supreme Commander.
1:20:45 > 1:20:50Zhukov knew the fate of Stalin's generals.
1:20:50 > 1:20:54At first he tried to refuse the promotion,
1:20:54 > 1:20:56claiming their temperaments were incompatible.
1:20:56 > 1:20:58But Stalin was insistent -
1:20:58 > 1:21:04"Let us subordinate our temperaments to the interests of the Motherland."
1:21:06 > 1:21:09Zhukov wasn't just a one-man band.
1:21:09 > 1:21:14Around him he built a capable staff of intelligent, efficient planners.
1:21:17 > 1:21:19This was a decisive moment -
1:21:19 > 1:21:23a sign that Stalin had the essential flexibility to survive.
1:21:27 > 1:21:31In 1941, Stalin had appealed to nationalism, not communism,
1:21:31 > 1:21:36in order to galvanize his people for war.
1:21:36 > 1:21:38In 1942, he compromised again,
1:21:38 > 1:21:41scrapping the ideology of party control
1:21:41 > 1:21:47to give his top generals the freedom to fight.
1:21:50 > 1:21:54While Russian soldiers battled heroically in the ruins of Stalingrad,
1:21:54 > 1:22:00Zhukov and his staff formulated a bold plan to relieve the city.
1:22:00 > 1:22:03And Stalin let them do it, finally releasing the reserves
1:22:03 > 1:22:09he had retained to protect Moscow and not pushing Zhukov this time
1:22:09 > 1:22:11into a premature assault.
1:22:17 > 1:22:20In November 1942, the pincers closed again.
1:22:20 > 1:22:24But they were Russian pincers, slicing through weak divisions
1:22:24 > 1:22:29that guarded the rear of Hitler's army in Stalingrad.
1:22:30 > 1:22:33It was the Germans who were now encircled.
1:22:38 > 1:22:41Their final surrender in January 1943
1:22:41 > 1:22:46coincided with the tenth anniversary of Hitler's seizure of power.
1:22:48 > 1:22:52It was a devastating turn of fortune's wheel.
1:22:54 > 1:22:59War correspondent Vasily Grossman witnessed the Russian victory.
1:23:00 > 1:23:05"Prisoners move on and on in crowds, their mess tins rattling,
1:23:05 > 1:23:08"belted with pieces of rope, or wire.
1:23:08 > 1:23:11"Russian troops are marching.
1:23:11 > 1:23:13"Their spirits are higher now.
1:23:13 > 1:23:17"Ah, it would be great to get to Kiev."
1:23:17 > 1:23:20Another man - "Ah, I'd like to get to Berlin."
1:23:23 > 1:23:26The Red Army was now on the march.
1:23:26 > 1:23:30So were the British and Americans by the end of 1942,
1:23:30 > 1:23:36routing the Germans in North Africa as a springboard for control of the Mediterranean.
1:23:36 > 1:23:38But it was the Eastern Front,
1:23:38 > 1:23:42the great battles for Moscow and Stalingrad,
1:23:42 > 1:23:44that turned World War Two,
1:23:44 > 1:23:49beginning a fightback that would eventually entrench the Soviet Union
1:23:49 > 1:23:52as a new superpower throughout Eastern Europe.
1:23:52 > 1:23:56Not just Poland and the Baltic states,
1:23:56 > 1:23:59but Hungary, Czechoslovakia and half of Germany itself.
1:24:06 > 1:24:10The Second World War was a struggle
1:24:10 > 1:24:13to defeat Hitler's genocidal imperialism.
1:24:13 > 1:24:16Yet the man who gained most from victory was a dictator
1:24:16 > 1:24:19as cruel and ruthless as his enemy.
1:24:23 > 1:24:29The difference between victory and defeat was in large part, that Stalin eventually learned
1:24:29 > 1:24:33from the mistakes that had cost millions of Russian lives,
1:24:33 > 1:24:39whereas setbacks only made Hitler more unyielding in his fantasies.
1:24:41 > 1:24:45Ultimately, Stalin, for all his Bolshevik ideology,
1:24:45 > 1:24:49was a pragmatist with a keen eye for survival.
1:24:49 > 1:24:54Although he was an outsider, his command over the Russian people
1:24:54 > 1:24:58gained him an empire, bought with their blood,
1:24:58 > 1:25:02that surpassed anything won by the Tsars.
1:25:02 > 1:25:07So there was a ghastly moral compromise at the heart of the Allied victory.
1:25:07 > 1:25:11In 1945, the defeat of one evil
1:25:11 > 1:25:15helped entrench another evil across half of Europe
1:25:15 > 1:25:18and in Russia itself.
1:25:23 > 1:25:27Having learnt to loosen up his regime to win victory,
1:25:27 > 1:25:32after the war, Stalin tightened his grip once again,
1:25:32 > 1:25:34reverting to terror.
1:25:34 > 1:25:39He put his generals back in their place, demoting the war hero Zhukov on charges of corruption,
1:25:39 > 1:25:43and he clamped down on his people with renewed censorship
1:25:43 > 1:25:46and another purge of the party.
1:25:49 > 1:25:53In the 1950s, Vasily Grossman pondered the cost of victory,
1:25:53 > 1:25:58reflecting on how the heroism of the war had saved Russia,
1:25:58 > 1:26:04while also saving Stalin, and shoring up the Stalinist system.
1:26:04 > 1:26:10His epic novel Life And Fate was modelled on Tolstoy's War and Peace.
1:26:12 > 1:26:14At the fulcrum of his book,
1:26:14 > 1:26:19Grossman evokes Stalin waiting anxiously for the start
1:26:19 > 1:26:23of Zhukov's vital counter-offensive around Stalingrad.
1:26:23 > 1:26:26The passage is pure fiction,
1:26:26 > 1:26:30but also, I think, sublime poetic truth.
1:26:34 > 1:26:40Grossman imagines the dictator recalling the shambles of 1941 -
1:26:40 > 1:26:43his bumblings that nearly ruined Russia.
1:26:44 > 1:26:47In his mind's eye, behind Hitler's tanks,
1:26:47 > 1:26:53Stalin sees the millions of Russians he destroyed coming back to life.
1:26:53 > 1:26:57The prisoners of the Arctic Gulag breaking up through the permafrost.
1:26:59 > 1:27:04Emaciated peasants crawling out of the soil, all of them looking for him.
1:27:08 > 1:27:12Then Zhukov's pincers close.
1:27:12 > 1:27:15The Germans cannot escape.
1:27:15 > 1:27:19Stalingrad will be remembered as a triumph, not a disaster.
1:27:19 > 1:27:24Grossman now imagines Stalin's devoted secretary -
1:27:24 > 1:27:28bald little Poskrebyshev, whose wife was one of Stalin's victims -
1:27:28 > 1:27:30watching silent and motionless
1:27:30 > 1:27:33as his boss sits back,
1:27:33 > 1:27:36drinking in the wonderful news.
1:27:36 > 1:27:39To the victor, the spoils.
1:27:41 > 1:27:45"This was his hour of triumph.
1:27:45 > 1:27:50"He'd not only defeated his current enemy, he'd defeated his past.
1:27:50 > 1:27:56"In the villages, the grass would grow thicker over the tombs of 1930.
1:27:56 > 1:28:01"The snow and ice of the Arctic Circle would remain dumb and silent.
1:28:01 > 1:28:07"He knew better than anybody that no-one condemns a victor.
1:28:07 > 1:28:11"Very slowly and gently, his eyes closed.
1:28:11 > 1:28:14"He repeated the words of a song.
1:28:15 > 1:28:18"You're caught in the net, my pretty little bird
1:28:18 > 1:28:23"I won't let you go for anything in the world.
1:28:23 > 1:28:27"Poskrebyshev looked at Stalin, at his grey, thinning hair,
1:28:27 > 1:28:31"his pock-marked face, his closed eyes.
1:28:33 > 1:28:38"Suddenly, he felt the ends of his fingers grow cold."
1:28:50 > 1:28:54Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd