Communist Leaders and their children?

[Lei Feng]

Something i constantly get from anti-Communists and other reactionaries is that all leaders of "Communist" countries(Socialist Republics) lived wealthy lifestyles akin to the Bourgeoisie. This, of course, is a lie.(Chairman Mao and Comrade Lenin did not live lavish lifestyles compared to the western Bourgeoisie in any way).

However, they constantly go about saying that Communism is some sort of "religion" and the leader is worshipped or some reactionary garbage like that. Saying that the personality cult is bad, yet they idolize certain members of the Bourgeoisie who haven't done a damn thing that deserves to be idolized.

They also claim the children of the leaders all are "Set for life" and will never have to work. Of course, we know this isnt true in the case of Comrade Hoxha's children.

Anyways, what are your guys' opinions on this whole thing(Personal lives of leaders, personality cults, and their children's social status)?

[Zulu]

Stalin's elder son died in a Nazi concentration camp after being taken prisoner.

Khrushchev's son was killed in action in WWII.

One of Mao's sons died in the Korean War.


In Ernest Hemingway's famous novel "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1940) set during the Spanish civil war there is an episode, when a teenage guerrilla fighter speaks about his admiration of Dolores Ibárruri (aka La Passionaria), one of the Spanish Communists' leaders. A more skeptical comrade tells him that her son, approximately of the same age as the enthusiastic guerrilla, is safe away from the war, living in the Soviet Union. Soon after the guerrillas get trapped by the fascists and killed. The supposed meaning of the episode was subverted in reality a few years later, when La Passionaria's son was killed in action in the Battle of Stalingrad.

As you see, the first generation of the leaders' children is quite exposed to the call of revolutionary duty, so to say. But later on, on the other hand... Yes, many of them, and especially the grand sons tend to be corrupt.

[Omsk]

These are some accounts:


CHUEV: Artem Fedorovich told me: "...Once he [Stalin] gathered his sons together: Jakov, Vasily, and me. 'Boys, war is coming. You will have to become soldiers.'
"Jakov and me," said Artem, "joined the artillery, and Vasily became a pilot. All of us went to the front--from the first day; Stalin telephoned to have us taken there immediately. It was the only privilege we got from him as a father. There remain several letters from Vasily to his father. In one of them from the front, he asked his father to send him money. A snack bar had opened in his detachment and he wanted a new officer's uniform. His father replied: '1. As far as I know, the rations in the air force are quite sufficient. 2. A special uniform for Stalin's son is not on the agenda.' Vasily didn't get the money."
Chuev, Feliks. Molotov Remembers. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993, p. 210

Note: [Do not turn this into a general debate on Stalin/CCCP - the thread has a simple subject,and i think we can all participate in it.Give examples from the lives of all more or less famous communists.]

-Stalins daughter,wrote a lot about her childhood,you could also read it:



"How are you [Svetlana] getting on there? Have you made friends with anybody in Kuibyshev?" he [my father] asked casually. "No," I said. "They've set up a special school there for children who've been evacuated, and there's a whole lot of them." It never occurred to me that this remark might cause any special reaction.
My father suddenly turned a pair of darting eyes on me as he always did when something made him mad. "What? A special school?" I saw that he was getting angrier by the minute. "Ah, you--" he was trying to find a word that wasn't too improper--" Ah, you dammed caste! Just think! The government and the people from Moscow come and they give them their own school. That scoundrel Vlasik-- I bet he's behind it!" By this time he was furious and was distracted only because there were pressing matters to attend to and other people in the room.
He was quite right. It was a caste, a caste of bigwigs from the capital that had come to Kuibyshev. Half the population had to be evicted to make room for all these families, who were used to a comfortable life and felt cramped in modest provincial apartments.
But it was too late to do anything about it. The caste was already in existence, and it lived by laws of its own.
I visited Moscow in November, 1941, and in January, 1942, for a day or two each time, to see my father. He was just as irritable and busy as on my first visit and had absolutely no time for me and my foolish, domestic concerns.
Alliluyeva, Svetlana. Twenty Letters to a Friend. New York: Harper & Row, 1967, p. 166

My father didn't object when I told him I was leaving the Zhdanovs'. "Do as you like," was all he said. Still, he was unhappy about the divorce and didn't like it.
...He was pleased when I moved into an apartment of my own; he felt I'd been provided for long enough. No one tried harder than he to imbue his children with the idea that they had to support themselves. "Apartments, dachas, cars--don't think they're yours. It doesn't any of it belong to you," he said to me again and again.
Alliluyeva, Svetlana. Twenty Letters to a Friend. New York: Harper & Row, 1967, p. 211

From various sources:

I was obliged to admit that Aunt Rosa was at least a well educated person.
"I don't think we adults want to stay for the play," Rosa said, "but I'll leave my son Basil with you. Will you keep an eye on him? I'm going with my friends for a walk in the Gorky Culture and Rest Park. I'll, back for Basil in about three hours."
"Have you a car?" Rosanelle asked.
"No. We'll take a taxi."
"I'll let you have mine," the theater manageress said.
I was somewhat surprised that Stalin's wife had no car, while all the other women of her circle seemed to be provided with one. I learned afterward that my uncle forbade her to use official cars for private purposes. Apparently he was the only beneficiary of official cars who had such scruples.
Svanidze, Budu. My Uncle, Joseph Stalin. New York: Putnam, c1953, p. 112

Vasily was transferred to Moscow, and for while my father was pleased to hear his son being praised as "very capable." But pretty soon he became convinced that alcoholism had destroyed the thirty year old general, and in 1952 he was obliged to discharge Vasily from his high military post. His sons had not brought any glory to his name, either in the army or in politics.
Alliluyeva, Svetlana. Only One Year. New York: Harper & Row, 1969, p. 371

In the course of the East Pomeranian operation, I think it was on March 7 or 8, 1945, I had to make an urgent flight to the General Headquarters on an order from the Supreme Commander.
Straight from the airfield I went to Stalin's country house where he was staying. He was not quite well.
Stalin asked me a few questions about the situation in Pomerania and on the 0der, heard out my answers, then said: "Let's stretch our legs a little, I feel sort of limp."
From the way he looked, talked, and moved you could tell that he was greatly fatigued. After four war years he was badly overworked. He had worked too much and slept too little all that time, taking reverses, particularly those of 1941-42, close to heart. All of that could not but tell on his health and his nervous system.
On our way back I said:
"I've been meaning to ask you for a long time about your son Yakov, have you heard anything about his fate?"
Stalin did not answer at once. We had made a good hundred steps before he said in a kind of subdued voice:
"Yakov won't be able to get out of captivity. They'll shoot him, the killers. From what we know, they are keeping him separately from the other POWs and are persuading him to betray his country."
Stalin was silent for a minute, then­ he said: "No, Yakov will prefer any kind of death to betrayal."
It was obvious that he was worrying about his son. At the table, Stalin sat silent for a long time, not touching food.
Then, as though continuing his thoughts aloud, he said bitterly:
"What a terrible war. How many lives of our people it has carried away. They'll probably be very few families left who haven't lost a relative."
Stalin then told me about the Yalta Conference. I understood that he was pleased with the results, and thought highly of Roosevelt.
Zhukov, Georgii. Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov. London: Cape, 1971, p. 582

[daft punk]

Stalin's elder son died in a Nazi concentration camp after being taken prisoner.

Khrushchev's son was killed in action in WWII.

One of Mao's sons died in the Korean War.



Trotsky's children:



Zinaida [or, Zina, Zinushka] L'vovna Bronshtein, m. Moglina, r. Volkova (March 14 [=March 27 new style], 1901 - Jan. 5, 1933) [Trotsky's daughter from A.L. Sokolovskaia, committed suicide].
Nina L'vovna Bronshtein, m. Nevel'son (1902 - June 9, 1928) [Trotsky's daughter from A.L. Sokolovskaia, died of tuberculosis].
Lev [or, Leva] L'vovich Sedov (Febr. 11 [=Febr. 24 new style], 1906 - Febr. 16, 1938) [Trotsky's elder son from N.I. Sedova, most probably assassinated by GPU in Paris]
Sergei [or, Seresha] L'vovich Sedov (March 21, 1908 - Oct. 29, 1937) [Trotsky's younger son from N.I. Sedova, imprisoned, banished, shot, rehabilitated in 1988]

Trotsky's grandchildren:



Trotsky's elder daughter, Zinaida, was married first to Zakhar Borisovich Moglin (1897 - 1937) [shot], then divorced from him and later remarried to Platon Ivanovich Volkov (1898 - 1936) [shot]. She had a daughter by her first and a son by her second husband:

Aleksandra Zakharovna Moglina, m. Bakhvalova (1923 - 1989) [several years in prison and banishment, released, rehabilitated in 1956]
Vsevolod [or, Seva] Platonovich Volkov (b. March 7, 1926) [still living in Mexico as at Summer 2011. As a naturalized Mexican citizen, he uses the name Esteban Volkov. Occasionally, articles from his pen were also published under the name "Vsevolod Volkov", "Esteban Bronstein", and "Vsevolod Volkov Bronstein", respectively. Variants of spelling are 'Volkoff' and 'Volkow'. His nickname is also spelled 'Sieva'].
See also the feature about the Trotsky Museum (http://www.trotskyana.net/Leon_Trotsky/The_Trotsky_Museum/trotsky_museum_feature_engl.html) in Coyoacán (México) within the framework of TrotskyanaNet.


Trotsky's younger daughter, Nina, was married to Man Samoilovich [or, Samsonovich ?] Nevel'son (1896 - 1937) [shot], from whom she got a daughter and a son:

Lev Manovich Nevel'son (Dec. 3, 1921 - ?) [disappeared without trace, fate unknown]
Volina Manovna Nevel'son (1925 - ?) [disappeared without trace, fate unknown]


Trotsky's elder son, Lev, married in 1925 Anna Samoilovna Riabukhina [5 (http://www.trotskyana.net/Leon_Trotsky/Genealogy/genealogy.htm#note-5)] (1899 - Jan. 8, 1938) [shot, rehabilitated June 20, 1990] from whom he got a son:

Lev [or, Liulik, Levuchka] L'vovich Sedov (1926 - ?) [fate after 1937 unknown]


Trotsky's younger son, Sergei, was married twice, first with Ol'ga Eduardovna Grebner (1906 - 1992), second with Genriet(t)a Mikhailovna Rubinshtein (1911 - 1987) [ten years in prison and banishment under Stalin, died in Tallinn]. From his second spouse he got a daughter:

Juliia Sergeevna Rubinshtein, m. Akselrod (b. Aug. 21, 1936) [1979 emigrated to USA, 2004 to Israel, still living there as at 2006]

http://www.trotskyana.net/Leon_Trotsky/Genealogy/genealogy.htm#siblings


bit more on Trotskys daughter Zinaida:

"after the Russian Revolution of 1917 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution_of_1917), Zinaida married Zakhar Borisovich Moglin (1897 - 1937, perished during the Great Purges (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purges)) and had a daughter with him, Alexandra Moglina (1923 - 1989). She then married Platon Ivanovich Volkov (1898 - 1936), a Russian Trotskyist. The couple had a son, Vsevolod (diminutive Seva, later Esteban) Volkov, who was born in 1926. Platon Volkov was exiled to Siberia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia) in 1928, but returned from the exile in the early 1930s. He was re-arrested in 1935 and disappeared in the Gulag (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag). Zinaida took care of her younger sister Nina, for three months in 1928 while the latter was dying of tuberculosis. In 1931 Joseph Stalin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin) allowed Zinaida to leave the Soviet Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union) to join her father, Leon Trotsky, in exile. However, she was allowed to take one child with her, Vsevolod. Suffering from tuberculosis and depression, she committed suicide in Berlin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin) on January 5, 1933
wiki

she had two kids but was forced to leave one behind.

[Zulu]

Trotsky's children:


Trotsky does not really qualify as a communist leader for the purpose of this thread, sorry.

[Renegade Saint]

Trotsky does not really qualify as a communist leader for the purpose of this thread, sorry.
Why the hell not?

[Comrade Auldnik]

Why the hell not?

It has to do with the fact that Trotsky was never really the leader of a communist state.

[Agent Ducky]

It has to do with the fact that Trotsky was never really the leader of a communist state.
But he held an important leadership position in the USSR.... Maybe he wasn't the Premier, but that doesn't make him not a leader.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

It has to do with the fact that Trotsky was never really the leader of a communist state.
And with the fact that he was only a whining idealist.

[TrotskistMarx]

Hello, this is a bit off topic. related to the phrase by Hugo Chavez about Marx, haha, I think he was right. Capitalism maybe destroyed the civilization on Mars. Well there is a website that talks about Mars anomalies. Marsanomalyresearch.com thanks :-)

.



Stalin's elder son died in a Nazi concentration camp after being taken prisoner.

Khrushchev's son was killed in action in WWII.

One of Mao's sons died in the Korean War.


In Ernest Hemingway's famous novel "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1940) set during the Spanish civil war there is an episode, when a teenage guerrilla fighter speaks about his admiration of Dolores Ibárruri (aka La Passionaria), one of the Spanish Communists' leaders. A more skeptical comrade tells him that her son, approximately of the same age as the enthusiastic guerrilla, is safe away from the war, living in the Soviet Union. Soon after the guerrillas get trapped by the fascists and killed. The supposed meaning of the episode was subverted in reality a few years later, when La Passionaria's son was killed in action in the Battle of Stalingrad.

As you see, the first generation of the leaders' children is quite exposed to the call of revolutionary duty, so to say. But later on, on the other hand... Yes, many of them, and especially the grand sons tend to be corrupt.

[Per Levy]

Something i constantly get from anti-Communists and other reactionaries is that all leaders of "Communist" countries(Socialist Republics) lived wealthy lifestyles akin to the Bourgeoisie. This, of course, is a lie.

actually its not a lie, alot of the higher party members did got much more money and had much more previliges then the ordinary workers ever could dream of. also they didnt had to suffer the scarcity that plagued many of the of the so called socialistic states.

now that doesnt count for lenin and the bolsheviks of that time, for them and for lenin in general party memebers(all party members) should never get more money then the average worker.

[Firebrand]

But he held an important leadership position in the USSR.... Maybe he wasn't the Premier, but that doesn't make him not a leader.

I think the point is that he wasn't in a position to abuse his priviliges seeing as he didn't have any. I doubt people in exile from a ruthless govt get official cars and mansions.

[Rafiq]

It never struck me, the fact many communist leaders had lavish lifestyles, as did their kids, as a means of criticizing them.

[Bostana]

Look at "President" Obama's kids they live in luxury. And what about the Queen's kids and Grandkids the most lavish lifestyle I have ever seen. Not one of them has fought in Wars. They may have joined the Army but they didn't even shoot a gun at an enemy.

[GoddessCleoLover]

The whole point is that the privileges and lavish lifestyles of the party "new class" was uncomfortably similar to that of presidents and Queens and such.

[Ostrinski]

Mao DID live a lavish lifestyle.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Mao was one of the worst offenders as his lifestyle included processions of teenage young women brought for his sexual pleasure, living in the former Imperial quarters inside the Forbidden city etcetera.

[Rafiq]

Mao was one of the worst offenders as his lifestyle included processions of teenage young women brought for his sexual pleasure, living in the former Imperial quarters inside the Forbidden city etcetera.

Link?

[Prometeo liberado]

I think the point is that he wasn't in a position to abuse his priviliges seeing as he didn't have any. I doubt people in exile from a ruthless govt get official cars and mansions.

What about the Shah of Iran, Idi Amin and Imelda Marcos? Should I go on?

[GoddessCleoLover]

Must confess to being rather backward technologically so I won't even try to link to my main source, Dr. Li Zhisui, Mao's personal physician. There are Mao supporters who deny the sexual claims, although I have never heard anyone seriously dispute that Mao lived in the Imperial quarters. I truly hope that anyone with the time and inclination would research this issue from a multiplicity of sources. Suffice to say I am confident that on balance the researcher would conclude that Mao lived as a privileged ruler. So did Stalin, quite frankly. Stalin lived more modestly than did Mao, but Stalin had two dachas in addition to his Kremlin quarters and his dinner parties were quite lavish and have been described in detail by multiple witnesses.

[Zulu]

Hello, this is a bit off topic. related to the phrase by Hugo Chavez about Marx, haha, I think he was right. Capitalism maybe destroyed the civilization on Mars. Well there is a website that talks about Mars anomalies. Marsanomalyresearch.com thanks :-)

.

Last I heard, Big Hugo wants to go take a look, in a Bolivarian Socialist Venezuelan spaceship. I salute him and wish him the best of luck!

[daft punk]

Has anyone read the list of Trotsky's children and grandchildren in detail? Nearly every one of them was killed by Stalin.

While Trotsky and what survived of his family lived in exile, Stalin had lots of luxury holiday homes built, complete with swimming pools, snooker rooms and so on. He ordered scientists to scour Russia for the most environmentally pure areas to build them.

When he stayed there he always had a few guests, and would make them get drunk. The men had to dance with each other while Stalin watched til 4 am.

[Omsk]

What you are trying to do is obvious,but you wont derail the thread and change the subject.Seriously,the name of the thread is not "Stalins private life".

As a counter-measure against this behaviour - i will post something about the lives of Tito's children.

Tito had four children: Zlatica Broz,Hinko Broz,Zarko Leon Broz,and Aleksandar Broz.

There is an wikipedia article about Aleksandar Broz: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandar_(Mi%C5%A1o)_Broz

On the life of one of Tito's wives: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herta_Haas

And an article on Jovanka Broz: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jovanka_Broz

I have a book about the life of Jovanka Broz,and if you comrades are interested,i could translate and post some interesting parts.Let me know.

[Zulu]

Has anyone read the list of Trotsky's children and grandchildren in detail?
Where?





Nearly every one of them was killed by Stalin.
Nobody gives a rat's ass.

Stalin killed so many people it made Chuck Norris weep in a corner.

[daft punk]

Where?

See my post on page 1 of this thread




Nobody gives a rat's ass.

Stalin killed so many people it made Chuck Norris weep in a corner.

Well it should bother you. Stalin killed all the socialists to make sure socialism could never happen.