My Short Critique On Svetlana's Biasness Over Beria In "Twenty Letters to a Friend"

  1. The Vegan Marxist
    The Vegan Marxist
    Reading "Twenty Letters to a Friend" by Svetlana Alliluyeva now, and I've gotta say that I have mixed feelings on it. The entire read is quite revealing. Though, what it reveals is quite mixed. Svetlana really does well in humanizing her father Stalin, showing how he was loved by many. Though, her hatred over Beria, along with her family's, besides her father that is, is placed under a very biased perspective.

    I say biased because, despite her admitting that her father saw nothing wrong with Beria, as quoted here by Stalin himself:

    "I asked her what was wrong with him. Give me facts. I'm not convinced. I see no facts! But she just cried out, 'What facts do you need? I just see he's a scoundrel! I won't have him here!' I told her to go to hell. He's my friend. He's a good Chkist. He helped us forestall the Mingrelian uprising in Georgia. I trust him. Facts, facts are what I need!"

    Despite this, she, herself, states, "My poor, clever mother. The facts came later."

    (Alliluyeva, S. Twenty Letters To A Friend. p. 20)

    What's interesting is the fact that, while she places Beria under a bad light, she places Khrushchev under a very positive light. This work of hers was published in '67, but written in '63 (according to her). So here's where I state she places Beria under a very biased, negative light. She seems to judge Beria based on Khrushchev's speech against both Stalin and Beria.

    Another biased light against Beria was made early on in the book. She tells of her story where she was given a ride to her home when she notices something wrong. She gets out her car and she notices both Khrushchev and Bulganin in tears. There, they tell her to go in and meet with Beria and Malenkov.

    Once she does so, she then notices her father unconscious from the stroke he went through, though not dead yet.

    What was her personal observation of everyone in the room with her and her dying father?

    "They all felt that something portentous, something almost of majesty, was going on in this room and they conducted themselves accordingly.

    "There was only one person who was behaving in a way that was nerely obscene. That was Beria. He was extremely agitated."

    (Alliluyeva, S. Twenty Letters To A Friend. p. 7)

    Here, she makes a revealing (though, not so revealing to her own perspective) view of Beria in comparison to that of the others who were in the home during these dark days of Stalin's:

    "He went up to the bed and spent a long time gazing into the dying man's face. From time to time my father opened his eyes but was apparently unconscious or in a state of semiconsciousness."

    Here, we see that Beria, unlike the rest, did not see Stalin as some form of majesty. Rather, as someone of a personal friend; like a brother of his almost. Instead, under Svetlana's personal bias over Beria, she saw it as a means to "convince my father that he was the most loyal and devoted of them all, as he had always tried with every ounce of his strength to appear to be. Unfortunately, he had succeeded for too long."

    (Alliluyeva, S. Twenty Letters To A Friend. pp. 7-8)

    To Svetlana's own words, though I'm sure she saw this under a negative light, as did Lenin's wife when Stalin was rude to her for going against doctor's orders, Svetlana stated:

    "During the final minutes, as the end was approaching, Beria suddently caught sight of me and ordered: "Take Svetlana away!" Those who were standing nearby stared, but no one moved."

    (Alliluyeva, S. Twenty Letters To A Friend. p. 8)

    Anyone, other than Svetlana's biased view over him, could tell that Beria was trying to look out for Svetlana by not wanting her to see this gruesome death of her own fathers. And yes, it was quite gruesome, as stated by Svetlana:

    "The hemorrhaging had gradually spread to the rest of the brain. Since his heart was healthy and strong, it affected the breathing centers bit by bit and caused suffocation. [...] His face altered and became dark. His lips turned black and the features grew unrecognizable. The last hours were nothing but a slow strangulation. The death agony was horrible. He literally choked to death as we watched."

    (Alliluyeva, S. Twenty Letters To A Friend. p.10)

    No man who had any sensible feelings for Stalin's daughter's own well-being would've wanted her to see such a gruesome death of her own father. Instead, she saw this under quite a negative light. Why? One can only logically guess due to what she believed to be the truth of Beria by that of Khrushchev's own words throughout his misleading speech, as she stated here, "The facts came later."