The ultimate weakness of strongmen
A blindspot nearly cost Joseph Stalin the Soviet empire
On August 23, 1939, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin hosted Germany’s foreign minister Joachim Ribbentrop at the Kremlin.
The U.S.S.R. and Germany were about to stun the world by announcing that the two totalitarian archenemies had agreed not to attack each other. They kept secret the document they signed carving up Poland, the Baltics and a section of Finland into German and Russian spheres of influence.
Stalin called for vodka. “I know that the German people dearly love their Führer and therefore I would like to drink his health,” he said, referring to Adolf Hitler.
An SS officer who was traveling with Ribbentrop, Richard Schulze, “noticed Stalin was drinking his vodka from a special flask and managed to fill his glass from it, only to discover it contained water,” wrote Simon Sebag Montefiore in his book, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar.
“Stalin smiled faintly as Schulze drank it, not the last guest to sample this little secret.”
The Soviet leader, who …
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