ABSTRACT
The war elevated Stalin to new heights and he became a demi-god, according to the propagandists. He was worshipped but to many he was a man of mystery. He moved quickly after victory to break up the key institutions which had fought the war and hence wielded great power. The prevailing atmosphere of the period is nicely illustrated by a comment that Nikolai Bulganin made to Khrushchev: it has happened that a man goes to Stalin at his invitation as a friend. The targeting of Jews began in early 1948, when the prominent Jewish theatre director, Solomon Mikhoels, was run over by a lorry, on Stalin’s orders. During the 1930s, the Cambridge spies provided Stalin with reams of material. Stalin knew local communist parties had to be cleansed of ‘sectarians’ and ‘adventurists’; in short, all those who would not accept the tactics Moscow proposed.
