Jokes of Joseph Stalin

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Joseph Stalin was a very witty man. Characteristic situations were described in his memoirs by one of Stalin's guards A. Rybin.

On trips Stalin was often accompanied by a security guard Tukov. He was sitting in the front seat next to the driver and used to fall asleep on the way. One of the members of the Politburo, who was riding with Stalin in the back seat, asked:

- Comrade Stalin, I don't understand which of you is guarding whom?

"What's that," replied Joseph Vissarionovich, "he also put his pistol in my raincoat—take it, they say, just in case!

Once Stalin was informed that Marshal Rokossovsky had a mistress - a famous beautiful actress Valentina Serova. What are we going to do with them now? Stalin took the pipe out of his mouth, thought for a moment and said:

— What will we do, what will we do... we will be jealous!

Stalin walked with the first secretary of the Central Committee of Georgia A. I. Mgeladze along the alleys of the Kuntsevo dacha and treated him to lemons that he had grown himself in his lemongrass:

- Try it, they grew up here, near Moscow! And so several times, between conversations on other topics:

- Try it, good lemons!Finally it dawned on the interlocutor:

- Comrade Stalin, I promise you that in seven years Georgia will provide the country with lemons, and we will not import them from abroad.

- Thank God, I guessed it! Stalin said.

During the negotiations there were disputes about post-war borders, and Churchill said:

- But Lviv has never been a Russian city!

"But there was Warsaw," Stalin objected.

During the war, the troops under the command of Bagramyan were the first to reach the Baltic. The general personally poured water from the Baltic Sea into a bottle and ordered his adjutant to fly with it to Moscow to Stalin. But while he was flying, the Germans counterattacked and drove Bagramyan away from the Baltic coast. By the time the adjutant arrived in Moscow, they were already aware of this, but the adjutant himself did not know: there was no radio on the plane. And so the proud adjutant entered Stalin 's office and proudly reported:

- Comrade Stalin, General Bagramyan is sending you Baltic water! Stalin took the bottle, turned it over in his hands for a few seconds, then gave it back to the adjutant and replied:

- Give it back to Bagramyan, tell him to pour it out where he took it.

Various people who happened to watch movies with Stalin told me many episodes on this topic. Here is one of them.In 1939, they watched "The Train goes East". The film is not so hot: a train is going, stops…

— Which station is this? Stalin asked.

- Demyanovka.

"This is where I'll get off," Stalin said and left the hall.

When developing the Pobeda car, it was planned that the car would be called the Motherland. Upon learning about this, Stalin ironically asked: "Well, how much will we have a Homeland?" The name of the car was immediately changed.

The director of one of the mines Zasyadko was proposed for the post of Minister of the coal industry. Someone objected: "Everything is fine, but he abuses alcoholic beverages!" Stalin ordered to invite Zasyadko to his place.Stalin began to talk to him and offered him a drink.

- With pleasure, - said Zasyadko, poured a glass of vodka: - To your health, Comrade Stalin! - I drank and continued the conversation.

Stalin took a sip and, watching carefully, offered a second. Zasyadko drank the second glass — and not in one eye. Stalin offered a third, but Zasyadko pushed his glass aside and said:

- Zasyadko knows the measure.At a meeting of the Politburo, when the question of the minister's candidacy arose again and the abuse of alcohol by the proposed candidate was again announced, Stalin, walking with a pipe, said:

- Zasyadko knows the measure!For many years Zasyadko headed our coal industry.

One day, a colonel-general turned to Stalin with a personal request.- Yes, I have a personal question. In Germany, I selected some things that interested me, but they were detained at the checkpoint. If possible, I would ask you to return them to me—" he said.

- It's possible. Write a report, I will impose a resolution," Stalin replied.The Colonel-General pulled out a prepared report from his pocket. Stalin imposed a resolution. The petitioner began to thank him fervently.

"Don't mention it," Stalin remarked.After reading the resolution written on the report: "Return to the colonel his junk. I. Stalin," the general turned to the Supreme:

- There's a typo here, Comrade Stalin. I am not a colonel, but a colonel-general.

"No, that's all right, Comrade Colonel," Stalin replied.

Admiral I. Isakov has been Deputy People's Commissar of the Navy since 1938. In 1946, Stalin called him and said that there was an opinion to appoint him chief of the Main Naval Staff, which was renamed the General Staff of the Navy that year.

Isakov replied:

- Comrade Stalin, I must report to you that I have a serious flaw: one leg has been amputated.

— Is this the only drawback that you consider necessary to report? - the question followed.

"Yes," the Admiral confirmed.

— We used to have a chief of staff without a head. Nothing, it worked. You just don't have a leg—it's not scary," Stalin concluded.

In the first post-war year, Finance Minister A. Zverev, concerned about the high fees of a number of major writers, prepared a corresponding memo and presented it to Stalin.— So it turns out that we have millionaire writers? Does it sound terrible, Comrade Zverev? Millionaires are writers! Stalin asked Zverev, having summoned him to his office.

"Terrible, Comrade Stalin, terrible," the minister confirmed.Stalin handed the financier a folder with a note he had prepared: "It's terrible, Comrade Zverev, that we have so few millionaire writers! Writers are the memory of the nation. And what will they write if they live half-starved?"

In the autumn of 1936, a rumor spread in the West that Joseph Stalin had died of a serious illness. Charles Nitter, a correspondent for the Associated Press news agency, went to the Kremlin, where he gave Stalin a letter asking him to confirm or deny this rumor.

Stalin replied to the journalist immediately: "My dear sir! As far as I know from the reports of the foreign press, I have long since left this sinful world and moved to the next world. Since it is impossible not to treat the reports of the foreign press with confidence, if you do not want to be crossed off the list of civilized people, then I ask you to believe these reports and not disturb my peace in the silence of the other world.October 1936. Sincerely, I. Stalin."

Once foreign correspondents asked Stalin:

— Why is Mount Ararat depicted on the coat of arms of Armenia, because it is not located on the territory of Armenia?

Stalin replied:

— A crescent moon is depicted on the coat of arms of Turkey, but it is also not located on the territory of Turkey.

The People 's Commissar of Agriculture of Ukraine was called to Politburo. He asked:

— How should I report: briefly or in detail?

—As you want, you can be short, you can be detailed, but the time limit is three minutes, -Stalin replied.

A new production of Glinka's opera Ivan Susanin was being prepared at the Bolshoi Theater. The members of the commission, headed by Chairman Bolshakov, listened and decided that it was necessary to remove the finale "Hail, the Russian people!": ecclesiasticism, patriarchal…

They reported to Stalin.

"And we will act differently: we will leave the final, and we will remove Bolshakov," he replied.

When they were deciding what to do with the German navy, Stalin offered to divide it, and Churchill made a counter-proposal: "Flood".

Stalin replied: "So you drown your half."

Stalin came to the performance at the Art Theater. He was met by Stanislavsky and, extending his hand, introduced himself: "Alekseev", calling his real name.

"Dzhugashvili," Stalin replied, shaking hands, and walked to his chair.

U.S. Ambassador William Averell Harriman at At the Potsdam Conference I asked Stalin:

— After the Germans were far from Moscow in 1941, are you probably pleased to share the defeated Berlin now?

- Tsar Alexander has reached Paris," Stalin replied.