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"When a movie ended, Stalin would suggest, 'Well, let's go get something to eat, why don't we?' By now it was usually one or two o'clock in the morning. It was time to go to bed, and the next day we had to go to work. But everyone would say, yes, he was hungry too. Our caravan [to Stalin's dacha] used to make detours into side streets. Apparently Stalin had a street plan of Moscow and worked out a different route every time. He didn't even tell his bodyguard in advance." Stalin refused to eat anything until someone else first tried it. He would say: "Look, here are the giblets, Nikita. Have you tried them yet?" Khrushchev, knowing that his host wanted some for himself but was afraid to be first, would reply, "Oh, I forgot." The only member of his circle exempt from this tasting ritual was NKVD Chief Lavrenty Beria, who ate only food transported from his own dacha.
No One to Trust. To prepare for these dinners, Khrushchev made it a point to take a nap during the day; anyone who grew drowsy at Stalin's table was not likely to remain in the dictator's favor for long, Khrushchev explains. Moreover, Stalin's soirees included a good deal of heavy drinking: Khrushchev recalls that Beria, Georgi Malenkov and Anastas Mikoyan once had to arrange to be served colored water rather than wine because they could not match Stalin's capacity. Stalin, says Khrushchev, "found the humiliation of others very amusing. Once Stalin made me dance the gopak [a Ukrainian folk dance] before some top party officials. I had to squat down on my haunches and kick out my heels, which frankly wasn't very easy for me. But as I later told Mikoyan, 'When Stalin says dance, a wise man dances.' "
Each year, says Khrushchev, it became more evident that Stalin was a failing man. Once, while vacationing in Afon on the Black Sea, the dictator strolled past Khrushchev and Mikoyan, muttering, "I'm finished. I trust no one, not even myself." On another occasion, he forgot Bulganin's name. At his last New Year's celebration, a drunken Stalin ordered his daughter Svetlana to dance in front of the guests. "Stalin grabbed her by the forelock with his fist and pulled. I could see her face turning red and tears welling up in her eyes. He pulled harder and dragged her back onto the dance floor."
"Bulganin once described very well the experience we all had to live with in those days," says Khrushchev. "We were leaving Stalin's after dinner one night, and he said, 'You come to Stalin's table as a friend, but you never know if you'll get home by yourself or if you'll be given a ride—to prison!' "
Despite his respect for Stalin's achievements, Khrushchev says that if he were alive today, "I would vote that he should be brought to trial and punished for his crimes." Noting that some steps have been taken to rehabilitate Stalin's reputation as a war hero, Khrushchev declares angrily: "And now they're starting to cover up [again] for the man guilty of all those murders."