One of the doctors who was at Stalin’s deathbed recounts in a just-discovered diary his opinion that the Soviet dictator was mentally ill. He wrote :”I would suggest that the cruelty and suspicion of Stalin, his fear of enemies… was created to a large extent by atherosclerosis of the cerebral arteries. The country was being run, in effect, by a sick man.”
The Independent (UK) reports further:
“The major atherosclerosis in the brain, which we found at the autopsy, should raise the question of how much this illness – which had clearly been developing over a number of years – affected Stalin’s health, his character and his actions,” Dr Myasnikov wrote in his diaries, excerpts of which were published for the first time in the Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets yesterday. “Stalin may have lost his sense of good and bad, healthy and dangerous, permissible and impermissible, friend and enemy. Character traits can become exaggerated, so that a suspicious person becomes paranoid,” the doctor wrote.
Is this a white-wash? Does the fact that Stalin was sick make him any less responsible for his crimes? Do they explain them? I for one believe that ideology more than mental illness is what motivates a “madman” like Stalin or Hitler. It is less madness than evil ideas which motivate people to wicked behavior.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.