# Are There Any Living Persons Who Knew Josef Stalin?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 3, 2012, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807 "2012-05-03T23:28:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2012, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807/1 "2012-05-03T23:28:07Z")
Inspired by the success of the Robert Todd Lincoln thread, I was interested to ask: what about Stalin (died 1954).
Stalin is a special case-he murdered many of his associates, and sent many off to re-education camps. plus (upon his death), his successors eliminated many of his friends and allies.
As a political monster, Stalin is unique-he is very likely responsible for more deaths than Adolf Hitler, Lenin, or Mao tse Tung.
So, how many people are around who knew “Uncle Joe”?
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2012, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807/2 "2012-05-03T23:34:59Z")
Of course. One of his daughters just died a year ago, and he has grandkids still alive.
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2012, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807/3 "2012-05-03T23:36:01Z")
Well, [his daughter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetlana_Stalin) only died last November. I can’t give you names, but I am sure there are lots.
ETA: I’ll beat you yet, **Captain Amazing**!
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### Author:  [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2012, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807/4 "2012-05-03T23:48:28Z")
Stalin only died in 1954, and he didn’t kill everyone who ever met him.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807/5 "2012-05-04T01:07:03Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#):
>
> Of course. One of his daughters just died a year ago, and he has grandkids still alive.
I cannot picture him bouncing them on his knee…
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807/6 "2012-05-04T01:08:29Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#):
>
> Stalin only died in 1954, and he didn’t kill everyone who ever met him.
Every _other_…?
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### Author:  [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807/7 "2012-05-04T01:25:51Z")
I don’t know if Nikita Krushchev’s son Sergei ever met Stalin (he was born in 1935) but he is alive, a naturalized U.S. citizen (so much for his shoe-banging father telling Nixon that his grand children would grow up in a communist country) and teaching at Brown university.[Sergei Khrushchev - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Khrushchev)
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807/8 "2012-05-04T02:21:12Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#):
>
> I cannot picture him bouncing them on his knee…
[Here you go, then](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_TJ2XNCjin0s/TO7t3d1icbI/AAAAAAAAASk/uMw0u6GIqPA/s1600/gelya.gif). Not his actual granddaughter but you should be able to visualize it now.
(Mind you, according to the blog where that appears, he did have her parents killed soon after that picture was taken. Funny old uncle Joe.)
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### Author:  [@Take\_the\_cannoli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Take_the_cannoli)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807/9 "2012-05-04T02:33:52Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#):
>
> **I don’t know if Nikita Krushchev’s son Sergei ever met Stalin** (he was born in 1935) but he is alive, a naturalized U.S. citizen (so much for his shoe-banging father telling Nixon that his grand children would grow up in a communist country) and teaching at Brown university.[Sergei Khrushchev - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Khrushchev)
Sergei answers that question in [this short interview](http://old.post-gazette.com/magazine/19990128sergei2.asp)
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### Author:  [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807/10 "2012-05-04T02:42:36Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#):
>
> Stalin only died in 1954, and he didn’t kill everyone who ever met him.
It wasn’t for a lack of trying.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807/11 "2012-05-04T03:13:38Z")
Here’s a likely one: Leonid Zamyatin. He was born in 1922 and he’s still alive. He was a Soviet diplomat from 1946 and was part of the first Soviet delegation to the United Nations. As such, I feel he must have met Stalin on official occasions before the dictator’s death in 1953.
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### Author:  [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807/12 "2012-05-04T03:15:06Z")
Churchill’s daughter, Lady Soames, met him at Potsdam. What’s more, her memories of him are a bit more substantive than merely the fact that they met. She talks about him towards the end of [this clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weJRCneT_IA) from a relatively recent interview.
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### Author:  [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807/13 "2012-05-04T03:27:53Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#):
>
> Stalin only died in 1954, and he didn’t kill everyone who ever met him.
Ha! That’s what the commies WANT you to think!
Joe
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### Author:  [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807/14 "2012-05-04T03:30:39Z")
\ Stalin died in 1953.
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### Author:  [@eenerms](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eenerms)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2012, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807/15 "2012-05-05T15:01:01Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#):
>
> Of course. One of his daughters just died a year ago, and he has grandkids still alive.
(ahem..I met his daughter)🙂
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2012, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807/16 "2012-05-05T15:27:58Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#):
>
> I cannot picture him bouncing them on his knee…
He [outsourced this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lavrenti_Beria_Stalins_family.jpg) to subordinates.
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### Author:  [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2012, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-living-persons-who-knew-josef-stalin/620807/17 "2012-05-05T19:12:25Z")
There were 30,000,000 Russians who didn’t know him but were murdered by the state just the same because of him, and a hell of a lot enslaved on trumped up, or even no charges as well. Though that carried on long after his death as part of the Soviet system.