People who grew up in the thirties and forties remember that Stalin seemed to them a giant. Huge portraits hanging in kindergartens, schools and all institutions, colossal statues, bas-reliefs and profiles laid out by pebbles on railway embankments, unobtrusively inspired the idea of the greatness of the leader of the world communist movement, albeit not literal, but still ...
Then the XX Congress took place, and people were surprised to learn that the head of state who had deified them was dry-handed, pockmarked and completely unlike his replicated images. The growth of Stalin, they were told, was very small, he himself had a plain-looking appearance, and in general ...
Human psychology is characterized by the desire to subvert the object of deification, especially when this occupation becomes safe. At the same time, all his features, both character and appearance, go to him. Until 1962, Soviet people could see the body of the former leader with their own eyes; it lay in the Mausoleum on Red Square. However, to determine the growth of Stalin was not easy, the visit time is limited, and it is difficult to compare with something. You don’t lie close and you won’t bring a ruler. Some people became interested in how much anthropometric data influence the character of a person. Almost all the great dictators were not tall. Napoleon Bonaparte even once mocked about one of his marshals: "He is longer than me, but not higher!"
In our time, objective sources have appeared that make it possible to judge how much Stalin was in cm (and it can be at the top). After one of the arrests of Joseph Dzhugashvili, the St. Petersburg Security Department opened a registration card that described in detail all the features of his appearance, including a special sign - a mole on his ear (left). There are also profile photos and full faces. The height of Stalin is indicated - 1 m 74 cm. Not a giant, but not a dwarf, a man of medium height.
There are other sources that make it possible to judge how high the secretary of the Central Committee was. For example, a photo in which he hugs with the legendary pilot Valery Chkalov, whom no one considered a baby. The Stalin Falcon, of course, is slightly higher, but there is no need to talk about the huge difference.
And here is another evidence. After escaping from the 1904 exile, the orientation drawn up in the Novoudi volost board described the appearance of state criminal Joseph Dzhugashvili. In particular, age - 24 years, pockmarked (yes, that's true!), Eye color - brown. Stalin's height during these years is 38 points, which approximately corresponds to the range from 170 to 175 cm.
If we take into account that over the years, each person becomes lower, then we can assume that by the age of seventy the “father of the peoples” is also somewhat “crouched”, two or three centimeters.
Historians, and ordinary people, tend to be interested in various everyday aspects of the life of famous people. Old myths are refuted, new ones are created, corresponding to the political situation and the prevailing ideology. The modest gray paramilitary jacket and overcoat became symbols of modesty. The image of an ascetic Marxist created by these things did not at all correspond to other personal preferences of the leader, who recognized only Packards and arranged luxurious banquets at his dachas of unprecedented latitude in the most difficult and hungry years.
The cruelty, which many famous historians define as bestial and thoughtless, also does not give an answer to the question of what Joseph Stalin ultimately sought. Growth in this case only illustrates the reasoning of such “researchers-psychologists”: the embittered dwarf hates the tall handsome men (Yezhov and Yakir, or what?), Envies and brutally dealt with them. Apparently, Stalin's actions had a more complex motivation, which remains to be understood. And growth has nothing to do with it.