The Death of Stalin (2017): The Sword of Damocles
When Stalin dies, collapsing in a puddle of indignity after a cerebral haemorrhage, those in his cabinet gather to decide what will happen next: a void has formed, a lacuna that can only be filled by the craftiest of them all. Double-crossing, back-stabbing, and unabashedly treasonous behaviour becomes the norm. But, then again, weren’t they always?
Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin (2017) is probably my favourite comedy of the 21st Century. It is a delightful blend of historical farce and political satire, serving to lampoon our contemporary socio-political climate. Iannucci demonstrates how those governing power will utilise all means at their disposal to keep it – even if it means bending reality to suit their perspective. In doing so, he adroitly comments on the uniquely human ability to create and believe in fictions as a means to conquer those around us.
The Death of Stalin showcases how power is created and maintained through the use of a narrative; whether they are true or not, the story that people believe is all important. In Soviet Russia, reality is built on the narrative currently accepted, not the facts which are left unspoken. Wilful disbelief and selective interpretation are the methods by which their regime functions. What’s more, in order to survive, one has to be capable of renouncing stories of the past and improvising on new myths as they’re presented – at least, up until they are discarded for fresher ones.
All of the characters in The Death of Stalin want to remain at the top of the food chain. They are well aware of what happens to those beneath them: imprisoned, tortured, and murdered, often for something as trivial as owning a pair of slippers. It has taken a whole life of lies, subterfuge, and cunning to achieve their high status – one slip up and the house of cards will come crashing down. The sword of Damocles hangs above them all and every player is anxious not to have their blade fall first. If one is to survive this contest of deceit, you have to keep on your toes.
Nobody keeps on their toes better than Lavrentiy Beria (Simon Russell Beale). A calculating, highly intelligent psychopath, he knows how to manipulate those in his surroundings, as well as where a government can be exploited. As Beria is the head of the NKVD, he possesses incriminating information on everyone (and, in Soviet Russia, the bar for what constitutes something as incriminating is very low). Everyone knows Beria has power and he flaunts it regularly. He understands how this narrative is most important of all: if people think he’s dangerous, they will kowtow when needed.
This can be seen to reflect the cult of personality that so dominated Soviet Russia. Creating an aura was instrumental in establishing a following of devout apostles. The stories surrounding an individual become so potent and widespread that it is difficult to separate fact from fiction. When Maria Yudina (Olga Kurylenko) sees Joseph Stalin’s corpse, she remarks in surprise: “He looks so small.” In fact, Stalin was rather short. While the myth of his being tall, strong, and generally omnipotent was disseminated extensively, the dictator who forged the fate of millions stood at a mere 165cm. Stalin’s cult of personality prevented such a fact from ever being known. Statues were built to depict him as tall as Alexander III, who stood at roughly 190cm.
In this respect, the ability to form new, believable myths, whilst also selectively weaving them together with other stories from the past, represents the epitome of statesmanship. One can control everyone with the right narrative when spoken with the right voice. As Beria has long lists of information, having memorized the documents on everyone worth knowing, his whole life is dominated by the obsession to know people’s stories. This provides him with the unparalleled ability to twist a narrative to suit his own ends.
As Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi) is mystified by his capacity to modify reality, he utters: “You just make it up as you go along.” Khrushchev accuses Beria of treating life as though it were a game of semantics, putting lives at stake with his deft wordplay. He is a snake that cannot be caught. Whereas everyone else struggles to integrate new “truths” with past knowledge, Beria is leagues ahead. Cognitive dissonance is not a logical fallacy, but a well-honed skill in politics.
Khrushchev realizes that he won’t be able to best Beria in a game of deceit. Instead, he accepts that if he is ever to escape the web of lies that Beria has created, he must conspire to have him killed; he is simply too dangerous to be left alive. “Act fast, Comrade,” Molotov warns him. “Act fast or be dead.”
Armando Iannucci has made a career out of political satire. He penned the superlative The Thick of It (2005 – 2012) and the sensational Veep (2012 – 2019). However, it is arguably in The Death of Stalin that he best satirizes the corruption of those in power. His ability to make audiences laugh in the face of tyranny is admirable, whilst his rendering of our terrifying history into a farce is worryingly accurate – after all, this really happens.
In recent history, both Donald Trump and Boris Johnston have lied in the face of truth and experienced great success doing so. Brexit and the 2016 U.S. election were both meticulously designed to pump out as many false narratives as possible. In this, the truth becomes a murky, vague entity and no one is held accountable for wanton campaigns of disinformation. These fictional narratives – which are presented as self-evident cultural truths – are often punctuated by a short, emphatic slogan. “Build a wall!” “Take back control!” An entire diatribe is encapsulated into a pithy motto and facts become irrelevant.
Political commentators have written on how we now exist within a post-truth era. Historian Yuval Noah Harari would agree with this, though would posit that it is not a result of contemporary politics. Rather, it is because we are an animal that benefits greatly from lying: we are a post-truth species. In his book Homo Deus (2015), Harari writes about how we largely succeeded as a species due to our ability to create myths. Through cosmological narratives, we were capable of building strong social ties that allowed us larger, more grandiose successes. It led to tribalism, but that was precisely the point: a good lie acts as a strong social glue, thereby excluding those who believe in a different story.
As such, acknowledging the truth would only serve to dissolve the adhesive fiction affords us. This is constantly the fear of the characters within The Death of Stalin. All want to demonstrate that they firmly believe in whatever story the Party is currently espousing. Anything to the contrary will result in their swift demise – along with their entire family, too. The lies that bind them all together are so powerful they are worth killing over. As Khrushchev stands over a smouldering corpse, he warns: “This is what happens when stories don’t fit.”
Iannucci reinforces this notion several times in the film. While the director crafts this world of bumbling idiots and self-serving rogues, he wisely balances out the central plotline with scenes showing us the consequences of such political corruption. People being dragged from their homes, executed in gulags, tortured in basements, and gunned down in the street are filmed with terrifying realism. The sincere tone of these scenes starkly contrasts the light-hearted farce that characterizes the rest of the film. Perhaps Iannucci incorporated these darker sequences into the final product as a means of communicating that it is not a joke: while we may like to laugh at Trump and Johnston, the malignant effect they have on our society is incalculably harmful. A lie that spreads too far will sink an entire nation.
Iannucci also utilizes symbolism to impart these thematic interests. Documents are frequently held up as emblematic of fate: a story on paper, whether real or not, controls both present and future. As our characters are first introduced, Beria and Nikita are in a physical contest, bumping their stomachs up against each other; this is plainly suggestive of the struggle they are going to be engaged in throughout the film. As a main character’s corpse is cremated, their ashes are sent blowing into the wind: evidence of the past is erased and disappears forever, like a hazy memory or a doctored photograph. Neither can be believed, so one might as well use the version of the truth which is most convenient.
Perhaps most strikingly, the theme of fiction, narratives, and selective interpretation can be seen just before Stalin’s death. In a state of delirium, he points at a painting of a goat being fed from a bottle of milk. Instead of recognizing this as the action of a man in the throes of death, all begin to interpret it as fantastically as possible: “He’s saying – ‘I am the lamb and you, my children, have given me life.’” Someone interjects: “No, the lamb is the people and the milk is socialism!” This sycophantic display of hermeneutics demonstrates how a story – which determines whether or not they will survive – can hold a group together.
Finally, one can’t help but note how similar the film’s intro and outro are. Both take place in a music hall, with both conveying an imminent shift in power. It suggests that the unspoken dance of power struggles which has characterized our political systems since the beginning of time and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. This social game of strategic lying is cyclical and only stops at death. It is for this reason that Khrushchev exclaims: “Who the fuck would want eternal life?!” Surely, this farce must end sometime.
The Death of Stalin is my favourite contemporary comedy as it hilariously imparts how the truth is both malleable and subjective. Our understanding of the past is dictated by the present, not the other way around. As a result, it is subject to change at a moment’s notice. One’s entire life is at constant risk of being retconned, creating a ceaseless existential dread. Perhaps we would do better as a society if we all collectively told the truth. But how should we know? We’ve never tried it long enough to find out.
