Stalin uttered his first words of truth since the war began: ‘Everything’s lost. I give up. Lenin founded our state and we’ve fucked it up.’ Stalin cursed all the way to Kuntsevo. ‘Lenin left us a great heritage and we his successors have shitted it all up . . .’ Even when they had arrived at the house, Molotov remembered him swearing, ‘“We fucked it up!” The “we” was meant to include all of us!’ Stalin said he could no longer be the leader. He resigned. At Kuntsevo, Molotov ‘tried to cheer him up’. They left the broken Stalin sulking at the dacha.
