As the film The Death of Stalin reminds us, Stalin’s world view was that of the “Western “ - goodies vs. baddies. Then there’s those wonderful scenes where Marshall Zhukov having planned his coup against Beria executes him on the basis of his moral turpitude including pedophilia - always a useful accusation to deploy against an enemy. Zhukov is one of my favourite characters in that film. And then there’s the scenes of cleaning up by Beria after Staliin’s death - all the household servants, the guards and doctors all summarily shot. I imagine it will be the same after Putin although we will never know. The same sort of thing apparently happened during the reign of King George III after he recovered from his first bout of “madness” - the servants and soldiers who had witnessed it were exiled rather than executed. I wonder where Yeltsin’s former servants are. I must remember to research that
As the English poet John Dryden wrote about “wits” “Great wits are to madness near allied
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.”― John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel