I'm learning Social at the moment, and we're taught that communism teaches that EVERYONE is considered equal, and eventually, the government will fade away after communism has been established.
Obviously, Stalin was a very strong believer in communism, but how did it affect his daily life? Did he live in luxury at the expense of his people, or did he subscribe to the idea of equality and not live in (relative)luxury?
follow up question: how compares the daily life of stalin to Lenin's?
My source is the book "Mao: The unknown story" (title translated by hand) by Jung Chang, the author of "Wild Swans".
She travelled to China to gather information about Mao, and one thing she talks at length about is the luxury in which he lived.
It wasn't opulent in the way we might imagine, but whereever he went he would not miss any luxuries. One thing she reports learning is that Mao had 100's of houses build for himself across the country, all in the same one-plane layout, as Mao was apparently terrified of being trapped on an upper story.
Each of his houses would be equipped with a swimming pool, bed rooms for Mao, and I believe a number of other accomodations although I don't remember any specifics for sure.
It goes without saying that each house, even the many he never used, came equipped with a large fallout shelter, generators and such things.
Chang also reports that Mao would often have young party members brought to his house for "entertainment", particularly during the Cultural Revolution.
Mao slept on what was described as a "pair of boards", but I believe this was out of preference, not humility.
I know quite a number of specifics about Mao-era China, which has lead to me to admire modernized China for its progress. I don't know that much about his housing arrangements in specific, unfortunately.