Stalin's opinions on Ivan IV were somewhat complex and it is difficult to pigeonhole him as an admirer. Ivan IV was one of several figures like Alexander Nevsky and Peter the Great whose reputation was rehabilitated in the Stalinist period. But this rediscovery of the Russian past in the 1930s was often highly selective and emphasized only certain parts of their biography were celebrated in official discourse. In the case of both Peter I and Ivan IV, what the state celebrated was their étatisme but often through a Marxist lens. In an interview with the German journalist Emil Ludwig in 1931, Ludwig asked Stalin if he was following the path of Peter, but Stalin denied this, but said this of this tsar:

Yes, of course, Peter the Great did a lot for the elevation of the landowning class and the development of the embryonic merchant class. Peter did very much for the creation and strengthening of the national state of landowners and traders. One must also say that the elevation of the class of landowners, and the assistance he gave to the embryonic class of traders and the strengthening of the national state of these classes took place at the expense of the enserfed peasantry, who were flayed thrice over by them.

This quote illustrates one of the keys to understanding the Stalinist rediscovery of the tsarist past; these figures had elements in their biography that allowed them to push Russia's historical development forward, but they were also trapped by their particular socioeconomic epoch.

Ivan IV's state-building and defense of Muscovy against invaders were elements of his reign that Stalin himself found quite admirable. Ivan IV's penchant for cruel repression also received a qualified approval from the Soviet dictator. Anastas Mikoyan claimed in his memoirs:

Stalin said that Ivan Groznyi killed too few boyars, that he should have killed them all, and then he would have created a truly united and strong Russian state even earlier.

Stalin likewise critiqued artistic depictions of Ivan IV that he felt drifted too far from what had emerged as the orthodox interpretation of the Muscovite past. Most famously, the Soviet dictator criticized the second part of Eisenstein's biopic which delved into the Tsar's repression of the boyars. In his personal review of the screenplay in 1943, Stalin noted:

Comrade Eisenstein has proved himself equal to the task. Ivan Groznyi as a progressive force for his time, and the oprichnina as his expedient instrument, have come out not badly. The scenario should be put into effect as soon as possible.

But when the Stalin screened a print of the film in 1947, both he and Beria were deeply disappointed with the Eisenstein's portrayal of the oprichniki, which according to Stalin were too much like the Ku Klux Klan, and the irresoluteness of Ivan IV. Stalin directed Eisenstein to make Ivan into a more determined figure and the oprichniki as a progressive army. Other figures in Stalin's entourage chimed in. Molotov noted that repression should be contextualized and explained clearly, and in the case of Ivan IV, shown to be necessary. Stalin also pushed for the film's final scene to be the victory in the Livonian war, which was the original screenplay's ending, showing that Ivan IV's actions had a larger context.

Two things stand out in these critiques of Eisenstein's film. Firstly, Stalin still saw film and other fictional depictions of the tsarist past in didactic terms. Not only did historical biopics like Ivan Grozniy have to conform to Marxist-Leninist precepts about historical development (which acquired a Stalinist gloss in this period), but they also served an educational vehicles. Secondly, Stalin's critiques suggest he was also sensitive to historical parallels between himself and the less than savory figures of Russia's past. It is very easy to read parallels between the Terror of Stalin and the Ivan IV's repression, hence these critiques of Stalin tended to emphasize the modernity and necessity of Ivan IV's policies. Portraying the oprichniki's terror as an orgy of violence had a particular meaning the context of the emerging Cold War where the KKK lynching loomed large in Soviet propaganda against the US.

While Robert Tucker has argued that Stalin used Ivan IV as a paradigmatic model, this argument relies upon a set of circumstantial evidence. Stalin only directly intervened twice for a more positive depiction of Ivan IV, in Eisenstein's film and the staging of a Tolstoi's play on Ivan IV. And Stalin's own interpretation of Ivan IV's biography was not universal, several writers presented a critical view of the Tsar, albeit one that was steeped in Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy. The state rehabilitation of Ivan IV only gathered steam after 1940, and while it is tempting to view this as representative of Stalin using history to retroactively justify the Terror (and this was Mikoyan's opinion), this rehabilitation was part of a larger project of instrumentalizing the Russian past in light of the German threat.

sources

Perrie, Maureen. The Cult of Ivan the Terrible in Stalin's Russia. New York: Palgrave, 2001.

Platt, Kevin M. F., and David Brandenberger. Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature As Stalinist Propaganda. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.