Why was Stalin's growth understated after the 20th Congress?

People, growing up in the thirties and forties, remember that Stalin seemed to them a giant. The huge portraits hanging in kindergartens, schools and all institutions, colossal statues, bas-reliefs and profiles lined with pebbles on railway embankments, unobtrusively inspired the idea of the greatness of the leader of the world communist movement, albeit not literal, but anyway ...

Then the 20th congress took place, and people were surprised to learn that the head of state, deified by them, was dry-handed, pockmarked and completely different from their replicated images. The growth of Stalin, as they were told, was very small, he himself had an unprepossessing appearance, and in general ...

Human psychology is characterized by the desire to subvert the object of deification, especially when this occupation becomes safe. At the same time he gets all his features, both character and appearance. Until 1962, Soviet people could see the body of the former leader personally, it lay in the Mausoleum on Red Square. However, to determine the growth of Stalin was not easy, the visit time is limited, and it is difficult to compare with something. You will not lie down next to a ruler and you will not bring it. Some people wondered how much anthropometric data affect the character of a person. Virtually all great dictators were not high. Napoleon Bonaparte even once sarcastically criticized one of his marshals: "He is longer than me, but not taller!"

In our time, there were objective sources that allow us to judge what Stalin's growth was in cm (and can be in the tops). Petersburg security department after one of the arrests Joseph Dzhugashvili has a registration card, which described in detail all the features of his appearance, including a special sign - a mole on the ear (left). There are also photos in the profile and full face. The growth of Stalin is indicated - 1 m 74 cm. Not a giant, but not a dwarf, a man of medium height.

There are other sources to judge how tall the secretary of the Central Committee was. For example, a photo on which he embraces the legendary pilot Valery Chkalov, whom no one considered a baby. "Stalin's Falcon", of course, is a little higher, but there is no huge difference.

And here's another testimony. After the escape from the exile in 1904, the orientation, drawn up in the Novoude Volost Board, described the appearance of the state criminal Joseph Dzhugashvili. In particular, the age is 24, pockmarked (yes, it's true!), The eye color is brown. The growth of Stalin in these years is 38 versts, which roughly corresponds to the range from 170 to 175 cm.

If we take into account that each person becomes lower in the course of time, it can be assumed that by the age of seventy the "Father of the Peoples" also "sat down" for a couple of centimeters, two or three centimeters.

Historians, and ordinary people tend to be interested in various everyday aspects of life of famous people. The old myths are refuted, new ones are created, corresponding to the political situation and the dominant ideology. A modest gray paramilitary jacket and greatcoat became symbols of modesty. The image of the Marxist ascetic, created by these things, by no means corresponded to the personal preferences of the leader who recognized only the Packard and arranged luxurious banquets of unprecedented breadth in his dachas in the most difficult and hungry years.

The cruelty, which many well-known historians define as bestial and thoughtless, also does not answer the question of what Joseph Stalin ultimately sought. Growth in this case only illustrates the logic of the reasoning of such "psychological researchers": an embittered dwarf hates high handsome men (Yezhov and Yakir, or what?), Envies and cruelly punishes them. Apparently, Stalin's actions had a more complex motivation, which still remains to be understood. And growth has nothing to do with it.