While photographs and portraits portray Stalin as physically massive and majestic (he had several painters shot who did not depict him "right"), he was only five feet four inches tall (160 cm).(President Harry S. Truman, who stood only five feet nine inches himself, described Stalin as "a little squirt".) His mustached face was pock-marked from small-pox during childhood. After a carriage accident in his youth, his left arm was shortened and stiffened at the elbow, while his right hand was thinner than his left and frequently hidden.
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Stalin's son Yakov, whom he had with his first wife Ekaterina Svanidze, shot himself because of Stalin's harshness toward him, but survived. After this, Stalin said "He can't even shoot straight."
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Stalin had a son, Vasiliy, and a daughter, Svetlana, with his second wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva. She died in 1932, officially of illness. She may have committed suicide by shooting herself after a quarrel with Stalin, leaving a suicide note which according to their daughter was "partly personal, partly political". According to A&E Biography, there is also a belief among some Russians that Stalin himself murdered his wife after the quarrel, which apparently took place at a dinner in which Stalin tauntingly flicked cigarettes across the table at her.
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Stalin enjoyed drinking, but could keep it under control. He would also often force those around him to join in. Stalin preferred Georgian wine over Russian vodka, but usually ate traditional Russian food.
Khrushchev reports in his memoirs that Stalin was fond of American cowboy movies. He would often sleep until evening in his dacha, and after waking up summon high-ranking Soviet politicians to watch foreign movies with him in the Kremlin movie theater. The movies, being in foreign languages, were given a running translation by Ivan Bolshakov, people's commissar of cinema. The translations were hilarious for the audience as Ivan spoke very basic English. His favourite films were westerns and Charlie Chaplin episodes. He banned any hint of nudity. When Ivan showed a film with a naked woman Stalin shouted: "Are you making a brothel here Bolshakov?" After a movie had ended, Stalin often invited the audience for dinner, even though the clock was usually past midnight.
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Notable people executed by NKVD were removed from the texts and photographs as though they never existed.