Often the Soviet leader is mentioned in connection with a cynical phrase, which is associated with the era of repression and mass death of people during the Great Patriotic War. We checked if he said that.

The author of Stalin's quotes call sources such as "News", magazines "Moscow", "Session" And various Collections of aphorisms. Among the famous people who did this is a political observer and psychologist Leonid Radzikhovsky, philosopher and radio host Boris Paramonov And many others. Quote is also popular in Western publications. In 1995, in connection with Stalin, she was mentioned during the debate in the British House of Commons.

But if we try to find a quote in speeches, letters, diaries or any other texts of Stalin, we will not meet anything similar. Blogger Evgeny Schulz (aka Alexander Evsin) claimsthat Stalin said a fundamentally different phrase. Allegedly in the early days of the Great Patriotic War, when there was a analysis of the causes of the heavy losses of the Soviet Army, some members of the government noticed that this was the tragedy of commanders, not wine ... And Stalin said in response to interrogative intonations: “The death of one person is a tragedy. And the death of thousands of people - statistics? " However, the Schulz version is not confirmed by any serious source and, apparently, is completely fictitious.

Also in many sources Approvedthat Stalin’s statement is nothing more than a changed quote from the novel by Erich Maria Remarca “Black Obelisk”, published in 1956, after the death of the Soviet leader. In one of the episodes of Roman Hero Thinking: “But, apparently, it always happens: the death of one person is death, and the death of two million is only statistics.” This is also a wrong reference, since for the first time Stalin was attributed to Stalin during his lifetime, in 1947. Then in one of the numbers of an influential newspaper The Washington Post Leonard Lyon's article on hunger in Ukraine came out. According to the journalist, Stalin interrupted the speaker reporting on the number of deaths in the republic, with the words: "When one person dies of hunger, this is a tragedy, when millions are statistics." And 11 years later in another famous newspaper The New York Times Anna Frank’s biography was released, where “hunger” in Stalin’s quote was no longer mentioned: “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths are statistics.” In the same 1958, a quote was also printed in Russian - in the journal of the Central Association of Political Emigrants from the USSR "Freedom".

Where did this phrase come from? Although many quotes with similar meaning (for example, "One murder made a villain, millions - a hero") it was known in the West long before the birth of Stalin, but its most likely its source is considered article German journalist Kurt Tukholsky, published in 1925 in the newspaper Vossische Zeitung. In it, as an example of French humor, the author gives a statement of an unnamed Parisian diplomat: “War? I can't call her terrible! The death of one person is a catastrophe, one hundred thousand deaths are statistics! ” Most likely, this replica became a prototype not only of the phrase attributed to the Soviet leader, but also by quotes from another German author - Remarque.