husband was just desperate to get her released and went to Stalin,
and went to Beria and begged them to release her. And Stalin said, I`m sorry, but -- I`m sorry, Sasha, that`s
what he called him, I`m sorry, Sasha, but you know, if you really miss her, we`ll find you another wife.
Typical Stalin sort of horrible dry joke, gallows humor.

And she was kept in prison, and gradually, you know, his chief of staff realized that his wife was
never going to come back. And she was kept in prison. She was interrogated as a Trotskyite, and as a Pole,
and as Jew. I mean, she had a lot of things working against her. And as someone who had asked Stalin to
release her brother. Stalin hated women coming to him and askinghim these embarrassing questions. He
resented this enormously. And Poskrebyshev continued to work as Stalin`s loyal, dogged chief of staff.

LAMB: Did he like him?

MONTEFIORE: He loved him, he worshiped him.

LAMB: Even though he took his wife away from him?

MONTEFIORE: He thought that was business as usual. And one of the key things in this book to
understand is that these weren`t like normal people, they weren`t like normal politicians. They talked about
themselves, these Bolsheviks, as knights in shining armor who would chop off what is rotten. They
regarded themselves as a sort of order, armed order of warrior priests. And they believed fanatically in
Marxism-Leninism, which meant the random destruction of classes of people now, in order to create the
perfect workers` paradise later.

LAMB: Did he ever get his wife back?

MONTEFIORE: No. She