I assume that'd be Stalin's ego? Didn't he have a fascination with big ships?
A few years ago there was a novel (The Iron Man by John Watson) about a fictional WW2 Soviet battleship (a 75,000t monstrosity with nine 56cm guns) being purchased and used for piracy after the Soviet Union fell apart.
Wait...
I could not possibly have read that correctly.
looks it up
Oh FFS!
Did anyone point out that a ship of this size get around 20 FEET per gallon of fuel (around 200 gallon to the mile) or ~$125 per mile, just for bunker fuel. Just starting it and getting the boilers on line and ready to power the ship cost $6,000 dollars (this was in 1998, Bunker is up 90-100% since then). By the time you get out of harbor the fuel will put you at least ten grand in the hole. Then it take at least 1,800 men to operate the bloody thing.