The Death of Stalin

Joseph Stalin died, aged 73, on this day, a victim of his own power. So frightened were his staff that having suffered a stroke he was left to fester for hours before anyone plucked up the courage to check on him.

“I don't even trust myself.”
In his latter years Stalin's health had deteriorated and towards the end of 1952 he suffered several blackouts and losses of memory. His sense of paranoia had reached absurd proportions. “I'm finished”, he said in his final days, “I don't even trust myself.”

Stalin was almost nocturnal, often going to bed in the early hours, obliging his Politburo colleagues to do likewise, and rising around noon. But on March 1, 1953, there was no sign of life all day at the great man's dacha. His personal staff although increasingly concerned were too fearful to check up on him. Finally, at 11 p.m. they did.

They found Stalin lying on the floor, unconscious and his pyjama bottoms soaked in urine. They rang Lavrentii Beria, Stalin's Chief of Police, who arrived and bellowed at the staff, "Can't you see Comrade Stalin is deeply asleep. Get out of here and don't wake him up."

But Stalin had suffered a severe stroke. Finally, next morning, on Beria's orders, a team of doctors arrived, but by then Stalin had been left unattended for twelve hours since the stroke.

"Extremely serious."
Stalin had become distrusting of doctors and had had most of his personal physicians arrested. So the doctors now on the scene examined their patient in extreme nervousness. They asked Beria's permission before proceeding with each part of the examination, even asking authorization to unbutton Stalin's shirt. They wrote a detailed report, summarising, "The patient's condition is extremely serious."

Cold compresses were applied, leeches placed behind the ears, various injections made, and medical staff placed on constant watch. Stalin's colleagues also stayed: Beria, Khrushchev, Molotov and others, pacing the anterooms worried whether their boss would ever wake up and probably more worried that he should wake up and their actions would have to be accounted for.

Stalin's son, Vasili, appeared briefly, screaming at Beria and the others, "You bastards, you're killing my father."

By March 5, Stalin's condition had worsened. His breathing had become erratic, his pulse and heartbeat weak, his complexion extremely pale.

The last moments
Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, described in almost religious terms, the last moments: "He suddenly opened his eyes and looked at everyone in the room. It was a terrible gaze, mad or maybe furious and full of fear of death... Then something incomprehensible and frightening happened. ... He suddenly lifted his left hand as though he were pointing to something above and bringing down a curse on us all. ... The next moment, after a final effort, the spirit wrenched itself free of the flesh."

Despite injections of adrenalin and the application of artificial respiration, at 21.50 Stalin was declared dead.

Everyone present knelt down and kissed the old man's hand.

The beaming Chief of Secret Police
Beria could not hide his glee and, having made sure the old man was really dead, bounced out of the dacha "beaming", according to Khrushchev. Stalin had not named or recommended a successor and Beria felt this was his moment. The fight to succeed Stalin had begun.

Rupert Colley
To read a summary of the Cold War, see The Cold War In An Hour at historyinanhour.com

The Execution of Beria

Today, 23 December, 56 years ago, in 1953, saw the execution of a monster. Born in Georgia on March 28, 1899, Lavrenti Beria rose to prominence during the Russian Revolution and during the 1920s became a firm favourite of Josef Stalin, a fellow-Georgian. In 1938 Beria was appointed head of the dreaded secret police, the NKVD.

"Plump, greenish, and pale"
A brutish, inhumane man, he declared in 1937 that enemies "of the party of Lenin and Stalin will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed". He was true to his word and played a major role in Stalin's Great Purges of the 1930s, sending countless numbers to the gulags or to be executed. Yugoslavian writer, Milovan Djilas, described Beria's physical appearance as "plump, greenish, and pale, with soft damp hands. With [a] square-cut mouth and bulging eyes behind his pince-nez."

Following Stalin's death in March 1953, Beria seemed favourite to succeed. Other members of the Politburo feared for their safety: "As long as that bastard's alive, none of us can feel safe," said one.

Beria arrested
Contrary to his character, Beria implemented an amnesty, releasing many from the gulags but many saw this as mere attempt to impose his claim on succeeding Stalin. But it wasn't enough - on June 26 Beria was arrested on trumphed-up charges, such as spying for the British. Nikita Khrushchev (who was to replace Stalin) described Beria's reaction when arrested: "He dropped a load in his pants!"

From his cell, Beria wrote several groveling letters to his Politburo colleagues pleading his innocence and devotion to the party and the communist cause. Exasperated by the number of letters, Khrushchev ordered the removal of Beria's pen and paper.

The execution of Beria
In December 1953 Beria was tried. The whole case was a mockery but no more than Beria had subjected so many of his victims to. He was, unsurprisingly, found guilty and sentenced to be shot. Beria fell on all fours and begged for mercy. He was taken down and promptly shot. He died as so many of his victims did.

Rupert Colley

The Birth of Stalin

130 years ago today, December 21st 1879, in Georgia, was born one of the greatest tyrants, Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, better known to history by his adopted name - Stalin, 'man of steel'. Training to be a priest, Stalin was expelled from his seminary in 1899 and from there followed the revolutionary path of a Marxist.


Stalin's rise
Following the October Revolution in 1917 and the formation of the Soviet Union, Lenin delegated numerous tasks to his eager protege culminating in 1922 with Stalin's appointment as General Secretary of the Communist Party. But Lenin began to regret his decision and Stalin's fast-track rise through the party hierarchy believing Stalin to lack the necessary tact and skill for such a post.

"Stalin is too rude."
In January 1923 Lenin penned a secret memorandum suggesting Stalin's removal from power: "I am not sure whether (Stalin) will always be capable of using (his) authority with sufficient caution... Stalin is too rude and this defect... becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead."

The other man Lenin had in mind was Stalin's great rival Lev Trotsky. Together with Trotsky, Lenin was going to use the party congress in April that year as his opportunity to have Stalin removed. But in March Lenin suffered a stroke, his third, which confined him to home and effectively ended his political career.

After Lenin
In January 1924 Lenin died. Trotsky may have been the obvious successor but two of his rivals, Lev Kamenev and Grigori Zinoviev, suppressed Lenin's memorandum and decided to side with Stalin, from whom they felt they had nothing to fear. Trotsky was promptly sidelined and eventually expelled from the party and exiled from the country.

But if Kamenev and Zinoviev thought they could tame the Georgian beast they were wrong. Stalin sided with Nikolai Bukharin to have them removed from the party before turning on Bukharin as well. Between 1936 and 1938 Kamenev, Zinoviev and Bukharin were all put on show trial accused of ridiculous charges, sentenced and executed.

Absolute power
Stalin's power was now absolute and he was to rule the Soviet Union unopposed, respected and feared until his death, aged 73, in March 1953.

Rupert Colley.

"There is no excuse for repression"

I found an interesting article on the BBC History Magazine blog about Russian president Dmitry Medvedev's criticism of Josef Stalin.

Since 1991, October 30 has been marked in Russia as a day of remembrance for those who perished during the era of Soviet repression. In Moscow an Orthodox priest led an act of memorial in Lubyanka Square, the former headquarters of Stalin's secret police, the dreaded NKVD. Whilst on his video blog, President Medvedev delivered a damning condemnation of Stalin: "Even today you still hear voices claiming that those innumerable victims were justified for some higher national purpose... There is no excuse for repression."

No one would have dared disprove of Stalin, the Party or the nation during his lifetime. If, as a Soviet citizen, you were accused of criticising, whether guilty or not (that didn't matter), you and your family would have been transported east to fester in a gulag for a decade or two. A slip of the tongue, a joke, something misheard would be enough. Equally, if you were envious of your boss's job, or your neighbour's apartment, a word in the right ear would have him removed.

The first open criticism of Stalin came in February 1956, at the Soviet Twentieth Party Congress, when Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushchev, delivered a six-hour speech to party leaders in which he denounced Stalin's methods, acknowledged his mistakes and criticized his murderous reign. The text of the speech, although secret, soon spread across Russia and abroad, causing shock that the great man's name should be so besmirched but also relief that, through Khrushchev's 'destalinisation', the tyranny that had overshadowed the Soviet Union for so long was now something of the past.

Rupert Colley
www.historyinanhour.com