Seventy years ago, at 21:50 on March 5, 1953, Josip Stalin was pronounced dead: the Soviet dictator had been struck more than five days earlier by a hemorrhagic stroke in the left cerebral hemisphere. For nearly a whole day he lay on the floor of his room in the country house outside Moscow, nobody daring to enter for fear of disturbing him. For another half day he remained on the sofa in the same room, without medical intervention: it was thought that they were the effects of an excess of alcohol. The official announcement of his death was made the following day, March 6.
Also due to delays in treatment, for years there has been speculation about the causes of death of Stalin, general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.
Some historians had theorized poisoning: the hypothesis, later denied by subsequent studies, had also been fueled by a story about her last moments of life told by her daughter Svetlana, exiled in the United States since 1967. In her autobiography, the woman wrote that a few hours before his death Stalin had shown signs of recovery, he had sat up from the bed on which he was lying and had pointed, glaring at them with hatred, at the other important party representatives present at his bedside. In reality, Stalin’s body was subjected to a thorough autopsy by nine doctors before embalming and the reports, much studied afterwards, confirm the effects of hemorrhagic stroke as the cause of death.
In 1953 Stalin was 75 years old and had ruled the Soviet Union for almost 30 years: he had been secretary of the party since 1922 and after Lenin’s death in 1924, he had progressively concentrated power on himself. In recent years his health conditions had worsened: he was suffering from paranoia, diagnosed by a doctor who died a few weeks later in unclear circumstances, and he spent more and more time in his country house, a “dacha” in Kuntsevo, outside Moscow, where he often invited some of his closest allies (to check them, according to some interpretations).
Josip Stalin in a 1950 photo (AP Photo/File)
It also happened on February 28, 1953: in Kuntsevo with Stalin were among others Georgy Malenkov, his deputy and then briefly his heir after his death; the head of the “secret police” (later to become the KGB) Lavrenti Beria; Defense Minister Nikolai Bulganin; former Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov; the head of the Communist Party in Moscow Nikita Khrushchev. As often happened on those occasions, the group stayed until late at night, around 4, for an evening of discussion accompanied by a lot of alcohol. The following day none of the guests received a call from Stalin, as was customary: his room remained locked and the service personnel respected the orders not to disturb him. Only late in the evening did a housekeeper decide to enter, finding Stalin lying on the floor: she was breathing heavily, showing signs of incontinence and did not respond to attempts to wake him up.
According to some reconstructions Stalin remained unconscious and according to others not, but he was unable to express himself in an intelligible way. The head of the secret service Beria was called, who interpreted his state as a result of drunkenness and ordered that he be left to sleep. Only late in the following morning were the doctors notified: they found paralysis of half of the body, high blood pressure and generally worrying health conditions.
For a few days Stalin was left in complete rest: he was given soup to eat with a spoon and eight leeches were applied, probably with the intention of bringing down the blood pressure. However, the conditions worsened as the days went by, and on 4 March it was necessary to administer oxygen. He probably died on the morning of March 5, but the official registration of his death took place only at 21:50 and was communicated to the town the following day (on March 2 the stroke was publicly reported, postdating it by one day).
Stalin had not indicated a designated heir, so hard political struggles began hand in hand with the organization of the funeral within the inner circle of the Central Committee for his succession. Beria tried to impose himself but was arrested and killed. With a subtle work of alliances and the progressive elimination of rivals, Khrushchev would become the new leader of the Soviet Union starting from 1956. A few years later, Khrushchev always proceeded with the work of so-called de-Stalinization of the country, officially renouncing many of the political choices and ideologies of the predecessor, whose figure was reduced and excesses were underlined.
Stalin’s coffin carried by his son and important Party representatives. (AP Photo)
First, however, there were the great celebrations for Stalin’s funeral: his body was displayed in the Hall of Columns of the Kremlin in Moscow and a huge crowd attended the funeral procession. On that occasion there were many dead, crushed by the crowd. The official estimates of a few years later spoke of over a hundred deaths, but according to other historians they were a much higher number.
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