Stalin's Death

On March 5, fifty years ago, one of the most awful tyrants of the 20th century, Joseph Stalin (1879-1953), died.

On March 1, 1953, Stalin was at his dacha in Kuntsevo, Moscow, when he had a massive stroke. He spent several hours lying half-paralyzed on the floor, because his servants were forbidden from entering his quarters unbidden. He was found lying on the dining room floor with a bottle of mineral water and a copy of Pravda next to him.

The doctors who had treated Stalin for many years had recently been arrested in the “Doctor’s Plot,” so there was some delay in assembling a conference of medical experts. Still, through a succession of confusing bulletins, people came to understand that their leader was gravely ill and would soon die. (Indeed, some historians argue that Beria and the Politburo accelerated Stalin’s death by holding off medical treatment until it was too late to do any good.)