Stalin's death- 5.03.1953

[v2]

On 5 March 1953, the Soviet leader Josef Stalin died.

His political life as a dictator who dominated millions has been minutely dissected over the decades.
But his last days continue to provoke speculation and argument.
Did he die of natural causes following a brain haemorrhage or was Stalin killed because he was about to plunge the Soviet Union into a war its people were in no position to fight?
The night of 28 February began in the usual manner for Stalin and his closest political circle, Lavrenty Beria, Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin and Georgi Malenkov. They watched a film in the Kremlin then retired to Stalin's country home, 10 minutes outside Moscow, for yet another night of feasting.
By the early hours of 1 March, Stalin's guests had gone back to their homes in Moscow.
What happened next was out of the ordinary for a man as obsessed with security as Stalin. He gave an order for his guards to retire for the night - he was not to be disturbed.
This change to Stalin's normal behaviour intrigued Russian historian Edvard Radzinski, and a few years ago he tracked down one of the guards on duty that night, Pyotr Lozgachev.
It was Lozgachev's testimony of that night that led Radzinski to speculate about what might really have happened.
The guard confirmed that it was not Stalin who gave the guards the order to go to bed, rather the order was conveyed by the main guard Khrustalev.
"Stalin would taunt the guards by saying 'Want to go to bed?' and stare into our eyes," Lozgachev said. "As if we'd dare! So of course we were glad when we got this order, and went off to bed without thinking twice."
The guards slept late the following morning, and so, it seemed, did Stalin. Twelve o'clock, one, two o'clock came and no Stalin.
The guards began to get worried, but no one dared to go into his rooms. They had no right to disturb Stalin unless invited into his presence personally.
At 6.30 a light came on in Stalin's rooms, and the guards relaxed a little. But by the time 10 o'clock had chimed they were petrified. Lozgachev was finally sent in to check on Stalin.
"I hurried up to him and said 'Comrade Stalin, what's wrong?' He'd, you know, wet himself while he was lying there. He made some incoherent noise, like "Dz dz". His pocketwatch and copy of Pravda were lying on the floor. The watch showed 6.30. That's when it must have happened to him."
The guards rushed to call Stalin's drinking companions, the Politburo. It was their tardiness in responding and calling for medical help that put questions of doubt in Radzinski's mind.
Did they already know too much and so did not need to hurry to the "old man's" side?
Mr Radzinski says Yes. He asserts that Stalin was injected with poison by the guard Khrustalev, under the orders of his master, KGB chief Lavrenty Beria. And what was the reason Stalin was killed?
"All the people who surrounded Stalin understood that Stalin wanted war - the future World War III - and he decided to prepare the country for this war," Mr Radzinski says.
"He said: we have the opportunity to create a communist Europe but we have to hurry. But Beria, Khrushchev, Malenkov and every normal person understood it was terrible to begin a war against America because the country [Russia] had no economy.
"It wasn't a poor but a super-poor country which was destroyed by the German invasion, a country which had no resources but only nuclear weapons.
"It was the reason for his anti-Semitic campaign, it was a provocation. He wanted an answer from America. And Beria knew Stalin had planned on 5 March to begin the deportation of Jewish people from Moscow."
As always in Russia, conspiracy piles on conspiracy. Some saw buses parked all round Moscow to take away the Jews. Others glimpsed special barns erected for the deportees in Kazakhstan.
But while the drama unfolded over the next few days in Stalin's country house, the citizens of the Soviet Union were split in their reaction to the imminent death of their leader.
Many openly wept for the man they called '"Father", "Teacher", "God". Others in prison camps across the land allowed themselves to exchange secret smiles and hope that things would be different now.
At 9.50pm on 5 March Stalin died. By the next day his body was lying in state in the Hall of Columns, a few streets from Red Square. It is estimated that several millions came to see him one final time. Several hundred were rumoured to have died in the crush.

(BBC News)

[Ball Turret Gunner]

This maniac did not die soon enough. I would bet everything I own that this murderer was poisoned by one or more of his inner circle.

[Twitch]

Thaere ain't no tear in my beer!

[Henk]

I think he was the worst dictator if you take how many of his own people he killed and who just went to the death camps.

He was Evil and for him to say Hitler was evil is a bit to much.

Henk

[loomaluftwaffe]

he makes Ferdinand Marcos NOT look like a dictator

[v2]

Hitler killed about 12 million people, half of them Jews. According to the lowest current estimates by reputable Russian historians, Stalin was directly responsible for murdering 20 million of his own people, including 8 million Ukrainians in the 1930's. Other Russian and foreign scholars, like the noted Robert Conquest, assert the true number of Stalin's victims was 30 million, or even 40! These figures do not include Russia's 18 million war dead.

[Henk]

He was worse than Hitler, and everyone is making such a big thing of Hitler, what about Stalin.

Henk

[loomaluftwaffe]

the US had a tough decision on weather to help the Germans or the Soviets? both of them were very much hated

well thats what i saw on TV, correct me if im wrong

[Henk]

The thing is the US already did not like the Germans because of the things they did to UK and their allience with Japan and when Japan declared war on the US Germany also declared war on the US, but Hitler did not know of the attck on Pearl Harbour and he also did not know about Japans plans to make war against the US so he had no choice but to declare war on the US.

That is about it. The US hated them both but they had to take the one who did not declare war on them, the USSR.

Henk

[MP-Willow]

Well his death is the same as my Birth, so that has been a strange thing for me. I agree that we had to pick one BIG EVIL or the other and well we might have stayed out or just messed with the Japanese if Hitler had not been so eager. but realisticaly, we would have faught the Germans, our ships were not real staying out of the war by 1940

[syscom3]

War ofter makes strange bedfellows.

besides, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".

[Henk]

Yep

Henk

[MP-Willow]

Yes, until the two friends decide that they are done being friends, poor poland!

[Soviet_Student]

Please, excuse me for my bad English
I was born in USSR. I'll die in USSR.

Originally Posted by v2

Hitler killed about 12 million people, half of them Jews.

Much more than 12 millon people.
Please, read something about war on the Eastern front, something about Lenigrad and its population, about Khatin(a village in Belarus).
Hitler killed more than 19 million citizens of USSR! Not soldiers, but citizens.

Originally Posted by v2

Stalin was directly responsible for murdering 20 million of his own people,

It's a fairy tail
You have never been in USSR. And my grand-grand-father was the chief of a big factory in Jaroslavl. My grandmother told me about him and about that times. She told me how he went to Staligrad front and fought there(remember, he was a high-class engeneer, so he could stay at home - but he was the real patriot! Thanks to teh real patriots the USSR won the war! The USSR saved the world from the nazism!). Hi died in 1943 in some Ural hospital.

Originally Posted by v2

including 8 million Ukrainians in the 1930's.

less than 1 million - learn russian and read original versions of documents
Read Sergey Pereslegin

Originally Posted by v2

victims was 30 million, or even 40! These figures do not include Russia's 18 million war dead.

Ha-ha
The population of Soviet Union was abot 200 000 000 people. You now, that in than time Stalin sent to prisons and killed mainly male people(ages 18-60). So, if he killed about (not even 30!) 20 million male people. So, who had to fight with nazi? Women, children and old people?
So, numbers about 20-40 million are lie!
Remember - 7 million soviet soldiers saved Europe from nazi, and about 6.9 million died on WW2.
PS - You can say something about PQ-17 and other convoys?
If you can found Valentine Piquil(one of the greatest soviet writers) - "Requim for PQ-17"(Валентин Пикуль - "Реквием конвою PQ-17") - read it. Piquil was there. He wrote really true story.

[syscom3]

Soviet_student, welcome to our forum and thanks for that information.

Ive been to Moscow and visited the Great patriotic war museum. What I remember most was a room with about 20 books, all with the names and a short biography of the dead of that war.