Stalin’s Death (or “Death of a Tyrant”)

Fifty-two years ago this month, March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin was pronounced dead from a stroke. There are at least two versions as to exactly when “The Great Helmsman” passed away that day: at either 0950 hours or 2150 hours, depending on who reported it. This discrepancy underlines the fact that the actual circumstances of his death are shrouded in the traditional secrecy of the Soviet state and confounded by the fear of those sycophants who were in Stalin’s inner circle at the time. There have long been various versions of his last days but it was not until the discovery of a document in the post-Soviet archives entitled “The History of the Illness of J.V. Stalin,” which was unearthed by the team of American and Russian collaborators, that we have a clearer, although probably not final, picture of his demise.¹

Ironically, the dictator had long been ailing, suffering from uncontrolled hypertension, the same condition that felled Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, as he aged, Stalin did not consult with doctors, especially in his final years: “In general, Stalin severely mistrusted doctors–– whatever their nationality. In his memoirs, Dimitri Shostakovich tells the tale of Dr. Vladimir Bekhterev, a world-renowned psychiatrist, who at [age] 70 was summoned to assess Stalin’s mental condition. The good doctor described him as ill, perhaps even paranoid, and how right he was. Bekhterev died immediately afterwards—probably poisoned by Stalin.”²

This kind of attitude to physicians did not raise the likelihood of Stalin’s surviving a serious malady––actually not a bad thing for the millions whom he had persecuted but had not gotten around yet to murdering by the time of his own death. Much of what we used to think we knew about this historical puzzle came from Khrushchev’s memoirs, but he had his own reasons to obfuscate and hide both his role and his behavior. Recently, Amy Knight (the biographer of Beria, the head of Stalin’s secret service) described why there are discrepancies in the various accounts of Stalin’s last days: “Members of the leadership may have deliberately delayed medical treatment for Stalin––probably for at least ten or twelve hours––when they knew he was seriously ill. They then covered up this delay. (Whether Stalin would have died anyway is of course a matter of conjecture.) Although his daughter Svetlana seems to blame Beria above all for this, her account does not absolve the other members of the leadership present. She does not say who these men were, but implies that at least three others––Malenkov (First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party), Khrushchev, and Bulganin (member of the “Politburo”)—were there, which Khrushchev attests to…it is not difficult to come up with motives that Stalin’s subordinates might have had and denied him medical treatment for so long. They might have been uncertain as to what to do with him, for fear they would be held responsible for any mistakes in his treatment…then, of course, they might have wanted him to die.”¹ It does seem, however, that most agree that like Roosevelt, Stalin died of a CVA, probably due to uncontrolled hypertension.

Much of what we know has been corroborated by a document by the (ten!) doctors who cared for Stalin during his final illness. It is not known who the lead author was, but most likely the document’s composition was supervised by secret police chief Beria. Two drafts of the report––which do differ from one another in some significant ways––were stamped “top secret” and submitted to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Preserved in the Soviet archives, they were surprisingly left unpublished as Brent and Naumov point out, “apparently unread, for nearly 50 years.”¹ Entitled “The History of Illness of J.V. Stalin, from March 2 to 5, 1953,” it tells a very different story from that which has been accepted to date. According to this report, Stalin fell ill at his dacha on the evening of Friday, February 28, following a dinner to which he had invited four of his henchmen: Beria, Khrush- chev, Malenkov, and Bulganin. The party ended in the wee hours of Saturday morning. During the soiree, Stalin had berated his guests because of the slow progress being made in the “Doctors’ Plot.” (See box.)

Like everyone else around him, the household staff were deathly afraid of Stalin, whom they did not dare bother throughout all of the following Saturday. Although they did begin to worry toward the middle of the day, the domestic help were reassured by the fact that at 1830 hours a light had come on in his room, which they thought indicated that Stalin was awake and working at his desk. One version has it that by 2230 hours on that Saturday evening, one of Stalin’s guards found him lying on the floor in pajama bottoms and undershirt with a copy of Pravda beside him. Another account has Stalin being found at 0300 hours on the following Sunday morning by his maid. She called Stalin’s bodyguards, who lifted him onto his divan. Surprisingly, doctors did not arrive until 1000 hours the next morning. As recounted in Khrushchev Remembers, Stalin’s henchmen suggested that no medical care had been summoned, as those present thought that he might have merely been suffering from a hangover from the party on the previous Friday night. However, it was well known that Stalin did not drink much alcohol, preferring the loosening of tongues that this drug caused in his guests.

Why did it take so long for the doctors to be summoned? In one account, medical assistance was delayed for several hours until Beria, the chief of the secret police, could be tracked down to authorize it. However, there was a standing order to the Kremlin Guard that if any high official, presumably including Stalin himself, were to fall ill, doctors were to be summoned immediately by the guards themselves. Either their call for help was countermanded or they had been specifically instructed not to summon aid. In either case, as Brent and Naumov point out, “…complicity at the highest level of Soviet government appears to have ensured that Stalin would die.”

According to the document cited above, “On the night of March 2, 1953, comrade Stalin experienced a sudden loss of consciousness and paralysis of the right hand and leg developed. The first examination of the patient was performed on March 2 at 7 o’clock in the morning (by a team of physicians) and …in the presence of the Head of the Kremlin Policlinic…[Stalin] lay in a state of unconsciousness on the divan, dressed in his clothes. His clothes were soaked in urine....” In addition, it is reported that the patient had lost his right labial fold, the pupils were dilated and tendon reflexes unobtainable, except for a positive Babinski reflex on the right. At the time, Stalin’s pulse was 78, blood pressure 190/110. The physicians diagnosed “general arteriosclerosis with the primary lesion of the blood vessels of the brain. Right side hemiplegia, cardiosclerosis, and sclerosis of the kidneys.” Indicating the state of both the practice of medicine of the day and especially of the Soviet brand, “absolute quiet” was ordered for Stalin. Just as effectively, eight leeches were applied behind his ears. As the physicians’ report explained, “…leeches were preferred for bloodletting, because the sharp fluctuations in blood pressure that would have resulted from bloodletting (in the normal manner) were considered undesirable.” Cold compresses were applied and “hypertonic micro-enemas” administered. Stalin was sponged down with aromatic vinegar. The leeches continued to be applied and enemas of magnesium sulfate, Vaseline® and glucose were administered.

By Monday, March 2, at 1410 hours, Cheynes-Stoke respirations were observed, and Stalin’s blood pressure had risen to 210/120. Over the next 48 hours, the dictator’s condition continued to deteriorate with sharp fluctuations in blood pressure, and it was reported that his heart registered a “hollow tone.” Stalin was given lemon juice and glucose to drink and received injections of camphor, which were meant to stimulate breathing. Toward the end, the whole panoply of Soviet medicine, circa 1953, was pulled out––all of it, of course, futile. In addition to the other therapies applied, he was injected with caffeine, camphor, and cardiozol. By the early morning of Monday, March 4, Stalin’s condition had deteriorated further, with the appearance of cyanosis, hiccoughing, and profuse sweating. By 0820 hours, Stalin had become increasingly cyanotic and began to manifest both hematemasis and hematuria. By 1915 hours the next day, his pulse had risen to 120 beats per minute and blood pressure had fallen to 150/100. By 2010 hours, his heart rate had risen to 150 beats per minute, and Stalin was completely comatose with profound cyanosis. At 2140 hours, he was given more camphor injections along with adrenalin as well as carbon dioxide and oxygen.

By 2150, Stalin was pronounced dead at age 73. Beyond delaying medical “aid” (however ineffective it probably was), were the four highers-up present at his final illness complicit in any other way? One speculation has it that it was Beria who murdered him. Several months after Stalin’s death, he was reported to have boasted to Molotov, then foreign minister of the USSR, “I did him in! I saved all of you!” But without an autopsy report, these conjectures remain just that. Those around Stalin certainly had a motive, but as we know from the circumstances of other dictatorships, the inner circle of sycophants are usually too terrorized and self-interested to entertain such radical departures. As Brent and Naumov point out, “How ironic yet fitting, that the man who subjected his people to the horror of his great purges and was preparing them for yet more should himself, at the end, have been purged continually by the magnesium sulfate enemas administered by doctors seeking to prolong his life.”1 As the heart of the evil man registered a “hollow tone.”