The real cause of Stalin's death

[mendeleyev]

www.mendeleyevjournal.com

It is official--the cause of death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, history's most prolific mass murderer, was from a stroke. 

One of the most brutal dictators to have lived, Stalin died at the age of 73 on 5 March 1953.  The official postmortem report was only released today and it finally dispenses with various theories about how the madman died, specifically ruling out death by poisoning.





Medical records and the postmortem report referred to the dictator as ‘Patient Number One’ and details the stroke which occurred sometime around 6.30pm on 1 March 1953.  He had left stern orders not to be disturbed and his staff, afraid to enter his quarters, waited until late the following day to check on the Soviet leader.  At the time of his death Stalin was purging many in his inner circle including his top doctors in what he called "The Doctors Conspiracy" and his primary physicians were sitting in a Moscow prison.

The lead autopsy physician, Alexander Myasnikov, wrote in the report that Stalin suffered a progressive hardening of the arteries in his brain and might explain some of Stalin's paranoia and inability to distinguish between enemies and friends. 

The autopsy report revealed that he suffered from extremely high blood pressure, hardened arteries and a fatty liver.  There was apparently no evidence of poisoning as many historians had suspected.  The Russian State Archives gave no reason why the report had not been released previously.





The official report to the Soviet people came at 4am that morning in a brief statement that read, "The heart of the comrade-in-arms and successor of Lenin's genius, of the wise leader and teacher of the Communist Party and the Soviet Union, has ceased to beat."
 
His body was put on temporary display in the Hall of Columns where hundreds of thousands of citizens waited in long lines to get a last glimpse of their leader.  It is estimated that around 500 persons died of trampling and suffocation in those lines.

Stalin remains one of the most admired historical figures in Russia, especially among older citizens and among the young adult hard-core nationalistic movements.



Photo: Anton Klyushev

Earlier this week on the 60th anniversary of his death, thousands of Communists across Russia marked the anniversary with marches and bringing flowers to his monuments across Russia.  In Moscow there was a steady flow of mourners bearing flowers and carrying posters of Stalin.

Those marchers were met by opposing marchers bearing signs calling attention to the millions murdered at Stalin's orders.



Photo: Ragulin Vitaliy

He was buried at first inside Lenin's tomb on Red Square. Later during the period of de-Stalinization his body was moved to the Kremlin walls area.

Footnote: Russian state television channel broadcast a documentary about the dictator this past Tuesday in which Stalin was portrayed as a kind yet strong leader.  The film suggested that the millions of murders were done without his knowledge or by overzealous regional and local officials of whom Stalin was unable to stop.




The documentary titled "Stalin with us" also blamed the West for spreading lies about Stalin and for hiring Russians to assassinate the Soviet leader.   Opposition leaders quickly pointed out that the NTV documentary supports the position of new history textbooks being prepared for Russian schools.

[Larry1]

Excellent post, Mendy.  I am disappointed to read that Stalin died of natural causes.  I had hoped Beria had poisoned him.   That seemed like a bit of karmic justice, not to mention more interesting than dying from a stroke.

[mendeleyev]

Thanks, Larry.  The good news is that they left him without medical care for awhile, allowing him to suffer.  The presence of his daughter Svetlana is perhaps the only reason they consulted doctors.  The attending physicians were junior doctors as Stalin had recently imprisoned the doctors who normally were responsible for his care.  One of the new doctors made a trip to the prison to seek the advice of his lead physician.

The men left in his inner circle undoubtedly felt that they were next on the list and thus in no great hurry to summon competent assistance.

[Larry1]

Several years ago I saw a documentary film about Stalin's last days.  Of course, the major players of Stalin's Politburo were all dead, but the filmakers interviewed several of their children.  If my memory serves these included the sons of Anastas Mikoyan and Nikita Kruschev.  They related the stories their fathers had told them.  Mikoyan's  son had an extremely detailed story.  When the Politburo members were finally called to Stalin's dacha Beria began ostentatiously grieving. Then when Stalin really took a turn for the worse and it appeared he would very soon be dead Beria told the assembled Politburo members that he did them a favor.

This behavior, coupled with the fact that Beria had recently replaced one member of Stalin's bodyguard, and that member told the others that Stalin ordered that he should not be disturbed, and he was accordingly left alone without medical attention for hours, suggested that Beria had arranged Stalin's assassination. 

Beria was Stalin's man, but surely the fates of the previous two NKVD directors were in his mind: Stalin had killed both Yagoda and Yezhov.

Oh well, I suppose the truth of Stalin's death was more prosaic.  Sometimes history is like that.

[mendeleyev]

Larry, the landlord of my second apartment in Russia was a well educated person, an attorney, and upon moving in she gave the restriction that no one would be allowed to sit in the rocking chair in the main room.  It was a 2-room apartment and while common to leave the larger furnishings in for the tenant, I wondered why she'd leave behind a rocking chair that couldn't be used in the nice apartment she shared with her mother nearby.  For some reason, probably for reasons of space, it was to remain in my flat.

It is Stalin's rocking chair, she explained.  At first I thought that somehow she had obtained a piece of furniture from one of his many apartments or dachas.  No, it was reserved for Stalin just in case his spirit wanders by she further clarified.

Russian Orthodox theology does have an understanding that the human soul may wander to visit places and people from their lifetimes but the limit is 40 days according to Orthodox tradition.  Stalin however is different.  Baptized as a baby in Georgia and then later having studied to be a priest before joining Lenin and the Bolsheviks, many older Russians believe that his wandering on the earth is much longer given the severity of his sins and crimes against humanity.  In their minds he may still be wandering today, in a sort of limbo, as he tries to make amends for his offenses before meeting God for judgment.

From time to time Stalin was known to sneak off from his guards and it is said that he'd walk the streets of Moscow at night, stopping in to visit ordinary citizens late at night much to their shock.  Legend says that he tried to disguise himself but supposedly most folk recognized him anyway and could be found nervously fumbling around while slicing some bread and cheese for their unexpected guest.

Sometime later I had the opportunity to interview a professor from Moscow State University who was also a radio host on cultural topics at Voice of Russia Radio.  A friend of my mother-in-law, it was a pleasure to spend time in her apartment and get to know each other better.  In the centre of her living room was a baby grand piano and obviously the focus of her life given the placement in her home.

After taking off my shoes and offering her a gift of things like chocolates and vodka, she excused herself to make tea in her very small kitchen.  Feeling at home I stood and walked to the piano.  It had been over a year or more since I'd had the opportunity to tickle the keys and I didn't think she'd mind.

I was in the process of sitting down at the piano when she rushed out of the kitchen to stop me.  She announced that prior to taking a seat on the piano stool it would first be necessary to brush off Stalin's ghost.  Why, I inquired? Because Stalin's ghost may have sat down on the piano stool and it would be impolite to sit on his ghost.

Stalin did love the piano and had a favourite piano player, Maria Yudina.  Legend has it that a record of her music was on his bedroom turntable when he died.  (See attached story.)

As the professor poured tea I quietly thought about what had just transpired.  Here was a highly educated woman, a University professor with advanced degrees and one who had traveled abroad to study in London during Soviet times.  She was a very intelligent lady with all the social graces while at the same time truly believing that Stalin's ghost might be sitting on her piano stood.  Go figure. 

One thing about it did feel rather good, however--giving the ruthless dictator the "brush off" was kind of cool.

[mendeleyev]

An extract from The Ladder of the Beatitudes by Jim Forest:

One of the people of modern times whose heart was radiantly pure was the Russian pianist Maria Yudina. I have come to know her indirectly through the memoirs of her friend and one-time classmate, composer Dimitri Shostakovich, and also through Tatiana Voogd, a member of our parish who knew Yudina personally and has slept under her piano -- "the most sheltered place in her apartment," she tells me.

It was Maria Yudina's fate to live through the Russian revolution and its aftermath, seeing many of her dearest friends and colleagues disappear into the Gulag. A fearless Christian, she wore a cross visibly even while teaching or performing in public -- an affirmation of belief at a time when the price of a display of religious faith could be one's work, one's freedom, even one's life.

She lived an ascetic life, wearing no cosmetics, spending little on herself, and dressing simply. "I had the impression that Yudina wore the same black dress during her entire long life, it was so worn and soiled," said Shostakovich.

For Maria Yudina, music was a way of proclaiming her faith in a period when presses were more carefully policed than pianos. "Yudina saw music in a mystical light. For instance, she saw Bach's Goldberg Variations as a series of illustrations to the Holy Bible," said Shostakovich. "She always played as though she were giving a sermon." She not only performed piano works but paused during concerts to read the poetry of such writers as Boris Pasternak, who were unable to publish at the time.

She was notorious among friends for her inability to keep anything of value for herself. "She came to see me once," Shostakovich recalled, "and said that she was living in a miserable little room where she could neither work nor rest. So I signed a petition, I went to see various bureaucrats, I asked a lot of people to help, I took up a lot of people's time. With great difficulty we got an apartment for Yudina. You would think that everything was fine and that life could go on.

A short time later she came to me again and asked for help in obtaining an apartment for herself. 'What? But we got an apartment for you. What do you need another one for?' 'I gave the apartment away to a poor old woman.'" Shostakovich heard that friends had made a loan to Yudina of five rubles. "I broke a window in my room, it's drafty and so cold, I can't live like that," she had told them. "Naturally, they gave her the money -- it was winter. A while later they visited her, and it was as cold in her room as it was outside and the broken window was stuffed with a rag. 'How can this be, Maria Veniaminovna? We gave you money to fix the window.' And she replied, 'I gave it for the needs of the church.'"

Shostakovich, who regarded religion as superstition, didn't approve. "The church may have various needs," he protested, "but the clergy doesn't sit around in the cold, after all, with broken windows. Self-denial should have a rational limit." He accused her of behaving like a yurodivye, the Russian word for a holy fool, a form of sanctity in the eyes of the church. Her public profession of faith was not without cost. Despite her genius as a musician, from time to time she was banned from concert halls and not once in her life was she allowed to travel outside Russia.

Shostakovich remembered: Her religious position was under constant artillery and even cavalry attack [at the music school in Leningrad]. Serebriakov, the director then, had a habit of making so-called "raids of the light brigade." . . . He realized that Yudina was a first-class pianist, but he wasn't willing to risk his own position. One of the charges of the light brigade was made specifically against her. The cavalry rushed into Yudina's class and demanded of Yudina: "Do you believe in God?" She replied in the affirmative.

"Was she promoting religious propaganda among her students?" She replied that the Constitution didn't forbid it. A few days later a transcript of the conversation made by "an unknown person" appeared in a Leningrad paper, which also printed a caricature -- Yudina in nun's robes surrounded by kneeling students. And the caption was something about preachers appearing at the Conservatoire. The cavalry trod heavily, even though it was the light brigade. Naturally, Yudina was dismissed after that.

From time to time she all but signed her own death warrant. Perhaps the most remarkable story in Shostakovich's memoir concerns one such incident: In his final years, Stalin seemed more and more like a madman, and I think his superstition grew. The "Leader and Teacher" sat locked up in one of his many dachas, amusing himself in bizarre ways. They say he cut out pictures and photos from old magazines and newspapers, glued them onto paper, and hung them on the walls. . . . [He] didn't let anyone in to see him for days at a time. He listened to the radio a lot. Once Stalin called the Radio Committee, where the administration was, and asked if they had a record of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23, which had been heard on the radio the day before. "Played by Yudina," he added.

They told Stalin that of course they had it. Actually, there was no record, the concert had been live. But they were afraid to say no to Stalin, no one ever knew what the consequences might be. A human life meant nothing to him. All you could do was agree, submit, be a yes-man, a yes-man to a madman. Stalin demanded that they send the record with Yudina's performance of the Mozart to his dacha.

The committee panicked, but they had to do something. They called in Yudina and an orchestra and recorded that night. Everyone was shaking with fright, except for Yudina, naturally. But she was a special case, that one, the ocean was only knee-deep for her. Yudina later told me that they had to send the conductor home, he was so scared he couldn't think. They called another conductor, who trembled and got everything mixed up, confusing the orchestra. Only a third conductor was in any shape to finish the recording. I think this is a unique event in the history of recording -- I mean, changing conductors three times in one night. Anyway, the record was ready by morning. They made one single copy in record time and sent it to Stalin. Now that was a record. A record in yes-ing.

Soon after, Yudina received an envelope with twenty thousand rubles. She was told it came on the express orders of Stalin. Then she wrote him a letter. I know about this letter from her, and I know that the story seems improbable. Yudina had many quirks, but I can say this -- she never lied. I'm certain that her story is true. Yudina wrote something like this in her letter: "I thank you, Joseph Vissarionovich, for your aid. I will pray for you day and night and ask the Lord to forgive your great sins before the people and the country. The Lord is merciful and He'll forgive you. I gave the money to the church that I attend."

Yudina sent this suicidal letter to Stalin. He read it and didn't say a word, they expected at least a twitch of the eyebrow. Naturally, the order to arrest Yudina was prepared and the slightest grimace would have been enough to wipe away the last traces of her. But Stalin was silent and set the letter aside in silence. The anticipated movement of the eyebrows didn't come. Nothing happened to Yudina.

They say that her recording of the Mozart was on the record player when the "Leader and Teacher" was found dead in his dacha. It was the last thing he had listened to.

Shostakovich found Yudina's open display of belief foolish, yet one senses within his complaints both envy and awe. In a time of heart-stopping fear, here was someone as fearless as Saint George before the dragon, someone who preferred giving away her few rubles to repairing her own broken window, who "published" with her own voice the poems of banned writers, who dared to tell Stalin that he was not beyond God's mercy and forgiveness. She had a large and pure heart. No wonder her grave in Moscow has been a place of pilgrimage ever since her death.

[mendeleyev]