He made all decisions himself. Even the most important people in the state were deprived of any initiative. The life of every person in the Soviet Union depended entirely on him. Also ... his own. Can it then be said that Stalin was ... Stalin's last victim?
A gloomy Saturday, the last day of February 1953. The informal five most important people in the Soviet Union:Malenkov, Beria, Bulganin, Khrushchev and, of course, Stalin, have just finished their debates in the Kremlin. But Józef Wissarionowicz did his best to keep his associates for a longer time - those few, paradoxically, closest to him.
Exclusive cinema hall and dacha in Kuncewo
The undivided ruler of the largest empire in the world was also one of the loneliest people. According to Khrushchev, Stalin felt so lonely that he did not know what to do with himself. He craved the company of even the four people he despised.
To the despair of the party comrades, that evening Stalin was very lonely that evening, so they could forget to go home. Of course, refusing to spend the evening and night with Stalin was not an option.
The opening credits of "Pravda" from March 9, 1953. The guard of honor is performed by, among others, "Four":Lavrentiy Beria, Georgy Malenkov (second and third from the left), Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev (third and fourth from the right).
Khrushchev recalled:
We had to carry out our tasks at work and in the positions for which we were elected, and besides, we had to attend Stalin's parties and entertain him as if we were some characters in art. Those were difficult and hard times for us .
So four men, living only by the grace of a chief , they agreed with mock enthusiasm to watch the film in Stalin's exclusive Kremlin cinema with only twenty seats. Then the party moved to his dacha in Kuntsevo, a short limousine ride from the center of Moscow.
The last days of the dictator were traced almost minute by minute by Oleg Khlevniuk in his book Stalin. New biography ”, Znak Horyzont 2016 publishing house
Stalin's favorite room at the dacha was the so-called little dining room on the first floor, which Oleg Khlevniuk describes as follows:
This spacious room contained a three-meter-long rectangular table, a couch, a sideboard, an armchair, a small telephone table, and a fireplace. Binoculars and a hunting rifle hung from a hook next to the fireplace. The room opened onto a glazed veranda and onto a terrace. Unless he had company, he ate at one corner of the table. He kept his medicines in a cupboard. Stalin liked to sit by the fireplace, where skewers were sometimes baked at his request.
The playroom in Kuncevo, Comrade Stalin's favorite room (photo:public domain).
In a larger group, however, had fun in a huge representative hall covered with wood a hall with a pitch for volleyball. Up to twenty guests could feast at the big table, and the decoration of the room was handcrafted (ten years of work, worth over a million dollars!) Persian rug, with an area of over seventy square meters.
Pathetic old satyrs party
The last party at Stalin's did not differ in character from the hundreds of previous ones. Traditionally, Stalin drank relatively little while encouraging and often forcing others to drink as much as possible, which gave him the opportunity to humiliate his guests and learn about their true views. The conversation was dominated by jokes lowest grade .
Once everyone was tipsy enough, Stalin would play records from his impressive collection of two thousand and seven hundred pieces on a gramophone, mostly with classical and folk music, and signal to dance.
Imagine: five elderly men, ineptly dancing to folk songs, without any women present (and yet one nod from Stalin would have been enough for the most beautiful Soviet women to be brought in!).
The party ended again in the morning. The tipsy Stalin was in a great mood, he waved his hands, joked and stabbed obese Nikita Khrushchev with his finger in the stomach, calling him Mikita in Ukrainian. . The chief's guests could finally breathe:
We were also in a good mood when we left because nothing unpleasant happened at dinner and not all of these dinners ended so well .
Nikita Khrushchev was Stalin's henchman and companion. But only after his death was there to be something to celebrate (photo:public domain).
The most powerful man in the world in a pool of his own urine
After the guests left, Stalin moved to his little dining room and went to bed. Throughout Sunday, March 1, he did not call anyone from the service. It was absolutely unheard of. Concern grew in Kuncewo, but none of the bodyguards dared to take a look to wożdia .
It was only late in the evening that there was an excuse to knock on Stalin's private rooms - the mail came. The bravest of the bodyguards, letters in hand, looked around the rooms for the generalissimo.
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He finally found him lying helplessly on the wet floor . He and his colleagues laid him on the couch and called the minister of security, Semyon Ignatiev, suggesting that a doctor be called. The minister, however, refused to make any decision and ordered that members of the top management be called.
After a long while, the security guards managed to contact Malenkov. He also did not want to decide for himself , therefore, he sought support from Beria, Khrushchev and Bulganin. As Oleg Khlevniuk writes in the latest biography of Stalin:
Malenkov did not want to go to the dacha alone or be the only one who would agree to call the doctors. All decisions had to be made collectively. The four decided to meet at the dacha to assess the situation and give each other cover no matter what action was taken.
Georgy Malenkov took off his shoes out of fear of Stalin. After the dictator's death, he was finally able to breathe (photo:public domain).
So they went to Kuncewa together in the middle of the night. Urine stain information to their consternation - Stalin certainly would not want anyone to see him like this. Two Beria - Malenkov were selected, who was to quietly check the condition of the brilliant architect of communism .
Malenkov's new shoes squeaked on the dance floor, so the terrified man took them off and carried them under his arm, so as not to wake the host. The men silently approached Stalin lying on the couch and found that he was snoring softly. Beria scolded the bodyguards, stated that the chief was only sleeping, and everyone went home. Was Stalin under a death sentence at this point? Khlevniuk writes:
Stalin's associates were just afraid to intervene . They were not used to taking the initiative and knew too well the suspicious and capricious nature of Stalin. All those days in early March, everyone involved in this case behaved exactly as Stalin had trained them. They tiptoed nervously, every now and then looking back and trying to blame as much responsibility as possible on others.
This is just a propaganda staging, but the death of the leader really caused great emotions throughout the USSR. Still from the movie "Death of Stalin - the end of the epoch".
The price for the "murder doctor conspiracy"
The paralysis of the Four was undoubtedly influenced by one of Stalin's last political provocations, the so-called "conspiracy of Kremlin doctors" . As a result, in the years 1952–1953 many prominent professors of medicine were executed, and a furious anti-Semitic campaign was launched all over the country. .
Stalin himself not so long ago accused his own medics of conspiracy. So who could take responsibility for summoning another doctor to a 74-year-old dictator who might just drink a little too much and not fully control his physiological reflexes?
The last days of the dictator were traced almost minute by minute by Oleg Khlevniuk in his book Stalin. New biography ”, Znak Horyzont 2016 publishing house
On the morning of March 2, Beria, Khrushchev, Malenkov and Bulganin decided to convene the entire Presidium of the Central Committee (a dozen or so people!), And there it was collectively decided to send doctors to Kuntsev. They immediately noticed a hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of the brain - Stalin's life could not be saved .
Dzhugashvili's agony continued for three more days. The certainty that he would never recover, finally woke up male imperious instincts at his closest associates.
On March 5, 1953, it was voted to deprive Stalin of the posts of Chairman of the Council of Ministers and Secretary of the Central Committee. Literally an hour before Stalin's death, Beria, Khrushchev, Malenkov and Bulganin had formally stripped him of power - an act of truly heroic courage. Better late than never?
The body of the commander on display at the Moscow House of Unions. Still from the movie "Death of Stalin - the end of the epoch".
The revolution devours its own children
It is difficult to say what would have been the chances of Stalin's survival if he had had the proper medical care. There is no doubt that he has become the last victim of a system he created. At the time when Stalin himself was unable to express his will, to make the simplest decision to call a doctor, it was necessary to discuss the entire Presidium of the Central Committee.
It is a kind of chuckle of history that his own death was caused by the last major purge he had planned, during which he chose a group of the best Soviet doctors. A suicide so absurd as to be worthy of a Soviet leader…