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Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin

Death of the second Soviet leader

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Stalin's body was embalmed and interred in Lenin's Mausoleum until 1961, when it was moved to the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. The members of Stalin's inner circle in charge of organizing his funeral were Nikita Khrushchev, then-head of the Moscow branch of the Communist Party; Lavrentiy Beria, head of the NKVD; Georgy Malenkov, the chairman of the Presidium; and Vyacheslav Molotov, previously the Soviet Union's Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Illness and death

Joseph Stalin's health had begun to deteriorate towards the end of the Second World War. He had atherosclerosis as a result of heavy smoking, a mild stroke around the time of the Victory Parade in May 1945, and a severe heart attack in October 1945.

The last three days of Stalin's life have been described in detail, first in the official Soviet announcements in Pravda, and then in a complete English translation which followed shortly thereafter in The Current Digest of the Soviet Press. Decades later, former senior officer and historian Dmitry Volkogonov described how, on 28 February 1953, Stalin and a small number of his inner circle, consisting of Lavrentiy Beria, Nikita Khrushchev, Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov and a few others, gathered for an evening of entertainment and drinking. After the guests dispersed at approximately 5:00 a.m. on 1 March, Khrushchev noted that Stalin had a lot to drink and was in a good mood. Stalin later retired to his private quarters. Time passed and no sounds were heard throughout the next day, Sunday, 1 March. Stalin's room was said to have been equipped with sensors to alert the staff and guards if there was any movement. At approximately 11:00 p.m. on 1 March, Stalin's housekeeper cautiously entered his room and found him lying on the floor, wearing his pajama trousers and a shirt. He was unconscious, breathing heavily, incontinent and unresponsive to attempts to rouse him.

At 7:00 a.m. on 2 March, Beria and a group of medical experts were summoned to examine Stalin. Based on their examination, which revealed blood pressure of 190/110 and right-sided hemiplegia, they concluded that Stalin, who had a known history of uncontrolled hypertension, had sustained a hemorrhagic stroke involving the left middle cerebral artery. Over the next two days he received a variety of treatments. In an attempt to decrease his blood pressure, which had risen to 210/120, two separate applications of eight leeches each were applied to his neck and face over the next two days. However, Stalin's condition continued to deteriorate and he died at 9:50 p.m. on 5 March 1953. His death was announced the next day on Radio Moscow by Yuri Levitan.

Stalin's body was then taken to an unspecified location and an autopsy performed, after which it was embalmed for public viewing. Attempts to locate and access the original autopsy report were unsuccessful until the 2010s, but the most important findings were reported in a special bulletin in Pravda on 7 March 1953, as follows:

"Pathological-Anatomical Examination of the Body of J. V. Stalin"

Pathologic examination revealed a large hemorrhage, localized to the area of subcortical centers of the left cerebral hemisphere. This hemorrhage destroyed important areas of the brain and resulted in irreversible changes in the respiration and circulation. In addition to the brain hemorrhage, there were found significant hypertrophy of the left ventricle (of the heart), numerous hemorrhages in the myocardium, in the stomach and intestinal mucosa; atherosclerotic changes in the vessels, more prominent in the cerebral arteries. These are the result of hypertension. The results of the pathologic examination revealed the irreversible character of J.V. Stalin's disease from the moment of brain hemorrhage. Therefore, all treatment attempts could not have led to a favorable outcome and prevent a fatal end."

As summarized above, rather than suggesting a plot by Beria, on whom suspicion fell for his purportedly telling Molotov that he "took him out" at one point, and his seemingly willful delay in obtaining medical treatment for Stalin, the physical changes seen during autopsy were consistent with extracranial changes that often occur in stroke victims.

Beria's son, Sergo Beria, later recounted that after Stalin's death, his mother Nina told her husband that, "Your position now is even more precarious than when Stalin was alive." This turned out to be correct; several months later, in June 1953, Beria was arrested and charged with a variety of crimes but, significantly, none relating to Stalin's death. He was subsequently found guilty of treason, terrorism and counter-revolutionary activity by the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union on 23 December 1953, and executed the same day, shot by General Pavel Batitsky.

Some historians have conjectured that Stalin was murdered; Beria has been accused of poisoning him, but no firm evidence has appeared. According to a theory developed by historians Vladimir Naumov and Jonathan Brent, based on mentions of stomach hemorrhaging excised from his autopsy, Stalin was poisoned with warfarin, most likely by Beria.

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