the times | Saturday December 4 2021 35
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Was Stalin killed by enemies or paranoia?
The mystery of the Soviet leader’s death could be solved by exhuming his body but Putin doesn’t want to know the truth
his blood pressure spiking. The
petrified doctors diagnosed a stroke,
and prescribed bed rest, silence, an
enema, a cold compress on his
forehead and eight leeches behind
the dictator’s ears.
He died on the evening of
March 5, five days after his collapse.
The official autopsy concluded he
had succumbed to a cerebral
haemorrhage or massive stroke
brought on by hypertension. But in
his death throes Stalin had also
vomited blood and experienced
severe gastrointestinal bleeding,
symptoms that could indicate
poisoning with warfarin, the
blood-thinner that prevents clotting
in the correct dosage but can cause a
stroke when administered in excess
— hence its use as a rat poison.
Warfarin was patented in Russia in
1950; tasteless and odourless, it
would have been undetectable in
Stalin’s Georgian wine.
The autopsy results passed
to the Politburo omitted the
details of Stalin’s
additional symptoms
and the full report was
not released until 2011.
At Stalin’s funeral,
Beria is said to have
leaned across to
Molotov and
whispered: “I saved all
of you. I did him in!”
Beria was later
arrested, interrogated
and executed for treason.
The mystery of whether
Stalin’s death was natural or
contrived will never be solved unless
his remains are properly examined.
But in the present climate in Russia,
the regime will never authorise an
investigation that might prove an
earlier strongman, now undergoing
political rehabilitation, had been
assassinated.
Until a definitive forensic analysis
is conducted, the most likely
explanation is that Stalin died
because his doctors and comrades
failed to treat him quickly enough, or
administer more than a few leeches
behind the ears. Whether
intentionally or accidentally, he was
allowed to die. In the end, Stalin was
probably killed by the paranoia he
had himself created.NICOLA DOVE“Without me the
imperialists will
throttle you.”
The party broke up
in the early hours. The
next morning Stalin did
not call for his breakfast.
The sensors in his room
detected no movement. Dacha
servants later claimed they were too
scared to disturb him. It was not until
10.30 that night that they finally
entered the room, to find Stalin
slumped on the floor, unable to speak,
his pyjamas soaked in urine.
Beria and Malenkov were the first
to arrive at the dacha. Beria, who had
recently fallen from favour and was
probably the least trusted of Stalin’s
lieutenants, allegedly told one of the
guards: “Why are you in such a
panic? Can’t you see, Comrade Stalin
is sleeping soundly. Don’t disturb
him and stop alarming us.”
Medical help was not summoned
until the following morning, by
which time Stalin was completely
unresponsive, partially paralysed andsuffered a heart attack. Two years
earlier his personal doctor, Vladimir
Vinogradov, rashly suggested that
Comrade Stalin might cut down his
work rate and think about
retirement. This was exactly the
tactic Stalin had earlier used against
Lenin. Vinogradov was arrested and
accused of working for British
intelligence.
Stalin subsequently launched a
witch-hunt against the Kremlin
physicians, many of them Jewish,
accusing the “devils in white coats”
of seeking to murder senior officials
in a so-called Doctors’ Plot.
Members of his entourage feared
another of Stalin’s Great Purges,
similar to the slaughter of the 1930s,
and the wholesale deportation of
Jews to the gulag.
Stalin held his friends close and his
enemy-comrades closer: for
company, certainly, but also because
he did not trust them, and needed to
show his underlings they were
disposable. “You are blind like
kittens,” he told Khrushchev.S
talin killed millions through
mass executions, forced
labour and deliberately
induced famine. But we still
do not know for certain what,
or who, killed him.
That enigma — explored in
learned medical journals, works of
historical scholarship and popular
culture — has persisted ever since
Stalin’s death in March 1953. It is part
of the aura of mystery that
surrounds him in Russia today, at a
time when the Soviet leader is
increasingly revered as the saviour of
his country, rather than the mass
murderer he was.
More than half of all Russians now
believe Stalin played a “generally
positive” role in the nation’s life and
part of that mystique lies in the
uncertainty surrounding his death.
The official version of events holds
that he died naturally but there are
at least two other explanations
which fit the facts: that he was
murdered by one (or more) of his
inner circle, or that he was allowed
to die because he had created a
culture of such raging distrust no
one dared to administer the medical
treatment that could have saved him.
This week Selim Bensaad, Stalin’s
half-Algerian great-grandson, issued
a call for the Soviet dictator to be
exhumed from his grave near the
walls of the Kremlin and his body
subjected to scientific tests to
establish the cause of death once
and for all.
This will not happen, for purely
political reasons: a dead Stalin
suffused with secrecy and enduring
menace works well for the Russian
state, whereas a Stalin bumped off by
his closest enemies using rat poison is
exactly the sort of story that Vladimir
Putin does not want to be told.
Stalin died as he lived, surrounded
by terrified sycophants who publicly
worshipped and privately detested
him. His death triggered a scramble
for power that was hilariously
depicted in Armando Iannucci’s 2017
film The Death of Stalin. What led to
that moment, however, is still hotly
debated.
On February 28, 1953, Stalin
summoned his advisers and
would-be successors to have dinner
and watch a film at his dacha in
Kuntsevo outside Moscow: GeorgyMalenkov, the deputy premier;
Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s brutal secret
police chief; Nikita Khrushchev, the
former peasant who would
eventually emerge as leader of the
Soviet Union; and Nikolai Bulganin,
the defence minister. Each had good
reasons to want Stalin dead.
The issue of Stalin’s health was on
everyone’s mind. The heavy-smoking
73-year-old dictator had alreadyThe Death of Stalin puts a black-comedy spin on the demise of the Soviet leader, right, at his dacha in 1953Kremlin physicians
were accused of being
‘devils in white coats’
Ben
Macintyre@benmacintyre1
for their good friend Lulu Lytle,
owner of England’s last rattan
weaving workshop, to rustle up a
couple of wicker chairs, a table and a
sex swing. The gold wallpaper did
twinkle in the moonlight, the cattle
were lowing and the ass did bray
when Matt Hancock tried to grab it
when he thought nobody was looking.
Eventually she gave birth to the
baby Johnson. There was much
wailing and tears and soiling
himself, but eventually the
father pulled himself together
and said he would treat this
baby as well as all of the
others, however many
there were.
A bright star shone across
the land, that everyone
would follow. Although it
turned out to be just the
reflection from Rishi Sunak’s
teeth.Out in the fields the sheep were
being unruly. Instead of following
each other while being shepherded
by whips, they ran off in all
directions bleating about taxes and
snogging and high-speed camels to
far-flung places. Some of them had
even taken on other work as goats,
pigs and lobbying for food
companies.
Far away in the East, three wise
men saw the star and vowed to travel
across land and sea, but the donkey
made clear that the sea was actually
closed. Then a small child named
Priti said if they did come they would
be sent to Fraggle Rock for
processing. So the wise men
promised to send gifts but there was
nobody to deliver them.
And lo did we all rejoice and thank
our lucky stars that such wisdom and
greatness and grace did look over us.
Amen.And lo, a
bright star
shone across
the land but
it was just
Rishi’s teeth
H
ello mums and dads and
other parentals. Everyone
here at the Downing Street
School is thrilled that our
nativity is able to go ahead.
Although like so many of Boris
Johnson’s stories do, it involves a
certain amount of credulity, artistic
licence and questions about paternity...
Around 2,000 years ago, which is
roughly when ye first started talking
about Brexit, there was a simple
man, a carpenter though he doth
struggle even to put together a
decent cabinet, and his young wife,
who once marvelled at what he
could do with his wood but now
wishes he doth keep it to himself.
And she received a direct message
on Instagram that she was with child
and he would be a gift from God, but
she was used to being told by her
husband that he was God’s gift, even
the polling says so.
And so the couple packed up all of
their worldly goods, taking with
them just what Carrie could carry.
They also took their donkey,
although he now insists they use his
full title of deputy prime minister.
So Dominic the Donkey carried
her through the harsh, barren
landscapes of the North, but her
husband took a private jet because
he had to get back for dinner and he
didn’t want to miss the bit where
they smash up the restaurant.
When they arrived there was no
room for them to stay because the
Tory donor’s villa had already been
rented out to someone else and there
was some confusion about who
actually owned and paid for the
place they did stay in. But these are
small details with which we need not
trouble our sweet heads.
They soon made this simple place
feel like home, bringing in some strawMatt Chorley
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