Stalin: A Biography

Yet Stalin had not yet passed away and Presidium members sped back to Blizhnyaya dacha where he was sinking irretrievably. They were watching their past lives flash before their eyes: the Five-Year Plans, the Great Terror and the Great Patriotic War. Stalin personified their collective career. They had been active in the consolidation of the Soviet state, its military and industrial power as well as its territorial expansion and political security. With the possible exception of Beria, they were in awe of Stalin’s intelligence and experience at the same time as they simply feared him. He had bewitched them even while traumatising them. As he lay prostrate on the divan, they could not be confident that by some superhuman effort he would not revive and return to dominate public life again. These very individuals who had sent millions to their deaths in the Gulag under Stalin’s leadership trembled at the sight of an old man, semi-conscious and inert, whose life was slipping away. To the end he held them in thrall. There was still the possibility that he might recover sufficiently, if only for a moment, to order the destruction of all of them. Even a dying Stalin was not to be trifled with.

At the dacha the tension was intense. Beria, taking charge of security, put the zone around Blizhnyaya into quarantine as a watch was kept on the patient. On the morning of 5 March he again vomited blood.²⁰ As the doctors later discovered, he had suffered a massive stomach haemorrhage. His general health had been poor for years and his arteries were hardened. Medical staff and politicians gathered at his bedside. Svetlana was the only close family member at the dacha. Turns were taken by those present to approach his recumbent body to pay their respects. They took his hand looking for some sign of his intentions toward them. Most remarkable was the behaviour of Beria, who slobbered on Stalin’s hand in an unctuous display of personal fidelity. At 9.50 a.m. the Leader choked on his last breath. He was gone.

Some fell into each other’s arms. The distraught Svetlana took comfort in the embrace of Khrushchëv. Servants were allowed in to see the corpse. Even the Presidium members, who hours previously had been making dispositions for politics after Stalin, were affected. A whole period in their lives as well as in their country’s history had been terminated. They would not have been human if they had not been shocked by their experience. Only one person had full presence of mind. This was Beria, who behaved like an uncaged panther. No longer unctuous or doleful, he shouted: ‘Khrustalëv! The car!’²¹ Beria raced to the Kremlin to complete an orderly political succession in which he would play a leading role. While others consoled Svetlana or wept by Stalin’s bedside, there was much to do and Beria set the pace. Unlike Molotov and Mikoyan, he had not been named as an undesirable potential leader. The Mingrelian Affair had not been mentioned at the Central Committee and, as far as its members knew, Beria had been in Stalin’s good books to the end. The battle for the succession was under way.

The security group became the guard of honour standing by the dead Leader. A black catafalque arrived at the dacha and the guards carried him into it for transfer to the special institute where the condition of Lenin’s corpse was regularly checked and Stalin’s corpse would be prepared for the funeral. Guard commander Khrustalëv remained in charge.

At 8 p.m. on 5 March the Party Central Committee reconvened with Khrushchëv in the chair. Presidium members knew they had to convince everyone present that Stalin had died of natural causes.²² The platform was given to USSR Minister of Health A. F. Tretyakov for a detailed medical explanation. Khrushchëv, avoiding debate, announced the proposals from the Bureau of the Presidium. Malenkov was suggested as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Beria would be one of his First Deputies and would take charge of the Ministries of Internal Affairs (MVD) and State Security (MGB). Khrushchëv would remain a Secretary of the Party Central Committee. The older veterans were not ignored. Voroshilov was to be made Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet. Molotov, who retained his standing in the minds of fellow leaders despite Stalin’s attack on him, would become First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers (as did not only Beria but also Bulganin). The key figures, however, were Malenkov, Beria and Khrush-chëv. This was signalled in the decision to entrust them with the task of bringing Stalin’s papers ‘into necessary order’. Every proposal was unanimously approved and the meeting lasted only forty minutes.²³ Stalin’s specific wishes were being repudiated. He had been plotting the downfall of Beria as well as Molotov and Mikoyan. Malenkov, however, saw Beria as a useful ally and Khrushchëv temporarily accepted the fait accompli.