Lavrentiy Beria - Stalin's Death

Stalin's Death

Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs that Beria had, immediately after the stroke, gone about "spewing hatred against and mocking him." When Stalin showed signs of consciousness, Beria dropped to his knees and kissed his hand. When Stalin fell unconscious again, Beria immediately stood and spat.

Stalin's aide Vasili Lozgachev reported that Beria and Malenkov were the first members of the Politburo to investigate Stalin's condition after his stroke. They arrived at Stalin's dacha at Kuntsevo at 3am on March 2 after being called by Khrushchev and Bulganin. The latter did not want to risk Stalin's wrath by checking themselves. Lozgachev tried in futility to explain to Beria that the then-unconscious Stalin (still in his soiled clothing) was "sick and needed medical attention." Beria angrily dismissed his claims as panic-mongering and quickly left, ordering him, "Don't bother us, don't cause a panic and don't disturb Comrade Stalin!" Calling a doctor was deferred for a full 12 hours after Stalin was rendered paralyzed, incontinent, and unable to speak. This decision is noted as "extraordinary" by Sebag-Montefiore, but also consistent with the standard Stalinist policy of deferring all decision-making (no matter how necessary or obvious) without official orders from higher authority. Beria's decision to avoid immediately calling a doctor was silently supported (or at least not opposed) by the rest of the Politburo, which was rudderless without Stalin's micromanagement and paralyzed by a legitimate fear he would suddenly recover and wreak violent reprisal on anyone who had dared to act without his orders. Stalin's suspicion of doctors in the wake of the Doctors' Plot was well known. At the time of his stroke, his private physician was already being tortured in the basement of the Lubyanka for suggesting the leader required more bed rest.

After Stalin's stroke, Beria claimed to have killed him. This aborted a final purge of Old Bolsheviks Anastas Mikoyan and Vyacheslav Molotov for which Stalin had been laying the groundwork in the year prior to his death. Shortly after Stalin's death, he announced triumphantly to the Politburo that he had "done in" and "saved all", according to Molotov's memoirs. Notably, Beria never explicitly stated whether he had initiated Stalin's stroke or had merely delayed his treatment in the hope he would die (as argued by Sebag-Montefiore and consistent with evidence). Support for the assertion that Stalin was poisoned by Beria's associates has been presented from several sources, including Edvard Radzinsky in his biography Stalin and a recent study by Miguel A. Faria in the journal Surgical Neurology International. Warfarin (4-Hydroxycoumarins) is cited as the likely agent; it would have produced the symptoms reported, and administering it into Stalin's food or drink was well within the operational abilities of Beria's NKVD. Sebag-Montefiore does not dispute the possibility of an assassination by poison masterminded by Beria, whose hatred for Stalin was palpable by this point, but also notes that Beria never made mention of poison or confessed to using it, even during his later interrogations, and was never alone with Stalin during the period prior to his stroke (he always went with Malenkov to defer suspicion).

After Stalin's death from pulmonary edema brought on by the stroke, Beria's ambitions sprang into full force. In the uneasy silence following the cessation of Stalin's last agonies, Beria was the first to dart forward to kiss his lifeless form (a move likened by Sebag-Montefiore to "wrenching a dead King's ring off his finger"). While the rest of Stalin's inner circle (even Molotov, saved from certain liquidation) stood sobbing unashamedly over the body, Beria reportedly appeared "radiant", "regenerated", and "glistening with ill-concealed relish." When Beria left the room, he broke the somber atmosphere by shouting loudly for his driver, his voice echoing with what Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva called "the ring of triumph unconcealed." Alliluyeva noticed how the Politburo seemed openly frightened of Beria and unnerved by his bold display of ambition. "He's off to take power," Mikoyan recalled muttering to Khrushchev. That prompting a "frantic" dash for their own limousines to intercept him at the Kremlin.