Vasily Dzhugashvili - Arrest and Imprisonment

Arrest and Imprisonment

After the death of his father, a long period of troubles began for Vasily. He was arrested on April 28, 1953, because he revealed top-secret information during a dinner-party with foreign diplomats. He was charged with denigration of the Soviet Union's leaders, anti-Soviet propaganda and criminal negligence. The judicial investigation was conducted by one of the most brutal prosecutors, Lev Vladzimirskii. During the investigation, he confessed to guilt of all the charges, even the most fantastical ones. Shortly after, in December 1953, the prosecutor and his boss Lavrenty Beria were executed as a result of a power struggle between Stalin's successors.

Vasily Stalin asked the new Soviet leaders, Nikita Khrushchev and Georgi Malenkov, for clemency but he was considered a dangerous person and he was judged in a behind-closed-doors trial and was not allowed legal representation. He was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment and disciplinary work period. He was imprisoned in the special penitentiary of Vladimir under the name Vasily Pavlovich Vasilyev. He was released from prison on January 11, 1960. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union decided to give him a pension of 300 rubles, a flat in Moscow, and a three-month treatment vacation in Kislovodsk. He was also granted permission to wear his general's uniform and all of his military medals.

Vasily Stalin died on March 19, 1962, due to chronic alcoholism.

Vasily Stalin was partially rehabilitated in 1999, when the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court lifted charges of anti-Soviet propaganda that dated from 1953. His body was re-buried in a Moscow cemetery in 2002.