Stalin: The Enduring Legacy

VI Who Killed Stalin?

Whether Stalin was murdered or died of ‘natural causes’ has long been a matter of debate. Certainly Stalin had made many enemies, but the character of these enemies is generally obscured by a focus on Stalin’s alleged crimes. Hence relatively little is known of the titanic struggle Stalin waged against a myriad of anti-Russian forces, both within Russia and globally. Much of that struggle has been considered in the preceding chapters.

Whatever crimes may be laid at Stalin’s feet[389] there are several transcendent facts of history: (1) Stalin destroyed the virus of doctrinaire Bolshevism and reoriented Russia into a powerful state, rather than as a satrap of international finance, (2) Stalin thwarted the post-1945 plan of the globalists to establish a one world government under US hegemony. His arch-enemy, Trotsky, was correct in charging that Stalin has ‘betrayed the Revolution’ by repudiating much of the Marxist dogma[390] and in calling him a ‘Bonapartist’.

Trotsky aptly made analogies between Russia and Jacobin France, and referred to ‘Stalinist Bonapartism’.[391] Stalin had reversed Marxist doctrine in a manner similar to Napoleon’s repudiation of Jacobin doctrines in France. Trotsky lamented, among much else, that the original Bolshevik policy of destroying the soul of Russia had been halted and was being reversed: ‘The storming of heaven, like the storming of the family, is now brought to a stop’.[392] Stalin repudiated these psychotic doctrines and established a strong national edifice that would create a European bloc[393] to withstand the onslaught of post-1945 American-imposed plutocratic hegemony.

We have already seen how Stalin purged Bolshevism of the ‘rootless cosmopolitans’ in both politics and the arts, repudiated ‘world revolution’ in favour of ‘socialism in one country’, and rejected US plans for a one world government via the United Nations. The purges of the late 1930s involved a disproportionate number of Jews who had been heavily represented in the Bolshevik apparatus, led by Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev. Whatever suspicions World Jewry had towards Stalin were however temporarily allayed as the ‘gallant Soviet army’ fought the Nazis.

When Zionism was constructing its Israeli state in the British mandate of Palestine during and after World War II, the Zionists were supported both diplomatically and with weapons from the Soviet bloc.[394] Many of the founders of Israel therefore assumed that Stalin would remain a faithful ally, just as the USA assumed that their wartime alliance with the USSR would be maintained in the post-war world. However, Stalin realised that with the creation of Israel, the issue of ‘dual loyalty’ arose among Soviet bloc Jewry. Soon after the creation of the Israeli state in 1948 Stalin was in conflict with World Zionism, and the USSR remained a major obstacle to Zionist objectives after Stalin’s death.

Stalin had originally supported the creation of Israel. This was a successful strategy to open the region up to Soviet penetration, rather than sympathy for Zionism. Indeed, Stalin has long been accused of ‘anti-Semitism’.[395]

In 1952, a year before Stalin’s death, an epochal event occurred in Czechoslovakia, the trial and hanging of mainly Jewish leaders of the Communist Party, led by Party General Secretary Rudolf Slansky, who had been arrested in 1951. The following year Slansky and thirteen co-defendants were tried as ‘Trotskyite-Titoist-Zionist traitors’. The defendants were accused of espionage and economic sabotage, and of working on behalf of Yugoslavia, Israel and the USA.

Many other Jews were mentioned as co-conspirators, and were implicated in a cabal that included influential US Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, described as a ‘Jewish nationalist’, and Mosha Pijade the ‘Titoist Jewish ideologist ‘in Yugoslavia. It was alleged that a conspiracy against the state had been hatched at a secret meeting in Washington in 1947, between President Truman, Secretary of State Acheson, former Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr., and Israeli leaders David Ben Gurion and Moshe Sharett. In the indictment Slansky was described as ‘by his very nature a Zionist’ who had, in exchange for American support for Israel, agreed to place ‘Zionists in important sectors of Government, economy, and Party apparatus’. The plan included the assassination of President Gottwald by a ‘freemason’ doctor.[396]

These factors were to emerge a year later in the USSR in the so-called ‘Doctors’ Plot’. This allegedly involved hundreds of doctors and was centred on the death in 1948 of A A Zhdanov, Stalin’s likely successor, who had formulated the doctrine on Soviet arts[397] that repudiated ‘rootless cosmopolitanism’, which was often synonymous with ‘Jewishness’. After several years of investigation, Stalin had intended to use this increasingly wide-ranging plot to undertake a comprehensive campaign against Jewish influence.

The ‘case of the doctors’ as it was officially called, linked the doctors with American intelligence and the Soviet Ministry of State Security (MGB).[398] Additionally, members of the Jewish Antifascist Committee were linked to the ‘Doctors’ Plot’, and to spying for the USA,[399] tried in 1952 and executed, as part of the campaign against ‘rootless cosmopolitism’.[400] On December 1, at a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Stalin declared, ‘every Jew is a potential spy for the United States’.[401]

The Soviet secret police had always had a disproportionate number of Jews, and was the power base of Lavrenti Beria. Brent and Naumov state that Stalin wished to remove Beria and that a file was said to have been compiled on him.[402] The rumour of a ‘Day X’ when Jews would be deported en masse to Siberia spread throughout the Jewish population.[403]

It is in these circumstances that Stalin died in March 1953.

The death of Stalin seems to have involved two rival factions for the leadership of Russia, one centred on Khrushchev and supported by the military, and the other centred on Beria and supported by the MGB. Given that Zhdanov, Stalin’s likely successor, had died in 1948, prompting the accusations of murder, it does not seem too fanciful that he was indeed eliminated, and the likely culprit was Beria, who had been his rival since the war years. Beria in alliance with Malenkov initiated the ‘Leningrad affair’ in 1950; a purge of Zhdanov’s associates. At this time Khrushchev began to be regarded as an alternative to a Beria-Malenkov regime after Stalin.

With Beria’s control over security affairs, Stalin’s bodyguard was changed shortly before his death. Alexandr Proskrebychev, Stalin’s personal secretary since 1928, was placed under house arrest. Lt-Colonel Nikolay Vlasik, Chief of Stalin’s personal security for 25 years, was arrested on December 16, 1952 and died several weeks later in prison.[404] Major-General Petr Kosynkin, Vice-Commander of the Kremlin Guard, responsible for Stalin’s security, and according to Peter Deriabrin,[405] the only surviving member of the bodyguard whom Stalin trusted, died of a ‘heart attack’ on February 17 1953. Deriabin comments: ‘[This] process of stripping Stalin of all his personal security [was] a studied and very ably handled business’.[406]

The accounts of Stalin’s death on March 5 1953 vary widely and are contradictory. Amy Knight writes that ‘Members of the leadership may have deliberately delayed medical treatment for Stalin◦– probably for at least ten or twelve hours◦– when they knew he was seriously ill’.[407] The commonly stated time of Stalin’s death is 9:50 PM, yet Dimitry Volkogonov, who has had access to the classified documents on the subject in the Russian archives, states that the actual time was 9: 50 AM.[408]

The ten doctors who attended Stalin during his illness did not complete their report until July 1953. It had gone through at least two drafts, which vary from each other ‘in significant respects’, marked ‘top secret’ and submitted to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Brent and Naumov comment, ‘The final draft is probably supervised by Beria’.[409]

What is known is that Stalin became ill following a dinner with Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev and Bulganin that had begun the night of February 28 and ended in the early morning of Saturday, March 1. Khrushchev claimed that Stalin had been ‘pretty drunk’, but others stated that Stalin only drunk fruit juice that night, and it is known that Stalin seldom drunk hard liquor.[410] Khrushchev claimed that the evening went well, with Stalin in high spirits, while others claim that Stalin was angry that the ‘Doctors’ Plot’ issue was not progressing. Stalin suddenly retired to his room and the party left, but returned when hearing of Stalin’s collapse. They stayed from March 2, until his death on March 5.

At Midday on March 1 there was no movement in Stalin’s quarters. The servants and other personnel were prevented from entering, although the staff was becoming worried. At 6: 30 AM a light came on, indicating Stalin was working, which allayed the concerns of the staff. Some accounts state that Stalin was found at 10: 30 PM lying on the floor next to his desk. However, there are discrepancies in accounts as to when and how Stalin was found.[411] Khrushchev stated that he suggested delaying calling doctors, claiming that Stalin might have merely had a hangover, although it is now known that he had not been drinking. Beria likewise was not in a hurry to call for medical help.[412] Medical assistance was not permitted for at least ten hours after Stalin was found lying on the floor, although the standing order to the Kremlin Guard was that ‘if any Kremlin official showed signs of illness, doctors were to be called immediately by the guards themselves’, and there had been no requirement to seek the approval of Khrushchev, Beria or anyone else.[413] Brent and Naumov comment:

According to V M Molotov, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Beria boasted to him on May 1 1953 of Stalin’s death: ‘I did him in. I saved you all!’[415]

While the complicity of Khrushchev and Beria in Stalin’s death seems undoubted, the question of a direct hand remains open. Was Stalin poisoned? Stalin suffered both a cerebral haemorrhage and stomach haemorrhaging. However references to stomach haemorrhaging were eliminated from the doctors’ report to the Central Committee. Brent and Naumov question whether this was a cover-up to prevent suggestions of poisoning.[416] They raise the possibility that warfarin, a tasteless and colourless blood thinner also used as rat poison, might have been slipped by Beria into Stalin’s drink. The right doses imbued over several days would cause cerebral and stomach haemorrhaging in someone already having acute hardening of the arteries, as Stalin did.[417]

All those associated with Stalin’s care were quickly discharged, and most were sent out of Moscow.[418]

Immediately after Stalin’s death, a meeting of the Presidium was held. Beria proposed Malenkov as President of the Council of Ministers, and Malenkov proposed Beria as Vice-President and Minister of Internal Affairs and State Security.

The first actions of the new regime included the arrest of N Proskrebychev, Stalin’s secretary, who was sent to the small village of his birth and kept under MGB (Ministry for State Security) surveillance and house arrest.[419] M D Ryumin, who had led the inquiry into Zhdanov’s death, was arrested and shot in 1954.

Brent and Naumov state that ‘within a week’ of Stalin’s funeral a review of the ‘Doctors’ Plot’ case was ordered, and all of the accused were released and exonerated. All those involved with the Jewish Antifascism Committee were also exonerated.[420]

Beria aimed to re-orientate the direction the USSR, which would have led to its implosion decades before that was achieved by Gorbachev.[421] Thaddeus Wittlin states that from 1951 Beria was advocating a return to the free market along the lines of Lenin’s New Economic Policy. He also opposed Stalin’s Russification policy that sought to create a unified Soviet culture among the disparate peoples of the USSR.[422] Beria’s foreign policy objectives were to move closer to the West and to restore relations with Tito’s Yugoslavia.[423] He also sought to detach East Germany from the Soviet bloc and inaugurate a free market economy there. Stalin’s suspicions of Beria were well justified.

Although Khrushchev became Party General Secretary, this was a position of lesser importance to that of Beria, who was the real power.

The Soviet bloc could clearly not survive Beria’s regime, and one might well ask whether he was an agent of those interests◦– both within and outside the Soviet bloc◦– that Stalin had fought since 1928? Certainly his policies suggest this. The Army moved and disarmed the NKVD troops in Moscow under Beria’s command. Pravda announced Beria’s arrest on July 10 1953, for ‘criminal activities against the Party and the State’. In December it was announced that Beria and six accomplices, ‘in the pay of foreign intelligence agencies [had been] conspiring for many years to seize power in the Soviet Union and restore capitalism’. Beria was tried by a special tribunal[424] and he and his subordinates were executed on December 23 1953.

Despite what appears to have been Khrushchev’s role in Stalin’s death, and his famous repudiation of Stalinism, under his leadership the Soviet bloc did not succumb by radically deviating from Stalin’s path in the way Beria sought. The Soviet bloc remained the main obstacle to American-plutocratic hegemony until succumbing to pressures from within and without. While we today live under a de facto one-world government, if it had not been for Stalin’s obstructionism we would likely have succumbed to a de jure one-world state over six decades previously.