How Did Stalin Die?

Joseph Stalin was perhaps the most influential leader in the history of the Soviet Union (USSR). Under his rule, the country progressed from near infancy to a nuclear power. However, Stalin’s reign also saw countless atrocities and tens of millions of deaths. Due to all these factors, his death in 1953 had enormous and complicated implications. Indeed, it signalled an inflection point where the Soviets came to terms with Stalin’s legacy while charting a new path forward.

Context

World War II decimated the Soviet Union. Between 26 and 27 million people across the Soviet Union died during World War II, making it the country with the highest total casualties. These losses included ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Central Asians, Jews, and other nationalities within the USSR. Soviet infrastructure was also destroyed, necessitating a lengthy rebuilding process. Stalin was especially concerned about the possibility of Germany becoming a threat again, so he pushed for rapid reconstruction to restore Soviet strength. To do this, he restarted the Five-Year Plans—government programs focused on industrial growth, agricultural collectivization, and military expansion—that had been paused during the war. While many Soviets appreciated how the Five-Year Plans had helped modernise the country, they were also disappointed, as they had hoped that the end of the war would bring more personal freedom.

Many Soviet citizens had been displaced during the war and were reluctant to return home. As a result, thousands were forcibly repatriated, often through violent means. Combined with widespread destruction and strict government policies, post-war Soviet life was harsh, with some recent scholarship suggesting that conditions may have been even more oppressive than in the 1930s, when Stalin’s policies included forced collectivization, political purges, and widespread famine. Post-war Soviet life was extremely harsh, with some recent scholarship suggesting it may have been even more oppressive than that of the earlier decade.

High Stalinism

This post-war period, known as" High Stalinism", was also characterised by Stalin growing increasingly out of touch with reality. Before the war, Stalin was cynical about his cult of personality. Still, by the late 1940s and early 1950s, Stalin had come to believe the exaggerated praise of the Soviet propaganda machine, fully embracing his own cult of personality. His growing paranoia led him to shut down most Politburo meetings—the Politburo being the Communist Party’s top decision-making body—because he no longer trusted the opinions of his advisors. This was significant because the Politburo had traditionally provided some collective oversight of Soviet governance. With it sidelined, major policy decisions were made almost entirely by Stalin himself, concentrating power in his hands and leading to increasingly arbitrary and unpredictable rule.

This paranoia was further exemplified by the "Doctor's Plot". According to Stalin, some Soviet citizens were not sufficiently loyal to the Soviet Union. This applied particularly to Soviet Jews who, per Stalin, had competing nationalist loyalties between the USSR and the newly created state of Israel. This resulted in a wave of antisemitic propaganda, which reached its peak in January 1953 when Pravda, the official newspaper of the Soviet Union, announced that nine doctors, six of whom were Jewish, had assassinated key Soviet leaders. This propaganda led to fears that Stalin was planning a genocide of Soviet-Jews, less than a decade after the Holocaust, with some suggesting that Stalin intended a mass deportation of Jews to the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Far East, a remote, underdeveloped region along the border with China that the Soviet government had designated in the 1930s as a "homeland" for Jews within the USSR. However, the full extent of his plans never came to fruition

The Death of Stalin

On March 1, 1953, Stalin failed to get out of bed at his usual time. Fearful of disturbing him, his aides waited the entire day before finally checking on him around 11:00 p.m. They discovered Stalin lying on the floor, having lost control of his bladder and unable to move. Doctors later determined he had suffered a massive stroke. Over the next three days, his condition fluctuated until he passed away at 9:50 p.m. on March 5. Although his death created an opportunity for rivals like Lavrentiy Beria and Nikita Khrushchev to compete for power, there is no conclusive evidence of foul play. Some historians, however, have speculated that Beria and other officials may have intentionally delayed medical treatment to ensure Stalin’s death, though this remains debated.

Despite the reckoning with Stalin's legacy that occurred soon after his death, the immediate aftermath saw a genuine outpouring of grief. While he was responsible for seemingly countless atrocities, including a manmade famine from 1932 to 1933 that casued in the deaths of millions, particularly in Ukraine and Central Europe, and purges from 1936 to 1938 that also saw millions either executed or arrested, Stalin's modernisation of the country via the aformentionned Five-Year-Plans and his leadership during World War II made him well-liked amongst the populace. He had also led the country for over twenty years, meaning many could not imagine a Soviet Union without Stalin. Thus, his death resulted in a period of grieving across the entire Soviet Union and its satellite states. This popularity was further exemplified during his funeral. Millions travelled across the Soviet Union to attend the event. Furthermore, at least 109 people were trampled to death during the funeral due to the sheer size of the crowd. In short, Stalin's death was a landmark event in Soviet history due to his outsized impact on the country.

The Power Struggle

Stalin’s death in 1953 created deep uncertainty about the future of the Soviet Union. Nearly every major decision had gone through him for decades, and some feared the USSR might not survive without his iron grip. However, a system of collective leadership quickly emerged, led by Nikita Khrushchev, Lavrentiy Beria (the powerful former head of the Soviet secret police, notorious for his abuses of power and sexual violence), and Georgy Malenkov. Initially, Malenkov and Beria formed an alliance, forcing Khrushchev to break their partnership to become the undisputed leader. On June 26, 1953, Beria was summoned to a secret Politburo meeting where he was denounced, arrested on charges of treason, and later executed. With Beria removed, Khrushchev consolidated support among key party members and gradually emerged as the primary leader of the Soviet Union by 1955.

Khrushchev’s rise marked the beginning of a significant shift in how Stalin’s rule was remembered and evaluated. The infamous 'Doctor’s Plot' was quickly exposed as a fabrication. In 1956, Khrushchev delivered his famous 'Secret Speech' at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party, openly condemning Stalin’s cult of personality and the Great Purge of the 1930s. The Great Purge had resulted in the imprisonment or execution of millions across all sectors of Soviet society, serving both to feed Stalin’s paranoia and to solidify his absolute control over the state.

Khrushchev also introduced a new foreign policy direction, advocating for 'peaceful coexistence' with the West rather than Stalin’s more militaristic 'Socialism in One Country' approach, which had emphasized constant preparation for conflict with the capitalist world. These political and ideological changes led many in the Soviet Union to view Stalin more critically, though this reassessment was uneven and often controversial.

Even today, Stalin’s legacy in Russia remains deeply complex. While his role in mass repression and terror is widely acknowledged, many continue to credit him with leading the USSR to victory in World War II, modernizing the country, and transforming it into a global superpower. A 2019 poll, for instance, found that roughly 70 percent of Russians hold a favorable view of Stalin, underscoring the enduring ambivalence surrounding his memory.