No tyrant of history, neither khan nor caesar nor czar, amassed power so vast or so absolute. Greater than Peter the Great, he extended Russia's empire over a fourth of the globe and its shadow over the rest. More terrible than Ivan the Terrible, he enslaved millions in the name of freedom and sent millions to death in the name of improvement of the state. No corner of the world was safe from his ambition or secure from his intrigue. His word was gospel, his will law. He repealed truth and denied God. For millions, he was the infallible all, Uncle, Big Brother, Great Father, Leader, Teacher and—as a Soviet poet said of him—"Chief of all the people, Who callest men to life, Who wakest the earth."
But he was just another human animal. Some time before 10 o'clock last Thursday night, March 5, Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili, alias Koba (The Indomitable), alias Stalin (The Man of Steel), died.
A Huge Secret. He died as he had lived, shrouded in dark and oriental mystery. For one of history's momentous events, the outside world had only the carefully stage-managed story told by the handful of men at Stalin's elbow. It was, nonetheless, very thorough :
Late Sunday night, in his austere, book-lined apartment deep within the Kremlin, the Premier of Russia was struck unconscious; an artery burst, a massive hemorrhage spread through the left side of his brain. His right arm and leg were paralyzed, his speech gone. The elite of Soviet medicine—the Minister of Health and nine other doctors—assembled around the sickbed, their every gesture watched their every muttered consultation monitored. For some 48 hours, only Joseph Stalin's intimates and his doctors knew the huge secret.
Not until 8 o'clock Wednesday morning (shortly after midnight in New York) did the news burst upon the world. Radio Moscow sounded the Kremlin chimes set the stage with an interlude of somber music, and then a voice spoke slow, methodical Russian:
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R. announce the great misfortune which has befallen our party and our people—the grave illness of Comrade J. V. Stalin. During the night of March 1 to 2, Comrade Stalin . . . had a hemorrhage . . . which affected vital parts of his brain. . . The Central Committee and the Council of Ministers express confidence that our party and the whole Soviet people will . . . display the greatest unity and cohesion, staunchness of spirit and vigilance . . .
There followed a second message, clinical and precise, from Joseph Stalin's ten physicians:
March 2 and 3, necessary measures for treatment were taken, directed toward improvement of the disturbed functions of breathing and circulation of the blood . . . At 2 a.m., March 4, the state of health of J. V. Stalin continued to remain serious . . . Breathing . . . 36 per minute . . . Pulse . . . 120 and completely irregular . . .