On February 28, in the evening, in Kuntsevo, at Stalin's Near Dacha, there was, as usual, a dinner for some of the leaders. We parted at about five in the morning. Stalin was in a good mood, he saw off the guests and went to bed.
Last night supper
He usually woke up at 11 o'clock in the morning and called for breakfast. It was not allowed to enter his rooms without a call. However, on the afternoon of March 1, the room where Stalin slept was quiet. Oddly enough, the disruption to the normal routine did not cause concern among the staff. Only at 23 o'clock did they venture to enter him. Stalin was lying on the floor in the library. He was unconscious, the right side of his body was paralyzed. Apparently, he was in this state for at least twenty hours.
We need doctors
The guards put Stalin on the sofa. There was no doctor in Kuntsevo. We called the Minister of State Security S. D. Ignatiev. He ordered to call Beria or Malenkov. At two o'clock in the morning, both together with Khrushchev arrived at the dacha. Beria, apparently, realized that Stalin's position was hopeless. However, he told the guards that Stalin was asleep, and all three left. In the morning they called again from Kuntsevo and reported that Stalin was still in the same position, and asked to call doctors. Doctors appeared at the patient only in the evening of March 2.
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Who will lead the country?
This strange behavior of the bosses is understandable. It was necessary to urgently resolve the issue of power. After the 19th Party Congress and the adoption of the new Charter, the Presidium of the Central Committee of 25 members and 11 candidates became the supreme body of the CPSU between the Plenums. Stalin himself formed such a large, supreme party board. It was not suitable for operational work. Therefore, a Bureau of the Presidium of nine people appeared; the bureau was not provided for in the charter.
It was necessary to urgently decide who would become the head of the party and who would lead the government. There were two political forces - Malenkov and Beria, who wanted to concentrate power in the hands of the Council of Ministers, and Khrushchev and Bulganin. The army was behind the latter. Bulganin ordered to send military units to Moscow.
All night and day on March 2, new authorities were coordinated. The Presidium of the Central Committee was reduced to 11 people, the Bureau was liquidated. Malenkov was supposed to be appointed prime minister. A new Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD + MGB) was created, headed by Beria. Khrushchev was assigned to deal with the affairs of the party.
On the same day, the truncated Presidium of the Central Committee met in the Kremlin under the leadership of Beria. It included Voroshilov, Molotov, Mikoyan and Shvernik, as well as the chairman of the Party Control Committee Shkiryatov. The meeting lasted 20 minutes. In the evening of the same day, the meeting was repeated. It was decided to convene the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU on March 5.
Meeting on March 5
Two days later, such a meeting was held in a slightly different composition. The Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet were added to the Central Committee. This time the conversation took only 40 minutes. Konstantin Simonov, then a member of the Central Committee, wrote about this: “Malenkov and Beria spoke energetically. What is in their heads, in their behavior, did not correspond to the preambles and mournful endings associated with Stalin's illness. They seemed to have freed themselves from something."
An hour after this meeting, Stalin died. His era is over. And since a plan for a new great terror has already matured in the generalissimo's head, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people survived or retained their freedom. However, the dead Stalin also managed to prove himself again. At his funeral on March 9 in Moscow, especially on Trubnaya Square, many people died in a stampede.
Necessary addition
In addition to the case of "killer doctors", at the beginning of 1953 the so-called "Georgian case" was also being worked out. And Stalin constantly pressed on the Minister of State Security Ignatiev to collect material on Beria. Lavrenty Pavlovich knew about this. He was constantly invited to Kuntsevo for night feasts, which is suggestive.
Documents about Stalin's last illness and death were largely destroyed. But there are memories of third parties that the doctors were shocked when they saw a patient for the first time on the evening of March 2. They allegedly discovered the poisoning.
Beria himself later said to his comrades-in-arms more than once: "I saved you all!" Perhaps this is just a legend, or maybe not …
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №7, Vasily Mitsurov, candidate of historical sciences