It is not known exactly how many people came to say goodbye to Stalin on March 9, 1953. Tens or even hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens flocked to the Column Hall of the House of the Unions, where his body was exhibited for farewell. Their faces expressed real grief. Many came and went in tears.
Documentary footage of the funeral of Joseph Vissarionovich was shown on television. The event received wide coverage. The only thing that was hushed up then was the terrible crush around the House of the Union, due to which from several hundred to 2-3 thousand people died (different sources mention different numbers).
How it was
The fact that Stalin's funeral caused many deaths, the official authorities preferred to keep silent. The exact number of those killed in the crowd of farewells is classified. Witnesses to the events told terrible things. Literary critic Elena Pasternak later recalled that there was a real pandemonium on Trubnaya Street in Moscow.
Muscovites living in neighboring houses were blocked in their apartments, because a dense endless column of people was moving along the roadway. The crush was terrible. The inhabitants of the lower floors heard not only the screams of the crushed, but also some kind of grinding, crunching of bones, from which the hair stood on end. When the crowd began to thin out, heaps of clothes, someone's galoshes and, worst of all, pieces of people began to be taken out of the thick on wheelbarrows. The janitors worked all night long.
Another Muscovite, political scientist Yuri Bartko personally took part in cordoning off Trubnaya. Subsequently, he told what happened there and how security was ensured during those days. On March 6, his relative Anatoly was killed in a stampede. A strong 30-year-old man was pressed so hard by his chest to the bars of a cast-iron grate that his bones could not stand it. The ribcage was literally crumbled.
The family learned about his death on March 7. When they came to the morgue for the body, several dozen people were already waiting at the doors of this institution. In order not to advertise the death toll, the authorities ordered the morgues to issue fake certificates, which indicated the fake reasons for the death.
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Security measures
The authorities were not ready for such a tragic turn of events. Security measures were provided. And yet the crowd of people wishing to say goodbye to the leader turned out to be many times larger than one might have expected. The situation is out of control. Since the morning of March 6, military formations have settled in Moscow. Parts of the soldiers were thrown there, but this was done in secret. As the Muscovites living in these areas were explained, "the military solved their problems."
By the end of the day, in the area of Trubnaya Square and some other streets, a ring began to be created, which was supposed to stop the flow of farewells and stop the murderous crush. The soldiers stood in dense rows. The front ranks experienced the main pressure, so the servicemen in them were constantly changed.
The funeral
Farewell to Stalin lasted from 4 pm on March 6 until his funeral on March 9. All these days, the deceased lay in a coffin in his favorite grayish-green uniform. Above him burned chandeliers covered with mourning crepe. Citizens passed by the coffin in a continuous river, shedding tears. On the morning of March 9, about 2 tens of thousands of people in the mourning procession were lined up on Red Square. All Moscow was buried in flowers.
In such a situation, Stalin's coffin was brought into the Mausoleum. After the mourning meeting at 12:00, an artillery fireworks thundered over the Kremlin. Then 5 minutes of silence were announced. In front of the Mausoleum, military detachments passed, and Soviet planes flew in rows in the sky. So the country said goodbye to its leader. On the first day of this farewell alone, about 400 people were crushed.