Death of Joseph Stalin
“He [Stalin] was the brutal and vengeful dictator of the Soviet Union from the late 1920s until 1953, when, mercifully, he died before he could do any more damage.”
-Norman M. Naimark, American historian
On March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin died, leaving many devastated.
"...the power of the cult of Stalin is evident in the reaction to his death in the USSR." -David McGill, historian "Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to see Stalin's body as if they had never gone through the many years of terror." -Kelley Hassan, history major at Lourdes College "When Stalin died, there was a meeting, speeches were made, and we cried. Really, we were crying. Can you imagine? When we left the meeting, I said to my friend, 'Why are we weeping?'" -Olga Infland, exile prisoner "The immortal name of Stalin will live forever in the hearts of the Soviet people and all progressive mankind. Long live the great and all-conquering teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin!" Click below to navigate through gallery images.
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"Stalin created a cult of personality that made him the Soviet Union's deity. When he died, the world was shocked, and the Soviet people were inconsolable." -Scott Simon, National Public Radio host "Dear comrades and friends: The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet announce with profound sorrow to the party and all workers of the Soviet Union that on the 5th of March, at 2150 hours (9:50 P.M., Moscow time, or 1:50 P.M., Eastern Standard Time), after a grave illness, the Chairman of the U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers and the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist party of the Soviet Union, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, died. |
"Stalin had such a grip over his country that even after his death many feared they would still somehow be punished. They feared that somehow Stalin could reach beyond the grave and still destroy them. Overcoming a fear that people had lived with for a lifetime would take many changes and many years."
-Kelley Hassan, history major at Lourdes College