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Stalin's death
A few months before Stalin's death, the entire security system that protected him was dismantled. Alexandr Proskrebychev, his personal secretary, who had assisted him since 1928 with remarkable efficiency, was fired and placed under house arrest. He had allegedly redirected secret documents. Lieutenant-Colonel Nikolay Vlasik, Chief of Stalin's personal security for the previous 25 years, was arrested on December 16, 1952 and died several weeks later in prison.
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P. Deriabin, Watchdogs of Terror: Russian Bodyguards from the Tsars to the Commissars (1984), p. 321; cited in Bland, op. cit. , p. 24.
Major-General Petr Kosynkin, Vice-Commander of the Kremlin Guard, responsible for Stalin's security, died of a `heart attack' on February 17, 1953. Deriabin wrote:
`(This) process of stripping Stalin of all his personal security (was) a studied and very ably handled business'.
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Deriabin, op. cit. , p. 209; cited in Bland, op. cit. , p. 27.
Only Beria was capable of preparing such a plot.
On March 1, at 23:00, Stalin's guards found him on the floor in his room, unconscious. They reached the members of the Politburo by telephone. Khrushchev claimed that he also arrived, and that each went back home.
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No-one called a doctor. Twelve hours after his attack, Stalin received first aid. He died on March 5. Lewis and Whitehead write:
`Some historians see evidence of premeditated murder. Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov sees the cause in Stalin's visible preparation of a purge to rival those of the thirties'.
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J. Lewis and P. Whitehead, Stalin: A Time for Judgment (London, 1990), p. 279; cited in Bland, op. cit. , p. 34.
Immediately after Stalin's death, a meeting of the presidium was convened. Beria proposed that Malenkov be President of the Council of Ministers and Malenkov proposed that Beria be named Vice-President and Minister of Internal Affairs and State Security.
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Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, op. cit. , p. 324.
During the following months, Beria dominated the political scene. `We were going through a very dangerous period', wrote Khrushchev.
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Ibid. , p. 331.
Once installed as head of Security, Beria had Proskrebychev, Stalin's secretary, arrested; then Ryumin, who had led the inquiry into Zhdanov's suspicious death. Ignatiev, Ryumin's boss, was denounced for his rôle in the same affair. On April 3, the doctors accused of having killed Zhdanov were liberated. The Zionist author Wittlin claimed that by rehabilitating the Jewish doctors, Beria wanted to `denigrate ... Stalin's aggressive foreign policy against the West, the United States and Great Britain primarily'.
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Still in April, Beria organized a counter-coup in his native region, Georgia. Once again he placed his men at the top of the Party and the State. Dekanozov, later shot along with Beria, became Minister of State Security, replacing Rukhadze, arrested as `enemy of the people'.
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Next: Khrushchev's intrigues against Up: Khrushchev's coup d'état Previous: Beria's intrigues
Fri Aug 25 09:03:42 PDT 1995