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Soviet Union [USSR] Death of Stalin
In the early 1950s, Stalin, now an old man, apparently
permitted his subordinates in the Politburo (enlarged and called
the Presidium by the Nineteenth Party Congress in October 1952)
greater powers of action within their spheres. (Also at the
Nineteenth Party Congress, the name of the party was changed from
the All-Union Communist Party [Bolshevik] to the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union.) Indicative of the Soviet leader's waning
strength, Secretary Georgii M. Malenkov delivered the political
report to the Nineteenth Party Congress in place of Stalin
(see Soviet Union USSR - Party Congress
, ch. 7). Although the general secretary took a
smaller part in the day-to-day administration of party affairs, he
maintained his animosity toward potential enemies. In January 1953,
the party newspaper announced that a group of predominantly Jewish
doctors had murdered high Soviet officials, including Zhdanov.
Western historians speculate that the disclosure of this "doctors'
plot" may have been a prelude to an intended purge directed against
Malenkov, Molotov, and secret police chief Lavrenty Beria. In any
case, when Stalin died on March 5, 1953 (under circumstances that
are still unclear), his inner circle, which had feared him for
years, secretly rejoiced.
During his quarter-century of dictatorial control, Stalin had
overseen impressive development in the Soviet Union. From a
comparatively backward agricultural society, the country had been
transformed into a powerful industrial state. But in the course of
that transformation, millions of people had been killed, and
Stalin's use of repressive controls had become an integral function
of his regime. How Stalin's system would be maintained or altered
would be a question of vital concern to Soviet leaders for years
after him.
Data as of May 1989
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