His daughter, Svetlana, was by his side at the end, “when he suddenly lifted his left hand as though he were pointing to something above and bringing down a curse on us all.” She recalled that the years leading up to her father’s death were difficult—and not just for her: “The whole country was gasping for air. It was unbearable for everybody.”41 Although it is generally accepted that the country was torn by grief over Stalin’s death, the picture that has come down to us is multidimensional.
In the camps of the Gulag, the response was mixed. Some women “diligently wailed for the deceased,” some men wanted to donate money for a wreath, and still others heard the news “in tomb-like silence.” Prisoners and guards were confused, and no one knew what to expect.42
Officials at the American embassy in Moscow watched events closely and kept Washington informed up to the minute. Jacob Beam, who was monitoring the situation, noted that it was only on March 4 at two A.M. that the first official medical bulletin was issued. In the morning, citizens went their usual way, though longer lines than usual queued at newspaper stands.43 The death was announced only on March 6, and while Beam observed “some” weeping, it seemed to him that people were “subdued” and that fewer than might be expected gathered in Red Square: “The general impression in Moscow at this point is a surprising lack of response to this morning’s news of Stalin’s death and contrasts with American and British reactions to the deaths of President Roosevelt and King George.”44 Two days later Beam reported that there was a long line to see the coffin in the Hall of Columns, with “little evidence of extreme grief.” Moreover, “one American who was [in Moscow] at the time of President Roosevelt’s death” was of the opinion that there had been more “active grief” in the Soviet capital on that occasion.45
What impressed Harrison Salisbury of The New York Times was the emotional restraint of the people’s reactions. When the authorities opened the doors for viewing the body early on March 6, he wrote, tens of thousands moved forward to see it almost as if they were stunned or in shock. Determined to control any signs of “disorders or panic,” the government sealed off the inner city with lines of trucks and tanks and thus slowed the endless stream heading toward the center.46
Nevertheless, people from all walks of life flooded downtown Moscow, filling the streets up to a hundred miles away as they made their way on foot to catch a glimpse of the fallen Master. Some traveled by train from far away, and as the masses converged, a mortal crush resulted in hundreds of deaths in Moscow and in Stalin’s own Georgia. These fatalities went unreported in the press, perhaps because the regime did not want to reveal such evident chaos.47
According to most memoirs from those times, there was widespread emotional turmoil—more than one person described it as the death of God. No doubt motives for such responses were mixed, for when Evgenia Semyonovna Ginzburg heard the reports, she collapsed into sobbing, “not for the monumental historical tragedy alone, but most of all for myself. What this man had done to me, to my spirit, to my children, to my mother.”48 Lev Kopelev and his wife, Raisa Orlova, in spite of being persecuted for their beliefs and in camps at the time, were nonetheless grief-stricken when they heard the news.49
The public demonstrations of sorrow, whatever else they were, constituted ritualized political acts. They were expected, in a sense commanded, which of course does not mean that there was no sincere sorrow.50 Funeral meetings were held at every factory and collective farm in the country, and there were deep outpourings of emotion. Some villages left nothing to chance, and in some places local authorities gathered everyone and ordered firmly: “Our dear beloved leader has died, you should all cry.” When they went home and behind closed doors, it was a different matter: “Praise to God! Satan has croaked!”51 Evidence from isolated cases prosecuted at the time indicates that a minority of the population cheered Stalin’s death, cursed him, burned his pictures, and tore down his statues. Many were denounced for “anti-Soviet agitation” and some of the offenders were prosecuted and given stiff sentences.52
It happened that at this very time Alexander Solzhenitsyn finished his term as a political prisoner in the Gulag. On March 2, although technically “free,” he found himself under armed escort to Kazakhstan and more than 1,300 miles southeast of Moscow. He had served his time for an errant remark and mild political criticism. Now he was told that he would have to live in “perpetual exile” and never be allowed back into Russia. The penalty for leaving his place of exile would be severe: twenty years imprisonment and hard labor. By March 3, Solzhenitsyn reached the small Kazakh town of Kok-Terek. Compared to the north that he had left behind, it was warm, and he was grateful to be allowed to sleep outside a jail in a haystack. Three days later the news of Stalin’s passing was broadcast on the radio.
The Russian schoolteachers and other women sobbed uncontrollably and cried: “What is to become of us now?” Solzhenitsyn wanted to yelclass="underline" “Nothing will become of you now! Your fathers will not be shot! Your husbands-to-be will not be jailed! And you will never be stigmatized as relatives of prisoners!” He wanted to dance a jig but dared not.53
What changes were to be expected now that Stalin was gone? According to Charles Bohlen, the soon-to-be U.S. ambassador to the USSR, the mystique of the man’s name, his association with Lenin, and his connection to the original Russian Revolution had helped to impose Soviet rule in Eastern Europe and to a lesser extent in China. Within a week of Stalin’s death, Bohlen thought it fruitful to open dialogue with Mao Zedong in an effort to end the Korean War, because while Mao “might have been willing to play the part of the younger brother to Stalin,” he was unlikely to do so with those now in the Kremlin.54
It took until July for the endless negotiations in Korea to yield a cease-fire agreement. More than half a century later, the border between North and South remains as hot as Stalin left it.
Across Eastern Europe, reactions to the Leader’s death were varied. In Bulgaria, playwright Georgi Markov recalled, “It had been drilled into us for years on end from all sides that Stalin was the wisest, the most courageous, the greatest man on earth.” Eventually, “we, like the propaganda, had accepted unquestionably that he could not fall ill, let alone die.” One of Markov’s workmates in the carpentry shop said: “Stalin cannot die, do you understand! Even if he dies, we will resuscitate him, and though he is seventy-three now, he can start over, perhaps at thirty, what do you say!”55