“Maybe it will be good?” – Weekend – Kommersant
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70 years ago, on March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin died. The attitude to this event was ambiguous: someone mourned, someone rejoiced, someone gloated, someone was afraid that it would be worse, someone immediately realized that it had become much better. We collected the most revealing thoughts and memories of this day.
1
I have spoken extensively on various BBC services; in particular, I was asked to speak on the occasion of Stalin’s death. I gladly responded to this proposal, because I considered Stalin the most terrible villain, the main culprit of poverty and the initiator of terror in Russia, which now threatened the world with all this. I branded the tyrant in my speech and congratulated everyone on his departure from the stage. I spoke, forgetting all discretion, all propriety. This show never aired.
Bertrand Russell, autobiography
2
Why is everyone in awe of this man, even here in free countries? Why such horrendous hypocrisy, lies, hypocrisy? Why these conciliar prayers: Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, Mohammedans, Buddhists (!?) and even Jews, so persecuted by him?!? Prayers for the greatest villain mankind has ever known. What a terrible sign of the general fall, cowardice, decay of spiritual values.
Arthur Lurie, diary
3
In early March 1953, newspapers and radio reported that Stalin was seriously ill. I remember Sapgir came to us, and we raised a toast to Stalin’s death. A day later, when I was on duty, I heard on the radio about his death.
Oscar Rabin, memoirs
4
Do I remember March 5, 1953? Still – this is not forgotten: one of the happiest days in my life. Immediately after the announcement of the mourning message on the radio, my dad, who never used commanding intonations, said to me unexpectedly firmly: “So, you will stay at home. If they see your shining face, they will beat you. And that’s even better.”
Vadim Gaevsky, memories
5
I remember we came to school, the weather was quite cold. We were told that the lessons were canceled, and my friend Lenya started crying. And I thought, why was he crying? On the contrary, it’s good – there will be no lessons.
Viktor Golyshev, memories
6
As for me, then (then – to shame, now – to pride) I did not cry, although I was on my knees and sniffed like everyone else. Most likely because, shortly before that, I discovered in a German textbook, taken from a friend, that “leader” in German is “Fuhrer”. The text was called: “Unser Fuehrer Stalin”. I could not mourn the Fuhrer.
Joseph Brodsky, interview
7
I did not feel sorry for the god who died of a stroke at the age of seventy-three, as if he were not a god, but an ordinary mortal; but I was afraid: what will happen now? .. I was afraid of the worst.
Ilya Ehrenburg, memoirs
8
Stalin died. There was darkness over the people and, for some reason, the sun. At the mourning meeting at the Academy, many cried. Vyrzhik cried: “What will happen to us now?” Maltsev and I, of course, did not cry. Nervousness and panic.
Ilya Glazunov, diary, March 6, 1953
9
Stalin had not yet been buried, but the ministers had already moved to their places, and Zhukov appeared. And maybe it will be good?
Mikhail Prishvin, diary, March 8, 1953
10
It was terrible – Stalin’s funeral. When people suddenly began to feel that they were walking on living human bodies, they began to transform. And someone was squeezing their legs, someone was not squeezing … And when I came home – I never got into the Hall of Columns, where the coffin with Stalin stood – my mother asked: “Did you see Stalin?” I said, “Yes, I saw him.” Because what I saw was Stalin.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko, interview
eleven
I was then in my second year at the studio of the Moscow Art Theater. Shortly after reports of Stalin’s death, students were gathered in the auditorium of the theater, artists were performing, and I remember how Mikhail Nikolaevich Kedrov – at that time the artistic director of the Moscow Art Theater – sobbed and could not complete his speech, only pointed to the box in which to performances sat Stalin.
Oleg Basilashvili, memories
12
In the morning, my mother – all in tears – put me on the windowsill under the open window – to listen to the farewell beeps of factories and factories. Five minutes of silence … And then I was impatient: “I want to go to the restroom!” – “Shut up, be patient!” Mom said. But I endured another five minutes of silence, when we stood and were silent to the mourning music from the loudspeaker – I endured it for a long time and did not say anything, but then … I really didn’t want to upset the crying mother, but I still said that more I can not. “Okay, get down.” I got down, and my mother continued to stand at the open window – at attention.
Viktor Koval, memories
13
The only one I hated!!
Did you count the sins? Suffocated in God’s hour?
Stubborn demon! What do you feel when you leave
From the ribs where he held on clinging
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Fifth of March
14
News from Russia: Stalin is dead. And I still can’t control myself.
Noel Coward, diary, March 9, 1953
15
Since 1946, all the so-called experts have done nothing but rant about what will happen when Stalin dies, and what we as a nation will have to do about it. You can turn all the document storages upside down and make sure we don’t have a plan.
Dwight Eisenhower, speech to the US Cabinet, March 6, 1953
16
It was an amazing event. Everyone understood that something would soon change, but no one knew in what direction. They feared the worst (though what could be worse?). But people, many among them, who had no illusions about Stalin and the system, were afraid of a general collapse, civil strife, a new wave of mass repressions, even a civil war.
Andrei Sakharov, memories
17
The very next day after Stalin’s death, the system began to stagger. While one ministry was looking into measures to increase potato production as shortages were reported, another ministry, alerted to oversupply of potatoes, was considering expanding the production of potato-derived products.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “22,400,000 square kilometers without a single Coca-Cola advertisement”
18
The dark sides of the period of the personality cult, which I did not know about for many years, could not oust from my memory the image of Stalin that had formed in me from the very beginning – the image of a man strict to himself, like an anchorite, a titanic defender of the Russian revolution. But I wrote only one poem dedicated to Stalin – this strong personality. On the occasion of his death. And my poem reflected the universal panic of those days.
Pablo Neruda, memories
19
Somewhere out there, in Moscow, which is already unreal for us, the bloody Idol of the century breathed its last – and this was the greatest event for millions of its victims who had not yet been tortured, for their loved ones and relatives, and for every single little life.
Evgenia Ginzburg, Steep Route
20
On the fifth evening, a soldier from the guards brought Kostya Shulga a bottle of vodka for ten cans of stew and another hundred rubles. Kostya and I went behind the unfinished bathhouse, poured vodka into prepared jars, and I said:
– Drink, Kostya! This is our freedom!
I was released only after more than two years. Kostya even longer. But all the same – and these two years I lived with a new sense of freedom. Stalin is over.
Lev Razgon, “Captivity in his own country”
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