R

ecent years have seen the appearance in the West of a great many memoirs, reminiscences, and eyewitness reports written both by disillusioned Com munists who broke with the party and by non-Communists who spent some time in Communist-ruled countries and thus experienced events there, so to speak, "from the inside." In addition to these, an increasing number of memoirs have been published lately in the Communist countries themselves. While most of the latter are, understandably, so slanted as to be of little value as contemporary records, some reveal a personal touch that makes them both useful and interesting.

In particular, these writings afford us a picture, albeit an incomplete and fragmentary one, of moments and events of especially great importance in the history of the "socialist camp" and the world Communist movement. Here the author proposes to gather together excerpts from this store of personal recollections relating to one such historic event—the death of Stalin on March 5, 1953. This was an event of particular historical significance not only because Stalin for a quarter of a century had been the supreme ruler of Soviet Russia and acknowledged leader, arbiter, and

Mr. Leonhard is one of Germany's leading Sovietologists. His last work was Sowjetideologie Heute (Frankfurt, S. Fischer Verlag, 1962).

ideologist of the world Communist movement, but also because it occurred amidst a hectic internal campaign of vigilance that was obviously preparing for another big purge, and because it was to mark the beginning of a whole new phase in the development of world communism.

The manner in which Stalin's illness and death were announced to the public led to a multitude of rumors and conjectures which are mentioned by many eyewitnesses in their memoirs. First, on Wednesday, March 4, at 6:00 AM, Radio Moscow suddenly broke off its broadcast without signing off. Then, at 6:30 AM, there came an official announcement of Stalin's illness by the CPSU Central Committee and the Council of Ministers, followed by the first medical bulletin. According to these statements, Stalin had suffered a stroke affecting the vital centers of the brain on the night of March 1-more than 60 hours previously! He was said to have lost consciousness and the power of speech, his right arm and right leg were paralyzed, and his breathing and heart functioning were impaired. A further official statement said that "for the time being" Stalin would not engage in state and party activities. At 3:00 PM the same day, Radio Moscow again interrupted its broadcast without explanation, remaining off the air until 3:18, when it returned with classical music.

At 4:35 AM on Thursday, March 5, Radio Moscow broadcast a second medical bulletin stating that Stalin's condition had deteriorated further during the night. Pravda's leading editorial the same day was entitled "Unity of Party and People" and mentioned only one living Soviet leader by name Malenkov. The third medical bulletin, broadcast at 6:30 PM on March 5, revealed that Stalin was suffering from acute disturbances of the cardiovascular system and severe shortness of breath and that his condition was extremely serious.

On Friday morning, March 6, Radio Moscow began its broadcast with a funereal rolling of drums, followed by the Soviet national anthem. The announcer then read a lengthy official communiqué in the name of the party Central Committee, the Council of Ministers, and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, stating that Stalin had died on March 5, 1953, at 9:50 PM. The communiqué referred to Stalin as the "comrade-inarms and brilliant continuer of Lenin's cause" and as the "wise leader and teacher of the Communist Party and the Soviet people."

The Impact in Moscow

Among those who personally lived through this event in the Soviet Union and have recorded their recollections of it is the prominent Soviet writer, Ilya Ehrenburg. His account, contained in his autobiography,1 is of particular interest because it was written and published in the Soviet Union itself. Ehrenburg recalls the happenings of these days as they unfolded in Moscow:

At 9:50 P.M.-The medical findings spoke of leucocytes, collapse, fluttering arrhythmia. We had long since forgotten that Stalin was mortal. He had been transformed into an omnipotent and mysterious deity. And now the god had died of a hemorrhage. It seemed incredible. ...

A commemorative meeting of writers was held in the Theater of Cinema Actors on Vorovsky Street. They were all depressed, bewildered, spoke incoherently, as though, rather than experienced men of letters, they were mathematicians or ditchdiggers addressing a meeting for the first time. There were many speakers. I also spoke; I don't recall what I said, but most likely it was the same as the others.

Ilya Ehrenburg, People, Years, Life, Part VI, English translation in Current Digest of the Soviet Press (New York), Vol. XVII, No. 23, June 30, 1965, pp. 7-8, 9-10. The successive parts of Ehrenburg's memoirs have appeared in English as follows: People and Life, 1891-1921 (New York, Knopf, 1962); Memoirs, 1921-1941 (Cleveland, World Publishing Co., 1964); War, 1941-1945 (World Publishing Co., 1965); and Post-War Years, 1915-1954 (London, MacGibbon, 1966).

The next day they brought us to the Hall of Columns. I stood honor guard with the writers. Stalin lay embalmed and solemn, without any traces of what the doctors had mentioned, but rather with flowers and medals. People went by, many in tears, women lifted their children, funeral music blended with the sobbing.

I saw people weeping in the streets as well. From time to time cries were heard; people would burst into the Hall of Columns. There were stories of people being trampled on Trubnaya Square. Detachments of militia were brought in from Leningrad. I don't think history had ever witnessed such a funeral.

I was not sorry for the god who had died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 73 as if he had not been a god at all, just an ordinary mortal; but I was frightened: What was going to happen now? I feared the worst. . . .

During the night Stalin's name was inscribed on the Lenin Mausoleum. Malenkov, Beria and Molotov spoke at the funeral. The speeches resembled one another, but Malenkov recalled the need for viligance in a spirit of "irreconcilability and firmness in the struggle against internal and foreign enemies," and Beria, whose name frightened everyone, promised Soviet citizens to “guard their rights, recorded in the Stalin Constitution." The next day Moscow returned to normal life. I saw streetcleaners diligently sweeping Gorky Street, people on their way to work, boxes being unloaded in a courtyard, boys indulging in mischief. It was all familiar, I told myself—just like a week ago. Unlikely as it seemed, Stalin was dead but life went on.

In the afternoon I made my way to Red Square. It was heaped with wreaths. People stood trying to read the inscriptions on the ribbons, then silently left.

In the Vorkuta Camp

Understandably enough, the news of Stalin's death evoked quite different reactions among the inmates of Soviet forced labor camps, a number of whom have since published accounts of their experiences. One of these is Joseph Scholmer, a former German Communist who played an active part in the anti-Nazi resistance movement and subsequently held a high post in the East German Central Health Administration before being arrested by the Soviets in April 1949. A prisoner in the Vorkuta Camp at the time of Stalin's death, he writes of this event as follows:2

When Radio Moscow announced the historic stroke of apoplexy, a wave of hope surged through the camp: surely he wouldn't recover! The medical bulletins were couched in pessimistic terms, preparing for the end. Every spare minute the prisoners crowded around the loudspeaker. Thus passed four days of increasing tension. ...

"Tell me, Batya-you're a doctor—what does it mean that they're giving him oxygen? Will it make him well again?" [a fellow prisoner asked me.]

2 Joseph Scholmer, Die Toten kehren zurück, Köln, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1954, pp. 204-206. (Published in English as Vorkuta, New York, Holt, 1955.)

I replied, "If what the radio says is true, he'll die. Maybe he's dead already and they're not announcing it to the people until they have a new government.” When the report of his death finally came, bearded muzhiks with tears in their eyes knelt and prayed.

"I've been in the camp for nineteen years now," said a Georgian, "but never have I received such good news!" "God has saved the Jews," whispered a Polish Zionist who had escaped the Gestapo only to be sentenced [by the Russians] in 1940 to fifteen years' imprisonment. "If he hadn't died, there would have been pogroms again as at the time of the Black Hundred, or of Petlyura or Hitler."

The mourning of the new rulers for the dead dictator is a cold mourning. They know how unpopular Stalin was, and they are aware of the sighs of relief going up everywhere these days in the Soviet Union.

In the camp a Moscow journalist said: “At bottom they are happy the old man is dead. They worked with him, but he terrorized them, and they hated him. Each of them was threatened with the fate of Voznesenski, whom Stalin caused to disappear because he had acted too independently."

John Noble, an American citizen, was also a prisoner in the Vorkuta Camp at the time of Stalin's death. First arrested in Dresden in July 1945, he had already spent several years in jail in the Soviet zone of Germany before being shipped off to Vorkuta to serve a 15-year sentence at forced labor. He had already been there for several years when Stalin's death occurred. In a later-published book," he recalls how he and his fellow prisoners reacted to that event:

In the first days of March came the news we had waited so long to hear. Stalin had been stricken with an apoplectic fit. "May the devil take his soul today!" the prisoners prayed, on their knees. The morning of March 6, 1953, his death was announced over the loudspeaker in Mine 16.

I stood among a mixed crowd of soot-covered slave laborers, free workers and Red officials, and watched their expression. My fellow slaves lit up with hope. "He lived too long-the old dog!" one prisoner yelled. An old man got down on his knees in the water. "Thank God, someone still looks out for the wretched." The faces of the free people were immobile. No one uttered a word of praise for the dead dictator. The next day, the cautious administration had Stalin's portrait removed from the front of the coal locomotive and replaced it with Lenin's picture. "Who knows?" one of the department managers commented to me in the washroom. "In a few months' time maybe the old one will be called a traitor."

Stalin's death sent a wave of frenzied expectation throughout Vorkuta. "Maybe Uncle Zhorka (Malenkov, the new premier) will close all the slave camps and free us all?" Vaska asked me one day. "What do you think, Johnny?"

I wasn't quite that optimistic, but for the first time in its history, Vorkuta awaited each new day hopefully.

Another German prisoner at Vorkuta was Bernhard

Röder, who also has described in graphic terms how Stalin's death was received by both inmates and officials at the camp. He writes:

On this day work was at a standstill in Vorkuta. The prisoners stood around in groups and talked excitedly. We could see the free workers in the distant mining area scurrying from one office to another, and outside in the settlement women gathered together in small groups and then quickly dispersed again. We heard the sentries on the watchtowers speaking agitatedly to one another on the phone, and soon afterwards the first drunks began raising a row. By evening all Vorkuta was drunk: the prisoners, the free people, and the soldiers-but most of all the nachalstvo (officials).

"The Devil has taken their beloved leader and teacher. See how they loved him. They're all getting drunk with joy because the old man is finally dead.”

"Yes, thank God, the man with the moustache has gone to hell. Now everything will be fine again." "No, nothing will change. The dictator is dead, but the apparat remains. First there will be confusion; then a new man will appear and will get a firm grip on the apparat. Then everything will be just as it was before, if not worse."

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The inmates of Soviet labor camps were not the only ones who received the news of Stalin's death with feelings of joy and renewed hope; political prisoners in Rakosi's Hungary reacted in much the same way. Among them with Jozsef Kovago, a former leader of the Hungarian Smallholders' Party and Mayor of Budapest for several years after the end of the war, who had been imprisoned by the Communists in May 1950 and was still confined in a Budapest jail at the time of Stalin's death. In a book of memoirs published after he had regained his freedom, he recalls his thoughts on that historic occasion:5

On returning from our walk, one of the translators, Pal Ignotus, whispered into my ear at the door: "Stalin is dead."

I can hardly describe the happiness I felt when I heard this news. I was anxious to get back to the cell

3 John Noble, I Was a Slave in Russia, New York, The DevinAdair Co., 1968, pp. 140-41.

Bernhard Röder, Der Katorgan, Köln, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, pp. 183-85.

5 Jozsef Kovago, You Are All Alone, New York, Praeger, 1959, pp. 94-96.

and tell it to all my friends. So Stalin is dead, the bloody hangman! What would follow, no one could tell. There would be factional struggles for power, and the Western nations would want to take advantage of this. Nobody knew what approach they would use. They might try a series of political actions, perhaps even combined with military steps. One thing, however, was clear: the Western world would not pass up such an opportunity for action.

We all agreed that with the death of Stalin a new era in world history had begun.

I remember clearly my words that evening: "Please don't be impatient, for it may take quite a while, even years, before Communist tyranny comes to an end. Communism is a bankrupt system, and this is becoming obvious to the whole world. I have no doubt that sooner or later even the Soviet Union is bound to change."

We all believed this, but almost a year passed before we were able to detect any effect of this big change in the Communist world.

Meanwhile, however, the official obsequies held in Stalin's honor were marked by fulsome tributes to the memory of the dead dictator whose statue was to be demolished only a little more than three and a half years later in the Hungarian revolt of October 1956. Hungarian Communist writers Tamas Aczel and Tibor Meray, both Stalin Prize winners, who eventually joined the fight against Stalinism in Hungary and sought refuge abroad with the collapse of the 1956 revolt, have since given us an account of the Budapest ceremonies honoring Stalin's memory:"

In Budapest, in Stalin Square, at the foot of the gigantic statue of the dead premier, the Hungarian people gave expression to their grief. Tens of thousands of Hungarians had gathered here, and the speaker on this occasion was Ernö Gerö, Deputy Chairman of the Hungarian Council of Ministers. Gerö said, “You have come to the statue of the great immortal Stalin to pay tribute to the memory of the man who has done more than any other to free the peoples of the world and to lay the foundations for universal peace and human prog

The Hungarian Parliament also convened in Budapest [and] . . . unanimously adopted a resolution dedicated to the memory of the great leader. Introducing the resolution, Imre Nagy, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, declared: “My heart is heavy in coming to the speaker's stand and seeing our griefstricken people before me. . . To express their deep love for our great friend, liberator and teacher, the Hungarian people are rallying around the party, the government, and our beloved Comrade Rakosi; and all are dedicating their entire strength to carrying Stalin's great cause forward to victory in our country."

...

At a solemn meeting of the Hungarian Writers' Union, Union President Jozsef Darvas stated: "We Hungarian writers vow that we will be worthy of him, who has shown us the way to all knowledge." In the pages of the official literary monthly Irodalmi ujsag and the official party

daily Szabad nep appeared long columns of statements by poets and writers bidding farewell to the departed Stalin in words filled with emotion. Shortly afterwards a book bound in red leather was published in Budapest containing a collection of these and earlier writings glorifying Stalin. The contributions included poems and prose by Tibor Dery, Peter Veres, Gyula Illyes, Laszlo Benjamin, Zoltan Zelk, Gyula Hay, Tibor Tardos, Peter Kuczka, Lajos Konya, Gyorgy Hamos, and by Tamas Aczel and Tibor Meray, the authors of the present book.

In East Berlin

Among those who witnessed the impact of Stalin's death in Communist East Berlin was Fritz Schenk, then personal secretary to Deputy Premier and State Planning Commission Chairman Bruno Leuschner and himself a leading official of the East German planning apparatus. As such, he was in an excellent position to observe how the higher echelon of East German officialdom reacted to the news of Stalin's passing. In a book published after his later defection to West Germany, Schenk recalls that on the eve of Stalin's death the state apparatus was feverishly engaged in drawing up a new annual plan and at the same time preparing new regulations concerning secrecy and a campaign for increased vigilance which seemed to foreshadow an impending purge.

But then something happened which caused all this hectic activity to come to a standstill and brought all speculations to naught: on March 5, 1953, Stalin died. With one stroke the situation was changed. No one was interested any longer in special activities and campaigns; the machinery simply came to a halt. All of a sudden, the highest officials had time to sit quietly in their offices and cut black mourning bands out of carbon paper for their Red Corner. And then they went to funeral meetings and sat with serious expressions on their faces as if completely absorbed in thoughts of the "wise leader of all workers." But only the naive could have felt any trace of real emotion. All others were dominated by the question: What will happen now?

Another former East German party official, Herbert Prauss, has given us a description of the effect of Stalin's death on a different and younger group of people the students at the Institute of Social Sciences, which is actually East Germany's highest school for the ideological indoctrination of party members. Prauss had joined the Communist Party in 1945 at the age of 19 and, after first attending and later teaching at party schools, had been admitted to the Institute, where he engaged in advanced study while

"Tamas Aczel and Tibor Meray, Revolte des Intellekts, Munich, Albert Langenmuller, pp. 12-13. (Published in English as The Revolt of the Mind, New York, Praeger, 1959.)

Fritz Schenk, Im Vorzimmer der Diktatur (In the Anteroom of the Dictatorship), Köln, Kipenheuer & Witsch, 1962, pp. 181-82.

also serving as party secretary in the Department of Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism. Later becoming disenchanted, he escaped to the West and published a book recording his experiences. In it, he writes:

When Stalin fell seriously ill, many of the student candidates were filled with fearful concern for the Soviet leader's life. They besieged the radio stations to learn if there was still hope. When Stalin's death was announced, many had tears in their eyes. I saw many ordi

From "A Thousand and One Nights"

Heinz Brandt was a Communist from the time he joined the German Communist Youth League in 1929. Arrested by the Gestapo, he lived through eleven years in Nazi prisons and concentration camps-including Buchenwald and Auschwitz-and, after the war's end, threw himself with new hope and enthusiasm into party work in Communist East Germany, becoming a district party official in East Berlin. By the end of 1952, however, he had become thoroughly disillusioned and, as a Jew, was deeply alarmed by rumors of an impending purge of "comrades of Jewish origin." Living once again in fear of sudden arrest, he felt that he and his family must be prepared at any time to escape to West Berlin. It was just at this juncture that he received a telephone call from Hans Herzberg, head of the East German Communist news agency ADN, telling him of the Moscow announcement of Stalin's death. In a book just published in West Germany, where he eventually sought asylum, Brandt describes his feelings at that

moment:

*

In the Tales of a Thousand and One Nights, a messenger who brings tidings of great relief to the Sultan is rewarded with a gift of precious jewels. But I was no Sultan, and not for a moment could I let Hans suspect how much his tidings meant to me.

My first thought was: this time things have taken a different turn. This time it is not Stalin who has liquidated his Politburo, but the Politburo which has done away with him. Stalin is old, but this "illness," coming at this moment, immediately after the unleashing of the danger-fraught "Doctors' Plot" campaign, could hardly be just a natural happening. A. decades-old dream seems to have come true: palace revolution in the Kremlin!

*Heinz Brandt, Ein Traum, der nicht entführbar ist, Munich, List Verlag, 1967, pp. 192-93.

nary party members among the housekeeping personnel weeping, too. Embarrassed silence prevailed, as in a mortuary.

Lene Berg and the Party Secretary of the Institute, Walter Berthold, immediately ordered a prolonged wake. Two comrades at a time had to stand watch for fifteen minutes to the right and left of a bust of Stalin adorned with a funeral wreath, remaining motionless with their countenances fixed in an expression of grief. As party secretary of the Department of Basic Political Questions of Marxism-Leninism, I was given the doubtful honor of opening the wake along with Lene Berg.

After Stalin's death there were party members at the Institute who took the view that the very history of the party would now come to a standstill. In keeping with the unbounded cult of the individual which had been built up around Stalin, many comrades believed that his death represented an irreplaceable loss for international communism, and that inaction and stagnation would now set in. From the very start I took a stand against such views, arguing that the Politburo collectively had always held the leadership, and that this collective body could get over the loss of an individual, no matter how much of a genius he might have been. Even this Marxist interpretation, however, made me suspect, in the eyes of the more devout admirers of Stalin, and they accused me of lack of respect and heartlessness.

In Western Prisons

8

In the West, too, there were Communists who experienced a genuine sense of loss at the news of Stalin's death. One of them was Ralph Giordano, who had joined the Communist Party in West Germany in 1945, had worked as a journalist for West German Communist newspapers (then still legal), and had also written books reflecting his Communist leanings. After the party was outlawed in West Germany, Giordano was arrested and confined in Bergedorf Prison, where he kept a colored portrait of Stalin hidden under the mattress of his cell. Upon learning of Stalin's death, he recalls in a book published after his break with communism," he took the picture out from its hiding place and hung it on the side of his locker, "sat down before it and left off doing anything." Transferred the next day to a disciplinary cell, he took the picture with him but, instead of keeping it hidden, "hung it on a hook under the window for everyone entering to see."

Another who received the news of Stalin's death while in prison was the American Communist John Gates, who was later to turn away from the party. A Communist from 1931, he had fought in the Spanish

8 Herbert Prauss, Doch es war nicht die Wahrheit (And Yet

It Was Not the Truth), Berlin, Morus-Verlag, 1960, pp. 91-93. 9 Ralph Giordano, Die Partei hat immer recht (The Party Is Always Right), Köln-Berlin, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1961, pp. 71-73.