Stalin dies at Kuntsevo

March 5, 1953

After a dinner with Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev, and Bulganin, the seventy-three-year-old Soviet dictator suffered a stroke on the floor of his dacha. His terrified inner circle did not dare call a doctor for hours. He died four days later. In the Gulag archipelago prisoners began to hope. The thaw began immediately.