Where is Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich buried? How Stalin was buried. The main Soviet funeral of the twentieth century What happened at Stalin's funeral
The crush at Stalin's funeral still raises many questions, how many were killed, and why did this happen? Was it possible to avoid the tragedy, or was it intended? Lovers of mysticism say that Stalin could not leave without collecting another "harvest".On March 6, 1953, in the morning it was announced on the radio that the leader of the world proletariat had died. For many, it was a shock. To some, Stalin seemed a terrible demon, to others he was a deity, but his death was a shock for both. People could not believe that he was no longer there.
In the USSR, mourning and farewell to the leader were declared. Factories, factories, all departments and shops, everything was closed due to mourning.
Entry to Moscow was banned, but people walked on foot in order to see Stalin with at least one eye. Someone wanted to make sure that the "mustachioed shoe polish" had passed away, someone sincerely grieved, and someone just walked, because everyone was walking.
Stalin's funeral: how many people died in a stampede?
Stalin's body was exhibited for parting in the Column Hall of the House of Unions on Pushkinskaya. All police squads, cadets and military units were urgently raised, but the organizers did not expect that there would be so many people wishing to say goodbye to the leader.A dense ring of cadets and trucks was organized around Trubnaya Square, and this cordon was supposed to streamline and direct the flow of people in the right direction.
But the crowd is scary. The distraught people pushed and crushed each other, climbed over their heads, losing shoes and clothes along the way. The cadets pulled out the suffocating people right from the sides of the trucks, trying to save them. Having rested, some again rushed into the crowd to reach the House of Unions.
Thousands of people were looking for an exit to the blocked area, streams of people crossed, changed direction, fear, despair and panic forced them to persistently move forward, and many survivors now cannot explain what it was.
The crushed bodies were thrown onto a truck and taken away. Someone said that they were taken out of the city, and simply dumped into a common grave, and no one kept track of them. And now there is no official data how many died at Stalin's funeral in a stampede.
For many days after Stalin's funeral, people were looking for their relatives who did not return home. Most often they were in hospitals or morgues. Sometimes, it was possible to identify a person only by his clothes, but completely different reasons for death were indicated in the death certificate.
During the days of mourning in the country, there were many who died from heart attacks, strokes and nervous shocks. People were shocked to the core, and Stalin's death was the end of the world for them.
According to unofficial data, the stampede at Stalin's funeral carried away from 2 to 3 thousand people. These are terrible numbers also because no one counted people. At that time, the authorities were only thinking about who would take Stalin's place, and the people as such were not interested.
Photos from that time have survived to this day, but they do not reflect the scale of the tragedy. They show only the people who say goodbye to the father of nations, how the country is grieving, and how many wreaths the grateful people brought to their beloved leader.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (1879-1953) died on March 5, 1953 at a dacha in Kuntsevo near Moscow. The death of the leader of the Soviet people became the No. 1 news in the whole world. In Paris, Lisbon, Berlin, New York and thousands of other cities on the planet, the largest newspapers have come out with huge headlines on the front pages. They informed their citizens about the most important political event. In some countries, city transport conductors addressed passengers with the words: "Stand up, gentlemen, Stalin is dead."
As for the USSR, a 4-day mourning period was declared in the country. All ministries, departments, main departments and administrations, factories and factories, institutions of higher education and schools stood up. Only production facilities with a round-the-clock schedule worked. The world's first state of workers and peasants froze in anticipation of the main thing. It was Stalin's funeral, scheduled for March 9, 1953.
Farewell to the leader
To bid farewell to the people, the body of the leader was exhibited in the Column Hall of the House of Unions. From 4 pm on March 6, access was opened to it. From the streets of Moscow, people flocked to Bolshaya Dmitrovka, and already along it they walked to the Column Hall.
There, on a pedestal, drowning in flowers, there was a coffin with the body of the deceased. They put on a gray-green uniform with gold buttons. Orders and medals were lying on a satin cover next to the coffin, funeral music sounded. At the coffin, the leaders of the party and government froze in the guard of honor. People walked by in an endless stream. These were ordinary Muscovites, as well as residents from other cities who had come to say goodbye to the head of state. It is assumed that out of 7 million residents of Moscow, 2 million wanted to see the dead leader with their own eyes.
Foreign delegations were admitted through a special entrance. They skipped the line. This was common practice at the time. For some reason, the authorities treated foreigners much more reverently than their citizens. They were given a green street everywhere, and the funeral ceremony was no exception.
The people walked for 3 days and 3 nights. In the streets there were trucks with spotlights installed on them. They were turned on at dusk. In the middle of the night, the House of Unions was closed for 2 hours, and then reopened. Classical music was broadcast on the radio around the clock.
It should be noted that people in these days were extremely depressed. A large number of heart attacks were recorded, and mortality increased sharply. But there are no exact statistics for this period of time. Everyone was overcome by one desire - to get into the Hall of Columns and see the one who had already been elevated to the rank of a monument during his lifetime.
Huge crowds of people went to say goodbye to Stalin
Death of people
All streets in the center of the capital were fenced off by trucks and soldiers. They kept crowds of thousands of people moving towards the House of Unions. As a result of this, here and there crush began to form. Order was maintained only on Bolshaya Dmitrovka (at that time Pushkinskaya Street). On the rest of the streets within the Boulevard Ring, there was a massive crowd of citizens, which, practically, was not regulated by anyone.
As soon as people got to the center, they found themselves squeezed from all sides by trucks and troops. And the people kept coming and coming, which only exacerbated the situation.
The bulk of people gathered in the Trubnaya Square area. This place connects Petrovsky, Rozhdestvensky, Tsvetnoy boulevards, Neglinnaya and Trubnaya streets. There was a rumor that it is from Trubnaya Square that it is easiest to get to Bolshaya Dmitrovka. Therefore, huge human streams rushed to her.
There was one huge crush in this place. In this case, a huge number of people died. How many? The exact numbers are unknown, and no one has even counted the dead. The crushed bodies were thrown into trucks and taken out of the city. There they were buried in mass graves. It is noteworthy that among the victims there were those who came to their senses and asked for medical assistance. But this meant that the wounded had to be taken to hospitals. In this case, the whole world would have known about the mass crush, which, naturally, would have cast an unattractive shadow on Stalin's funeral. Therefore, the wounded were buried together with the dead.
Here is what eyewitnesses later told: “The crowd of people was so great that there were terrible stampedes. These were real human tragedies. People were pushed into the walls of houses, shop windows were smashed, fences and gates collapsed. Men tried to escape on lampposts, but fell down and found themselves under the feet of the crowd. Someone got out of the dense mass and crawled over their heads. Others dived under the trucks, but the soldiers did not let them on the other side. The crowd swayed from side to side, like one huge living organism. "
All lanes from Sretenka to Trubnaya Street were packed with a solid mass of people. Not only adults were killed, but also children. People never saw Stalin alive and wanted to see at least the dead. But they never saw him. Their journey to the Hall of Columns turned into a struggle for survival. From the crowd shouted to the military: "Take the trucks away!" But they answered that they could not do this, since there was no order.
The bloodthirsty leader passed away and took with him a huge number of his subjects. During his lifetime, he was never satisfied with human blood. According to the most conservative estimates, at least 2 thousand people died. But, most likely, the true death toll was much higher.
Funeral day
On March 9, at 7 o'clock in the morning, troops appeared on Red Square. They cordoned off those areas along which the funeral procession was supposed to move. At 9 am, workers gathered in the main square of the country. They saw 2 words on the mausoleum - Lenin and Stalin. The entire Kremlin wall was covered with wreaths of fresh flowers.
At 10 hours 15 minutes, the leader's closest associates lifted the coffin with his body in their arms. With a heavy sarcophagus, they headed for the exit. Officers helped them to carry the honorable burden. At 10 hours 22 minutes, the coffin was installed on the gun carriage. After that, the funeral procession departed from the House of Unions to the Mausoleum. Marshals and generals carried the awards of the Generalissimo on satin cushions. The top leaders of the country and the party followed the coffin.
At 10:45 am, the coffin was placed on a special red pedestal in front of the mausoleum. The funeral meeting was opened by the chairman of the funeral commission N. S. Khrushchev. Farewell speeches were made by GM Malenkov, LP Beria, VM Molotov.
At 11:50 a.m. Khrushchev announced the closure of the funeral meeting. The closest associates of the leader again took the coffin and brought it into the mausoleum. Exactly at 12 o'clock, after the battle of the Kremlin chimes, an artillery salute was fired. Then honks sounded at factories across the country from Brest to Vladivostok and Chukotka. The funeral ceremony ended with 5 minutes of silence and the Anthem of the Soviet Union. Troops passed by the mausoleum with the bodies of Lenin and Stalin, armada of planes flew in the sky. This is how Comrade Stalin ended his life.
Stalin's grave near the Kremlin wall
Stalin's second funeral
The body of the leader of the peoples was in the mausoleum until October 31, 1961. From 17 to 31 October 1961, the XXII Congress of the CPSU was held in Moscow. On it, a decree was adopted on the removal of the embalmed body of the leader from the mausoleum. On the night of October 31 to November 1, this decree was implemented. Stalin's coffin was buried near the Kremlin wall, and Lenin's body took place in the center of the pedestal.
At 18 o'clock on October 31, Red Square was cordoned off. The soldiers dug a grave. At 21 o'clock, the sarcophagus was moved to the basement. There, the protective glass was removed from him, and the body was transferred to a coffin. The gold star of the Hero of Socialist Labor was removed from his uniform, and the gold buttons were changed to brass ones.
The coffin was covered with a lid and lowered into the grave. It was quickly covered with earth, and a white marble slab was laid on top. The inscription was engraved on it: "Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich 1879-1953". In 1970, the tombstone was replaced with a bust. So quietly, secretly and imperceptibly, Stalin's second funeral took place.
Exactly 63 years ago, on March 9, 1953, all of Moscow buried the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), the Generalissimo of the Soviet Union, the great leader and teacher and simply the father of the peoples Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. He died a few days earlier, on the evening of March 5th. On the morning of the 6th, the message about the death of the leader was broadcast on the radio, and the country quietly discussed the mysterious breath of Cheyne-Stokes, which Levitan told her about.
Then, in 53rd, the news of the death of the leader was also perceived ambiguously by the Soviet people. Most often, when trying to describe the emotions that gripped them, contemporaries mentioned words such as "confusion" and "depression", many did not hide their tears, but restrained joy and a sense of justice triumphed in the families of the repressed. Many conflicts arose among the student community due to the difference in attitude towards the already dead Soviet leader. Some students staged a kind of demarche and ignored Stalin's funeral, preferring to them farewell to the composer Sergei Prokofiev, who also died on March 5.
Only in the camps did they openly rejoice over the fact that "Usatii / Gutalin died". The convicts not only rejoiced at the death of a personal enemy who had sent them to the Gulag: some suspected that Stalin's death meant a quick amnesty for many prisoners. Time has shown that they were right.
On the afternoon of March 6, Stalin's body was exhibited for farewell in the Column Hall of the House of Unions on Okhotny Ryad. Here, by the way, in January 1924, a farewell to Lenin was held, and then other Soviet leaders became "guests" of the hall. The leader was placed in an open coffin, which stood on a high pedestal, surrounded by bright greenery and flowers. 
Patriarch Alexy I: We believe that our prayer for the deceased will be heard by the Lord. And to our beloved and unforgettable Joseph Vissarionovich, we prayerfully, with deep, ardent love proclaim eternal memory.
Stalin was dressed in his usual uniform, but the Generalissimo's shoulder straps and gold buttons were sewn to him. Malenkov, Beria, Molotov, Voroshilov, Khrushchev, Bulganin, Kaganovich and Mikoyan were on duty at the coffin. 
Farewell to Stalin at the House of Unions 
Sergey Aghajanyan, student: We went to the coffin. I had a wild thought: I have never seen Stalin, but now I will. A few steps away. There were no members of the Politburo at that moment, only ordinary people. But even in the Hall of Columns, I did not notice the crying people. The people were frightened - by death, by the crowd - maybe they did not cry from fright? Fear mixed with curiosity, loss, but not melancholy, not mourning.
The farewell in the Hall of Columns lasted three days and three nights. The funeral of Stalin itself began on March 9 at 10:15, when Malenkov, Beria, Molotov, Voroshilov, Khrushchev, Bulganin, Kaganovich and Mikoyan left the House of Unions with the leader's coffin. The coffin was installed on the gun carriage, and the procession moved towards the Mausoleum. The completed Red Army (4,400 people) and workers (12,000 people) were already waiting on Red Square. By the way, the organizer of Stalin's funeral was none other than Nikita Khrushchev.
Removal of the body. The party members pretend to be carrying a coffin. In fact, the coffin was carried by the officers of the Soviet army, and the leader's comrades-in-arms simply held on to the stretcher. 
Manezhnaya Square, photo from Ogonyok magazine. The procession moved towards Red Square to the sounds of Chopin's Funeral March. The way to the Mausoleum took 22 minutes. 
Already at 10:45 a mourning rally began on Red Square. 
Lavrenty Beria is broadcasting from the rostrum. 
The renovated Mausoleum is attended not only by Soviet party leaders, but also by foreign guests - Palmiro Togliatti, Zhou Enlai, Otto Grotewohl, Vylko Chervenkov and others. Eyewitnesses say that on the day of Stalin's funeral it was humid and cloudy. Due to such weather, the President of Czechoslovakia, Clement Gottwald, who attended the funeral, caught a bad cold and soon after returning to Prague died of a ruptured aorta. In Czechoslovakia, there were rumors for some time that he was poisoned during a visit to Moscow. 
The rally lasted just over an hour. Shortly before noon, Soviet party members brought the coffin to the Mausoleum, and at 12:00 in honor of Stalin, an artillery salute burst out. At the same moment, Moscow factories sounded farewell honks. After 5 minutes of silence, the anthem of the Soviet Union played, and at 12:10 an air link took place over Red Square.
The day of the funeral was clear, sunny and rather warm. My family and neighbors took to the streets. At the time of the funeral, it seems, at 12 o'clock, all cars, factory horns and everything that could make a sound hummed. Tears flowed down my throat. The rest of the people stood depressed, but I did not see crying.
The carriage is turned towards the entrance to the Mausoleum. In front of the coffin are the commanders with the orders of Stalin: 1st row - Malinovsky, Konev, Sokolovsky, Budyonny; 2nd row - Tymoshenko, Govorov. 
Mountains of wreaths on Red Square. According to one version, the photo was taken the day after Stalin's funeral. 
Sonya Ivich-Bernstein, student: Restrained glee reigned in the family: it seemed indecent to rejoice at someone's death, while it was impossible not to triumph. I rushed to the university with a feeling of a great positive event and at the entrance to the auditorium of our Moscow State University I ran into a senior student, E.I., who at that time I liked terribly. He answered my smile with an icy look: "How can you smile on such a day?" and mournfully turned away from me.
Yuri Afanasyev, student: Suddenly I heard a mate. Precisely addressed obscenities - not in general, but specifically about Stalin. And "mustache" was there, and "bastard", and many other words. This has stunned me. People did not speak on the sly, not so that no one would hear. They said it loudly for everyone to hear. There was no police, no one stopped them.
Sofiyskaya embankment on March 9, 1953 
Due to the clumsy organization of the farewell to the leader, a gigantic crush arose in the center of Moscow. The Red Army men could not competently divide the streams of people or did not expect such an influx of people wishing to say goodbye to Stalin and ordinary onlookers. The stampede reached its climax in the Trubnaya Square area. It killed, according to rough estimates, from 100 to several thousand people, many were shell-shocked. People fled from death in yards, gateways, under trucks. Eyewitnesses say that after the crowd dispersed, whole mountains of galoshes and clothes remained on the square.
Larisa Bespalova, student: Most of all, I remember that a lot of people gathered on the boulevard, mostly young people. They played a game ... I don't know what it is called, in a word, several people sit on each other's knees, then one of the last slaps the first on the ear, and you have to guess who slapped you. They had a lot of fun playing this game.At the same time, a policeman climbed onto a barrel or something like that and began to shout: wherever you go, people are being taken out of the crowd without spines! And soon we turned back.
On the day of Stalin's funeral, they tried to regulate the flows of the crowd with the help of trucks ZiS-150 and ZiS-151. According to eyewitness accounts, the location of this technique across the streets was one of the reasons for the stampede on the day of Stalin's funeral. 
From memories: Some time after the funeral, my neighbor from the third floor, Uncle Kostya, who had gone through the whole war, returned from the hospital with his left leg taken off to the knee. It turned out that there was a crush during the funeral, and his leg got stuck in a collapsed well. There was an open fracture near the kneecap, and his leg was amputated. He had orders and medals for the Second World War, but after a while he told me: he received the highest award for Victory from the Leader posthumously!
The crowd on Tverskaya 
Leonid Simanovsky, seventh grader: We crossed Kirov Street (now Myasnitskaya) and, together with the crowd of people, walked along Sretensky Boulevard towards Trubnaya. But people did not walk along the boulevard (the entrance to it was blocked), but along the sidewalk on the left side. Trucks were parked along the sidewalk to prevent anyone from entering the carriageway. There were soldiers in the trucks.Thus, a huge mass of people was squeezed between the walls of houses and trucks. The traffic has stalled. A terrible crush arose, since more and more people were pushing from behind, and there was almost no progress. I lost all my comrades and found myself trapped in the mass of people so much that it hurt, it was difficult to breathe, and I could not move. It became very scary, since the threat of being crushed or trampled to death by the crowd was quite real. I tried my best not to be near the trucks - there was a very great danger of being crushed by the truck. All around, people, especially women, were screaming in pain and fear.
Soldiers on trucks, having the appropriate order, stopped the attempts of people to crawl under the trucks on the free carriageway. At the same time, I saw how the soldiers rescued a woman who was pinned to the truck - they dragged her into the back.
This went on for a long time. How many - I do not know. In the crush, I did not figure out whether I crossed Sretenka and got to Rozhdestvensky Boulevard. But I am sure that I did not reach Trubnaya Square, otherwise I would hardly have survived. At some point, I was carried out by the crowd to the entrance to the courtyard. I managed to break away from the crowd and find myself in the courtyard of a small house. It was a salvation.
It was getting dark, getting colder. I managed to enter the entrance and find a place on the stairs. I spent the whole night there. Terribly cold.
By morning the crowd dispersed, and I walked home. My parents were happy that I came back safe and sound, and they didn't scold me too much.
Then I learned that it was there, at the end of Rozhdestvensky Boulevard in front of Trubnaya Square, where I had not reached quite a bit, that there was a terrible meat grinder. It is known that Rozhdestvensky Boulevard slopes steeply down to Trubnaya Square. But the exit to the square was blocked. The people who found themselves in front of Trubnaya Square were simply crushed from behind by the crowd going down the slope. A lot of people died.
On the same day or the next, I don't remember exactly, there was a rumor that one of our comrades, Misha Arkhipov, did not return home and may have died. Very soon the rumor was confirmed - Misha was found in the morgue.
Registry offices on that day issued death certificates with false indication of its causes. 
Pushkinskaya street (Bolshaya Dmitrovka). View from the window of house No. 16. Trucks are parked at the intersection with Stoleshnikov Lane. 
Pavel Men, seventh grader: But Alik, my brother [in the future priest Alexander Men] - with the guys still went to see Balabus as he was lying in a coffin. Just out of curiosity. And when they reached Trubnaya Square - there were four of them - they realized that the meat grinder had begun. Something terrible was happening there! The crowd was such that they felt that it was already life threatening. They rushed to the fire escapes, climbed onto the roof, and over the roofs they managed to leave the square. Only in this way was it possible to be saved. Moreover, this fire escape started high, and they somehow climbed onto the shoulders of one another to get out and still get out of this crowd
Tverskaya 
Inna Lazareva, fourth grader: There was mourning at school, as elsewhere. But the children remained children. So, in the diary of my friend there was an entry: "Laughed at the funeral bell."My father was not in Moscow in those days, but he called my mother on the long-distance line and asked her to go with the children (I was 10 years old, my brother was 12) to say goodbye to Stalin. In vain did my mother try to explain to him how risky and dangerous it was. And pointless. She did not go anywhere with us, but my brother went. I don’t think it’s because of love for Stalin, but rather out of a feeling of contradiction (my mother didn’t allow it, but he already wanted to prove his adulthood). Of course, he got into a terrible crush, did not reach the goal, but survived, escaping under the Studebaker.
In the area of intersection with the current Degtyarny lane 
Elena Delone, fifth grader: In the evening of the next day, my mother came home from work upset and said that the day before, on the day of Stalin's funeral, a lot of people had died in the crowd, all hospitals were packed with crippled ones. Then I heard that it was as if, early in the morning of the next day after the funeral, they were cleaning the streets and boulevards along which the crowd was walking. And from there they took out shoes, galoshes and all kinds of lost clothes by trucks. These stories were passed on in whispers and only to close acquaintances.
Tatyana Bolshakova, fifth grader: The parents let us go quietly - the Hall of Columns was very close. But it didn't turn out that way. The streets were blocked by trucks, there was a military cordon and everyone was directed in the same direction. We got to Zhdanov Street, then to Sretensky Boulevard and from there to Trubnaya Square, where everything was blocked by trucks. And from the direction of Rozhdestvenka (formerly Zhdanov) and Rozhdestvensky Boulevard, people walked and walked. The crowd pressed forward, shouts and howls were heard. I accidentally found myself pressed against a bakery display. Someone smashed a shop window, and the crowd rushed into the bakery. Soon the hole was littered with counters. The people inside sat in silence, no one cried. There were terrible screams outside. The bakery employees began to let us out through the bread receiving window into the courtyard. At that moment I had neither fear nor other emotions. I knew the area well, as I often walked there with my friends. I walked through the courtyards, all the gates were open. But there was no way to take to the streets - everything was blocked in several rows by trucks. I climbed over and under trucks. There was broken glass all around; where it came from, I don’t know. I walked in rubber boots - now there are none. They were completely cut, and there were huge holes on the leggings. When I came home, tears of my relatives awaited me, who were very afraid for me. But the next morning I was sent to school. The head teacher again gathered all the students and began to tell how difficult it will be for us to live now and what misfortunes await us without Stalin. She and some of the students were crying. I didn't have a tear. The head teacher put me in front of the students and reprimanded me, saying that I was very callous.
Sadovaya-Karetnaya street 
Vladimir Sperantov, student: There were no back barriers, and somehow we got out in the Pokrovka area and then went to the Garden Ring again, there was darkness to the people, but, of course, the most fear, as we understood, was Sretensky Boulevard, Rozhdestvensky Boulevard and a steep descent to Trubnaya ... And there ... well, the crowd carries, here and there, horses - some died just from the hooves, by accident. The horse got scared, jerked, and someone just kicked on the head with a hoof ... a horseshoe ...This became known later. On that day, some went and did not return. We had such a professor, Veniamin Lvovich Granovsky, who read physics. His daughter, Olga Granovskaya, went and did not come. I got to Trubnaya and died there. We found out about this a few days later. Obviously, the dead were buried, somehow it was organized ...
Opposite the building of the Museum of the Revolution. Photo from the magazine "Ogonyok" 
Velena Rozkina, student: I will not say that it was an impulse of great love, it just became curious - such an event. We left at Trubnaya and from there - along the Petrovsky lines. The crowd was terrible, in the middle of the street there were trucks with soldiers in open bodies, and then the horse militia was suddenly allowed in, it was pressing people from both sides. A terrible crush began, screams, something impossible. The soldiers, who they could, snatched to their trucks. My friend and I were also dragged onto a truck, their coats were torn, but it doesn't matter ...
Pravda newspaper, March 9, 1953 
Grigory Rosenberg, preschooler:
My grandfather, a former member of the former Society of Former Political Prisoners, an old Bolshevik, in whose illegal apartment Khalturin himself was hiding, the brother of some former bigwig in the State Bank of the USSR, sighed heavily and said very sadly:Mom was so shocked by this sacrilege that at first she was simply numb. And then, without looking back, through clenched teeth she ordered me to leave the room. Of course, I went out, but I remember my grandfather's words very well.
Vladimir Sperantov, student: The conversations of the first days were like this: whoever speaks the funeral oration will be. Then everyone noted: Beria was talking! After the mausoleum, when the actual funeral took place; this was discussed at home. But Malenkov was the official successor, not a party one, and then, after a few days, they somehow began to tell that Malenkov at the very first meeting of the Central Committee or the Politburo, when everyone clapped, said: no, I’m not a ballerina, please was no more. And we realized that the style began to change.
Most of the memories are from the site
On March 9, 1953, the funeral of Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, took place in Moscow. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this was the most important funeral in the history of the Soviet Union. Lenin died too quickly, Khrushchev was buried without special honors, Andropov and Chernenko were in power for only a few months, they did not have time to get used to them. Only Brezhnev's funeral could be compared with Stalin's. But Brezhnev ruled for only 18 years, while Stalin was almost 30. Those who were born at the beginning of his reign became adults. Those who were in adulthood had time to grow old. Stalin's rule was an era, a significant part of the life of the Soviet people passed under him. Therefore, it is not surprising that the funeral of the Soviet leader was unprecedented in its scope at that time and caused a huge confluence of people, which ended in a stampede with numerous deaths. Life found out how the leader of the Soviet Union was buried 65 years ago.
Preparation
Joseph Stalin, after the strike that occurred on March 1, lived for several more days, but could not speak and was partially paralyzed. On March 5, at 9.50 pm, doctors pronounced the death of the Secretary General. By this time, his closest associates had already managed to divide state and party posts among themselves and managed to return to the Blizhnyaya dacha just by the time the leader gave up his ghost.
After his death, they began to go about their business, appointing Nikita Khrushchev responsible for organizing the funeral, who formed a commission for organizing the funeral with the participation of Shvernik, Kaganovich and several other party leaders.
From right to left: Anastas Mikoyan, Lazar Kaganovich, Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin on guard of honor at the coffin with the body of Joseph Stalin in the Column Hall of the House of Unions.
It was decided to start a nationwide farewell to the Generalissimo the very next day, so that as many people as possible had time to say goodbye to him. Therefore, a number of procedures were forced. For example, almost immediately after his death, Stalin's body was taken away for a posthumous autopsy. Already six hours after death, a whole group of pathologists worked with the body of the deceased. Before the autopsy procedure, the death mask was removed from the deceased's face. The famous sculptor Manizer was engaged in this.
The chief's brain was recovered and deposited at the Brain Institute. In those days, the brains of members of the Politburo, prominent scientists and scientists were obligatorily transferred for storage to this institute, where scientists examined them for differences from the brains of ordinary people.
While doctors were working with Stalin's body, his beloved uniform was sent to the dry-cleaner, patched up, and the Generalissimo's shoulder straps and gold buttons were sewn to it, since it was decided to bury him in it. At the same time, the architect Posokhin was given the task of sketching a new inscription on the Mausoleum as quickly as possible, since it was decided to bury the deceased leader without much controversy there, next to Lenin.
It was decided to hold the farewell ceremony in the Column Hall of the House of the Unions. Nikolai Bespalov, Chairman of the Committee for Arts under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, supervised the decoration of the interior of the hall for the ceremony. The search for the coffin for the body of the leader was carried out by Dmitry Krupin, Administrator of the Central Committee of the CPSU. The guard of the farewell ceremony was entrusted to the MGB.
Immediately after the autopsy, preparations began for the temporary embalming of Stalin's body, which was carried out in the laboratory of the Lenin Mausoleum. Experts even managed to somewhat "improve" the face of the deceased, lightening the "mountain ash" from smallpox and age spots. Already on the afternoon of March 6, the body was delivered to the Hall of Columns, and at 4 pm the farewell ceremony began.
By this time, the hall was decorated with portraits of Stalin, and velvet panels with the coats of arms of the Union republics were hung on the columns. There were 16 of them in total. The coffin stood in the center, on a high pedestal, and was literally drowned in flowers. The banner of the Soviet Union hung at the head of the bed. On the satin fabric in front of the coffin lay the awards of the Generalissimo. The chandeliers that hung in the hall were covered with black cloth.
The hall was attended by an orchestra playing funeral melodies of various classical composers. In the guard of honor at the coffin, the new leaders of the Soviet state stood in turn. A military escort was also present.
Soviet citizens learned about Stalin's death only on March 6, when it was announced on the radio and published in newspapers. On the occasion of his death, a three-day mourning period was declared. Cinemas and other entertainment establishments did not work, and any entertainment events in the country were canceled.
On the same day, the construction of a pantheon was announced, in which Stalin would eventually be reburied. This decision was carried out through the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers. It was planned to build a pantheon in Moscow, which would become a resting place not only for the dead leaders - Lenin and Stalin, as well as some major figures buried in the Kremlin wall, but also for the future leaders of the USSR. The decree on the creation of the Moscow pantheon was published in newspapers on March 7, and an open competition for projects was also announced. However, the pantheon was quickly forgotten in the heat of the struggle for power, and this topic was no longer brought up.
Parting
People reached out to say goodbye to the deceased leader. Mostly from Moscow, but some also came from other cities, mainly as delegates from enterprises. Since the entrance to Moscow for the period of events was limited, the trains were checked, ordinary passengers were not allowed into the city, with the exception of delegates from work collectives and traveling on a business trip.
The Column Hall of the House of Unions was literally buried in wreaths, there were not even hundreds, but thousands. All large enterprises and departments sent a funeral wreath without fail.
Foreign delegations who began to arrive in Moscow did not stand aside either. These were mainly representatives of countries where a socialist regime had already been established. A Chinese delegation was present, led by Zhou Enlai, the right hand of Mao Zedong (Mao sent a personal wreath, separate from the Chinese Communist Party). The leaders of the countries of "people's democracy" were present - Gottwald, Georgiu-Dej, Ulbricht, Bierut, Rakosi and others.
The leaders of the communist parties from the capitalist countries arrived - the Englishman Pollit, the Italian Togliatti, the Finn Pessi, the Austrian Koplenig, etc. All of them had a chance to stand on the guard of honor at the coffin along with the Soviet leaders.
Workers of the Dynamo plant listen to the news of the death of Joseph Stalin. Photo: © RIA "Novosti"
Many kilometers of queues spread from Bolshaya Dmitrovka, consisting of people who wanted to see the leader at parting at least once. Some believe that hundreds of thousands of people who have come to say goodbye to the deceased leader are evidence of the great love and gratitude of Soviet citizens. Others are sure that this is due to the totalitarian state in which these people grew up and formed.
But do not forget one more important fact. Stalin did not travel around the country very often, several people all over the USSR had televisions then, so for most people the farewell ceremony was the only opportunity to see the leader live, even if he died. Everyone understood that this was a historical moment, and they wanted to witness it. Therefore, in the huge queues were those who idolized Stalin, and those who hated him, but realized the historicity of the moment, and those who went “because everyone went,” and those who wanted to brag to friends and colleagues.
Places in queues have been occupied since the night. Even taking into account the limited entry to the capital, a lot of people gathered. Nobody counted the exact number of participants in mourning ceremonies.
Crush
These days, another event took place, which has become an integral part of this funeral forever. We are talking about a serious crush in the Trubnaya Square area, as a result of which there were numerous casualties. Although the stampede is usually associated with Stalin's funeral, it happened during the farewell ceremony on March 6. On the first day, when the death of Stalin was announced, crowds of people rushed chaotically to the House of Unions.
People tried to get to Bolshaya Dmitrovka and decided that the easiest way to get there would be through Trubnaya Square, but it was blocked by trucks in advance. The crush happened on the descent from Rozhdestvensky Boulevard to the square, the front rows were stopped by trucks, and from behind from the descent, human waves continued to roll on them one after another. As a result, those who stood in front were literally crushed and trampled by those who were pushing from behind. The exact number of victims of the stampede has not yet been established. In various sources, they are estimated in the range from several tens to several thousand people.
Funeral
Late in the evening of March 8, the farewell ceremony was completed. The doors of the House of Unions were closed. After midnight, the removal of the wreaths began. Since there were not many funeral wreaths, but very, very many, it was decided to take them to the Mausoleum and lay them out near it. The most important wreaths (about a hundred pieces) from Soviet leaders, leaders of other states, leaders of large foreign communist parties and relatives of the deceased were sorted out for participation in the burial ceremony. They were carried behind the coffin.
Late at night, assembly points were opened for delegations of workers, who were to be present in Red Square during the day. Whoever got into these delegations was not allowed, all delegates received special passes. They met at these assembly points, after which they proceeded in an organized manner to Red Square, in order to be there by morning. A few hours before the start of the funeral, at 9:30 in the morning, the entrance for delegates to Red Square was closed.
On the morning of the funeral, traffic within the Garden Ring was completely closed. The only exceptions were special vehicles that had passes.
At 7 in the morning, a cordon was lined up along the route of the funeral cortege. At the same time, the formation of troops and representatives of workers' delegations took place on Red Square. In total, 4,400 military personnel and about 12 thousand delegates were stationed on the square.
At about 10 o'clock in the morning from the House of Unions began to take out funeral wreaths and Stalin's awards. At 10:15 am, the closest associates (Beria, Khrushchev, Mikoyan, Kaganovich, Molotov, Bulganin, Malenkov and Voroshilov) took the coffin in their arms and carried it to the exit from the building. At 10:23 am it was installed on an artillery gun carriage covered with kumach.
The funeral delegation lined up in accordance with an unspoken hierarchy. The first were members of the Presidium of the Central Committee (as the Politburo was called at that time), followed by Stalin's relatives, then members of the Central Committee, deputies of the Supreme Soviet, delegates from foreign communist parties and, finally, an honorary military escort.
On special satin pillows, Stalin's awards were carried by marshals, generals of the army, as well as several colonel-generals and lieutenant generals. Marshal Budyonny carried the Marshal's Star. Marshal Zhukov, who was then in disgrace, was not present at the ceremony. After the war, he was sent to command the secondary Ural military district.
The procession set off to the accompaniment of Chopin's funeral march (Lenin was buried accompanied by discordant singing "We fell a victim in a fatal struggle"). The ceremony was broadcast live on the radio, the announcer was the famous Levitan.
The ceremony was scheduled by the minute. At 10:45 am, the procession reached the mausoleum. The coffin was moved from the gun carriage to a special pedestal. Three minutes later, the funeral meeting began. From a political point of view, this part of the ceremony was the most important. Formally, the comrades-in-arms paid tribute to the memory of the departed leader. Informally, each of them in his speech talked about his vision of the future in the post-Stalin era. In addition, the order of speakers at the mourning rally revealed the tacit hierarchy of the new government.
The meeting was opened by Khrushchev, who acted as the funeral director. However, he did not make a speech and invited Malenkov to the microphone, who, after Stalin's death, headed the Council of Ministers and was considered the leader of the country. In his speech, the Prime Minister not only paid tribute to the memory of the deceased, but also outlined a new direction in which the country will develop. According to Malenkov, it turned out that, first of all, the country should solve pressing economic problems and improve the standard of living of Soviet workers, who received very little good during the long Stalin era. Malenkov also expressed confidence in the possibility of the peaceful existence of two systems - capitalist and socialist. The new head of state acted like a dove.
The next was Beria in the role of "hawk". He immediately tried to stake out the position of the main Stalinist successor and successor to his line, stating the need to maximize military potential and rally the entire country against the intrigues of internal and external enemies.
The last to speak was Molotov, who also declared the need to continue the Stalinist policy.
At 11:54 the meeting ended and the Stalinist comrades-in-arms in the same composition in which they carried the coffin to the mausoleum, lifted it up and carried it inside the building, the name of which had already been changed. Above the entrance was now written: "Lenin - Stalin".
At 12 o'clock, an artillery salute was given over the Kremlin. At the same moment, all factories, factories, ships, etc. they gave long beeps. And at all workplaces, where it was possible, a five-minute silence was announced. A funeral march sounded, which was replaced by the anthem of the Soviet Union.
At 12:10, troops began to pass by the mausoleum. Airplanes flew in the sky. The state flag at half-mast was raised over the Kremlin again.
The funeral ceremony went smoothly. The participants did not deviate for a minute from the pre-scheduled schedule. The almost 30-year Stalinist era is over. The struggle of his closest associates for power began.
1961 was the highest point in his career Nikita Khrushchev... The party leader was triumphant - the pace of economic development of the USSR was high, the Land of Soviets carried out a manned flight into outer space, confidence in the future was growing in its citizens.
In October 1961, the XXII Congress of the CPSU was held, at which Khrushchev announced a new party program, proclaiming the task of building the foundations of a communist society by 1980.
After the flight Gagarin even such a plan did not seem incredible to Soviet citizens. In the wake of general euphoria, Nikita Khrushchev decided to put an end to the posthumous overthrow of his predecessor - Joseph Stalin.
Debunking the Stalinist "personality cult" was the mainstay of Khrushchev's policy in the 1950s. Now the new leader decided to get rid not only of Stalin's legacy, but also of his body.
On March 9, 1953, the sarcophagus with Stalin's body was placed in the Mausoleum, which from that moment began to be called "The Mausoleum of V. I. Lenin and I. V. Stalin."
In March 1953, the Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR was adopted on the creation of the Pantheon - "a monument to the eternal glory of the great people of the Soviet country", where all burials from Red Square were to be transferred, but this project did not reach the stage of practical implementation. Stalin remained in the Mausoleum.
On October 30, 1961, after Khrushchev made a keynote speech on building communism, he asked for the floor on an extraordinary issue First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee Ivan Spiridonov... He made a proposal to take Stalin out of the Mausoleum. The initiative was supported by an old underground worker, a party member since 1902 Dora Abramovna Lazurkina... A Bolshevik woman who went through the Gulag said: "Yesterday I consulted with Ilyich, as if he stood before me as if he were alive and said: I hate to be near Stalin, who brought so many troubles to the party."
To thunderous applause, the congress approved the resolution, which said: “To recognize as inexpedient the further preservation in the Mausoleum of the sarcophagus with the coffin of I.V. Stalin, since serious violations of Lenin's behests by Stalin, abuse of power, massive repressions against honest Soviet people and other actions during the period of the personality cult make it impossible to leave the coffin with his body in the Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin ".
Of course, the "impromptu" was prepared by Nikita Khrushchev himself. As for the general approval, it was only formal - the leader knew that among the delegates to the congress there were a lot of those who did not approve of such a categorical assessment of Stalin's activities. Yes, and among the people, reverence for the figure of the leader remained. Therefore, Nikita Sergeevich decided not to delay the execution of the decision of the congress and to carry out the reburial as soon as possible.
Mausoleum of Lenin and Stalin, 1957. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Manfred & Barbara Aulbach
They wanted to "exile" the leader to Novodevichy
On October 31, Khrushchev was summoned Head of the 9th Directorate of the KGB (protection of the highest officials of the state) General Nikolai Zakharov and Commandant of the Kremlin, General Andrei Vedenin.
Khrushchev warned that on that day there would be a decision on Stalin's reburial, which would need to be implemented immediately. The plenum of the Central Committee was supposed to finally endorse this operation. To carry out the procedure, a party commission of five people was organized, led by Head of the Party Control Committee Nikolay Shvernik.
Deputy Zakharov was entrusted with direct management of the operation. Colonel Vladimir Chekalov... To him was called commander of a separate special-purpose regiment of the commandant's office of the Moscow Kremlin Fyodor Konev, who was ordered to prepare a company of soldiers for Stalin's funeral at the Novodevichy cemetery.
But while Konev was selecting his subordinates, Chekalov called him and said: the burial place is changing - everything will take place at the Kremlin wall.
At the last moment, the party leaders wavered, fearing that the remains would be stolen from the Novodevichy cemetery. It was easier to control the grave of the "demoted" leader on Red Square.
Brass instead of gold
The head of the economic department of the Kremlin commandant's office, Colonel Tarasov, was in charge of the disguise. The mausoleum was covered with plywood so that no work could be seen from either side. At the same time in the workshop of the arsenal artist Savinov made a wide white ribbon with the letters "LENIN". She had to close the inscription "LENIN STALIN" on the Mausoleum until the letters were laid out in marble.
At 18:00, the servicemen began to dig a grave for burial. By that time, a coffin was made of good dry wood, which was covered with black and red crepe.
While the final preparations for the reburial were underway, a rehearsal of the military parade for the November 7 holiday began on Red Square. The rehearsal with the participation of military equipment was also part of the disguise of Stalin's repeated funeral.
At about 21:00, eight officers removed Stalin's sarcophagus from the pedestal and carried it to the laboratory of the Mausoleum. In the presence of members of the commission and scientists of the Mausoleum, Stalin's body was transferred to a prepared coffin.
By order of Nikolai Shvernik, the Golden Star of the Hero of Socialist Labor was removed from Stalin's uniform and the golden buttons were cut off. The commandant of the Mausoleum placed the removed rarities in the Guard Room, where the awards of all those buried in the Kremlin necropolis are kept.
The golden buttons of the uniform were replaced with brass ones. General Vedenin interrupted the pause that arose after this, noting: it was time to close the coffin and carry it to the grave.
At that moment, Nikolai Shvernik lost his nerves, and he burst into tears. A bodyguard led him to the grave.
Monument to Joseph Stalin at the Kremlin wall. Photo: RIA Novosti / Oleg Lastochkin
Reinforced concrete grave
At 22:15, all the same eight officers carried the coffin out of the Mausoleum and set it on the stands near the grave.
By this time, reinforced concrete slabs were placed in the grave itself, which were supposed to close the burial from all sides. But at the last moment head of the economic department of the Mausoleum, Colonel Tarasov convinced the members of the commission not to put stoves on top. “No matter how they get lost,” the officer remarked. The faces of the audience stretched out - the thought that the coffin with the leader would be simply crushed was frankly frightened. We decided to do without it.
The coffin was carefully lowered into the grave. Some of the soldiers present threw handfuls of earth, after which the soldiers began to bury the burial. When this was done, a granite slab was placed on top with the inscription "Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich 1879 - 1953". The slab was replaced in 1970 by a monument of the work sculptor Nikolai Tomsky.
Relatives were not notified
None of Stalin's relatives were present at the funeral - they were not informed about the reburial. After the end of the ceremony, an act was drawn up in the Kremlin, which was signed by the participants in the operation.
Lenin's sarcophagus was moved to the central place, where it stood until 1953.
Access to the Mausoleum for citizens was opened the very next day, November 1, 1961. Stalin's reburial did not cause mass unrest, everything was limited only to conversations in the kitchens.
Nikita Khrushchev's triumph was short-lived - three years later, in October 1964, he, having lost his popularity among the people and authority among his comrades-in-arms, was removed from power. After Khrushchev's death in 1971, he was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery, where the debunker of the "personality cult" did not dare to send Joseph Stalin.
