Joseph Stalin's health had begun to deteriorate towards the end of the
Second World War. He had
atherosclerosis as a result of heavy smoking, a mild
stroke around the time of the
Victory Parade in May 1945, and a severe
heart attack in October 1945. The last three days of Stalin's life have been described in detail, first in the official Soviet announcements in
Pravda, and then in a complete English translation which followed shortly thereafter in
The Current Digest of the Soviet Press. Decades later, former senior officer and historian
Dmitry Volkogonov described how, on 28 February 1953, Stalin and a small number of his inner circle, consisting of
Lavrentiy Beria,
Nikita Khrushchev,
Georgy Malenkov,
Vyacheslav Molotov and a few others, gathered for an evening of entertainment and drinking. After the guests dispersed at approximately 5:00 a.m. on 1 March, Khrushchev noted that Stalin had a lot to drink and was in a good mood. Stalin later retired to his private quarters. Time passed and no sounds were heard throughout the next day, Sunday, 1 March. Stalin's room was said to have been equipped with sensors to alert the staff and guards if there was any movement. Stalin's body was then taken to an unspecified location and an
autopsy performed, after which it was
embalmed for public viewing. Attempts to locate and access the original autopsy report were unsuccessful until the 2010s, but the most important findings were reported in a special bulletin in
Pravda on 7 March 1953, as follows: As summarized above, rather than suggesting a plot by Beria, on whom suspicion fell for his purportedly telling Molotov that he "took him out" at one point, and his seemingly willful delay in obtaining medical treatment for Stalin, the physical changes seen during autopsy were consistent with extracranial changes that often occur in stroke victims. Beria's son, Sergo Beria, later recounted that after Stalin's death, his mother Nina told her husband that, "Your position now is even more precarious than when Stalin was alive." This turned out to be correct; several months later, in June 1953, Beria was arrested and charged with a variety of crimes but, significantly, none relating to Stalin's death. He was subsequently found guilty of
treason,
terrorism and
counter-revolutionary activity by the
Supreme Court of the Soviet Union on 23 December 1953, and executed the same day, shot by
General Pavel Batitsky. Some historians have conjectured that Stalin was murdered; Beria has been accused of poisoning him, but no firm evidence has appeared. According to a theory developed by historians Vladimir Naumov and
Jonathan Brent, based on mentions of stomach hemorrhaging excised from his autopsy, Stalin was poisoned with
warfarin, most likely by Beria. == Funeral service ==