Welcome to Erica's web page on THE DEATH OF STALIN!!!
The Death of Stalin
On March 5, 1953, when an old man died on the outskirts of Moscow, the world was forever changed. the people of The Soviet Union had lost more than their leader: they had lost their father, their master, their god. Stalin was dead. An era of faith, terror, and adoration came to an end. Suddenly the world was no longer the same. For a long time now, Stalin had hallucinations of a "doctor's plot" to kill him and his followers. But it was Stalin's own heart that failed him in the end, when it suddenly stoped beating.
Red flags with black crepe began to appear in the windows of homes. Loudspeakers installed along the streets played all the sad music that sings of dead heros- chopin's "Funeral March" and the last movement of Tchaikovsky's "Symphony Parthetique," and hymns and patriotic songs for four long days.
In the schools, the teachers and children all cried together. For days on end, the police last control of the tramplong masses of people who came to Moscow from all over the Soviet Union to see the corpse. Followers sometimes even trampled and crushed many of their campreades to death in thier determination to see him. In October, 1961, his body was finaly taken out of the tomb and buried beneath the walls of the Kremlin, among graves of other well-known leaders.
It was only after his death that many people began to see through the myth and image of "mysterious devinity" that Stalin had created of himself. People are only now seeing the true horror and destruction he caused. Stalin murdered millions of people, trampled on the weak, set up and arrogant bureaucracy above the people, killed the faith of the people, and crushed and exterminated people to the end of his days. His death is no longer mourned.
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