The Last Days of Stalin

Joshua Rubenstein

May 2016 · Yale University Press

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A gripping account of the months before and after Joseph Stalin's death and how his demise reshaped the course of twentieth-century history.
Joshua Rubenstein's riveting account takes us back to the second half of 1952 when no one could foresee an end to Joseph Stalin's murderous regime. He was poised to challenge the newly elected U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower with armed force, and was also broadening a vicious campaign against Soviet Jews. Stalin's sudden collapse and death in March 1953 was as dramatic and mysterious as his life. It is no overstatement to say that his passing marked a major turning point in the twentieth century.
The Last Days of Stalin is an engaging, briskly told account of the dictator's final active months, the vigil at his deathbed, and the unfolding of Soviet and international events in the months after his death. Rubenstein throws fresh light on

• the devious plotting of Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev, and other "comrades in arms" who well understood the significance of the dictator's impending death;
• the witness-documented events of his death as compared to official published versions;
• Stalin's rumored plans to forcibly exile Soviet Jews;
• the responses of Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles to the Kremlin's conciliatory gestures after Stalin's death; and
• the momentous repercussions when Stalin's regime of terror was cut short.

"A fascinating and often chilling reconstruction of the months surrounding the Soviet dictator's death." —Saul David, Evening Standard (UK)
"A gripping look at the power struggles after the Red Tsar's death." —Victor Sebestyen, The Sunday Times (UK)
"Stalin's death in March 1953 cut short another spasm of blood purges he was planning, but triggered only limited Soviet reforms. To some Westerners it promised an extended period of peace, but others feared it would leave the West even more vulnerable. Joshua Rubenstein's lively, detailed, carefully crafted book chronicles a key twentieth-century turning point that didn't entirely turn, revealing what difference Stalin's death did and didn't make and why." —William Taubman, author of Khrushchev: The Man and His Era

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Joshua Rubenstein is an associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University. He lives in Brookline, MA.