In the early hours of 4 March 1953, Radio Moscow announced that on the night of Sunday, 1 March, Joseph Stalin had suffered a massive stroke. The report stated that the leader’s condition was grave: he was partially paralyzed, had lost consciousness, and his heart was not beating properly. The country’s very best doctors had been summoned and were working to stabilize the life of the leader.
The news shook not only the Soviet Union, but the entire world. The status of Stalin’s health had been the subject of intense speculation among the Western powers for several years. American diplomats collected every possible rumor and bit of information possible on the subject.
They observed his public appearances closely, watching his movements, assessing the tone of his skin, gauging the timber of his voice for hints that the aging dictator might be ill, or worse. The news came at an especially tense time. After years of mounting anti-Semitism, the so-called Doctors’ Plot had exploded like a bomb in the Soviet press on 13 January.
There was talk of Jews being shipped off to Siberia and new purges and mass arrests. Reporter Harrison Salisbury wrote that news of the Doctors’ Plot “chilled my blood.” The campaign against Jews and cosmopolitans mounted in the first months of the year. “Terror had been let loose in Moscow once again,” he wrote. “Not the quiet, customary everyday sort of fear which everyone in Russia had to get used to living with but Terror with a capital T.” This new terror had become in his words “a physical thing.”
The U.S. had no ambassador in Moscow at the time, so Chargé d’affaires Jacob Beam was in charge. He sent a telegram to the State Department on 4 March at 2pm with news from Radio Moscow and Pravda of Stalin’s illness. At the time it was unclear whether Stalin were alive or dead. No one knew what exactly had happened. “Embassy facilities for gathering reactions from Soviet citizens are extremely limited. Nevertheless all observations seem to confirm that there is little public excitement or turmoil over the event. Streets of central Moscow appear exactly as on any other day.”
The embassy was extremely curious to find out how the country would react to their leader’s death and who would come out in the struggle for power. Embassy staff was sent out into the streets to gauge the people’s reaction to the news; all they noticed were “small groups” gathering to read notices posted on walls and sign boards.
One report noted: “People in the central market seemed concerned only with their usual shopping problems; two observers did not even hear the name of Stalin mentioned.” Beam remarked that among the Russian employees at the embassy, two or three were seen crying, but most seemed to exhibit “indifferent acceptance” of the news.
These were frantic days for the Western reporters and diplomats. Everyone was desperate for the latest news from the Kremlin.
On his drive home to Narodnaya Street from the embassy on the afternoon of the 4th, Martin took his movie camera and filmed much of the route, capturing, as best he could, the mood of the people on the streets to the news.
At 4am on 6 March, TASS announced that Stalin had died the previous day at 9:50pm. Soon after President Dwight D. Eisenhower had been informed, a brief statement was released: “The Government of the United States tenders its official condolences to the Government of the U.S.S.R., on the death of Generalissimo Joseph Stalin, Prime Minister of the Soviet Union.” At 10:30 on the morning of the 6th, Martin set up his movie camera on a tripod in an upper story room of the embassy and filmed the goings-on on Manege Square.
Chargé d’affaires Beam sent the following report to the State Department at noon on the 6th: “Embassy officers since early morning have covered greater Moscow area and will continue to do so throughout the day. Some few people seen weeping. No conversations overheard concerning Stalin’s death. [...] General impression Moscow at this point is surprising lack of response to this morning’s news of Stalin’s death and contrasts with American and British reactions to deaths of President Roosevelt and King George.”
Four hours later Beam wrote again to inform Washington that the city center had been cleared of all people, including roughly 2,000 who had gathered on Red Square, and that a cordon had been set up blocking the center from the Lenin Library to beyond the Bolshoi Theater and all side streets.
The American reporter Eddy Gilmore later wrote:
“Never in my life have I seen crowds like that lined up for miles to pass by the body of Joseph Stalin. They extended, at one time, eight miles into Moscow’s suburbs. I know. I counted them out by the speedometer on my automobile. And the lines were eight and ten people wide in places.”
Yevgeny Yevtushenko got caught up in the crowds on Trubnaya Square. He found the mass of humanity, that surged like a terrible whirlpool, hemmed in by lines of military trucks and soldiers, a horrifying experience. He saw one girl get crushed to death against a traffic light, while others fell and were smothered alive by the throng.
The official death toll was one hundred nine, but the actual number was likely higher. The Americans at the embassy were unaware of this, since the city center was cordoned off. All around them a strange silence hung in the air.
Tens of thousands of people came to the House of Unions to pay their final respects. Eddy Gilmore was one of them.
On Sunday the 8th, workmen on Red Square were busy with power chisels and hammers, adding Stalin’s name to the Lenin mausoleum and preparing the lower crypt for his body. The next morning broke with a thin sunshine and cold, gusty wind.
Martin had set up his movie camera at an embassy window in preparation for the funeral. He also had readied his still camera with color slide film and began photographing the big black automobiles ferrying top officials to the House of Unions. Chargé d’affaires Beam arrived with the other top foreign diplomats shortly before 9am.
About that time, several Americans personnel and attachés crossed Manege to take their places on Red Square. Shortly after 10am, the Soviet leaders appeared and took their places at the front of the coffin. Following some ceremonial music, the lid was placed on the coffin, which had been fitted with a clear dome over the top that exposed Stalin’s face to the crowd, almost as if to offer incontrovertible proof of his death.
Martin photographed the cortege as it gathered in front of the House of Unions, set in motion, then made a turn to the left in front of the Hotel Moscow, crossed Manege Square, and crept up the incline to Lenin’s tomb. At the same time, he recorded the event on his movie camera.
These images are, apparently, the only non-official images of the funeral of Joseph Stalin. Beam, in his communique to the State Department, made sure to mention that the entire funeral party could see the American flag flying at half mast, and indeed, many of Martin’s photographs capture the Stars and Stripes as is billowed in the wind.
The ceremony lasted about one hour. There were speeches by Georgy Malenkov, Lavrenty Beria, and Vyacheslav Molotov, and then just before noon, to the sound of thirty artillery salvos, Stalin’s coffin was carried into the crypt.
When the clock on the Spassky tower struck the hour of noon, three minutes of unending whistling and ringing of horns, bells, and sirens echoed across the entire country. Everyone in the Soviet Union stopped and paused for five minutes. The military marched across Red Square, followed by a military flyover. And with that, it was all over.
The spectators dispersed, buses appeared on Manege to remove the guests, the cordon was opened up, and people began flocking toward Red Square. Back in the embassy, Martin packed up his cameras.
