The death of a god with a mustache 
"And suddenly, on 5 March 1953, Stalin died. That death
broke into the giant mechanized system of enthusiasm, anger and love popular decreed by order of the regional Party committees.
Stalin died without it being planned, with no indication of the bodies concerned. He died without the personal order of Comrade Stalin himself. In that freedom, autonomy in that death had something explosive that contradicted the inner essence of the state. A total confusion gripped the minds and hearts.
Stalin was dead! Some are overwhelmed by grief: in some schools teachers students forced to kneel and they also kneeling and crying her eyes out, read the official announcement of the death of
vozhd . During the funeral assemblies, institutions and factories plunged many into a state of hysteria, sobs could be heard screams of women out of it, some faded. He had died the great god, the idol of the twentieth century, and women wept ... Others seized
a feeling of happiness. The field, faint under the weight of the iron hand of Stalin, sighed with relief. The joy came over millions and millions of people confined in the fields ... Columns of prisoners marching to work through the thick darkness. The deafening roar of the ocean barking guard dogs. And suddenly, as the light of the aurora borealis, a cry rose from the ranks: "Stalin is dead." Tens of thousands of prisoners escorted transmitting the news to each other, whispering: "The has palmately ... has palmed ...», and that whisper of thousands and thousands of people as the wind howled. The black night reigned over polar land. But the glacial sea ice was broken, and the ocean roared.
than a few scientists and workers, upon hearing the news, felt confused within himself the pain feel like dancing with joy.
had spread in Discouragement the time that the station had broadcast the medical report of Stalin, "Cheyne-Stokes ... ... urine, blood ...». The ruler deified flesh suddenly exhibited weak and senile.
Stalin is dead! In that death was an element of spontaneity sudden, infinitely alien to the nature of the Stalinist state. The unexpectedness of the fact
shook the state, as it had shaken the sneak attack that hit him on 22 June 1941.
Millions of people wanted to see the dead body. The day of the funeral of Stalin not only Moscow but also throughout the provinces, regions, rushed to the House of Trade Unions, where he had settled the chapel. A queue of trucks from the provinces stretching along many kilometers. The traffic jam reached Sérpujov and blocked the road linking Sérpujov and Tula.
Millions of people went on foot to the center of Moscow. Streams of people, like crisp black rivers in the thaw, impact on each other, were crushed against the rocks, twisted and tore the car, ripped from the hinges of metal doors. That day thousands of people died. The misfortunes that occurred the day of the Tsar's coronation in Jodinka pales in comparison to the day of death Russian earthly god, pockmarked and son of a shoemaker in the city of Gori.
seemed that people went to meet death in a state of ecstasy, with a mystical feeling, Christian or Buddhist, irremediable ruin. It was as if Stalin, the great shepherd, yet liquidated without sacrificing sheep, posthumously removing the element of chance in his terrible plan.
Gathered in a meeting, Stalin's collaborators read newsletters monstrous Moscow militia, the morgues, and exchanged glances. His confusion was linked to a new feeling for them: the absence of fear of the inevitable wrath of the great Stalin. The lord and master had died. "
All flows
Vasili Grossman (Trad. Marta Rebón)
Ballantine Books, 2008.
