On 5 March 1953, the brutal Stalin era of the Soviet Union came to an abrupt end, as the dictator died of a hemorrhagic stroke (the presence of gastrointestinal and cardiac hemorrhage has led to the credible theory that he may have been poisoned with warfarin by his own associates). His daughter, Svetlana, was present, and gave an eyewitness account:

My father died a difficult and terrible death. It was the first and only time I’ve seen someone die. God grants an easy death only to the just.

The hemorrhaging had gradually spread to the rest of his brain. Since his heart was healthy and strong, it affected the breathing centers bit by bit and caused suffocation. His breathing became shorter and shorter. For the last 12 hours the lack of oxygen was acute. His face altered and became dark. His lips turned black and the features grew unrecognisable. The last hours were nothing but a slow strangulation. The death agony was horrible. He literally choked to death as we watched. At what seemed the very last moment, he suddenly opened his eyes and cast a glance over everyone in the room. It was a terrible glance, insane or perhaps angry, and full of the fear of death and the unfamiliar faces of the doctors bent over him. The glances swept over everyone in a second. Then something incomprehensible and awesome happened that to this day I can’t forget and don’t understand. He suddenly lifted his left hand as though he were pointing to something above and bringing down a curse on us all. The gesture was incomprehensible and full of menace, and no one could say to whom or at what it might be directed. The next moment, after a final effort, the spirit wrenched itself free of the flesh.

(Source: Alliluyeva, Svetlana, Twenty Letters to a Friend, 17. New York, Harper, 1967.)