O BLESSED JOSEPH, who yielded up thy last breath in the arms Joseph Stalin was born as Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili in Gori, Georgia, Russian Empire (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953). Joseph Stalin, secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922–53) and premier of the Soviet state (1941–53), who for a quarter of a century dictatorially ruled the Soviet Union and transformed it into a major world power. He was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death. Unusual order The night of 28 February began in the usual manner for Stalin and his closest political circle, Lavrenty Beria, Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin and Georgi Malenkov. His cause of death was a stroke brought on by high blood pressure. Did he die of natural causes following a brain haemorrhage or was Stalin killed because he was about to plunge the Soviet Union into a war its people were in no position to fight? Stalin’s Early Life. When Stalin fell unconscious again, Beria immediately stood and spat. However, some historians claim that Stalin did not die of a stroke and was actually poisoned. Joseph Stalin, the future leader of the Soviet Union, often referred to as the ‘Red Tsar,' was born on 18 December 1878 to a Georgian cobbler in Gori, Georgia and his wife in a small, impoverished village. When did Stalin die and how did he die? Joseph Stalin was leader of Russia when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 and saw his nation survive the battles fought at Moscow and Leningrad and oversaw a … Lenin was exiled in Switzerland in 1912 when he appointed Joseph Stalin to serve for the Bolshevik Party on the first Central Committee. A stroke in 1953 killed Josef Stalin while he was alone in his Dacha on March 5, 1953. Joseph Stalin was one of the most important world leaders during the first half of the 20th century. On March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin, the second leader of the Soviet Union, died aged 74 after suffering a stroke. Nikita Khrushchev, Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov and Lavrentiy Beria were in charge of organizing the funeral. Joseph Stalin died on March 5, 1953 at the age of 74. Just how many millions of deaths Joseph Stalin was responsible for is disputed, but that the figure runs into millions is not in doubt. Joseph Stalin died on March 5, 1953 at the age of 74. Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs that Beria had, immediately after the stroke, gone about "spewing hatred against [Stalin] and mocking him", and then, when Stalin showed signs of consciousness, dropped to his knees and kissed his hand. There’s little doubt that Stalin’s rule—his forced industrialization, his famine-causing collectivization, his paranoid purges—killed, according to many estimates, between 10 and 20 million people, and he did most probably die of natural causes (see below), so the basic point still stands, but it … To the end, when he was in his seventies and approaching his own death, his subordinates continued to carry out his murderous orders. Learn more about Stalin in this article. The True Story of the Death of Stalin ... words that Stalin did not take well, biographer Roman Brackman wrote in The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life. His death was announced by the state broadcaster and embalming was done to preserve his body. Whatever did happen, Joseph must have died a “happy death” surrounded by the most loving wife and son in the whole universe. How Did Joseph Stalin Die? His cause of death was a stroke brought on by high blood pressure. On this day, Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union since 1924, dies in Moscow. Joseph Stalin was a powerful Communist leader in the early years of the Soviet Union.He was a dictator who terrorized the population and sent many people to prisons and labour camps.. Joseph Stalin was born in 1878 in Georgia, which was a Russian province at that time.