Killing Stalin ...

...

"At that moment some mail was delivered - a package from the Central Committee. And it was usually our duty to hand over the mail. Mine, to be more exact. 'All right, then,' I said. 'Wish me luck, boys'. We normally went in making some noise - sometimes even banged the door on purpose - to let him know we were coming. He did not like it if you came in quietly. You had to walk in with confidence, sure of yourself, but not stand too much at attention. Or else he would tell you off: 'What's all this good soldier Schweik stuff?'

"Well, I opened the door, walked loudly down the corridor. The room where we put documents was right next to the small dining room. I went into that room and looked through the open door into the small dining room and saw the Boss lying on the floor, his right hand out-stretched...like this [here Lozgachev stretched out his half-bent arm]. I froze. My arms and legs refused to obey me. He had not yet lost consciousness, but he couldn't speak. He had good hearing, he'd obviously heard my footsteps and seemed to be trying to summon me to help him. I hurried to him and asked: 'Comrade Stalin, what's wrong?' He'd wet himself and he wanted to pull something up with his left hand. I said to him: 'Should I call a doctor?' He made some incoherent noise - like 'Dz...Dz...'

...

As I have written elsewhere, we now possess clinical and forensic evidence supporting the long-held suspicion that Stalin was indeed poisoned by members of his own inner circle, most likely Lavrenti Beria, and perhaps even Khrushchev, all of whom feared for their lives.

(Hat tip to my brother George, a neurosurgeon, who sent the link along with a note: "Interesting article on Stalin’s death.  As of that date, 1953, Russian doctors were apparently still using leeches.  The hypertonic enemas also must’ve helped the increased intracranial pressure from the hemorrhage!"  to which his son (and my nephew) Michael, swiftly responded "It's suggested that his inner circle may have poisoned him!  Geez, with friends like that, who needs enemas?")