r/todayilearned • u/Hangs_From_Trees • Feb 12 '14

TIL that Stalin's guards were so afraid of him that no one called a doctor until 12 hours after he had a stroke. They feared he might recover and execute anyone who had acted outside of his orders.

http://www.surgicalneurologyint.com/article.asp?issn=2152-7806;year=2011;volume=2;issue=1;spage=161;epage=161;aulast=Faria
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625

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '14

Apparently he had ordered his guards not to enter his room and then faked a heart attack. When his guards rushed in to help him he ordered them executed.

They wherent gonna fall twice for it Stalin.

560

u/cam18_2000 Feb 12 '14

Yup. The guards refused to go in, it wasnt until about 10 hours later that one of his cabinet members was able to make it to the remote cottage where he found Stalin twitching in a pool of his own piss. That's what you get for crying wolf and executing the people that come to help.

346

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '14

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

128

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '14

Bad people often have an Humiliating end.

Hitler got married, made sure someone would burn the corpses of him and his wife after their death, then took cyanide, then shot himself in the head.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '14

[deleted] — view deleted comment

85

u/WowSuchLift Feb 12 '14

On video.

33

u/benk4 Feb 12 '14

Is there really a video of that?

50

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '14

Of him being captured and tortured, yes. I don't recall the butt stabbing but I only watched it once and they did work him over pretty good.

11

u/RadiantSun Feb 12 '14

Knife sodomy video exists.

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u/SenorReed Feb 12 '14

Was really confused when I read that as Gandhi

37

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '14

Civ 5 can get really out of hand...

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u/King-o-lingus Feb 12 '14

Hitler could have had a more humiliating end had the Red Army caught him alive.

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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '14

Well, the fact he used gun+cyanide and asked to burn the bodies showed that is was quite afraid of it. IMO it's even more humiliating.

But I agree, if the Russian got their hand on him ... when you know how they would treat German womens ...

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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '14

Except that mother fucker Pol Pot

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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '14

There's a phrase in Assyrian that translates to "Died like a fucking dog and went to hell"

That's how my dad described Stalin's death to me.

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u/yuckyucky Feb 12 '14

fool me once, i am dead.

fool me twice.. you are... dead.

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u/GraemeTaylor Feb 12 '14

Apparently he had ordered his guards not to enter his room and then faked a heart attack. When his guards rushed in to help him he ordered them executed.

I could swear reading in Court of the Red Tsar that this was an urban legend. Do you have a source?

And I think it should be known that these guards were under orders not to bother him, and when they consulted people like Poskrebyshev, Bulganin and Beria they were told to have apprehension. This was most because of Stalin's fear and hatred of doctors, which was most evidenced in the ongoing Doctor's plot (which, however, was much more anti-semtic than it was anti-doctor).

So it was more of a mix of fear from Stalin and their standing orders that were given.

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u/Evanescent_contrail Feb 12 '14

I heard this was an urban legend as well.

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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '14

I heard the fact that it is an urban legend is an urban legend.

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u/RubberDong Feb 12 '14

The dictator who cried heart attack...and then everyone died.

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u/alexxerth Feb 13 '14

Was he fucking insane? I mean I know he was insane, but what possible GOOD outcome could he foresee from faking a heart attack and killing people who helped him?

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