The 20th century, year after year

1901 | 1902 | 1903 | 1904 | 1905

1906 | 1907 | 1908 | 1909 | 1910

1 911 | 1912 | 1913 | 1914 | 1915

1916 | 1917 | 1918 | 1919 | 1920

1921 | 1922 | 1923 | 1924 | 1925

1926 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930

1931 | 1932 | 1933 | 1934 | 1935

1936 | 1937 | 1938 | 1939 | 1940

1941 | 1942 | 1943 | 1944 | 1945

1946 | 1947 | 1948 | 1949 | 1950

1951 | 1952

The year 1953 was the last in the life of the all-powerful Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. In January he had a medical checkup done by a team of prominent doctors led by the famous professor Vinogradov, who detected a sharp deterioration of the patient's health and recommended strict bed confinement and complete inactivity. The diagnosis angered the dictator and, soon after, Vinogradov and a number of other leading Soviet doctors were arrested and renounced as "agents of international Zionism". The arrests triggered the so-called Doctors' Case and a new spiral of the Great Terror of the Thirties was only prevented by Stalin's death on March 5, 1953. Stalin had a stroke when he was staying behind armored doors at his country dacha just outside Moscow. The bodyguards found his prostrate on the floor of his dining room. Stalin was still breathing but unconscious. Fully aware of the strongman's profound distrust of the doctors, the security officers never called an ambulance. They only notified members of Stalin's inner circle who finally allowed the doctors to examine the dying leader. There was nothing much they could possibly do, though and, on March 5, Joseph Stalin died. Some people in the West still believe that Stalin could have been poisoned by his associates, including the head of his much feared secret police, Lavrenti Beria.

Stalin's death wrote an end to a whole era of a political system based on the oppression of anyone who dared not to toe the party line. The system had penetrated every imaginable aspect of the social life, from politics and economics to culture and ideology, and the deification of Stalin had etched itself indelibly on the hearts and minds of millions of people. Thousands of grief-stricken mourners flocked to Moscow from all across the nation to pay their last respects to the Father of All Nations and hundreds were trampled to death in a stampede caused by poor organization during the funeral day. Stalin's embalmed body was placed inside the Lenin mausoleum next to that of the founder of the Soviet state.

The country needed a new leader and the blood-stained monster, Lavrenti Beria, came in from behind to fill the void. His main rival, Nikita Khrushchev, was busily canvassing the support of fellow Politburo members to get rid of the man notorious for the endless purges and tortures he had masterminded during his long tenure as the country's secret service supreme. During a meeting of the ruling Politburo held in June, Khrushchev accused Beria of careerism, nationalism and links with British intelligence. Immediately after, a team of top Army Generals, led by the legendary Marshal Georgy Zhukov, arrested Beria who was later tried and executed.

In September Nikita Khrushchev was elected first secretary of the party thus assuming national leadership.

It just so happened that the great Russian composer Sergei Prokofyev died on the very same day with Josef Stalin. It wasn't until after the funeral of the all-powerful dictator, however, that the sad news of Prokofyev's demise was finally made public. With fresh flowers coming to Moscow all being used for Stalin's funeral, Prokofyev's friends decorated his coffin with home-grown flowers. The year 1953 was also the last for another great Russian, author Ivan Bunin. Bunin died in Paris where he had emigrated from Russia in 1920. To this very day he is considered Russia's foremost lyricist and one of the best stylists this country has ever had. Ivan Bunin was the first Russian to receive the Nobel Prize for literature.

The very same year of 1953 brought Sir Winston Churchill the Nobel Prize for literature in recognition of the more than 40 books he wrote throughout his long and action-packed life. The better known of these relate the history of two bloody wars the Western nations and Russia had waged against Germany. A leading player in both, Churchill wrote his books as a historian and the author of eye-opening memoirs that are real fun to read…

Also in 1953 General Dwight Eisenhower becomes the 34th President of the United States. During the closing stage of World War Two he was the Supreme Allied Commander in the West. The year was also the first in the life of Benazir Bhutto - the prominent Pakistani politician and the leader of the People's Party of Pakistan. At the age of 35 she was elected Prime Minister - the first woman ever to run a Moslem state.

In 1953 New Zealander Edmund Hillary became the first man to scale the world's tallest mountain, the Everest, and in the United States, the trailblazing medical researcher Jonas Salk developed a vaccine against polio. Since 1953, May 8 has been universally marked as the World Day of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent. May 8 is the birthday of Jean Henri Dunant, the Swiss public figure and the founding father of the International Committee of the Red Cross .

THE 20th CENTURY:YEAR AFTER YEAR series of historical programs is prepared by Vladimir Zhamkin.

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