The enduring legacy of despots

Sixty years ago this week, Joseph Stalin died. His daughter, Svetlana, remembered the Soviet dictator’s final moments:

“The lack of oxygen became acute ... the death agony was terrible,” she wrote in her memoirs. “He literally choked to death as we watched. At what seemed like the very last moment, he 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.”

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