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The Death of Stalin

" For 20 years, Stalin's NKVD security forces have imposed The Great Terror. Those on Stalin's list of 'enemy' names are arrested, exiled or shot. " –Opening caption

On the night of 1 March 1953, Joseph Stalin demands the director of Radio Moscow provide a recording of a live recital of Piano Concerto No. 23 after the show has concluded. The director recalls the audience and orchestra and records the recreated concert. Pianist Maria Yudina, who hates the cruel dictator, only complies after being bribed and slips a note into the recording before it is couriered to Stalin.

Stalin is hosting a tense, but rowdy, gathering of Central Committee members at Kuntsevo Dacha. As Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov leaves, NKVD head Lavrentiy Beria reveals to Nikita Khrushchev and Deputy Chairman Georgy Malenkov that Molotov is to be part of the latest purge. The concert recording arrives and Maria's note, admonishing Stalin and wishing him dead, causes him to suffer a cerebral haemorrhage as he laughs at the note. Stalin's guards hear him fall in his office but fear disturbing him.

Stalin's housemaid discovers him unconscious the next morning and members of the Central Committee rush to the dacha. Beria finds Maria's note but only after Malenkov, Khrushchev, Lazar Kaganovich, Anastas Mikoyan, and Nikolai Bulganin arrive, does the Committee finally decide to send for medical help. The best doctors in Moscow have been arrested after the " Doctors' plot ". When Stalin dies under the care of mediocre doctors, Beria orders the NKVD to relieve the Soviet Army of control of Moscow.

Beria and Khrushchev vie for the support of Molotov and Stalin's children, Svetlana and her unstable, alcoholic brother Vasily. Beria removes Molotov's name from the impending purge and releases Polina Zhemchuzhina, Molotov's wife, from prison. The Committee names Malenkov, a puppet of Beria, as chairman. He hijacks Khrushchev's proposed reforms, such as releasing political prisoners and loosening clerical restrictions, relegating Khrushchev to planning Stalin's funeral.

Beria threatens Khrushchev with Maria's note, and Krushchev reverses Beria's order to halt all transport into Moscow. When 1,500 arriving mourners are killed, the Committee wants to blame junior NKVD officers. In an effort to deflect blame, Beria threatens his colleagues with documents detailing their involvement in various purges.

Angered by the NKVD's takeover of security from the Army, Marshal Georgy Zhukov supports Khrushchev in launching a coup against Beria after Stalin's funeral. Khrushchev gets support from the rest of the Committee save Malenkov, and on Zhukov's orders the Army reclaims its posts from the NKVD. Zhukov, Kiril Moskalenko and Leonid Brezhnev storm a meeting of the Committee and arrest Beria.

Malenkov reluctantly signs Beria's death warrant. At Beria's emergency trial, Khrushchev finds him guilty of counter-revolutionary activities, sexual assault, and paedophilia. Beria is summarily executed and Zhukov has his body burned. Krushchev sends Svetlana to Vienna under protest, keeps Vasily in Russia, where he can be watched, and concurs with Kaganovich that Malenkov is too weak to lead.

In 1956, Krushchev has defeated his rivals on the Committee to become the new leader of the Soviet Union, and is in the audience as Maria once again performs the Mozart concerto. Brezhnev, who will succeed Khrushchev in 1964, eyes Khrushchev from his seat.