HELLBOUND:  On this day in 1953, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union and all-around murderous, totalitarian commie, kicked the bucket.

The cult of Stalin was so strong—not too different from the North Korean cult of Kim Jong-Il in our day—that hysterical crying was heard everywhere (well … maybe not in some quarters in Siberia).   Even some whose family members had been on the receiving end of Stalin’s abuses mourned.

One university student later reported, “I saw a party official weep so hard that she couldn’t even stand … and our Marxism teacher, a very nice person, actually, said:  ‘If one would ask what’s most important for me … I’d say my daughter, of course.  But if I could give her away to resurrect him, I would do that.’”

In death as in life, Stalin caused the death and destruction of the Soviet people.  Party officials hastily organized a memorial ceremony.  The crowd grew so large and so tightly packed that individuals could do nothing but go with the flow.  No one knows for sure how many were killed when the crowd began to stampede.  Estimates range from several dozens to several thousands.