Did Stalin die of natural cause?
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Joseph Stalin, second leader of the Soviet Union, died on 5 March 1953 at the Kuntsevo Dacha, aged 74. He was given a state funeral, with four days of national mourning declared. According to the BBC, "his last days continue to provoke speculation and argument. [...] Fifty years on, the rumours of intrigues and conspiracies continue".
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Is there good evidence that Stalin did not die of natural causes? Plenty has been written about Stalin by anti-totalitarians and by Trotskyites. Those writers would have promoted such evidence. They have a clear motivation to do so. Anti-totalitarians would want to show that (some) dictators get their comeuppance. Trotskyites would want to show that there is still hope when a socialist revolution goes off-track. Despite those motivations, we are not aware of good evidence that Stalin did not die of natural causes. How likely is it that good evidence will emerge in the future? Not likely. The most likely time period for new evidence to have emerged was during the semi-liberal political climate of the Yeltsin presidency. Negative consequences would have been relatively low for someone to speak up. The current government, by contrast, is more protective of Stalin's legacy. Someone who did not speak up with Yeltsin as president most likely will not with Putin or another silovik as president. Finally, if Stalin died due to lack of medical care for a problem that might have been treated, that is still best classified as a death due to a natural cause. For lack of evidence to the contrary, it is reasonable to believe that Stalin probably died the way most of his cohort did. Most other 70-something Georgians with a history of cardiovascular issues died naturally in 1950s Russia.

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