MR ZHDANOV DEAD

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25589, 2 September 1948, Page 5

MR ZHDANOV DEAD

STALIN’S RIGHTHAND MAN WORK PRAISED BY STATE LEADERS (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, September 1. Mr Andrei Zhdanov, who was regarded as the logical successor to Mr Stalin, died yesterday in Moscow. Mr Zhdanov, who was 51, was Mr Stalin’s right-hand man. He was secretary of the central committee of the Communist Party and one of the prime movers in 1947 in the foundation of the Cominform. Mr Zhdanov’s funeral will take place to Moscow’s Red Square to-morrow. A special joint communique issued by the Soviet Government and the Communist Party said that Mr Zhdanov died “as a result of a serious illness.”

It added: “Comrade Zhdanov’s death represents a heavy loss for the party Bnd for the entire Soviet nation.” pie Moscow correspondent of the British United Press says that an obituary notice praising Mr Zhdanov and describing his most important work ?’as signed by all the Russian leaders, including Mr Stalin and Mr Molotov. ■Die body is lying in state in the Hall of Columns in the House of Unions in Moscow. Thousands filed past it during the night. Reuter's Moscow correspondent reports that the five doctors who signed Mr Zhdanov’s death certificate said he suffered from high blood pressure complicated by severe arterio-sclerosis. •during the last few years he had frequent attacks of angina pectoris, followed by cardiac asthma. Death followed from paralysis of the morbidly degenerated heart, accompanied by acute emphysema.