AMAZING FUNERAL

Dunstan Times, 13 March 1933, Page 6

AMAZING FUNERAL

WIFE OF DICTATOR STALIN j RED COFFIN IN MOSCOW There hag - been a funeral in Soviet Moscow —the first since Lenin’s body was encased in glass ten years ago. None since him has been thought worthy of burial (says the 1 Sunday Ex press’). Even the greatest are only cremated in Russia to-day. Their ashes are placed in an urn and planted in a hole in the Red square. None expects or receives more in Moscow. All Russia is still vibrating with the sensation of this new, strange burial It was conducted with grand ceremony last month. Ministers carried the coffin It contained the body of the woman who had been Stalin’s wife. Not till the day before the funeral was it known that she had died. On Sunday she had been seen, happy and gay, at the Grand Theatre, Moscow. On Wed nesday it had been officially announced, “ Death came to Comrade Nadezhda Alliluiova on the night between. . . -” But no one knew Comrade Alliluicvn. Qu Thursday, the body, m a black crepe dress, pinned at the throat with a brooch, was laid out in the Parliament Building on the third floor. Five workmen stood guard over Luc coffin, and the G.P.U. band played doleful airs occasionally Iroin one §nd of tho room. “STALIN’S WIFE IS DEAD.” Two middle-aged women, red-eyed, weepiu", came to visit the coffin, i net staved Tor an hour and thou went sorrowfully away. Who were they.' Who was she? Then suddenly, early in the afternoon, the news swept the city tiiat Comrade Nadezhda Alliluiova was the Dictator’s wife. Stalin’s wife was dead; she could be seen! Bv evening thousands or peer up, peasants queued up at the doors to catch a glimpse of the coffin. J ne' filed past the little coffin lour deep Still there came no official acknowledgment of her status as the wife ol Stacondolences were worded with emotion; “We will always keep m dearest memory the most faithful 80l shevist woman, the Inend and devoted aid of Comrade Stalin.” Moscow wondered at the death uhich had caused all this emotion. \ot burial was not even whispered. On 1 rula* morning the red flag floated at hallmast on the Kremlin. Mumbling crowds gathered in huddled thousands in the bleak square, and out ot th» cold wind in every street leading to it. There had been the faintest nnumui of a funeral. The Hag still flapped at half-mast. This was a strange death so quick. Something would surely happen. Minds almost as numb as tiie frozen foot clung hopefully stoically, to the thought ol the whispered funeral. A SMALL RED COFFIN. One o’clock, 2 o’clock, then d. banged Irom the raucous bell. Hardly had' its tones ceased reverberating across the snow than a small red colfin emerged from the doors ol tne mourning hall in the Krom in, carried on four weirdly different shouldeis. In front the crowd recognised young Molotov, the Premier, next to mm, old President Kalinin. Then behind camo husky Voroshilov, Minister ol >'ai, and next to him the huge Ordzho.ii kidze. Minister of Heavy Industry. Hie crowd, now 100,000 strong, murmured, moved forward, and then stood still All this for Nadezhda Alliluiova! The red hearse drew up in the graveyard behind the old Convent ol the New Virgins, and there the little coffin was lowered into the earth. it is a convent no longer, ot course, but it a place of great memories. ( Moscow wondered and speculate . over all this pomp and grandeur. Jim idea of burial at all in Moscow kept the death of young Nadezhda a whispered mystery long alter the- Mmistei had returned to the Kremlin. GIRLHOOD OF MRS STALIN. The small body inside the coffin first saw the light of day in a toul hovci in Tiflis, just thirty years ago. Hoi father Sergei Alliluiova, a locksmith, lived and worked in that gloom and smell to which she was born. She bail grown to know the heavy footsteps of the tall, noisy man who came nom time .to time to spend evenings theie He drank countless glasses of tea i her father, and talked about the com urn “ Revolutzi ” with fierce violence She had been named Nade/did.M «hu * means Hope. He was called Ko - • Jmtio before the girl was gimu' I 1 she had become accustomed to ica in* of his robberies and murdeis, \\ hu ; l e called his expropriations and cxccu Hons. She thought them quite natu ial. He was robbing and killing to get money for the “ Revolutzi. (l Suddenly came news of the Pc\o lutzi,” of which she had a ligotten. Koba came back. E-o cri. tho first revolutionary Mmistei f ; tice. had pardoned him and still to rue it. 11,, Lenin came into D|D VC ;, * christened Koba “Stalin, means steel. He was a great man uo " , One day in 1919 he went to I.i«|s and took Nadezhda to Moscow as Ins buy • She was seventeen; he was loity. H ■ .ruarded her with harsh jealousy. She was allowed to go where she won d so Ion"- as she worked. She made I'lcuc. with the wile of young .Premier Molo tov, who carried her coffin.