From: Adam <""4thwormcastfromthemolehill\"{at}the field.near
the bridge">

BTW George wrt "watch your tea" I though I might list some of
those who in Russian/Sov history didn't:

Ivan the Terrible
Rasputin
Lenin
Maxim Gorky
Stalin.

The letter wot hastened Lenin's death:

"`Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our
midst and in dealings among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a
Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a
way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his
stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only
one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite
and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc. This
circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail. But I think that from
the standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the standpoint of
what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky  it is
not a detail, or it is a detail which can assume decisive
importance.'"

Odd how quickly he died after that.

& here's a fun piece:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=19808

"Special people are always dying of heart attacks and strokes. As
everyone knows, such illnesses are the No. 1 cause of death among type A
personalities. One of the most intensive type A personalities in Russian
history was Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet
secret police. Before his 50th birthday he collapsed and died during a
Central Committee debate in 1926. At one point Stalin's spin-doctors said
Dzerzhinsky had suffered a stroke. Later it was alleged that Stalin had
shot Dzerzhinsky in the back of the head with a revolver. That too is a
stroke -- of sorts.

Not coincidentally, Lenin died after a series of strokes. At one point
Stalin asked the Soviet leadership to provide Lenin with poison. Sinister
as this may sound, Stalin was responsible for Lenin's medical supervision.
In recommending poison he wanted to ease his dear friend's distress. Of
course, he had another reason as well. Four days into this care-taking
assignment Stalin lost his temper with Lenin's wife, Krupskaya, and called
her a "syphilitic whore." Fortunately for Stalin, Lenin suffered
a severe stroke that very day.

Imagine if Lenin had been able to get up from his sickbed.

As might be expected, Krupskaya did oppose Stalin for a short while --
something that Stalin never forgave. In keeping with his vengeful nature,
Stalin allegedly gave Krupskaya a poison birthday cake on the occasion of
her 70th birthday in 1939. After eating it, she was hospitalized and
operated on by Kremlin doctors who assured her death. (This story was
published in the West under the title, "Stalin's Doctor, Stalin's
Nurse." It recounts a whole serious of poisonings, shootings and phony
accidents, including the murder of Stalin's own wife.) "

Adam

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