Purim
There is a tale in the Hasidic Chabad movement that supposedly Joseph Stalin died as a result of some metaphysical intervention of the seventh Chabad leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, during the recitation of a discourse at a public Purim Farbrengen. Stalin was suddenly paralyzed on 1 March 1953, which corresponds to Purim 1953, and died 4 days later. Due to Stalin's death, nationwide pogroms against Jews throughout the Soviet Union were averted, as Stalin's infamous doctors' plot was halted.
Stalin's Funeral
1953, USSR. Moscow bids farewell to Joseph Stalin. In the funeral crowd, Zhenya gets acquainted with Eli. Over the long hours spent in the funeral procession, they had time to learn a lot about each other, but Elya absurdly dies. So Zhenya begins another, adult, life.Yevtushenko's was more critical of Joseph Stalin's crimes by the time of production and he also sought to emphasise his generation's rejection of Stalinism; "If one is to speak about Stalinism, then we are still digging down to the roots of the poisonous tree of totalitarianism, of which Stalin was the gardener. But this film is not about the roots and not about the gardener but rather about the green shoots sprouting in the evil shade of that tree and yet straining toward the light - about our generation."