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.
History of the Soviet Union
The history of the Soviet Union between 1927 and 1953 covers the period of the Second World War and of victory against Nazi Germany while the USSR remained under the firm control of Joseph Stalin. Stalin sought to destroy his political rivals while transforming Soviet society with aggressive central planning, in particular a sweeping collectivization of agriculture and a rapid development of heavy industry. Stalin's power within the party and the state was established and eventually evolved into Stalin's cult of personality, Soviet secret-police and the mass-mobilization. The Communist Party were Stalin's major tools in molding the Soviet society. Stalin's brutal methods in achieving his goals, which included party purges, political repression of the general population, and forced collectivization, led to millions of deaths: in Gulag labor camps, during the man-made famine, and during forced resettlements of population.