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.
The Death of Stalin
In the USSR in 1953, General Secretary Joseph Stalin is listening to a concert on the radio and orders that a recording of it be delivered to him. The concert has to be hurriedly repeated and recorded, but the pianist, Maria Yudina, hides a note to Stalin in the sleeve of the record, saying he has ruined the country. As Stalin reads the note in his dacha, he suffers a cerebral haemorrhage and becomes paralysed. The members of the Central Committee are alerted. The first to arrive are Interior Ministry (NKVD) head Lavrentiy Beria, who discovers Yudina's note, and Deputy General Secretary Georgy Malenkov. As Malenkov panics, Beria encourages him to take the leadership, hoping to use him as a puppet.