Deleting Misleading Account of Chronology from Intro The article s Introduction until now said of Life and Fate The book remained censored by Nikita Krushchev after Stalin s death This gets the timing wrong Stalin died in 1953 Grossman only submitted his manuscript for publication by 1960 some sources suggest it was actually completed in 1959 So the drama over its possible publication within the USSR all occurred on Kruschev s watch Grossman actually died a matter of days before Kruschev s fall from power