Joesph Stalin the leader of the Soviet Union is well known as a despotic dictator but a lesser known fact is that he enjoyed practical jokes. And as you might have guessed they were not very nice.
source Stalin in 1943 at the tehran Conference
The 'Jokes'
The most harmless of the practical jokes I could find was that he would put tomatoes on people's chairs so they would sit on them. Can you imagine seeing the tomato on your chair, would you have the guts not to sit on it?
But they weren't all so harmless, he once sent police to a colleagues house to arrest him. The man was terrified and outraged and rang Stalin for help. Stalin got him to put the police captain on the phone and told him 'how dare you enter my friends home, leave immediately!' he then hung up, and to a full room of friends said "who says Stalin doesn't have a sense of humour".
The consequences
The joke (and I use the term very loosely) that got him killed was particular nasty. He told his guards that under no circumstances were they to enter his private rooms. He then screamed in pain and the guards, fearing Stalin was being attacked, stormed in. He had them shot for disobeying his orders.
This 'joke' backfired on him, as years later he suffered a seizure alone in his rooms crying for help the guards were too afraid to enter. He was only helped hours after and by then it was too late, he would die three days later.
disclaimer
Despite my title it is not clear whether this delay affected his chances of survival, call it artistic licence.
References
https://books.google.ie/books?id=lsKClpnX8qwC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false