Joesph Stalin infamous 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 guess they were not all that nice.
The organic whoopee cushion
The most harmless one I could find was that he would put tomatoes on people's chairs so they would sit on them. There are stories of people seeing the tomato before then sitting on it. No one had the guts to deny Stalin his joke.
The terrifying prank call
But they weren't all so harmless, he once sent police to a colleague's house to arrest him. The man was terrified 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 said 'who says Stalin doesn't have a sense of humour.
Just deserts
The joke (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 as years later he suffered a seizure alone in his room crying for help the guards were too afraid to enter. He was only helped many hours after. He would die three days later.
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
http://www.weirdworm.com/fun-facts-about-dictators/
This is a reedited re-post from one of my 'cool moments in history' series. I am trying to gauge if it is worth my while writing some more