Official anti-Semitism represented a dramatic reversal for a state that, in contrast to the imperial regime, had formerly encouraged Jewish culture and provided individuals of Jewish background with unprecedented opportunities for upward mobility. Early in 1953, news-papers proclaimed the uncovering of a "Doctors' Plot," according to which prominent physicians, the majority Jewish, planned to poison Stalin. People .feared the news heralded another round of terror. If so, Stalin's death on March 5, 1953, prevented it. Despite the horrors his rule had visited on so many, millions of people wept in grief over his death, concentration camp prisoners among them.