to protect those from the NKTP, which was heavily targeted at this time. He was expected to address wrecking and sabotage within the NKTP at a Central Committee plenum that was scheduled to start 20 February 1937. On 17 February Ordzhonikidze spoke to Stalin privately on the phone. Ordzhonikidze then left for the Kremlin to see Vyacheslav Molotov and attend a subsequent Politburo meeting. At the meeting he again repeated his belief that charges of wrecking within his Commissariat were exaggerated, and was ordered by Stalin to leave after making these remarks; despite Ordzhonokidze being forced to leave, Khlevniuk has noted that the meeting was not unusual in its discussion. After Ordzhonikidze left, he visited Lazar Kaganovich and Alexander Poskrebyshev, and was home that night by 19:00, though he left for his Commissariat office at 21:30. He met a deputy there and was home again by 00:20, following a routine schedule. The details of the last few hours of Ordzhonikidze's life are unclear. What is known is that upon arriving back home he discovered the NKVD had searched his house, so he phoned Stalin to complain about this intrusion. The two talked angrily, switching between Russian and Georgian, Stalin explaining that the NKVD had the power to search anyone's residence, even his own. Ordzhonikidze was then invited to visit Stalin and did so for about 90 minutes. The following day, 18 February, Ordzhonikidze stayed at home in bed for most of the day. In the evening Zinaida heard a gunshot from Ordzhonikidze's room, and found him dead, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot. Stalin and other leaders arrived quickly at Ordzhonikidze's apartment, where it was decided to announce the cause of death as heart failure. An official bulletin was released the following day; it detailed Ordzhonikidze's troubled health history, and concluded by stating that "[o]n the morning of 18 February Ordzhonikidze made no complaint about his health, but at 17:30, while he was having his afternoon rest, he suddenly fell ill and a few minutes later died of paralysis of the heart". The announcement of Ordzhonikidze's death came as a surprise to the public. Seen as the driving force behind the industrialization of the Soviet Union, he was held in high esteem. His body lay in state in the House of the Unions on 19 February, and over 250,000 people visited the memorial. The funeral was held on 20 February, and