There is a great book of stories by Soviet era radio astronomer Iosef Shklovsky called 5 Billion Vodka Bottles to the Moon which has a this story (which I tell from memory, no guarantees)
In 1953 a young Jewish math student found himself in jail. This was during the “Doctors Plot” purge where it was announced that Soros the Jewish doctors attending Stalin had plotted to send him off to his reward. So the usual suspects were rounded up including the student in question. He was listening to the radio with a cellmate, a Lithuanian doctor, and they heard the news that Comrade Stalin’s illness had worsened and he was, in fact, exhibiting Cheyne/Stokes breathing. “Who are these Comrades Cheyne and Stokes? ” asks the math student. “They are very serious comrades”, replies the doctor, “Let’s have a drink to celebrate”. Shortly thereafter, the Friend of All Poets, as Stalin called himself sometimes, was buried and the Doctors Plot roundup ended and many people were freed from jail. The student went on to get a Ph.D. in mathematics which he dedicated to “Doctors Cheyne and Stokes, without their assistance, this dissertation could never have been completed.”
