DIED. Lazar Kaganovich, 97, the last surviving henchman of Joseph Stalin; in Moscow. After going to work in a Kiev shoe factory at 14, Kaganovich joined the Bolsheviks in 1911. Once the Communists took power, he rose through party ranks and directed the collectivization of Soviet agriculture in which 11 million peasants were killed or starved. After Nikita Khrushchev succeeded Stalin, Kaganovich led an abortive coup against him. Calling Kaganovich Stalin's "chained cur and toady," Khrushchev had him ejected from the Politburo--far gentler treatment than Stalin would have meted out.