Doctors' plot

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Not to be confused with
Doctors' trial
.

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The "doctors' plot" (Russian: дело врачей, romanized: delo vrachey, lit. 'doctors' case') was a Soviet state-sponsored

Jewish surnames.[3] Following this, many doctors, both Jews and non-Jews, were dismissed from their jobs, arrested, and tortured to produce admissions. A few weeks after Stalin's death
in 1953, the new Soviet leadership said there was a lack of evidence regarding the doctors' plot and the case was dropped. Soon after, the case was declared to have been a fabrication.

Beginnings

A number of theories attempt to explain the origins of the doctors' plot case. Historians typically relate it to the earlier case of Stalin's destruction of the

Stalin as a pretext to launch a massive purge of the Communist Party,[6] and, according to Edvard Radzinsky, even to consolidate the country for a future World War III.[7]

In 1948, an allegation was made by a Soviet veteran medical worker, Lydia Timashuk, who stated that "intentional distortions in medical conclusions [were] made by major medical experts who served as consultants in the hospital". Timashuk "exposed their criminal designs" and as such the security bodies of the Soviet Union were made aware of the existence of the alleged conspiracy against Stalin.[8] Stalin had strong doubts about Timashuk's allegations.[9] Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, stated that her father was "very saddened by the turn of events" and that the housekeeper heard him saying that he did not believe the doctors were "dishonest" and that the only evidence against them were the reports of Timashuk.[10]

In 1951, Ministry for State Security (MGB) investigator Mikhail Ryumin reported to his superior, Viktor Abakumov, Minister of the MGB, that Professor Yakov Etinger, who was arrested as a "bourgeois nationalist" with connections to the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, had committed malpractice in treating Andrei Zhdanov (died 1948) and Alexander Shcherbakov (died 1945), allegedly with the intention of killing them. However, Abakumov refused to believe the story. Etinger died in prison (2 March 1951) due to interrogations and harsh conditions. Ryumin was then dismissed from his position in the MGB for misappropriating money and was held responsible for the death of Etinger. With the assistance of Georgy Malenkov, Ryumin wrote a letter to Stalin, accusing Abakumov of killing Etinger in order to hide a conspiracy to kill off the Soviet leadership. On 4 July 1951, the Politburo set up a commission (headed by Malenkov and including Beria) to investigate the issue. Based on the commission's report, the Politburo soon passed a resolution on the "bad situation in the MGB" and Abakumov was fired.[11][12]

Beria and Malenkov both tried to use the situation to expand their power through gaining control of the MGB.[5][13]

Arrests

Ukaz
awarding Lydia Timashuk the Order of Lenin for "unmasking killer-doctors"

Abakumov was arrested and tortured soon after being dismissed as head of the MGB.[14] He was charged with being a sympathizer and protector of the criminal Jewish underground.[15] This arrest was followed by the arrests of many agents who worked for him in the central apparatus of the MGB, including most Jews.[16]

The killer doctors case was revived in 1952 when the letter from cardiologist

Secret Speech" mentioned her in this respect.[19][20]

The Kremlin doctors involved in the cover up were to be arrested, but they were all Russian. To portray the conspiracy as Zionist, Ryumin and

Semyon Ignatyev, who had succeeded Abakumov as head of the MGB, had the Jewish doctors Etinger supposedly specified also added to the arrest list; many of them, like Miron Vovsi, had been consulted by the Kremlin's medical department. The arrests started in September 1952.[21] Vlasik was fired as head of Stalin's security and eventually also arrested for ignoring the Timashuk letter.[22][23]

Initially, 37 were arrested. Under torture, prisoners seized in the investigation of the alleged plot were compelled to produce evidence against themselves and their associates.[24][25]

Stalin harangued Ignatyev and accused the MGB of incompetence. He demanded that the interrogations of doctors already under arrest be accelerated.[26] Stalin complained that there was no clear picture of the Zionist conspiracy and no solid evidence that specifically the Jewish doctors were guilty.[25]

Newly opened

Malenkov, Khrushchev and other "potential victims of the doctors' plot".[27]

Media campaign

Cartoon published in Krokodil magazine, January 1953

Stalin ordered the news agency

Mingrelian Affair, which personally affected him.[32]

On 13 January 1953, nine eminent doctors in Moscow were accused of taking part in a vast plot to poison members of the top Soviet political and military leadership.[2] Pravda reported the accusations under the headline "Vicious Spies and Killers under the Mask of Academic Physicians":

Today the TASS news agency reported the arrest of a group of saboteur-doctors. This terrorist group, uncovered some time ago by organs of state security, had as their goal shortening the lives of leaders of the Soviet Union by means of medical sabotage.

Investigation established that participants in the terrorist group, exploiting their position as doctors and abusing the trust of their patients, deliberately and viciously undermined their patients' health by making incorrect diagnoses, and then killed them with bad and incorrect treatments. Covering themselves with the noble and merciful calling of physicians, men of science, these fiends and killers dishonored the holy banner of science. Having taken the path of monstrous crimes, they defiled the honor of scientists.

Among the victims of this band of inhuman beasts were Comrades A. A. Zhdanov and A. S. Shcherbakov. The criminals confessed that, taking advantage of the illness of Comrade Zhdanov, they intentionally concealed a myocardial infarction, prescribed inadvisable treatments for this serious illness and thus killed Comrade Zhdanov. Killer doctors, by incorrect use of very powerful medicines and prescription of harmful regimens, shortened the life of Comrade Shcherbakov, leading to his death.

The majority of the participants of the terrorist group… were bought by American intelligence. They were recruited by a branch-office of American intelligence – the international Jewish bourgeois-nationalist organization called "Joint." The filthy face of this Zionist spy organization, covering up their vicious actions under the mask of charity, is now completely revealed…

Unmasking the gang of poisoner-doctors struck a blow against the international Jewish Zionist organization.... Now all can see what sort of philanthropists and "friends of peace" hid beneath the sign-board of "Joint."

Other participants in the terrorist group (Vinogradov, M. Kogan, Egorov) were discovered, as has been presently determined, to have been long-time agents of English intelligence, serving it for many years, carrying out its most criminal and sordid tasks. The bigwigs of the USA and their English junior partners know that to achieve domination over other nations by peaceful means is impossible. Feverishly preparing for a new world war, they energetically send spies inside the USSR and the people's democratic countries: they attempt to accomplish what the Hitlerites could not do — to create in the USSR their own subversive "fifth column."...

The Soviet people should not for a minute forget about the need to heighten their vigilance in all ways possible, to be alert for all schemes of war-mongers and their agents, to constantly strengthen the Armed Forces and the intelligence organs of our government.[33]

Other individuals mentioned included:

Six of the nine mentioned doctors were Jewish.[36][37]

The list of alleged victims included high-ranked officials Andrei Zhdanov, Aleksandr Shcherbakov, Army Marshals Aleksandr Vasilevsky, Leonid Govorov and Ivan Konev, General Sergei Shtemenko, Admiral Gordey Levchenko and others.

Stalin intended to publish in Pravda a letter signed by many prominent Soviet Jews in which the Jews involved in the plot would be denounced, and differences between them and other Soviet Jews (those loyal to the USSR and to socialism) would be made clear. Two versions of the letter were created, but it was never published. Either Stalin eventually decided not to publish it or it was still being worked on at the time of his death.[38]

Stalin's death and the consequences

After Stalin's death on 5 March 1953, the new leadership quickly dismissed all charges related to the plot; the doctors were exonerated in a 31 March decree by the newly appointed Minister of Internal Affairs,

Malenkov to review the doctors' plot case and quickly found that it was fabricated.[41] There is a tale in the Hasidic Chabad movement that Stalin became sick as a consequence of some metaphysical intervention of the seventh Chabad leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, during the recitation of a public discourse at a Purim gathering in 1953, which supposedly caused Stalin's death and averted massive deportations of Soviet Jews to Siberia that were to take place as a result of the antisemitic campaign surrounding the doctor's plot affair.[42][43][44]

Khrushchev's statements

In his 1956 "Secret Speech", First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev stated that the doctors' plot was "fabricated... set up by Stalin," but that Stalin did not "have the time in which to bring it to an end," which saved the doctors' lives.[45] Khrushchev also told the session that Stalin called the judge in the case and, regarding the methods to be used, stated "beat, beat and, beat again."[45] Stalin supposedly told his Minister of State Security, "If you do not obtain confessions from the doctors we will shorten you by a head."[45]

Khrushchev also claimed that Stalin hinted to him to incite antisemitism in Ukraine, saying, "The good workers at the factory should be given clubs so they can beat the hell out of those Jews."

better source needed
]

According to Khrushchev, Stalin told Politburo members, "You are blind like young kittens. What will happen without me? The country will perish because you do not know how to recognize enemies."[45]

Khrushchev asserted that Stalin intended to use the doctors' trial to launch a massive purge of the Communist Party.[6]

Alleged planned deportation of Jews

Soviet historian Samson Madievsky [ru] has advanced a view, based on various memoirs and secondary evidence, that the doctors' plot case was intended to trigger the mass repression and deportation of the Jews to the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, similar to the deportations of many other ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union, but the plan was not accomplished because of the sudden death of Stalin.[48]

According to Louis Rapoport, the alleged deportation was planned to start with the public execution of the imprisoned doctors, and then the "following incidents would follow": "attacks on Jews orchestrated by the secret police, the publication of the statement by the prominent Jews, and a flood of other letters demanding that action be taken. A three-stage program of genocide would be followed. First, almost all Soviet Jews ... would be shipped to camps east of the Urals ... Second, the authorities would set Jewish leaders at all levels against one another ... Also the MGB [Secret Police] would start killing the elites in the camps, just as they had killed the Yiddish writers ... the previous year. The ... final stage would be to 'get rid of the rest.'"[49]

Four large camps were built in southern and western Siberia shortly before Stalin's death in 1953, and there were rumors that they were for Jews.

half-breeds" (polukrovki).[51] Before his death in March 1953, Stalin allegedly had planned the execution of doctors' plot defendants already on trial in Red Square in March 1953, and then he would cast himself as the savior of Soviet Jews by sending them to camps away from the purportedly enraged Russian populace.[51][54][55] There are further statements that describe some aspects of such a planned deportation.[53]

Historian

Alexander Yakovlev,[57][56] Stalin started preparations for the deportation of Jews in February 1953 and ordered preparation of a letter from a group of notable Soviet Jews with a request to the Soviet government to carry out the mass deportation of Jews in order to save them from "the just wrath of Soviet people." The letter had to be published in the newspaper Pravda and was found later.[58][59] According to historian Samson Madiyevsky, the deportation was definitely considered, and the only thing in question is the time-frame.[60][61][62]

However, Russian historian Zhores Medvedev argued against these allegations, saying that no documents were found in support of the deportation plan.[63]

See also

Notes

References

Citations

  1. Encyclopedia Britannica. 20 July 1998. Archived
    from the original on 6 September 2015.
  2. ^
    OCLC 651524877
    – via Internet Archive.
  3. ^ Medvedev 2003, pp. 68–170.
  4. ^ Brent & Naumov 2003, p. 4
  5. ^ a b Medvedev 2003, p. 148
  6. ^ a b Encyclopedia Britannica, The Doctors' Plot, 2008.
  7. ISBN 978-0-385-47954-7
  8. OCLC 59849271
    .
  9. ISBN 978-0-385-14333-2
    .
  10. ISBN 978-0-09-085310-6
    .
  11. ^ Sebag-Montefiore 2005, pp. 611–613.
  12. ^ Medvedev 2003, pp. 150–156.
  13. ^ Zhukov 2005, p. 562.
  14. ^ Sebag-Montefiore 2007, pp. 613–614.
  15. ^ Sebag-Montefiore 2007, p. 612.
  16. ^ Medvedev 2003, p. 157.
  17. ^ Sebag-Montefiore 2007, p. 579.
  18. ^ Zhukov 2005, pp. 579–580
  19. ^ "ЧЕЛОВЕК". 14 November 2003. Archived from the original on 14 November 2003.
  20. ^ Как был создан миф о Л.Ф. Тимашук? (How the myth about L.F.Timasuk was created?); from: Бобров, О. Е., "Медицина (нравы, судьбы, бесправие)", Донецк : Регина, 2004, pp. 93–102
  21. ^ Medvedev 2003, pp. 168–170.
  22. ^ Sebag-Montefiore 2004, p. 630.
  23. ^ Zhukov 2005, pp. 580–581.
  24. ^ Sebag-Montefiore 2004, p. 636.
  25. ^ a b Medvedev 2003, p. 181.
  26. ^ Sebag-Montefiore 2004, p. 620.
  27. ^ Reported by Izvestia, 1989, p.155; also Istochnik, 1997, p.140–141.
  28. ^ Brent & Naumov 2003, p. 288.
  29. ISBN 978-0-19-530420-6
    , page 158.
  30. ISBN 978-0-8225-3421-1
    , pp. 99–101.
  31. ^ Zhukov 2005, pp. 591–592.
  32. ^ Medvedev 2003, pp. 180, 199.
  33. ^ "Подлые Шпионы и Убийцы под Маской Профессоров-Врачей" [Vicious Spies and Killers under the Mask of Academic Physicians]. Pravda. 13 January 1953. p. 1.
  34. Moskovsky Komsomolets
    . 6 September 2005. Retrieved 15 May 2018.
  35. ^ Medvedev 2003, p. 186.
  36. JSTOR 23603630
    .
  37. ^ Zhukov 2005, p. 592.
  38. ^ Medvedev 2003, pp. 204–209.
  39. ^ Brent & Naumov 2003, pp. 324–325.
  40. ^ Sebag-Montefiore 2004, p. 644n.
  41. ^ Mesyatev, Nikolai (1 June 2010). "Беседа с легендарным "комсомольцем" Н.Н.Месяцевым накануне его 90-лети" [Conversation With the Legendary "Komsomol" Official N. N. Mesyatsev on the Eve of His 90th Birthday]. Sovetskaya Rossiya (Interview). Interviewed by Valentin Chikin. Archived from the original on 1 May 2020. Retrieved 15 May 2018.
  42. ^ Rich, Tracey R. (2010). "Purim". Judaism 101. Archived from the original on 9 July 2009. Retrieved 18 March 2011.
  43. ISBN 978-0-521-24713-9
    .
  44. ^ a b Brackman 2001, p. 390.
  45. ^ a b c d Kruschev, Nikita, SPECIAL REPORT TO THE 20TH CONGRESS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION, Closed session, 24–25 February 1956.
  46. ISBN 978-0-521-24713-9
    , pp. 107–8.
  47. ^ "Kielce Pogrom – the Truth about the Kielce Pogrom Comes to Light".
  48. ^ Samson Madiyevsky,"1953 год: ПредстоЯла ли советским евреЯм депортациЯ?"
  49. PMID 12493677
    .
  50. ^ Brent & Naumov 2003, p. 295.
  51. ^ a b c d Brackman 2001, p. 388
  52. ^ Brent & Naumov 2003, pp. 47–48, 295.
  53. ^ a b c Eisenstadt, Yaakov, Stalin's Planned Genocide, 22 Adar 5762, 6 March 2002.
  54. ^ Brent & Naumov 2003, pp. 298–300.
  55. ^ Solzhenitzin, Alexander, The Gulag Archipelago, 1973.
  56. ^ a b Y. Y. Etinger, "This is impossible to forget: Memoirs" (Russian) – Этингер Я. Я. Это невозожно забыть : Воспоминания / ред. О. А. Зимарин. – М. : Весь мир, 2001. – 272 с, pp. 104–106.
  57. ISBN 978-5-88268-015-1, 1995, link
  58. ^ "ПИСЬМО И.Г.ЭРЕНБУРГА К И.В.СТАЛИНУ [KOI-8]". vestnik.com. 14 March 2000. Archived from the original on 1 May 2018. Retrieved 15 May 2018.
  59. ^ Дмитрий ХМЕЛЬНИЦКИЙ. Письмо Эренбурга Сталину, Заметки по еврейской истории no.38, 27 January 2004
  60. ^ "Radio Liberty – Programs – Round Table". Archive.svoboda.org. Retrieved 15 May 2018.
  61. doi:10.4000/monderusse.59
    .
  62. S2CID 143696427
    .
  63. ^ Medvedev 2003, pp. 238–239

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

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