The Doctors' Case is a brief history. Medical tragedy: how the “Doctors’ Plot” became possible

The Case of Doctors (The Case of Doctors-Poisoners, in the investigation materials The Case of the Zionist Conspiracy in the MGB) is a criminal case against a group of high-ranking Soviet doctors accused of conspiracy and the murder of a number of Soviet leaders. The origins of the campaign date back to 1948, when doctor Lydia Timashuk drew the attention of the competent authorities to the oddities in Zhdanov’s treatment, which led to the patient’s death. The campaign ended simultaneously with Stalin's death from a stroke in 1953, after which the charges against the accused were dropped and they themselves were freed from prosecution.

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The text of the official announcement of the arrest announced that “most of the members of the terrorist group (Vovsi M.S., Kogan B.B., Feldman A.I., Grinshtein A.M., Etinger Ya.G. and others) were connected with the international Jewish bourgeois-nationalist organization “Joint”, created by American intelligence supposedly to provide material assistance to Jews in other countries.” Those involved in the case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were previously accused of having connections with the same organization. Publicity about the case acquired an anti-Semitic character and joined a more general campaign to “fight rootless cosmopolitanism” that took place in the USSR in 1947-1953.

Background of the "case"

In many ways, this case continued the campaign against cosmopolitanism (the expression “rootless cosmopolitanism” was often used), which was waged by the Soviet leadership since 1948 and often took on openly anti-Semitic forms, the case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (among whose victims was the chief physician of the Botkin Hospital B. A. Shimeliovich, however, was not accused of crimes related to the “medical line”). As for the medical side of the charges, an important precedent here was the Third Moscow Trial (1938), where among the defendants were three doctors (Kazakov, Levin and Pletnev), accused of the murders of Gorky and others. The closest thing to the “Doctors’ Plot” was a series of recent political trials against the leaders of the Communist parties in Eastern Europe, during which a new one was added to the usual accusations of “betrayal” and plans for the “restoration of capitalism” - “Zionism”. At the Czechoslovak trial of Rudolf Slansky, which ended in December 1952 with the execution of 13 people (11 of them, including Slansky, were Jews), one of the counts directly included the charge of attempted murder of the President of the Republic and at the same time the Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Czechoslovakia K. Gottwald with the help of “doctors” from the hostile camp." (Gotwald also died in March 1953, a week after Stalin).

Investigation into the "case"

Beginning in 1952, the “Doctors’ Case” was developed by the MGB under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel M.D. Ryumin, who in 1951 wrote a denunciation to Stalin about a “Zionist conspiracy” in the state security agencies.

Stalin read the interrogation reports every day. He demanded from the MGB the maximum development of the version about the Zionist nature of the conspiracy and the connections of the conspirators with British and American intelligence through the Joint (Zionist charitable organization). He threatened the new Minister of State Security S. Ignatiev that if he “does not reveal the terrorists, American agents among the doctors,” then he will be arrested, like his predecessor Abakumov: “We will drive you away like sheep.” In October 1952, Stalin gave instructions to use physical coercion (that is, torture) against arrested doctors. On December 1, 1952, Stalin stated (in a recording by member of the Presidium of the Central Committee V.A. Malyshev): “Any Jewish nationalist is an agent of American intelligence. Jewish nationalists believe that the United States saved their nation... There are many Jewish nationalists among doctors.”

Message about the beginning of the case

The draft report from TASS and media materials (in particular, the Pravda newspaper) about the arrest of a group of “wrecker doctors” was approved on January 9, 1953 at a meeting of the Bureau of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee. The head of the secretariat of J.V. Stalin, A.N. Poskrebyshev, sent a memo to the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and the head of the propaganda and agitation department N.A. Mikhailov:

"T. Mikhailov. I am sending 1 copy. "chronicle" arrest of pest doctors for publication in newspapers on the 4th page on the right"

Decree of January 20, 1953 awarding Lydia Timashuk the Order of Lenin for “exposing murderous doctors.” It was canceled shortly after Stalin's death.

The message about the arrest of the doctors and the details of the “conspiracy” appeared in an unsigned article “Sneaky spies and murderers in the guise of professors and doctors,” published in Pravda on January 13, 1953. The article, like the government report, emphasized the Zionist nature of the matter: “Most of the members of the terrorist group - Vovsi, B. Kogan, Feldman, Grinstein, Etinger and others - were bought by American intelligence. They were recruited by a branch of American intelligence - the international Jewish bourgeois-nationalist organization "Joint". The dirty face of this Zionist spy organization, which covers its vile activities under the guise of charity, has been completely exposed.” Further, the actions of the majority of those arrested were linked to the ideology of Zionism and traced back to S. M. Mikhoels, who had already figured in the case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.

Propaganda presented Lydia Timashuk, a doctor who appealed to the Central Committee with complaints about the improper treatment of Zhdanov back in 1948, as the hero who exposed the murderers in white coats (a popular propaganda stamp of this campaign). “For her help in exposing the thrice-damned killer doctors,” she was awarded the Order of Lenin.

Accused

The message on January 13 spoke of 9 conspirators: Professor Vovsi M.S., general practitioner; Professor Vinogradov V.N., general practitioner; Professor Kogan M. B., general practitioner; Professor Kogan B.B., general practitioner; professor, corresponding member AMS, Stalin's leading doctor, Egorov P.I., who was later repressed with his wife Evgenya Yakovlevna Egorova (-1994) (Petr Ivanovich Egorov 1899-1966) - both buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery, general practitioner; Professor Feldman A.I., otolaryngologist; Professor Etinger Ya. G., general practitioner; Professor Grinshtein A.M., neuropathologist; Mayorov G.I., general practitioner. They were arrested between July 1951 and November 1952. In addition to them, many more were arrested in the “Doctors’ Case,” including the creator and custodian of Lenin’s embalmed body, Professor B.I. Zbarsky (December 1952), writer Lev Sheinin (February 1953 ).

Most of the accused were Jews, including the arrested doctors N.A. Shereshevsky (endocrinologist, professor), M.Ya. Sereisky, Ya. S. Temkin, E. M. Gelshtein, I. I. Feigel, V. E. Nezlin, N. L. Vilk, Ya. L. Rapoport and others. M. B. Kogan and M. I. Pevzner were also posthumously involved in the case. It was alleged that those arrested were acting on instructions from the “Jewish bourgeois-nationalist organization “Joint”. The famous actor S. M. Mikhoels, the cousin of one of the arrested doctors, the chief physician of the Red Army, Major General of the Medical Service M. S. Vovsi, was named as a participant in the conspiracy and died five years earlier in a “car accident.”

Resonance

The “Doctors' Plot” caused persecution of relatives and colleagues of those arrested, as well as a wave of anti-Semitic sentiment throughout the country. Unlike the previous campaign against "cosmopolitans", in which Jews were usually implied rather than directly named, now the propaganda directly pointed to Jews. On February 8, Pravda published an introductory feuilleton, “Simples and Rogues,” in which Jews were portrayed as swindlers. Following him, the Soviet press was overwhelmed by a wave of feuilletons dedicated to exposing the true or imaginary dark deeds of persons with Jewish names, patronymics and surnames. The most “famous” among them was Vasily Ardamatsky’s feuilleton “Pina from Zhmerinka”, published in the magazine “Crocodile” on March 20, 1953.

After a bomb exploded at the Soviet embassy in Israel, the USSR broke off diplomatic relations with Israel on February 11.

Termination of the case

Former investigator for particularly important cases of the USSR Ministry of State Security, Nikolai Mesyatsev, appointed to deal with the doctors’ case on behalf of Stalin, said:

The artificiality of the sloppy “doctors’ case” was revealed without much difficulty. The writers didn't even bother with a serious cover-up. They shamelessly took congenital ailments or illnesses acquired over the years from the medical history of a high-ranking patient and attributed their origin or development to the criminal intent of the attending physicians. So much for “enemies of the people”

He claims that he and his colleagues began work overseeing this case 6 days after the doctors were arrested, that is, on January 19. By mid-February, a conclusion was prepared that the case was falsified. And all attempts to link its termination to the death of Stalin in early March are speculation.

On March 2, the anti-Semitic campaign in the press was curtailed. All those arrested in the “doctors’ case” were released (April 3) and reinstated at work. It was officially announced (April 4) that the confessions of the accused were obtained using “unacceptable investigative methods.” Lieutenant Colonel Ryumin, who developed the “doctors’ case” (by that time already dismissed from the state security agencies), was immediately arrested by order of Beria; Subsequently, during the Khrushchev trials of the perpetrators of repression, he was shot (July 7, 1954).

Question about deportation

There is a version according to which the high-profile trial of doctors was supposed to be a signal for massive anti-Semitic campaigns and the deportation of all Jews to Siberia and the Far East. According to some, undocumented data, a letter was prepared, which had to be signed by prominent figures of Soviet culture, the essence of which was as follows: “We, prominent cultural figures, call on the Soviet leadership to protect traitors and rootless cosmopolitans of Jewish origin from the just wrath of the people and to settle them in Siberia." It was assumed that the Soviet leadership should respond favorably to this request. There is numerous evidence from contemporaries that rumors of deportation circulated in Moscow immediately after the news of the start of the doctors’ case. There was information that Jews were evicted from the village of Davydkovo near Moscow, adjacent to Stalin’s dacha (now this is the territory of Davydkovskaya Street, Slavyansky Boulevard, adjacent to Kutuzovsky Prospect, behind Victory Park). Some authors consider that evidence in favor of the fact that Stalin was at least considering the possibility of deportation is that on January 15, that is, two days after the first publication of Pravda, at a rally of students and teachers of the Stalingrad Mechanical Institute, at the proposal of the party committee secretary , a collective letter was written to the Central Committee with a request to evict Jews outside the European part of the USSR; supporters of the deportation version believe that such a request could only be sanctioned from above.

“Doctor Kostyrchenko told me: “Of course, if he [I. V. Stalin] a few more years, it could well have come to this [the deportation of Soviet Jews]” (Samson Madievsky).

Many researchers, without denying the anti-Semitic essence of the “Doctors’ Plot,” cast serious doubt on the existence of plans for the deportation of Jews. For a detailed study of this issue (using archival materials), see the article by Gennady Kostyrchenko, a researcher of Soviet state anti-Semitism. Historian Zhores Medvedev in his book “Stalin and the Jewish Problem” writes that the existence of the plan for the deportation of Jews mentioned in many books is not confirmed by any archival documents.

On January 13, 1953, the official media of the Soviet Union reported the discovery of a group of “saboteur doctors.”

The leader's fear and resentment

In the early 1950s, the Soviet Union was approaching a turning point. Aging Leader Joseph Stalin He spent less and less time in his office, and got sick more and more often. The authority of the leader remained unquestioned, but a hidden “struggle for inheritance” was already beginning around him.

Stalin would not have been Stalin if he had not felt such movements. The response to this was a series of high-profile trials of prominent government figures, which, according to some historians, was intended as the beginning of a new “purge” similar to the “Great Terror” of the 1930s.

At the same time, the aging leader became increasingly wary and suspicious, which those who wanted to gain his favor tried to exploit.

Stalin's hostility towards doctors and Jews, which became acutely evident at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s, resulted in one of the most high-profile cases of the last years of the leader's reign - the "Doctors' Case".

The doctors really could do little to please Comrade Stalin - his advanced age and heavy loads endured in his revolutionary youth and during the war years made themselves felt with a whole bunch of diseases that reduced his performance every day.

Stalin feared that doctors could become a weapon for members of his entourage, who were trying to actually remove him from power and isolate him under the pretext of “concern for health.” These fears were not in vain - in the early 1920s, Stalin himself and his party comrades did something similar with a patient Lenin.

Stalin's suspicion was further aggravated by the fact that there were many Jews among the leading specialists in Soviet medicine. The leader's painful distrust of representatives of this nationality was largely due to a major failure in foreign policy related to the Jewish state.

The Soviet Union did a lot to implement plans to create a Jewish state in Palestine, counting on allied relations with it. In practice, however, everything happened exactly the opposite - the state of Israel became the closest ally of the United States, which in the conditions of the Cold War inevitably meant an acute conflict with the USSR.

Diagnosis of Comrade Zhdanov

Out of Stalin’s fears and mistrust and the intrigues of a number of representatives of his entourage, the notorious “Doctors’ Plot” was born, one of the main characters of which was destined to become a cardiologist Lidia Fedoseevna Timashuk.

Since the 1920s, Lydia Timashuk worked as a doctor in the Kremlin’s medical and sanitary department. In 1948, a 50-year-old woman headed the functional diagnostics department in the department, and in this capacity, on August 28, she took a cardiogram from one of the country’s leaders - Andrey Zhdanov.

After studying the cardiogram, Timashuk made a diagnosis of “myocardial infarction.” However, the professors who treated Zhdanov did not agree with the junior-ranking physician, considering her conclusions incorrect. Everything would be fine, but the professors, who considered that Zhdanov did not have a heart attack, prescribed him treatment that was directly contraindicated for a heart attack. That is, exactly the opposite of what Timashuk recommended, based on her diagnosis.

In response to this, the woman wrote a memo to her superiors. The Kremlin's medical and sanitary department was subordinate to the Ministry of State Security, but they rightly considered that medical issues should be dealt with by doctors, and forwarded a note to the head of the Kremlin's medical and sanitary department Professor Egorov.

And Professor Egorov was precisely one of those medical luminaries who rejected the diagnosis made to Zhdanov by Lydia Timashuk.

Soviet statesman and party leader Andrei Zhdanov. 1937 Photo: RIA Novosti / Ivan Shagin

No boss likes it when subordinates complain upstairs over his head. Timashuk's self-will cost her dearly - she was demoted and transferred to a branch of the clinic.

The punishment for the willful doctor could be considered justified, if not for one “but” - three days after that same cardiogram, Andrei Zhdanov died of a heart attack.

"Bloody Dwarf"

Experts who studied the materials of the “doctors’ case,” however, believe that in this situation the professors, and not Timashuk, could be right, since such a cardiogram can occur not only with a heart attack, but also with other heart diseases. However, the fact is a fact - after the death of Zhdanov, the Kremlin professors found themselves in a rather ambiguous situation. Moreover, Timashuk, convinced that she was right, sent two more letters to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Alexey Kuznetsov. But the cardiologist did not receive an answer to them.

Mikhail Ryumin. Photo: wikipedia.org

It seemed that this was the end of the story. But during the so-called “case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee”, a professor of the 2nd Medical Institute in Moscow was among those suspected of hostile activities Yakov Etinger. Professor Etinger was involved in the treatment of senior government officials as a consultant and was well acquainted with many “Kremlin” doctors. A young and ambitious investigator for particularly important cases of the USSR Ministry of State Security became hooked on this circumstance. Ryumin, who received the nickname “bloody dwarf” from his colleagues for using the most brutal interrogation methods against detainees, considered that using Professor Etinger’s testimony it was possible to create a new high-profile case about killer doctors who allegedly killed party and government leaders with improper treatment.

The zeal of the MGB investigators regarding Professor Etinger was such that the unfortunate doctor soon died in his cell. But the flywheel had already been launched, and things began to gain momentum.

The “Doctors' Plot” seemed to confirm Stalin's worst fears, and the leader demanded a speedy investigation into it.

But here’s the problem: the investigators did not have objective and convincing evidence of medical sabotage. And then a report from doctor Lydia Timashuk about the improper treatment of Comrade Zhdanov was discovered in the archive.

Soviet party leaders Lazar Kaganovich, Georgy Malenkov, Joseph Stalin, Andrei Zhdanov (from left to right in the first row) at I. Stalin’s dacha in Kuntsevo, 1947. Photo: RIA Novosti

Patriot and “killers disguised as professors”

The doctor was summoned to the investigator, interrogated, and based on her testimony in the “doctors’ case,” mass arrests began.

On January 13, 1953, the case was officially reported to the country in a material published in the Pravda newspaper under the heading “Despicable spies and murderers disguised as professor-doctors.”

“The investigation established that members of the terrorist group, using their position as doctors and abusing the trust of patients, deliberately, villainously undermined their health, gave them incorrect diagnoses, and then killed the patients with improper treatment. Hiding behind the high and noble title of a doctor - a man of science, these monsters and murderers trampled the sacred banner of science. By embarking on the path of monstrous crimes, they desecrated the honor of scientists.

Comrades A. A. Zhdanov and A. S. Shcherbakov fell victims to this gang of humanoid animals. The criminals admitted that they, taking advantage of Comrade Zhdanov’s illness, deliberately concealed his myocardial infarction, prescribed a regimen contraindicated for this serious illness, and thereby killed Comrade Zhdanov. The killer doctors, through the incorrect use of potent drugs and the establishment of a disastrous regime, shortened the life of Comrade Shcherbakov, brought him to death... Most of the members of the terrorist group - Vovsi, B. Kogan, Feldman, Grinstein, Etinger and others were bought by American intelligence. They were recruited by a branch of American intelligence - the international Jewish bourgeois-nationalist organization "Joint". The dirty face of this Zionist spy organization, which covers its vile activities under the guise of charity, has been completely exposed.”

Only among the main defendants in the “doctors’ case” were nine people, including Professor Egorov, who demoted Lydia Timashuk for disagreement with the diagnosis and memos. And the total number of those arrested in the case was in the dozens.

Lydia Timashuk was declared by Soviet propaganda to be the main character in exposing the “poisoning doctors.” On January 20, she was awarded the Order of Lenin for “help in exposing murderous doctors.” “The name of doctor Lydia Fedoseevna Timashuk became a symbol of Soviet patriotism, high vigilance, irreconcilable, courageous struggle against the enemies of our Motherland. She helped tear off the mask from the American mercenaries, the monsters who used the doctor’s white coat to kill Soviet people,” Pravda wrote.

Decree on awarding Timashuk the Order of Lenin. Photo: wikipedia.org

Case is closed

There is still debate about how the “doctors’ case” should have ended. There were rumors in the USSR that doctors should be hanged on Red Square. Some historians believe that following the execution of doctors, mass deportations of Soviet Jews to Siberia should have begun, but this version does not find serious evidence.

For the doctors who found themselves behind bars, it became a way out of imminent death. The “Doctors' Plot,” which was part of the behind-the-scenes struggle of the Soviet elites for the Stalinist legacy, instantly became unnecessary and even harmful. Already on April 3, 1953, all those arrested in the “doctors’ case” were released, reinstated in their jobs and completely rehabilitated.

“Bloody dwarf” Mikhail Ryumin, suspended from work in the MGB “for failure to solve the “doctors’ case,” was arrested on March 17, 1953, and in July 1954 he was sentenced by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR to capital punishment with confiscation of property and executed.

On April 4, 1953, Lydia Timashuk was deprived of the Order of Lenin - there are no poisoning doctors, which means there is no heroism. True, in 1954 she was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor “for long and impeccable service.”

If you look at the “doctors’ case” objectively, then there is nothing to reproach Lydia Fedoseevna for. She, as a doctor, made a diagnosis that she considered correct, and was not afraid to defend it, despite the anger of her superiors, which turned into disgrace for her.

The letters written to her higher authorities are the persistence of a person who cares about the cause to which her whole life is devoted, and not at all the denunciation of a vengeful and envious loser for the success of others, as was presented later.

Unfairly accused

And the hatred unleashed by the Soviet intelligentsia on Lydia Timashuk is completely undeserved.

One of the reasons that the image of this woman received an extremely negative connotation was the words spoken Nikita Khrushchev during the famous report “On the cult of personality and its consequences” made at the 20th Party Congress: “Actually, there was no “case”, except for the statement of doctor Timashuk, who may have been under the influence of someone or on instructions (after all, she was secret employee of the state security agencies), wrote a letter to Stalin in which she stated that doctors allegedly use the wrong methods of treatment.”

The phrase uttered by Khrushchev had very little relation to reality. But thanks to her, for the rest of her life and even after her death, Lydia Timashuk was labeled as an “informer,” “provocateur,” and “destroyer of innocent lives.”

Doctor Lydia Timashuk worked in the government medicine system until her retirement, which she reached in 1964. By coincidence, in the same year, party comrades also sent Nikita Khrushchev to retire, to whom Timashuk owes much of her bad fame.

Lidia Fedoseevna Timashuk died in 1983, at the age of 85. Until her very last days, she tried to achieve rehabilitation in the eyes of society, believing that the accusations of anti-Semitism and denunciation made against her were unfair.

But they didn’t want to hear her...

On the essence of the “doctors’ case”
“The Doctors’ Case” is a high-profile criminal case of the Soviet Union under Stalin, brought against famous Soviet medical workers accused of plotting to kill a number of Soviet figures. This process became famous for its anti-Jewish essence, remaining one of many similar crimes among the crimes of the Stalinist regime.
On January 13, 1953, many newspapers, in particular Pravda, published the article “Despicable spies and murderers in the guise of professors and doctors,” which tells the story of the discovery of a conspiracy by a group of medical terrorists. They were identified by their colleague, doctor Lydia Timashuk. She drew the attention of the MGB to the incorrect treatment of Zhdanov, which, according to her, led to his death. The essence of the message was that state security agencies had uncovered a criminal conspiracy among high-ranking doctors. It was alleged that they planned to commit a series of terrorist attacks in order to eliminate leading statesmen of the USSR.
The text mentioned professors and respected people arrested in this case: Vovsi, brothers B.B. Kogan and M.B. Kogan, Grinstein, Etinger, Feldman, as well as Egorov, Vinogradov and Mayorov. They were credited with working for various foreign intelligence services, including British and Japanese. Among other things, the results of medical examinations, confessions of the accused and other documentary evidence were presented that fully confirmed their guilt. Doctors were accused of making deliberately false diagnoses, which led to improper treatment and systematic killing of patients. Among other things, doctors were accused of poisoning A.A. Zhdanov and A.S. Shcherbakov and the intention to “incapacitate” key Soviet military personnel - Marshals Konev, Govorov, Vasilevsky, and many others.
The authors of the article emphasized the Zionist nature of the conspiracy. The main point of the accusation was that most of the group's members were recruited by the Jewish international charitable organization "Joint", as they said, this is a Zionist spy organization hiding behind the mask of charity.
The investigation into the “Doctors’ Case” entered an active phase in the previous year, 1952, and was conducted by state security officers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ryumin. A series of arrests began among doctors who had some connection to the highest echelon of power. At the same time, the leadership of the MGB formed a general “doctors’ case”, thus, 37 people were already charged in the general proceedings. Most of them were Jews. Stalin wanted to work out the version of the Zionist conspiracy and the trace of foreign intelligence in the doctors’ case as fully as possible. To achieve their goals, they were given instructions to use torture on the “conspirators.”
Now, after the publication of information about the discovery of the conspiracy and the arrest of the doctors, a platform was prepared for another anti-Jewish campaign. The publication about the “doctors’ case” caused a wide resonance among the people; relatives and colleagues of those arrested were subjected to persecution and persecution, and anti-Semitic sentiments flared up throughout the country. A hunt began for cosmopolitans, and most of them turned out to be Jews. Hatred of Jews became open and all-Union, the Soviet press received “carte blanche” to accuse Jews of all sins. Every now and then there were regular “exposures of dark deeds”, with the main defendants being Jews, and large-scale layoffs of Jews from work began throughout the Union. This was the whole point of the “doctors’ case.”
By mid-March 1953, a high-profile and show trial was being prepared, which should end in death sentences and public executions by hanging in the central squares of the main cities of the USSR, but this was not destined to take place.
Already at the beginning of March 1953, shortly after Stalin's death, the criminal trial was curtailed. New First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR L.P. Beria, as head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, initiated the cessation of many high-profile trials of “enemies of the people,” including the “doctors’ case.” On March 13, a special investigation team was created and ordered to reconsider the case. As a result of the review, the “doctors’ case” was declared a falsification and it was closed, and all the accused (those who survived the investigation) and their relatives and colleagues were acquitted, reinstated and completely rehabilitated on April 3.
The next day, the investigation officially announced that the confessions of those arrested were obtained using “unacceptable investigative methods.” The head of the investigation, Ryumin, was made guilty of the entire fabricated trial. At that time, having already been dismissed from the authorities, he was arrested and, according to official data, executed.
There is a version according to which, as the culmination of the “Doctors’ Plot,” a mass deportation of Jews was planned, akin to Stalin’s deportation of the Crimean Tatars, that this was the essence of all the persecutions. However, this version has not found documentary evidence.
Thus, the essence of the “Doctors’ Plot” largely lies in its outright far-fetchedness and anti-Semitic orientation, all charges were fabricated solely for ideological criminal purposes, it became the final one among other provocations within the framework of Stalin’s anti-Semitic campaign. Soon after the rehabilitation of all the accused, the case was hushed up and no data or materials about this case were subsequently published.

"THE BUSINESS OF DOCTORS"

a terrorist group of doctors aimed to carry out harmful

treatment to shorten the life of active figures in the Soviet state. "Victims

Comrades A. Zhdanov and

were in the service of foreign intelligence services, sold their soul and body, were their

hired, paid agents. Most of the participants in the terrorist

groups - Vovsi, B. Kogan, Feldman, Grinstein, Etinger and others - were

bought by American intelligence. They were recruited by a branch of the American

intelligence - an international Jewish bourgeois-nationalist organization

"Joint"... Other members of the terrorist group (Vinogradov, M. Kogan,

Egorov) are old agents of British intelligence.

How did the doctors' business begin? Where are its origins? Some light on this

spills Efim-Smirnov - Academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Hero

Socialist Labor, after the war - Minister of Health of the USSR. In one

He recalls their interviews:

located near Sochi. We walked around the garden and talked. Stalin,

pointing to the trees where lemons and oranges grew, telling how to care

they demand. And suddenly, without any transition, he asked:

Comrade Smirnov, do you know which doctor treated Dimitrov and Zhdanov?

“I know,” I answered and gave my last name.

Strange. One doctor treated, and both died.

Comrade Stalin, the doctor is not to blame here...

How do you mean “not guilty”?

I was interested in Dimitrov’s medical history, pathological and anatomical

conclusion. I dare to assure you, nothing could have been done. By the way, I know that

a tactful person, a qualified specialist.

Stalin remained silent. But I felt that I was unlikely to convince him. They

was always suspicious, but towards the end of his life this trait became

simply pathological.

The monstrous accusations against recently respected people were staggering. A

the name of an ordinary doctor at the Kremlin hospital, Lydia, soon becomes known

Timashuk - it turns out that she plays the main role in exposing the "gang"

criminals." By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR she was awarded

Order of Lenin. In the newspaper of three days we read: “Just recently we did not know

this woman, and now the name of the doctor Lydia Feodosyevna Timashuk has become a symbol

Soviet patriotism, high vigilance, implacable courage

fight against the enemies of our Motherland. She helped tear the mask off the American

mercenaries, monsters who used the white coat of a doctor to kill

Soviet people"...

In mid-January 1953, the wives of “enemies of the people” were arrested, and

their children are subject to persecution: dismissal from work, expulsion from the party,

Komsomol.

The interrogations took place at night. The hardest thing was not sleeping for days on end. On

During interrogations they constantly shined strong lamps in my face. Vovsi's wife - Vera - with

Since then, the bright light has irritated me.

Miron Vovsi was demanded to admit that he was connected with intelligence

Hitler's Germany. Miron Semenovich said to the investigator: “You made me

agent of two intelligence services, do not at least attribute the German one - my father and

My brother's family was tortured by the Nazis in Dvinsk during the war." - "Don't speculate

the blood of their loved ones,” the investigator answered.

The head of the special investigative unit was personally responsible for the “doctors’ case.”

important affairs of the Ministry of State Security Ryumin.

He began “digging” under doctors long before their arrest. Even before appearing in

press news about the "terrorist group" its victims were the head

electrocardiology room of the Kremlin hospital Sofya Karpay and consultant

Professor Yakov Etinger of the same hospital. They were accused of knowingly wrong

deciphering the electrocardiogram of Andrei Zhdanov. Etinger couldn't bear the prison sentence

regime and died.

The circle of arrests expanded. Ryumin was looking forward to a high-profile process, a promotion to

rank, awards... And then Stalin died. Prisoner doctors don't know about this

reported...Interrogations continued.

They were suddenly taken out of prison, put on cars and taken to their homes. Only

Now, in freedom, the doctors have learned about what was written about them in the newspapers, about

stated: "The investigation showed that the accusations... are false, and

documentary data on which investigators relied,

insolvent."

Below was the text about the cancellation of the Decree awarding Timashuk the Order of Lenin.

Having regained their honest name, they returned to work in the field of medicine Vovsi,

Vinogradov, Kogan, Egorov, Feldman, Vasilenko, Grinstein, Zelenin,

Preobrazhensky, Popova, Za-kusov, Shereshevsky, Mayorov and others.

As for Ryumin, as was written in the government document

message "considering the particular danger of his activities and the severity of the consequences

crimes committed by him, Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR

sentenced Ryumin to capital punishment - execution."

“The Doctors’ Case” of 1953 is the name of a sensational criminal case against famous doctors in the USSR, 6 of whom were Jews. The doctors were accused of conspiracy against high-ranking officials of the CPSU Central Committee and the murder of prominent party members. The reason for starting the investigation was the events of 1948. Doctor Lydia Timashuk diagnosed the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Andrei Zhdanov with “myocardial infarction.” But under “pressure” from her superiors, she not only prescribed the wrong treatment, but also completely rewrote the medical history - which is why Comrade Zhdanov died a few days later.

Campaign to eradicate cosmopolitanism

The background to the case of the “killer doctors” was, in fact, the final stage of the campaign to eradicate cosmopolitanism in the USSR. Initially conceived as a good cause, it soon took on an ugly shape, spreading ideas of anti-Semitism.
The doctors' case goes back to 1946, when Stalin, in order to strengthen his position, first removed Lavrentiy Beria from the leadership of the NKVD. Instead of General Merkulov (a close associate of Beria), he appointed Viktor Abakumov. There were more “Leningraders” in the CPSU - Zhdanov, Kuznetsov, Voznesensky. Kuznetsov appointed Dr. Egorov as head of the medical and sanitary department - the one who in the future will appear in the “doctors’ case.” It was Egorov who did not allow Timashuk to treat Zhdanov “correctly”, and the cardiologist wrote a denunciation to the Party Central Committee. Stalin ordered the report to be sent to the archives, however, a year later, on the basis of the same denunciation, Abakumov had to carry out a “purge” in the Kremlin hospital in order to maintain his position.

How the business began

On January 13, 1953, all major newspapers of the USSR published a message with the following headline: “Arrest of a group of pest doctors.” The message said that “some time ago, state security agencies uncovered a terrorist group of doctors whose goal was to shorten the lives of active figures in the Soviet Union through sabotage treatment.” It was further said that these doctors abused their position and the trust of their patients, diagnosed the wrong diseases in their patients, and killed them with the wrong treatment.
In January 1953, the arrest of saboteur doctors was officially approved, most of whom were Jews: Vovsi, Etinger, Feldman, Kogan, Grinstein. Everyone was charged with the same thing - organizing a “Zionist” anti-Soviet conspiracy against prominent members of the USSR party. They were also accused of being members of the Jewish bourgeois-nationalist organization “Joint”. And Vinogradov and Egorov were declared long-time MI6 agents. They were arrested earlier, but the public received information only in 1953.
Lydia Timashuk, who “reported” to the CPSU Central Committee about the secret plan of the pest doctors, was awarded the Order of Lenin. She was declared a national heroine, who became “... a symbol of Soviet patriotism, high vigilance, irreconcilable, courageous struggle against the enemies of our Motherland”

Investigation of the case

Stalin believed that the arrested doctors were connected with intelligence in England and the United States. He gave the order to “knock out” the truth from those arrested by any means in order to understand the motives of the “killer doctors.” Naturally, the doctors did not know about any conspiracy and insisted on their innocence. Then all prisoners were transferred to another prison to tighten interrogation methods.
Lieutenant Colonel Ryumin was appointed head of the investigation. Back in 1951, he informed Stalin about a Jewish conspiracy in the state security agencies. In October 1952, the conspiracy of Jewish doctors was confirmed, and the doctors were arrested. At the end of November, the “knocked out” information seemed to be enough to prove the guilt of the killer doctors. But Stalin did not rest on this; he continued to put pressure on the Ministry of State Security, so the arrests continued.

Completion of the investigation

On January 19, 1953, a special employee of the MGB, Nikolai Mesyatsev, was appointed to conduct an independent investigation into the case of the pest doctors. Mesyatsev was appointed by Stalin. Within a few days of working on the case, Mesyatsev realized that the case was fabricated, the evidence was falsified and invented, since “the origin of chronic and age-related diseases is the result of the influence of criminal doctors.”
A month later, the case was declared null and void due to false and fabricated evidence. On March 5, 1953, Stalin died, and anti-Semitic policies in the media stopped. On March 13, 1953, Lavrentiy Beria initiated the cancellation of the criminal case, and on April 3, the doctors were reinstated in their positions.
Lydia Timashuk, awarded the Order of Lenin, was deprived of the award on April 4, 1953, promising to retain her position and authority. But the promises were not kept: in 1954 she was retired in the prime of her medical career, without the right to receive a company apartment and a personal medical pension.
Lieutenant Colonel Ryumin was fired and arrested for abuse of authority and bullying. In 1954 he was shot.