ALLIANCE MARXIST-LENINIST - REPRINT
SERIES, 2003.
THE 'DOCTORS' CASE’,
AND, THE DEATH OF STALIN
Includes analysis of Beria's role
An extended annotated version of a report presented to the
Stalin Society in London in October 1991, by
Bill Bland, for the Communist League
(UK)
CPSU(B)
POLITBURO AT FUNERAL
MOURNERS RED SQUARE
BERIA & STALIN AT BLACK SEA HOLIDAY
INTRODUCTION By Alliance Marxist-Leninist
There have been many requests recently to Alliance for
a web-edition of this document.
Comrade Bland often neglected his own writings, even
forgetting that he may have researched any topic. Although this article was
not printed as an official document of the Communist League (CL), it was
a critical part of the corpus of work that Bland performed as the leader of
the CL. Against many others, Bland defended the role of Lavrenty Beria
, as a Marxist-Leninist. This was and remains, an unpopular stand even amongst
those who call themselves Marxist-Leninists.
Bland's especial expertise was to be able to see behind
copious cloaks of words, as spun by revisionists and capitalist agents. This
talent of his, is shown with mastery in this analysis. Data coming
out from the Archives of the USSR, appears at last to be corroborating Comrade's
Bland’s' views. We propose to shortly publish materials that show this.
THE 'DOCTORS' CASE’, AND,
THE DEATH OF STALIN
by Bill Bland 1991.
Table Contents
Part 1: The 'Doctor's Case'
The Initial Preparations for the Revisionist Coup (1943-46);
The First Stage of the 'Doctors' Case' (1948-51)
The Dismissal and Arrest of Abakumov (1951)
The Georgian Feint (1951-52)
The Marxist-Leninists' Counter-blow in Georgia
The Indictment in the 'Doctors' Case' (1953)
The Destruction of the Defence System around Stalin
Part 2: The Death of Stalin (1953)
The Aborted Coup (1953)
The Exculpation of the Doctors (1953)
The Reversal of the Georgian Feint (1953)
The Dismissal of Leonid Melnikov (1953)
The Military Coup in Moscow (1953)
The Military Coup in Georgia (1953-54)
The 'Mingrelian Affair' (1953)
The 'Trial' of Beria (1953)
The Re-emergence of Melnikov (1953-57)
The Trial of Abakumov (1954)
The 'Trial' of Ryumin (1954)
The 'Rehabilitation' of Anna Louise Strong (1955)
The 'Rehabilitation' of Tito (1955)
The Rapava-Rukhadze Trial (1955)
The Trial of Bagirov (1956)
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Part 1: The 'Doctor's Case'
The seizure of power by the Soviet revisionists required
certain preliminary measures -- the first of these being the weakening
of the securitv organs of the socialist state and their later transfer into
the hands of the revisionist conspirators.
In April 1943 the organ which had been responsible for
state security, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD), which
had been headed by the Marxist-Leninist Lavrenti Beria*, was weakened
by being split into three parts:
1) the People's Commisariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD), still headed by Beria,
but no longer concerned with state security:
"The NKVD, under the leadership of Beria, was thereby relieved of the
heavy problems of State security and became more and more an 'economic' organisation".
(B. Levytsky: 'The Uses of Terror: The Soviet Secret Service: 1917-1970';
London; 1971; p. 160).
2) the People's Commissariat of State Security (NKGB), headed by the
Marxist-Leninist Vsevolod Merkulov*;
3) the Counter-Espionage Department of the People's Commissariat for
Defence (SMERSH), headed by the Marxist-Leninist Viktor Abakumov*.
In 1946, after the conclusion of the Second World War,
1) SMERSH was abolished;
2) the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) was renamed the Ministry
of Internal Affairs (MVD) and its Marxist-Leninist head Merkulov, who:
" . . . was one of Beria's closest and most trusted collaborators",
(B. Levytsky: op. cit.; p. 141).
was replaced by the concealed revisionist Sergey Kruglov*;
and
In 1948 the plans of the conspirators were interrupted
by 'the case of the Kremlin doctors'. In this year,
" . . . Lvdia Timashuk a rank-and-file doctor at the Kremlin Hospital . .
. . discovered intentional distortions in medical conclusions made by major
medical experts who served as consultants in the hospital. She exposed their
criminal designs and thus opened the eyes of security bodies to the existence
of the infamous conspiracy".
(Y. Rapoport: 'The Doctors' Plot: Stalin's Last Crime': London; 1991; p.
77).
Dr. Timashuk wrote to
" . . . Stalin a letter in which she declared that doctors were applying supposedly
improper methods of medical treatment".
(N. S. Khrushchev: Secret Speech; op. cit.; p. 63).
As to the date,
". . . Timashuk's first report was made while Zhdanov was still alive".
(P. Deriabin: 'Watchdogs of Terror: Russian Bodyguards from the Tsars to
the Commissars'; n.p. (USA); 1984; p. 311).
and Zhdanov * died in August 1948.
Although Khrushchev later alleged, in his secret speech
to the 20th Congress of the CPSU in February 1956, that:
". . . this ignominious case was set up by Stalin",
(N. S. Khrushchev: Secret Speech; op. cit.; p. 65).
Ian Grey assures us that, at the outset,
"Stalin had strong doubts about Timashuk's allegations".
(I.Grey: 'Stalin: Man of History'; London; 1979; p. 461).
and Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva* confirms:
"My father's housekeeper told me not long ago that my father was extremely
distressed at the turn events took. . . . She was waiting on table, as usual,
when my father remarked that he did not believe the doctors were 'dishonest'
and that the only evidence against them, after all, were the 'reports' of
Dr. Timashuk".
(S. Allilyeva: Twenty Letters to a Friend"; London; 1967; p. 215).
Nevertheless, Stalin passed these allegations to the state
security organs, forces, then in the charge of the Marxist-Leninist Minister
of State Security Abakumov. As a result,
". . . Abakumov started an investigation that he directed personally".
(P. Deriabin: op. cit.; p. 311).
and the investigation of Timashuk's allegations soon convinced
Stalin of their correctness:
"One day Stalin called us to the Kremlin and read us a letter from a woman
doctor named Timashuk. She claimed that Zhdanov died because the doctors
on the case purportedly administered improper treatment to him, treatment
intended to lead to his death".
(N. S. Khrushchev: 'Khrushchev Remembers'; London; 1971; p. 283).
The first arrests resulting from this investigation began
as early as December 1950, with the arrest of the diagnostician Yakov Etinger,
who had headed a clinic at the First Gradskaya Hospital in Moscow. Etinger's
name later (1953) appeared among the accused in the 'doctors' case':
"Yakov Etinger had been arrested in 1950."
(Y. Rapoport: op. cit.; p. 24).
"The terrorist group includes . . . Professor Y. G. Etinger, a therapeutist".
('Pravda', 13 January 1953, p. 4, in: 'Current Digest of the Soviet Press',
Volume 4, No. 51 (31 January 1953); p. 3).
The Dismissal and Arrest of Abakumov (1951)
By 1951, therefore, the revisionist conspirators had
good reason to feel extremely uneasy about their future. Rumours circulated:
". . that several members of Stalin's entourage were threatened by the coming
purge".
(G. Bortoli: 'The Death of Stalin'; London; 1973; p. 151).
Clearly, urgent action was essential to safeguard both
the conspiracy and the conspirators.
In late 1951, therefore, the revisionist conspirators
brought about the dismissal of the Marxist-Leninist Abakumov as Minister
of State Security and his replacement by the concealed revisionist Semyon
Ignatiev*:
"Beria's adversaries in the Party (= the opponents of Marxism-Leninism --
Ed.) . . . achieved a notable victory in late 1951 with the replacement of
V. S. Abakumov, an associate of Beria, by S. P. Ignatiev, a Party official,
as head of the MVD".
(S. Wolin & R. Slusser: 'The Soviet Secret Police'; London; 1957; p.
20).
Boris Levytsky records that:
"Abakumov, Beria's intimate friend (= a Marxist-Leninist -- Ed.) was removed
from his post and replaced by S. D. Ignatiev".
(B. Levytsky: op. cit.; p. 204).
and sees this move as the:
". . . first step towards a complete re-staffing of the secret police, towards
the removal of Beria and his friends (= of the Marxist-Leninists -- Ed.).
. . .
For the assumption that Ignatiev was a man of straw there is. . .
plenty of evidence. . . .
Ignatiev's appointment was favoured by the circumstance that he had never
had anything to do with Beria and had no experience of the secret police".
(B. Levytsky: op. cit.; p. 204, 295).
Shortly afterwards, Abakumov and several dozen of his
assistants were arrested on charges of 'lack of vigilance in connection
with the 'Leningrad Affair' of 1949-50 (already analysed):
"In . . . 1951 . . . Abakumov was arrested. . . . He was taken to the Lubyanka
and put in solitary confinement. Seven of his deputies and several dozen
state security officers were arrested along with him. . .
The charges brought against Abakumov at that time were that he had not recognised
the enemy of the people during his handling of the 'Leningrad Affair'. .
. .
In September 1951 none other than Khrushchev . . . echoed Stalin's charge
that Abakumov and his officers had failed to recognise the enemy of the people
in the northern city's Party apparatus".
(P. Deriabin: op. cit.; p. 316-17).
The trumped-up character of the charges against Abakumov
and his assistants is obvious from the fact that in December 1954 Abakumov
was executed by the same revisionist conspirators on charges which included
those of having 'fabricated the "Leningrad Affair"':
But, as we shall see, the removal and arrest of Abakumov
did not put a stop to the danger to the conspirators resulting from investigation
into the 'doctors' case . They therefore sought to save themselves by making
a feint attack on certain Marxist-Leninists.
In military terminology, a 'feint' is
". . a movement made with the object of deceiving the enemy as to a general's
real plans." ('Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'; Oxford; 1972; p. 737).
The revisionist conspirators selected Transcaucasia for
their feint attack not only because it was a long way from the real objective
of their attack, Moscow, but also because it was the birthplace of both Stalin
and Beria and was regarded as a Marxist-Leninist stronghold. Charles
Fairbanks, junior* speaks of Beria's:
". . . territorial fiefdom in the Transcaucasus".
(C. H. Fairbanks, jr.: 'National Cadres as a Force in the Soviet System: The
Evidence of Beria's Career: 1949-53', in: J. R. Azrael (Ed.): 'Soviet Nationality
Policies and Practices'; New York; 1978; p. 155).
and Levytsky notes that at
". . . the 14th Congress of the Georgian Communist Party in January 1949
. . . two separate greeting messages were sent: one to Stalin and one to
Beria".
(B. Levytsky: op. cit.; p. 208).
The attack on the Georgian Marxist-Leninists could only
be seen by Marxist-Leninists elsewhere as a groundless provocative attack
on them by concealed enemies. The aim of the feint was, when the time was
ripe -- that is, when Stalin and his personal secretariat had been rendered
powerless to intervene –
1) to admit that the Ministry of State Security had been in the hands
of concealed enemies and had committed grave miscarriages of justice (e.g.,
in Georgia) of which they demanded the correction;
2) to exculpate and release the guilty doctor-conspirators together with
the innocent Marxist-Leninists under the general cloak of 'correcting miscarriages
of justice'.
The feint began in January 1951 when, as Robert
Conquest* points out, Vilian Zodelava was removed as leader of the Georgian
Young Communist League. (R. Conquest (1961); p. 140).
On 24 May 1951:
" . . the 'Voice of America' announced it would start broadcasting Saturday
in the Georgian language".
('New York Times', 25 May 1951; p. 21).
In November 1951 the wholesale removal of leading Marxist-Leninists
in Georgia began, the offenders being charged with 'embezzlement, car
thefts and similar crimes'. The news was leaked to Western diplomats in February
1952:
"A major wave of embezzlements, automobile thefts and similar crimes in Soviet
Georgia has resulted in a wholesale purge of top Communist Party and government
officials in that area, diplomatic sources report. . . .
The removals began last November. The two most important
officials purged were Mikhail Baramiya and Rostom Shaduri, secretaries of
the Central Committee of the Georgian Communist Party".
('New York Times', 6 February 1952; p. 12).
David Lang* confirms this:
"Prominent Georgian Communists were accused of embezzling state funds, stealing
automobiles and plundering state property".
(D. M. Lang: 'A Modern History of Georgia'; London; 1962; p. 261).
as does John Ducoli*:
"The purported reasons for the initial purge were embezzlements of state
funds, automobile thefts, the plundering of state property, etc."
(J. Ducoli: 'The Georgian Purges (1951-53)', in: 'Caucasian Review', Volume
6 (1958); p. 55).
Within a few days, in November 1951, the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of Georgia was announcing that the accusations against
some former Georgian leaders had been widened to include 'the protection of
criminal officials':
"'Recently it has become known that the Second Secretary of the CC of the
CP (b) of Georgia, M. I. Baramiya, the Minister of Justice, A. N. Rapava,
and the Prosecutor of the Republic, B. Ya. Shoniya, have been extending protection
to certain officials who have committed crimes and have been shielding them
in every possible way'. . . .
All those named were dismissed from their posts".
(R. Conquest (1961): op. cit.; p. 139).
Later, after the ousting of Beria from the leadership
in July 1953, the dismissed officials were described as 'supporters of Beria'.
As the then First Secretary of the Georgian Central Committee, Akaki Mgeladze,
reported to the Georgian Party Congress in September 1952:
"'In 1951 several hundred of Beria's supporters in Georgia were purged"'.
(C. H. Fairbanks, junior: op. cit.; p. 161).
All leading Marxist-Leninists in Georgia were removed
and replaced by conscious revisionists.
Then, in April 1952, a Plenum of the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of Georgia dismissed Kandida Charkviani as First Secretary,
Rostom Shaduri and Mikhail Baramiya as Second Secretaries, Valerian Bakradze
as Deputy Premier, Avksenty Rapava as Minister of Justice, and a number of
other prominent Georgian leaders.
The Plenum elected a new First Secretary -- the concealed
revisionist Akak Mgeladze:
"Kandida Charkviani . . . has been relieved, and a new leader, Akaki Mgeladze,
former secretary of the important Abkhaz regional party committee, has been
installed in his place". ('Pravda', 6 June 1952, in: 'New York Times', 8
June 1952; p. 27).
Mgeladze carried forward on a large scale the process of removing
Marxist-Leninists from responsible positions in the Georgian Party:
"Mgeladze set to work to purge the Party and the governmental apparatus
from top to bottom. In six months he replaced half the members of the Central
Committee of the Georgian Communist Party who had been returned in the election
of 1949, and brought about a complete upheaval in the administrative hierarchy
of the Republic. . . . Several high officials removed by Mgeladze, notably
Valerian Bakradze, Deputy Chairman of the Georgian Council of Ministers (Deputy
Premier -- Ed.) were personal nominees of Beria".
(D. M. Lang: op. cit.; p. 261).
"After a mere six months of leadership, Mgeladze purged approximately
55% of the 111 members and candidate members of the Central Committee which
had been elected in 1949".
(J. Ducoli: op. cit.; p. 55).
Beria came from Moscow to attend April 1952 Plenum:
"Beria was present at the plenum in April that formally confirmed the succession.
Charkviani's followers were replaced by men from Abkhazeti, where Mgeladze
had been Party chief".
(R. G. Suny: 'The Making of the Georgian Nation'; London; 1989; p. 288).
"In April 1952, Beria, now Vice-President of the Soviet Council of Ministers
(USSR Deputy Premier -- Ed.) came from Moscow to attend a meeting of the Central
Committee of the Georgian Communist Party".
(D. M. Lang: op. cit.; p. 261). .
The presence of Beria enabled the concealed revisionists
to 'let it become known', that is, to spread the completely false story, that
the changes in leading personnel which they had brought about in Georgia
had been brought about 'on Stalin's instructions':
"At that time (spring 1952 -- Ed.) it became known that Mr. Beria himself
had gone to Georgia to clean up a situation compounded of widespread graft
and other types of corruption. Later it became known that Premier Stalin himself
had had to intervene to order the purge in the Georgian Communist Party".
('New York Times', 3 January 1953; p. 3).
In fact, the Georgian leaders who were removed were
Marxist-Leninists who were supported by Beria and Stalin, and had been
elected on their recommendation:
"Several high officials removed by Mgeladze, notably Valerian Bakradze, Deputy
Chairman of the Georgian Council of Ministers (Deputy Premier -- Ed.) were
personal nominees of Beria". (D. M. Lang: op. cit.; p. 261).
"Mr. Beria had to preside at the removal of the men he had installed
at the head of the Georgian Party and to permit these charges of corruption
to be announced as true".
('New York Times', 17 April 1953; p. 10).
However, the story that the leadership changes had been
brought about at the wishes of Beria and Stalin was useful in quashing opposition
to the changes. Mgeladze told the Georgian Party Congress in September 1952:
"These plenary sessions (of November 1951 and April 1952 -- Ed.) adopted resolutions
based on the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist
Party and upon Comrade Stalin's personal instructions".
(A. Mgeladze: Report to Congress of Georgian Communist Party, September 1952,
in: R. Conquest (1961): op. cit.; p. 143).
The reasons given as to why Beria and Stalin should have
wanted these changes were naturally somewhat nebulous. Mgeladze told the
Georgian Young Communist League in May 1952:
"'Comrade Stalin found deficiencies in the leadership of the Communist Party
and Young Communist League of Georgia, which threatened to have serious consequences,
and showed ways to correct mistakes"'.
(A. Mgeladze: Report to Georgian Young Communist League, May 1952, in: R.
Conquest (1961): op. cit.; p. 141-42).
This vague allegation was later made more concrete. Later
in 1952, someone discovered some critical remarks of Stalin about the danger
of nationalism in Georgia.
The dismissed Marxist-Leninists were now accused
of criminal nationalism and were said to have been arrested, linked with those
critical remarks made by Stalin about the dangers of nationalism:
"In the Georgian purges of 1951-52, his (Beria's -- Ed.) appointees were
charged with lenience towards Georgian nationalism".
(C. H. Fairbanks, Junior: op. cit., p. 154).
Mgeladze told the Georgian Party Congress on September
1952:
"'The former leadership forgot about the fact that international reactionaries
are trying to find in our Republic nationalist elements with hostile attitude
in order with their help to carry on diversionist espionage work"'.
('New York Times', 23 September 1952; p. 3).
A number of the dismissed Marxist-Leninist leaders were
charged with criminal manifestations of Georgian nationalism
"Mgeladze and his Minister of State Security, Rukhadze, charged some proteges
of Beria with nationalism. They were M. I. Baramiya . . . .Rapava Shoniya.
They were arrested and imprisoned".
(J. Ducoli: op. cit.; p. 56).
"All those named (Baramiya, Rapava and Shoniya -- Ed.) were arrested
later".
(R. Conquest (1961): op. cit.; p. 139).
"Charkviani, secretary of the Georgian Central Committee from 1939 to
1952, Rapava, then Minister of Internal Affairs for the Georgian Republic,
and others were removed from their posts and arrested, after being accused
of nationalism at the Georgian Party conference of April 1952. The blow was
struck by Rukhadze, then Minister of State Security in Georgia". (Boris Nicolaevsky:
'Power and the Soviet Elite'; New York; 1965; p. 182).
The Marxist-Leninists' Counter-blow in Georgia
Meanwhile, the Marxist-Leninists, realising that the security
of the socialist state had suffered a severe setback in Georgia, had the
affair investigated through Stalin's 'special secretariat', which as we have
seen, functioned as a special security force under the control of the Marxist-Leninists.
The special secretrariat uncovered sufficient evidence to establish that
the Georgian Minister of State Security, Nikolay Rukhadze, had behaved improperly
in the case of the Georgian Marxist-Leninists. As a result, in July 1952
the revisionists were compelled to dismiss Rukhadze, although they
were able to resist his arrest and any reversal of his actions in 'the Georgian
feint' until the following April:
Despite the removal and arrest of Abakumov, the intervention
of Stalin's personal secretariat ensured that investigation into the 'doctors'
case’ continued. Isaac Deutscher' confirms that:
". . . Ignatiev, the Minister of State Security, was a reluctant executant
of orders". (I.Deutscher: 'Stalin: A Political Biography'; Harmondsworth;
1968.; p. 605).
Ignatiev, therefore, remained aloof from the investigation
into the ‘doctors’ case’, leaving the conduct of this to
his Deputy, the Marxist-Leninist Ryumin:
"Ryumin personally supervised the investigation (into the 'Doctors' Case'
'Ed.)"'.
(Y. Rapoport: op. cit.; p. 10-0).
Ryumin had formerly headed the State Security Section
of Stalin’s personal secretariat:
"Ryumin, before being appointed to the post of Deputy Miinister of State
Security . . . headed the state security section in Stalin's personal secretariat".
(B.Nicolaevsky: op. cit.; p. 155).
As a result of the findings in this investigation,
". . . in the summer of 1952 many . . . doctors who had, worked in the Kremlin
Hospital for many years and treated many statesmen were summarily fired.
Among them; were Miron Vovsi and Vladirmir Vinogradov. The former head of
the Kremlin Hospital, Aleksey Busalov, Mikhail Yegorov . . . and Sophia Karpai
were arrested".
(Y. Rapoport: op. cit.; p. 72).
On 13 January 1953 'Pravda' carried the report of the
arrest of
" . . a terrorist group of doctors who had made it their aim to cut short
the lives of active public figures of the Soviet Union through sabotage medical
treatment. . . .
The participants in this terrorist group, taking advantage of their position
as doctors and abusing the trust of patients, by deliberate evil intent .
. . made incorrect diagnoses . . . and then doomed them by wrong treatment".
('Pravda', 13 January 1953; p. 4, in: 'Current Digest of the Soviet Press',
Volume 4, No. 31 (31 January 1953); p. 3).
Nine doctors were named as 'among the participants in
this terrorist group, namely:
"Professor M. S. Vovsi, therapeutist;
Professor V.I. Vinogradov, therapeutist;
Professor M.B. Kogan, therapeutist;
Professor B.B. Kogan, therapeutist;
Professor P. I. Yegorov, therapeutist;
Professor A.I.Feldman, otolaryngologist;
Professor Ya.G.Etinger, therapeutist;
Professor Grinshtein, neuropathologist;
G.I. Maiorov, therapeutist".
('Pravda', 13 January 1953, in: ibid.; p. 3).
Of the accused persons, Vladimir Vinogradov* was
". . . Stalin's personal physician",
(Y. Rapoport: op. cit.; p. 216).
Mikhail and Boris Kogan were brothers, while Miron Vovsi
was a relative of the Jewish actor 'Solomon Mikhoels’, whose real surname
was Vovsi.
The doctors were charged with having murdered in this
way Andrey Zhadnov and Alelsandr Scherbakov*, and with attempting to murder
Marshals Aleksandr Vasilevsky*, Leonid Covorov*, and Ivan Konev, together
with General Sergey Shtemenko* and Admiral Cordey Iavchenko*.
It was alleged that
. . most of the participants in the terrorist group (M. S. Vovsi, B. B. Kogan,
A. I. Feldman, A. M. Grinshtein, Ya. H. Yetinger and others) were connected
with -the international Jewish bourgeois nationalist organisation 'JOINT',
established by American intelligence for the purpose of providing material
aid to Jews in other countries. In acxtual fact this organisation, under
direction of American intelligebce, conducts extensive espionage, terrorist
and other subversive work in many countries, including the Soviet Union.
. . . The arrested Vovsi told investigators that he had received orders 'to
wipe out the leading cadres of the USSR' -- received them from the USA through
the 'JOINT' organisation, via a Moscow doctor, Shimeliovich, and the well
known Jewish bourgeois nationalist Mikhoels.
Other participants in the terrorist group (V. N. Vinogradov,
M. B, Kogan, P. I. Yegorov) proved to be old agents of British intelligece".
('Pravda', 13 January 1953, p. 4, in: 'Current Digest of the Soviet Press',
Volume 4, No. 51 (3 January 1953); p. 3).
The full name of 'JOINT' was the 'American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee', founded in the United States in November 1914 by
the fusion of three committees, ostensibly as an international charity for
the assistance of Jews throughout the world.
The announcement concluded:
"The investigation will soon be concluded".
('Pravda', 13 January 1953, in: ibid.; p. 3).
An editorial in ''Pravda' on the same day reminded people
that in the 1930s a group of doctors involved in a concealed revisionist conspiracy
had admitted at their public trial to murdering a number of leading Soviet
Marxist-Leninists by administering deliberately incorrect medical treatment
to them:
"The agencies of state security did not discover the doctors' wrecking, terrorist
organisation in time. Yet these agencies should have been particularly vigilant,
since history already records instances of foul murderers and traitors to
the Motherland conducting their machinations in the guise of doctors, such
as the 'doctors' Levin and Pletnev, who killed t he great Russian writer
A. M. Gorky and the outstanding Soviet statesmen V. V. Kuibyshev and V. R.
Menzhinsky by deliberate wrong treatment on orders from enemies of the Soviet
Union".
('Pravda', 13 January 1953; p. 1, in: ibid.; p. 4).
The original statement had stated that:
"the criminal doctors confessed".
('Pravda', 13 January 1953, in: ibid.; p. 3).
and, in his secret speech to the 20th Congress of the
CPSU in February 1956, Khrushchev declared:
"Shortly after the doctors were arrested we members of the Political Bureau
received protocols with the doctors' confessions of guilt".
(N. S. Khrushchev:1956; "Secret Speech to 20th Congress"; of the CPSU; p.
64).
And after their release by the revisionist conspirators
following Stalin's death in March 1953, the doctors admitted that their confessions
had been genuine:
"When we were all released, Vovsi and Vinogradov themselves told me that
they had admitted all the crimes imparted to them. . . .
The most tragic aspect of these confessions was that the
person admitted not only crimes he himself had supposedly committed, but
also the existence of a criminal organisation and collective criminal actions.
. . . The accused was led to cooperate with the investigation in exposing
the crimes of others. This happened to Vovsi and Vinogradov, and perhaps
to other people as well.
Sophia Karpai, formerly a doctor at the Kremlin Hospital,
told me in the summer of 1953 about her confrontation with Vovsi, Vinogradov
and Vasilenko in prison. To her face they asserted that she had executed
their criminal orders to administer harmful treatments to her patients. .
. .
So the people who had broken down became witnesses for
the prosecution".
(Y. Rapoport: op. cit.; p. 137).
Furthermore, the released doctors testified that their
confessions had not been brought about as a result of the application
of:
". . torture, of which rumours were rife in the memorable purge years of
1937-1939 . . . Vinogradov told me that he had resolved from the beginning
not to wait till they started torturing him, but to admit all the charges,
which included one of espionage for France and Great Britain".
(Y. Rapoport: op. cit.; p. 138).
The determination of the Soviet Marxist-Leninists to proceed with the
'doctors' case' made it an urgent matter of life and death for the revisionist
conspirators to halt the proceedings in the case by destroying Stalin's personal
secretariat as a necessary preliminary to destroying Stalin himself.
The Destruction of the Defence System around Stalin
We have noted the role of Stalin's personal secretariat
-- also known as the 'Special Sector' of the Secretariat of the Central Committee
of the Party -- in bringing about the treason trials of the 1930s. But this
body also played an important role in defending from terrorist attack
the Marxist-Leninist nucleus, headed by Stalin, at the heart of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union.
The special sector had been headed since 1928 by the
Marxist-Leninist Aleksandr Poskrebyshev*:
"As head of the 'Special Sector' of the Central Committee for many years,
he (Poskrebyshev -- Ed.) was Stalin's closest confidant up till 1952".
(R. Conquest: 'The Great Terror'; Harmondsworth; 1971; (hereafter listed as
'R. Conquest (1971)'); p. 37).
while Lieutenant-General Nikolay Vlasik*
". . . for more than twenty-five years had been Stalin's chief of personal
security; he knew much and was trusted by the boss".
(D. Volkogonov: 'Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy'; London; 1991; p. 333).
Dmitri Volkogonov* asserts that Pokrebyshev
". . . . . to the end of his days remained his master's devoted servant. .
. He was a man with the memory of a computer. You could get an exact reply
to any question. He was a walking encyclopaedia. . . .
Stalin . . . trusted . . . Vlasik and Poskrebyshev".
(D.Volkogonov: op. cit.; p. 203-04, 318).
and Levtysky confirms that:
". . . those who knew the conditions at the summit of the Party after 1945
describe Poskrebyshev as an organising genius with a phenomenal memory".
(B. Levytsky: op. cit.; p. 177).
Conquest asserts that Poskrebyshev was:
" . . . the man most closely and directly associated with Stalin (later described
in Khrushchev's secret speech as Stalin's 'shieldbearer').
(R. Conquest (1961): p. 156).
Volkogonov says of Vlasik:
"For more than twenty-five years, Vlasik had been Stalin's chief of personal
security; he knew much was trusted by the boss".
(D. Volkogonov: op. cit.; p. 318, 333).
and Robert McNeal* says that
". . . Vlasik and Poskrebyshev effectively guarded the approaches to Stalin's
office, one as controller of security, the other of appointments".
(R. H. McNeal: 'Stalin: Man and Ruler'; Basingstoke; 1988; p. 301).
It was clear, therefore, that a successful terrorist attack
on Stalin required the prior elimination of the faithful Poskrebyshev and
Vlasik.
Walter Laqueur* states:
"During the last year of Stalin's life, Poskrebyshev fell from grace".
(W. Laqueur: 'Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations'; London; 1990; p. 176).
and Nikita Khrushchev tells how this 'fall from grace'
was brought about. He describes how, during the winter of 1952-53, he came
under suspicion of leaking secret documents, and how he succeeded in deflecting
the blame from himself in such a way that it fell upon Poskrebyshev:
"Stalin . . . complained that secret documents were leaking out through our
secretariats. . . . Stalin was coming straight for me: 'It's you. Khrushchev!
The leak is through your secretrariat!' . . .
I . . . succeeded in deflecting the blow from myself, but Stalin didn't let
the matter rest. . . . After I'd convinced Stalin that the leak wasn’t
through my secretariat, he came to the conclusion that the leak must have
been through Poskrebyshev. . . . Poskrebyshev had worked for Stalin for many
years. . . .
Stalin removed Poskrebyshev from his post and promoted someone else".
(N. S. Khrushchev (1971): p. 272, 273, 274, 275).
Niels Rosenfeldt confirms that
" . . . Poskrebyshev was removed from his old post at the latest during the
winter of 1952-53. . .
Stalin 's bodyguard, Vlasik, disappeared around that time (the winter of
1952-53 -- Ed.)".
(F. E. Rosenfeldt: 'Knowledge and Power: The Role of Stalin’s Chancellery
in the Soviet System of Government'; Copenhagen; 1978; p. 196).
as does Adam Ulam*:
"Poskrebyshev and Vlasik . . . found themselves in disgrace".
(B. Ulam: 'Stalin: The Man and His Era'; London; 1989; p. 617).
Volkogonov states that
". . Poskrebyshev and Vlasik were compromised . . . . shortly before Stalin's
death and were therefore distanced from him".
(D. Volkogonov: op. cit.; p. 513).
and McNeal confirms that
". . . both these men (Poskrebyshev and Vlasik -- Ed.) were thrown out in
1952".
(R. H. McNeal: ov. cit.: v. 301).
Deriabin agrees that the charges of disloyalty levelled
at Poskrebyshev and Vlasik were completely false:
"The claim about that pair of long time faithful servants was a bald and
most complete lie. But . . . Stalin fired them both".
(P. Deriabin: op. cit.; p. 320).
The revisionist conspirators placed Poskrebyshev under
house arrest:
"Poskrebyshev was placed under house arrest in his dacha outside Moscow,
with . . . guards posted about it."
(P. Deriabin: op. cit.; p. 321).
"Poskrebyshev . . . disappeared. He was simply not mentioned again, apart
from a brief sneer in Khrushchev's secret speech".
(R. Conquest (1961): p. 208).
while Vlasik was expelled from the Party and sent to Sverdlovsk
ts deputy commandant of a labour camp:
"Vlasik . . . was not only fired, he was also expelled from the Party and
sent to Sverdlovsk. . . . . as deputy commandant of a . . . labour camp".
(P. Deriabin: op. cit.; p. 321).
Vlasik came to Moscow and:
" . . . went to the Kremlin in an attempt to see Stalin. . . He was picked
up near the Kremlin gates and put into the Lubyanka. Two weeks later he died
there of an 'illness"'.
(P. Deriabin: op. cit.; p. 321).
Volkogonov confirms that Vlasik
" . . . was arrested on 16 December 1952",
(D. Volkogonov": op. cit.; p. 570).
and records that, during Vlasik's interrogation, pressure
was exerted on him:
". . . to make him incriminate Poskrebyshev. He refused".
(D. Volkogonov: op. cit.; p. 570).
Ulam confirms that
". . . Vlasik, chief of his (Stalin's -- Ed.) personal security since the
Civil War, had been imprisoned. His confidential secretary, Poskrebyshev,
was chased away".
(B. Ulam: op. cit.; p. 737).
and Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva*, tells the
same story:
"Shortly before my father died even some of his intimates were disgraced:
the perenniel Vlasik was sent to prison in the winter of 1952 and my father's
personal secretary Poskrebyshev, who had been with him for twenty years,
was removed".
(S. Alliluyeva: 'Twenty Letters to a Friend'; London; 1967; p. 216).
However, the attack on the defence system around Stalin
was not confined to the elimination of Poskrebyshev and Vlasik. During 1952
the concealed revisionists set up:
". . . . a commission to investigate. . . the entire state security apparatus".
(P. Deriabin: op. cit.; p. 317).
This commission:
" . . . proceeded . . . to cut Stalin's bodyguards to the bone. . . .
About seven thousand men were dropped from the original Okhrana force of
some seventeen thousand. . , .
When the slashing was finished, Stalin's personal bodyguards, Okhrana No.
1, had been cut to half strength".
(P. Deriabin: op. cit.; p. 317, 318, 319).
This left Stalin
" . . . guarded by . . . only a small group of officers. . . . a group that
had little security experience, especially as bodyguards, and one that was
headed by a mere major".
(P. Deriabin: op. cit.; p. 319).
Rosenfeldt adds that about this time the special guard
service, whose task was to ensure Stalin's personal safety, after 'a thorough
purging and a big reduction in personnel', together with the Kremlin Command
and the Kremlin Medical Administration, were all made subordinate to the revisionist
controlled Ministry of State Security:
"The special guard service, whose job it was to ensure Stalin's personal
safety, was made subordinate to the Ministry of State Security (MGB) in 1952
after a thorough purging and a big reduction in personnel. At the same time
and in the same way the Kremlin Command and the Kremlin Medical Administration
were put under MGB control".
(N. E. Rosenfeldt: op. cit .; p. 196).
Then, on 17 February 1953, two weeks before Stalin himself
died, the sudden death was reported of the Major-General Petr Kosynkin, Deputy
Commandant of the Kremlin Guards, in charge of the operational arrangements
for guarding Stalin:
"On 15 February 1953, shortly before Stalin's death, the commander of the
Kremlin guard, Major-General Pyotr Kosynkin, who was responsible for Stalin's
personal safety, died".
(B. Levytsky: op. cit.; p. 212).
"The Deputy Commandant of the Kremlin, Major-General Kosynkin, in charge
of the operational arrangements for guarding Stalin, died of a heart attack
two weeks before Stalin. Or so the announcement said".
(P. Deriabin & F. Gibney: 'The Secret World'; New York; 1959; p. 169).
"The Vice-Chief of the Kremlin Command, Major-General Petr Kosynkin,
passed away prematurely' on 15th February 1953".
(N. E. Rosenfeldt: op. cit.; p. 196).
"On February 17 1953 . . . Major General Petr Kosynkin, the deputy Commander
of the Kremlin Guard, suddenly died of a heart attack. That sudden seizure
was rather unusual, to say the least. A fanatical admirer of Stalin, Kosynkin
had been in the prime of life and health. . . . The extremely careful physical
examinations regularly undergone by all such appointees as Kosynkin automatically
presuppose that the guard leader was in top condition and certainly not suffering
from any heart trouble. . .
On February 17, 1953 there came a report, generally unnoticed at the time,
that the Deputy Kremlin Commandant, General Kosynkin, the only remaining guard
that Stalin could trust, had suddenly died of a 'heart attack"'.
(P. Deriabin: op. cit.; p. 239, 325).
Finally, on 21 February 1953
". . . . a most significant change was made in the Army High Command. General
Sergey Shtemenko was replaced by Marshal Vasily Sokolovsky as Chief of Staff
of the Soviet armed forces. . . . And concurrently with Shtemenko's replacement,
the Okhrana bodyguards were removed from the general staff".
(P. Deriabin: op. cit,.; p. 325).
"The Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff, Sergey Shtemenko, was removed
from his post about the same time (mid-February 1953 -- Ed)".
(N. E. Rosenfeldt: op. cit.; p. 196).
Deriabin sums up this 'process of stripping Stalin
of all his personal security’ as ‘a studied and very ably handled
business':
"That completed the process of stripping Stalin of all personal security,
except for the comparative window-dressing of the minor Okhrana officers
in his office and household. This had been a studied and very ably handled
business: the framing of Abakumov, the dismissal of Vlasik, the discrediting
of Poskrebyshev, the emasculation of the Okhrana and its enforced subservience
to the (revisionist-controlled -- Ed.) MGB, Kosynkin's 'heart attack', the
replacement of Shtemenko and the removal of the general staff from the last
vestiges of Okhrana control. And certainly not to be forgotten at this juncture
was the MGB control of the Kremlin medical office."
(P. Deriabin: op. cit.; p. 325-26).
and one which placed the conspirators finally in the drivers's
seat:
"With state security and the armed forces under their command, the connivers
were finally in the driver's seat".
(P. Deriabin: op. cit.; p. 326).
Part 2: The Death of Stalin
(1953)
On 3 March 1953 a joint statement of the Central Committee
of the CPSU and of the USSR Council of Ministers announced
" . a great misfortune which has befallen our Party and our people".
(Communique, 3 March 1953, in: 'Pravda' and 'Izvestia', 4 March 1953; p.
1, in: 'Current Digest of the Soviet Press', Volume 5, No. 6 (21 March 1953);
p. 4).
It reported that:
". . . during the night of March 1-2 Comrade Stalin, while in his Moscow
apartment, had a haemorrhage of the brain, which affected vital parts of
his brain. Comrade Stalin lost consciousness.
Paralysis of the right arm and leg developed. Loss of speech occurred. Serious
disturbances developed in the functioning of the heart and breathing.
The best medical personnel have been called in to treat Comrade Stalin. .
. .
'Treatment of Comrade Stalin is under the constant supervision of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet government".
(Government Statement, 3 March 1953, in: 'Pravda ' and 'Izvestia', 4 March
1953; p. 1, in: ibid.; p. 4).
In the early hours of the following morning, 4 March,
a medical bulletin was issued which stated:
"At 2 a.m. 4 March, J. V. Stalin's conditions remains serious. Considerable
disturbances of breathing is observed; frequency of breathing is 36 per minute
and the rhythm of breathing is irregular, with periodic prolonged pauses.
It is observed that pulse beats are up to 120 a minute and there is complete
arrhythmia. Maximum blood pressure is 220, minimum 120.
Temperature is 38.2 (Centigrade -- Ed.). In connection with the disturbed
breathing and blood circulation, inadequacy of organs is observed. The degree
of disturbance of the function of the brain has increased somewhat.
At the present time a series of therapeutic measures are being applied to
restore the vitally important functions of the organism".
(Medical Bulletin, 4 March 1953, in: ibid.; p. 4).
A second bulletin was issued on the morning of 5 March:
"During the past twenty-four hours the state of health of Josef Vissarionovich
Stalin remained grave. Arteriosclerosis, which developed during the night
of March 1-2 on the basis of hypotonia and cerebral haemorrhage in his left
brain hemisphere, has resulted, apart from the right-side paralysis of limbs
and loss of consciousness, in impaired stem section of the brain, accompanied
by disturbances of the vital functions of breathing and blood circulation.
During the night of March 3-4, disturbed breathing and blood circulation continued.
The greatest changes were observed An the breathing functions.
Instances of periods of so-called Cheyne-Stokes breathing became more frequent.
In connection with this, the condition of the blood circulation deteriorated
and the degree of lack of oxygen increased.
Systematic introduction of oxygen and of medicines which regulate breathing
and the action of the heart vessels gradually somewhat improved the condition
and on the morning of March 4 the degree of lack of breathing was somewhat
reduced.
Further, during the day of March 4, grave breathing disturbances recommenced.
The rate of breathing was 36 per minute. Blood pressure continued to remain
high (210 maximum, 110 minimum), with pulse 108-116 per minute, irregular,
fluttering and arrhythmic.
The heart is not unduly enlarged. During the past twenty-four hours, fundamental
changes in the condition of the lungs and organs of the peritoneal cavity
were established. Albumen and red blood corpuscles were found in the normal
ratio.
When blood was tested, increase in the number of white corpuscles to the
extent of up to 17,000 was observed. Temperature during the morning and afternoon
rose to 38.6.
Medical measures taken during March 4 consisted of introducing oxygen, camphor
compounds, caffeine and glucose. For the second time, leeches were used to
draw blood.
In connection with the raised temperature and high leucocytosis, penicillin
therapy, which has been carried out for prophylactic purposes since the beginning
of the illness, was intensified.
Towards the end of March 4 the state of health of Josef V. Stalin continues
grave.
The patient is in a state of deep unconsciousnness.
Nervous regulation of breathing, as well as cardiac action, continues to
be greatly impaired".
(Medical Bulletin, 2 a.m., 5 March 1953. in: 'Pravda' and 'Izvestia', 5 March
1953; p. 1, in: ibid.; p. 4).
A third medical bulletin was issued in the morning of
5 March 1953 and published in the press on 6 March. It reported the worsening
of Stalin's condition:
"During the night and the first half of March 5, J. V. Stalin's condition
became worse. Acute disturbances in the cardio-vascular system have been
added to the impairment of vital functions of the brain. For three hours
this morning there was serious respiratory deficiency, which yielded with
difficulty to the proper therapeutics.
At eight this morning there developed signs of an acute cardiovascular deficiency,
a collapse. The blood pressure dropped, the pulse quickened. There was an
increase in pallor. Emergency treatment eliminated these developments.
An electrocardiogram taken at 11 a.m. revealed acute disturbances in the
blood circulation in the coronary arteries of the heart with lesions in the
back wall of the heart. (The electrocardiogram taken March 2 had not established
such changes). At 11.30 a.m. there was a second serious collapse, which was
eliminated with difficulty by the proper medical treatment. Later in the
day, the cardiovascular disturbances subsided to some extent. but the patient's
general condition remained extremely grave.
At 4 p.m. the blood pressure ranged from a maximum of 160 to a minimum of
100. The pulse was 120 per minute and arrhythmic. The rate of respiration:
36 per minute. Temperature: 37.6. The leucocyte count: 21,000. Treatment at
present is aimed primarily at combatting the disturbances in respiration and
blood circulation, specifically coronary circulation".
(Medical Bulletin, 4 p.m., 5 March 1953. in: 'Pravda' and 'Izvestia', 6 March;
p. 1; in: ibid.; p. 5).
Finally, on 6 March came the medical report carrying
the announcement of Stalin's death:
"On the afternoon of March 5 the condition of the patent deteriorated especially
rapdly; respiration became shallow and much faster, the pulse reached 140-150
beats per minute and pulse pressure dropped.
At 2150 hours , with cardiac failure and growing insufficiency of breathing,
J. V. Stalin died". (Medical Bulletin, 6 March 1953, in 'Pravda' and 'Izvestia',
6 March 1953. p. 1, in: ibid.; p. 5).
The medical report was published together with a joint
tribute from the Central Committee, the government and the Presidium of
the USSR Supreme Soviet:
"The heart of Lenin's comrade-in-arms and the inspired continuer of Lenin's
cause, the wise leader and teacher of the Communist Party and the Soviet
people -- Josef Vissarionovich STALIN -- has stopped beating.
STALIN's name is boundlessly dear to our Party, to the Soviet people, to
the working people of the world. . . . Continuing Lenin's immortal cause,
Comrade STALIN led the Soviet people to the world-historic triumph of socialism
in our land. Comrade STALIN led our country to victory over fascism in the
second world war, which wrought a radical change in the entire international
situation. Comrade STALIN armed the Party and the entire people with a great
and clear programme of building communism in the USSR.
The death of Comrade STALIN, who devoted all his life to the great cause
of communism, constitutes a great loss to the Party and to the working people
of the Soviet land and of the whole world".
(Joint Statement of CC of CPSU, USSR Council of Ministers and the Presidium
of the USSR Supreme Soviet, in: 'Pravda' and 'Izvestia', 6 March 1953; p.
1, in: ibid.; p. 5).
On 7 March 1953 the report of the autopsy on Stalin's
body was published. It was stated that it
" . . . entirely confirmed the diagnosis established by the professors of
medicine who treated J. V. Stalin".
(Pathological and Anatomical Examination of the Body of Josef Stalin, in:
'Pravda', 7 March 1953. in: G. Bortoli: 'The Death of Stalin'; London; 1975;
p. 209).
and
". . . established the irreversible character of J. V. Stalin's illness since
the appearance of the cerebral haemorrhage".
(Pathological and Anatomical Examination of the Body of Josef Stalin, in:
ibid.; p. 209).
The full report stated:
"As the result of a pathological and anatomical examination, an important
centre of haemorrhage was discovered in the region of the subcortical centres
of the left hemisphere of the brain. This haemorrhage destroyed important
areas of the brain and provoked irreversible disturbances of the respiration
and circulation. Besides the cerebral haemorrhage, observation was made of
a considerable hypertonic disturbance of the left ventricle of the heart,
important haemorrhages of the cardiac muscle, and in the mucous of the stomach
and intestine, and arteriosclerotic modifications of particularly important
vessels in the brain's arteries. This process was the result of high blood
pressure. The results of the pathological and anatomical examination have
entirely confirmed the diagnosis establised by the professors of medicine
who treated J. V. Stalin.
The facts of the pathologico-anatomical examination have established the
irreversible character of J. V. Stalin's illness since the appearance of
the cerebral haemorrhage. That is why the energetic measures of the treatment
could not produce positive results, nor prevent the fatal outcome".
(Ibid.; p. 209).
There are a number of circumstances connected with the
death of Stalin which make it, in forensic terms, 'a suspicious death'
:
Firstly, Stalin appeared to be in excellent health
immediately prior to the beginning of March:
"And what of Stalin himself? In the pink of,condition. In the best of spirits.
That was the word of three foreigners who saw him in February - Bravo, the
Argentine Amassador; Menon, the Indian, and Dr. Kitchlu, an Indian active
in the peace movement".
(H. Salisbury: 'Stalin's Russia and After'; London; 1952; p. 157).
Secondly, on the night of 1-2 March there was a
long delay in obtaining medical help for Stalin:
"Khrushchev does not mention specific times, but his narrative makes it incredible
that the doctors arrived much before 5 a.m. on 2 March. This is many hours,
perhaps twelve, after the seizure. . . .
It is not true that he was under medical care soon after the seizure".
(R. H. McNeal: op. cit ; p. 304).
"There is a mystery about what had happened to Stalin, His guards had
become alarmed when he had not asked for his evening snack at 11 p.m. . .
. The security men picked him up and put him on a sofa, but doctors were not
summoned until the morning.
Stalin lay helpess and untreated for the better part of a day, making recuperative
treatment much harder. . . .
Why did the Party leaders prolong the delay? Some historians see evidence
of premeditated murder. Abdurakhman Avtorhanov sees the cause in Stalin's
visible preparation of a purge to rival those of the thirties".
(J. Lewis & P. Whitehead: 'Stalin: A Time for Judgement'; London; 1990;
p. 179).
"Only on the next morning . . . did the first physicians arrive".
(W. Laqueuer: op. cit.; p. 151).
"Physicians were finally brought in to the comatose leader after a twelve-
or fourteen hour interval".
(D. Volkogonov: op. cit.; p. 513).
Thirdly, there was a deliberate lie in the announcement
of his death, which was stated to have taken place 'in his Moscow apartment',
whereas it actually occurred in his dacha at Kuntsevo, Adam Ulam asserts
that a:
" . . . conspiratorial air coloured the circumstances of Stalin's death.
The belated communique announcing his stroke was emphatic that it had occurred
in his quarters in the Kremlin. Yet it was to his country villa . . . that
his daughter Svetlana was summoned on March 2 to be by his deathbed. . .
. He was stricken away from Moscow. . . .
The official communique' lied about the place where Stalin had suffered the
fatal stroke and died. . . .
There was an obvious reason behind the falsehood; his successors feared that
a true statement about where he was at the time of the seizure would lead
to rumours . . . that the stroke had occurred while he was being kidnapped
or incarcerated by the oligarchs. Crowds might surge on the Kremlin, demanding
an accounting of what had been done to their father and protector".
(A. B. Ulam: op. cit.; p. 4, 700, 739).
Fourthly, as we have seen, the revisionist conspirators
had an ample and urgent motive -- that of self-preservation -- for eliminating
Stalin:
"For many leading Soviet statesmen and officials, Stalin's demise . . . came
in the nick of time. Whether or not it was due to natural causes is another
matter".
(D. M. Lang: op. cit,; p. 262).
"What a strange quirk of fate, I thought, that Stalin should lie dying
just a few weeks after the Kremlin's own doctors had been accused of plotting
precisely such a death. A very strange and curious quirk of fate.
But was it just a quirk? . . . Was it possible that these powerful and able
Soviet leaders, together with their colleagues in the Army, had stood idly
by and taken no steps to halt the creeping terror that was certain to destroy
almost all of them. . . .
While murder cannot be proved, there was no question that motive for murder
existed. . . . For . . . if Stalin were dying a natural death. it was the
luckiest thing that had ever happened to the men who stood closest to him".
(H. Salisbury: op. cit.; p. 160-61).
Fifthly, it is necessary to take into account the
circumstantial evidence of the series of measures undertaken by the conspirators
in the months prior to Stalin's death to destroy the system of defences that
had surrounded him.
It is not surprising, therefore, within weeks of Stalin's
death, rumours should circulate that he had been murdered:
"There were rumours, above all in Georgia, that Stalin had been poisoned".
(W. Laqueur: op. cit.; p, 151).
Robert Conquest speaks of the:
" . . . possibilities that he was killed".
(R. Conquest (1961): p. 172).
As Stalin's former bodyguard Vlasik was leaving Moscow
after his dismissal, Stalin's son Vasily* is reported to have cried out:
"'They are going to kill him! They are going to kill him!'. By 'they' he
meant . . . other members of the Political Bureau, and by 'him' he meant
his father".
(P. Deriabin: op. cit.; p. 321).
"Stalin's son Vasily kept coming in and shouting 'They've killed my father,
the bastards!"'.
(D. Volkogonov: op. cit.; p. 774).
Although Vasily was an alcoholic, when he continued to
make these accusations publicly, he was arrested in April 1953 in order, as
his sister Svetlana puts it, 'to isolate him':
"After my father's death, he (Vasily -- Ed.) . . . was arrested. This happened
because he had threatened the government, he talked that 'my father was killed
by his rivals' and all things like that, and always many people around him
-- so they decided to isolate him. He stayed in jail till 1961 . . . and
soon he died".
(S. Alliluyeva: ‘Only One Year’; London: 1969 (hereafter listed
as ‘S. Alliluyeva (1969); p. 202).
"He (Vasily Ed.) was convinced that our father had been 'poisoned' or
'killed'.
Throughout the period before the funeral . . . he accused the government,
the doctors and everybody in sight of using the wrong treatment on my father..
. .
He was arrested on April 18th, 1953. . . .
A military collegium sentenced him to eight years in jail.
He died on March 19th, 1962".
(S. Alliluyeva (1967): p. 222-23, 224, 228).
Georges Bortoli* comments:
"Vasily Stalin had said aloud what the others were thinking to themselves.
In less than a month, all sorts of rumours would begin to circulate in Moscow,
and people would begin speaking of a crime. . . . .Some people said that
several members of Stalin's entourage were threatened by the coming purge.
Had they taken steps to forestall it?".
(G. Bortoli: op. cit.; p. 151).
Robert Conquest and other commentators have drawn attention
also to the sudden illness and death of the Czechoslovak leader, the Marxist-Leninist
Klement Gottwald*, shortly after visiting Moscow to attend Stalin's funeral,
and have suggested that this death too had been induced. Gottwald was succeeded
as President of Czechoslovakia by the concealed revisionist Antonin Zapotocky*:
"Many commentators have noted that immediately after Stalin's death, Gottwald
. . . also fell ill while attending Stalin's funeral in Moscow, and died
a few days later; and they have cast doubt on the naturalness of Gottwald's
illness".
(R. Conquest (1961): p. 174).
The Albanian leader, the Marxist-Leninist Enver Hoxha*
makes the same point:
"Immediately after the death of Stalin, Gottwald died. This was a sudden,
surprising death! It had never crossed the mind of those who knew Gottwald
that this strong, agile, healthy man would die of a flu or a chill allegedly
caught on the day of Stalin's funeral".
(E. Hoxha: 'The Khrushchevites'; Tirana; 1984 (hereafter listed as 'E. Hoxha
(1984)'); p. 153-54).
Hoxha also draws attention to the suspicious death of
the Polish leader, the Marxist-Leninist Boleslaw Beirut* on 12 March 1957
" . . . in Moscow where he was attending the 20th Congress of the Soviet
Communist Party". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 10; p. 14,767).
and was succeeded by the concealed revisionist Edward
Ochab:
"Later came the equally unexpected death of Comrade Beirut. Edward Ochab
replaced Beirut in the point of First Secretary of the Party. Thus Khrushchev's
old desire was realised".
(E. Hoxha (1984): p. 153-65).
It was Ochab who arranged for the release of the imprisoned
revisionist Wladyslaw Gomulka in April and his promotion to the post of First
Secretary in October.
Hoxha, in fact, explicitly accuses the revisionist conspirators
of the murder of Stalin:
"This cosmopolitan huckster (Anastas Mikoyan -- Ed.) . . . as history showed,
plotted with Nikita Khrushchev against Stalin, whom they had decided to murder.
He admitted this with his own mouth in February 1960".
(E. Hoxha (1984): p. 63-64).
"All this villainy emerged soon after the death, or to be more precise
after the murder, of Stalin. I say after the murder of Stalin, because Mikoyan
himself told me . . . that they, together with Khrushchev and their associates,
had decided . . . to make an attempt on Stalin's life".
(E. Hoxha: 'With Stalin: Memoirs'; Tirana; 1979; p. 31).
The Aborted Coup (1953)
As we have noted, in the years immediately prior to Stalin's
death, the security forces were under the control of concealed revisionists,
not of Marxist-Leninists:
"Prior to Stalin's death the Ministries of State Security and of Interior
were not under Beria's control".
(R. Conquest, (1961): p. 200).
Clearly, it was a matter of great concern to the revisionist
conspirators that, in any readjustment of responsibilities following Stalin's
death, control of the security forces should not pass again under Marxist-Leninist
control.
Khrushchev records a discussion with fellow-revisionist
Nikolay Bulganin* by Stalin's death-bed on the danger to their plans if the
Marxist-Leninist Lavrenty Beria were to become again Minister in control of
the. security services:
"'Stalin's not going to pull through. . . . You know what posts Beria will
take for himself?'
'Which one?'
'He will try and make himself Minister of State Security. No matter what
happens, we can't let him do this. If he becomes Minister of State Security
it will be the beginning of the end for us'.
Bulganin said he agreed with me",
(N. S. Khrushchev (1971): p. 319).
As we have seen, Stalin died 9. 50 p.m. on 5 March. The
revisionists immediately used their control of the security forces to
prepare for a coup. The American journalist Harrison Salisbury was an
eye-witness of how, shortly before 6 a.m. the next morning:
" . . . smooth and quiet convoys of trucks were slipping into the city. Sitting
cross-legged on wooden benches in the green-painted trucks were detachments
of blue-and-red-capped MVD troops -- twenty-two to a truck -- the special
troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. . . . The fleeting thought entered
my mind that, perhaps, a coup d'etat might be in the making.
By nine o'clock . . . the Internal Affairs troops were
everywhere in the centre of the city. . . . In upper Gorky Street columns
of tanks made their appearance. . . . All the troops and all the trucks and
all the tanks belonged to the special detachments of the MVD. Not a single
detachment of regular Army forces was to be seen.
Later I discovered that the MVD had, in fact, isolated
almost the whole city of Moscow. . .
By ten or eleven o'clock of the morning of March 6, 1953
no one could enter or leave the heart of Moscow except by leave of the MVD.
.
MVD forces had taken over the city. . . .
Could any other troops enter the city? Not unless they
had the permission of the MVD or were prepared to fight their way through,
street by street, barricade by barricade".
(H. Salisbury: op. cit.; p. 163-64, 166, 171, 173).
Robert Conquest paints a very similar picture:
"The streets of Moscow were solid with MVD troops when Stalin's death was
announced". (R. Conquest (1961): p. 200).
as does Peter Deriabin:
"Even before Stalin's body was cold, . . . MGB troops . . . not only set
up controls and halted traffic, including pedestrians, on every principal
capital thoroughfare, but had also ringed the Kremlin".
(P. Deriabin: op. cit.; p. 328).
But the Marxist-Leninists succeeded, for the moment, in
foiling the planned coup by mobilising sufficient support to call for the
following day, 7 March, a joint emergency meeting of the Central Committee
of the Communist Party, the Council of Ministers and the USSR Supreme Soviet.
In these circumstances the revisionist conspirators lost their nerve and
judged it expedient to postpone their planned coup and refrain from opposing
the election of Beria as the Minister in charge of state security, an appointment
which obviously had majority support among the leadership:
"Beria immediately proposed Malenkov for Chairman of the Council of Ministers
(Premier -- Ed.). On the spot, Malenkov proposed that Beria be appointed
first deputy. He also proposed the merger of the Ministries of State Security
and Internal Affairs into a single Ministry of Internal Affairs, with Beria
as Minister. . . . I was silent. . . . Bulganin was silent too. I could see
what the attitude of the others was. If Bulganin and I objected . . ., we
would have been accused of starting a fight in the Party before the corpse
was cold".
(N. S. Khrushchev (1961): p. 324).
The Exculpation of the Doctors (1953)
After the death of Stalin, the most urgent and immediate
task which faced the revisionist conspirators was to exculpate the doctors
-- not, of course, because they were innocent but, on the contrary, because
they were guilty and because further investigation into the case could well
lead to the exposure of the highly-placed ring-leaders of the conspiracy.
As we have said, in order to confuse the Marxist-Leninists
and the Soviet public as to the real motives behind a move to exculpate the
doctors, this move was taken as part of a blanket action to 'correct miscarriages
of justice’. In other words, the 'doctors' case' was linked
to the 1951-52 Georgian feint, which they themselves had engineered, and
this latter genuine miscarriage of justice was now temporarily corrected
at the same time as the doctors were exculpated. As further camouflage,
the revisionist conspirators temporarily supported moves demanded by, and
strengthening the position of, the Marxist-Leninists -- notably, the dismissal
of the Russian chauvinist Leonid Melnikov* as First Secretary of the
Ukrainian Communist Party.
The decision to exculpate the doctors was taken in March
1953, only days after Stalin's death, since the name of one of the accused
doctors (Boris Preobrazhensky) reappeared in the issue of the journal 'Vestnik
Oto-Rino-Laringology' which was published on 31 March. (R. Conquest (1961):
p. 206).
On 3 April 1953, the Soviet press carried a sensational
communique issued in the name of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs which
announced the exculpation and release from custody of the arrested doctors:
"The USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs has carried out a thorough investigation
of all preliminary investigation data and other material in the case of the
group of doctors accused of sabotage, espionage and terrorist acts against
active leaders of the Soviet state.
The verification has established that the accused in this case . . .
were arrested by the former Ministry of State Security incorrectly and
without any lawful basis. . . .
The . . . accused in this case have been completely exonerated of the accusations
against them….. . and have been freed from imprisonment".
(Communique of USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, in: 'Pravda' and 'Izvestia',
3 April 1953; p. 4, in: 'Current Digest of the Soviet Press', Volume 5 ,
No. 10 (18 April 1953); p. 3).
The communique went on to explain away the confessions
of the accused doctors by implying that they had been procured by means of
torture:
"The testimony of the arrested, allegedly confirming the accusations against
them, was obtained by the officials of the investigatory department of the
former Ministry of State Security through the use of impermissible means
of investigation which are strictly forbidden under Soviet law. . . .
The persons accused of incorrect conduct of the investigation have been arrested
and held criminally responsible".
(Communique of USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, in: ibid.; p. 3).
On the same day, the press reported that
" . . . the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet has resolved to annul the
decree of January 20, 1953, awarding Dr. Lydia Timashuk the Order of Lenin.
The award has been declared invalid in connection with fresh evidence that
has since come to light".
(Decision of Presidium of USSR Supreme Soviet, in: Y. Rapoport: op. cit.;
p. 188).
Dr. Timashuk was not, however, prosecuted for attempting
to pervert the course of justice, and
" . . . shortly after the April events, she resumed work at the Kremlin Hospital.
. . . She reappeared in her office, apparently unperturbed".
(Y. Rapoport: op. cit.; p. 191-92).
The Reversal of the Georgian Feint (1953)
As we have seen, in the government reorganisation of 7
March which followed the death of Stalin, the Marxist-Leninists temporarily
regained control of the state security forces:
"On the morrow of the death (of Stalin -- Ed.) . . ., Beria reclaimed control
of the organs of state security, which had gradually been wrested from his
hand during Stalin's last years".
(A. B. Ulam: op. cit.; p. 540).
As part of the strategy of attempting to deceive the Marxist-Leninists
and the Soviet public as to the real aims of the revisionist conspirators,
the Marxist-Leninists were permitted to bring about the removal of the
revisionists from the leading positions they had acquired in Georgia in the
feint of 1951-52, that is, temporarily to reverse the feint.
"In April 1953, Beria carried out a counter-purge in Georgia".
(H. Fairbanks, junior: op. cit.; p. 163).
On 14 April 1953 the Georgian Central Committee dismissed
Akaki Mgeladze as First Secretary, and Mgeladze admitted that the charges
of 'nationalist deviation' which he had levelled against the former Marxist-Leninist
leaders had been fabricated:
"Beria now moved with speed. . . . A plenary session of the Georgian Communist
Party was held on 14 April 1953, which dismissed the Party Secretariat headed
by A. L. Mgeladze and established a new one under an official named Mirtskhulava.
Beria's old protege Valerian Bakradze, whom Mgeladze had dismissed from government
office, now became Prime Minister of the Georgian Republic. Several prominent
supporters of Beria whom Mgeladze and his faction had imprisoned, were released
and given portfolios in the Bakradze administration. The ousted First Secretary,
Mgeladze, made an abject confession, declaring that charges of nationalist
deviation which he had levelled against high-ranking Georgian Bolsheviks
were based on false evidence. . . . N. Rukhadze, Georgian Minister of State
Security, who had aided and abetted Mgeladze, was imprisoned".
(D. M. Lang: op. cit.; p. 263).
On 15 April:
" . . . the Chief Minister of the Georgian Soviet Republic (M. Valerian Bakradze)
announced . . . that the Georgian Minister of State Security (M. Rukhadze)
and two former secretaries-general of the Georgian Communist Party (MM. Mgeladze
and Charkviani) had been dismissed from their posts, arrested and would be
'severely punished' for fabricating 'trumped up' charges against former leading
members of the Georgian Government and Communist Party. . . . At the same
time he announced that three former Ministers who had been dismissed at Rukhadze's
instigation would be immediately restored to their former posts; that the
Ministries of Internal Security and State Security would be welded into a
single Ministry; and that this Ministry would be headed by M. Vladimir Dekanozov.
. . .
M. Bakradze, who was addressing a meeting of the Georgian Supreme Soviet,
said that . . . a number of innocent persons had fallen victim to baseless
charges of 'bourgeois nationalism"'.
('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 9; p. 13,029).
On 16 April 'Zarya Vostoka' reported a speech by Bakradze
in which he said:
"'It has now been fully established by the organs concerned that . . . the
enemy of the people and Party, former Minister of State Security N. M. Rukhadze,
had cooked up an entirely false and provocative affair concerning a non-existent
nationalism whose victims were eminent workers of our republic. . . . Rukhadze
and his accomplices have been arrested and will be severely punished"'.
('Zarya Vostoka', 16 April 1953, in: R. Conquest (1961): p. 145).
On 21 April Vilian Zodelava, released from prison, was
made First Deputy Prime Minister and elected to the Bureau of the Central
Committee of the Georgian Party:
"Mr. Zodelava was one of three leading Georgian Party members who had been
jailed on false charges declared to have been concocted by Mr. Rukhadze.
. . .
Released from jail, he has been made First Deputy Chairman of the Council
of Ministers (First Deputy Premier --Ed.) and has been elected to the Bureau
of the Georgian Communist Party's Central Committee".
('New York Times', 22 April 1953; p. 14).
On this date, 'Zarya Vostoka' reported that:
" . a plenary session of the Central Committee in Georgia was announced .
. . as having established that 'the former secretary of the Central Committee,
Mgeladze, took an active part in the arrest of completely innocent workers
in the creation of a provocational case
concerning non-existent nationalism fabricated by the enemy of the Party
and the people, Rukhadze. . . . Mgeladze admitted that he was one of the
instigators of 'a stupid and provocational story' about the existence in
Georgia of a nationalist group".
('Zarya Vostoka', 21 April 1953, cited in: R. Conquest (1961); p. 145).
By 13 May the plot of revisionist conspirators to link
the coup carried out by Nikolay Rukhadze in Georgia in 1951-52 with the false
charges against Mikhail Ryumin in connection with the 'doctors' case' had
been consolidated, On that day, the newspaper 'Zarya Vostoka'
" . . . declared that the Georgian case had been fabricated by Rukhadze and
Ryumin. The latter, a former chief of the Investigatory Division of the former
Ministry of State Security, was charged in an announcement of the new Ministry
of Internal Affairs. . . .
The Georgian case . . . was in the statement of 'Zarya Vostoka' an Vanalogous
case' (to that of the doctors - Ed.) and was falsely fabricated by Ruhhadze".
('New York Times', 14 May 1953; p. 14).
The Dismissal of Leonid Melnikov (1953)
As the third facet of their plot to deceive the Marxist-Leninists
and the Soviet public as to their real aims, the concealed revisionists
supported the dismissal (announced on 13 June 1953) of the revisionist
First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Leonid Melnikov, who
had been the target of severe criticism by the Marxist-Leninists and the
Ukrainian people for his notorious Russification policies in the Ukraine:
"In June 1953, after Stalin's death, the Russification policy in the Western
Ukrainian provinces underwent a reversal. On June 13, the Kremlin disclosed
that Leonid G. Melnikov, at the time First Secretary of the Ukrainian Party,
had been ousted from that position for 'having permitted distortions in the
Leninist-Stalinist national policy'. The charges against Melnikov were .
. . an indictment of Khrushchev who, in the course of his twelve-year rule
in the Ukraine, had vigorously put this policy into practice. Melnikov had
worked under Khrushchev in 1939-40 and from 1944 to 1949 and carried out
the . . . Russification policy as efficiently as his boss".
(L. Pistrak: 'The Grand Tactician: Khrushchev's Rise to Power'; London; 1961;
p. 185).
"L. G. Melnikov was relieved of his post as First Secretary of the (Ukrainian
-- Ed.) Central Committee as responsible for the Russification policy in the
Ukraine".
(B. Levytsky: op. cit.; p. 216-17).
The Military Coup in Moscow (1953)
But by the end of June 1953, it had become clear that
the efforts to convince the Marxist-Leninists that the exculpation of the
doctors had been justified had only been temporarily successful. Headed
by Beria, the security forces, under Marxist-Leninist control since the readjustment
of portfolios after Stalin's death, were continuing to inestigate the 'doctors'
case'.
Clearly, if the revisionist conspirators were to feel
safe, Beria and his Marxist-Leninist colleagues in the security forces
had to be eliminated as a matter of urgency.
On 10 July 1953, a few days after Beria had been arrested,
a leading article in 'Pravda' revealed the real reason for that arrest --
a reason not disclosed in the report of his 'trial' -- namely, that he had
'deliberately impeded' and 'tried to distort' instructions of the Central
Committee and the Soviet government designed to clear up ‘certain illegal
and abritary actions' -- an obvious reference to the 'doctors' case’:
"Having been charged with carrying out 'the Instructions of the Party Central
Committee and the Soviet Government with a view . . . to clearing up certain
illegal and arbitrary actions, Beria deliberately impeded the implementation
of these instructions and, in a number of cases, tried to distort them".
('Pravda', 10 July 1953, in: B. Nicolaevsky: op. cit.; p. 147).
Over several days at the end of June 1953, the revisionist
conspirators approached other leading members of the Politburo with the
baseless story that Beria was an agent of foreign imperialist powers and was
plotting a coup against the Party leadership. Khrushchev has described
how he based his allegation on unsubstantiated charges made at a Plenum of
the Central Committee in February 1937 by the revisionist Grigory Kaminsky*
that Beria had been an agent of the counter-revolutionary Mussavat Party --
"a nationalist party of the bourgeoisie and landlords in Azerbaijan, formed
in 1912. . . . supported by the Turkish and later by the British interventionists".
(Note to: J. V. Stalin: 'Works', Volume 5; Moscow; 1953; p.417).
"In 1937, at a Central Committee Plenum, former People's Commissar of
Health Protection, Kaminsky, said that Beria worked for the Mussavat intelligence
service".
(N. S. Khrushchev (1971): p. 65).
Khruschev admits:
"I could easily believe that he (Beria - Ed.) had been an agent of the Mussavatists,
as Kaminsky had said, but Kaminsky's charges had never been verified. . .
. We had only our intuition to go on".
(N. S. Khrushchev (1971): p. 333).
But he alleges that he enrolled Georgy Malenkov* and Vyacheslav
Molotov* into a plot to 'detain Beria for investigation':
"I took Malenkov aside and said: . . . 'Surely you must see that Beria's
position has an anti-Party character. We must not accept what he is doing.
. . ‘
Malenkov finally agreed. I was surprised and delighted. . . .
Comrade Malenkov and I then agreed that I should talk to Comrade Molotov.
. . . I told Molotov what sort of person Beria was and what kind of danger
threatened the Party if we didn't thwart his scheming against the Party leadership.
I had earlier told him how Beria had already set his plan in motion for aggravating
nationalist tensions in the Republics. . . .
I said: . . . 'You think, maybe, that we should detain him for investigation?
I said 'detain' rather than 'arrest' because there were still no criminal
charges against Beria. . . . Molotov and I agreed and parted".
(N. S. Khrushchev (1971): p. 330, 331, 332, 333).
He later describes how he succeeded in winning over Lazar
Kaganovich*:
"I said that Malenkov, Bulganin, Saburov and I were of one mind and that
without him we had a majority. Kaganovich declared right away: I'm with you
too"'.
(N. S. Khrushchev (1971): p. 334).
But because the security forces were under the control
of the Marxist-Leninists, these could not be relied upon to carry out the
task of eliminating Beria and his colleagues. The conspirators therefore decided
that the coup had to be carried out by the army:
"The Presidium bodyguard was obedient to him (Beria --Ed.). Therefore we
decided to enlist the help of the military".
(N. S. Khrushchev (1971): p. 335-36).
"The army took part in Beria's arrest".
(J. Ducoli: op. cit.; p. 58).
Khrushchev describes how the conspirators entrusted the
execution of the military coup to a group of revisionist officers which included
Kirill Moskalenko* and Georgy Zhukov*:
"First, we entrusted the detention of Beria to Comrade Moskalenko, the air
defence commander, and five generals. This was my idea. Then, on the eve
of the session, Malenkov widened our circle to include Marshal Zhukov and
some others. That meant eleven marshals and generals in all. In those days
all military personnel were required to check their weapons when coming into
the Kremlin, so Comrade Bulganin was instructed to see that the generals
were allowed to bring their guns with them. We arranged for Moskalenko's
group to wait for a summons in a separate room while the session was taking
place. When Malenkov gave a signal, they were to come into the room where
we were meeting and take Beria into custody".
(N. S. Khrushchev (1971): p. 335-36).
The coup was fixed to take place during a joint meeting
of the Presidium of the Party Central Committee and of the Presidium of the
Council of Ministers on 24 June 1953. At this meeting Khrushchev reminded
those present -- including the gullible Marxist-Leninists - of the charges
made by Kaminsky in 1937:
"I recalled the Central Committee Plenum of February 1937 at which Comrade
Grisha Kaminsky had accused Beria of having worked for the Mussavatist counter-intelligence
service, and therefore for the English intelligence service, when he was
Secretary of the Baku Party organisation".
(N. S. Khrushchev (1971): p. 339).
Finally, Khrushchev himself moved that Beria should be
dismissed from all his posts:
"After the final speech, the session was left hanging. There was a long pause.
I saw we were in trouble, so I asked Comrade Malenkov for the floor in order
to propose a motion. As we had arranged in advance, I proposed that the Central
Committee Presidium should release Beria from his duties. . . . Malenkov
was still in a state of panic. As I recall, he didn't even put my motion
to a vote. He pressed a secret button which gave the signal to the generals
who were waiting in the next room. Zhukov was the first to appear. Then Moskalenko
and the others came in. Malenkov said in a faint voice to Comrade Zhukov:
'As Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, I request that you
take Beria into custody pending investigation of charges made against him'.
'Hands up!', Zhukov commanded Beria.
Moskalenko and the others unbuckled their holsters in case Beria tried anything.
. . . We checked later and found that he had no gun. . . .
Beria was immediately put under armed guard in the Council of Ministers building
next to Malenkov's office confinement".
(N. S. Khrushchev (1971): p. 337-38).
Strobe Talbott*, the editor of Khrushchev's memoirs, points
out that:
"Khrushchev's implicit claim to have been the leading spirit in the plot
against Beria is no doubt broadly true".
(S. Talbott: Note to: N. S. Khrushchev (1071): p. 321).
The dismissal of Beria from his state posts was confirmed
by the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet on 26 June. Beria was replaced
as Minister of Internal Affairs, by the concealed revisionist Sergey Kruglov,
who had held the post prior to the government reorganisation following Stalin's
death. ('Pravda', 17 December 1953, in: R. Conquest (1961): p. 440).
Before the dismissal was made public, the revisionist
conspirators took every precaution to prevent any opposition from those astute
enough to see what it portended:
"On the night of June 26 1953, Red Army tanks of the Kantemirovskaya Division
rolled into Moscow and took up much the same positions as . . . in March.
And the tanks were supported by infantry from the Byelorussian military district".
(P. Deriabin: op. cit.; p. 332).
On 10 July 1953, it was officially announced
" . that Mr. Lavrenty Beria, First Vice-Chairman and Minister of Internal
Affairs, had been expelled from the Communist Party and removed from his
Ministerial posts as an 'enemy of the people"'.
('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 9; p. 13,029).
Three years later, in his secret speech of February 1956,
Khrushchev was to tell the 20th Congress of the CPSU that:
" . . . Stalin originated the concept 'enemy of the people'. . . . This term
made possible the usage of the most cruel repression, violating all norms
of revolutionary legality".
(N. S. Khruschchev (1956): p. 12).
In the first few weeks of July several other prominent
Marxist-Leninists connected with the state security service, were arrested,
or as Lang expresses it:
"Beria fell, dragging down with him many high officials . . . whose familiarity
with secrets of state made their survival dangerous to the victors".
(A.M. Lang: op. cit.; p. 264).
Those arrested with Beria included Vladimir Dekanozov*,
Vsevolod Merkulov, Bogdan Kobulov, Sergey Goglidze, Pavel Meshik and Lev Vlodzirmirsky
all of whom were Marxist-Leninists having close connection with the state
security forces.
To sum up, the revisionist conspirators were able to
On 14 July 1953, shortly after Beria's 'arrest' on 26
June, the revisionist conspirators moved to carry out a military coup in
Georgia in order to reverse the changes made in April 1953 and restore
the situation which existed there prior to this date - the situation of revisionist
domination brought about by the feint of 1951-52. The leaders of the coup,
which was carried out at a joint meeting of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Georgia and of the Tiflis City Committee, were two military
officers -- General Aleksei Antonov* and Major-General Pavel Efimov:
"A. I. Antonov, General of the Army, Commander of the Transcaucasus Military
District and, reputedly, a friend of Zhukov's . . . . acted soon after the
news of Beria's arrest was announced from Moscow. He attended a joint plenary
session of the Georgian Central and Tiflis Party Committees with a fellow-officer,
Major-General P. I. Efimov. The latter . . . was then elected to the Central
Committee Bureau. Other army officers then took over important posts in the
government and Party apparatus".
(J. Ducoli: op. cit.; p. 58).
In the new political situation, Valerian Bakradze and
some other Georgian leaders attempted to save their position by jumping on
the revisionist bandwagon. 'Zarya Vostoka' of 15 July 1953 reports a speech
by Bakradze at the meeting already referred to, in which
". . . he now, of course, condemns Beria".
(R. Conquest (1961): p. 146).
As the 'New York Times' commented:
"When Mr. Beria was purged last July, it appeared that Messrs. Bakradze and
Mirtakhulava had attempted to jump from the Beria . . . . wagon.
Both of them assailed Mr. Beria at meetings held in the
Georgian capital and also at the meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet
Union in Moscow last August".
('New York Times', 23 September 1953; p. 16).
On 15 July, Tiflis Radio referred to Mgeladze, Rapava,
Rukhadze and Shoniya as
" . . . accomplices of Beria".
(R. Conquest (1961): p. 146).
"M. Bakradze . . . coupled Beria's name with those of Rukhadze, Mgeladze
and Charkviani as 'traitors to the Party"'.
('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 9; p. 13,030).
At the Georgian Central Committee meeting on 14 July,
the Marxist-Leninist Vladimir Dekanozov was dismissed as Georgian Minister
of Internal Affairs and expelled from the Party:
"First the police, or former police, adherents of Beria were removed at high
speed".
(R. Conquest (1961): p. 146).
"On July 15 . . ., after the announcement of Beria's arrest, a broadcast
from Tiflis announced that M. Dekanozov had been dismissed from the Georgian
Government and the Communist Party for collaboration with ‘the traitor
Beria".
('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 9; p. 13,029-30).
"The main action taken (at the CC meeting -- Ed.) was the expulsion of
Dekanozov . . . from the Party."
(R. Conquest (1961): p.146)
Dekanozov was:
"arrested immediately after".
(R.Conquest 1961;. p. 151)
Reporting these events, the 'New York Times' forecast
that:
". . . thousands of Georgian Communists face the prospect of being purged
as Beria followers".
('New York Times', 16 July 1953; p. 8).
Aleksei Inauri, another revisionist army officer, was
appointed Georgian Minister of Internal Affairs in succession to Dekanozov:
"A. I. Inauri has been named Minister of Internal Affairs for Georgia to
succeed Vladimir Dekanozov. . . .
Mr. Inauri is a newcomer to high office in Georgia".
('New York Times', 3 August 1953; p. 6).
The attempt of Bakradze and others to save their positions
by transferring their allegiance to the revisionists failed. On 20 September
1953 a Plenum of the Central Committee of the Georgian Communist Party, presided
over by Secretary of the USSR Central Committee Nikolay Shatalin from Moscow,
removed Bakradze as Georgian Premier and Mirtskhulava as First Secretary
of the Central Committee of the Georgian Communist Party:
"Premier Valerian M. Bakradze, who had headed the government since last April,
was dismissed in disgrace and G. D. Dzhavakhishvili . . . was named in his
place".
('New York Times', 23 September 1953; p. 1).
and a new First Secretary was elected in the shape of
another army officer -Vasily Mzhavanadze*:
"The post of First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party was filled in
September 1953 by the election of a new man -- Mr. Vasily P. Mzhavanadze,
a former Lieutenant-General in the Red Army".
(D. M. Lang: op. cit.; p. 264).
Ducoli points out the importance of the military in the
new Georgian leadership:
"Three representatives of the army were found in the Bureau (of the Central
Committee of the Georgian Communist Party -- Ed.): First Secretary Mzhavanadze,
MVD head Inauri, and Commander of the Transcaucausian Military District Antonov".
(J. Ducoli: op. cit,; p. 59).
On 25 September 1953 (five days after the dismissal of
Bakradze):
". . . it was announced that three more Georgian Ministers had been dismissed
- M. Baramiya (Minister of Agriculture and Procurement), M. Chaureli (Minister
of Culture), and M. Tsukulidze (Minister of Education). . . . (M. Baramiya
had been dismissed in April 1952 from the post of Second Secretary of the
Georgian Communist Party, having been accused of 'bourgeois nationalism' and
'ideological deviation', but had been reinstated in the Government a year
later with Beria's support)".
('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 9: p. 13,468).
In the following month (October 1953) a new Georgian Prime
Minister was elected -- the revisionist engineer and geologist Givi Djavakhishvili*:
"On 29 October 1953, a forty-one-year-old engineer and geologist, Mr. Givi
D. Djavakhishvili, was elected Prime Minister of the Georgian Republic".
(D. M. Lang: op. cit.; p. 264).
and on 17 January 1954 a broadcast from Tiflis
". . announced that M. Vilian Zodelava had been dismissed from the post of
First Deputy Premier of the Georgian Soviet Republic".
('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 9; p. 13,468).
Conquest notes that:
In Soviet revisionist mythology, the Georgian events of
April 1953 have become known as the 'Mingrelian Affair'. Mingrelia is that
part of Georgia which borders upon the Black Sea, and the name has been apparently
coined because the leading individuals involved in it came from Mingrelia:
"It seems plain that the 'Mingrelian' conspiracy refers not to this rather
small area, but to a group of Mingrelians powerful in Georgia as a whole.
. . . Baramiya, Rapava, Shoniya and Zodelava . . . were all Mingrelians, as
was Beria himself".
(R. Conquest (1961): p. 140).
In describing the 'Mingrelian Affair' of April 1953 to
the 20th Congress of the CPSU in February 1956 as an instance of miscarriage
of justice, Nikita Khrushchev confuses it, no doubt deliberately,
with the feint attack of 1953, which was engineered by Khrushchev and his
fellow revisionist conspirators and was exposed and corrected by the Marxist-Leninists
in April 1953. He states that the (1951-52) affair related to false charges
of 'nationalism' levelled against Georgian Party leaders, but repeats the
false allegation made at the time that these charges were initiated by Stalin:
The 'trial' of Lavrenti Beria and six of his fellow-Marxist-Leninists
who had been associated with the security forces took place in the USSR Supreme
Court on 18-23 December 1953. Those tried with Beria were:
Vladimir Dekanozov, recently Georgian Minister of Internal Affairs;
Sergey Goglidze, former Georgian People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, and
recently an official of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs;
Bogdan Kobulov, former Georgian Deputy Commissar of Internal Affairs;
Vsevolod Merkulov, former USSR Minister of State Security, recently USSR
Minister of State Control;
Pavel Meshik, formerly an official of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs,
recently Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs; and
Lev Vlodzimirsky, former Head of the Section of the USSR Ministry of Internal
Affairs for Investigating Specially Important Cases.
The Presiding Judge at the 'trial' was Marshal Ivan Konev,
on whose appointment the 'New York Times' commented:
"Marshal Ivan Konev's role as chairman of the tribunal . . . appears to be
the clearest indication to date of the greatly enhanced political power now
apparently wielded by the highest Soviet military leaders".
('New York Times', 24 December 1953; p. 1).
and noted a year later:
"Three of the four top judges who tried and sentenced Beria were army men".
('New York Times', 25 December 1954; p. 3).
Furthermore, a new State Prosecutor was specially appointed
by the revisionist conspirators -- the Ukrainian revisionist jurist Roman
Rudenko*:
"We had no confidence in . . . the State Prosecutor . . . . so we sacked him
and replaced him with Comrade Rudenko".
(N. S. Khrushchev (1971): p 339).
It was alleged that Beria:
". . . in 1919 . . . committed treason by accepting the position of Secret
Agent in the Intelligence Service of the counter-revolutionary Mussavat Government
in Azerbaijan, which operated under the control of British Intelligence organs".
(Report of Trial of L. P. Beria, in: 'Pravda', 24 December 1953, in: R. Conquest
(1961): p. 445).
All the defendants were charged that they
" . . . using their official positions in the organs of the NKVD/MGB/MVD,
committed a number of the most serious crimes for the purpose of exterminating
honourable cadres". (Report of Trial of L. P. Beria, in: ibid,; p. 446).
And with
". . betraying the Motherland and operating in the interests of foreign capital
. . . in order to seize power . . . . restore capitalism and the domination
of the bourgeoisie",
(Report of Trial of L. P. Beria, in: ibid.; p. 444-45).
and with waging
"a criminal struggle of intrigue against . . . Sergo Ordzhonikidze".
(Report of Trial of L. P. Beria, in: ibid.; p. 442).
The Ordzhonikidze case was discussed in an earlier section.
All the defendants were found guilty and sentenced to
death by shooting, the sentence being carried out on 23 December 1953.
It was stated that all the accused had
". . . pleaded guilty",
(Report of Trial of Beria, in: ibid.; p. 446).
but we have only the conspirators word for this, since
"the trial was closed to the public".
('New York Times', 24 December 1953; p. 1).
Nicolaevsky, indeed, insists that
". . . Beria was tried behind closed doors without any confessions"'.
(Nicolaevsky: op. cit.; p. 120).
and the Albanian leader, the Marxist-Leninist Enver Hoxha,
affirms that a Soviet military adviser to Albania informed the Albanians that
he had been a witness at Beria's 'trial' and that Beria, far from 'confessing'
had defended himself very strongly in court and refuted all the charges
:
"When a general, who I believe was called Sergatskov, came to Tirana as Soviet
military adviser, he also told us something about the trial of Beria. He
told us that he had been called as a witness to declare in court that Beria
had allegedly behaved arrogantly towards him. On this occasion Sergatskov
told our comrades in confidence: 'Beria defended himself very strongly in
court, accepted none of the asccusations and refuted them all".
(E.Hoxha (1984): p, 31).
Many Western commentators accept that the charges against
Beria and his co-defendants were a mere pretext for their judicial murder
. Even Stalin's daughter Svetlana, who disliked Beria and was inclined to
believe any story detrimental to him, testifies that:
"Beria's 'trial' was staged . . . without any evidence".
(S. Alliluyeva (1969): p. 375).
On the allegations that Beria was a ‘foreign agent',
Nicolaevsky points out that:
" - - not the slightest shred of evidence has even been offered".
(B. Nicolaevsky: op. cit.; P. 145).
While Lang ridicules the charges that Beria and his Leninists
were guilty of 'attempting to restore capitalism':
After the 'arrest' of Beria in July 1953, the concealed
revisionists felt it safe to 'rehabilitate' their colleague Leonid Melnikov:
On 14-17 December 1954, the Marxist-Leninist former Minister
of State Security, Viktor Abakumov, was tried in Leningrad before the Military
Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court, presided over by Lieutenant-Colonel E.
L. Zeidin. Along with Abakumov, as co-defendants, appeared:
A.G. Leonov, former director of the MGB Investigating Division for Especially
Important Cases;
V. I. Komarov and M. T. Likhachev, former Deputy Chairmen of the Investigating
Division for Especially Important Cases;
I. A. Chernov and I. M. Broverman, former members of the USSR Ministry of
State Security.
The defendants were charged with:
" . . . committing the same crimes as Beria".
('Pravda' and 'Izvestia', 24 December 1954, p. 2, in: 'Current Digest of
the Soviet Press', Volume 6, No. 49 (19 January 1955); p. 12).
while Abakumov was in particular charged with having:
". . . fabricated the so-called 'Leningrad case', in which many Party and
Soviet officials were arrested without grounds and falsely accused of very
grave state crimes".
('Pravda' and 'Izvestia', in: ibid.; p. 12).
All the accused were found guilty. Chernov was sentenced
to 15 years in a labour camp, Broverman to 25 years in a labour camp, while
Abakumov, Leonov, Komarov and Likachev were sentenced to death by shooting.
The 'Trial' of Ryumin (1954)
As has been said, the Minister of State Security officially
responsible for the investigation of the 'Doctors' Case' was Semyon Ignatiev,
while Mikhail Ryumin was merely his deputy.
But Ignatiev was a member of the revisionist conspiracy,
and so took part in the investigation only reluctantly, while Ryumin was a
Marxist-Leninist. In consequence, their fate at the hands of the conspirators
was very different.
Ryumin was arrested on 5 April 1953, two days after
the doctors had been exculpated. ('Pravda', 6 April 1953; p. 1).
As Georges Bortoli comments:
"It was convenient to make him rather than the former Minister Ignatiev shoulder
the heaviest responsibility for the affair. Ignatiev was loyal to Khrushchev
and Khrushchev defended him tooth and nail".
(G. Bortoli: op. cit.; p. 186-87).
Nevertheless, it was not until July 1954 -- fifteen months
after his arrest -- that Ryumin came to trial:
"The fact that Ryumin was not tried until fifteen months after his arrest
shows that he must have had his defenders. They must have been very influential
defenders at that. . . .
A real struggle over the Ryumin case was fought at the June (1954 Ed.) Plenum
, and it was there that his execution was decided upon".
(B. Nicolaevsky: op. cit.; p. 154-55, 156).
Ryumin's trial lasted six days - from 2 to 7 July 1953:
"On July 2-7 1954, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR
examined at a court session the case of M. D. Ryumin".
('Pravda', 23 July 1954, in: R. Conquest (1961): op. cit.; p. 447).
and the report of the proceedings made it clear that he
was charged with 'fabricating' the 'Doctors' Case':
"Ryumin, during the period of his work in the post of Senior Investigator
and than as Head of the Section for Investigating Specially Important Cases
of the former Ministry of State Security, . . . engaged . . . on the path
of forging investigative materials, on the basis of which Provocative cases
were engineered and unjustified arrests were carried out of a number of Soviet
citizens, including prominent medical workers".
('Pravda', 23 July 1954. in: ibid.; p. 447).
Somewhat oddly, however, this was defined as
". . . a crime envisaged by Article 58-7 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR".
('Pravda', 23 July 1954, in: ibid.; p. 447).
But Article 58, Para. 7, of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR
relates to economic sabotage!
"Article 58, Para. 7, is . . . irrelevant to Ryumin's activity in connection
with the arrest of the doctors. . . . It cannot possibly be applied to Ryumin's
role in the doctors' plot".
(B. Nicolaevsky: op. cit.; p. 149).
Nicolaevsky points out in explanation that falsification
of evidence is punishable under the Criminal Code by only up to five years
deprivation of liberty, while 'economic sabotage' carries the death penalty.
(B. Nicolaevsky: op. cit.; p. 149).
The court:
" . . . sentenced Ryumin to the supreme penalty -- death by shooting. The
sentence has been carried out".
('Pravda', 23 July 1954, in: R. Conquest (1961): p. 448).
Adam Ulam sums up this course of events as follows:
"After a secret trial in July 1954, Ryumin was shot".
(A. B. Ulam: op. cit.; p. 736).
The fate of Ignatiev, the Minister, was very different.
He was merely criticised for
" . . . political blindness and negligence".
('Pravda', 6 April 1953, in: Y. Rapoport: op. cit. .; p. 189-90).
and, as Conquest expresses it,
". . . was only demoted",
(R. Conquest (1961): p. 208).
On 7 April (two days after Ryumin's arrest) it was announced
that Ignatiev had been
". . . . . released from the duties of a Secretary of the Central Committee
of the CPSU". ('Pravda' and 'Izvestia', 7 April 1953; p. 12, in: 'Current
Digest of the Soviet Press', Volume 5, No. 11 (25 April 1953); p. 4).
This treatment was because, as a participant in the revisionist
conspiracy,
"Ignatiev . . . came under Khushchev's protection".
(R. Conquest (1961): p. 181).
Thus, Ignatiev's 'disgrace' was very temporary. A few
months later, in February 1954, Ignatiev
" . . . was appointed First Party Secretary in the Bashkir ASSR".
(S. Wolin & R. M. Slusser: op. cit.; p. 56).
"Khrushchev . . . took Ignatiev under his wing and gave him an important
post in the Party apparatus, albeit in the provinces".
(B. Nicolaevsky: op. cit.; p. 128).
"Ignatiev was appointed First Secretary of the Bashkir Autonomous Republic.
Thus, under the Khrushchev regime, another Muslim republic came under the
rule of a Great-Russian whose career had not exactly mirrored sympathy for
other nationalities and races".
(L. Pistrak: op. cit.; p. 187).
The 'Rehabilitation' of Anna Louise Strong (1955)
On 14 February 1949
" . . . 'the notorious intelligence agent, the American journalist Anna Louisa
Strong . . . was arrested. . . .
Mrs. Strong is accused of espionage and subversive activity directed against
the Soviet Union. It is reported that she would be deported in a few days".
('New York Times', 15 February 1949; p. 1).
When, in 1955, the Soviet revisionists decided to seek
a rapprochement with the United States, Beria and Abakumov were used
as scapegoats for Strong's 1949 deportation, the evidence for which they
were said to have 'fabricated':
On 4 March 1955
Similarly, when the Soviet revisionists decided to annul
the denunciation of Yugoslav revisionism made in 1948-49 by the Marxist-Leninist
Communist Information Bureau, Khrushchev visited Belgrade for this purpose
in May 1955:
In September 1955 the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme
Court, sitting in Tiflis and presided over by Lieutenant-General Chertkev,
tried Avksenty Rapava (formerly Georgian People's Commissar of Internal Affairs),
Nikolay Rukhadze (formerly Minister of State Security), and six other defendants
formerly connected with the Georgian security forces. They were charged with
" . . . high treason, terroristic acts and participation in counter-revolutionary
organisations". (Radio Tiflis, 22 November 1955, in: R. Conquest (1961): p.
450).
Rukhadze, of course, had become a victim of the manoeuvres
to reverse the Georgian feint of 1951-52 associated with the exculpation of
the terrorist doctors, and was sacrificed to those manoevres.
Accused of being 'accomplices of Beria', among the crimes
with which the defendants were charged was that of taking an active part
". . . in the struggle of intrigue which Beria had over a number of years
been carrying on against Sergo Ordzhonikidze, the prominent statesman".
(Radio Tiflis, 22 November 1955, in: R. Conquest (1961): p. 450).
and of committing
". . . terroristic acts of violence against Mamia Orakhelashvili, former Secretary
of the Transcaucasian Party Regional Committee, and his wife, Mariam Orakhelashvili,
former People's Commissar of Education of the Georgian SSR".
(Radio Tiflis, 22 November 1955, in: R. Conquest (1961): p. 450).
Conquest notes:
"The Rapava-Rukhadze trial in September 1955 again mentioned Ordzhonikidze,
and also rehabilitated a number of Georgians headed by Orakhelashvili, who
had been shot in the Yenukidze-Karakhan case of December 16, 1937".
(R. Conquest (1961): p. 274).
The cases of Ordzhonikidze, the Orakhelashvilis, Yenukidze
and Karakhan have been discussed in an earlier section.
One of the accused was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment,
one to twenty-five years' imprisonment, and the rest -- including Rapava and
Rukhadze -- to death by shooting.
The Trial of Bagirov (1956)
In July 1953, after the 'arrest' of Beria, Mir Bagirov*,
the MarxistLeninist Secretary of the Central Committee of the Commnunist Party
of Azerbaijan, was removed from his post and, shortly afterwards, arrested.
On 12-26 April 1956 Bagirov and five alleged 'accomplices'
were tried by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court, sitting in Baku
and presided over by Lieutenant-General A. A. Cheptsov for:
"high treason, the commission of acts of terrorism, and participation in
a counter-revolutionary organisation".
('Bakinsky Rabochy', 27 May 1956, p. 2, in: 'Current Digest of the Soviet
Press', Volume 8, No. 21 (4 July 1956), p. 12).
Among other charges, it was alleged that
". . . Bagirov and the other defendants were active in the intrigues that
Beria and his accomplices conducted against Sergo Ordzhonikidze".
('Bakinsky Rabochy', 27 May 1956; p. 2, in: ibid.; p. 12).
The Ordzhonikidze case has been discussed in an earlier
section.
The accused were all found guilty. Two of the defendants
were sentenced to twenty-five years imprisonment, while three (including Bagirov)
were sentenced to death by shooting.
The Bagirov 'trial' was the last in the series
of judicial murders of Marxist-Leninist leaders of the security forces.
*ABAKUMOV, Viktor S., Soviet Marxist-Leninist security official and politician
(1894-1954); head of counter-espionage organisation SMERSH (1942-45); Minister
of State Security (1946-52); executed by revisionists (1954).
*ALLILUYEVA, Svetlana S., Stalin's daughter. (1926- )
*ANTONOV, Aleksey I., Soviet revisionist military officer (1895-l962);
Commander, Transcaucasia Military District (1949-54); 1st. Deputy Chief of
Staff, and Chief of Staff, Warsaw Pact (1955-62).
*BAGIROV, Mir D, A., Soviet Marxist-Leninist politician (1896-1956); 1st
Secretary, Azerbaijan (1933-53); executed by revisionists (1956).
*BERIA, Lavrenty P., Soviet Marxist-Leninist politician (1899-1953); USSR
Commissar of Internal Affairs (1938-45); USSR Premier (1941-45); Deputy Chairman,
USSR Defence Committee (1941-44); marshal (1945); USSR Minister of Internal
Affairs and lst Deputy Premier (April-July 1953); executed by revisionists
(1953).
*BIERUT, Boleslaw, Polish Marxist-Leninist politician (1892-1956); President
(1947-52); General Secretary, Polish Workers' Party (1948-54); Premier (1952-54);
1st Secretary, Polish United Workers' Party (1954-56).
*BORTOLI, Georges, Moroccan-born French journalist and TV producer (1923-).
*BULGANIN, Nikolay A., Soviet revisionist politician (1895-1975); USSR
Deputy Premier (1938-41); Minister of Armed Forces (1947); USSR Deputy Premier
and Minister of Defence (1953-55); USSR Premier (1955-58).
*CONQUEST, Robert, British-born poet and political analyst specialising
in the USSR (1917- ); senior research fellow, Hoover Institute (1977- ).
*DEKANOZOV, Vladimir G., Soviet Marxist-Leninist diplomat and politician
(1898-1953); USSR Deputy Commissar of Internal Affairs (1939-41); Ambassador
to Germany (1940-41); Georgian Minister of Internal Affairs (1953); executed
by revisionists (l953).
*DERIABIN, Peter S., Russian-born American writer (1921- ); former officer
in Soviet security forces; defected (1954).
*DEUTSCHER, Isaac, Polish-born British journalist and political analyst
(190767).
*DZHAVAKHISHVILI, Givi D., Soviet revisionist geologist and politician
(1912); Deputy Premier, Georgia (1953); Premier, Georgia (1953).
*DUCOLI, John, American teacher specialising in Transcaucasia (1922-
*FAIRBANKS, Charles H., junior, American political analyst (1944- ); associate
professor of political science, Yale University (1979-81); member, Policy
Planning Committee, US Dept. of State (1981- 82); research professor, Johns
Hopkins University (1982-85); foreign policy adviser, Reagan Committee for
Presidency (1980), Bush Committee for Presidency (1988).
*GOMULKA, Wladyslaw, Polish revisionist politician (1905-82); General Secretary,
Polish Workers' Party (1943-48); imprisoned for nationalism (1943-56); 1st
Secretary, Polish United Workers' Party (1966-70).
*GOTTWALD. Klement, Czechoslovak Marxist-Leninist politician (1896-1953);
Premier (1946-48); President (1948-53).
*GOVOROV, Leonid A., Soviet revisionist military officer (1897-1955); Marshal
(1944); Commander of National Air Defence Forces and USSR Deputy Minister
of Armed Forces (1948-54); Commander-in-Chief of Air Defence Forces and USSR
Deputy Minister of Defence (1954-55).
*GREY, Ian, New Zealand-born lawyer and historian (1918
*HOXHA, Enver, Albanian Marxist-Leninist leader (1908-85); General/First
Secretary, CC, Communist Party of Albania/Party of Labour of Albania (1941-85);Premier
and Foreign Minister (1944-54).
*IGNATIEV, Semyon D., Soviet revisionist politician (1908- ); USSR Minister
of State Security (1951-53); Secretary, CC (March-April 1953); First Secretary,
Bashkiria (1954- ).
*KAGANOVICH, Lazar M., Soviet Marxist-Leninist politician (1893-1991);
member, State Defence Committee (1941-45); USSR Minister of Building Materials
Industry (l946-47); Ist Secretary, Ukraine (1947-53); USSR Deputy Premier
(1953-55); USSR Minister of Building Materials Industry (1956-57).
*KAMINSKY, Grigory N., Soviet revisionist politician (1805-1938).
*KONEV, Ivan S, Soviet revisionist military officer -(1897-1973); marshal
(1944); C-in-C, Ground Forces, and USSR Deputy Minister of Armed Forces (1946-50);
Chief Inspector of Army (1950-51); Commander, Carpathian Military District
and Commander-in-Chief, Ground Forces (1951-55); C-in-C, Warsaw Pact Forces
and USSR Ist Deputy Minister of Defence (1956-60); Inspector-General at USSR
Ministry of Defence (1960-73).
*KRUGLOV, Sergey, Soviet revisionist security official and politician (190777);
USSR Minister of Internal Affairs (1946-March 1953, July 1953-56).
*LANG, David M., British historian (1924- ); Professor of Caucasian Studies,
University of London (1964-84).
*LAQUEUR, Walter, German-born American journalist, historian and political
analyst (1930- ); Director, Institute of Contemporary History (1964- )
Professor of Government, Georgetown University (1977- ); Chairman, International
Research Council, Centre for Strategic and International Studies (1973- ).
*LEVCHENKO, Gordey, Soviet revisionist naval officer (1897-1981); admiral
(1944); deputy Commissar of Navy and Commander of Baltic Fleet (1944-60);
retired (1960).
*LEVTYSKY, Boris, Austrian-born political analyst (1915- ).
*MALENKOV, Georgi M., Soviet Marxist-Leninist politician (1902-88); Member,
State Defence Committee (1941-45); USSR Premier (1953-55); 1st Secretary,
CPSU (1953); USSR Minister of Power Stations (1955-57).
*McNEAL, Robert H., American historian (1930- ); Associate Professor of
History, University of Toronto (1964-69); Professor of History, University
of Massachusetts (1969-).
*MELNIKOV, Leonid G., Soviet revisionist politician (1906- ); 1st Secretary,
Ukraine (1949-53);
*MIKHOELS, Solomon (real name: VOVSI), Soviet revisionist actor and director
(1890-1948); director of Moscow State Jewish Theatre (1929-48); Chairman,
Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (1942-48); accused posthumously of espionage
and terrorism (1953).
*MOLOTOV, Vyacheslav M., Soviet Marxist-Leninist politician (1890-1986);
USSR Premier (1930-41); USSR Commissar of Foreign Affairs (1939-46); USSR
Minister of Foreign Affairs (1946-49, 1953-56); Member, State Defence Committee
(1941-45); USSR Minister of State Control (1956-57); Ambassador to Mongolia
(1957-60).
*MOSKALENKO, Kirill A., Soviet revisionist military officer (1900-85);
commander, Moscow Anti-Aircraft Defence (1945-53); commander, Moscow Military
District (1953-60); Marshal (1955); commander-in-chief, USSR Strategic Missile
Forces and Deputy Minister'of Defence (1960-62); chief inspector, USSR Ministry
of Defence (1962-66); USSR Deputy Minister of Defence (1966-83).
*MZHAVANADZE, Vasily P., Soviet revisionist military officer and politician
(1902- ); Lieutenant-General (1944); Ist Secretary, Georgia (1953-72).
*NICOLAEVSKY, Boris I., Russian , born American political analyst (1887-1966).
*ORAKHELASHVILI, Ivan (Mamiya), Soviet revisionist politician (1881-1937).
*ORAKHELASHVILI, Maria P., Soviet revisionist politician (1887-1937).
*POSKREBYSHEV. Aleksandr N.. Soviet Marxist-Leninist politician (1891-1965):
Head, Special Secretariat. Central Committee. CPSU (1928-52).
*RUDENKO. Roman A.. Soviet revisionist jurist (1907-81): Chief Soviet
Prosecutor*. Nurember2 (1945-46): USSR Procurator-General (1953-81).
*SALISBURY. Harrison E., American Journalist (1908- 'New York Times'
Moscow correspondent (1949-54).
*SCHERBAKOV. Aleksandr S.. Soviet Marxist-Leninist politician and military.
officer (1901-45): Secretary. CC (1938-44): Chief of Main Political Directorate.
head of Soviet Information Bureau. Deputv Commissar of Defence (1942-45).
*SHTEMENKO. Sereev M.. Soviet revisionist military officer (1907- ): Chief
of
General Staff and Deputy Minister of Armed Forces (1948-52): Chief of Staff
and 1st Deputv C-in-C of Ground Forces (1962-64): USSR Deputy Chief of Staff
(1964-68): general (1968): Chief of Staff. Warsaw Pact Forces (1968-90).
*STALIN. Vasilv J.. Stalin's son (1921-62).
*STRONG. Anna L.. American journalist (1885-1970).
*TALBOTT. Strobe, American journalist (1946- ).
*ULAM. Adam B.. Polish-born American political analyst (1922- ): Professor
Government,. Harvard University (1959-79): Professor of History and Political
Science. Harvard University (1979Director. Russian Research Centre. Harvard
(1973-76. 1980- ).
*VASILEVSKY. Aleksandr M.. Soviet revisionist military officer (1895-1977):
Chief of General Staff. lst Deputy Minister of Defence (1946-49): USSR
Minister of Armed Forces (1949-53): USSR Deputy Minister of Defence (1953-57).
*VINOGRADOV. Vladimir N.. Soviet revisionist medical specialist (1882-1964).
*VOLKOGONOV. Dmitry. Soviet revisionist historian' (1928- ): on staff of
Main
Political Directorate. Red Armv (1970-85): Director. Institute of Militarv
Historv (1985- ).
*ZAPOTOCKY. Antonin, Polish revisionist politician (1884-1957): Deputy
Premier
(1945-48): Premier (1948-53): President (1953-57).
*ZHDANOV. Andrev A.. Soviet Marxist-Leninist politician (1896-1948): CPSU
Secretarv (1934-48): CPSU Secretary. Leningrad (1934-48): murdered by revisionists
(1948).
*ZHUKOV. Georei K.. Soviet revisionist military officer (1896-1974): Marshal
(1943): commander-in-chief. Soviet occupation forces in Germany (194546):
USSR Minister of Defence (1955-57): Member. Presidium of CC. CPSU (1957).
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