Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him

. . . he worried as he felt all power ebbing from him—then Stalin was just Soso Jughashvili, a simple Georgian. He recalled far-away Georgia, of which he retained just the taste of turkey in walnuts, the taste of Kakhetian wine, the song “Live ten thousand years” and the Georgian curse: magati deda ki vatire, “I should make their mothers weep.”

Grigol Robakidze, The Murdered Soul

DEMENTIA EXPLAINS Stalin’s decision to add his own doctor, Vladimir Vinogradov, an ethnic Russian despite gossip his real name was Weintraub, to the Jewish doctors’ conspiracy. On January 19, 1952, Vinogradov examined Stalin for the last time and advised him, in view of his arteriosclerosis, to stop working. Stalin sent a note to Beria: “Sort out Vinogradov,” and along with fourteen other Kremlin doctors, not all of whom were Jewish, he was arrested. Lidia Timashuk was interrogated and awarded a medal. Vlasik was accused jointly with Abakumov of suppressing Lidia Timashuk’s warning of the incompetence of the Kremlin doctors, something which Stalin himself had in effect done.

Abakumov was in a bad way. Goglidze, working for Ignatiev as happily as he had for Ezhov, Beria, Abakumov, and Riumin, accepted a doctor’s report: “Prisoner No. 15 seems to have heart disease and can be interrogated no more than 3–4 hours and only in daytime . . . if necessary, urgent medicine can be given to restore his health so that he can be actively interrogated when acute methods have to be used.” Abakumov’s interrogator now wanted to know why he had not warned Stalin that Tito was splitting Yugoslavia from the communist bloc. The question was ridiculous: Stalin himself had given Tito a series of ultimatums in 1947 and 1948, demanding that he subordinate Yugoslavia’s foreign and domestic policies to the USSR. Stalin had underestimated Tito’s enormous ego and the strength of his army and secret police; when Yugoslavia broke away from the Soviet bloc in summer 1948, it was not for want of intelligence from Abakumov.

Leaving Abakumov to stew, Stalin had the Kremlin doctors handcuffed and tortured. Riumin carried this out in the Lubianka, in a specially equipped room. The interrogators explained, “We don’t use red-hot iron rods. But we do thrash people.” The doctors understood pain only too well. Some quickly confessed to killing not only Zhdanov but the Bulgarian communist Dimitrov, the French Maurice Thorez, and even to harming Stalin’s children. One doctor claimed that he had learned euthanasia from Dr. Pletniov’s killing of Gorky. They were told that they would be hanged unless they said which plotters they were working for.²⁴ Dr. Meer Vovsi, a cousin of Mikhoels, confessed to being simultaneously a Nazi and a British agent, even though the Nazis had killed his family. Vinogradov and Vovsi, the indictment concluded, meant first to poison Stalin, Beria, and Malenkov, and then fire on their limousines.

Stalin was so absorbed in the Jewish doctors’ plot that he took no break at all in 1952. His paranoia accelerated as his physical health declined, and in February 1953 he dismissed his secretary and last real devotee, Poskriobyshev, who had not even complained when Stalin had his Polish-Jewish wife shot. On December 1, 1952, Stalin made his last speech to the Presidium of the Central Committee. As usual, he said that the more successful the party, the more enemies would sabotage it. He called Jews agents of American intelligence, warned that many were doctors, and then turned on the MGB: “They’ve admitted themselves that they are sitting in dung.” In eastern Europe the inevitable finale to the Kremlin doctors’ plot was being rehearsed: eleven alleged Zionists in the Czechoslovak party were hanged on December 3, 1952, for using doctors to shorten their leader’s life. On January 9, 1953, Pravda featured a sensational headline: “Murderers in White Gowns.” Jews would now be tried on a wave of public panic and hatred. Twenty-eight more doctors were arrested, and nine spouses.