But what if Stalin, accusing doctors-saboteurs, was telling the truth? By keeping silent about the fact that he himself forced the doctors who had become inconvenient comrades to kill!

For fifteen years, Stalin accused doctors of murdering his comrades. But what if the Leader (through the mouths of prosecutors and accusers) was telling the truth? Keeping silent only about the fact that Stalin himself forced doctors to murder their comrades who had become unnecessary and harmful.

If this is so (and it seems so), then Stalin, for decades after coming to power, acted according to the scheme he had devised. Forcing (through the hands of the Security Organs) doctors, as well as the Chekists playing the role of "doctors", to kill Comrades. Forcing, without leaving traces of coercion. No written documents! And then he accused the doctors of what they actually committed. Having also destroyed those who forced the doctors to commit crimes (Yagoda, Yezhov). Keeping silent only about the fact that the murders of Comrades were organized by the Leader himself!

"Half-words  are the tongue of a slanderer,  " says Othello in the tragedy that bears his name . Half-truths are one of the most insidious forms of lies. Stalin used them so skillfully that the debate about whether Frunze, Kuibyshev and Zhdanov were killed by doctors or whether the Leaders died a natural death continues to this day.  

The poison laboratory (called the "Special Cabinet") under the direction of Ignatiy Kazakov was created under the Cheka in the early twenties. Formally located under the roof of  the All-Union Institute of Biochemistry - supposedly peaceful and humane!

In December  1937,  Kazakov was arrested on charges of participating in a counter-revolutionary anti-Soviet organization, and in  1938,  during the trial of the anti-Soviet "right-Trotskyist bloc" ( the Third Moscow Trial ), he was accused of killing the chairman of the OGPU  Vyacheslav Menzhinsky , the chairman  of the Supreme Council of the National Economy  Valerian Kuibyshev  , and the writer  Maxim Gorky , and was sentenced to death  by order  of Genrikh Yagoda   .

When I was a first-year student at the physics department of Leningrad University, I was invited by Professor Nikita Alekseevich Tolstoy (the writer's son) to take a physics exam at his home. After the formalities were completed, Nikita Alekseevich told me, among other things, that his father had once been invited to dinner at Yagoda's, during which he had suddenly lost consciousness. And when the classic of Soviet literature, Aleksey Tolstoy, came to, he saw the host of the house peering intently and inquisitively into his face. Thus, Yagoda and the authorities tested the effects of poisons not only on those whom Stalin had ordered to be destroyed, but also on those who are considered to be among the Pride of Soviet Culture to this day!

The version about the poisoning of Valerian Kuibyshev, as well as Kirov, Menzhinsky, Gorky and his son by doctors was voiced three years after the death of the Chairman of the Soviet Control Commission during the trial of members of the "right-Trotskyist bloc", which took place in the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on March 2-13, 1938.
In the courtroom, the Kremlin doctor Lev Levin told in detail how he killed Menzhinsky, Kuibyshev, Gorky and his son, and also about how he was bribed and showered with gifts by Yagoda, who supplied him with flowers, French wine, a dacha, and allowed duty-free import of things from abroad. Yagoda persuaded the Kremlin doctor to poison first Gorky's son, then Gorky himself and Menzhinsky, and then Kuibyshev...

This was claimed at the trial of the members of the right-wing Trotskyist bloc. False or true? The confessions were certainly extracted through beatings and torture. But perhaps what they were forced to confess to was true. The murder of Gorky with candy sent to him has been considered indisputable in the decades since. As was the murder of Gorky's son. So perhaps the other confessions are also true?

The toxicology laboratory directly in the OGPU was created by order of Yagoda in  1935. After the victory over Hitler, the poison laboratory was supervised by Sudoplatov. Who, after his arrest (following Stalin's death), was also accused of testing poisons created in the Organs on prisoners (the murder of at least one hundred people was proven). It is known that among the victims of the poison laboratory were German, Polish and Japanese prisoners of war. According to Sudoplatov himself, one of those killed by poisons was Raoul Wallenberg!

The poisonings of Navalny, Dmitry Bykov, Letvinenko, Ukrainian President Yushchenko and others whose names are not so well known show that the poison laboratory – and the poisoners – successfully survived the collapse of the Union and continue to function to this day.

In the picture - Stalin and Zhdanov at Kirov's coffin

 "The Trial of the Doctors-Saboteurs" and the "Leningrad Affair" began with Stalin's murder of Zhdanov. Who, while leading Leningrad during the blockade, knew a lot about the famine of the Leningrad intelligentsia organized by the Party, which no one except Stalin was supposed to know.

Traditionally, it is believed that the case of the doctors-saboteurs began with a provocative letter from Lidiya Timashuk, reporting on the improper treatment  of the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet  Zhdanov, which led to the death of Comrade Stalin's comrade. As a result, the doctors-saboteurs (the overwhelming majority of whom turned out to be Jews) were identified. After which Stalin planned a trial with hangings of doctors-saboteurs in the main squares of the largest Russian cities, the expulsion of all Soviet Jews to concentration camps to atone for their guilt before the Soviet people, the destruction (starting with the Leningrad case) of Stalin's entourage and a new wave of the Great Terror - this time total terror.

This is the version of events that became canonical after the Twentieth Party Congress. However, the basis of events could have been completely different. In the event that the letter of Lidiya Timashuk, reporting on the incorrect treatment of Zhdanov, was correct from a medical point of view!

The official announcement of the death of Stalin's comrade was as follows:  "For many years, Comrade Zhdanov A.A. suffered from high blood pressure, complicated by severe atherosclerosis, especially in the vessels that feed the heart. In recent years , he had attacks of angina pectoris, and then attacks of cardiac asthma appeared. Death followed from paralysis of the painfully changed heart with symptoms of acute pulmonary edema."      

The message was signed by the head of the Kremlin Medical and Sanitary Administration, Professor Egorov, full member of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Professor Vinogradov, corresponding member of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Professor Vasilenko, candidate of medical sciences, Fedorov, and honored doctor of the RSFSR, Mayorov (all of them, by the way, Russian and Slavic people).

However, Timashuk, who was part of the team of attending physicians as a cardiologist, gave Zhdanov an electrocardiogram and determined from the wet scan: myocardial infarction of the anterior wall of the left ventricle.  “ But my colleagues were stubborn - nothing of the sort! And they began to treat him not at all as a heart attack patient: they prescribed walking in the park, active gymnastics, even entertainment “prescribed”, that is, cinema... And for treatment they prescribed digitalis - a potent stimulant! Which in the case of a heart attack inevitably led to death!”       

Continuation of citing the surviving reports of Lidiya Feodosyevna to the authorities: "...at about 12 noon, A.A. did an ECG; according to the data, I diagnosed "myocardial infarction in the region of the left ventricle and interventricular septum", which I immediately informed the consultants about. Pr. Egorov and Dr. Mayorov told me that this was an erroneous diagnosis and they did not agree with it, A.A. did not have any infarction , but there was "a functional disorder due to sclerosis and hypertension" and suggested that I rewrite the conclusion, not indicating "myocardial infarction".                  

Date: August 28, 1948. After the second consultation, Lidiya Feodosyevna writes again.

"On 29/ VIII  , A.A. had a repeated heart attack (after getting out of bed), and I was called from Moscow a second time, but by order of Academician Vinogradov and Prof. Egorov, the ECG was not done on 29/ VIII  on the day of the heart attack , but was scheduled for 30  /VIII , and for the second time I was categorically asked to redo the conclusion, not indicating myocardial infarction... I believe that the consultants and the attending physician Mayorov underestimate the undoubtedly serious condition of A.A., allowing him to get out of bed, walk in the park, go to the cinema, which caused a repeated attack and may further lead to a fatal outcome. Despite the fact that, at the insistence of my superior, I redid the ECG, not indicating "myocardial infarction" in it, I remain of my opinion and insist on the strictest bed rest for A.A.                             

Transferred to Major Belov (Zhdanov’s chief of security) on 29/VIII-48 into his own hands”

Let's assume that from a medical point of view, the Kremlin hospital doctor Timashuk (who took part in the treatment of many party leaders, including the all-Union elder Kalinin) was right and Zhdanov had a myocardial infarction, for which at that time bed rest was clearly prescribed. Why did the country's leading doctors prescribe Zhdanov "treatment" including walks in the park,  active gymnastics,  going to the cinema and taking stimulants, which inevitably had to lead to death? The only reasonable explanation: outstanding doctors treated Zhdanov incorrectly on Stalin's orders! Timashuk, as a small (in comparison with the Luminaries of Medicine) pawn, was not aware of the events and naively wrote to the authorities (with which, like all the doctors of the Kremlin Hospital, she was directly connected) about the absurd treatment of a prominent Party figure, which led to his death.

This development of events is in line with Stalin's practice. Starting with the murder of the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs Frunze on the operating table. After which there was no conviction of the surgeon-killers (who became - which is now practically not disputed - murderers on Stalin's orders). On the contrary! The scenario is the same, but there was no after-scene.

I often visited the huge apartment of the descendants of the surgeon I.I. Grekov in Leningrad (in which his grandson, a mathematician and a close friend of mine, lived), which was assigned to him and his descendants for life by decree of the Russian leadership.

Another version of the same scenario was realized after the assassination of Kirov, which led to the unleashing of the Great Terror.

Punitive medicine in the USSR flourished until the collapse of the Union. And a few years later it was actively resumed - see the poisonings of Navalny, Bykov, Litvinenko and many others.

Here is what we read, for example, about the abuse of Mikhail Shemyakin, now recognized as a Great Russian Artist, and in Soviet times a nonconformist and dissident. "They stripped you naked, tied you to a table in a small room. In front of you is a huge polished reflector with light bulbs. They put on headphones, give you an injection, you are covered in wires." "They said: "Repin", "Shishkin", "Aivazovsky", and suddenly a heart-rending scream - "Pykasso", then these lamps turn on and a huge intersection of light lines. And then you are again in complete darkness. This is how they tried to develop a "reflex to the right artists" and to cause rejection of bourgeois art," Mikhail Shemyakin said about his stay in a mental hospital for treatment.

Three methods were mainly used: aminazine, which made a person fall into a state of hibernation, deep inhibition, and ceased to understand what was happening to him; sulfazine, or sulfur, which caused severe pain and fever, the body temperature rose to 40-41 ºС and lasted for two or three days; "wrapping" (or "envelope"). The latter was considered the most severe, since the person was tightly wrapped from feet to armpits in a wet, twisted sheet or canvas strips." "Professor Sluchevsky (nicknamed "Executioner")  decided to hold a kind of master class for the students of the Military Medical Academy. For this, he collected graphic works by M. Shemyakin. A patient was brought into the auditorium, where the drawings were hung, in his underwear, and the "Executioner" began to clearly demonstrate the process of establishing (confirming) a diagnosis. He began asking questions like "What year is it today? What city are you in?" etc. To which he received correct and clear unambiguous answers. Then he asked: "So, Shemyakin, do you ever feel like you are losing your bearings and are in St. Petersburg, since all the drawings are signed "SPb"?" In response, Mikhail clearly answered that nothing of the sort, "SPb" means "Special Psychiatric Hospital", which caused a storm of laughter from the audience. The disgraced "teacher" prescribed a double dose of sulfur to the patient for this sketch."

I (the author of this article) knew the head physician of the Skvortsov Psychiatric Hospital Stepanov Sluchevsky well when I worked on the territory of this medical organization. He seemed to me to be a Russian intellectual who would organize masterful demonstrations with patients and pseudo-patients during his lectures (I will tell you about them another time). The fact that Fyodor Izmailovich, on the orders of the Authorities, directed the mockery of dissidents is beyond my comprehension. However, as I now learn, this hereditary intellectual went down in history as one of the generals of Punitive Medicine. And this happened during the comparatively vegetarian times of Brezhnev and Andropov. Taking into account what has been said (and much has been left unsaid, including my own experience), it is not hard to believe that the great doctors of the Soviet era, Yegorov, Vinogradov and the rest, could have incorrectly treated Zhdanov on the orders of the Authorities. If they had not done so, they would have been torn to pieces and replaced.

The version about Valerian Kuibyshev's poisoning by doctors was voiced three years after the death of the communist-Leninist at the trial of members of the "right-Trotskyist bloc", which took place in the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR from March 2 to 13, 1938.
"In the courtroom on March 2, 1938, I saw them all. Here they are, the murderers! They killed comrades Kirov, Kuibyshev, Menzhinsky, Gorky and his son," wrote Kuibyshev's sister, Elena Vladimirovna, in the book "The Last Meeting", published by Goslitizdat in 1938.
In the courtroom, the Kremlin doctor Lev Levin described in detail how he killed Menzhinsky, Kuibyshev, Gorky and his son. Levin (whose testimony was preserved in the court records) tells how Yagoda showered him with gifts and bribed him, supplying him with flowers, French wine, a dacha, and allowing him to bring things in duty-free from abroad. Yagoda persuaded him to poison first Gorky's son, then Gorky himself and Menzhinsky, and then Kuibyshev...

The testimony of the Kremlin doctor is confirmed and supplemented by Kuibyshev’s secretary Maksimov-Dikovsky, who allegedly received (or maybe not allegedly, but really did receive!) the corresponding orders from Yagoda and Rykov... Kuibyshev’s son, Vladimir Valerianovich, born in 1917 in the Samara prison “Kresty”, was sure that his father was poisoned on Stalin’s orders, because he insisted on a detailed objective investigation of Kirov’s murder.

With the help of doctors, Stalin killed not only his colleagues. The great physiologist Bekhterev died suddenly on December 24,  1927  in Moscow. Bekhterev's brain was, according to his idea (or perhaps the decision of the Party?), preserved in the "pantheon of the brains of great people", and his body was cremated, the ashes were buried on  the Literatorskie Mostki  at  the Volkovskoye Cemetery  in  Leningrad . A rumor spread among the medical community in Moscow that Bekhterev's death was connected with the fact that after a meeting with  Stalin , to whom Bekhterev provided medical advice, he imprudently declassified the diagnosis he had given Stalin. According to the official version, Bekhterev died as a result of acute  food poisoning  - from canned food or sandwiches - which, by the way, may have been true: the only question is who organized the food poisoning of the great psychiatrist with canned food and sandwiches.

Historian  R. A. Medvedev  put forward the hypothesis that Bekhterev was poisoned after he gave him a psychiatric diagnosis of "severe paranoia" during a medical examination of Stalin for his withered arm. Stalin carefully concealed his withered arm, tried not to undress in public, and rarely showed himself even to doctors. The diagnosis of a withered arm given to a leader like Stalin would also have been enough to ensure that Bekhterev "would not be long for this world."

Another possible reason for the murder is Bekhterev's involvement in Lenin's treatment. Bekhterev examined Lenin twice, in May and November 1923, and insisted on continuing treatment with arsenobenzene drugs, intended for the treatment of chronic syphilis . Looking back at Stalin's actions in the years following Bekhterev's death, it is clear that any of these diagnoses would have been enough to ensure that Bekhterev was not left alive under any circumstances. By recognizing the diagnoses as enemy slander - or by killing him "on the quiet." 

In light of what was said (as they said in Soviet times), the following story emerges of the murders of political figures, carried out by doctors on Stalin’s orders.

• Frunze, who replaced Trotsky as People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs of the USSR in January 1925, became not only unnecessary but also dangerous as the most popular military leader in the Red Army after the Red Army's creator was isolated and sent to remote areas of the country. Who had not been noticed in Stalinism. On Stalin's orders, Frunze underwent an absolutely unnecessary operation, after which the People's Commissar died.

• Kuibyshev, apparently a relatively decent person in Stalin's circle, demanded a thorough and impartial investigation into Kirov's murder. For this he was destroyed by Stalin. Doctors who acted on the orders of NKVD People's Commissar Yagoda, who was also shot, were accused of this murder (as well as of Gorky and Menzhinsky).

• Zhdanov was a danger to Stalin because, while leading Leningrad during the blockade, he knew too much that no one but Stalin was supposed to know.
• That food was being exported from Leningrad after Hitler’s attack on the USSR.
• That during the blockade the Leningrad intelligentsia, hated by Stalin, was systematically destroyed.
• That not only corpse-eating, but also cannibalism, which had spread widely throughout the city, was not prosecuted to the proper extent.
• And the main thing is that there was essentially no blockade as such, since the city maintained contact with the rest of the country via Lake Ladoga. Not only in winter, but also in summer.

Zhdanov, through whom the Party carried out not only defensive but also criminal activities, knew too much that could radically change the idea of ​​the Leningrad Blockade. Which was organized not only by Hitler but also by Stalin. Therefore, he was doomed. His murder (like the murder of Kuibyshev - but on an incomparably larger scale than the trial against the Trotskyists) was used a few years later to begin an anti-Semitic campaign and prepare the Great Terror, in comparison with which the Great Terror of 1937 would have seemed like child's play.

Therefore (according to the version presented in this note) through Beria's department the doctors (among whom there were no Jews - all Russians with one Ukrainian) were given the order to treat Zhdanov to death. Which is what they did.

Thus, doctors-saboteurs and murderers of Party leaders really existed - as History reported. The only thing that was not indicated in textbooks and newspapers was by whose order doctors were forced to kill Patients!

The letter of Timashuk, who was (according to the information we are developing – in accordance with the assertion of Stalinist propaganda) an honest doctor, was postponed because the time for the trial of the saboteur doctors had not come. It was published when, in accordance with Stalin’s plan, the time had come for the trials of the Jewish saboteur doctors (even though there were no Jews among those who treated Zhdanov!). The result of which was to be

• the deportation of Soviet Jews to concentration camps with barracks without walls (so that it was even theoretically impossible to survive in the Arctic conditions) is a continuation of Hitler's Genocide in the Soviet manner.
• Trials of enemies in Stalin's entourage.
• the beginning of the Great Terror (which was supposed to leave the Great Terror of 1937 far behind) throughout the country. Which Stalin failed to carry out because Beria and his comrades killed the Leader before he killed them.

In addition to this, there were assassinations of cultural and scientific figures. Of these, the most odious was the murder of Sechenov (who diagnosed Stalin with severe schizophrenia, and during Lenin's treatment prescribed the Leader of the world proletariat medication for chronic syphilis.

Poisoning of Gorky (as established by chocolates brought to the singer of the Revolution)

The brutal murder of Zinaida Reich (after the arrest of her husband Vsevolod Meyerhold, who died in prison in terrible agony)

the murder of Nikolai Vavilov - whose brother was killed - undoubtedly with sadistic intent - by the President of the Academy of Sciences.

And also the deaths of Yesenin and Mayakovsky - whether these deaths were murders or suicides of the great Russian poets is still being debated.

This is the model proposed in this article for what happened from the twenties until Stalin's death. It seems much more likely than the one presented by "true history."    

Yuri Magarshak

Editor-in-chief of the journal New Concepts

February 28, 2023