Caesar 01 - The Doctor's Plot

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"THE DOCTORS'PLOT"

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Off ice of CurrentIntelligenceCENTRAL INTEELGENCEA.&EN-

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The 13 January F'ravda ar t ic l e d isc los ing th e doctors' pl ot musthave had a shatteN-ct on the citizens of the USSR. It set th es tage fo r w h a t was probably antici pate d in many quarters as a repeatperformance of the devastkting purge that shook the Soviet Union from1934-1938.The announcement siugled oat nine doctors -- most of them Jerlsh-- as part of a ring of spies working f o r a "Jewish-bourgeois nationa-l i s t group," which in turn was sponsored by th e American and BritishIntelligence organizations.treatment two former Soviet leaders -- A. s. Shcherbakov, who died inMay 1945, and A. A. Zhdanov, who died in A u g u s t 1948. In addition t oother leaders, the doctors were further specificaUy accused of a t -tempting t o m u r d e r five military figures: Marshals Vastlevski, Konevand Govorov, General Shtepaenko and AZtmirrrl Levchenko.

They were accused of murder ing by mi s -

The "plot" had clearly antiSemitic overtones. 'Phe observationwas made a t the time that since no J e w s had attended Zhdanov andShcherbakov, it was necessary t o include among the participants thenames of three non-Jews who hcid. In addition, it represented a newstage in th e fi er ce propaganda war, the "hate-America" campaign, -which Ambassador Kennsa had found BO M e n t upon h i s arrival inMoscow. Inter alia, i t brought proof of US hos t i l i ty d i rec t ly t o theSovlet people by proving that thi? country had many agents inside theUSSR. ,The leaders of th e US and UK were i n eff ect accused of havingassassinated two prominent Sovlet government officials and of cm-sp ir ing t o assassinate more, in particular, these f ive military Lead-ers of the USSR. Shcherbakov'e "murder" was committed a t a time whenthe US and UK were a l l i ed with the USSR in a w a r against Germany andwere awaiting Sovlet part icip atio n in the war against Japan. Shcher-bakov, a Colonel General, a t the t i m e of hi s death was Chief of theArmy ' s Pol it ic al Administration, Deputy C o a r m i s s a r of Defense, Secre-tary of the Moscow City and Oblast Committees, and alternate m e m b e rof the Politburo.The word lug of the announcement carried the clear suggestionthat the doctors might have succeeded e i th er in murdering others not

-8pecified in the announcement o r a t least in reducing t h e i r l i f espan.Kremlin's medical directo rate, and hence had probably tr ea te d a t onet i m e or another a l l of the Politburo members , including Sta linYegorov, one of the accused, had ac tu al ly been Chief of the

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himself.D i m i t r o v , and Choibalsan. The French Communist press had reportedthat Vinogradov and another of th e accused doctors, Grinstein, hadtreated Thorez.

It is known, for example, that Yegorov treated Kislinin,

Singled out as the doctors' intermediaries were A. B. Shimele-vich, last identified as head doctor a t the Botkin Hospital in Moscowi n 1947, and Solomon Mikhoels, Chairman of the Jewish Anti-FascistC o m m i t t e e during World War 11. M i k h o e l s had died in Byelorussia in1948 unhr s a n e w h a t mysterious cir , umstance8 .\ This particular part of the announcement appeared purposefullyopen-ended. Few people i n the USSR would be ready t o accept the f a c tthat only these two re la t ively m l m r figures were t o be accused of

tors had been accused of medical murder in the USSR, the head of thesecret police (YagOaa) had a lle ge dly prompted t h e m and he in turn a l -legedly had been directed by a Politburo member -- Abel Yenukidze;both had paid with thei r l ives . The stage was set, t h e r e f o r e , formore arrests and more disclosures and by di re ct ly censuring-the IG Bth e Pravda ar ti cl e had suggested that history might &peat i t se l f .

handling the purported plot inside the country. The last time doc-

Abakumov, the MGB Chief in 1948 when Zhdanov died, had alreadyThe p l o t could serve as a good reason f o rbeen ousted as Minister (August .1951) l though his removal had neverbeen publicly announced.just ify ing th i s earlier r e m o v a l i f one w e r e needed.US "espionage" could have been w e l l documented.Ambassador Kennsn was v i s i ted i n July 1952, almost a year after Aba-kamov's replacement, by a provocateur c l a i m i n g t o be Abakumov's son.

Merkulov had been head of the Cammissariat.-of S t a t e Security In 1945when Shcherbakov died. A t the t i m e of the plot's announcement hee s erving as USSR Minister of State Control. Merkulov ha-d suf-fered a setback at the October Party Congress when he was droppedfrom a full t o alternate status on the Central Coarmittee. He isl i s t edBeria. M re was among those who accompaniedBeria to ' MoAcov whAn he was calied by Stalin t o take over Yezhov'sjob and end the purge.and he, of course, did not figure a t th e Party Congress a t all.

H i s link-up withTo take one example,

Abakumov, however, was not the only q B hief involved. V. N.

s having been a close associate ofAbakumov also had been associated with Beria

-cast a shadow on one of the big luminaries in th e Kremlin i t s e l f , L.P. Beria.purge:

Iphe implication that both Abakumw and Merkulov were involvedlzlere are other suggestions with regard to Beria and theBeria had been universally regarded as retaining Politburo

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level responsibility for security affairs. I

There were 4 few k t g w s in the w l n d l q he f a l l of 1952 indicat-ing that Beria had s l i p d among the ranks-ofStalin's favorites. Hewas listed as the six th Politburo member to enter the Hall of Colurmisa t the opening of th e Party Congress, when previously he had ranked8s number four. This lower ranlrin@I was later repeated i n the or&rI n which the pictures of th e Politburo members were hung on 7 Amem-ber, the anniversary of the October revolution.gained hi s number four spot on 21 January,) (Beria later re-

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Beria had beeh in charge of the Comm i s s a r i a t of Internal Affeirsfrom 1937 to 1947. In 1943 the Commissariat of State- Security had

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been formed out o f the Commissariat of Internal Affaire and Merkalovhad been given charge of it. A l l the Commissar ia t s were renatned M i n -i s t r i e s in March 1946, and Merkulov continued t o head the Min istry ofS t a t e Security (EB) u n t i l some time in the middle of t ha t year, whenhe was replaced by Abakumov. The indirec t impl icat ion of Beria wasmodified by t he f ac t that on 12 January, the evening before the an- .noucement, S t a l i n and five of his biggest lieutenants -- Molotov,Malenkov, Beria, Voroshilov and Kaganovich -- attended a concert a tthe Bolshoi thea tre . There i s l i t t l e doubt t h a t th is appearance wasintended t o avert the panic which was expected with the announcementof the doctors' plot the following day.

Beria was probably not the only Soviet leader concerned aboutthe outcome of the doctors' plot. C e r t a i n l y the antiSemitic natureof the affair caused concern among those of Jevi sh background. L.uM. Kagsnwlch is Jewish and so, too, i s the wife of V. M. Molotov.In addition, the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Sofiet, N.M. Shvernlk, has been reported to be Jew5sh.a

The question which immediately aro se with regard t o the star-t l ing announcement was who had Something big hadbeen brewlng since Suslov's 24 December attack on Fedoseyev fo r daringstar ted it and why.

L/ The s ta tus of Kaganovich a t the time of the plot was unclear. Hehad been identif ied i p s hief of Gosenab(Committee fo r the State Supplies t o the National Economy) as lateas May 1952. However, when th e elect ion lists f o r the SupremeSoviet were made public a t the end of January 1953, I. G. Kabanovthat i n Kiev Kaganovich was referred t o as "ourGG! rrrasy thewas l i s t e d as Chairman of Gossnab. 0ne:SovietJewish residents there. Several J e w s in Kiev were ar r es tM in thewake of the vigilance campaign.the year 1948-49 quotes a Jewish writer from wilno as s ta t ing thatthe Doet I. Fefer and the theatre director S. Mikhoels interceded i n1945 wlth Kaganovich who in turn interceded With Zhdanov t o 11-cense a Yiddish daily paper in the USSR.(Fefer, incidentally, had toured the US with Mikhoels l a 1943.)Fefer was arrested in 1948 but Sovlet authorities never gave anyreason for t h i s action.

The American Jewish Yearbook f o r

The license was refused

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t o write about Stalin's opus without previously confessing t o thesins of Voznesenskylsm.recantation of economists on 8 January.sion as well as i t s perpetrators were d i f f i cu l t t o fix. It was nec-essary t o go back t o the October Party Congress to find anything con-arete and even then the evidence was sl ig ht . What evidence the re wsspointed t o Malenkov, Khrushchev, Suslw, and P0slmebychev.d

This in turn had been followed by the 11tassYet the tYfheMalenkov in a paragmph of hi s report to the 19th Party Congresshad referred to "the enemies of the Soviet Sta te who are working per-s i s t e n t l y t o wmggle the i r agents Into our country" and bad warnedagainst "the remnants of bourgeois ideology and relics o f privateproperty, mentality and morality" still prevalent in the Party'sranks.t i c propaganda fol lowing the Congress, however, had echoed Sovietstrength and VLLB characterized by a tone of confidence and assuranceas W ~ S xemplifYed, f o r example, in Pervukhin's speech on 7 november.Thus, there had been no real ef fo r t after the Congress t o prepare thepeople for the doctors' plot or the heightened vigilance campaign s e toff by i t s announcement.

Su slw had said a little more along this line. Soviet domes-

One of the few harbingers was seen in the December 1952 Agita-t o r s Notebook, which attacked Z i o n i s m as a "reactionary~nationalistcurrent of the Jewish bourgeoisie."l ine of Moscow radio which during the SLansky trial in November hadThis was i n contrast to the

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1Some of the pr incipals i n t h e pl9t were apparently s t i l l f ree men8 8 la te 8 8 October 1952, even though the 13 January announcementhad indicated that the plot had been maovered "SOU& t i m e ago".On 23 October an inst;ltute of the Academy of Science in the Geor-gian SSR congratulated Vinogradov, one of the nine doctors i n -volved, on hi$':7Oth-liirthday, indica tin g tha t he had probably notbeen arrested'by that date. On 3 November a laudatory articie onVinogradov a*cired in Evening MOSCOW.Mmt of the pr incipal 1-8 which were ut i l ized by Soviet propa-ganda media during the xtgilance campaign were mentioned in PartyCongress speeches by Maknkov, Khrushchev, Moskatov, Suslov,Fadeyev, a114 Poskrebychev.- Kaganovich did not mention any of these lines.Curiously, Stalin, Molotov, Beria, andFor example, whilek h & O V , Khrushchev, SUSlw, and PO6krebycheV spoke Of the dan-gers of "capitalist encirclement" and admitted the existence of"hostile elements" within the USSR, neither of the points was men-tioned by Stal in , Molotov, Beria, or Kaganovich.


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played d a m the Zionism issue.period between October and January t o cause the "doctors' plot" deci-sion or af f ec t i t s timing, but whatever i t was it rekined under the

Something may have happened in the

surface.One probable clue was the curiously belated announcement on30 October tha t Marshal Govorov had been elected an alternate memberof the Central C o m m i t t e e of t he Party a t the Congress, but had beenerroneously l e f t off the l i s t s .going on and great pressure must have been exerted t o get Govorov onth e Central C o m m i t t e e .parently dominated the October Congress, had f o r one reason o r anotherbegun t o have trou ble with the Central C o m m i t t e e and t h a t some ele-

Obviously something very strange wasIt has been speculated tha t Malenkov, who ap-

ments i n it w ere rebelling against him. . .G m o v was one of the mili tary men allegedly marked f o r deathby the doctors. This was of some interest because Govorov had l ink8with Z h d a n w . He had served with him in Leningrad and had deliveredone of the eulogies a t h i s fnneral. In a Pravda a r t i c l e on 27 Janu-ary 1949, Govorov had praised Zhdanov f o r h i s role in the defense ofLeningrad. H e r e again the reasons why precisely these five -- V a s i -levsky, Konev, Govorw, Shtemenko, and kvchenko -- w e r e singled outfo r notor ie ty and other mil ita ry leaders, such 8s Zhukov, Sokolovslry,and Timoshepko were not, i s unborn . Another curious note regardlngthe selection of the five m i l i t a q leaders was that they d id not in-clude an Air F

r+ry notices recentLy P-I=sQeQ, ~mueuv'soutranked only by those marshals who were members of the Politburoand government, the Chief of S t a f f and Marshal Konev.In addition, amid the mass of speculation regarding the purposeof the doctors' plot no clear reason for the inclusion of the f ivemi l i t s ry figures stood out.(a) an ef fo r t t o bo ls t er m o r a l e of the military by putting them onthe side of th e vigilantes, t o (b) a warnlug t o precisely these fiveand others of t h e i r i l k t o remain passive in the events which weret o transpire.perience of th e 30's s t i l l i n t h e i r minds, as looking with favor onany purge,ment was intended as a warning -- a warning against individuals or agroup of individuals unknown t o t he West, who w e r e contesting the-8StatUe quo.imsglned.t h a t it was real.

Speculation a t the t i m e ranged from

It seems bard t o ~ i 8 U d i Z e he m i l i t a r y , with the ex- 'It seems reasonable t o assme, however, tha t the announce-!Chis opposition may have been real or it msy have beenThe Govorov appointment t o th e Central C o n n n i t t e e suggested


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I . ITHE ImTEmSIE'IED VIGILANCE CAMPAIGN

A t any rate, once the original announcement of the plot was madethere was l i t t l e t i m e l o s t in building on the symbolism of the purgesof the 30's. An a r t i c l e i n the 14 January issue o f Kammunis t linkedthe " K o s t m , Rajks, and Slanskys" with the "Trotskyites and Bukhsrin-ites" of the 30's and the timing suggested that a l l would be linkedt o the doctors' plot .cards had been acquired by "alien enemy elements" in Leningrad. Thiseff or t t o re-create a situation allegedly existent a t the t i m e of theKirOv assassination in 1934 appeared to be an obvious attempt t o con-nect that earl ier s i tua t ion with the present.In addition, the Pravda editorial which accompanied the announce-ment had referred to " W t k L n g opportunists who held an anti-Marxist

position regarding the extinguishing of the class struggle," therebyadapting a line which had nm through the previous trials in the Sat-el l i tes and which had been levled against Pauker in Rmania andGomt,~lkaInPoland. The f a c t tha t representatives of the accused J e w -i s h agency "Joint" were s t i l l present in Hungary indicated that theSa te ll it es were not to be spared further purging.

The magazine also charged t h a t many Party

In connection with h i s statements regarding O c a p i t a l i s t encircle-ment" and the existence of "hostile elements" in the USSR, Malenltovin his speech at th e Congress had also mentioned the purges of th e30.8. !I%e purge "all kids of enemies of Marxism-Leninism,Trotsky-Bukharinitt degelerates, against capital ators and tr a it o rs whoendeavored t o lea d th e p a r t y off the correct path and to sp l i tthe unity of i t s ranks''' said Malenkov made it possible f or the USSRt o be stme there were im in ternal d i t o r s when the ~erplans ttackedit.purposes of the vigilance campaign was t o root out a l l potentialfonns of opposition within the USSR i n expectation of & w a r v i th theUnited States.

.In his connection, some observers have inferred that one of the

On 15 January Izvestia ran a l ea d e i c l e e nt i tl e d, "IncreasePo li ti ca l Vigilance," vhich did not mention the p l o t but appeared t oassociate Mslenkov with the general idea of it . The American Embassyi n Moscow noted a t the t i m e that the a rt ic le presented an unusualexample of quoting from %lenkov in a s great a length a s from Sta l in .!Chis pat tern was t o be followed throughout the reminder of the vigi-lance campaign. Malenkov was t o be the only Soviet leader other thanStalin cited in the vigilance literature, although these citations.were usually with reference t o h i s speech a t the Psrty Congress.As mentioned previously, a aurvey of major themes in Sovietbroadcasts between the 19th Party Congress and the subsequent reversal

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, , ii I , . \TOP S&XETl , I\of the doctors' p lo t indicated that there was no ef for t t o preparethe Soviet people fo r the doctors' pl ot and the vigilance campaign.The broadcasts during this period did no t appear t o be based on thedirect ives se t fo r th by Malenkov in his repor t to the Congress.ever, the survey noted that the announcement of th e doc tors' p lo tset off an extremely intense "vigilance campaign," with the main em-phasis on e l i m i n a t i n g "the remnants of bourgeois ideology, relics ofprivate-property mentality and morality" which Malenkov had warnedthe Party against in his speech t o th e 19th Party Congress.

How-

Later material i n the "vig ilanc e campaign" st ressed the need.t o "end th e self-satisfaction, infatuation with achievemnts, mugcomplacency, and inattentiveness" in th e ranks of the Party. Again ,the e l imha t ioa of' these "evils" had been cited by Malenkov, in h i sreport t o the 19th Party Congress, as one of the basic tasks of theParty.

Other second f l igh t Soviet leaders took an active part in thecampaign.fo r the ir "serioue m i s t a k e s . "byshev had spec ifically singled out the jurists as need- some self-cr i t ic ism and he had done so in roughly the same language now em-ployed by Vyshinsky. He calle d on Soviet jurists t o d i re c t t h e i ratt en tio n t o exploding "bourgeois principles". of international l aw -that served the American ana English "war mongers." Bagirov, Melni-kov, likhailov, Patolichev, Yudin, and Ale=- were a l l p u bl ic 9as so ciat ed with th e campaign. Malenkov was a b 0 quoted with refer -ence to the " ca pi ta lis t encirclement" idea which was t o accompanythe vigilance campa ign , a theme which had not been dminant in Sovietpropaganda for some time but one which had been stressed by Malenkav,Khrushchev, Suslov, and Poskrebyshev a t the Congress.

On 3 February Vyshlnsky excoria ted lea ders of Soviet l a wIn h is speech a t the Congress Poskre-

. Since both Stalin and Malenkov were employed a s orac les of the"vigilance campaign" in the day^ following the "doctors plo t" an-nouncement, and sin ce Malenkov had been l inke d in Soviet propagandawith the hard l i n e on "class-warfare" (he had been quoted by Ulbricht't o this ef f ec t i n a December speech), it i s most probable that bothwe= clo sel y connected with i t s origins. In retrospect the themewuld seem part icular ly adapted t o the picture of an aged St al inqerging on senil i ty, mistrustful of his doctors and darkly suspi-cious of a new administration in Washington.earlier days of purging --- Malenkov, Poskrebyshev and Shkirgatov_were e t i l l w i t h him and perhaps i t was one of them who had plantedthe seed. In t h i s con-nection, certain items are worthy of note:

His lieutenants of th e

Vyshinslg to o was s t i l l in the foregound.

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2. The view

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hat Poskrebyshev

1. Ardbassador Kennan has stated his H e w t h a t Malenkwduring 1951 had succeeded in securing predominant influenceover Stalin, had misinfonaed Stalin about Western intentions,and was in fact largely responsible for preventing Kennanfrom seeing Stalin during hi6 Moscow t o u r . Mr. Kennsn a l soidentifies Malenkov with the h a t e - A m e r i c a l ine.

4. rllhkre was later t o be one rather curions statement bya foreign Communi s t expl icit ly associating Stalin with the doc-tors' plot. The Indian C a m n h m i s t Party's parliamentary lead er,A. K. G o p a l a n , - laeld a press conference in N e w D e l h i on 19 Mayefter returning from Moscow and declared t ha t Sta l in , as Premiera t the t i m e , must have shared in th e responsibil i ty for the ar-rest of the accused doctors.protests from other top Indtan Communis t s a t the Conference.I t is the only known statement of this s o r t by a C o m m u n i s tsource.

This statement brought imnmliate

The doctors' plot announcement was shortly followed by a majorcampaign f o r the intensification of security measures. On 16 Janu-ary, R a m h demanded increased vigilance from Soviet scientists andmembers of the intelllgensia.Section of the Party Central C o m m i t t e e and son Cr p the late A n h iZbdanov, named a nuinber of sc ie nt is ts who were gu i l ty of subjectlv-Astic distortions. This, of course, reminded observers of his recan-ta t ion in 1948 after his. ather's decline and shortly before hisfather's death, when Yu r i had t o grovel before Lysenko.

Yuri Zhdanov, Cpief of the Science

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TOP SECwT[ IA t the same time certain leading Soviet historians, includingMabky, th e fo rme r AuibassaBor t o G r e a t Britain, w er e cr i t ic i zed fo rt he i r "bourgeois" thinking, w h i l e Kiev radio attacked individuals in

the Ukrahe who had not been suff'iciently vigilant , par t icular ly inli&rt-Industry and the meat and dam, f o o d and t i m b e r industries.T h e - n e ~ay-rud reached new heights of invective i n an a t t ack on"American and B r i t i s h war-mongers and thei r weapon -- Zionism."20 Jabk-y a n e w s p a p e r in the L i t h u a n i a n USSR admitted that some or-g a u i z a t i o n s there had been penetrated by "bourgeois asti~nalists"and Jewish Zionists, while Red Fleet charged t h a t Western powers wereutilizing diplomatic representatives and newspaper correspondents f o r"undermining" the USSR. Papers i n th e ukraiaian and Iatvlan S SR ' saccmed sp eci fic individuals, mostly Jews, of criminal acti rLties .OnOn the eve of the 21st, the Lenln day address was gi=n by M. A.

He stressed Party vigi -M i k h a i l o v , the ex-Komsmol chief, who had been made a secretary ofthe Central Committee a t the Party Congress.lance in the class strug@;le and denounced complacency in Party ranksas "counter-revolutionary". Stalin was quoted as holding that "suchpeople., are turncoats or hypocrites who should be chased o u t of ourParty."at t r ibuted to S ta l i n during th e canqraign were taken from h is xritingsof an earl ier period, He had said nothing a t the Congress usable forthese purposes.C u r i o u s l y enough, th is quote as w e l l as most of the others

On 21 January New Times appeared with a strong attac k on Z i o n i s mand on Israeli government officials who were called the executors ofa US S ta t e Department spy ring in the USSR. Israel was attacked f o rracial bigotry. A s was the case,- the doctcm' pl ot , most of the in -dividuals ci ted after, 13 January i n the vigilance campaign as 'beingharuEul to Soviet se curity bore Jewish names.1 he vigilance drive was als o vi gor oyl y pushed i n th e European

with "Joint," In Rumania th e pa r ty press warned that the deviationexemplified by foraher Finance Minister Luca had not been eliminatedand that it would be "dangerous opportunfsm" t o say that it had. InBulgaria, ten members of an "espionage and plotting" organizationguided by the "American intelligence in Turkey" were arrested, tr ied,and convicted between 18 and 20 January. In East Gennany Georg Der-tinger, the CDU Foreign Mbister, was arrested on ch~rges f treasonand the a nti -Zi oni st campaign which developed there re su lted in thef l i gh t of nupberou8 J e w s t o West Berlin, who were apparently under noIn Poland thegovernment continued i t s campaign against alleged US espionage anaon 16 January delivered a note t o the US protesting such activities.

Satellites. In Hungary, Jews were arrested f o r their associstion

L l l u s ion as t o w h a t the future would hold for t h e m .

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In Austria, the Communi s t Party conducted a purge related t othe SlansQ t r ial .broadcast suggested that th e principal reason for the sa te ll i t e trialswas t o be found in the policy of Secretary of Sta te Dulles, who soughtseparation of the Sate l l i tes from the Soviet Union.

It was in A u s t r i a , a l s o , that a Soviet-sponsored

Elsewhere throughout th e world, the various Communis t partieswere attempting wlth some d i f f icu l ty t o hew t o the new llne, particu-

hsaana in It al y where t he damaging effec t was noticeable;a t the t ine sa id that the Italian Communis t Partyc ia1 support as a result.

Within the USSR, the campaign continued in full swing. On 6February Pravda announced the arrest of four persons on espionagecharges. -February Izve stia st ate d th at S w i e t securit y agentshad liquidated a nest af American spies established in 1947 by aformer US assistant naval attache in Vladivostok. The American Em-bassy in Moscm observed a t that t i m e tha t th e Pravda a r t i c l e of6 February had gone beyond prevloue press statements in i t s revela-t ions of disputes over theory and in i t s c i ta t ion of names and d e t a i l sof alleged espionage.theories" were s t i l l in exietence among which w e r e the bel iefs thatca pi ta li st encirclement no longer exlsted and that the capi ta l is tworld would rknounce its attempts t o harm the increasingly sta bleSoviet Union. The class struggle was sa id t o remain one between cap-i b l i r s m and s o c i a l i s m , and hence th e c a p i h l i s t e would continue t h e i rattem pts t o overthrow the USSR.

-The ar t i c l e had s ta ted that "certain rotten

In the face of t h i s threat,' Soviet foreign policy was describedas "firm" and one which'"a8mits of no concessions o r l i t t l e conces-s ions t o the imperiglist aggressors."capitall& encirclement in either hi s Bolshevlk ar ti cl e o r his shortspeech a t the close of the C&ss.

stalin had not touched onHfs point in Economic

more l ike ly than wars against the Soviet Union was no t in keepingwlth the propaganda line. Louis Fisher, vie- t h i s part of Sta l in ' sa r t i c l e as a tension-relaxing device, has pointed out that the Sw ie tpeople may have taken it too s e r i o u s l y and hence provided another con-trib utor y cause f or the vigilance campaign."h ost ile elements" existed' in the USSR indicated that the purge wouldA new height in Invective was reached on 8 February when an

Sta tes on the German rather than the Soviet side during World War 11.The article accused the United States arid &nerican eepionage of try-ing " to fac i l i ta te mil i ta ry ac t ions of the Hitleri te Army against the

pravda's admission thatde fin ite ly continue.

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. .., ' .I ' ' , . TOPSb E T 1.I \-Soviet Union." The vigilance theme remained the m o s t dominaat topicin broadcasts t o the Russian people, and while the US ana UK werec i ted as the chief external enemies, much emphasis was given t o in-ternal enemies as well. Two types of crimes were enphasized: pcMti-cal and economic. Sp eci fic accusa tions were made against the v g -e r h l class and petty P a r ty and government off ic ia ls . Most of themanagers charged with secu rity vi olat ions were in charge of comumergoods enterprises. The charges against Pvety of fi ci al s emphasizedmalfeasance in the selection of cadres.

Yet the world was never to learn j us t who had been marked forpurglng, i f Indeed the Soviet leaders themselves knew. Most of theactual cases c i ted were small ones; most of the crimes were petty.The biggest official impUcated was one S. M. Petrov, a Deputy Minis-ter of N.on-ferrous Metallurgy, who was sa ld t o have l o s t a number ofsecret documents through negligence and laxness.aeas seemed t o be waiting for the final word from Moscow. Y e t possi-bly in the scrauible t o predetermine the party line, hsclukyed cases,some of which had been aired before, were once more dragged into theown. This same pa tt er n seemed to be aired by the Moscow prapaegndamedia also. A l l the old stRnilnrd cases against the West were repro-duced, but few new ones were cks ted . This dearth of major cq lp r i t salso appeared t o enhance the theory that the i n i t i a l announcementhad been intended as a warning rather than a direct accusation.

The provincial

FURTHER INDICATIONS OF TEXSIONMeanwhile, another event had transpired which proved t o be ofmore than marginal iqterest.

the 8pprmChhg electio ns t o the local MOSCOW Soviets were publishedin the Moscow P r a d . Several members of the Council o f Ministerswere given no place on t h i s l i s t , which is actually a Whole Who f o rthe City of MOSCOW, ntmibering as It does'more than f i f teen hundredleaders.Among those not listed were I, A. Benediktov, Minister of A g r i -culture; U.Yu._Yusupov, Minister of Cotton Growing ; D. G. Zhimerin,Minister of Electric Power Stations; I. K. Sivolap, Minister o f FoodIndustry; I. A. B o a , Minister of Forest Economy; P, A. Zalrharov,Minister of Geology; Ye. I. Smirnov, M i n i s t e r of Health; N. S. Kazakov,Minister of Beavy Machine Building Industry; P. I. Parshin, Minister .of Machine and Instrument Industry; 19. V. Novikov, Minister of Mari-time Fleet; P. F. Lomako, M i n i s t e r of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy; I. Ye.

M i a i a t e r of S t a t e Farms; V. S. Abakumov, Minister of S t a t e Security; S. A.Stepanov, Minister of Agricultural Machine Building.

On 2'7 January the candidate l i s t s for-

-Voronov, Mipister of Paper and Wood Procesehg Industry; N. A. Skvortsov,

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The fate of these men was later t o be reflected in the Marchdecrees consol ida ting the Soviet Gcmernment, indicat ing t ha t a tleast some of the changes wrought by the decrees had been under ac-tive consideration during the period between the October Congressand Stalin's death. Another interesting: development was the nmlna-t i o n of S. D. Ignatiev by a group of Moscow workers of the MGB, Thiswas the f i r s t t i m e t h a t he had been publicly identifi ed with the E B ,hridently, nuw t ha t the doctors' plot had broken, the time was con-sidered ripe t o revea l Abakumov8s eplacement and explain why Igna-t i e v had been accorded hlgh honors a t the October Party Congress,where he had been msde a meniber of t he Party's Presidium.Also significant was the f a c t that the name of' A. A. Andreevappeared. He was l i s t e d as a Deputy Chairman of the Council ofUnisters.who had been left off the Party's Presidium, was s t i l l relatively

promirtent.censorea in the or ig in al announcement of the doctors' plot, failed -t o make an appearance on the l i s t , It had been rumored in Moscowthat he disappeared about six weeks before the announcement.nw's fa l l , however, had been presaged a t the October Party Congress,e r e he was not l i s t e d as a member of the Central Committee in sp i teof th e f a c t t ha t the Minister of Health in the IisFsR was named. Tixissuggested %hat the doctors' plot was nnder consultation a t that t i m e .

!Chis was th e f i r s t indication s i n ce October that Andreev,Smirnov, the M i n i s t e r of Health, who had been directly

Smir-

A further s lgnlf icant f ac t noted i n the l i s t s was the posit ionof P, 1. Pospelov, who was listed as deputy ed ito r of Pravda. He hadbeen removed on 19 January from h is position as Director of the Marx-Engels-Lenin I ns ti tu te and had fai le d fo r the f i r s t time in five y e a r st o give th e annual hnin anniversary address on 21 January, which wssdelivered by Mikhailov. This indicated that Pospelov was not com-ple te ly in disfavor, although he had definitely suffered a loss ofprestige.C o n g r e s s t ha t Pospelov had not been named t o one of the leading Partyorgans i n spite of the fac t tha t o ther psrty theore ticians , such a sM i t i n , Yud in , and Cheanokov, had been, In teres t in Pospelov's casewas heightened by the fac t that he had been reliably reported t o beJewish.

It was thought significant at:the t ime of th e OctoberI

The vigilance campaign tapered of ' f somewhat near the end ofFebruary, which was marked by very few significant events.less, there were ce r ta ln noteworthy events during the month.foreigners had interviews with S t a l i n -- on the 7th, the ArgentineLAmbsssador, and on the l7th, both the Indian Anbassador and a repre-

sentative of the Indian peace movement, Kitchlew, who had won a Stal lnprlze.cussed trade in pol it i cal terms. This was in keeping with' the remarks

Meverthe-Three

In h is interview with the Argentine Ambassador, S t a l l n as -

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* ' t ' TOP SECRET T I7Ii n h i s Economic Problems of Socialism, w h e r e he had indicated thatthe Soviet Union would sooner o r later move in to an offensive economicpolicy of competing with the West f o r markets In underdeveloped areas.This was i n contrast t o the defensive policy of the post-war periodwhich was directed primsrily a t the acquisition of cr it ic al ly neededgoods from Western countries.

Two other events suggested that a l l w a s not w e l l within theSoviet Union.gave evidence of the.tensIon that was in the Moscow air .a leading Strvlet of fi ci al who had re t i r ed from Soviet l i f e in 1when V. N. Merkulw replaced him as Minister of S t a t e Control.On 14 February the death of L. Z. Mekhlis once moreMekhlis was

IN t h i s retirement vas due t o ill h&al tDCentral Comt t t ee of the PSrty i n Octoberw i s was eLected t1952 and had appeared on the l i s t s of candidates t o the Moscow Sovietspublished on 27 January. He was a l so a Jew. Sovlet propaganda t reat-ment of his death strongly suggeeted that it was necessary t o taperthe anti-Semitic aspects of the internal security drive, lest thedeath of Mekhlis be taken as another example of m u r d e r perpetrated bya new group o f "doctor-wreckers."Although Mekhlis had been an important Soviet; of f ic ia l i n earl ieryears, h is death announcement was made in a form usually reserved f o ronly 'the very highest Swviet leaders; condolences were received fromthe va r i ous top Soviet organizations as well as Party and State leaders.

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Documents

Caesar 01 - The Doctor's Plot