Stalin's Paranoia and Death

アバクモフ逮捕、「シオニスト」の弾圧激化

Riumin, thirty-eight, plump and balding, stupid and vicious, was the latest in the succession of ambitious torturers… He had his own problems. Dismissed for misappropriating money in 1937 – and now in danger in killing the elderly Jewish doctor, the Midget decided to act… [H]e lit the fuse of the Doctors’ Plot.
On 2 July 1951, Riumin wrote to Stalin and accused Abakumov of deliberately killing Etinger to conceal a Jewish medical conspiracy to murder leaders such as the late [Alexander] Shcherbakov. This brought together Stalin’s fears of ageing, doctors and Jews… The Doctors’ Plot worked against Beria and the old guard like Molotov but this swelling case could threaten Malenkov and Khrushchev too. So often at Stalin’s court, a case would start coincidentally, be encouraged by some magnate and then be spun back at them by Stalin like a bloody boomerang… Riumin’s allegation of medical murder may have been prompted by Stalin himself – or it may have been the spark that inspired him to reach back to Zhdanov’s death and create a maze of conspiracies to provoke a Terror that would unite the country against America outside and its Jewish allies within.
He now ordered Beria and Malenkov to examine the ‘Bad Situation at the MGB’, accusing Abakumov of corruption, ineptitude and debauchery. Around midnight 5 July in the Little Corner, Stalin agreed to Malenkov’s suggestion to appoint Semyon Ignatiev… as the new boss. At 1 a.m., Abakumov was called in to hear of his downfall. Riumin [was promoted] to General and, later, Deputy Minister… Henceforth Stalin himself ran the Doctors’ Plot through Ignatiev. Stalin sent Malenkov to tell the MGB that he wanted to find a ‘grand intelligence network of the USA’ linked to ‘Zionists’.
The next day, 12 July, Abakumov was arrested. In the tradition of fallen secret policemen, his corruption was lovingly recorded: 3,000 metres of expensive cloth, clothes, sets of china, crystal vases… Abakumov’s young wife, Antonina Smirnova, with whom he had a two-month son, had received 70,000 roubles-worth of presents… So she was arrested: the destiny of the girl and the baby are unknown.
Abakumov, no longer a Minister but just a number, Object 15, spent three months shackled in the refrigerator cell, being viciously interrogate by his nemesis, the Midget.
Abakumov had been destroyed for failing to push the Jewish Case. Ignatiev and… Riumin set about torturing the Jewish officials of the JAFC and the doctors to ‘substantiate the evidence of espionage and nationalistic activity’. (pp. 543-544)

老いと猜疑、後継者潰し

Riven by arthritis, diminished by raging arteriosclerosis, dazed by fainting spells, embarrassed by failing memory, tormented by sore gums and false teeth, unpredictable, paranoid and angry, Stalin left on 10 August for his last and longest holiday.
But dizzy spells were not going to stop him cleansing his entourage:
‘I, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov – we’re all old… we must fill… the Politburo with younger… cadres,’ he ominously told Mgeladze… ‘I don’t even trust myself.’
At dinner, he… embarked on that favourite but lethal subject – his successor. It could not be Beria because he ‘wasn’t Russian’, nor Kaganovich, a Jew. Voroshilov was too old. He did not even mention Mikoyan (an Armenian) or Molotov. It could not be Khrushchev because he was a ‘country boy’ and Russia needed a leader from the intelligentsia. Then he named Bulganin… as his successor as Premier….
Svetlana’s marriage to Yury [Zhdanov] was over after just two years….
[Stalin] did not hold it against Yury but invited him to stay at Lake Ritsa… When they naturally talked about the campaign against cosmopolitanism, Zhdanov, who had played his own role in hunting out Jewish scientists, asked Stalin if he thought it was ‘assuming a lopsided national character’, meaning it was aimed too much against the Jews.
‘Cosmopolitanism’s a widespread phenomenon,’ replied Stalin… he cited a Jewess he admired: ‘Maria Kaganovich – there’s a real Bolshevik!...’ In the morning… Yury watched Stalin peruse Pravda. ‘What are they writing about?’ he snarled, reading out, ‘Long live Comrade Stalin, leader of the nations!’ – and he tossed it away in disgust.
He furiously summoned the Georgian MGB boss… [N.M.] Rukhadze. ‘The Mingrelians are totally unreliable,’ said Stalin… Thousands of Mingrelians were arrested but Stalin wanted to destroy Beria….
The Beria family, Nina and Sergo, sensed this tightening garrotte. Stalin appointed Beria to give the prestigious 6 November address but three days afterwards, he dictated an order about a Mingrelian conspiracy that directly threatened Beria, using his wife Nina’s links to the Menshevik émigré in Paris.
Vasily Stalin naively confided to Sergo Beria that relations between their fathers were ‘tense’… Svetlana, who was close to Nina, warned her that something was afoot. Beria’s marriage to Nina was under strain because Lilya Drozhdova (who was about seventeen) had given birth to a daughter by Beria… [Nina] unhappily decided she needed a separate life and built herself a cottage in Sukhumi.
… The torture chambers of Ignatiev and Riumin groaned with new Jewish and Mingrelian victims to destroy Molotov and Beria….
In March 1952, Beria sacked Charkviani, replaced him with Mgeladze and publicly admitted:
‘I too am guilty.’
That spring, Stalin was examined by his veteran doctor, Vinogradov, who was shocked by his deterioration… This exacerbated Stalin’s anger, amnesia and paranoia… Stalin… ordered his medical records destroyed and resolved to see more doctors. Vinogradov was an Enemy.
On 15 February, Stalin ordered the arrests of more doctors who admitted helping killing Shcherbakov, which in turn led to Dr Lydia Timashuk, the cardiologist who had written to Stalin about the mistreatment of Zhdanov. Stalin called in Ignatiev and told him, if he did not accelerate the interrogation of the Jewish doctors already under arrest, he would join Abakumov in prison….
… at midday on 8 May, the ‘trial of the Jewish poets’ starring Solomon Lozovsky, former Deputy Foreign Minister, and the Yiddish poet Perets Markish opened in the Dzerzhinsky Officers’ Club at the Lubianka. Stalin had already specified that virtually all the defendants were to be shot.
[Lozovsky’s] speech shines out of this primordial darkness as the most remarkable and moving oration of dignity and courage in all of Stalin’s trials. He also shredded Riumin’s imbecile Jewish-Crimean conspiracy.
… on 18 July, [the judge, Lieut.-Gen. Alexander] Cheptsov sentenced thirteen defendants to death (including two women), sparing only the scientist Lina Shtern, perhaps because of her research into longevity. But Cheptsov did not carry out the executions, ignoring Riumin’s shrill orders to do so, and appealed to Malenkov.
… Stalin rejected official appeals. Lozovsky and the Jewish poets were shot on 12 August 1952. (pp. 545-551)

「ドクダーズ・プロット」

By September, Ignatiev, assisted by… Riumin, had tortured the evidence out of his prisoners to ‘prove’ that the Kremlin doctors, led by Stalin’s own physician, had indeed murdered Zhdanov, Shcherbakov, [the Bulgarian leader, Georgi] Dmitrov and [Mongolian Marshal] Choibalsang. A new crop was arrested but not yet Vinogradov….
[In the Doctors’ Plot, Stalin] weaved a tapestry that sewed together every intrigue and leading victims since the war, in order to mobilize the Soviet people against the external enemy, America, and its internal agents, the Jews, and therefore justify a new Terror… Just as in 1937 a man did not have to be a Trotskyite to be shot as one, so now the victims did not have to be Jewish to be accused of ‘Zionism’: Abakumov, no philo-Semite, was now smeared with Zionism…. (p. 552)

モロトフ、ミコヤンを政治局から排除

[At the Plenum on 16 October 1952,] ‘So we held the Party Congress [on the 5th],’ [Stalin] said. ‘It was fine and it would seem to most people that we enjoy unity. However, we don’t have unity…’ ‘If we talk about unity, I cannot but touch on the incorrect behaviour of some honoured politicians. I mean Comrades Molotov and Mikoyan.’
First he dealt with Molotov:
‘Molotov’s loyal to our cause…’ ‘Comrade Molotov, our Foreign Minister, drunk on chartreuse at a diplomatic reception, let the British Ambassador publish bourgeois newspapers in our country… This is the first political mistake. And what’s the value of Comrade Molotov’s proposal to give the Crimea to the Jews? That’s a huge mistake… the second political mistake of Comrade Molotov.’ The third was Polina: ‘Comrade Molotov respects his wife so much that as soon as we adopt a Politburo decision… it instantly becomes known to Comrade Zhemchuzhina… A hidden thread connects the Politburo with Molotov’s wife – and her friends… who are untrustworthy. Such behaviour isn’t acceptable for a Politburo member.’ Then he attacked Mikoyan for opposing higher taxes on the peasantry: ‘Who dare he think he is, our Anastas Mikoyan? What’s unclear to him?’
Then he pulled a piece of paper out of his tunic, and read out the thirty-six members of the new Presidium, including many names… When he proposed the inner Bureau, everyone was astonished that Molotov and Mikoyan were excluded… [Stalin] explained their downfall: ‘They’re scared by the overwhelming power they saw in America.’ He ominously linked Molotov and Mikoyan to the Rightists, Rykov and Frumkin, shot long before, and Lozovsky, just shot in August.
Molotov stood up and confessed….
Mikoyan fought back defiantly….
Then a voice called out:
‘We must elect Comrade Stalin General Secretary!’
‘No,’ replied Stalin. ‘Excuse me from the posts of General Secretary and Chairman of the Council of Ministers [Premier].’ Malenkov stood up and ran forward….
‘Comrades! We must all unanimously demand that Comrade Stalin, our leader and teacher, remain as General Secretary!’… Malenkov’s jowls relaxed as if he had ‘escaped direct, real mortal danger’. But he was not safe yet.
Stalin’s decision to destroy his oldest comrades was not an act of madness but the rational destruction of his most likely successors. As Stalin remembered well, the ailing Lenin had attacked his likely successor (Stalin himself) and proposed an expanded Central Committee with none of the leaders as members…. (pp. 555-557)

医師ヴィノグラドフも逮捕

… Stalin was now supervising the climax of his Doctors’ Plot, burning with fury against Professor Vinogradov for recommending his retirement….
On 4 November, Vinogradov was arrested…. (p. 557)

Stalin was infuriated by Riumin’s slowness in beating the evidence out of the doctors… He shouted at Ignatiev: ‘Beat them!... If you want to be Chekists, take off your gloves.’…
On 13 November… he ordered the petrified Ignatiev to sack Riumin: ‘Remove the Midget!’ As for the doctors, ‘Beat them until they confess! Beat, beat, beat again. Put them in chains, grind them into powder!’…
[Vinogradov] tried to name dead people whom his testimony could no longer harm. Stalin then lashed out at Ignatiev himself for his backsliding. Ignatiev suffered a heart attack…. (p. 558)

Now Stalin turned on his dogged retainer, Vlasik… Vlasik had been on drinking terms with the homicidal doctors but he also knew too much, particularly that Stalin had been informed of Zhdanov’s mistreatment and done nothing about it. Vlasik had probably only ignored Timashuk’s letters on Stalin’s lead. But now he was arrested, brought to Moscow and accused of concealing the evidence with Abakumov… … his arrest was a cunning move because Vlasik’s ‘treason’ helped cover Stalin’s own role. All his mistresses and drinking cronies were arrested and questioned by Malenkov. Vlasik was tortured… But Stalin also learned that Poskrebyshev had shared Vlasik’s orgies….
Stalin sacked Poskrebyshev… He had removed his two most loyal servants. Stalin now had enough evidence to escalate the hysteria.
… ‘What will happen without me is that the country will die because you can’t recognize your enemies.’ Stalin explained to the ‘blind kittens’ that ‘every Jew’s a nationalist and an agent of American intelligence’ who believes ‘the USA saved their people’…. (pp. 558-559)

側近らの恐怖

Molotov and Mikoyan, realizing their lives were in danger, met in the Kremlin to decide what to do. Mikoyan had always trusted Molotov not to repeat his comments… Both were hurt, and angry.
[Stalin’s] unpredictable fury, frantic hastiness and implacable paranoia ironically drove the magnates closer together. Beria and Khrushchev were against Stalin’s charges. Malenkov comforted Beria who comforted Mikoyan; Khrushchev and Beria comforted Molotov.
December 21 was officially Stalin’s seventy-third birthday….
So at 10 p.m. on the 21st, [the magnates] arrived at Kuntsevo….
… Stalin was ‘angry and indignant’ that the Four had invited Molotov and Mikoyan.
‘You think I don’t realize you let Molotov and Mikoyan know? Stop this! I won’t tolerate it,’ he warned Khrushchev and Beria… This really alarmed Mikoyan:
‘It was becoming clear… Stalin wanted to finish with us and that meant not only political, but physical destruction.’
… Stalin sometimes asked the Four: ‘Are you forming a bloc against me?’ In a sense they were, but none of them, not even Beria, had the will. Mikoyan discussed, probably with Molotov, the murder of Stalin but, as he later told [Albania’s] Enver Hoxha, ‘We gave up the idea because we were afraid the people and the Party would not understand.’ (pp. 560-561)

On 13 January 1953, after two, maybe even five, years’ patient plotting, Stalin unleashed a wave of hysterical anti-Semitism by announcing the arrest of the doctors in Pravda… On 20 January, Doctor Timashuk… was called to the Kremlin where Malenkov gave her Stalin’s personal thanks for her ‘great courage’ and the next day, she received the Order of Lenin… Meanwhile throughout January and February, the arrests intensified.
The [Pravda] article revealed the lack of vigilance in the security services, a signal that Beria himself was a target. Not only Beria’s allies arrested in Georgia; his protégés in Moscow, such as the Chief of Staff, Shtemenko, were sacked. His ex-mistress V. Mataradze was also arrested… Beria ‘expressed his disrespect for Stalin more and more boldly’, noted Khrushchev, ‘insultingly’. He even boasted to Kaganovich that ‘Stalin doesn’t realize if he tried to arrest me the Chekists would organize an insurrection.’ (pp. 561-562)

Stalin closely read the testimonies of the tortured doctors, sent daily by Ignatiev. He ordered the likely star in his Jewish Case, Object 12 (otherwise known as Polina Molotova), brought back to Moscow and interrogated. (p. 563)

スターリンの最期

[A]t 8 p.m. on 17 February, Stalin visited the Little Corner for the last time to receive the Indian diplomat K.P.S. Menom. At 10.30 0.m. Stalin left with Beria, Malenkov and Bulganin, probably for dinner at Kuntsevo.
At 8 p.m. on 27 February, Stalin arrived alone at the Bolshoi to watch Swan Lake. As he left, he asked his ‘attachment’, Colonel Kirillin, to thank the cast for him, speeding to Kuntsevo where he worked until about 3 a.m. He rose late, read the latest interrogations of the Jewish doctors and the reports from Korea….
… [I]n the evening, he was driven into the Kremlin where he met his perennial companions, Beria, Khrushchev, Malenkov and Bulganin, in the cinema. Voroshilov joined them for the movie, noting Stalin was ‘sprightly and cheerful’….
At 11 p.m., Stalin and the Four drove out to the dacha for dinner…. (pp. 563-565)

At midday that Sunday morning, the guards waited for the Boss to get up… But there was ‘no movement’ all afternoon. The guards became anxious. Finally, at 6 p.m. Stalin switched on the light in the small dining room. He was obviously up at last. ‘Thank God, we thought,’ said [Deputy Commandant, Peter] Lozgachev, ‘everything’s all right.’ He would call for them soon. But he did not.
… They were not the only ones waiting: Khrushchev and the others expected the call to dinner. But the call did not come. (p. 565)