Article in "Pravda" about the "Doctor's Plot"

Translation copyright © 2000 by P.R. Wolfe and BINIE staff
Footnotes copyright © 1999 by Hugo S. Cunningham
first added 000815
last updated 000815
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Contents

Pervonachal'nyi tekst po-russki
(Original text in Russian)


«Pravda»

Tuesday, 13 January 1953. Page 1.

Vicious Spies and Killers under the Mask of Academic Physicians

Today the TASS news agency reported the arrest of a group of saboteur-doctors. This terrorist group, uncovered some time ago by organs of state security, had as their goal shortening the lives of leaders of the Soviet Union by means of medical sabotage.

Investigation established that participants in the terrorist group, exploiting their position as doctors and abusing the trust of their patients, deliberately and viciously undermined their patients' health by making incorrect diagnoses, and then killed them with bad and incorrect treatments. Covering themselves with the noble and merciful calling of physicians, men of science, these fiends and killers dishonored the holy banner of science. Having taken the path of monstrous crimes, they defiled the honor of scientists.

Among the victims of this band of inhuman beasts were Comrades A. A. Zhdanov p1 and A. S. Shcherbakov p2. The criminals confessed that, taking advantage of the illness of Comrade Zhdanov, they intentionally concealed a myocardial infarction, prescribed inadvisable treatments for this serious illness and thus killed Comrade Zhdanov. Killer doctors, by incorrect use of very powerful medicines and prescription of harmful regimens, shortened the life of Comrade Shcherbakov, leading to his death.

In the first place, the criminals tried to undermine the health of the Soviet military leadership cadres, to remove them from the power structure and thereby weaken the defense of the country.1 The arrest of the criminals disrupted these nefarious plans, preventing the accomplishment of their monstrous goals.

Whom did these monsters serve? Who directed the criminal, terrorist, and harmful activity of these vicious traitors to the Motherland? What goal did they want to achieve by the murders of leading figures of the Soviet government?

It has been determined that all participants of the terrorist group of doctors were in the service of foreign intelligence; having sold their bodies and souls, they appeared as hirelings, paid agents.

The majority of the participants of the terrorist group -- Vovsip3, B. Koganp4, Feldmanp5, Grinshteinp6, Etingerp7 and others -- were bought by American intelligence. They were recruited by an branch-office of American intelligence -- the international Jewish bourgeois-nationalist organization called "Joint"2. The filthy face of this Zionist spy organization, covering up their vicious actions under the mask of kindness, is now completely revealed.

Relying upon a group of corrupt Jewish bourgeois nationalists, the professional spies and terrorists of "Joint," through assignments from and under the direction of American intelligence, extended their subversive activity even into the territory of the Soviet Union. As the prisoner Vovsi revealed under investigation, he received directives "about the extermination of leadership cadres of the USSR," from the USA. These instructions were handed to him, in the name of the spying-terrorist "Joint" organization, through Dr. Shimeliovichp8 and the well-known Jewish bourgeois nationalist Mikhoelsp9.

Unmasking the gang of poisoner-doctors struck a blow against the international Jewish Zionist organization. Now all can see what sort of philanthropists and "friends of peace" hid beneath the sign-board of "Joint."

Other participants in the terrorist group (Vinogradovp10, M. Koganp11, Egorovp12) were discovered, as has been presently determined, to have been long-time agents of English intelligence, serving it for many years, carrying out its most criminal and sordid tasks. The bigwigs of the USA and their English junior partners know that to achieve domination over other nations by peaceful means is impossible. Feverishly preparing for a new world war, they energetically send spies inside the USSR and the people's democratic countries: they attempt to accomplish what the Hitlerites could not do -- to create in the USSR their own subversive "fifth column." It is enough to recall the undisguised and cynical appropriation by the American government of $100,000,000 for subversive terror and espionage activity in countries belonging to the socialist camp, not to mention that, for this purpose, hundreds of millions of dollars, both American and British, will be spent in secret.

The Soviet people should not for a minute forget about the need to heighten their vigilance in all ways possible, to be alert for all schemes of war-mongers and their agents, to constantly strengthen the Armed Forces and the intelligence organs of our government.

Comrade Stalin has repeatedly warned, that our successes have their dark side 3, that they cause among many of our workers a spirit of placidity and complacency. Such moods are far from being overcome. We still have many complacent people. It is exactly this absentmindedness of our people that becomes the fertile soil for this vile sabotage.

In the USSR, we are ruled indivisibly by socialist relations. In the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet people won a victory which is unprecedented in history. In a surprisingly short period of time, the difficult consequences of war have been liquidated. In all areas of economic and cultural construction, we have successes. From these facts, certain people have drawn the conclusion that now the dangers of wrecking, sabotage, and espionage have disappeared, that the bosses of the capitalist world will give up their attempts to conduct subversive activities against the USSR.

But only Right-Opportunists can think and judge this way, people standing for an anti-Marxist view of the "fading" of the class struggle. They do not or cannot understand that these successes lead not to the exhaustion, but to the sharpening of the struggle, that the more successful is our forward progress, the more fierce will be the struggle of the enemies of the people, doomed to destruction, brought to despair.

So the immortal Lenin teaches, so does Comrade Stalin teach.

"In our revolution," Lenin points out, "more than in any other, the law was proven that the strength of the revolution, the strength of its pressure, energy, determination, and celebration of its victory will increase, along with this, the strength of opposition from the bourgeoisie."

Unmasking the opportunistic theory of the "fading" class struggle due to the degree of our success, Comrade Stalin warned:

This is not merely a rotten theory, but also a dangerous theory, because it lulls our people to sleep, leads them into a trap, while it gives the class enemy a chance to recover for war against the Soviet power."4

In the USSR the exploiting classes were broken up and liquidated a long time ago, but still there remain vestiges of bourgeois ideology, vestiges of the morals and psychology of private ownership; there remain holders of bourgeois opinions and bourgeois morals, living people, secret enemies of our people. Exactly these hidden enemies, being supported by the imperialistic world, will be harmful in the future.

All this obliges the Soviet people in every possible way to strengthen their revolutionary vigilance: to keep a sharp eye out for enemy plots. Just this fact that a group of filthy degenerates from the "men of science" were, over the course of some time, able to work with impunity, reveals how some of our Soviet organs and leaders lost their vigilance, having been infected with carelessness.

The organs of state security did not reveal soon enough the saboteur and terrorist organization among the doctors. In this, these organs should have been especially watchful, since history already knows examples5 when, under the mask of doctors, vicious killers and traitors to the Motherland were active, such as "Doctors" Levinp13 and Pletnevp14, who on assignment of enemies of the Soviet Union killed the great Russian author A. M. Gorkip15 by means of deliberately erroneous treatments, as well as important figures of the Soviet government such as V. V. Kuibyshev p16 and V. R. Menzhinskyp17.

Nor did the leaders of the Ministry of Public Health turn out to be up to the task. They overlooked terrorist wrecking activity of the vile degenerates, who had sold out to the enemies of the Soviet Union.

Exposing the gang of poisoner-doctors struck a shattering blow to the Anglo-American war mongers. Their agents were captured and neutralized. Again the true face of the slaveholding cannibals of the USA and England appears before the whole world.

The Soviet people with anger and indignation denounce the criminal band of killers and their foreign bosses. As for the despicable hirelings, serving for dollars and sterling, the people crush them, as loathsome reptiles. As for the instigators of these murderous mercenaries, this they can be sure of: that retribution will not forget about them and will find out the devious road that leads to them, in order to speak its weighty word.

All this is true, of course. But it is also true that, apart from these enemies, we still have another enemy: the lack of vigilance of our people. One may not doubt that, as long as we are absent-minded, there will be sabotage. Consequently, in order to liquidate sabotage, it is necessary to purge lack of vigilance from our ranks.

Footnotes


View
20 Jan 1953 decree awarding the Order of Lenin to Dr. L.F. Timashuk

Announcement in "Pravda," 4 April 1953 (after Comrade Stalin's death), that the "Doctor's Plot" case has been dismissed.
vrach-ub-cancel.html"
A return of sanity? Or were the traitors Khrushchov and Beriya covering their tracks?


A progressive cartoon from Germany about killer-doctors.


Sovlit.com's summary of Ilya Ehrenburg's novel The Thaw (1956), which refers to the Doctor's Plot:
http://www.sovlit.com/thaw/


Cyber-USSR page.