Stalin's last crime : the plot against the Jewish doctors, 1948-1953 / Jonathan Brent and Vladimir P. Naumov.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brent, Jonathan.

Contributor:

Naumov, V. P. (Vladimir Pavlovich)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jews--Soviet Union.

Jews.

Jewish physicians.

Soviet Union.

Jews--Persecutions--Soviet Union.

Jews--Persecutions.

Jewish physicians--Soviet Union.

Stalin, Joseph, 1878-1953.

Stalin, Joseph.

Soviet Union--History--1925-1953.

History.

Physical Description:

xi, 399 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : HarperCollins, 2003.

Summary:

On January 13, 1953, a stunned world learned that a vast conspiracy had been unmasked among Jewish doctors in the USSR to murder Kremlin leaders. Mass arrests quickly followed. The Doctors' Plot, as this alleged scheme came to be called, was Stalin's last crime. In the fifty years since Stalin's death many myths have grown up about the Doctors' Plot. Did Stalin himself invent the conspiracy against the Jewish doctors or was it engineered by subordinates who wished to eliminate Kremlin rivals? Did Stalin intend a purge of all Jews from Moscow, Leningrad, and other major cities, which might lead to a Soviet Holocaust? How was this plot related to the cold war then dividing Europe, and the hot war in Korea? Finally, was the Doctors' Plot connected with Stalin's fortuitous death? Brent and Naumov have explored an astounding array of previously unknown, top-secret documents from the KGB, the presidential archives, and other state and party archives in order to probe the mechanism of one of Stalin's greatest intrigues -- and to tell for the first time the incredible full story of the Doctors' Plot.

Contents:

Introduction: The Inverted World 1

1. The Untimely Death of Comrade Zhdanov: Moscow, September 6, 1948 11

2. Stalin's Silence: Valdai, August 1948 54

3. The Pygmy and the Terrorist: Lubyanka-Lefortovo, November 1950-March 1951 93

4. The Grand Plan: "Nothing" Comes from Nothing: Lubyanka, July 1951-August 1951 136

5. Recognizing the Enemy: Lubyanka, August 1951-November 1951 171

6. Waiters in White Gloves: Lubyanka, November 1951-November 1952 190

7. An Intelligence Phantasmagoria: The Plan of the Internal Blow, 1951-1953 235

8. Spies and Murderers Under the Mask of Doctors: November 1952-December 1952 249

9. The Great Storm: January-February 1953 283

10. The End: Stalin's Blizhnyaya Dacha, March 1-5, 1953 312

Conclusion: The Conspiratorial Mind 330.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [383]-386) and index.

ISBN:

006019524X

OCLC:

51306235