(4 of 5)
"Let us also recall the affair of the doctor-plotters. Actually there was no affair outside the declaration of the woman doctor Timashuk, who was probably influenced or ordered by someone—after all, she was an unofficial collaborator of the organs of state security—to write Stalin a letter in which she declared that doctors were applying supposedly improper methods of medical treatment. Such a letter was sufficient for Stalin to reach an immediate conclusion that there are doctor plotters in the Soviet Union. He issued orders to arrest a group of eminent Soviet medical specialists. He personally issued advice on the conduct of the investigation. He said that the academician Vinogradov should be put in chains; another one should be beaten. Present at this Congress as a delegate is the former Minister of State Security Ignatiev. Stalin told him curtly, 'If you do not obtain confessions from the doctors, we will shorten you by a head.' Stalin personally called the investigative judge, gave him instructions, advised him on which investigative methods should be used; these methods were simple—beat, beat, and again beat. Shortly after the doctors were arrested, we members of the Politburo received protocols with the doctors' confessions of guilt. After distributing the protocols, Stalin told us, 'You are blind like young kittens; what will happen without me? The country will perish because you do not know how to recognize enemies.' "
LET VOROSHILOV SPEAK UP
Stalin commissioned and improved upon films, books and pictures glorifying himself. "Stalin loved to see the film The Unforgettable Year of 1919, in which he was shown on the steps of an armored train and where he was practically vanquishing the foe with his own saber. Let Kliment Voroshilov, our dear friend, find the necessary courage and write the truth about Stalin; after all, he knows how Stalin had fought."
"Because of his extreme suspicion, Stalin toyed also with the absurd and ridiculous suspicion that Voroshilov was an English agent [Laughter"). A special tapping device was installed in his home to listen to what was said there."
WHERE TO NEXT?
"Some comrades may ask us: Where were the members of the Politburo? Why did they not assert themselves? In the situation which then prevailed, I often talked with Nikolai Bulganin; once when we two were traveling in a car, he said: 'It has happened sometimes that a man goes to Stalin on his invitation as a friend. And when he sits with Stalin, he does not know where he will be sent next, home or to jail.' "
STALIN'S LAST DAYS
"It is not excluded that had Stalin remained at the helm for another several months, Comrades Molotov and Mikoyan would probably have not delivered any speeches at this Congress. Stalin evidently had plans to finish off the old members of the Politburo. "Comrades! In order not to repeat errors of the past, the Central Committee has declared itself resolutely against the cult of the individual . . . We cannot let this matter get out of the party, especially not to the press. We should not give ammunition to the enemy; we should not wash our dirty linen before their eyes."
STALIN, THE WAR HERO