Simon Montefiore - Stalin

At about ten, the entire old Politburo, from Beria and Khrushchev to Molotov, Voroshilov and Mikoyan, headed to the Kremlin where they met at 10:40 a.m. in the Little Corner to agree on a plan. Stalin’s seat stood empty. They had restored themselves to power. For ten minutes, Dr. Kuperin, the new Kremlevka chief, and Professor Tkachev nervously presented the report quoted above to the confused, upset and pent-up magnates. Afterwards, no one spoke, which made Kuperin even more nervous. It was perhaps too early to discuss what would happen next.

Finally, Beria, who had already emerged as the most active leader, dismissed the doctors with this ominous order: “You’re responsible for Comrade Stalin’s life. Do you understand? You must do everything possible and impossible to save Comrade Stalin!” Kuperin flinched, then withdrew. Malenkov, with whom Beria seemed to be coordinating everything, read out a decree for twenty-four-hour vigils by the leaders in pairs. Then Beria and Malenkov sped back to Kuntsevo to watch over the patient. Molotov and Mikoyan were not asked to keep vigil: Beria ordered Mikoyan to stay in the Kremlin and run the country.

Back at Kuntsevo, when Malenkov was on vigil with Beria, they requested the doctor’s prognosis. Kuperin displayed a chart of the blood circulation: “You see the clotted blood vessel,” he lectured the Politburo as if to medical students. “It’s the size of a five-kopeck piece. Comrade Stalin would remain alive if the vessel had been cleared in time.”

“Who guarantees the life of Comrade Stalin?” Beria challenged the doctors to operate if they dared.

“No one dared,” said Lozgachev. Malenkov asked for the prognosis:

“Death is inevitable,” replied the doctors. But Malenkov did not want Stalin to die yet: there could be no interregnum.

At 8:30 p.m., the leaders, chaired now by Beria, met again for an hour at the Little Corner. Kuperin’s official report did not present Stalin’s condition as hopeless but the patient had deteriorated. His blood pressure was now 210 over 120, breathing and heartbeat irregular. Six to eight leeches were applied around his ears. Stalin received enemas of magnesium sulphate, and spoonfuls of sweet tea.

That evening, Lukomsky was joined by four more doctors including the eminent Professor Myasnikov: the Politburo knew the top doctors were all in prison.

At Kuntsevo, Dr. Myasnikov found “a short and fat” Stalin lying there “in a heap… His face was contorted… The diagnosis seemed clear—a haemorrhage in the left cerebral hemisphere resulting from hypertension and sclerosis.” The doctors kept their detailed log, taking notes every twenty minutes. The magnates sat blearily in armchairs, stretching their legs, standing by the bedside, watching the doctors. These endless nights gave them the chance to plan the transfer of power.

“Malenkov gave us to understand,” wrote Myasnikov, “he hoped that medical measures would succeed in prolonging the patient’s life ‘for a sufficient period.’ We all realized he had in mind the time necessary for the organization of the new government.”

There were no more official meetings in the Kremlin until 5 March. While Beria and Malenkov whispered about the distribution of offices, Khrushchev and Bulganin wondered how to prevent Beria grabbing control of the secret police. Beria’s plans had been laid long before, probably with Malenkov: since no Georgian could rule Russia again, Malenkov planned to head the government while remaining Secretary. Beria would seize his old fiefdom, the MGB/MVD.

Late at night, Mikoyan looked in on the dying man. Molotov was ill but he appeared from time to time, thinking of his Polina whom he hoped was alive in exile. He did not know she was being interrogated in the Lubianka. But that evening, on Beria’s orders, her interrogations abruptly stopped. The interrogations of the doctors continued, however. The factotum of the Doctors’ Plot, Ignatiev, was noticed nervously peering at the prone Stalin from the doorway. He was still terrified of him.

“Come in—don’t be shy!” said Lozgachev. The next morning Khrushchev popped home to sleep and told his family that Stalin was ill.

There were moments when Stalin seemed to regain consciousness: they were feeding him with soup from a teaspoon, when he pointed up at one of the mawkish photographs on the wall of a girl feeding a lamb and then “pointed at himself.” “He sort of smiled,” thought Khrushchev. The magnates smiled back. Molotov thought it was an example of Stalin’s self-deprecating wit. Beria fell to his knees and kissed Stalin’s hand fervently. Stalin closed his eyes, “never to open them again.” At 10:15 that morning, the doctors reported that Stalin had worsened.

“The bastards have killed Father,” Vasily lurched in again. Khrushchev put his arm round this tiny terrified man, guiding him into the next room.

Beria, who went home for some lunch, was open about his relief. “It will be better for him to die,” he told his family. “If he survives it will be as a vegetable.” Nina was still weeping about Stalin’s death: “You’re a funny one, Nina. His death has saved your life.” Nina visited Svetlana daily to comfort her.

Late on the 4th, Stalin started to deteriorate, his breathing becoming shorter and shallower, the Cheyne-Stokes breathing pattern of a patient losing strength. Beria and Malenkov checked up on their Second Eleven of doctors. That night, three surprised prisoners, tortured daily in the Doctors’ Plot, were led off for another session. But this time, their torturer was not interested in the Zionist conspiracy but politely asked their medical advice.

“My uncle is very sick,” said the interrogator, and is experiencing “this Cheyne-Stokes breathing. What do you think this means?”

“If you’re expecting to inherit from your uncle,” replied the professor, who had not lost his Jewish wit, “consider it’s in your pocket.” Another distinguished professor, Yakov Rapoport, was asked to name the specialists who should treat this “sick uncle.” Rapoport named Vinogradov and the other doctors under arrest. But the interrogator asked if Doctors Kuperin and Lukomsky were good too. He was shocked when Rapoport replied, “Only one of the four [doctors treating Stalin] is a competent physician but on a much lower level than the men in prison.” The interrogations continued but the investigators had lost interest. Sometimes they fell asleep during the sessions. The prisoners knew nothing.

At 11:30 p.m. Stalin retched. There were long pauses between ragged breaths. Kuperin told the assembled grandees, who watched in awed silence, that the situation was critical.

“Take all measures to save Comrade Stalin!” ordered the excited Beria. So the doctors continued to struggle to keep the dying Generalissimo alive. An artificial respirator was wheeled in and never used but it was accompanied by young technicians who stared “goggle-eyed” at the surreal things happening all around them.

On the 5th, Stalin suddenly paled and his breathing became shallower with longer intervals. The pulse was fast and faint. He started to wiggle his head. There were spasms in his left arm and leg. At midday, Stalin vomited blood. The latest research has uncovered a first draft of the doctors’ medical notes, which reveal that his stomach was haemorrhaging, a detail deleted from the final report. Perhaps it was cut because it might suggest poisoning. Warfarin might well have caused such bleeding, which does indeed look suspicious, but it may just have marked the collapse of a sick old body.

“Come quickly, Stalin’s had a setback!” Malenkov told Khrushchev. The magnates rushed back. Stalin’s pulse slowed. At 3:35 p.m., his breathing stopped for five seconds every two or three minutes. He was sinking fast. Beria, Khrushchev and Malenkov had received the Politburo’s permission to ensure that Stalin’s “documents and papers, both current and archival, are put in proper order.” Now, leaving the other two at the bedside, Beria sped into the Kremlin to begin the process of searching Stalin’s safe and files for incriminating documents. First there may have been a will: Lenin had left a testament and Stalin had talked of recording his thoughts. If so, Beria now destroyed it. The files were filled with denunciations and evidence against all the leaders. There would have been evidence of Beria’s dubious role in Baku during the Civil War and there would also have been the missing documents that revealed the bloody role of Malenkov and Khrushchev in the Great Terror, the Leningrad Case and the Doctors’ Plot. That afternoon, these three began the destruction of documents. This successfully protected the historical reputation of Khrushchev and Malenkov, even if Beria’s was already beyond repair. [311] Five telling letters were supposedly found under a sheet of newspaper in Stalin’s desk, Khrushchev told A. V. Snegov, who could only remember three of them to the historian Roy Medvedev. The first was Lenin’s letter of 1923 demanding that Stalin apologize for his rudeness to his wife, Krupskaya. The second was Bukharin’s last plea: “Koba, why do you need me to die?” The third was from Tito in 1950. It was said to read: “Stop sending assassins to murder me… If this doesn’t stop, I will send a man to Moscow and there’ll be no need to send any more.”