Editing Doctors' plot (section)

==Media campaign==

Stalin ordered the news agency [[TASS]] and ''[[Pravda]]'', the official newspaper of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|CPSU]], to issue reports about the uncovering of a doctors' plot to assassinate top Soviet leaders, including Stalin himself.<ref name="brent288">[[#refBrentNaumov2003|Brent & Naumov 2003]], p. 288.</ref><ref name="gorlizki158">Gorlizki, Yoram and Oleg Khlevniuk, ''Cold Peace: Stalin and the Soviet Ruling Circle 1945–1953'', Sourcebooks, Inc., 2005 {{ISBN|978-0-19-530420-6}}, page 158.</ref> The possible goal of the campaign was to set the stage for show trials.<ref name="zuehlke99">Zuehlke, Jeffrey, ''Joseph Stalin'', Twenty-First Century Books, 2005, {{ISBN|978-0-8225-3421-1}}, pp. 99–101.</ref> Other sources say that the initiative came from Beria and Malenkov, who continued to use the plot for their own interests. Beria pushed the Politburo to decide to publicize the plot on 9 January 1953.<ref>[[#Zhukov2005|Zhukov 2005]], pp. 591–592.</ref> For him, it was especially important that the doctors' plot got more attention than the [[Mingrelian Affair]], which personally affected him.<ref>[[#CITEREFMedvedev2003|Medvedev 2003]], pp. 180, 199.</ref>

On 13 January 1953, nine eminent doctors in Moscow were accused of taking part in a vast plot to poison members of the top Soviet political and military leadership.<ref name="Encyclopaedia Judaica 1972 pp. 144–145"/> ''Pravda'' reported the accusations under the headline "Vicious Spies and Killers under the Mask of Academic Physicians":
<blockquote>
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 and A. S. Shcherbakov. 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.

The majority of the participants of the terrorist group - [[Miron Vovsi|Vovsi]] , B. Kogan, Feldman, Grinstein, Etinger and others - were bought by American intelligence. They were recruited by a branch-office of American intelligence – the international Jewish [[bourgeois nationalism|bourgeois-nationalist]] organization called "[[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee|Joint]]." The filthy face of this Zionist spy organization, covering up their vicious actions under the mask of charity, is now completely revealed…

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 (Vinogradov, M. Kogan, Egorov) 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."...

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.<ref name="Vicious Spies and Killers under the Mask of Academic Physicians">{{cite news|title= Подлые Шпионы и Убийцы под Маской Профессоров-Врачей|trans-title= Vicious Spies and Killers under the Mask of Academic Physicians|date= 13 January 1953 |work= Pravda|page=1}}</ref></blockquote>

Other individuals mentioned included:

* [[Solomon Mikhoels]] (actor-director of the [[Moscow State Jewish Theater]] and the head of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, assassinated in January 1948),<ref>{{cite news|url= http://www.mk.ru/editions/daily/article/2005/09/06/191944-kak-ubivali-mihoelsa.html|script-title= ru:Как убивали Mихоэлса|trans-title=How They Killed Mikhoels|work=[[Moskovsky Komsomolets]]|date=6 September 2005|access-date=15 May 2018}}</ref> who was called a "well-known Jewish bourgeois nationalist"
* Miron Vovsi ([[psychotherapy|therapist]], Stalin's personal physician and a cousin of Mikhoels)
* {{ill|Vladimir Nikitich Vinogradov|ru|Виноградов, Владимир Никитич}} (therapist), also a personal doctor to Stalin
* [[Mikhail Kogan]] (therapist)
* Boris Kogan (therapist)
* P. Yegorov (therapist)
* A. Feldman ([[otolaryngology|otolaryngologist]])
* [[Yakov Gilyarievich Etinger|Yakov Etinger]] (therapist)
* {{ill|Aleksandr Grinshtein|ru|Гринштейн, Александр Михайлович}} ([[neuropathology|neuropathologist]])
* G. Mayorov (therapist)<ref>[[#CITEREFMedvedev2003|Medvedev 2003]], p. 186.</ref>
*[https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%BA%D0%B5%D1%80,_%D0%9B%D0%B5%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B4_%D0%A5%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87 L. H. Kechker] [ru] (therapist, professor)

Although the majority of accused were not Jewish,<ref name=":2" /> six of the nine mentioned doctors were Jewish.<ref name=":0">{{cite journal |last1=Gordon |first1=Joseph |title=Soviet Union |journal=The American Jewish Year Book |date=1954 |volume=55 |pages=271–282 |jstor=23603630 }}</ref><ref name=":1">[[#Zhukov2005|Zhukov 2005]], p. 592.</ref>

The list of alleged victims included high-ranked officials [[Andrei Zhdanov]], [[Aleksandr Shcherbakov (20th-century politician)|Aleksandr Shcherbakov]], Army Marshals [[Aleksandr Vasilevsky]], [[Leonid Govorov]] and [[Ivan Konev]], General [[Sergei Shtemenko]], Admiral [[Gordey Levchenko]] and others.

''Pravda'' intended to publish a letter signed by many prominent Soviet Jews in response to the plot. Approximately 50 people read the letter and approximately 40 signed the letter. The letter aimed to distance the accused doctors from the Soviet Jewish public and reassert Jewish support for the Soviet government. Two versions of the letter were created, but it was never published. Either Stalin eventually decided not to publish it or it was still being worked on at the time of his death.<ref>[[#CITEREFMedvedev2003|Medvedev 2003]], pp. 204–209.</ref>