Editing Doctors' plot (section)

==Khrushchev's statements==
In his 1956 "[[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences|Secret Speech]]", First Secretary [[Nikita Khrushchev]] stated that the doctors' plot was "fabricated... set up by Stalin," but that Stalin did not "have the time in which to bring it to an end," which saved the doctors' lives.<ref name=secretspeech/> Khrushchev also told the session that Stalin called the judge in the case and, regarding the methods to be used, stated "beat, beat, and beat again."<ref name=secretspeech>Kruschev, Nikita, [https://web.archive.org/web/20051107221432/http://www.uwm.edu/Course/448-343/index12.html ''SPECIAL REPORT TO THE 20TH CONGRESS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION''], Closed session, 24–25 February 1956.</ref> Stalin supposedly told his Minister of State Security, "If you do not obtain confessions from the doctors we will shorten you by a head."<ref name=secretspeech/>

Khrushchev also claimed that Stalin hinted to him to incite antisemitism in Ukraine, saying, "The good workers at the factory should be given clubs so they can beat the hell out of those Jews."<ref>Pinkus, Benjamin, ''The Soviet Government and the Jews 1948–1967: A Documented Study'', Cambridge University Press, 1984, {{ISBN|978-0-521-24713-9}}, pp. 107–8.</ref>{{sfn|Brackman|2001|p=390}} 

According to Khrushchev, Stalin told Politburo members, "You are blind like young kittens. What will happen without me? The country will perish because you do not know how to recognize enemies."<ref name=secretspeech/>

Khrushchev asserted that Stalin intended to use the doctors' trial to launch a massive purge of the Communist Party.<ref name="The Doctors' Plot"/>