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Doctors' plot
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==Alleged planned deportation of Jews== Soviet historian {{interlanguage link|Samson Madievsky|ru|Мадиевский, Самсон Абрамович}} has advanced a view, based on various memoirs and secondary evidence, that the doctors' plot case was intended to trigger the mass repression and deportation of the Jews to the [[Jewish Autonomous Oblast]], similar to the [[Population transfer in the Soviet Union|deportations of many other ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union]], but the plan was not accomplished because of the sudden death of Stalin.<ref>Samson Madiyevsky,[https://lechaim.ru/ARHIV/105/madie.htm "1953 год: ПредстоЯла ли советским евреЯм депортациЯ?"]</ref> According to [[Louis Rapoport]], the alleged deportation was planned to start with the public execution of the imprisoned doctors, and then the "following incidents would follow": "attacks on Jews orchestrated by the secret police, the publication of the statement by the prominent Jews, and a flood of other letters demanding that action be taken. A three-stage program of genocide would be followed. First, almost all Soviet Jews ... would be shipped to camps east of the Urals ... Second, the authorities would set Jewish leaders at all levels against one another ... Also the MGB [Secret Police] would start killing the elites in the camps, just as they had killed the Yiddish writers ... the previous year. The ... final stage would be to 'get rid of the rest.'"<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Soviet "Doctors' Plot"—50 years on|author= A Mark Clarfield|journal=[[The BMJ|British Medical Journal]]|year=2002|volume=325|issue=7378|pages=1487–1489|pmid=12493677|pmc=139050|doi= 10.1136/bmj.325.7378.1487}}</ref> Four large camps were built in southern and western Siberia shortly before Stalin's death in 1953, and there were rumors that they were for Jews.<ref name="brent295">[[#refBrentNaumov2003|Brent & Naumov 2003]], p. 295.</ref> A special "Deportation Commission" to plan the deportation of Jews to these camps was allegedly created.<ref name="brackman388">{{Harvnb|Brackman|2001|p=388}}</ref><ref name="brent47">[[#refBrentNaumov2003|Brent & Naumov 2003]], pp. 47–48, 295.</ref><ref name="eisenstadt">Eisenstadt, Yaakov, ''Stalin's Planned Genocide'', 22 Adar 5762, 6 March 2002.</ref> Nikolay Poliakov, the presumed secretary of the "Commission", stated years later that, according to Stalin's initial plan, the deportation was to begin in the middle of February 1953, but the monumental tasks of compiling lists of Jews had not yet been completed.<ref name="brackman388"/><ref name=eisenstadt/> "Pure blooded" Jews were to be deported first, followed by "[[Half-Jewish|half-breeds]]" (''polukrovki'').<ref name="brackman388"/> Before his death in March 1953, Stalin allegedly had planned the execution of doctors' plot defendants already on trial in [[Red Square]] in March 1953, and then he would cast himself as the savior of Soviet Jews by sending them to camps away from the purportedly enraged Russian populace.<ref name="brackman388"/><ref name="brent298">[[#refBrentNaumov2003|Brent & Naumov 2003]], pp. 298–300.</ref><ref>Solzhenitzin, Alexander, ''The Gulag Archipelago'', 1973.</ref> There are further statements that describe some aspects of such a planned deportation.<ref name=eisenstadt/> Historian [[Yakov Yakovlevich Etinger|Yakov Etinger]] described how former [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|CPSU Politburo]] member [[Nikolai Bulganin]] said that Stalin asked him in the end of February 1953 to prepare railroad cars for the mass deportation of Jews to the [[Jewish Autonomous Oblast]].<ref name="Etinger">[https://www.sakharov-center.ru/asfcd/auth/?t=page&num=9997 Y. Y. Etinger, "This is impossible to forget: Memoirs" (Russian)] – Этингер Я. Я. Это невозожно забыть : Воспоминания / ред. О. А. Зимарин. – М. : Весь мир, 2001. – 272 с, pp. 104–106.</ref> According to a book by another Soviet Politburo member [[Alexander Yakovlev (Russian politician)|Alexander Yakovlev]],<ref>Александр Яковлев, ''По мощам и елей'' (Russian), {{ISBN|978-5-88268-015-1}}, 1995, [https://www.livelib.ru/book/1001223657/about-po-moscham-i-elej-aleksandr-yakovlev link]</ref><ref name="Etinger"/> Stalin started preparations for the deportation of Jews in February 1953 and ordered preparation of a letter from a group of notable Soviet Jews with a request to the Soviet government to carry out the mass deportation of Jews in order to save them from "the just wrath of Soviet people." The letter had to be published in the newspaper ''[[Pravda]]'' and was found later.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.vestnik.com/issues/2000/0314/koi/erenburg.htm|title=ПИСЬМО И.Г.ЭРЕНБУРГА К И.В.СТАЛИНУ [KOI-8]|work=vestnik.com|date=14 March 2000|access-date=15 May 2018|archive-date=1 May 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180501115300/http://www.vestnik.com/issues/2000/0314/koi/erenburg.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>[https://berkovich-zametki.com/Nomer38/Chmelnicky1.htm Дмитрий ХМЕЛЬНИЦКИЙ. Письмо Эренбурга Сталину], ''Заметки по еврейской истории'' no.38, 27 January 2004</ref> According to historian Samson Madiyevsky, the deportation was definitely considered, and the only thing in question is the time-frame.<ref>{{cite journal|title=1953: la déportation des juifs soviétiques était-elle programmée|author=Madievski, Samson|journal=Cahiers du Monde Russe|volume=41|issue=4|year=2000|pages=561–568|doi=10.4000/monderusse.59|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Brandenberger |first1=David |title=Stalin's Last Crime? Recent Scholarship on Postwar Soviet Antisemitism and the Doctor's Plot |journal=Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History |date=December 2005 |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=187–204 |id={{Project MUSE|179628}} |doi=10.1353/kri.2005.0001 }}</ref> However, Russian historian [[Zhores Medvedev]] argued against these allegations, saying that no documents were found in support of the deportation plan.<ref>[[#CITEREFMedvedev2003|Medvedev 2003]], pp. 238–239</ref> In addition, while historian [[Joshua Rubenstein]] argues it would not have been so unusual for an idea like this to not show up in documentation, he argues that the evidence is still weak and many of it has better, more plausible explanations. For example, he argues that many Russian leaders at the time may have propped up stories like this to increase their reputations by claiming they convinced Stalin to relent.<ref> {{cite book |last=Rubenstein |first=Joshua |date=1976 |title=The Last Days of Stalin |publisher=Yale Publishing House |page=56-96|isbn= 9780300228847}} </ref>
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