Mikhail Dmitrievich Ryumin

The decisive moment in Ryumin's rise within the security apparatus was his interrogation of Professor Yakov Etinger, an elderly Jewish cardiologist, beginning in late 1950. Etinger had been arrested for making remarks privately critical of the regime and had treated two high-ranking officials (Andrei Zhdanov and Alexander Shcherbakov) before their deaths from heart disease. Ryumin sought to force a confession that Etinger had murdered them both. Between November 1950 and January 1951, thirty-seven interrogations were conducted. The MGB minister Viktor Abakumov, acting on medical advice, ordered Ryumin to ease the pressure on the elderly prisoner. Ryumin ignored the order and carried out thirty-nine additional interrogations accompanied by sleep deprivation and beatings; Etinger died in custody on 2 March 1951.

Facing reprimand and fearing worse, Ryumin wrote to Stalin on 2 July 1951 accusing Abakumov of covering up a conspiracy by Jewish terrorists. The letter was reportedly largely drafted for him by Dmitri Sukhanov, an official in Georgi Malenkov's private office. Stalin promoted Ryumin to head of the Department for Specially Important Cases and had Abakumov arrested: the full-scale fabrication of the Doctors' Plot was now underway. Ryumin used a method he called the 'Cossack beating,' wielding a two-foot rubber club; colleagues called him the 'bloody dwarf' (кровавый карлик). A 1953 review of the case by Nikolai Mesyatsev confirmed that the entire affair had been fabricated on Ryumin's initiative.

Ryumin's ascent began in 1950 with the interrogation of Professor Yakov Etinger, an elderly Jewish cardiologist who had treated Andrei Zhdanov and Alexander Shcherbakov (both deceased). Between November 1950 and March 1951, Ryumin subjected Etinger to 76 separate interrogations with sleep deprivation and beatings, working him to death.

MGB Minister Viktor Abakumov, warned by medical staff that the stress could kill the prisoner, ordered Ryumin to ease off. Ryumin ignored the order. When reprimanded, he struck preemptively: on 2 July 1951, he wrote to Stalin accusing Abakumov of covering up a Jewish terrorist conspiracy. The letter was largely drafted by Dmitri Sukhanov, an official in Georgy Malenkov's private office.

Stalin's response was swift: Abakumov was arrested, and by October 1951 Ryumin was head of the Department for Specially Important Cases and deputy MGB minister. Stalin mocked him as "the pygmy" but gave him free rein. The new MGB chief, Semyon Ignatyev, was reportedly told not to interfere with Ryumin's anti-Jewish investigation. Over the next eighteen months, nearly every high-ranking Jewish officer in the MGB (including the torture specialists Lev Shvartzman and Boris Rodos) was purged.

Ryumin used a denunciation by Kremlin hospital worker Lydia Timashuk to expand the case into a nationwide antisemitic campaign. In January 1953, Pravda announced the arrests, and the "Doctors' Plot" became official. But within two weeks of Stalin's death in March 1953, Ryumin himself was under arrest, and Lavrentiy Beria declared the whole case a fabrication.