Doctors' Plot
의사 사건
A fabricated antisemitic conspiracy case in the USSR in 1952-53, in which a group of prominent Moscow doctors, mostly Jewish, were accused of plotting to poison and murder Soviet leaders. The case was made public on January 13, 1953, when Pravda announced the arrests of nine doctors, alleging they were agents of American and British intelligence and the international Jewish organization 'Joint.' After Stalin's death, the charges were dismissed in April 1953 as a fabrication; Khrushchev revealed in his 1956 Secret Speech that Stalin personally ordered the case to be manufactured.
Sources
- Wikipedia (RU) Russian Wikipedia: full history of the fabricated case, the 9 accused doctors, Timashuk's role, Stalin's direct involvement in ordering torture, the exoneration after his death
- Wikipedia (EN) English Wikipedia: the antisemitic campaign, Pravda article of 13 Jan 1953, Ryumin's role, Khrushchev's Secret Speech revelation, planned deportation of Jews to Siberia
- britannica.com Encyclopaedia Britannica: concise summary confirming the fabricated conspiracy, Stalin's intent to use it for a massive party purge, and the exoneration of surviving doctors in April 1953
- pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov BMJ article 'The Soviet Doctors' Plot — 50 years on': scholarly summary confirming the antisemitic nature, the planned show trial, and that seven of nine doctors were Jewish