The Doctors Case of 1933

Everyone interested in the history of the USSR knows the famous doctors' case of the 50s. The case of doctors poisoners, in the materials of the investigation case of the Zionist conspiracy in the MGB, also Abakumov case - a criminal case against a group of prominent Soviet doctors accused of conspiracy and murder of a number of Soviet leaders. The case from beginning to end was fabricated and only Stalin's death allowed to stop it and release the innocent people who survived.

In turns out that this case of doctors was not the first, and in 1933 in Moscow and the region was already a case of doctors, also fabricated by the authorities, successfully conducted and, which allowed many of the leaders of this process to build a career, and condemn innocent doctors, causing the strongest blow to health care in Moscow and the region. Many of those who fabricated cases in the 30s, later continued to fabricate similar cases.

About this page of our history few people know, maybe only the descendants of those who suffered in this case and those who built their careers in the organs on this, remember the details of this process.

One of the list of the accused in the case of doctors, was my wife's great-grandfather, doctor Slavsky Konstantin Georgievich, at that time a surgeon at the Petrovskaya hospital in Alabino near Moscow.

At the time of his arrest, he was already 63 years old and had worked as a doctor all his life, most of it in this Petrovskaya hospital, where he was chief physician and head of the surgical department from 1906 to 1913 and from 1920 to 1927.

Konstantin Georgievich Slavskikh was born on October 1 (September 18, old style), 1870, in Dmitrovsky Uyezd, Orel Province, in a large family of a priest, rector of the church, before the revolution, archpriest, awarded for many years of service rare order of St. Anna of the first degree, giving the right to hereditary nobility. He graduated from the parochial school, and then the Orel Theological Seminary. All children in the Slavsky family became either priests or doctors. Then he graduated from the medical faculty of Tomsk University, the only university in tsarist Russia accepting graduates of the clerical schools to study for a doctor's degree. In 1896 he began work as a practicing zemstvo doctor in his native land in Orel province.

From 1906 he began working at the Petrovskaya Hospital in Alabino. From 1907 to 1913 he was a practicing surgeon and at the same time head of the hospital. In the pre-revolutionary period he became a famous doctor, published a number of articles on the problems of zemstvo medicine. In 1911 he was on a foreign business trip from the Moscow provincial zemstvo to Germany and Austria to study the medical and preventive system there. He participated in all, since 1902 Pirogov's congresses and became a member of the editorial board of the journal of Pirogov's society of doctors "Public Doctor". The Pirogov Congresses were the methodological center and tribune of zemstvo medicine. The congresses were the most representative medical forum in Russia, attended by thousands of doctors. In the intervals between the congresses the Board of the Society functioned. Since 1895 the Pirogov Society published the Journal of the Society of Russian Physicians in Memory of N.I. Pirogov (later "Public Doctor").

After the Bolsheviks dispersed the Constituent Assembly in January 1918, the defeat of the Zemstvo system and Zemstvo health care began. Repressions were carried out, health care was completely transferred to the state level of management and financial support. Pirogov's organization of doctors in response to opposition to the new Soviet medicine, in which administrators became not doctors but party workers, was liquidated, and the journal "Public Doctor" was closed.

The new authorities could not forgive the attitude to their actions, the authors of the magazine. For example, in the issue for November-December 1917 in the magazine was expressed extremely negative reaction to the October coup by doctors.  In the proclamations of the Society of Russian Doctors and other medical organizations it was said: "At the present moment of actual absence of central state power and the determined direction of activity of the Council of People's Commissars, which has taken the path of trampling on the foundations of the rule of law..." as well as such definitions of power as "The group of rapists who seized power... They resurrected all the worst and most criminal methods of the tsarist regime that had passed into the past. There is no crime against the rights of the citizen, the rights of the people's will, before the commission of which they would have stopped". Interesting and chronicle printed in this issue of the magazine "Tsar Famine" about the famine that engulfed many provinces.

The beginning of the civil war, extreme poverty of the population and health care system led to the fact that one third of Russian doctors emigrated, and of those who remained as a result of the war, repression, famine and disease survived less than half.

Dr. Slavsky began writing his memoirs about these events in about 1924, and in 1929 the manuscript was completed and, under the title "Survived and Dumas", was
The book was sent for reading and review to the People's Commissar of Health Semashko, whom Slavsky had known since pre-revolutionary times. Semashko wrote a review stating that the book contained a lot of counter-revolutionary content, but sent it to the People's Commissariat of Health for printing. A printed set had already been assembled, but Semashko was removed from his post as Commissar of Health and the new leadership, Commissar M.F. Vladimirsky, whom Slavsky had known since his student days, ordered the set to be scattered and the book was not printed. Dr. Slavsky did not receive any explanations as to why the set was scattered, but most likely the authorities did not dare to print the book, which described the life of a doctor from before the revolutionary times and showed a huge difference in the standard of living and position of a doctor before the revolution and after.

This difference can be felt even now, just coming to the grave of Dr. Slavsky in the cemetery next to the hospital. Nearby, literally opposite his grave, is the grave of Dr. A.G.Arkhangelskaya, - one of the first female zemstvo doctors in the province, the first head of the Petrovskaya hospital, whose successor became Dr. Slavsky.

Arkhangelskaya died in 1905 and on her grave the grateful zemstvo put a beautiful monument in memory of the man who devoted his whole life to saving people. On the grave of Dr. Slavsky, who died in 1946 and devoted more than 50 years of work as a doctor and saving thousands of people is a modest plaque put by relatives with the years of life and death.

Konstantin Georgievich became the head, focused on the affairs of the hospital, attracting new talented doctors to the hospital, organized practical courses for students, medical county conferences and meetings. The medical organization of the then post-revolutionary Zvenigorod district was headed by a famous doctor Dmitry Vasilievich Nikitin, former personal physician first of Leo Tolstoy and then Maxim Gorky.

 In 1928, the perfectly working health care system in Zvenigorodsky district was destroyed, and Nikitin and Dr. N.N Pechkin were fired for signing signatures under the protest of the population against the closure of the church. At the same time N.N Pechkin was an old member of the RSDLP since 1904, but left the party in protest against the atrocities of the revolution and civil war.

Konstantin Georgievich was also dismissed in 1928 because of the conflict with the new party leadership in the new Narofominsk district, where the Petrovskaya hospital was assigned. No pension was assigned to him, despite the fact that he was the chief physician for many years and had the right to social benefits after 25 years of service, which he had already 32 years. They were evicted from the apartment in the hospital as not working, and he acquires a small house there in the village of Alabino.

The hospital without Slavsky under the new leadership began to wither and doctors began to leave. As wrote in his memoirs another doctor, also arrested later on the case of doctors M.M Melentiev: "The hospital became very bad, and it is necessary to leave Petrovskoye-Alabino as soon as possible. But he did not have time, as many other doctors.

 In January 1933, the head of the secret-political department of the OGPU in the Moscow region Radzivilovsky, came up with an anti-Soviet organization of doctors near Moscow.
In the leader, Radzivilovsky chose a doctor Dmitry Nikitin, who was known to be the attending physician of Leo Tolstoy and Gorky. The organs needed a famous person to make the case loud.

In the prepared indictment stated "When he was the head of the Zvenigoro hospital Nikitin was the head of a closely-knit terrestrial Black Hundred group of medical intelligentsia, which is a branch of the Moscow counter-revolutionary medical organization. This Zvenigorod counter-revolutionary group, headed by Nikitin, systematically carried on counter-revolutionary activities among the population aimed at disrupting and discrediting the activities carried out by the Party and the Government. On the initiative of Nikitin's group, a mass protest against the closure of churches was organized...
After Nikitin was removed from his job as head of the hospital for open anti-Soviet speech, a counter-revolutionary group of doctors under his leadership organized a protest against "the actions of local party and Soviet organizations", under a "statement" drawn up by them, demanding the abolition of the relevant decision, the population gathered to write. To discuss questions of a counter-revolutionary nature, the group gathered at each other's apartments"

Dr. Slavsky was also on the list of this mythical organization.But the Chekists immediately encountered complications. First of all, Dr. Slavsky's colleagues stood up against them. During his arrest, the doctor suffered a severe attack of thoracic toad. Urgently summoned from the Petrovsky hospital doctors stated: "Dr. Slavsky K. is restricted in his ability to work.He is disabled, retains the ability to move short distances". Not wishing to deal with the invalid, the Chekists were satisfied with the hours-long search in his house with the seizure of "miscellaneous correspondence". Slavsky was lucky, his condition allowed him to remain at liberty, but the Chekists did not rest there. In 1935 his son Georgy, who worked as a veterinarian, was arrested on denunciation and exiled to Kazakhstan, where he died in 1936. He left behind a wife with three young children, who was not willing to work anywhere, because of her noble origin and as the wife of an "enemy of the people" despite her higher education and knowledge of 5 languages.

In the list of members of the counter-revolutionary medical organization, arrested after Nikitin, there were 20 people:
       1.Aleksandrova Anna Vasilyevna, 51 years old, a doctor of the Kubinskaya hospital of the Zvenigorod district;
       2. Bogolyubov Konstantin Alexandrovich, 64 years old, "from the family of a minister of a religious cult", chief doctor of the Istra hospital;
       3. Velichkin Sergei Petrovich, 50 years old, chief physician of Nikolskaya hospital of Krasnogorsk district;
       4. Vladykina Ekaterina Nikolaevna, 56, a doctor at the Nikolskaya Hospital in Krasnogorsk district;
       5. Evgenia Dmitrieva, 45, surgeon at Botkin Hospital;
       6. Semyon Ivanovich Zotov, 49, a therapist at the Kremlin Hospital;
       7. Kaiser Valentin Karlovich, 57, hereditary nobleman, therapist and microbiologist, participant in World War I and the Civil War, lecturer at the 2nd Moscow State University until 1930, then an employee of the N.V. Sklifosovsky Institute;
       8. Alexander Nikolayevich Kraevsky, 54, hereditary nobleman, therapist, employee of the MOCI;
       9. Kraft Andrei Fedorovich, 51, a physician at the Petrovskaya Hospital of Narofominsk district (in the village of Alabino);
       10. Boris Mikhailovich Mamaev, 51, a surgeon at the Zagorskaya hospital;
       11. Mikhail Mikhailovich Melentyev, 51, therapist, participant of the First World War, doctor at the Petrovskaya Hospital, Narofominsk district;
       12. Andrey Fedorovich Mikhailov, 58, therapist, employee of the physiotherapeutic institute in Khovrin;
       13. Ivan Vasilievich Novokhatny, 63, a sanitary doctor in Dmitrov;
       14. Pechkin Nikolai Nikolaevich, 57, son of a 2nd guild merchant from Rybinsk, surgeon, head of a hospital in Solnechnogorsk until 1930, then an employee of the physiotherapeutic institute in Khovrin;
       15. Ryabinkin Vladimir Nikolaevich, 56, descendant of a 2nd guild merchant from Moscow, therapist, chief physician of the MOCI until 1930, then a staff resident of the sanitary unit of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs;
       16. Konstantin Georgievich Slavsky, 63, surgeon at the Petrovskaya hospital in Narofominsk district;
       17. Mikhail Stepanovich Tverdin, aged 53, "son of a minister of a religious cult and brother of Lieutenant Tverdin, sentenced in 1931 to 10 years of the ITL (correctional labor camps) for counter-revolutionary activity", doctor at the Nikolskaya hospital in Krasnogorsk district;
       18. Maria Ivanovna Tyurina, 50 years old, a paramedic at the Nikolsk hospital of Krasnogorsk district;
       19. Khodkov Vladimir Nikolaevich, 48, surgeon, until 1930 an employee of Moki, then head of the operating corps of CITO;
       20. Nikolai Konstantinovich Kholin, 59, a popular Moscow surgeon, a participant in the Russo-Japanese War, head of the surgical department of the Moki until 1931, then senior doctor of the 4th Grad Hospital.
      
       The investigation was supervised by Radzivilovsky himself. His assistant Rogozhin and operative V. T. Alentsev, who two years earlier had been recalled to the OGPU from the post of executive secretary of the Voskresensk District Executive Committee, conducted interrogations of the arrested. Rogozhin preferred to work with his fists and profanity; Alentsev, however, was still just being trained for this first case in his practice, and therefore held himself rather clumsily, or excessively swaggered.


Why exactly Dr. Nikitin was chosen for the role of the ringleader, there are several versions . Some believe that played a fatal role in his foreign business trip to Gorky in Italy, during which the proletarian writer and the doctor diverged in political views. And the social origin of the doctor was clearly not in his favor. Others see this as an excuse to get close to more important personalities, such as Professor Pletnev, in whose clinic Nikitin worked before his arrest. Later, in 1938, Pletnev would be accused of "killing" Gorky.

Dr. Nikitin, upon his arrival in Moscow, began working in the therapeutic clinic headed by Professor Pletnev. Both took part in the treatment of Gorky. Therefore, it is not surprising that Pletnyov, during the trial on the "case" of the Kremlin doctors in 1938, testified at the investigation that G.G. Yagoda blackmailed him with his connection to "Nikitin's group". Wanting to emphasize Pletnyov's unreliability, the state prosecutor A.Ya. Vyshinsky (who by that time had become Prosecutor General of the USSR) also reminded the court of the professor's acquaintance with the exiled Nikitin.
Nikitin during the investigation, released for a while from Butyr prison, replacing the measure of restraint on the signature on non-departure. The reason for the "favor" was Gorky's illness. Alexei Maximovich in May 33 fell ill with pneumonia and again remembered his doctor. Until the recovery of the writer Dmitry Vasilyevich lived with him, but then he was again returned to the bunk. And in the fall of 33rd exiled for five years in Arkhangelsk.

"Head of counter-revolutionary doctors" D. Nikitin instead of five years lived in exile twenty. He worked as a general practitioner in the city polyclinic, lectured at the Arkhangelsk Medical Institute.
In parallel, Dmitry Vasilyevich was engaged in scientific research. The topics of his scientific works were diagnostics, treatment and prevention of infectious diseases: measles, scarlatina, diphtheria, whooping cough, infectious jaundice, dysentery.
He founded and headed the Department of Infectious Diseases at the Arkhangelsk Medical Institute. Dmitry Vasilievich was very much appreciated by both students and colleagues.
The author of memoirs about Dr. Nikitin, his former student, later a colonel of medical service Grigory Kulizhnikov, with warmth wrote about him:
"In the external appearance of Dmitry Vasilyevich, along with old-fashioned, there was a lot of things that made you imbued with respect for him at first sight: graying "Chekhov's" beard, which gave his face features of nobility and good-naturedness, genuine solidity in manners, which as if emphasized his well-cut dark-blue three-piece suit with a watch in the lower left pocket of the vest and snow-white shirt with a speckled tie tied in a knot, and to everything - lively gray eyes, staring at us, the students during the lecture."
Dr. Nikitin lived in Arkhangelsk very modestly. All his wealth were books and a Zeiss microscope, which he later presented to the Institute.

During the Great Patriotic War, despite his age and illness, Dmitry Vasilyevich worked hard: he wrote articles, made presentations at conferences, taught at the advanced training courses for medical personnel of the Northern Fleet.

Dmitry Nikitin was awarded the medal "For the Defense of the Soviet Polar Region", "For Valorous Labor in the Great Patriotic War", the badge of honor "Excellent Health Care".

Several times he tried to return to Moscow, but he was constantly refused. Even the requests of E.P. Peshkova, Gorky's wife, and the director of the Arkhangelsk Medical Institute did not help.
Only in 1953, after Stalin's death, the disgraced doctor was allowed to move to the capital. The last years he was engaged in literary work - wrote memoirs about Leo Tolstoy and A.M. Gorky. And still treated people who turned to him for help.

He died January 9, 1960 at the 86th year of life, buried in Vostryakovsky cemetery in Moscow.

10 months after his death, November 12, 1960, the Presidium of the Moscow Regional Court issued a ruling on the rehabilitation of all participants in the "case of doctors" of Moscow and the Moscow region of 1933.

Another arrested doctor, N.N. Pechkin, was sent to a camp in Kem'. Soon after his deportation to Kemi, the wife of the highest camp authorities fell ill. Pechkin determined that she had an ectopic pregnancy. An immediate operation was required. The authorities hesitated to entrust it to Pechkin, but were forced to turn to him. The operation went well. And in two or three weeks the bosses invited Pechkin to their house for a cup of tea. With tea came vodka. With vodka the bosses also got a trusting disposition towards the doctor who had saved his wife from death. And here it was, these superiors, and said: "Do you think, Nikolai Nikolayevich, that I do not know the real reason for your arrest and consider you guilty of anything? The point is that Yagoda needed to get Dr. Nikitin away from Gorky..... So he had him arrested. But it turned out to be difficult to concoct any charges against him, and he had strong defenders.
 And so Yagoda was forced to imprison Nikitin's closest medical entourage. That's how you got caught. And I was just at that time in Moscow, and all this fraud was taking place before my eyes..."

Another of the arrested doctors of the Petrovskaya hospital M.M. Melentiev left his memoirs . Melentiev M.M. My hour and my time: A book of memories. - SPb. Juventa, 2001. - 776 с. and they describe the methods of investigation in the case of doctors, in which the investigators themselves made up confessions and forced those under investigation to sign them .

On July 13, 1933, the "troika" of the OGPU plenipotentiary representation in the Moscow region passed its verdict on the prisoners: two doctors were released from Butyrsky isolator "for lack of sufficient data for the accusation", five were also released from custody, depriving them of the "right of residence" in 12 major cities for a period of 3 years, 11 doctors were sentenced to three-year imprisonment in correctional labor camps, Nikitin and Pechkin were awarded five-year imprisonment. A month and a half later, on August 27, the OGPU board approved the sentence, and on September 16, the same board replaced the camp re-education of the "conspirators" with administrative expulsion to remote cities of the country, but the prisoners learned about this decision only on October 3.

Times were still liberal compared to the period after Kirov's murder and, as Melentyev recalled after 7 months in Butyrka and interrogations, he was finally summoned with his belongings. The door of the cell slammed shut, and in the corridor he saw all his "accomplices", acquaintances and strangers: D.V.Nikitin, N.N.Pechkin, Professor Kholin, Dr. Kraevsky, Dr. Kaiser and others - a total of 14 people. All with bags, excited, but all "hold on" and even try to joke. They were taken out to the "transit room" and, without entering the cell, were given to read to each the verdict in his case. All, except Nikitin and Pechkin, received three years in the camps, the first two received five years each. The place of Melentyev's exile was assigned to the town of Dalny in the DVK.

The exiled doctors continued their work of saving people. Slavsky, who miraculously escaped arrest, when the Great Patriotic War began and the front came close to Alabino, seeing that the hospital was empty and most of the staff just ran away, stood up to the operating table to save the wounded, together with his eldest daughter Olga, who by that time also became a doctor, lost her husband, a military doctor, in the Finnish War.

The front was very close, 200 meters from the hospital on the right bank of the Desna River were our trenches, and three hundred on the left German trenches. The hospital was bombed and shelled. The outpatient clinic and the house with apartments of the middle staff were destroyed.

Here, that wrote to the doctor M.M. Melentiev patient of Petrovskaya hospital Anna Kryukova from the nearest village Kokoshkino in the spring of 1942. "The whole hospital only keeps us on Slavsky. And he barely moves his legs, but the same look, clarity of thought, thoughtful attitude to life and cordial hospitality."
Here are lines from Slavsky's memoirs: "I was tired of the war: "Old brains saw in it not victories and defeat, not the triumph of freedom-loving, peaceful, democratic nations, but millions of people killed, in cruel agony, who died.
In Petrovskaya hospital there were medical and sanitary companies and field hospitals. The latter were mainly located in the surgical barrack, where in the former X-ray room I had a shelter and worked and lived with my patients since December 2, 1941. Every day 200-300 wounded people arrived here. I often operated at night.

During the time when Dr. Slavsky was in the hospital around the clock, his house was completely looted, stealing even stools.

Dr. Slavsky was rewarded by the decision of the chief physician Fedyukina, who ran away from the hospital during the bombing and shelling and returned only when it became clear that the Germans were driven back, was the decision in April 1945 to reduce Dr. Slavsky's salary and offended he resigned from the hospital.

The book of Dr. Slavsky's memoirs was still printed, after many years in 2015 under the title "Not God is not a devil I am a doctor (memoirs of doctors)" edited by V.I Shapkin and it included Slavsky's memoirs "Notes of the Zemsky doctor".

That what Slavsky wrote about the war years is true, is evidenced by the text of his award sheet.

Dr. SLAVSKY KONSTANTIN GEORGIEVICH, born in 1870, non-party member, Russian, consultant surgeon of the Petrovskaya hospital of the Naro-Fominsk district.
Since 1929, t. Slavsky was on pension, but when the war began and the enemy was approaching Moscow, he volunteered to work at the hospital. During the period from 19.10.41 to 25.01.42 from the front, located along the Nara River to the Petrovskaya hospital received a large number of wounded from the Red Army units and civilian population. Comrade Slavsky, not counting neither time nor bombardments, performed numerous operations and, thanks to his high qualification, saved many lives of the Red Army soldiers and civilian population. On December 1-2, 1941, when the enemy broke through to the village of Yushkovo and enemy tanks approached the outskirts of Petrovskoe village where the hospital was located. T. Slavskiy continued to work, although at that time the Germans subjected the hospital to fierce shelling and bombardment.
T.Slavskiy for his work was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor".

All the doctors who were tried in 1933 in the case of a fictitious counter-revolutionary medical organization and convicted and remained at liberty, honestly fulfilled their human and civil duty, continuing to treat and save people. But only in 1960 all of them were rehabilitated for lack of corpus delicti.

M.M Melentiev received the following letter on November 2, 1960:
"Moscow Region Prosecutor's Office. I inform you that in your case, in which you were convicted in 1933, the prosecutor of the region has made a protest to the Mosoblsk court, from where you will be informed additionally about the decision.
And on December seventh of the same year he received from the Obl'sud of the Moscow region a certificate that:
"By the decision of the Oblsud of November 12, 1960, the decisions of the OGPU Troika were canceled and the case, for lack of corpus delicti, the proceedings were terminated."

Alexander Radzivilovsky, who invented the doctors' case, continued to make a career thanks to the doctors' case. From May 14, 1933 to March 20, 1935, he became assistant to the plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU - head of the NKVD Department of the Moscow region.From March 20, 1935 to July 20, 1937 - deputy head of the NKVD Department of the Moscow region.
On November 29, 1935 he received the rank of senior major of state security, which corresponded to the army rank of commander. From July 20, 1937 to February 28, 1938 - Head of the NKVD Directorate for Ivanovo Region. From February to March 1938 - at the disposal of the NKVD Personnel Department of the USSR - Acting Deputy Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR. From February 28 to September 13, 1938 - Head of the 3rd Department of the 3rd (Transport) Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR.
Awarded the Order of Lenin (1937), the Order of the Red Banner (1932), the Order of the Badge of Honor (1936), the badge "Honorary Worker of the All-Union Cheka-GPU". Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st convocation.
 The investigators who successfully exposed the "anti-Soviet organization" of doctors were noted for their official zeal.
Alentsev and Rogozhin were rewarded: "for the merciless fight against counterrevolution" the first one was awarded the badge "Honorary Worker of the All-Union Cheka OGPU (XU)", the second one was promoted.  Alentsev safely passed the period of the Great Terror, successfully fought in the war, avoided post-war repressions and in August 1959 retired from the post of deputy head of the KGB Moscow region. And Rogozhin was shot on April 13, 1939 and was not rehabilitated.
Senior Major of State Security Radzivilovsky was arrested on September 13, 1938, shot on January 24, 1940 and also not rehabilitated. During one of the interrogations Radzivilovsky confessed: "All testimonies about their (under investigation) allegedly anti-Soviet activities were obtained, as a rule, as a result of torture of the arrested, widely used both in the central apparatus and in the peripheral apparatuses of the NKVD".

The story of the fabricated case of doctors of Moscow and the region in 1933 was repeated many times in the future. There will be many more processes of 30-40 and early 50th years, which broke the lives of millions of people and which were characteristic for the Stalin era of our history.