Stalin Exonerated. Fact-Checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels 9798218243876

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels by Grover Furr & Vladimir L. Bobrov

Erythros Press and Media, LLC 2023

Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels July 2023 Published by Erythros Press and Media PO Box 294994 Kettering, OH 45429-0994 [email protected] © Grover Furr 2023 Published and printed with permission of the authors, who assume all responsibility for the content herein. Locally Assigned LC-type Call Number : DK268.4 .F86 2023 ISBN: 979-8-218-24387-6 284 pp. Includes index. 1. Mikhoė ls, Solomon Mikhaı̆lovich, – 1890-1948. 2. Stalin, Joseph, --1878-1953. 3. Soviet Union – Politics and government – 19361953. 4. Soviet Union – History – 1925-1953.

Table of Contents Acknowledgements and Dedication ........................................................................... 4 Introduction The Historiographical “Murder” of Solomon Mikhoels ........... 5 Chapter 1. Before the Beria Letter ............................................................................ 12 Chapter 2. The “Beria letter” ....................................................................................... 48 Chapter 3. Documents from Viktor Levashov’s novel ...................................... 83 Chapter 4. Shubnyakov and the Pitovranov Trial ........................................... 105 Chapter 4a. ‘New materials concerning Mikhoels’ fate’ ............................... 111 Chapter 5. Official Documents That Disprove The “Stalin Had Mikhoels Murdered” Story ............................................................................................................ 117 Chapter 6. Critical Study of Kostyrchenko ......................................................... 133 Chapter 6a. Kostyrchenko, Mikhoels’ Death, fm Tainaia politika Stalina – tabled .................................................................................................................................. 144 Chapter 6b. Kostyrchenko, Mikhoels’ Death, fm Tainia politika Stalina … novaia versiia (2015) .................................................................................................. 167 Chapter 7. Kostyrchenko, Mukhin, Medvedev .................................................. 186 Chapter 8. Conclusion ................................................................................................ 198 Chapter 9. Appendix of Russian Texts ................................................................. 209 Appendix. The Primary Documents in the Mikhoels Case in Russian and English ............................................................................................................................... 230 Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 278 Index ................................................................................................................................... 279

Acknowledgements and Dedication I wish to express my gratitude to Kevin Prendergast, Arthur Hudson, Siobhan McCarthy, and Urooj Khan, the skilled and tireless Inter-Library Loan librarians at Harry S. Sprague Library, Montclair State University. Without their help, my research would simply not be possible. With their continued help, I can persevere.

* * * * * I would like to recognize Montclair State University for giving me sabbatical leave in the fall semester of 2015, and special research travel funds in 2017, 2019, and 2020, which have been invaluable in my research on this book.



Dedication I dedicate this book to Susana Magdalena Sotillo, Ph.D., dedicated scholar and teacher, incisive and supportive critic, mi companera y mi camarada, with all my love and respect. Without your encouragement and support, this work would not have been possible.

Introduction The Historiographical “Murder” of Solomon Mikhoels Why ‘Mal’tsev’, and then ‘Rovinskii’ in parentheses? What’s going on here? How long is this going to continue? … Why is this being done? Why write a double last name? If a person has chosen a literary pseudonym – that’s his right. We’re not speaking of anything other than elementary decency. A person has the right to write under a pseudonym he has chosen for himself. But, obviously, somebody wants to emphasize that this person has a double name, to emphasize that he is a Jew. Why emphasize that? Why do that? Why spread anti-Semitism? Who benefits from that? - Joseph Stalin, as quoted by Konstantin Simonov. Glazami cheloveka moego pokoleniya 1989, p. 216. Stalin’s anti-Semitism, about which one can read in almost all his biographies, was not religious, nor ethnic, nor cultural. It was political, and appeared in the form of anti-Zionism, and not of “judophobia.” - Zhores Medvedev, Stalin i Evreiskaia Problema: Novyi Analiz (2003), p. 92. - У нас в ЦК антисемиты завелись. Это безобразие!

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

“Antisemites have turned up in the Central Committee. It’s a disgrace!” - Joseph Stalin, end of 1952, quoted in Tak eto bylo. Tikhon Khrennikov o vremeni i o sebe. Moscow, 1994, p. 179 - И интереснее всего в этом вранье то, – сказал Воланд, – что оно – вранье от первого до последнего слова. (“And what is the most interesting of all, said Voland, is that it is a lie from the first word to the last.”) - Mikhail Bulgakov, Master i Margarita

This book examines the discovery of a historical falsification. That falsification is the charge, now almost universally accepted as true, that Joseph Stalin ordered the murder of Jewish theater director Solomon Mikhoels and a companion, Vladimir Golubov, on the evening of January 12, 1948 in Minsk, capitol of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. We reveal the forgery of a number of documents and the insertion of some of them into formerly classified Soviet archives as those archives were being opened to researchers. The discovery of this falsification has broad implications for research on Soviet history. The issue at hand – the purported murder of Solomon Mikhoels and a companion at Stalin’s order in January 1948 – is routinely cited as an established fact. In reality, far from being an established fact, it is a fraud based on deliberate forgery and falsification. There has never been an objective, systematic study of the evidence. In this book we present just such a study.

Introduction. The Historiographical “Murder” of Solomon Mikhoels

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Who Was Solomon Mikhoels? Solomon Mikhoels was a Soviet actor and director in the Yiddish theater. Mikhoels was one of the most honored Soviet artists of the time. He was People’s Artist of the RSFSR in 1935, People’s Artist of the USSR and recipient of the Order of Lenin in 1939. Since 1940 he had been a member of the committee adjudicating the Stalin Prize and was himself a recipient of that prize, first-class, in 1946. . He was chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAFC), a group formed in 1941 to help rally Jews in the West around the defense of the Soviet Union, where a large part of the world’s Jews were being annihilated by Hitler. Sometime during the night of January 12-13, 1948 Mikhoels and a colleague, Vladimir Golubov (pen name Potapov), were killed in Minsk, the capital of the Byelorussian Soviet Republic.. A police investigation at the time concluded that the two men were victims of a hit-and-run by a truck. Mikhoels was buried with honor. Laudatory obituary articles appeared in the Soviet press. Shortly after their deaths rumors began to circulate that Mikhoels and Golubov had been murdered by the Soviet government. Documents supporting this rumor supposedly from a Soviet archive came to light only in 1992. The major document is an alleged letter to Georgii Malenkov, at that time the head of state (Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR) by Lavrentii Beria, head of both the Ministry of State Security (the MGB) and Minister of Internal Affairs (the MVD). Additional documents purporting to bear on the murder were published later. The greater part of this book is devoted to a study of these documents and to a close reading and critique of what has been written about them. This study confirms that these documents are fabrications. In the concluding chapter we explore some implications for those who want to uncover the truth about the Soviet Union during Stalin’s time and for the politicized nature of scholarly research and publication on that history.

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

This book does not attempt to study other matters which, though they occurred after Mikhoels’ death, were related at least to the rumors surrounding it: the closing down of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in late 1948; the arrest of its leading members, their trial, confessions, and executions in 1952; the mystery of the “Doctors’ Plot” of 1952-3. These important events require separate discussion.

Robert Conquest March 5, 2003 was the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Joseph Stalin. Among the articles on Stalin published in newspapers around the world was a piece in The Guardian of London by Robert Conquest, a man who spent half a century writing anti-Stalin works. Conquest tells the following story concerning Solomon Mikhoels. One of the most “Stalinist” acts of the period had been the murder of the leading Jewish actor and producer Solomon Mikhoels. Here again, the full story only came out in the mid-90s. The killing was done by a secret police team from Moscow, headed by the deputy minister, Sergei Ogol’tsov. The actor was crushed under a Studebaker, then his body was left in a side street and his death attributed to a car accident. Mikhoels was buried with honors. We have the details because, on Stalin's death, police chief Lavrentii Beria arrested the perpetrators, though they were later released and the case was hushed up. But we now at last have their confessions, which include the detail that they were instructed to “put nothing on paper”, one of them adding that this was always the rule in such cases. (Guardian March 3, 2003) The article contains no footnotes or evidence. Newspaper articles seldom do that. But it is instructive to follow the clues in this article. What, in fact, is the evidence that Mikhoels was murdered?

Introduction. The Historiographical “Murder” of Solomon Mikhoels

9

The “Studebaker” Of the accounts that claim Mikhoels was murdered only two identify the make of the vehicle. The “Studebaker” version in Conquest’s account is taken from a novel – a work of fiction – by Arkadii and Georgii Vayner, Petlya i Kamen’ v Zelionoy Trave (“The Noose and Stone in the Green Grass”), published in 1991, while the USSR was still in existence. Где-нибудь на дороге, в укромном месте, машина вроде бы глохнет. Шoфep-oпep выходит из машины - якобы чинить. Следующий по пятам «студебеккер» разгоняется и на полном ходу врезается в заднюю тоненькую стенку салона «эмки» и дробит ее в клочья. И бесследно исчезает .... (206-7) Вот этот безымянный человек и вмазал Михоэлсу по черепу ломом, завернутым в войлок ... - Подожди! Каким ломом? Их убили студебеккером! Севка покачал головой: - Студебеккер гнал Михоэлса и отца твоей еврейки по тротуару. (309) ... в районе бывшего еврейского гетто на улице Немиrа грузовик _ студебеккер, управляемый Шубиным, догнал их, на скорости выехал на тротуар и сбил Михоэлса, скончавшегося на месте ... Из студебеккера выскочил Жигачев, догнал Гинзбурга во дворе и завернутым в войлок ломом проломил ему череп ... (380) Translation: Somewhere on the road, in a secluded place, the car appears to stall. The driver gets out of the car, supposedly to make repairs. A Studebaker following behind it accelerates, crashes at full speed into the rear thin wall of the cab of the GAZ M-1 and crushes it to bits. And disappears without a trace .... (206-7)

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

It was this nameless man who smacked Mikhoels in the skull with a crowbar wrapped in felt... - Wait! What crowbar? They were killed by a Studebaker! Sevka shook his head: the Studebaker drove Mikhoels and the father of your Jewish girl along the sidewalk. (309) ... in the area of the former Jewish ghetto on Nemiga Street, a Studebaker truck driven by Shubin caught up with them, drove onto the sidewalk at speed and knocked down Mikhoels, who died on the spot ... Zhigachev jumped out of the Studebaker, caught up with Ginzburg in the courtyard and crushed his skull with a crowbar wrapped in felt ... (380) Conquest never tells his readers why they should accept this detail as historically valid. Nor does he admit that it is taken from a work of fiction. The Vayners give no documentary evidence for the “Studebaker”. Nor does the “Studebaker” figure in any other account of Mikhoels’ death. In a preface written later, the Vayners claim to write “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” И притом взяли себе принципом описывать правду, одну только правду, ничего, кроме правды . .. (с. 4, «От авторов») And besides, we have taken it as a principle to describe the truth, only the truth, nothing but the truth … (page 4,”From the authors”) …while still calling their work a novel. They claim to have obtained their information by interviewing people who lived in Minsk at the time. The “Studebaker” mentioned by Conquest is just one of many problems that emerge once the story of Mikhoels’ murder is examined with care. None of the supposedly archival documents men-

Introduction. The Historiographical “Murder” of Solomon Mikhoels

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tions any “Studebaker.” One of them refers only to a “truck” (gruzovoi mashiny) 1. Most of these documents originate in a novel by fiction writer Viktor Levashov. His novel was published in 1998, long after the Vayners’ (1991), so Levashov must have known of the Vayners’ work. But, unlike Conquest, Levashov does not use this “Studebaker” detail, nor does he explain why. None of those who use his documents mention this contradiction either.

The Documents A complete transcription of all the documents and pertinent information about the provenance of each, may be found in the appendix of the present work. Each document is numbered; numbered references in the text of this letter are to this appendix. Most of this book consists of a critical analysis of these documents. In the final chapter we will draw some appropriate conclusions and outline the implications of this study that seem to us the most important.

1 Studebaker trucks were sent to the USSR during World War II as part of the

Lend-Lease program.

Chapter 1. Before the Beria Letter 1948, January 14 - The Kruglov Report On January 14, 1948, the day after the bodies of Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov were found, Sergei N. Kruglov, Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, sent a report about their deaths to the Politburo. This is the Kruglov Report, our Document #8. January 14, 1948 Top secret Copy No. 7 Comrade Stalin J.V. Comrade Molotov V.M. Comrade Voroshilov K.E. To Comrade Zhdanov A.A. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Byelorussian SSR, on January 13 of this year, at 7:10 am in the city of Minsk, on a road near the tram line under construction, leading from Sverdlova Street to Garbarnaya Street, two male corpses were found. Leading employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Byelorussia and the Police Department of the city of Minsk who left for the place, together with a forensic expert, found two male corpses lying face down. There was a lot of blood around the corpses. Clothes, documents and valuables were not touched. The dead were S.M. Mikhoels, artistic director of the State Jewish Theatre, People's Artist of the USSR, and V.I. Golubov-Potapov, a member of the Moscow organization of the Union of Soviet Writers. Both had

Chapter 1. Before the Beria Letter

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broken ribs, and Golubov-Potapov also had his right arm in an elbow bend. Traces of trucks, partially covered with snow, were found near the corpses. According to the inspection of the scene and the initial conclusion of medical experts, the deaths of Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov were the result of a collision with a car that was traveling at an excessive speed and overtook them, following a steep slope towards Garbarnaya Street. Steps have been taken to locate the vehicle. An investigation is underway. Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR S. KRUGLOV One copy made for the secretariat of the USSR Ministry of State Security. This is the earliest document about Mikhoels’ death. Its genuineness has never been questioned.

1948, February 11: The Bodunov Report A month after the deaths of Mikhoels and Golubov a police report was submitted to Ivan A. Serov, Deputy Minister of Internal Security. This is the Bodunov Report, our Document #9. Тор Secret То: Comrade Colonel-General 1. А. Serov, Deputy Minister of internal Affairs of the USSR

Report Pursuant to your instructions, an operations team from the Central Administration of the Militia was sent to investigate the circumstances of the deaths of S. М. Mikhoels and V. 1. Golubov-Potapov in the city of

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

Minsk. The team, headed by militia colonel Osipov, inspector for special assignments, examined materials at the location and conducted а supplementary investigation. The investigation established the following: On January 12 of this year, at approximately 18:00, Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov went to their hotel after dining in а restaurant. They told workers from the Minsk theaters who were with them that they were busy that evening, because they planned to visit а certain acquaintance of Golubov-Potapov – an engineer named Sergeyev or Sergei. Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov categorically refused the use of an automobile which was offered to them. At approximately 20:00 they left the hotel, and at 7:00 in the morning of January 13 their bodies were discovered on а little-traveled side road. Drivers rarely used this road, even though it is within the town boundaries, because it passes through vacant land and is inconvenient. Both bodies were pressed into the snow which fell on the evening of January 12 and was accompanied by strong winds. The clothing of the deceased, as well as their money, documents and wristwatches (Mikhoels' was gold) were found intact. Mikhoels' watch was missing the glass but both his and Golubov-Potapov's watch were still running at the time of the inspection of the bodies. А forensic examination of the bodies carried out on January 13 by Prilutsky, the chief forensic expert of the Ministry of Health of the BSSR, and medical experts Naumovich and Karelina, established that the

Chapter 1. Before the Beria Letter

deaths of Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov resulted from being run over by а heavy cargo vehicle. Both bodies had all the ribs broken and torn lung tissue. Mikhoels had a broken vertebra and GolubovPotapov had broken pelvic bones. AII these injuries were inflicted preceding death. Judging from the condition of the bodies, death occurred 15-16 hours before their discovery, that is, at approximately 20:00 on January 12, soon after Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov had left the hotel. The condition of food in their stomachs confirmed the fact that the food had been eaten 1-2 hours before death, and the composition of the food corresponded to what had been served to them in the restaurant. There is no indication that the death of Mikhoels and Golubov- Potapov was caused by anything other than their being accidentally run over, and the investigation did not turn up any other possible cause. The investigation undertaken by operative agents as well as other investigatory material did not confirm the version that Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov went to visit an acquaintance of Golubov-Potapov - engineer Sergeyev - before being hit by a vehicle. AII the information gathered points to the fact that Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov for some reason intended to visit some other individual and carefully concealed this meeting from their friends and acquaintances, inventing the name “engineer Sergeyev” for this purpose. ln this connection, additional measures were formulated and were subsequently approved by Comrade Lieutenant General Tsanava of the Ministry for State Security of the BSSR and Comrade Lieutenant

15

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

General Belchenko of the Ministry of internal Affairs of the BSSR. Since the circle of acquaintances of Mikhoels and Golubov- Potapov consisted mainly of people from the artistic world, it was deemed more suitable for the organs of the Ministry for State Security to investigate this aspect, and the materials obtained by operative agents and the investigation concerning these people were turned over to Bureau 2 of the Ministry for State Security of the BSSR and any further examination of these links was being carried out by the staff of Bureau 2. Other measures to discover the vehicle and driver responsive for the accident were handled by the operations staff of the militia and workers of the State Vehicle inspection Department. Based on lists from the State Auto Companies, all vehicles which were not in garages on the night of January 13 were checked out and carefully examined. Later on, all the other vehicles were checked as well. However, there was nothing discovered which linked any of these vehicles to the accident. It seems that there are no traces of the accident on the vehicle that caused it. According to the agents' report, it was ascertained that а vehicle ZIS-5, whose driver was making his rounds on the evening of January 12, was close to the area where the bodies were discovered, and there were hairs discovered on the underside of this vehicle. How- ever, an examination carried out in Moscow by Professor Bronnikova established that the hairs had no connection with the incident since they turned out to be sheep's fur.

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It is essential to point out that the task of discovering the missing driver is beset with major difficulties. There are more than 4,000 vehicles in the State Auto Companies of Minsk. ln addition, а significant number of vehicles arrive daily in Minsk from neighboring regions, as well as from military units located in the Minsk area. А check of the latter is being undertaken by the Counter intelligence Department of the Ministry for State Security of the Belorussian Military District. Thus, despite all the measures taken so far, it has not yet been possible to establish the identity of the driver who struck Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov. А further search is continuing under the direct supervision of the Head of the Republican Militia - Militia Commissar of the third Rank Comrade Krasnenko. Bodunov Deputy Head of the Central Administration of the Militia, Militia Commissar of the third Rank1

1948 – Polina Zhemchuzhina At Mikhoels’ funeral Polina Zhemchuzhina, wife of Vyacheslav Molotov and a former government minister, made a remark to another person that she believed Mikhoels’ death was not an accident, but murder. The following passages are from Shkiriatov’s and Abakumov’s report about Zhemchuzhina, dated December 27, 1948:

1 Translation from WHS 445-7, with alterations by me (GF).

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

During face-to-face confrontations with Zhemchuzhina, it was also established that, being at the coffin of Mikhoels in the Jewish theater, in a conversation with Zuskin, she said that Mikhoels had been killed. Zuskin, at a confrontation, said the following about his conversation with Zhemchuzhina: In the evening, January 13, 1948, I stood at the coffin and accepted wreaths from all the organizations and at that time I saw Polina Semyonovna, greeted her and she expressed her sadness over the death of Mikhoels. During the conversation, Polina Semyonovna asks: “So do you think what happened here was an accident or a murder?” I said: “Based on the fact that we received a message from Comrade Iovchuk, Mikhoels died as a result of an automobile accident. H was found at 7 o'clock in the morning on a street, not far from the hotel.” And Polina Semyonovna objected and said: “Things are not as smooth as they are trying to present them. This is murder” ... From the conversation with Zhemchuzhina, and, in particular, her statement that Mikhoels was killed, I concluded that Mikhoels' death was the result of a premeditated murder. That such a conversation really took place with Zhemchuzhina is also confirmed by Fefer’s statement at the face-to-face confrontation, to whom Zuskin informed about his conversation with Zhemchuzhina that day: The first thing she said to me,” Zuskin said, was “what a bastard that Khrapchenko is, he couldn’t send another person to Minsk instead of Mikhoels.” Then, after a pause, Zhemchuzhina shook her head and said, “This is not an accidental death, this was not an accident. He was murdered.” I asked Zuskin: ‘Who killed him?’ ‘She didn't say who,’ Zuskin replied. Well, apparently, he was killed on purpose. At the same time, he said

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the following phrase: ‘They either beheaded him or his head was removed.’ Zhemchuzhina is of the same opinion, Zuskin concluded. I again asked who was accused in this case. Zuskin replied that from a conversation with Zhemchuzhina, he had the opinion that she meant Soviet organs. This behavior of Zhemchuzhina gave hostile people reason to confirm the provocative rumors they spread that Mikhoels was deliberately killed.2 There is no evidence that Zhemchuzhina got this vague allegation that Soviet authorities had murdered Mikhoels from her husband or any other official source. Evidently, she was repeating rumors that had already begun to circulate among Jewish nationalists with whom she was friendly. In 1960 Molotov wrote privately that he thought his wife’s expulsion from the Party and arrest were unjust but never hinted that what she said was true.3 In 1973 Molotov told Feliks Chuev that his wife, released from prison the day after Stalin’s death, evidently on Beria’s order, remained a firm “Stalinist” despite it all and defended Stalin even to her family. According to Molotov, Zhemchuzhina’s first words after her release from prison were: “How is Stalin?” In 1983, when Chuev told Molotov that the BBC had broadcast a story that Stalin had killed Mikhoels, Molotov replied: “Of course, they would. They hate Stalin. Even now, thirty years after his death. They are beasts, beasts!” 4

2 See the Russian text in the Appendix.

3 Vyacheslav Nikonov, Molotov. Nashe delo pravoe. t. 2. Moscow: Molodaia

Gvardiia, 2016, 299-300 and notes.

4 Feliks Chuev, Molotov. Poluderzhavniy Vlastelin. Moscow: Olma-Press, 2000,

547-549; 695.

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

1952 - V.L. Zuskin In 1952 V.L. Zuskin, a close friend of Mikhoels’ who was present when his body arrived in Moscow, testified about Mikhoels’ death.5 Zuskin was a defendant at the trial of the members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, a partial transcript of which was published in the mid-90s in Russian and later in English. When Zbarsky came to the funeral, he told me that Mikhoels's death had definitely been the result of an automobile accident, and he explained to me that one arm was broken and then there was that bruise on his cheek. This had happened as a result of one car crashing into another, and both of them had gone flying off to the side, so they had died as a result of the impact. And then he told me that he had died painlessly. If he had received immediate assistance, maybe something could have been done, but he had frozen to death because he lay for several hours in the snow.6

1963 – Article in Sovetskaia Litva On January 13, 1963, the fifteenth anniversary of Mikhoels’ death, there appeared in the newspaper Sovetskaia Litva (Soviet Lithuania) an article titled “Vydaiushchiisia khudozhnik-realist” – “Outstanding realist artist” devoted to Mikhoels’ memory. It was written by Leonid Emanuilovich Lur’e7, a prominent Soviet director. The first paragraph of Lur’e’s article reads as follows: Today marks the 15th anniversary of the death of an outstanding figure in Soviet theatrical culture, S. M. 5 This is our Document #10.

6 Joshua Rubenstein, Vladimir P. Naumov, eds., Stalin’s Secret Pogrom. New

Haven: Yale University Press, 2001, p. 397. Russian text in Appendix.

7 The biographical sketch of Lur’e states that he was Mikhoels’ assistant for four

years in the State Jewish Theater in Moscow (GOSET). I cannot find confirmation of this claim.

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Mikhoels. He was killed by the vile clique of Beria - those who ruthlessly and in a calculated manner trampled on the material and cultural culture of the people, destroying outstanding figures of the party and state, workers of science, literature, and art. Today we remember one of them - the artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theatre, People's Artist of the USSR Solomon Mikhailovich Mikhoels. The rest of the article discusses Mikhoels’ career without further reference to his death. Two days later the New York Times reported on this article.8 The Times article noted: It was believed to be the first time that the circumstances of Mikhoels’ death, long known in the West, had been made public in the Soviet Union. The official version has been that he died in an automobile accident on a visit to Minsk in January, 1948. I have been unable to verify the claim in this article that this account of Mikhoels’ death, or any account of his having been murdered by the Soviet police, was known or even rumored in the West before this Pravda article. What’s more, this is contested later in the same Times piece: It has become fashionable to attribute the purges in the last years of Stalin’s life to his secret police chief, Lavrentii P. Beria, who was executed on treason charges within a year after the dictator’s death.9 8 “Moscow confirms Police Killed Mikhoels, Yiddish Actor, in ’48.” New York Times

January 17, 1963, p. 5.

9 In fact, in 1948, Beria was not at the head of any of these departments and paid

his main attention to the leadership of the atomic project. As Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, he only oversaw the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Minister S.N. Kruglov), the Ministry of State Security (Minister V.S.

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

In order to be published in Sovetskaia Litva the claim that Beria had murdered Mikhoels must have been approved by high-ranking leaders of the CPSU, probably by Khrushchev himself. Beria was falsely accused by Nikita Khrushchev and his supporters of a great many crimes that he certainly did not commit.

No later than 1967 – Il’ia Erenburg’s Memoir In Chapter 15 of the final book of his memoir Liudi, gody, zhizn’ (“People, Years, Life”) renowned Soviet Jewish writer Il’ia Erenburg wrote as follows about Mikhoels’ death: And they killed Mikhoels ... Then we were told that Solomon Mikhailovich went to Minsk together with Golubov-Potapov on behalf of the Committee that awarded the Stalin Prizes - he was supposed to review a production submitted for the prize. At night he was to fulfil an invitation - he again walked with Golubov-Potapov along one of the streets on the outskirts, and there either bandits killed both of them, or they were crushed by a truck. This version seemed convincing in the spring of 1948; six months later, many began to doubt it. When Zuskin was arrested, everyone thought: how did Mikhoels die? ... Recently, a Soviet newspaper published in Lithuania said that Mikhoels was killed by agents of Beria. I won't guess why Beria, who could have calmly arrested Mikhoels, resorted to a villainous subterfuge. Of course, it was not because he feared public opinion. Most likely, he was just amusing himself. I attended the memorial service for Solomon Mikhailovich in his theater. His disfigured face was Abakumov) and the Ministry of State Control (Minister L.Z. Mekhlis). See http://old.memo.ru/history/nkvd/kto/biogr/gb42.htm and https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Берия,_Лаврентий_Павлович Accessed 02.15.2023.

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23

disguised with makeup. Speeches were made. I remember Fadeev's speech. There was a crowd in the street, many were crying Erenburg knew nothing beside what was in the Lur’e article in Sovetskaia Litva of 1963. However, Ehrenburg's literary authority and his wide popularity did their job, giving credibility to the version based on that unconfirmed newspaper publication. Since Erenburg attended Mikhoels’ funeral and knew many people in the Moscow Jewish community, he mentions Golubov-Potapov, whom Lur’e had not named. He accepts that Beria was to blame and does not accuse Stalin.

1967 - Svetlana Allilueva Joseph Stalin’s only daughter emigrated from the USSR to the West in 1966. In her first book of memoirs, Twenty Letters To A Friend (1967), she wrote: A new wave of arrests got under way at the end of 1948 … Lozovsky was arrested, and Mikhoels was killed. (196) A footnote to this passage (p. 245) states that Mikhoels “died in mysterious circumstances” in 1948. But Allilueva’s chronology is confused here. There was no such clear connection among the events she cites, for Mikhoels was killed on January 12-13, 1948, not at the end of the year while Lozovsky was arrested a year later. The most important thing for us to note about this statement is this: In 1967, when this book was published, Allilueva had no knowledge of her father having had Mikhoels killed.

1969 – Svetlana Allilueva Two years later Allilueva published a second volume of memoirs, Only One Year (1969). Here she tells a very different story:



24

Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

One day, in father’s dacha, during one of my rare meetings with him, I entered his room when he was speaking to someone on the telephone. Something was being reported to him and he was listening. Then, as a summary of the conversation, he said, “Well, it’s an automobile accident.” I remember so well the way he said it: not a question but an answer, an assertion. He wasn’t asking; he was suggesting: “an automobile accident.” When he got through, he greeted me; and a little later he said: “Mikhoels was killed in an automobile accident.” (154) The earlier reference makes it clear that in 1967 Allilueva did not yet “know” that Mikhoels had been murdered at all, much less that it was her father who had murdered him. It’s not possible that Stalin’s daughter had simply forgotten to mention this detail in her earlier account. Nor can people who hear only one side of a phone conversation tell whether a person making a statement is instructing someone else, or repeating a fact just heard from the other party. Moreover, her interpretation of this account is impossible. If Stalin were hearing of Mikhoels’ death he could not have been “suggesting” – that is, instructing someone to fabricate the story of an automobile accident – because that accident had already occurred. Allilueva’s second volume was written after moving to the US where she was befriended by Soviet exiles and other persons with strongly anti-communist views, some of whom she thanks in her book. Perhaps it was they who convinced her to put a different construction on whatever it was she had heard her father say in 1948. Despite its obvious lack of validity as evidence, some contemporary scholars still cite Allilueva’s story from Only One Year while failing to mention her earlier version. For that reason, and because it is the first appearance in print of the story that Joseph Stalin or-

Chapter 1. Before the Beria Letter

25

dered the death of Solomon Mikhoels, it will serve as a starting point in tracing the historiography of this historical fabrication. It is useful to keep Allilueva’s two mutually contradictory accounts in mind for another reason. They should remind us of the great limitations of “first-hand” accounts of any historical event – much less of “second-hand” accounts, or those at an even greater remove – and especially of those written down long after the events in question. Even leaving aside for a moment the matter of deliberate fraud (of which there is plenty10), first-hand or eye-witness accounts are imaginative reconstructions of events, not some kind of objective “record/” At best they should never be taken as more than that.11 Allilueva’s account is also useful as a touchstone of historiographical honesty. Any historian who cites her second version without at the same time revealing how it contradicts the first version and without discussing the problems this raises, is thereby guilty of a deliberate attempt to deceive his or her readers. As we shall see, Gennadii Kostyrchenko, the most important historian of the “Mikhoels murder,” does exactly this.

Joshua Rubenstein A 2001 book from the Yale “Annals of Communism” series, Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, edited by Joshua Rubenstein and Vladimir Naumov, contains an eight-page section entitled “Anti-Semitism and the

10 Several examples of deliberate historical fraud will be cited in this article.

11 This is widely recognized, so there is no excuse for historians who rely on such

“evidence.” See, for example, John N. Kotre, White gloves: how we create ourselves through memory. New York, 1995; Elizabeth Loftus, Eyewitness Testimony. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.

26

Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

Murder of Solomon Mikhoels.” In the course of his commentary12 Rubenstein makes the following remark: Stalin’s daughter overheard her father on the telephone when he received word of Mikhoels’ death and recalls him approving the official story that it was the result of an automobile accident. (39) But this is not what Allilueva wrote. She wrote that Stalin was not asking; he was suggesting “an automobile accident.” Rubenstein evidently realized, as we have also noted above, that this was impossible. Stalin could not be “approving” something that had already occurred. So in an attempt to twist Allilueva’s remark to his own purposes Rubenstein rewrote – falsified – Allilueva’s statement to suit what he wants Allilueva to have written. Moreover, Rubenstein’s rewrite is just as false as Allilueva’s account, for Rubenstein takes it for granted that Stalin was “approving” instead of simply repeating what he had been told over the phone. But Rubenstein’s fabrication misses the mark. No one could conclude from these words that Stalin had had Mikhoels murdered. Rubenstein does not seem to realize that his version of Allilueva’s words would confirm that Mikhoels really did die from an auto accident. To use Rubenstein’s language, the “official story” is the correct story. Rubenstein’s book, published in 2001, is an extended attempt to show that Stalin was fiercely antisemitic and the Mikhoels’ murder is a key part of his argument. This allusion to Svetlana Allilueva’s 1969 memoirs is the only piece of evidence Rubenstein adduces in 12 This commentary is so filled with lies and distortions that their enumeration

would require a lengthy review in itself. Here we are only interested in Rubenstein’s remark about Mikhoels’ death.

Chapter 1. Before the Beria Letter

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proof that Mikhoels was murdered. He does not inform his readers that Allilueva had said something different in her earlier book.

Allilueva’s “Memoirs” In his 2002 memoir Bespokoinoe serdtse Vladimir Semichastniy, at that time Chairman of the KGB, wrote that the KGB was alarmed at the prospect of Allilueva’s memoir being published in the West. He wrote: ... We were afraid that, having received the manuscript of “Twenty Letters to a Friend”, the Americans would fill it with hard-core anti-Soviet content and this libel, signed by Stalin's daughter, would be disseminated throughout the world. I suggested that we announce that the original copy of Alliluyeva's manuscript is in the safe of one of the Swiss banks, and that after the publication of the book in the West, we will provide it for comparison. In addition, I suggested that the Americans be preempted and the original text of the “Letters” be published in the West using KGB channels. We even got in touch with one of the West German journals who was willing to publish the source code and pay us $50,000 for it. At the same time, we did not want to change the text of the manuscript so that Svetlana would not have any claims against us. With these proposals, I came on May 18 to a meeting of the Politburo. Our idea did not find support. (367368)

Allilueva Repudiates Her Memoirs At a press conference on November 16, 1984, upon her return to the USSR and resumption of Soviet citizenship Allilueva revealed that the American CIA. had directed virtually all her activities, including her memoirs.

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

My decision to return to my homeland, and to my family. - she said, - was based solely on personal, human motives. I am not a politician, and never have been in my entire life. Once I was in this same socalled “free world”, I myself was not free in it for a single day. There I fell into the hands of businessmen, lawyers, political hustlers and publishers who turned my father's name, my name and my life into sensational commodities. My actions were controlled by the CIA, which told me what I should write and how I should act ... (Pravda No. 322 November 17, 1984) Rubenstein knew – or should have known – about Allilueva’s statement upon her return to Russia. He had the responsibility to inform his readers that Allilueva had in fact repudiated what she wrote when she was in “the Free World.” But Rubenstein failed to do so.

1969 – Roi Medvedev, Let History Judge (Russian: K sudu istorii). Roi A. Medvedev, already a well-known Soviet dissident, decided in 1969 to publish this book abroad. Let History Judge appeared in an abbreviated version in English in 1972.13 A much longer Russian language edition was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1974. I assume that this Russian version is closest to the original. In it Mikhoels’ murder is reported as follows: Был убит в Минске и руководитель Еврейского театра, крупный общественный деятель и выдающийся артист С. М. Михоэлс. В книге д' Астье де ля Вижери о Сталине, изданной во Франции в 1964 году, рассказы 13 Roy Medvedev, “Author’s Preface to the Revised and Expanded Edition.” Let

History Judge. The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism. Revised and Expanded Edition. Edited and translated by George Shriver. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989, xiii.

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вается, что еще в 1946 году, по совету Кагановича Сталин пригласил к себе Михоэлса и попросил его исполнить роль короля Лира. В дальнейшем этот замечательный артист еще не один раз приглашался к Сталину и играл для него одного отрывки из ролей Шекспира. Каждый раз Сталин благодарил Михоэлса и высоко оценивал его игру. А в 1948 году, не без ведома Сталина, Михоэлс был убит в Минске. Через несколько лет, уже посмертно, этот артист был бездоказательно объявлен шпионом англо-американской и израильской разведок. (971) S. M. Mikhoels, the head of the Jewish theater, a major public figure and an outstanding artist, was killed in Minsk. In d'Astier de la Vigerie's book about Stalin, published in France in 1964, it is said that back in 1946, on the advice of Kaganovich, Stalin invited Mikhoels to his place and asked him to play the role of King Lear. After that, this remarkable artist was invited more than once to Stalin and performed for him a selection of roles from Shakespeare. Each time Stalin thanked Mikhoels and praised his performance highly. But in 1948, with Stalin’s knowledge, Mikhoels was killed in Minsk. A few years later this artist was posthumously declared without evidence to have been a spy for Anglo-American and Israeli intelligence. Medvedev does not tell us what if any evidence he had for accusing Stalin here. This book, a lengthy attack on Stalin, was written with an eye to publication in the Soviet Union during the years after the XXII Party Congress of October, 1961, in which Khrushchev sponsored a flood of anti-Stalin articles and books that made all kinds of accusations against Stalin, none of them containing any primary-source evidence. A year or so after Khrushchev was ousted as First Secretary of the Party and Premier of the USSR in October, 1964, the new Brezhnev leadership almost completely halted the publication of books and

30

Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

articles criticizing Stalin. Medvedev had not yet finished his book, so it could not be published in the Soviet Union.

1978 – V.G. Gusarov, Moi papa ubil Mikhoelsa. (“My Father Killed Mikhoels”) In this book, published by Posev-Verlag, an anticommunist publishing house in Germany specializing in Russian-language materials, the passage dealing with Mikhoels is as follows:

Отец был… с [19]47 по [19]50-й – первым секретарём ЦК КП Белоруссии … Именно в годы правления моего отца в Минске был убит Михоэлс. Подробности этого убийства мне неизвестны. Вполне возможно, что его убил не папа, а министр МГБ Цанава, племянник Берия, а может, и еще кто, но дело не меняется от этого. Сам я в Белоруссии никогда не бывал, мы уже не жили с отцом, но и я причастен.14 My father was first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belorussia from 1947 to 1950 … It was during the reign of my father that Mikhoels was killed in Minsk. The details of this murder are unknown to me. It is quite possible that it was not my father who killed him, but the minister of the MGB Tsanava, Beria's nephew, and maybe someone else, but this doesn’t change anything. I myself have never been to Belarus, we no longer lived with my father, but I am also involved. The author admits that he himself knows nothing. He repeats the story, already spread by Khrushchev, Medvedev, and others, that Mikhoels was murdered. Stalin is not mentioned. 14 Published edition, p. 8; digital edition, p. 2.

Chapter 1. Before the Beria Letter

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However, it is in this book that Tsanava and the Byelorussian MGB are mentioned for the first time in connection with Mikhoels’ death. These details will come to play an important role in the “official” and fraudulent version that appears after 1992. *

*

*

1988 – the Solomentsev-Yakovlev document belongs here chronologically. But it was not published until 2004, by which time the fraudulent “official” version of Mikhoels’ death had been established. We deal with this document in a later chapter.

*

*

*



1989 – Roi Medvedev, Let History Judge, revised version. In the 1989 revised and expanded English translation this passage appears thus: The head of the theater, Solomon Mikhoels, a prominent public figure as well as a great actor, was killed. Emmanuel d'Astier de laVigerie tells how Stalin, on Kaganovich's advice, invited Mikhoels to play the role of King Lear for him in 1946. This remarkable actor was repeatedly invited to give private performances of Shakespearean roles for Stalin. Each time Stalin thanked Mikhoels and praised his acting. But in 1948, with Stalin's knowledge, if not on his initiative, Beria' s agents killed Mikhoels in Minsk, then made up the story that he died in an auto accident. A few years later he was posthumously labeled a spy for Anglo-American intelligence. (786) In the unabridged Russian version of 1974 Medvedev claims that Mikhoels was killed “with Stalin’s knowledge.” No killer is named.

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

Stalin is not identified as the person who ordered Mikhoels’ to be killed. According to Medvedev, all sections of the 1989 edition “have been enlarged, and the book has been fundamentally revised. This applies as well to the author's ideas and opinions. It is, in fact, a new book.” (xiii) Beria is now identified as Stalin’s murder through “his agents.” No account is taken of the fact that Beria did not head the MVD or the MGB in 1948.15 Medvedev repeats that the murder was done “with Stalin’s knowledge” but he adds “if not on his initiative.” He gives no evidence or reference for this statement. Between the unabridged Russian edition of 1974 and the revised edition of 1989 Medvedev had become acquainted with the account by Svetlana Allilueva, whose 1969 work he cites. It is interesting that Medvedev cites Allilueva’s 1969 book Only One Year only once while he cites her 1967 book several times. He does not directly cite Allilueva’s accusation that her father ordered Mikhoels’ murder.

1990 – Popov and Oppokov, “Berievshchina” Beginning in 1989 the authors Vitalii Oppokov and Boris Popov wrote a series of seven articles attacking Beria in the journal Voenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal (VIZh). The series of articles is titled “Berievshchina,” a word modeled on the term “Yezhovshchina,” or “bad time of Yezhov,” the common name in Russian for Yezhov’s era of mass murders. In their fourth article they outline their account of Beria’s alleged repression of Mikhoels.

Так, в свое время высказывались предположения о причастности Берии и гибели Камо, Михоэлса, Ива Фаржа. Основанием для подобного обвинения 15 From 1946 until 1951 Viktor S. Abakumov headed the MGB, while Sergei N.

Kruglov headed the MVD (the former NKVD) until the day of Stalin’s death.

Chapter 1. Before the Beria Letter

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являлось то, что смерть всех троих стала следствием автомобильных происшествий, результаты расследования в трех случаях ни к чему не привели, а личную заинтересованность Берии в каждом трагическом происшествии утаить, словно шило в мешке, было не так уж просто.16 So at one time assumptions were made about the involvement of Beria and the deaths of Kamo, Mikhoels, and Yves Farge. The basis for such an accusation was that the death of all three was the result of car accidents. The results of the investigation in three cases came to nothing, and it was not so easy to hide, “like a needle in a bag,” Beria’s personal interest in each tragic incident. In a lengthy footnote about all three of these men the section on Mikhoels stands out as especially curious.

МИХОЭЛС (Вовси) Соломон Михайлович (18901948). Известный советский актёр и режиссёр, народный артист СССР. С первых дней открытия государственного еврейского театра входил в его труппу, в 1929 стал художественным руководителем этого творческого коллектива. Этим самым, что можно предположить, он «перешёл дорогу» Берии. Как свидетельствуют факты, в стратегические планы последнего входило прослыть «отцом» не только грузинского, но и еврейского народов, истребив значительную часть и того, и другого. Причём «отец» должен быть просвещённым вроде Сталина, писавшего в свое время сти 16 B.S. Popov and B.G. Oppokov, “Berievshchina.” VIZh 3 (1990), 81-90, at pages

84-5. The same text is in the article on Beria in V.R. Nekrasov, ed. Beria. Konets kar’ery. Moscow: Politizdat, 1991, 339-40.

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

хи. Берия решил стать новым мессией. спасающим «свой» народ от невежества и тьмы, благодетелем, возвращающим «своему» народу культурные ценности, в частности национальные театр и печать. Объявить себя таковым в области театрального искусства мешал в немалой степени авторитет Михоэлса. Народного артиста нужно было убрать, а по истечении нескольких лет, когда загадочная смерть стала бы забываться, объявить себя организатором еврейского театра. Именно организатором! ... На это Берия решился, вступив в должность... Министра внутренних дел СССР. Когда на допросе 10 июля 1953 г. его спросили какое отношение к нему имели вопросы восстановления (!) еврейского театра и издания еврейской газеты, он ответил, что в организации (!) театра и издании газеты «мы по линии МВД были заинтересованы, мое отношение к этим вопросам было с позиции освещения настроений интеллигенции». При этом, как бы в оправдание, уточнил, что готовил с связи с этим соответствующую записку в ЦК партии. Опровергая эту ложь, ему зачитали показания его приближенного Людвигова. Тот утверждал, что «часто вмешиваясь не в свои функции, Берия, по существу, подменял Центральный Комитет, игнорировал его ... По этим же мотивам работники Министерства внутренних дел, минуя ЦК, занимались вопросами деятельности Министерства культуры, вопросами восстановления еврейского театра, организации еврейской газеты, работной положения о порядке награждения орденами и т.д.» -- Дело по обвинению Л.П. Берии ... т.1 л. 115.

Chapter 1. Before the Beria Letter

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MIKHOELS (Vovsi) Solomon Mikhailovich (18901948). Famous Soviet actor and director, People's Artist of the USSR. From the first days of the opening of the State Jewish Theater, he was a member of its troupe. In 1929 he became the artistic director of this creative team. From this it may be assumed that he “crossed paths with” Beria. As evidenced by the facts, in the strategic plans of the latter it was necessary to pass for the “father” of both the Georgian and the Jewish peoples, having exterminated a significant part of both. Moreover, the “father” must be enlightened like Stalin, who had written poetry in his time. Beria decided to become the new messiah.17 Rescuing “his” people from ignorance and darkness, a benefactor, returning cultural values to “his” people, in particular the national theater and the press. Mikhoels' authority prevented him [Beria – GF] from declaring himself as such in the field of theatrical art. The people's artist had to be removed. Then after a few years when the mysterious death would have been forgotten, he planned to declare himself the organizer of the Jewish theater. Yes, the organizer! … Beria decided on this by entering into the office of ... Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR. When interrogated on July 10, 1953, he was asked. What did the issues of restoring (!) the Jewish theater and publishing a Jewish newspaper have to do with him, he answered that in the organization (!) of the theater and the publication of the newspaper, “we in the Ministry of Internal Affairs were interested, my attitude to these issues was from the standpoint of discovering the mood of the intelligentsia.”. At the same time, as if in justification, he clarified that in connection with this he was preparing a corresponding note to the Central Committee of the party. In refutation of this lie there was read to him 17 Perhaps the authors meant “new Maecenas.”

36

Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

the testimony of his close associate Liudvigov who argued that “often interfering in functions that were not his, Beria, in essence, replaced the Central Committee, ignored it ... For the same reason employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, bypassing the Central Committee, dealt with the activities of the Ministry of Culture, the restoration of the Jewish theater, the organization of a Jewish newspaper, the working regulations on the procedure for awarding orders, etc.” – The Case of L.P. Beria ... vol.1 p.115. The italicized text in the quotation above does come from a supposed interrogation of Beria of July 10, 1953, while the underlined passages in the quotations above are taken from an interrogation of MGB man Liudvigov of July 8, 1953.18 These documents, hidden away in the secret archives of the NKVD-MVD-KGB, were not published until 2010. This is evidence that Popov and Oppokov did indeed have privileged access to some “Beria” materials. This account is important for another reason. It shows that as of 1990 Party archivists and officials did not know of any documents suggesting that Stalin had anything to do with Mikhoels’ death. Neither did Popov and Oppokov, who in 1990 were still calling Mikhoels’ death “mysterious.” Popov and Oppokov took some statements from these two interrogations about Beria’s interest in Jewish culture and elaborated them into a story. According to this account Beria wanted to appear to be the “savior” (or perhaps the patron) of the Georgian theater and, after Mikhoels’ “mysterious” death had been somewhat forgotten, to name himself “the organizer of the Jewish theater.” This version echoes the 1963 Sovetskaia Litva article in blaming (though tacitly) Beria for Mikhoels’ death, or at least for a motive to get Mikhoels out of the way. 18 V.N. Khaustov ed., Delo Beriia. Prigovor obzhalovaniiu ne podlezhit. Moscow,

MFD 2012, Dok. No. 17, p. 41; No. 18, p. 47.

Chapter 1. Before the Beria Letter

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This story makes it clear that in 1990 these elite “researchers” who had access to restricted MGB-MVD archives and were able to publish in a top historical journal and then in an Party-sponsored book were still promoting the notion of Beria’s guilt in Mikhoels’ death. Stalin does not figure at all in this account. Evidently the authors had heard some story or other from the Khrushchev era that Beria was responsible for Mikhoels’ death. But they had no idea about any plausible motive Beria might have had, so they invented an implausible one. After the republication of this story in a 1991 book (see below) it is never heard of again. Perhaps we can also discern the beginning of the turn towards a more positive— or at least a less negative – portrayal of Beria than that bequeathed by Khrushchev and Khrushchev-era writers. This re-evaluation of Beria begins to take effect as soon as the Soviet Union has come to an end. It is essential for the credibility of the “Beria letter,” which we will study in the next chapter.

1991 – “Beria, The End of His Career” The book with this title – in Russian “Beria. Konets kar’ery” – was published by the official Party publishing house “Politizdat” – “political literature” – in 1991. In it we find one reference to Beria and Mikhoels – the same passage that had been published a year earlier in Voenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal. Party archivists and officials still did not know anything about the story that “Stalin ordered Mikhoels murdered.”

Late 1960s to 1991 - Nikita Khrushchev We do not know precisely when Khrushchev wrote his account of Mikhoels’ death, when he completed the version of his memoirs that was smuggled to the West, or even what the final version composed by Khrushchev is or was. Since the earliest edition in English was published in 1970, we can assume that Khrushchev completed it in 1968 or 1969.

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

In the 1970 English translation published in 1970, the passage about Mikhoels’ death reads as follows: More typical was the cruel punishment of Mikhoels, the greatest actor of the Yiddish theater, a man of culture. They killed him like beasts. They killed him secretly. Then his murderers were rewarded and their victim was buried with honors. The mind reels at the thought! it was announced that Mikhoels had fallen in front of a truck. Actually he was thrown in front of a truck. This was done very cleverly and efficiently. And who did it? Stalin did it, or at least it was done on his instructions. After Stalin's death, when we opened the archives of the Ministry of State Security and interrogated Beria's men, we found out that they had planned to murder Litvinov by a similar method …19 This part of Khrushchev’s memoir was published in the (still) Soviet historical journal Voprosy Istorii, number 11 for 1991. The paragraph above is the same in the 1991 Russian edition: A reprisal took place against Mikhoels, the foremost artist of the Jewish theater, a man of great culture. He was brutally killed, killed secretly, and then his killers were rewarded and their victim was buried with honor. The mind boggles! They pretended that he was hit by a truck, but he was thrown under it. It was artistically accomplished. And who did this? People acting on Stalin’s orders. In the same way they wanted to arrange the murder of Litvinov. When they found (literally “took up”) a number of documents after Stalin's death and 19 Khrushchev Remembers. Introduction and commentary by Edward Crankshaw.

Translated and edited by Strobe Talbott. Boston: Little, Brown 1970, 261-2. In the Bantam paperback edition of 1971 the same text is on pages 277-8.

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interrogated employees of the MGB, it turned out that Litvinov should have been killed on the way from Moscow to his dacha. However, in subsequent Russian editions, including the fourvolume edition of 1999, the sentence in boldface above has been altered to the following: Люди Берии и Абакумова по поручению Сталина. Beria’s and Abakumov’s people on Stalin’s orders. This sentence is lacking in all previous editions. Therefore, Khrushchev’s memoirs have been altered. This fact deprives them of any value as a historical source, quite apart from the question of Khrushchev’s credibility. In 2012 a single interrogation was published in which Veniamin Naumovich Gul’st, a former NKVD general, stated that in 1940 Beria had outlined to him a plan to kill Litvinov by having a truck, to be driven by Gul’st and an accomplice, crash into his car. Gul’st said that Beria told him this was a directive of “one of the leaders of the Party and government,” but called him a few days later to call the plan off, swearing Gul’st to secrecy. 20 This document could have been forged in order to give Khrushchev’s story some credibility. Or, it might be genuine. We know that Khrushchev’s men were interrogating MVD and MGB personnel who had worked with Beria in order to collect negative and incriminating stories about Beria. We know that he punished some, including by execution, who failed to give him what he wanted. We discuss this in the appendix to Chapter 6. So Gul’st may have actually said this. That would not mean that he was telling the truth. It was in the interest of the agents who had worked under Beria to tell Khrushchev’s men what they wanted to 20 V.N. Khaustov ed., Delo Beriia. Prigovor obzhalovaniiu ne podlezhit. Moscow,

MFD 2012, Document 81, 283-4.

40

Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

hear – negative stories about Beria’s alleged “crimes. We note too that this “Gul’st” document does not blame Beria, who is said to have been just following orders. The paragraph below appears in the 1991 Russian edition of Khrushchev’s memoirs but is not in the 1970 and 1971 English versions. It does appear in the 2004 enlarged English edition.21 Сталин опять начал практиковать тайные убийства. Повторю, что Михоэлс был убит тайно. Не знаю, по какому поводу он выезжал не то в Смоленск, не то в Минск, возможно, его специально туда вывезли. Одним словом, там нашли его труп. Было инсценировано его убийство. В действительности его труп выбросили на улицу, а там организовали наезд машины на него. При его похоронах наша общественность отдала ему должное. Но она не знала, как погиб этот человек. А его убийцу (мне сообщил Маленков) наградили. (page 60) Stalin again began to practice secret assassinations. I repeat that Mikhoels was secretly killed. I don’t know for what reason he went either to Smolensk or to Minsk, perhaps he was taken there on purpose. In a word, they found his body there. His murder was staged. In fact, his corpse was thrown out into the street, and there they organized the collision (naezd) of a car on him. At his funeral, our public paid tribute to him. But they did not know how this man had died. And his killer (Malenkov told me) was given an award. Once again we see that Khrushchev’s memoirs have been altered.

21 Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev. Volume 2. Reformer [1945-1954]. Edited by

Sergei Khrushchev. Translated by George Shriver. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006, p. 55.

Chapter 1. Before the Beria Letter

41

Khrushchev’s Account Lur’e’s 1963 article had blamed Beria. Stalin was not mentioned at all. Only a few years later Khrushchev’s account claims that Stalin had ordered Mikhoels’ murder. Here Beria is not mentioned, only Stalin. There is a problem with the attempt to pin the blame for Mikhoels’ death on Beria. He had indeed been People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs – that is, in charge of the NKVD – from the time of Nikolai Yezhov’s resignation, late November to early December, 1938, until December 1945. But from that date until Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953, Sergei N. Kruglov had been Minister of Internal Affairs. Beria only became minister of the combined MGB-MVD at Stalin’s death, obviously with the support of the top Party leaders including Khrushchev. If Mikhoels had been murdered by MGB or MVD operatives this would have been during Kruglov’s time, not Beria’s. On August 20, 1945, two weeks after the US dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, a “Special Committee on the Atomic Bomb” was formed. According to Amy Knight, Beria had the ultimate authority over this project. Some of the scientists claimed that Beria was ignorant and disrespectful. The problem with these accounts is that they were written after Khrushchev’s vicious attacks on Beria, during a time when it was imperative for anyone who had worked with him to say bad things about him. However, other scientists attested to Beria’s intelligence and administrative ability. In 1948 Beria was not in command of the MGB or MVD and so could not have played any role in Mikhoels’ death. None of these details were widely known when Lur’e wrote his article or when Khrushchev composed his memoirs. Knight, whose book was published in 1993, references the version of the “Beria letter” that appeared in Argumenty i Fakty in May 1992, in which Beria is not the

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

accused but the accuser who purportedly reveals that Mikhoels was murdered at Stalin’s order.22 Another problem with this passage is this: Khrushchev claims here that Malenkov told him Mikhoels’ “killer” – only one killer – was decorated for it. Khrushchev was also claiming that he did not know about Mikhoels’ murder at Stalin’s command until Malenkov told him about it. But it is very unlikely that if Mikhoels really had been murdered Khrushchev would not have learned of it when Malenkov did. Malenkov was Chairman of the Council of Ministers – the head of state – from 1953 to 1955. Khrushchev was First Secretary of the Party from September, 1953 until he was ousted by the Central Committee on October 14, 1964. Both Malenkov and Khrushchev were

members of the Presidium (formerly the Politburo) before and after Stalin’s death. Malenkov could not have kept “Beria’s letter” secret from the Presidium, let alone from Khrushchev, who was head of the Party. Nor could the awarding of medals for this action have been kept secret from these bodies or from Khrushchev. Therefore Khrushchev is lying here, as is suggested by his remark that Mikhoels and Lozovsky had been arrested. He is reporting

rumors that were circulating within the Soviet Union when he was writing his memoirs during the period 1965 to 1969. Medvedev also reported the rumor that Mikhoels had been murdered “with Stalin’s knowledge.”

22 Amy Knight. Beria. Stalin’s First Lieutenant. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press, 1993, pp. 134 ff; and note 62, p. 264. We will study the “Beria letter” in the next chapter.

Chapter 1. Before the Beria Letter

43

From the End of the Soviet Union to the Accusation of Stalin The Soviet Union ended in December, 1991. About that same time the attacks on Beria largely ceased. They had begun at the time he was either killed or arrested on June 26, 1953, by the other members of the old Politburo. But by the early ‘90s Beria was being depicted as an instigator of major reforms in the Soviet system.23 This was a radical reversal of judgments about him within a very short period of time. It was evidently stimulated by the beginning stages of the release of documents from former Soviet archives. The first draft of the “Beria letter” in which Stalin is accused of ordering Mikhoels’ murder was published in May, 1992. We discuss it in detail in the next chapter. Here we note the correlation between the publication of the section of Khrushchev’s memoirs in which he accuses not Beria but Stalin as Mikhoels’ murderer – November, 1991 – and the alleged discovery of the “Beria letter” and its publication in May, 1992 In 1989 Medvedev was blaming Stalin and Beria for Mikhoels’ murder. In 1991 the Popov-Oppokov tale about Beria’s wanting to be the “father” of Jewish culture was republished in the book Beria. The End of His Career. This account also suggested that Beria, not Stalin, had ordered Mikhoels’ murder. Also in 1991, Khrushchev’s memoir was published in the Soviet Union in serial form. There were some problems with them. In the 1971 edition of Khrushchev Remembers, Khrushchev says that Mikhoels had been arrested along with Lozovsky. Stalin let his imagination run wild in this direction. He was struck with maniacal vengeance. Lozovsky and

23 See, for example, Boris Starkov, “Sto dnei lubianskogo marshala.” Istochnik 4

(1993), 82-90.

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

Mikhoels were arrested. Soon Zhemchuzhina herself was arrested.24 But the parallel passage in the November, 1991, serial version of Khrushchev’s memoir omits Mikhoels’ name. Сталин же буквально взбесился. Через какое-то время начались аресты. Схватили Лозовского, позднее Жемчужину. 25 Stalin literally went berserk. After some time, the arrests began. They seized Lozovsky, later Zhemchuzhina. This change was made between the version that Crankshaw and Talbot translated and published in 1971 and the publication in Voprosy Istorii of November, 1991. It removed an obvious error in Khrushchev’s “memory” – Mikhoels was killed on January 13, 1948, while Lozovsky was arrested on January 26, 1949. Someone has edited Khrushchev’s account to “correct” Khrushchev by removing this error. We see once again that Khrushchev’s “memoir” has been altered and is no good as a historical source. What’s more, this is the same error that we found in Svetlana Allilueva’s first book Twenty Letters to a Friend published in 1967. Apparently Khrushchev’s “memoir” has been changed to conform to Allilueva’s 1967 account.

Malenkov In all versions of his memoir Khrushchev says that it was Malenkov who told him that Mikhoels’ killer was given an award. This sets the stage, as it were, for the “Beria letter” to be addressed to Malenkov. 24 Khrushchev Remembers (1971), 276.

25 Voprosy Istorii 11, 1991, 60; Y.S. Khrushchev. Vremya, Liudi, Vlast’

(Vospominaniia). Kniga 2 Chast’ 3. Moscow: Moskovskie Novosti, 1999, 52.

Chapter 1. Before the Beria Letter

45

Khrushchev had written “killer” – a single person – not “killers.” As we shall see, the May 1992 Argumenty i Fakty version of the “Beria letter” names two killers – Ogol’tsov and Tsanava. But the 1993 and 1994 Borshchagovsky version of the “Beria letter” names only one killer – Tsanava. Why would Borshchagovsky, who refers to the AiF text, contradict it by naming only one murderer? Perhaps because Khrushchev said there was only one killer? To claim there were two or more killers would contradict Khrushchev’s account and perhaps call the whole “Stalin had Mikhoels killed” story into question. After all, Lur’e’s 1963 article, published during Khrushchev’s time, blamed Beria without implicating Stalin at all. So did Popov and Oppokov in 1990 and 1991. This latter account would have still been fresh in the minds of anyone interested in the Mikhoels case. None of the accounts that blame Stalin for Mikhoels’ murder cite any motive whatever for Stalin to have Mikhoels killed. Popov and Oppokov gave a fantastic motive – that Beria wanted to usurp the reputation of being the “father” of Jewish culture and Mikhoels stood in his way. But at least it was a motive. Lur’e’s article gave no motive at all for Beria to kill Mikhoels. Neither did Khrushchev in his memoir.

Appendix to Chapter 01 Russian text of passage about Zhemchuzhina: При очных ставках с Жемчужиной также установлено, что, находясь у гроба Михоэлса в еврейском театре, в беседе с Зускиным она говорила, что Михоэлс убит. Зускин на очной ставке о своем разговоре с Жемчужиной заявил следующее: «Вечером, 13 января 1948 года я стоял у гроба и принимал венки от всех организации и в это время увидел Полину Семеновну, поздоровался с ней и выразил ей печаль по поводу смерти Михоэлса. Во время беседы Полина Семеновна спрашивает:

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

„Так вы думаете, что здесь было – несчастный случай или убийство?” Я говорил: „На основании того, что мы получили сообщение от т. Иовчука, Михоэлс погиб в результате автомобильной катастрофы, его наши в 7 часов утра на улице, невдалеке от гостиницы”. А Полина Семеновна возразила мне и сказала: „Дело обстоит не так гладко, как это пытаются представить. Это убийство”… Из разговора с Жемчужиной, и, в частности, ее заявления о том, что Михоэлс убит, я сделал вывод, что смерть Михоэлса является результатом преднамеренного убийства». Что действительно такой разговор Жемчужиной имел место, подтверждается и заявлением на очной ставке Фефера, которому Зускин в этот не день сообщил о своем разговоре с Жемчужиной: «Первое, что она мне сказала, – сообщил Зускин, – „какой же этот мерзавец Храпченко,14 не мог послать другого человека в Минск вместо Михоэлса”. Потом, после паузы. Жемчужина покачала головой и говорит: „Это не случайная смерть, это не случайность. Его убили”. Я спросил у Зускина: „Кто убил?”. „Она не говорила кто”, – ответил Зускин. Ну, видимо, убили его специально. При этом он сказал такую фразу: „Не то обезглавили, не то голову сняли”. Такого же мнения и Жемчужина, - заключил Зускин. Я вновь спросил, кто же обвиняется в этом деле. Зускин ответил, что из разговора с Жемчужиной у него сложилось мнение, что речь шла о советских органах». Подобное поведение Жемчужиной дало повод враждебным людям подтверждать распространяемые ими провокационные слухи о том, что Михоэлс был преднамеренно убит.

Chapter 1. Before the Beria Letter

- Записка М.Ф.Шкирятова и В.С.Абакумова о П.С.Жемчужной. 27.12.1948. Дело Еврейского Антифашистского Комитета. Док. №2, https://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/almanah/inside /almanah-doc/79



47

Chapter 2. The “Beria letter” Document #1: The “Beria letter” dated April 2, 1953 This is the central document in the dossier of supposed evidence of the “Mikhoels murder.” Excerpts from the “Beria letter” first appeared in Argumenty i Fakty, No. 19, of May 1992.1 AiF is a Moscow tabloid magazine. Who would publish such an important archival document in this manner? Perhaps someone who wanted to get it into print, but without addressing the normal scholarly questions, such as: Where did this come from? Where is the original? The prologue in AiF reads as follows:

Document Awards for Murder We continue to publish documents from the archives of the KGB and MVD. This time it concerns one of the cruelest and in its time most mysterious murders 1 I have included a facsimile of this edition in the Appendix.

Chapter 2. The “Beria letter”









49

committed by the NKVD in February 1948. We present for your attention excerpts from a letter from Beria to Malenkov. Note the significant error here: Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov were actually killed not in February 1948 but on the night of January 12 – 13, 1948. This AiF May 1992 version of the “Beria letter” was printed in English translation in Arkadii Vaksberg’s book Stalin Against the Jews in 1994, and in Russian in the Russian-language book published in New York in 1995. These texts are identical.

Beria Letter – the Argumenty i Fakty Text, May 19922 To the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU comrade Malenkov G.M. ... In the process of checking the materials on Mikhoels, it turned out that in February 1948 in Minsk, the former deputy of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR Ogol’tsov, together with the former Minister of State Security of the Byelorussian SSR Tsanava, on behalf of the Minister of State Security Abakumov, carried out an illegal operation to physically liquidate Mikhoels. In this regard, Abakumov was interrogated at the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs and explanations were received from Ogol’tsov and Tsanava. About the circumstances of this criminal operation, Abakumov testified: “As far as I remember, in 1948 the head of the Soviet government J.V. Stalin gave me an urgent 2 We reprint the Russian text in the appendix to this chapter.

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

task – to quickly organize the liquidation of Mikhoels by employees of the USSR Ministry of State Security, entrusting it to special persons. Then it was known that Mikhoels, and with him his friend, whose name I do not remember, arrived in Minsk. When this was reported to J.V. Stalin, he immediately gave instructions to carry out the liquidation in Minsk ... When Mikhoels had been liquidated and this had been reported to I.V. Stalin, he appreciated this very much and ordered that decorations be awarded, which was done. (At the same time, the agent of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR Golubov V.I., who accompanied Mikhoels, was liquidated.) There were several options for eliminating Mikhoels: a) a car accident; b) by striking with a truck on a sparsely populated street; c) since neither option guaranteed success, the following decision was made: to invite Mikhoels through our agents to visit at night some acquaintance, provide him with an automobile at the hotel where he was staying, bring him to the suburban property of Tsanava L.F., liquidate him there, and then take the corpse to a sparsely populated (dead-end) street in the city, put it on the road leading to the hotel, and run it over with a truck ... That is what was done. For the sake of secrecy, they also removed Golubov, who went with Mikhoels on the visit ... (at the dacha they were crushed by a truck). The Ministry of Internal Affairs considers it necessary: a) to arrest and prosecute deputy head of the MGB USSR Ogol’tsov S.I. and former Minister of State Security of the Byelorussian SSR Tsanava L.F. b) to annul the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR rewarding the participants in the murder of Mikhoels and Golubov.

Chapter 2. The “Beria letter”









51

2.IV.1953 L. Beria The thesis of Vaksberg’s book is that Stalin was a lifelong antiSemite who spent his life shrewdly hiding this fact from everyone. Every statement Stalin made opposing anti-Semitism; every law outlawing it, every prosecution of anti-Semites, every prize awarded to Soviet Jews, is read by Vaksberg as “evidence” of Stalin’s cleverness at hiding his anti-Semitism from the world. In the English language edition of his book Vaksberg, not a historian but a professional writer, explicitly states that it was he who discovered this document. The eighth chapter of Vaksberg’s book, “The Murder of Solomon Mikhoels,” takes up pages 159-182. Towards the end of that chapter he introduces the document in question: In the spring of 1992,3 I discovered an important document in the secret archives of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which needs to be quoted almost in full to make sense. It is a letter from Lavrentii Beria to Georgi Malenkov, dated April 2, 1953. Malenkov was then the number-one man in the country, as head of the Malenkov-Beria-Molotov troika that ran the nation after Stalin’s death, and Beria, accordingly, was number two: for a brief time he was back in his old office in Lubianka, combining the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Internal Affairs into a powerful state mechanism that tried to seize power over the country (and might have succeeded if Beria had not been dealt with).4 (179) 3 This document was first published in Argumenty i Fakty No. 19, May 1992, p. 5 –

that is, within weeks, if not days, of when Vaksberg supposedly discovered it. According to Amy Knight in Beria, Stalin's first lieutenant (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 264, n. 51, it was already on exhibition at a Russian library in August 1992. 4 The initials of the Ministry of State Security are MGB; of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, MVD. The claim that Beria “tried to seize power over the country” is a

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

But according to the introduction accompanying the excerpts of the text in AiF, the document came not from the Central Committee “secret archives” but “from the archives of the KGB and MVD.” However, neither source is possible. The NKVD-MGB-KGB archive is one of the most “closed” – inaccessible – official archives. In 1992 the archive of the Central Committee of the CPSU was just as inaccessible. In 1992 this archive, at that time the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation, was situated in the Kremlin, in Stalin’s former apartment, in a building occupied by the administration of the President and the apparatus of the government of the Russian Federation.5 Moreover, in 1992 the AP RF had no space where one could work with documents.6 Yet if Vaksberg is telling the truth the tabloid must have gotten the document from Vaksberg. Somebody – or everybody – is lying. To add to the confusion – or misinformation – in the Russianlanguage edition of Vaksberg’s book the author’s claim to have discovered the document is lacking. Весной 1992 г. в секретном архиве ЦК КПСС обнаружен важнейший документ, прокомментировать который можно будет лишь в том случае, если привести его почти полностью. Это письмо, отправленное Лаврентием Берией Георгию Маленкову 2 апреля 1953 года. (268)

serious falsehood, to which Vaksberg never returns. In reality, despite the fact that Vaksberg mentions this as an accepted fact, there is no evidence whatsoever of any such thing. 5 See https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Архив_президента_РФ ; English: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive_of_the_President_of_the_Russian_Federati on 6 During 1991-1994 Vladimir Bobrov went there several times in the course of his work.

Chapter 2. The “Beria letter”









53

In the spring of 1992, there was discovered an important document in the secret archives of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which needs to be quoted almost in full to make sense. It is a letter from Lavrentii Beria to Georgi Malenkov, dated April 2, 1953 … Why did Vaksberg assert in the English translation of his book – which appeared in print before the Russian version – that it was he who had discovered the “Beria letter” but retract this claim in the later Russian edition? Both English translation and Russian version are marked as copyrighted in 1994, though the Russian version was not published till 1995. Moreover, in 1992, the year after the appearance of the “Beria letter” in AiF, Vaksberg published a book titled Neraskrytye tainy (“Undisclosed Secrets”). What is especially interesting, in it Vaksberg devoted one of the essays to the history of the Jewish AntiFascist Committee (JAFC), and regarding the death of Mikhoels, he writes that his death became an obstacle to the plans of the MGB, and happened without instructions from above – that is, without Stalin’s authorization: Если вчитываться в документы и сопоставлять даты, то следует прийти к выводу, что убийство Михоэлса на время притормозило уже заготовленный по сценарию обвал. Ждали дальнейших указаний сверху, а их всё не было. Грандиозные похороны, устроенные Михоэлсу, не укладывались в схему, по которой он тут же мог объявлен американским шпионом и сионистским агентом. (А.Ваксберг. Нераскрытые тайны. – М.: Новости, 1993, с.251) If you read the documents and compare the dates, you will conclude that the murder of Mikhoels temporarily slowed down the collapse [ of the JAFC – GF] that had already been prepared according to a plan. They

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waited for further instructions from above, but there were none. The grandiose funeral arranged for Mikhoels did not fit into the scheme according to which he could immediately be declared an American spy and Zionist agent. (A. Vaksberg. Undisclosed Secrets. – M .: News, 1993, p. 251) Elsewhere in this same book Vaksberg writes about the direct involvement of the state security agencies in the death of Mikhoels. But this account clearly contradicts what is written in the “Beria letter.” On January 12, 1948, Mikhoels was killed in Minsk. One of the most famous Soviet investigators, Sergei Gromov, told me that there was a special department in the Beria department for the preparation and conduct of such operations. At the head was a married couple who had remained carefully conspiratorial. It was this department that organized the murder of Mikhoels. (Ibid. p.208) The “Beria letter” is not mentioned in this book even though Vaksberg claimed that he had discovered (or that someone had discovered) it “in the spring of 1992.” Here is the evidence of the dates of that book in its original publication. If Vaksberg had really known about the “Beria letter” he could have easily corrected these somewhat heedless statements.



Prepared for printing 06.25.92. Printed 10.16.92 …

Chapter 2. The “Beria letter”









55

Why does the AiF version say that the “Beria letter” was discovered in “the archives of the KGB and MVD” – that is, in archives of the Soviet government – while Vaksberg claims that it was found “in the secret archives of the Central Committee of the CPSU” – Party archives? How was access to these “secret archives” obtained, and by whom? Why did that person, whether it was Vaksberg or someone else, not cite the archival identifiers? Why this discrepancy if Vaksberg had discovered it? And, if he did not, why did he claim that he had? Who did? And where was it discovered? Or was it not discovered at all, but created? Is it a forgery? The texts of the “Beria letter” in AiF and Vaksberg’s Russianlanguage book are identical. Vaksberg states that the document “needs to be quoted almost in full to make sense.” However, the AiF – Vaksberg text is 322 words long. The texts reproduced by Aleksandr Borshchagovsky, in Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm, and in Lavrentii Beria. 1953 are all more than 900 words in length. So the AiF – Vaksberg text of the “Beria letter” is only about 1/3 the length of the texts published subsequently to it. That is, it is very far from “almost in full.” Therefore Vaksberg must have had a different document in front of him. Perhaps it was a document that he or an accomplice had created. As we shall see, there are important differences between the text of the AiF – Vaksberg document and the texts of the “Beria letter” now relied upon as authoritative.

The Mystery of the Text of the “Beria letter” The next publication of the “Beria letter,” and the earliest publication of a much longer version of this document in Russian is in an article by Aleksandr Borshchagovsky, “Obviniaetsia Krov’,” [“Blood Cries Out”] in the journal Noviy Mir, No. 10, 1993. Borshchagovsky published this essay in book format in 1994.

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

Borshchagovsky does refer to the earlier partial publication in AiF. Below we reproduce the introduction to the “Beria letter” in Borshchagovsky, 1993:

Версии минского убийства с течением времени множились, писавшие о нем вступали в обидчивые споры, и только сорок четыре года спустя газетная публикация, небольшая заметка «Ордена за убийство», положила конец спорам. Газета «Аргументы и факты» (1992, № 19) опубликовала выдержки из письма Лаврентия Берия в Президиум ЦК КПСС, к сожалению, не оговорив ошибки составителей письма, отнесших убийство к февралю (вместо января) 1948 года. - Noviy Mir No. 10, 1993, p. 106 English translation: Versions of the Minsk murder multiplied over time, those who wrote about it entered into touchy disputes, and it was only forty-four years later that a newspaper publication, a small article titled “Decorations for a Murder,” put an end to the disputes. The newspaper “Argumenty i Fakty” (1992, No. 19) published excerpts from a letter from Lavrentii Beria to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, unfortunately, without specifying the mistakes of the compilers of the letter, who attributed the murder to February (instead of January) 1948. The introduction to the “Beria letter” in Borshchagovsky’s 1994 book:

Chapter 2. The “Beria letter”









57





Версии минского убийства с течением времени множились, писавшие о нем вступали в обидчивые споры, и только 44 года спустя газетная публикация, небольшая заметка «Ордена за убийство», положила конец спорам. Газета «Аргументы и факты» в № 19 за май 1992 года опубликовала выдержки из письма Лаврентия Берии в Президиум ЦК КПСС, к сожалению не оговорив ошибки составителей письма, отнесших убийство к февралю, вместо января, 1948 года. (Book, 1994, pp. 4-5) English translation: Versions of the Minsk murder multiplied over time, those who wrote about it entered into touchy disputes, and only forty-four years later a newspaper publication, a small article titled “Decorations for a Murder,” put an end to the disputes. The newspaper “Argumenty i Fakty” in No. 19 for May 1992 published excerpts from a letter from Lavrentii Beria to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, unfortunately, without specifying the mistakes of the compilers of the letter, who attributed the murder to February instead of January 1948.

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The two paragraphs are the same, though not quite identical. I have underlined the minor differences between them. We note a few significant issues in these texts. 1. Borshchagovsky also remarks upon the error, impossible in an official document like the “Beria letter” is supposed to be, that it not only omits the date of Mikhoels’ death but also gets the month wrong. 2. As we show below, Borshchagovsky’s text of the “Beria letter” differs in many important ways from that in AiF. But Borshchagovsky does not mention any of these differences, although they would have been obvious to anyone who in 1993 or 1994 compared his text to the AiF text. Like Vaksberg, Borshchagovsky gives no archival reference, or indeed any source at all, for the text he reproduces. He states only “I present this letter in a fuller form [than in AiF] according to the archival copy.” Borshchagovsky does not tell us where or how he obtained this “archival copy”, in which archive it was found, or who found it. We recall that AiF and Vaksberg cite different archives, while Vaksberg failed to confirm his own claim to have discovered the letter. Borshchagovsky must have known this too. But he ignores these issues.

Differences Among the Texts of the “Beria letter” A. Between the AiF/Vaksberg and rhe Borshchagovsky 1993 texts What follows below is a summary of the significant differences (omitting abbreviated words in the AiF version) between the AiF text of 1992 and the Borshchagovsky text of 1993. AiF

Borshchagovsky 1993

...В процессе проверки мате- В процессе проверки материриалов на Михоэлса выяси- алов на МИХОЭЛСА выясни-

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лось, что в феврале 1948 г. в Минске бывшим заместителем МГБ СССР Огольцовым совместно с бывшим министром ГБ Белорусской ССР Цанава по поручению министра госбезопасности Абакумова была проведена незаконная операция по физической ликвидации Михозлса.

лось, что в феврале 1948 года в гор. Минске быв. заместителем Министра госбезопасности Белорусской ССР ЦАНАВА, по поручению бывшего Министра государственной безопасности АБАКУМОВА, была проведена незаконная операция по физической ликвидации МИХОЭЛСА

Когда Михоэлс был ликвидирован и об этом было доложено И.В. Сталину, он высоко оценил это мероприятие и велел наградить орденами, что и было сделано. (попутно ликвидировали и агента МГБ СССР Голубова В.И., сопровоздавшего Михоэлса).

Когда МИХОЭЛС был ликвидирован и об этом было доложено И. В. СТАЛИНУ, он высоко оценил это мероприятие и велел наградить орденами, что и было сделано”.

Было несколько вариантов устранения Михоэлса: а) автомобильная катастрофа, 6) путем наезда грузовой машины на малолюдной улице,

“… Поскольку уверенности в благополучном исходе операции во время “автомобильной катастрофы” у нас не было, да и это могло привести к жертвам наших сотрудников, мы остановились на варианте — провести ликвидацию МИХОЭЛСА путем наезда на него грузовой машины на малолюдной улице.

в) так как оба не давали га- Но этот вариант, хотя был и рантий – было принято сле- лучше первого, но он также

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дующее решение – через не гарантировал успех опеагентуру пригласить Михо- рации наверняка. Поэтому элса в ночное время было решено через агентуру пригласить в ночное время и произвести наезд грузовой машины...Так и было сделано. Во имя тайны убрали и Голубова, который поехал с Михоэлсом в rости...

и произвести наезд грузовой машиной. Этим самым создавалось правдоподобная картина несчастного случая наезда автомашины на возвращавшихся с гулянки людей, тем паче подобные случаи в Минске в то время были очень часты. Так было и сделано”.

б) Указ Президиума Верхов- б) Указ президиума Верховного Совета СССР о награж- ного Совета СССР о награждении участников убийства дении орденами и медалями участников убийства Михоэлса и Голубова отме- МИХОЭЛСА и ГОЛУБОВА отнить. менить.

These differences between these texts are numerous and striking. It is clear we are dealing with different texts. No “canonical” or “official” version of the text had as yet been decided on. The “Beria letter” is still in the process of being created. The forgery was still in progress.

B. Between the Borshchagovsky (1994) and the RedlichKostyrchenko (1996) texts Shimon Redlich and Gennadii Kostyrchenko, the editors of the version of the “Beria letter” published in Evreyskii Antifashistskii Komitet v SSSR 1941-1948: Documentirovannaia Istoriia, ed. (Moscow, 1996), pp. 357-9, state that they have reproduced their text

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not from any “archival” copy, but from Borshchagovsky’s 1994 book (note p. 359).

Борщаговский А.М. Обвиняется кровь. М. 1994, С. 5-8. But this is not true. The Redlich-Kostyrchenko text is not the same as the earlier Borshchagovsky version. Here is a passage from page 8 of Borshchagovsky’s 1994 text:



В процессе проверки материалов на МИХОЭЛСА выяснилось, что в феврале 1948 года в гор. Минске быв. заместителем Министра госбезопасности Белорусской ССР ЦАНАВА, по поручению быв. Министра государственной безопасности АБАКУМОВА, была проведена незаконная операция по физической ликвидации МИХОЭЛСА. The underlined passage reads: … in the city of Minsk by the former deputy Minister of State Security of the Byelorussian SSR TSANAVA … Here is the same paragraph from Redlich and Kostyrchenko 1996, page 357:

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В процессе проверки материалов на Михоэлса выяснилось, что в феврале 1948 года в гор. Минске быв. заместителем Министра госбезопасности СССР Огольцовым, совместно с быв[шим] министром госбезопасности Белорусской ССР Цанава, по поручению бывшего министра государственной безопасности Абакумова, была проведена незаконная операция по физической ликвидации Михоэлса. In this Redlich-Kostyrchenko text the underlined passages reads as follows: … in the city of Minsk by the former deputy Minister of State Security of the USSR Ogol’tsov, together with the former minister of State Security of the Byelorussian SSR Tsanava … Redlich and Kostyrchenko have added a passage implicating “former deputy minister of State Security of the USSR Ogol’tsov.” This passage is not in Borshchagovsky’s text, from which Redlich and Kostyrchenko tell their readers they have taken the text of the “Beria letter”. The Borshchagovsky text also calls Tsanava “former deputy minister.” Redlich and Kostyrchenko call Ogol’tsov “former deputy minister” not of the Byelorussian SSR but of the USSR, while Tsanava is called “former minister of State Security of the Byelorussian SSR.” The Ogol’tsov passage is, however, in the AiF and Vaksberg version. So, Redlich and Kostyrchenko took it from there. Yet Redlich and Kostyrchenko do not inform their readers that they have added this “Ogol’tsov” passage to the Borshchagovsky version or that

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they have lifted it from the AiF-Vaksberg text. To do that would, of course, focus attention on the fact that these are different texts. And that would imply that there is no “original text” – something we now know to be the case. As we shall see, the “Ogol’tsov” passage, absent from Borshchagovsky’s text, is retained in all subsequent versions of the “Beria letter”. Why these variations in the text of the “Beria letter”? Once again, evidently because the forgery of the “Beria letter” was still in process, not yet finished. Why did Redlich and Kostylrchenko, Gennadii, Russian histori-

an of Jewish subjects, Gennadii, Russian historian of Jewish subjects not take their text from the archival copy – unless the editors did not know of any “archival copy”? They claim that they took it from Borshchagovsky’s book. Borshchagovsky claims that he has reproduced it “according to the archival copy.” Redlich and Kostyrchenko must have known Borshchagovsky – he was still active and living in Moscow at the time the Redlich-Kostyrchenko book was published. If they had known of an archival copy but did not have access to it, why didn’t they at least inform their readers of its location? Indeed, why didn’t they take their text from this “archival copy.” But this too they failed to do. At this point we should be clear about one thing: There is no “archival copy” of the Beria letter and there never was any. Rather, there is a forgery that, at this point, was still in the process of being fabricated.

C. Between the Borshchagovsky (1993) and NaumovSigachev (1999) texts The “Beria letter” is often cited from Lavrentii Beria. 1953. Stenogramma iiul’skogo plenuma TsK KPSS i drugie dokumenty. Moscow: IDF, 1999, No. 7, pp. 25-28. This volume is published by the “Me-

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morial” Fund7. The general editor of this series, Aleksandr Yakovlev, was one of the principal architects of glasnost’, a former member of Gorbachev’s Politburo, and a ferocious anticommunist. There are significant differences between the texts published by Borshchagovsky in 1993 and in the now “authoritative” version of 1999.8 The most striking difference is the following passage: В связи с этими обстоятельствами Министерством внутренних дел СССР были подвергнуты проверке имеющиеся в быв. МГБ СССР материалы о МИХОЭЛСЕ. В результате проверки установлено, что МИХОЭЛС на протяжении ряда лет находился под постоянным агентурным наблюдением органов государственной безопасности и, наряду с положительной и правильной критикой отдельных недостатков в различных отраслях государственного строительства СССР, иногда высказывал некоторое недовольство по отдельным вопросам, связанным главным образом с положением евреев в Советском Союзе. In connection with these circumstances, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR subjected to verification the materials available in the former Ministry of State Security of the USSR about MIKHOELS. As a result of the audit, it was established that MIKHOELS for a number of years was under constant surveillance by state security agencies and, along with positive and correct criticism of certain shortcomings in various branches of state 7 “Memorial Society,” the human rights institution, is intensely anticommunist

and anti-Soviet. .

8 The one significant difference between the Borshchagovsky and Redlich-

Kostyrchenko texts will be noted as well.

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building in the USSR, sometimes expressed some dissatisfaction on certain issues related mainly to the situation of Jews in Soviet Union. This passage is missing in Borshchagovsky’s 1993 and 1994 texts. It is also missing in the volume Evreiskii Antifashistskii Komitet v SSSR 1941-1948. Documentirovannaia Istoriia9 edited by Shimon Redlich and Gennadii Kostyrchenko where his document appears as number 187 on pages 357-359. The English language version of the Redlich-Kostyrchenko book, titled War, Holocaust, and Stalinism, was copyrighted in 1995, a year earlier than the publication of the Russian version, In the 2013 edition of this volume the text of the “Beria letter” is the same as in the 1996 Russian edition. The passage noted above it missing there too.10 In 1999 the Lavrentii Beria. 1953 volume was published. The two paragraphs above suddenly appear in the text along with archival identifiers: AP RF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 536, ll. 103-107 and the note “Podlinnik” – “the original.” If this is the original, what is the status of the texts printed before by Vaksberg, Borshchagovsky, and Redlich and Kostyrchenko? Evidently the forgery had still not yet achieved “canonical” form, a version which will be considered “authoritative.” Sure enough, we find the same text in Kostyrchenko’s 2005 collection Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm – except that in this 2005 volume the passage above is now printed in a single paragraph instead of two paragraphs, while retaining the same archival identifiers as in the 1999 volume. Therefore in 2005 this phony “archival text” was still undergoing ‘refinement.” 9 Moscow: “Mezhdunarodnoe otnoshenie” 1996.

10 Document 179, pages 448-450 in the 2013 edition. Here the “Beria letter” is

titled “From a Report by Beria to Malenkov on the Murder of Mikhoels (April 2, 1953). Presumably this is because of the several ellipses (marked by three dots.) According to inside title page of the 2013 edition, there was a previous edition in 1994 that I have not had access to.

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Stalin’s Name There is another significant problem within the body of the letter. According to Vaksberg’s translated text and Borshchagovsky’s “archival” Russian text (and that in AiF ), Stalin is named several times in the “Beria letter.” However, according to the Yakovlev text, Stalin’s name is not in the typed copy, but is written in by hand each time, with the editors’ note: Подчеркнутые слова вписаны от руки. — Сост. The underlined words are written in by hand. – The Ed[itor]. At the end the document is identified by an archival location and the following words: Подлинник (машинопись с рукописными вставками) Original (typewritten with handwritten insertions). Did the typist insert the words above the lines? Or did she or he leave a space where a name could be written in later? The Yakovlev editors do not answer this important question.

Further Proof of Forgery A. Borshchagovsky Borshchagovsky published his work Obviniaetsia krov’ in the journal Noviy Mir in 1993, and in book form in 1994. In the 1993 text he claimed that he had reproduced the text “in fuller form” – bolee polnom vide” – according to the archival copy.





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Редакция опустила многие абзацы этого письма, в них заключены сведения, имеющие первостепенную важность, — привожу письмо в более полном виде по архивной копии. The editors omitted many paragraphs of this letter, they contain information of paramount importance – I quote the letter in a more complete form from an archival copy. - Borshchagovsky, “Obviniaetsia krov’”, Novyi Mir No. 10, 1993, p. 1-6. (Borshch 93) In his book Borshchagovsky claims that he has reproduced the “Beria letter” “in full” – polnost’iu – again “according to the archival copy:

- Borshchagovsky, Obviniaetsia krov’, book publication 1994, p. 7. (Borshch 94) However, the texts in both Borshchagovsky versions are identical. So why did Borshchagovsky write that his 1993 text is “fuller” and the same text in 1994 is “in full” – complete? The only explanation that fits the facts is that in 1993 Borshchagovsky had not yet decided whether the forged text he quoted was complete or not. Perhaps it might need additional changes? By 1994, however, Borshchagovsky had, evidently, decided that he was not going to change the text any more – it was now complete. This means that the document had been in the process of being created, but by 1994 it had achieved its final form – for Borshchachovsky’s purposes, anyway. That is, it is a forgery.

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The “Tsanava’s Dacha” Passage In Borshchagovsky’s 1993 version we find the following passage: ...При приезде ОГОЛЬЦОВ сказал нам, что по решению Правительства и личному указанию И. В. СТАЛИНА должен быть ликвидирован МИХОЭЛС, который через день или два приезжает в Минск по делам службы... Убийство МИХОЭЛСА было осуществлено в точном соответствии с этим планом... примерно в 10 часов вечера МИХОЭЛСА и ГОЛУБОВА завезли во двор дачи (речь идет о даче Цанава на окраине Минска. — А. Б.). Они немедленно с машины были сняты и раздавлены грузовой автомашиной. Примерно в 12 часов ночи, когда по городу Минску движение публики сокращается, трупы МИХОЭЛСА и ГОЛУБОВА были погружены на грузовую машину, отвезены и брошены на одной из глухих улиц города. Утром они были обнаружены рабочими, которые об этом сообщили в милицию”. Translation of the underlined portion above: … at about 10 o’clock in the evening they carried MIKHOELS and GOLUBOV into the courtyard of the dacha (this means the dacha of Tsanava on the edge of Minsk – A.B.). Note the line in parentheses that I have put in bold type. Borshchagovsky has added it to explain which “dacha’ is meant by the text. He has added a dash and his initials to indicate that this passage is not part of the (supposedly) “archival” text but has been added by himself – Aleksandr Borshchagovsky, “A.B.” The person or persons – remember, Borshchagovsky says “compilers” – who fabricated the “Beria letter” had failed to identify the dacha, so Borshchagovsky added this remark. It didn’t help much – it doesn’t say where “the dacha of Tsanava” was. “On the edge of Minsk” could be almost anywhere.

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A. Borshchagovsky’s 1994 Version This passage reads exactly the same in Borshchagovsky’s 1994 book, pages 7-8. I have reproduced below a graphic of the exact passage in the book and have underlined the part in question.





The book contains the same parenthetical explanation in parentheses, identified in the same way by Borshchagovsky’s initials: [this means the dacha of Tsanava on the edge of Minsk – A.B.]

B. The “Tsanava’s Dacha” Passage in Redlich and Kostyrchenko, 1996. Redlich-and Kostyrchenko state (p. 359) that they have taken their text of the “Beria letter” from Borshchagovsky’s 1994 text. But they are lying – it is not the same text.

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The passage underlined at the end of the Redlich-Kostyrchenko text indicates the source they have used. It reads: ”Borshchagovsky A.M. Obviniaetsia krov’. M., 1994, S. 5-8.” The passage that is in parentheses in both of Borshchagovsky’s texts, (this means the dacha of Tsanava on the edge of Minsk – A.B.). is put at the foot of the page in Redlich-Kostyrchenko, with an asterisk noting the location of Borshchagovsky’s parenthetical notation:



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Moreover, Redlich and Kostyrchenko do not, as they claim, use Borshchagovsky’s text. Instead of «на окраине Минска», “on the outskirts of Minsk,” they have substituted «в пригороде Минска», “in a suburb of Minsk.” Why? This new wording does not help to locate “Tsanava’s dacha” any more precisely than the old wording. Could it be because they want to omit Borshchagovsky’s initials – “A.B.” – here? They do omit them. Why? After all, they claim that they have taken the text from Borshchagovsky’s 1994 book. Most important, they also fail to inform their readers that it was Borshchagovsky who had added this line (with “na okraine” instead of “v prigorode”). Again, why?

Redlich’s and Kostyrchenko’s book was published in 1996. This means that as late as 1996 there was still no “canonical” or “official” text of the “Beria letter. This is evident from the variations in the line “This means the dacha of Tsanava on the outskirts of / in a suburb of Minsk” So, in 1996 this line is still not part of the text of the “Beria letter” itself. It is still only a note of explanation appended to the text, though it is no longer accompanied by Borshchagovsky’s initials. C. The Same Passage in Lavrentii Beria. 1953, published in 1999. Here is the text of the same passage in the 1999 book Lavrentii Beria. 1953, p. 27.

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D. The Same Passage in Gosudarstvenniy Antisemitizm, published 2005, pp. 118-119.



In both of these publications the passage inserted in parentheses in the text for clarification by Borshchagovsky appears not as a footnote, as does the slightly different version in RedlichKostyrchenko, but as part of the text of the letter. Moreover, Borshchagovsky’s phrase na okraine is back; Redlich and Kostyrchenko’s phrase v prigorode is out. And Borshchagovsky’s initials are gone for good. These changes cannot be due to anything other than forgery. Gennadii V. Kostyrchenko was one of the editors of the 1996 Redlich-Kostyrchenko volume. He is also the only “compiler” (sostavitel’) listed for the 2005 volume Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm. So Kostyrchenko knew that he used a different phrase in the 2005 volume from the one he had used in the 1996 volume. Whoever it was who fabricated the “Beria letter”, therefore, Kostyrchenko knew that the version he himself published in 2005 was a fake.

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E. The Same Passage in Redlich, Anderson, and Al’tman, War, Holocaust, and Stalinism (2016) The Introduction to this volume states that it is an English version of the 2005 book by Redlich and Kostyrchenko. But this is not true. Here is the same passage in this 2016 volume, page 450:

In the 1996 text, also edited by Redlich, the phrase in parentheses was inserted at the bottom of the page, as an explanatory note. It was clearly not a part of the text of the “Beria letter.” But in this text, as in the Yakovlev 1999 and Kostyrchenko 2005 texts, the phrase in parentheses is inserted into the text itself. The editors of this 2016 book certainly knew that the 1999 and 2005 texts had included the parenthetical phrase as a part of the text of the “Beria letter” and that the 1996 text – to say nothing of Borshchagovsky’s 1993 and 1994 texts – did not. But instead of pointing out the dishonesty on the part of the editors of these previous volumes, Redlich et al. compounded that dishonesty by also including it in their own version of the text. By doing this, they also created a contradiction with the Redlich-Kostyrchenko version of 1996.

Textual Variations Prove Forgery On the evidence we have reviewed so far, we could conclude our study here and now. The “Beria letter” has to be a fake. No one

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claims that there is more than one copy of this letter. In the case of a genuine letter any multiple copies would be carbon copies, identical to the original. Differences in the text, such as the “Tsanava’s dacha” line added by Borshchagovsky, put as a footnote in Redlich and Kostyrchenko, and then incorporated into the text by the Yakovlev 1999 editors, by Kostyrchenko in 2005, and by Redlich et al. in 2016, would be impossible.

These differences can only be accounted for by a process of forgery. In this case the differences reflect a progressive “refinement” of the text as it achieves its “official” status, and finally receives an archival identification as the forged document, now in its final form, is inserted into the archives as though it really were a document from April, 1953 instead of a forgery concocted by stages during the 1990s. Those who have accepted the “Mikhoels murder” documents as genuine have failed even to mention the multiple problems of their provenance, location, and different texts. This is a remarkable suspension of normal scholarly caution! There has been a “conspiracy of silence” concerning the highly suspect origins and text of the “Beria letter” – a conspiracy of silence that continues to the present day.

The quotations from Ogol’tsov in the “Beria Letter” Already in 1993 Borshchagovsky’s version of the “Beria letter” has the following passage supposedly quoted from a statement by Ogol’tsov: «Поскольку уверенности в благополучном исходе операции во время “автомобильной катастрофы” у нас не было, да и это могло привести к жертвам наших сотрудников, мы остановились на варианте — провести ликвидацию МИХОЭЛСА путем наезда на него грузовой машины на малолюдной улице. Но этот вариант, хотя был и лучше первого, но он также не гарантировал успех операции наверняка.

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Поэтому было решено через агентуру пригласить в ночное время в гости к каким-либо знакомым, подать ему машину к гостинице, где он проживал, привезти его на территорию загородной дачи ЦАНАВА Л. Ф., где и ликвидировать, а потом труп вывезти на малолюдную (глухую) улицу города, положить на дороге, ведущей к гостинице, и произвести наезд грузовой машиной. Этим самым создавалось правдоподобная картина несчастного случая наезда автомашины на возвращавшихся с гулянки людей, тем паче подобные случаи в Минске в то время были очень часты. Так было и сделано». Since we had no confidence in the successful outcome of the operation during the "car accident", and this could lead to casualties among our employees, we settled on the option of carrying out the liquidation of Mikhoels by striking him with a truck on a sparsely populated street. But although this option was better than the first, it also did not guarantee the certain success of the operation. Therefore, it was decided to invite Mikhoels through our agents to visit some acquaintances at night, give him a car to the hotel where he lived, and bring him to the territory of Comrade Tsanava L.F.’s dacha (country cottage), where we could liquidate him, and then take the corpse to a sparsely populated street of the city, put it on the road leading to the hotel, and run over it with a truck. This created a plausible picture of an accident of a car striking people returning from a party, all the more so because such cases in Minsk at that time were quite frequent. That is how it was done. The operation was carried out successfully, if I am not mistaken, on the night of January 11-12, 1948.(Document #4) This passage is exactly the same as in the “Ogol’tsov statement” dated March 18, 1953, in Levashov’s 1998 novel, with two minor

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exceptions: In the Levashov document – we will examine it in another chapter – Tsanava’s name is prefaced by тов = comrade; and the final line below is added. Операция была проведена успешно, если не ошибаюсь, в ночь с 11 на 12 января 1948 года. The operation was carried out successfully, if I am not mistaken, during the night of the 11th to 12th of January, 1948. Once again, we are faced with variants of a forged document. The Levashov document was not published until 1998.

Quotations from Tsanava in the “Beria Letter” Borshchagovsky’s 1993 text also quotes from Levashov’s supposed statement by Tsanava. In this case, however, the texts are very different. Borshchagovsky 1993

Tsanava, from Levashov 1998

«... зимой 1948 года, в бытность мою Министром госбезопасности Белорусской ССР, по «ВЧ» позвонил мне АБАКУМОВ и спросил, имеется ли у нас возможность для выполнения одного важного задания И. В. СТАЛИНА? Я ответил ему, что будет сделано.

Насколько я припоминаю, в начале 1948 года мне позвонил по телефону в рабочее время бывший министр госбезопасности СССР АБАКУМОВ и, предварительно осведомившись, один ли я в кабинете, спросил, имеются ли в МГБ Белорусской ССР возможности для выполнения, как дословно сказал Абакумов, "важного решения правительства и личного указания Сталина".

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Я ответил, что все, что в силах МГБ Белорусской ССР, будет выполнено. Вечером он мне позвонил и передал, что для выполнения одного важного решения правительства и личного указания И. В. СТАЛИНА в Минск выезжает ОГОЛЬЦОВ с группой работников МГБ СССР, а мне надлежит оказать ему содействие.

Вечером того же дня Абакумов снова связался со мной по телефону и передал, что для выполнения задания, о котором он мне говорил, в Минск выезжает Огольцов с группой оперативных работников. Далее Абакумов сказал, что всю работу по выполнению задания будет проводить Огольцов, а мне надлежит оказывать ему необходимую помощь.

Here we see some passages that are identical, or almost identical in both the Borshchagovsky and Levashov/Tsanava statement texts. These passages make it clear that whoever forged the Levashov/Tsanava text had either Borshchagovsky’s text, or at least a portion of it, before him. But whatever the reason for these similarities, they are far outweighed by the differences in the remaining section of the fake confession statement of Tsanava’s.

...При приезде ОГОЛЬЦОВ сказал нам, что по решению Правительства и личному указанию И. В. СТАЛИНА должен быть ликвидирован МИХОЭЛС, который че-

Спустя примерно час после разговора с Абакумовым мне позвонил Огольцов и, подтвердив, что через день он на автомашине выезжает в Минск, предложил о его при-

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рез день или два приезжает в езде никому не говорить. Минск по делам службы Через два дня Огольцов с группой работников МГБ СССР на двух автомашинах прибыл на мою квартиру в пригороде Минска – Слепянке. Приехав домой со службы по вызову Огольцова, позвонившего мне по телефону с моей квартиры, я застал там, кроме Огольцова, полковника ШУБНЯКОВА, секретаря Огольцова подполковника КОСАРЕВА и двух незнакомых мне людей. Это, как оказалось, были полковник ЛЕБЕДЕВ и шофер КРУГЛОВ, которых Огольцов, знакомя меня с ними, назвал работниками "боевой группы МГБ СССР". К моменту моего приезда на квартиру автомашины, на которых прибыла эта группа работников МГБ СССР, были помещены в гараж МГБ Белорусской ССР, расположенный вблизи дачи, в которой я проживал. Там же, в гараже, находились и два шофера, управлявшие автомашинами при их следовании из Москвы в Минск. Вскоре Огольцов пригласил меня, Шубнякова и Лебедева в

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одну из комнат дачи и сообщил, что он приехал в Минск для выполнения, как он сказал, "решения правительства" и "указания Сталина" о "ликвидации Михоэлса". Убийство МИХОЭЛСА было осуществлено в точном соответствии с этим планом ... примерно в 10 часов вечера МИХОЭЛСА и ГОЛУБОВА завезли во двор дачи [речь идет о даче Цанава на окраине Минска. — А. Б.]. Они немедленно с машины были сняты и раздавлены грузовой автомашиной. Примерно в 12 часов ночи, когда по городу Минску движение публики сокращается, трупы МИХОЭЛСА и ГОЛУБОВА были погружены на грузовую машину, отвезены и брошены на одной из глухих улиц города. Утром они были обнаружены рабочими, которые об этом сообщили в милицию».

После телефонного разговора со мной Абакумова и сообщения Огольцова я не сомневался в том, что решение, о котором они оба говорили, существует. К тому же Огольцов в присутствии Шубнякова и Лебедева заявил, что такое "решение" состоялось несколько дней назад и что "боевая группа МГБ СССР" предпринимала меры к убийству Михоэлса еще в Москве, но сделать это не удалось, так как Михоэлс ходил по Москве в окружении многих женщин. Поэтому, продолжал Огольцов, убийство Михоэлса решено осуществить во время его пребывания в командировке в Минске. На мой вопрос, в чем обвиняется Михоэлс и почему избран такой метод наказания его, Огольцов ответил, что на Михоэлса делают большую ставку американцы, но арестовывать его нецелесооб-

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разно, так как он широко известен за границей. Впрочем, продолжал Огольцов, в политику вдаваться нечего, у меня есть поручение, его надо выполнит".

Here there is no borrowing between the Borshchagovsky and Levashov texts. How can we account for these few similarities and the many differences? The forger of the Levashov/Tsanava text must have had before him the Borshchagovsky text, or an early draft of it, or possibly some third text from which both forgers borrowed. But then the Levashov/Tsanava forger went on to create a very different document. One possibility is this: the forger(s) of the Levashov/Tsanava text wanted to have four convincing documents to sell to Levashov’s publisher. Copying the Ogol’tsov passage almost exactly from Borshchagovsky might lend credibility to his texts, while presenting a very different Tsanava statement might demonstrate that his own forgery had independent value. This would suggest that the forger(s) of the Levashov texts were not concerned to support the validity of Borshchagovsky’s text. Rather, his aim was to make money by selling the documents. Even if we did not know that the “Beria letter” is a fake – and we do know that – we could be certain that the Tsanava statements cannot be genuine. Tsanava could not have made two statements – or if he did, where is the second text? But we do not have to demonstrate that the Levashov documents are fakes. Levashov himself revealed that his publisher had purchased them from an unknown person without any evidence that they were genuine. Levashov inserted them into a novel in which he also had a number of frankly fictitious documents.

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The Arrest of Tsanava The “Beria Letter” concludes: Considering that the murder of MIKHOELS and GOLUBOV is a blatant violation of the rights of a Soviet citizen … the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR considers it necessary: a) to arrest and prosecute former Deputy Minister of State Security of the USSR OGOLTSOV S.I. and former Minister of State Security of the Byelorussian SSR TsANAVA L.F. Tsanava was indeed arrested in early April 1953 (or perhaps even earlier), but his arrest had nothing to do with Mikhoels. Several letters of Tsanava’s, written from prison, have been published. They were all written after Beria’s “arrest” / probable murder. In these letters Tsanava makes it clear that he was arrested as a member of “Beria’s clique” and conspiracy (Beria’s arrest – probable murder – had been justified by the other Party leaders by charging him with a conspiracy to seize power in the USSR). The charges against Tsanava are outlined in more detail in a report by D. Kitaev, Major-General of Justice, dated March 24, 1955. It adds that Tsanava was also charged with falsifying cases against innocent persons. None of these documents mentions Mikhoels.11 One published archival document transcribes part of a confession statement “of the prisoner [arestovannogo] Tsanava and is errone-

11 https://www.sb.by/articles/sleznitsy-tsanavy.html Accessed 01.10.23. This

page repeats the allegation that Tsanava was involved in Mikhoels’ murder but contains no evidence to support this statement. The documentary evidence, letters and Kitaev’s report, make it clear that Tsanava was kept in prison as an alleged member of Beria’s “gang.”

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ously dated February 9, 1953.12 It too is about the allegations that Tsanava was an ally of Beria’s. No mention is made of Mikhoels.13



12 This is an error. This book, edited by V. Khaustov, was published poorly. It

almost completely repeats the same content and the earlier collection edited by O. Mozokhin, Politbiuro i delo Beria. Sbornik dokumentov. Moscow: Kuchkovo pole, 2012, p. 624. Mozokhin quoted the same document as follows: “On the same occasion, the arrested Tsanava L.F. 9.XI.1953 showed …" So Tsanava was arrested in November 1953, not in February of that year. 13 Khaustov, V.N., ed. Delo Beria. Prigovor. Obzhalovaniiu ne podlezhit. Moscow: MDF, 2012, p. 465.

Chapter 3. Documents from Viktor Levashov’s novel Robert Conquest wrote of the “confessions” of the “perpetrators” of Mikhoels’ murder, but did not tell us where “we now at last have” them from. This must be deduced from other accounts of these same “confessions.” As it happens, they originated in a novel. The Murder of Mikhoels (Ubiystvo Mikhoelsa) by Viktor Levashov, first published in 1998. According to Fridrikh Neznansky, the online publisher of this book, Viktor Levashov, author of the historical novel The Murder of Mikhoels, basis his version of the purely political murder on documents from the archives of the Lubianka – the protocols of interrogations and of the reported direct participants of the murder of Solomon Mikhoels.1 Neznansky notes that Levashov is not an historian but a novelist, author of several bestsellers and television dramas. More importantly, what Neznansky writes here is false. Levashov’s documents are not “from the archives of the Lubianka.” Levashov’s novel is the only place these “documents” are to be found (we will examine one apparent exception below and show that, in fact, it’s not an exception at all). All the authors who refer to these documents cite his book. Refuting a false statement by Gennadii Kostyrchenko, In 2004 Levashov stated that they were first printed there, by himself. Вы, г-н Костырченко, в своей статье обильно цитируете по моей книге докладную записку пол 1 This statement is at http://www.neznansky.ru/phouse_auth_one.htm?id=19.

Accessed January 7, 2004.

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ковника Шубнякова, заявив перед тем, что это недавно опубликованные документы из архива ФСБ. Нигде они не опубликованы, только в моем романе. А о том, как эти документы выплыли на свет б-жий, я уже сказал. Неисповедимы пути, которыми правда прорывается в мир, воистину неисповедимы.2 You, Mr. Kostyrchenko, in your article abundantly quote Colonel Shubnyakov's memorandum from my book, stating beforehand that these are recently published documents from the FSB archive. They are not published anywhere, only in my novel. And I have already said about how these documents came to light. Inscrutable are the ways in which truth breaks into the world, truly inscrutable. In the same article Levashov reveals the source of these documents: Мое вхождение в еврейскую тему произошло шесть лет назад. Я закончил большую работу для московского издательства «Олимп», подыскивал тему для следующей. Издатель спросил: «Не хочешь заняться Михоэлсом? Ты же драматург, знаешь театр». Как выяснилось, незадолго до этого он купил у какого-то отставного кагэбэшника ксерокопии допросов по делу Михоэлса ... Обычно за работу такого объема издатель платил мне 4000 долларов. Но две тысячи он уже заплатил за те самые документы. Мне остались две. Это не две нынешние тысячи, а те, додефолтовые. И все, больше я не получил ни копейки. 2 Levashov, “Kto tvorit mify. Otkrytoe pis’mo istoriku G.. Kostyrchenko.” [Who is

creating myths. An open letter to the historian G. Kostyrchenko.”], Lekhaim March 2004.

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My entry into the Jewish theme happened six years ago. I finished a big job for the Moscow publishing house "Olimp", I was looking for a topic for my next one. The publisher asked: “Do you want to deal with Mikhoels? You are a playwright, you know the theatre.” As it turned out, shortly before that, he had bought photocopies of the interrogations in the Mikhoels case from some retired KGB officer ... Usually, the publisher paid me $4,000 for a work of this size. But he had already paid two thousand for those very documents. I had two [thousand] left. These are not the current two thousand, but those pre-default ones. And that's it, I didn't get another penny. No archival locations are given by any of those who use them, so there is no possibility of any historian’s consulting any originals – if they exist. We should be prepared for an eventual, and fraudulent, “discovery” of “originals” of these documents in some former Soviet archive – that is, for the insertion of forged “originals” into an archive, in an attempt to provide a retrospective pedigree for them. In the case of the “Beria Letter” this has already happened. Levashov embedded them in a work full of admittedly fictional “documents”. The novel begins with a fictive “Protocol [= transcript] of the interrogation of the accused Djugashvili” – Stalin – followed by a similar “handwritten letter” of Stalin’s to Beria written with heavy sarcasm. Levashov prints patently fictional “documents” such as these together with, and in exactly the same format as, the supposed “documents from the archives of the Lubianka” purporting to be primary sources for Mikhoels’ murder. How are we supposed to take all this seriously? Yet all those who accept the “Mikhoels murder” story do, in fact, accept them as genuine, without any attempt at explanation or justification.

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The bona fides of these “documents” must be treated with the greatest skepticism. We are obliged to deal with them because other anticommunist historians cite them as primary-source evidence – sometimes saying that they are from Levashov’s novel, sometimes without mentioning where they come from. Conquest’s “Studebaker” is one example of the many contradictions that emerge once the story of Mikhoels’ murder is scrutinized with care. None of Levashov’s documents mentions any “Studebaker.” One of them refers only to a “truck” (gruzovoi mashiny). His novel was published in 1998, long after the Vayners’ novel, so he must have known of their work. But, unlike Conquest, Levashov does not use this “Studebaker” detail, nor does he explain why. None of those who use his documents mention this contradiction either. None of the writers who claim Stalin ordered Mikhoels’ murder take the trouble to list all of the primary documents used as evidence of this allegation. They give the provenance and location of only some of the documents. Others are just “taken for granted.”

Documents #2, the “Awards Decree” There are two different versions of this “Awards Decree.” They cannot both be genuine. Either one of them is genuine and the other is a forgery or both of them are forgeries. We shall see, the latter is the case. The version in Levashov’s 1998 novel was printed earliest, so we will deal with it first and call it Document #2. We will call the version published in 2001 by Gennadii Kostyrchenko Document #3. Document #2 is printed first in Levashov, without any date or archival location. Not for publication DECREE OF THE PRESIDIUM OF THE SUPREME SOVIET OF THE USSR

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On the awarding of decorations to generals and officers of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR. For the successful completion of a special task of the Government, to award: THE ORDER OF THE RED BANNER: To Lieutenant General TSANAVA Lavrentii Fomich *THE ORDER OF PATRIOTIC WAR I DEGREE:* 1. To Senior Lieutenant KRUGLOV Boris Alekseevich 2. To Colonel LEBEDEV Vasily Evgenievich 3. To Colonel SHUBNYAKOV Fedor Grigoryevich Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR N. Shvernik Secretary of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR A. Gorkin

Kostyrchenko’s 2001 Text of the Levashov Awards Decree In the 2001 edition of Kostyrchenko’s book Tainaia politika Stalina. Vlast’ i antisemitizm, the Levashov version is described as follows: За успешное выполнение специального задания правительства в октябре 1948 года указом президиума Верховного Совета СССР (в печати не публиковался) участники ликвидации Михоэлса удостоились государственнцх наград. Генераллейтенант Цанава получил орден Красного Знамени, полковники Шубняков, В.Е. Лебедев и старший лейтенант Б.А. Круглов – боевые ордена Отечественной войны 1-й степени, майоры А.Х. Косырев и Н.Ф. Повзун – ордена Красной Звезды. *

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels * Руководивший устранением Михоэлса замести-

тель министра госбезопасности Огольцов был награжден по указу, вышедшему ранее. Translation: For the successful completion of a special task of the government in October 1948 by order of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (not published in print) the participants in the liquidation of Mikhoels were honored with government awards. General-lieutenant Tsanava received the order of the Red Banner, Colonels Shubnyakov, V.E. Lebedev and senior lieutenant B.A. Kruglov – military order of the Patriotic War 1st class, majors A. Kh. Kosyrev and N.F. Povzun – order of the Red Star ...* * Assistant to the minister for state security Ogol’tsov,

who directed the liquidation of Mikhoels, was awarded by a decree that was issued earlier.

“Earlier” than what? Neither “awards decree” is dated. So there is no way to know which is “earlier” and which is “later.” In fact, as we’ll see, these are fabrications, so “earlier” and “later” have no meaning. And in fact we know this last statement is false. Ogol’tsov received an award, all right – - but not for anything to do with Mikhoels. On October 29, 1948, Ogol’tsov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner “for the successful completion of a special Governmental assignment” in the struggle against the nationalist underground in Ukraine.” Указом ПВС СССР от 29 октября 1948 г. «за успешное выполнение специального задания Правительства» по борьбе с националистическим подпольем в Западной Украине были награждены:

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орденом Красного Знамени - ... 1-й заместитель МГБ СССР генерал-лейтенант Сергей Иванович Огольцов ...3 By the Decree of the PVS [The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet] of the USSR of October 29, 1948, "for the successful fulfillment of a special task of the Government" in the fight against the nationalist underground in Western Ukraine, the following were awarded: Order of the Red Banner - ... 1st Deputy of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR, Lieutenant General Sergei Ivanovich Ogol’tsov ... Document #3, Kostyrchenko’s version of the “Awards Decree” includes the Order of the Red Star for Kosyrev and Povzun (underlined above). This document raises more questions. Kosyrev and Povzun are not mentioned in Levashov, Document #2. Why were they omitted there but are present here? Which – if either – of these documents is genuine? In fact, neither of them is. The official summary of Povzun’s career lists two orders of the Red Star. But they could not have been for anything related to Mikhoels. С 1946-го по 1953 год принимал непосредственное участие в борьбе с националистическими группами на территории Беларуси, выявлял пособников

3 NKVD-MVD v bor’be s banditizmom i vooruzhennym natsionalisticheskim

podpol’em na Zapadnoi Ukraine, v zapadnoi Belorussii i Pribaltike (1939-1956). Sbornik dokumentov. M., 2008, 462.

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и предателей Родины в ходе чекистко-войсковых операций.4 From 1946 to 1953, he was directly involved in the fight against nationalist groups on the territory of Belarus, identified accomplices and traitors to the Motherland during Chekist military operations. In reality, like Ogol’tsov Povzun was awarded for fighting against the fascist nationalists. Povzun lived until 2007. * When Kostyrchenko wrote the books in which he deals with Stalin’s alleged role in Mikhoels’ death, he could have addressed himself directly to Povzun for an explanation of the details of the 1948 operation and the reason Povzun was deprived of his medal. But Kostyrchenko did not do so. * Povzun could also have been called as a witness in the Pitovranov-Molchanov trial, to be discussed later. But he was not. These omissions make no sense if there had been a genuine attempt to discover actual details of Stalin’s alleged murder of Mikhoels. But if this allegation is false, they do make sense. Povzun would have been a powerful witness to the fabrication so the falsifiers would want to avoid him.

Document #3 - Kostyrchenko’s 2001 Text Kostyrchenko’s 2001 book reproduces the text of his version of this decree but, for some reason, not the formatting. The formatting is reproduced on page 100 of the 2005 volume Gosudarstvenniy antisemitism which Kostyrchenko edited. English translation: 4

https://web.archive.org/web/20150523083708/https://gpk.gov.by/podvig/vet erans/povzun_nicholas_federowicz/ Accessed 01.10.23.

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EXTRACT FROM THE PROTOCOL p. 301. On awarding orders to generals and officers Ministry of State Security of the USSR Approve the draft decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the Award of Decorations to Generals and Officers of the Ministry of State Security news of the USSR: Without publication in print “For the successful completion of a special task of the Government, to award: the Order of the Red Banner1 to Lieutenant General Tsanava Lavrentii Fomich The Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class to 1) Senior Lieutenant Kruglov Boris Alekseevich 2) Colonel Lebedev Vasily Evgenievich 3) Colonel Shubnyakov Fedor Grigoryevich The Order of the Red Star to 1) Major Kosyrev Alexander Kharlampievich 2) Major Povzun Nikolai Fedorovich Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR N. SHVERNIK Secretary of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR

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A. GORKIN» RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 3. D. 1072. L. 74, 213. Copy. This document says nothing about what these awards were awarded for. They do not mention Mikhoels. Nevertheless, Kostyrchenko adds the following footnote: 1 For leading the special operation to eliminate S.M. Mikhoels, the Order of the Red Banner was also awarded to B.C. Abakumov and S.I. Ogol’tsov. This award was made according to the consolidated decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (October 29, 1948), which included a large group of other senior officials of the USSR Ministry of State Security. Kostyrchenko gives no evidence at all to support the statements in this paragraph. He does not give either the text or any location at all for this “consolidated decree.” Why not, if it is genuine? As we have seen, Ogol’tsov did indeed receive the Order of the Red Banner, but for actions against the nationalist underground. No wonder Kostyrchenko fails to cite its archival identifiers! There is no evidence that any of these decorations were awarded for killing Mikhoels. Kostyrchenko is simply asserting it. Nor is there any reason to accept any of them as genuine. In his October 2003 Lekhaim article Kostyrchenko cites both Document #2 and this different one, but in a manner that can only confuse any reader who might have both texts before him. Kostyrchenko states that Povzun is mentioned “in the decree of the awards, published later” (po izdannomu potom nagradnomu ukazu, 14). What does “later” mean here? Evidently, it means “later than the decree published by Levashov.” But how much later? We do not have dates of publication for either of these decrees. How does Kostyrchenko know which was published first?

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In his 2001 discussion of Document #3 in Tainaia Politika Stalina (2001 edition), Kostyrchenko states that Ogol’tsov, not mentioned in Document #2, “was awarded according to the Ukaz issued earlier.” (note, p. 392). So Kostyrchenko must mean that this version of the “awards decree” was issued after October 29, 1948, the date he assigns to the award to Ogol’tsov (and Abakumov). Nothing in either decree mentions Mikhoels in any way. The “earlier” decree was issued more than nine months after Mikhoels’ death. There is no reason to associate these awards with Mikhoels. They were issued for other services And why doesn’t Kostyrchenko reproduce the award to Ogol’tsov? It is simply not possible that there were two decrees, identical in content except for the addition of two names – that is, both naming Tsanava, Kruglov, Lebedev, and Shubnyakov – but different in wording. Kostyrchenko assumes all the documents from Levashov’s 1998 novel are genuine – except the awards decree. Why? By doing this he is implicitly claiming that the decree in Levashov’s novel is not genuine – that it is a fake. But if this “Levashov document” is a fake, why should we accept all the other “Levashov documents” as genuine? Yet Kostyrchenko does, because without them and the phony “Beria letter” there is no evidence that Stalin ordered Mikhoels to be killed.

Documents ## 4-7 in general The other “Levashov” documents associated with Document #2 and, the “Beria Letter” contain many contradictions both to each other and to other documents. Kostyrchenko (Lekhaim 20) acknowledges this fact, but does not subject these documents to any close analysis. Rather, he attributes whatever contradictions exist in them to aberratsii chelovecheskoi pamiati, “aberrations of the human memory”, since they were supposedly written down in 1953, five years after the event.

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This is unacceptable. No scholar can simply assume that, when it comes to crucial evidence, those details that are compatible with a given interpretation are genuine while those that are not compatible can be simply dismissed as lies or errors. Why not assume the opposite? Better still, why not just study them and see what happens? The latter is the correct procedure in every case. But it’s especially important in a matter like the “Mikhoels murder”, where forgery can be proven.

Where Do They Come From? The fatal problem with all the Documents ##1-7 is their provenance. Where did they come from? We have already discussed Document #1, the “Beria letter.” It – or, rather, a “first, rough draft” of it, appeared out of nowhere in 1992. It is certainly a forgery. With the exception of Document #3, Documents ##2 through 7 occur nowhere else but Levashov’s novel. There is no evidence that they were ever in any Soviet archive. Of course, archival identification in and of itself is not sufficient to certify a document as genuine. Russian historians have claimed that, beginning as early as Khrushchev’s time, Soviet archives have been “cleaned” – documents have been removed and never replaced, probably destroyed. Granted that documents have been removed from the archives, there’s no reason documents could not also have been fabricated and inserted into the archives. This has already happened with the “Beria Letter,” as we have seen. Archival identifiers convince and confuse those only who believe that if it’s in an archive, it must be genuine. We should be especially wary when suddenly “discovered” “smoking gun” documents appear to present “solutions” to historical conundrums of long standing and high political valence. A good example are the “Katyn documents” of “Closed Packet No. 1.” These are also “Beria” documents, reputedly “discovered” under Gorbachev but not published until Yeltsin’s time. Why should any objec-

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tive historian simply accept them? On “faith”? Faith in what, or whom?5 The “Mikhoels documents” also fit this description. At best they should be approached with deep skepticism. Yet anticommunist historians have simply taken them at face value. This willful ignoring of the manifold questions surrounding these documents and the lack of any attempt to point to their apparent inconsistencies and contradictions ought to arouse further suspicion. They make it appear that the real concern is not to discover the truth through an objective analysis of the evidence but to provide grist for some anticommunist and anti-Stalin political agenda.

Document #4 - Ogol’tsov Confession #1 March 18, 1953 This document was first published in the original 1998 edition of Levashov’s novel Ubiystvo Mikhoelsa, Chapter 10, pages 463-464. In the 2002 republication it is on pages 400-401. In the document collection edited by Kostyrchenko, Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm, published in 2005 it is stated to be from the Central Archive of the FSB, “in the archival collection of the editor” but also states “published in Levashov, V.V., Ubiystvo Mikhoelsa. M. [=Moscow], 1998, pp. 463-464. But if it is really from this archive why didn’t Kostyrchenko give us the archival identifiers? Because he had not yet had the chance to insert it into the archive himself? In reality, Kostyrchenko is lying here. The documents come from Levashov’s novel and nowhere else. Here are the main points of this document: * The heading reads: “Top Secret. Unique, handwritten copy.” 5 See Grover Furr, The Mystery of the Katyn Massacre. The Evidence, The Solution.

Kettering, OH: Erythrós Press & Media, LLC, 2018

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* Abakumov, seeing that Mikhoels had gone to Minsk, decides to take advantage of the situation to assassinate him there. * Ogol’tsov is at pains to inform us that Sudoplatov “did not know about” the planned assassination, even though none of those allegedly involved worked for him any longer. * No documentary trail of this assassination was kept. * Mikhoels and Golubov were picked up by car at his hotel, taken to Tsanava’s dacha, killed there, and then dumped on the littleused street, where they were run over by a truck. * Golubov, though an MVD agent, was killed too because (a) he “knew about all the agency’s undertakings concerning Mikhoels”; but (b) “was not trusted” by authorities (organov). * Shubnyakov, as well as Lebedev and Kruglov, carried out the actual murders. At the Pitovranov trial in 1995 Shubnyakov denied any role in Mikhoels’ death. But Shubnyakov died on December 12, 1996, well before this “Levashov document” was published. * “Participants in the operation … were awarded with Soviet decorations.”

Document #5 - Ogol’tsov Confession No. 2, dated 19 March 1953 Like the previous document, it is said to be in “the archival collection of the editor” and “published in Levashov, V.V., M., 1998, pp. 466-468. In Levashov 2002 it is on pages 402-403. In Kostyrchenko ed., Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm (2005), pages 112-113. Main points: * The heading reads: “Top Secret. Unique copy, handwritten in his own handwriting.” * There was no motive for Mikhoels’ murder.

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* “The agent” (Golubov) knew everything about this specific operation, but “was not trusted.” * “My duty was to ask the Central Committee about this.”

Document #6 - Tsanava Interrogation, dated 16 April 1953 First published in Levashov, Ubiystvo Mikhoelsa¸ 1998 edition, Chapter 10, pages 468-471; in the 2002 republication it is on pages 403-405. In Kostyrchenko ed., Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm (2005), it is on pages 113-115. Like the previous two documents it is said to be in “the archival collection of the editor” and “published in Levashov. V.V., op. cit., pages 468-471.” In the online publication6 only “the archival collection of the editor” is given as source – its origin in Levashov’s novel is omitted. Main points: * The heading reads: “Top Secret. Transcript of the interrogation of the accused TSANAVA Lavrentii Fomich.” * Tsanava is described as “on pension” – i.e., retired from service, since 17 March 1952. * Abakumov phones him twice in one day, and then two days later Ogol’tsov arrived at his home – alternately called both an “apartment” (kvartira) and a “dacha” – outside Minsk, accompanied by Shubnyakov, Kosarev, Lebedev, and Kruglov. * The interrogation ends abruptly. * The text alleged to be by Tsanava in the “Beria Letter” (Document #1) is not present.

6 At http://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-doc/68461

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Document 7 - Shubnyakov Letter, 18 March 1953 First published in Levashov, Ubiystvo Mikhoelsa. Moscow, 1998. Chapter 10 pages 471-474. In the 2002 republication it is on pages. 406-408. In Kostyrchenko ed., Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm (2005), it is on pages 115-116. Like the previous three documents it is said to be in “the archival collection of the editor” and “published in Levashov. V.V., op. cit., pages 471-474.” Once again, in the online publication only “the archival collection of the editor” is given as its source.7 * The heading reads: Top Secret… Explanatory note concerning the MIKHOELS affair from Colonel Shubnyakov F.G.” * Abakumov called Shubnyakov into his office and, in the presence of Ogol’tsov, gave him this assignment. * Abakumov included Shubnyakov, Lebedev, Kruglov and Kosarev as those who would carry out the assassination. * Shubnyakov, Lebedev and Kruglov spent three days in Minsk observing Mikhoels.* Shubnyakov and Kruglov (acting as chauffeur) drove up “to the agreed-upon place where Mikhoels and the agent were”. * They all drove to Tsanava’s “apartment, i.e. to his dacha”. We must return to this interesting statement. * Mikhoels and the agent (Golubov) were forced to drink a glass of vodka apiece. * They were then run over and killed by a truck while at Tsanava’s residence. * Their bodies were then dumped on one of the streets near the hotel.

7 At http://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-doc/68462

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* The bodies were placed such that they appeared to have been killed by a car that ran over them. * The next day a forensic medical examination of the corpses concluded that Mikhoels and the agent had been killed by being struck by a truck which had crushed them. * No documentation of this operation was kept. For the sake of clarity we will deal with all these documents at one time. 1. Time. Zhores Medvedev has noted the contradiction between the “rushed assignment” claimed in “Beria Letter”, Document #1, and the timing in Document #7, where the assassins had three days to observe Mikhoels in Minsk. We will discuss Medvedev’s account in a later chapter. 2. The “agent” (Golubov) was supposedly killed because he had “full information” about the upcoming assassination, yet was “untrustworthy.” Assuming a real murder, this makes no sense. Why give an untrustworthy agent this kind of information to begin with? But if we assume a falsification, it does make sense. Golubov’s death had to be accounted for. All testimonies agree Golubov was an MGB agent. Their deaths being in reality due to a hit-and-run, some story to account for the deliberate murder of the agent would have to be concocted. 3. Location of the murder. The Shubnyakov Note (Document #7) states the men were run over and killed at Tsanava’s dacha. The Ogol’tsov Confession No. 1 (Document #4) states the men were killed at Tsanava’s, but run over by the truck on the street in Minsk where their bodies were dumped. Why the disagreement, since – supposedly – both men were present? 4. Agency. Two documents, #4 and #7, identify the actual assassins – Shubnyakov, Lebedev and Kruglov according to Document #4, these three plus Kosarev, according to Document #7.

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In his 1995 testimony Shubnyakov denied any role in the murder.8 Why would he do this if he had already confessed to it in writing in Document #7? He would have been forced to assume that in 1995 the KGB – now the FSB – had copies and that they might be produced in court. Or if he really were guilty and this alleged confession were genuine, why didn’t the defense or the court in 1995 produce his old confession? Documents #3-#7 first appeared in 1998 in Levashov’s novel. It’s logical to suppose that Document #7 was fabricated after Shubnyakov’s 1995 statement to the court, most likely after Shubnyakov’s death in December, 19969 not only in order to reaffirm his guilt but to salvage the “murder” story itself, since Shubnyakov’s 1995 testimony calls the whole “Mikhoels murder” story into question. Other suspicious aspects of these four “Levashov” documents include the following: * Why do two documents (#4 and #7) tell us that no documentation of the murder was kept? The interrogator and the recording secretary would have had no way to know whether Abakumov, or even Stalin, had had typewritten copies made, as was normally done. But if these documents were fabrications, then the reason is clear: “Don’t bother to look for any other “evidence” of this assassination, because there isn’t any.” * Why do the two “Ogol’tsov” documents, #4 and #5, have a heading telling us each is “unique” and “handwritten?” These remarks must have been inserted by the person who, allegedly, archived the documents. But how would an archivist or an editor decades later have any way of knowing whether a given document was

8 We discuss this in a later chapter.

9 Shubnyakov died on December 12, 1996. See

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Шубняков,_Фёдор_Григорьевич Accessed 12.10.2022.

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“unique” So once again this must mean: “Don’t look for other copies.” * Why a statement, at the top of a handwritten letter, telling the reader that it is “handwritten” unless to reassure readers who are reading a printed version? * Where is the supposed handwritten confession? It would be in the archive too. And why no indication of a signature? * Why does Document #4 insist that Pavel Sudoplatov, for whom none of the alleged assassins worked any longer, did not know about the operation? This would make sense if the document were a fake. It might also be an attempt to counter Sudoplatov’s claim in his book Spetsoperatsiia that Mikhoels had been killed by a poisoned injection, while reiterating Sudoplatov’s insistence, in the same book, that he was not a party to the assassination and did not learn about it until afterwards. That is, the remark about Sudoplatov makes sense if the document was fabricated with an eye to events in the 1990s, but none as a genuine document of the 1950s * The Shubnyakov Note (Document #7) makes most sense if it were fabricated after the others, and after the “Beria Letter” (Document #1). It contradicts previous documents in significant ways. It introduces a discordant time frame, thus contradicting both Documents ##1 and 4. It also contradicts the “Bodunov report” (Document #9), which reports on an autopsy carried out the day the bodies were discovered, for neither it nor any other document mentions that the victims were forced to drink vodka to make it appear that they were drunk. * The “Tsanava Interrogation” is hard to explain. It ends abruptly, without the signatures of interrogators and the interrogated as always accompanied such transcripts. It does not contain the text of Tsanava’s purported “confirmation” of Ogol’tsov’s account as stated in the “Beria Letter”. Perhaps the reader is meant to think the “Tsanava” text in the “Beria Letter” was in the missing part of this “Tsanava Interrogation”,

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which ends abruptly. Or, perhaps we are to believe there was yet another “Tsanava document” cited in the “Beria Letter” but not extant or not yet discovered. But it is more likely the forger of the “Tsanava Interrogation” did not have a copy of the “Beria Letter” handy and so could not insert these details. Perhaps the forger intended to finish the job when he got a copy of the “Beria Letter” but never did. * According to Document #5 Ogol’tsov believed in 1953 that he should have asked the Central Committee of the Party about this. This is all wrong. The judicial system was part of the state apparatus. The “Beria Letter” consistently refers to the alleged murder as having been ordered by the “Head of State” – Stalin, as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Ogol’tsov had supposedly received an order from his superior Abakumov, a government minister. How could Ogol’tsov have possibly thought that his duty was to go bypass all his superiors, including Abakumov, the minister, and go to the Party’s Central Committee? Some details in some of these documents might be attempts to provide a spurious corroboration for Documents ##1-3, or for one another. * Document #4 mentions that “participants in the operation … were awarded with Soviet decorations.” This echoes the repeal of the “awards decree” in the last lines of the “Beria Letter.” Of course, this would entail glossing over the problem that there were, supposedly, at least two such decrees (Documents #2 and #3). * The “Shubnyakov Note” (Document #7) confirms the statement in the “Beria Letter” (Document #1) supposedly quoted from some confession of Tsanava’s, but not contained in the “Tsanava Interrogation” document (Document #6), that the two victims were run over by a truck and killed while at Tsanava’s residence. The “Ogol’tsov Confession No. 1” (Document #4) contradicts this. But since Ogol’tsov is nowhere named as one of the actual assassins,

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the fabricators of the “Shubnyakov Note” might have hoped that this “made up” for the error. * The “Shubnyakov Note” may have also been intended to clarify a question left unclear in previous documents. The “Beria Letter” (Document #1) refers several times to Tsanava’s “dacha,” but never to an “apartment” (kvartira). But the “Tsanava Interrogation” (Document #6) uses both words. An “apartment” is normally not the same thing as a “dacha”, the latter normally suggesting a house, whether large or small. The forger of the “Tsanava Interrogation” carelessly used both terms, writing the word “apartment” three times and “dacha” only twice. The “Shubnyakov Note” – which of course must be a forgery, like all the rest of these documents – “explains” this in a strange way. The word “dacha” is used throughout except once, towards the end, Shubnyakov purportedly wrote “’apartment’, i.e. dacha.” That is, Shubnyakov supposedly goes out of his way to tell the reader that in this case “kvartira” means “dacha.” Why do this – unless the reader has already seen that both terms had been used, and would wonder about the discrepancy? And why would a real Shubnyakov put scare quotes around kvartira in his letter? It must have been an attempt to explain the fact that one of the documents refers to Tsanava’s “apartment.” The forger of the Shubnyakov confession was trying to explain away the error of the forger of the Tsanava confession. * The “Shubnyakov Note” is the only ”Levashov” document that includes a reference to the autopsy the following day. It reports the results as reflected in the Kruglov Report of January 14, 1948, as well as in the “top secret” report by Bodunov, dated February 11, 1948.. But how would the real Shubnyakov have known about the autopsy results? Why would a guilty Shubnyakov have referred to it? He was supposedly one of the murderers, so he would have known very well that the victims were “crushed by a truck.” The report had nothing to do with Shubnyakov’s actions or confession at all.

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It looks as though a reference to this report (Document #9) was inserted into the “Shubnyakov Note” simply to give it an “anchor” by means of a reference to a genuine document. But assuming that the “Bodunov report” is genuine, there is no reason for a real 1953 note by Shubnyakov to have referred to it.



Chapter 4. Shubnyakov and the Pitovranov Trial Pitovranov vs Molchanov Lawsuit In 1995 Evgenii Petrovich Pitovranov, who had been the head of counter-intelligence in the MGB (Ministry of State Security) from 1946 to 1950, filed a lawsuit against Russian journalist Vladimir Molchanov. In January 1995, on his radio show “Do i posle” (“Before and after”), Molchanov had accused Pitovranov of having had some role in the murder of Mikhoels since his subordinate, Fedor G. Shubnyakov, had been involved and so, Molchanov assumed, Pitovranov must have had knowledge of it.

Shubnyakov’s 1995 Testimony Only press reports of this trial and of Shubnyakov’s testimony are available. A request for the trial records received the reply that they had been destroyed after the legal limit to save them had expired.1 For the sake of establishing the truth, Kostyrchenko could have made a timely request to acquaint himself with the case materials. As in the case of Povzun Kostyrchenko neglected this opportunity. Nevertheless, the press reports of the trial yield some important results for our study. At the trial in July 1995 Shubnyakov, testifying on behalf of his former boss, said that he himself, Shubnyakov, had no knowledge 1 Since the period of storage of archival materials for this category of claims

expired in 2000 (see Order of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. 171 of December 28 “On Approval of the List of Documents of Federal Courts of General Jurisdiction with an Indication of the Storage Periods”), the archival file and the materials contained therein from the archive of the FSB and Shubnyakov's statement have apparently been destroyed.

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of the murder of Mikhoels, and therefore Pitovranov could not have had any either. Neither Molchanov nor the court produced Shubnyakov’s March 18, 1953 “confession” (Document #7). Why not? Obviously because it had not yet been fabricated – forged – and published in Levashov’s 1998 novel. As of July 1995, neither Pitovranov’s nor Shubnyakov’s name had been mentioned at all in connection with Mikhoels’ supposed “murder.” Where, then, did the story of Shubnyakov’s role come from? Evidently it came from the Vayners’ novel Petlia i kamen’ v zelyonoi trave, published in 1991 – the same source that gave Robert Conquest the “Studebaker.” In the Vayners’ dramatization Mikhoels was murdered by a certain “Krutovranov.” Руководил всей акцией Крутованов … (309) Krutovranov directed the whole affair … while a certain “Shubin” drove the fatal truck: ... в районе бывшего еврейского гетто на улице Немиrа грузовик -- студебеккер, управляемый Шубиным, догнал их, на скорости выехал на тротуар и сбил Михоэлса, скончавшегося на месте ... (380) ... in the area of the former Jewish ghetto on Nemiga Street, a Studebaker truck driven by Shubin caught up with them, drove onto the sidewalk at speed and knocked down Mikhoels, who died on the spot ... “Krutovranov” sounds like Pitovranov, and “Shubin” a little like Shubnyakov. The Vayners’ novel was published in 1991, while the Soviet Union was still in existence and months before the appearance of the first iteration of the “Beria letter” in Argumenty i Fakty. So this novel is most likely the source of the names of Shubnyakov and Pitovranov, and so of the latter’s lawsuit against Molchanov.

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Kostyrchenko, referring to an account in a Moscow newspaper, states (Lekhaim 22) that Shubnyakov “lied in stating that he did not kill anyone himself and that his task was only ‘to establish contacts with Golubov for the purpose of receiving information about Mikhoels’ attitudes and plans and passing the information to Ogol’tsov and to Tsanava, Minister of State Security of Belorussia.” Later in the same article (26) Kostyrchenko says Существует, по крайней мере, еще одно доказательство, о котором литератор, конечно, не мог не знать: широко обсуждавшиеся в СМИ свидетельские показания Ф.Г. Шубнякова на упоминавшемся судебном процессе 1995 года, где тот публично признал факт тайного убийства Михоэлса, совершенного сотрудниками МГБ по приказу из Кремля.52 There exists at least one proof about which the writer naturally is quite aware: the confession of F.G. Shubnyakov, widely discussed in the mass media at the aforementioned trial in 1995, where he publicly admitted the fact of the secret murder of Mikhoels carried out by collaborators of the MGB on orders from the Kremlin. Kostyrchenko’s note 52 is to an article in Kommersant-Daily of September 9, 1995. But in this article Shubnyakov does not admit that Mikhoels was murdered. Kostyrchenko cites no other evidence to support his claim that Shubnyakov “publicly admitted the fact of the secret murder of Mikhoels carried out by collaborators of the MGB on order from the Kremlin.” Shubnyakov was not present in court for the purpose of confirming or denying that Mikhoels had been murdered. He was there to testify on behalf of his former boss, Evgenii P. Pitovranov. By denying his own participation in the alleged murder, Shubnyakov denied that any murder took place.

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* No archival copy of the “Beria letter” was available so none was produced at the trial. * The defendant Molchanov had no other evidence at all about the purported assassination, including no evidence implicating Pitovranov * Pitovranov guessed – no doubt correctly – that Molchanov had used the Vayners’ novel as his source of information. * Shubnyakov confirmed that he had traveled to Minsk in January 1948, in order to meet with Golubov and spy on Mikhoels and was there at the time Mikhoels and Golubov were killed. Whoever forged the Levashov documents knew about this, and knew about the medals to Ogol’tsov and the rest. He probably also knew something about Ogol’tsov’s arrest. Evidently, however, the forger did not know that Shubnyakov was still alive. * Shubnyakov was mainly interested in denying any role in the assassinations. He was not able to “prove” that no assassinations had taken place. Given all the publicity at the time, he may have believed they had taken place. Pitovranov and Shubnyakov were not present as historians trying to figure out what had happened. Pitovranov was there to win a lawsuit against Molchanov. Shubnyakov was there to help Pitovranov. There’s really no reason to accept as truthful anything else they said. Most important, Shubnyakov denied he was involved in any assassination. Pitovranov would have won his lawsuit because Molchanov admitted that he had no evidence, but the trial ended in a peaceful reconciliation of both sides. Shubnyakov's affidavit would be of particular value for clarifying the case of the death of Mikhoels. Under the law a witness himself is held liable for perjury for any false testimony presented to the court,. Therefore, the truthful written testimony of Shubnyakov, not distorted by journalistic interpretation, could have been the most important evidence.

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Molchanov and the court did not call Kostyrchenko. That in itself is suspicious. – why didn’t they call him? Kostyrchenko was already the “expert” on the supposed murder. The “researchers” -- mainly Kostyrchenko but there were others too like Vaksberg and Borshchagovsky -- did not ask the court at Ostankino for whatever documents they had. They could have done so – they were on the spot, in Moscow, at the time of the trial. So why didn’t they? There can only be one answer: they were afraid of what they would find. But then why didn’t they shut up about the whole thing? Possibly because they wanted to be able to “cite” this as “evidence” anyway. As for the reliability of Shubnyakov’s own testimony, from the information that got into the media it is only clear that his statement is his own, obtained without external coercion, when the author was firm in memory. Shubnyakov knew that if the court possessed his “confession statement” – the Levashov document supposedly came from an MGB-MVD archive – he would be liable to a charge of perjury if he denied guilt. Clearly, therefore, Shubnyakov did not fear perjury. Why not? Because he knew nothing about his supposed “confession” of 1953. Therefore, there is no reason to doubt that Shubnyakov was telling the truth when he denied involvement in the supposed “murder.” Documents ## 4,5 and 7 all cite Shubnyakov as one of those directly involved in the murder. By denying any participation in the murder, Shubnyakov in effect stated that these documents are false. Document #1 cites, and relies upon, Document #4 (Ogol’tsov’s first confession). If Document #4 is false we have a further reason to conclude that Document #1, the “Beria Letter”, is also false, as we have already demonstrated. If Documents #4, 5 and 7 are false, Documents #2, 3 and 6, problematic for other reasons already discussed above, cannot possibly be genuine. Kostyrchenko stated that Shubnyakov “lied” in his testimony. But Kostyrchenko has no evidence that Shubnyakov lied except for the “Levashov documents.”. The very existence of a murder depends entirely upon the veracity of Documents ##1 through 7. If those documents are false, then no evidence exists that any murder oc-

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curred. In short, Shubnyakov does not confirm the “the fact of the secret murder” – he disconfirms it. Shubnyakov’s 1995 testimony fails to confirm that Mikhoels was murdered. We are left with Documents ##1-7, all of which are worse than dubious, and Documents ##8-10, which contain no evidence at all of any murder.

Chapter 4a. ‘New materials concerning Mikhoels’ fate’ In November 2006 an article appeared in the Zionist journal Lekhaim titled “New Materials concerning Mikhoels’ Fate.”1 The author, E. Ioffe, adheres firmly to the notion of Mikhoels’ murder by Stalin’s order. However, he usefully cites excerpts from a report by Tsanava dated January 13, 1948 from the Archive of the KGB of the Republic of Belarus.2 Mikhoels arrived in Minsk on January 8, 1948 in the evening with Golubov V.I., deputy editor of the journal "Theater", and the secretary of the party organization of the Committee for the Arts of the USSR Barashko (Illarion Matveyevich Barashko [1905–1968], a Byelorussian writer who worked after the war in the USSR Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR. - E.I.). On the evening of January 8, there was a banquet at the Belarus Hotel hosted by the administration of the drama theater (deputy director Gaidarin-Ravinsky Abram Gershkovich, chief administrator Zalessky Yakov Borisovich, artist Sokol Moisey Borisovich, etc.). On January 9, after watching the production of “Tevye the Dairyman” at the theater, Mikhoels, Golubov and the participants in the production were drinking until 4 in the morning in the Zarya restaurant. 1 E. Ioffe. “Novye materialy o gibeli Mikhoelsa.” Lekhaim November 2006. At

https://lechaim.ru/ARHIV/175/VZR/m05.htm Accessed 01.11.2023.

2 Архивно-следственное дело о гибели С. М. Михоэлса. Лл. 1–5 // Arkhivno-

sledstvennoe delo o gibeli S.M. Mikhoelsa. Ll. 1-5 // “Archival investigative file on the death of S.M. Mikhoels, pp. 1-5.

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January 10 - a banquet at the home of the artist of the Drama Theater Glebov. On January 11, in the afternoon, dinner at M.B. Sokol’s. On January 12, in the afternoon, Mikhoels and Golubov, with Gaidarin and Zalessky, were at the Zarya restaurant and at 5 o'clock in the afternoon went to the Belarus hotel. They rested until 9 pm. Then they apparently went to a friend of Golubov - Sergeyev, an engineer, a railway transportation employee, with whom Golubov had studied at the institute ... The bodies of Mikhoels and Golubov were found near the newly built tram line from Sverdlova Street to Garbarnaya Street. The autopsy took place at 2 p.m. on January 13. Death had occurred 15–16 hours earlier. There was a meal two hours before death ... The dead had all their belongings and money intact. Among the documents of the murdered Mikhoels, an agreement was found with the director of the Belgoset on the artistic consultation of Mikhoels in the preparation and conduct of a performance. The bodies were discovered in the morning by workers who were going to work. The dead were covered in snow. One galosh (it seems to be from Golubov's foot) lay nearby. Actors of the Jewish theater Aronchik Yu.S., Sonkin S.M., Chaygorskaya M.M., Moin M.M., Rutshtein K.L. were interviewed in the case of Mikhoels. All of them said approximately the same thing. On January 9, after meeting with the actors in a restaurant (40 people), they had gone to the hostel of the Jewish theater (in the premises of the Jewish theater at 5 Volodarsky Street) to Moin's apartment, where they drank black coffee. On January 10th at 13:00. Mikhoels had a

Chapter 4a. ‘New materials concerning Mikhoels’ fate’

conversation with the actors in the Jewish theater. On January 11 they were at Goldschwartz’s. During the performance at the theater of the opera "Alesya" it was announced that Iovchuk, Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks [this is an error: the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Byelorussia (Bolsheviks) is correct - E. I)] would arrive. He wanted to meet Mikhoels and talk to him after the performance. In this regard, Mikhoels abandoned the idea of going to Golubov's friend for the birthday [lit. name day] celebration. After the performance, in Goldschwartz's office, a conversation took place with Iovchuk, who offered to give all the participants of the meeting a lift to the house in his car. In the car with Iovchuk, Aronchik and Chaygorskaya they drove to the building of the Jewish theater (on Volodarsky Street). Mikhoels stayed, Iovchuk left, and Barashko and Golubov returned to the hotel. The actors recalled that in the theater on the previous evening a stranger in civilian clothes was sitting next to Golubov who did not introduce him to anyone, and later said only that the man had been his classmate at the institute. They also recalled that Golubov tried very hard to persuade Mikhoels to go to his friend's for a name day celebration, that the friend would even provide a car, that is, Mikhoels would be taken and brought back and that it would not take much time, they would stay there only 30 or 40 minutes. The actors of the Jewish theater did not want to let Mikhoels go. Golubov was very insistent. The car, it seemed, would be waiting for them near the hotel on January 11, and they were to go to the name day right after the performance of "Alesya". But given that Iovchuk had arrived, there was no time left for a visit, it was late. The next day, Golubov said that his comrade had postponed his holiday specially because

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of Mikhoels and would wait for him on January 12th. When asked by the actors where his friend lived Golubov did not say anything specific, did not give any address, but only said that it was not far and they could even walk. So after 21:00 on January 12, they left the hotel. During the investigation Barashko testified that he was with Mikhoels and Golubov only when viewing performances, and in his free time he visited relatives who lived in Minsk. On January 12, he came to the hotel in the evening and did not find Mikhoels and Golubov. Golubov had the travel certificates and (it seemed) the tickets. They had planned to leave for Moscow on January 13, somewhere around 12:00 (1012). When Barashko woke up in the morning, M. and G. were not there. But Barashko was not worried because he thought they had spent the night with friends. However, the wait dragged on, and Barashko decided to go alone. He left a note on the table that he couldn't wait any longer and was about to leave. But then (someone from the acting world) came and said that Mikhoels and Golubov were found dead on the street. Ioffe testifies that the “authorities” made serious efforts to find the car that hit Mikhoels and Golubov, although he himself regards this work with obvious skepticism: В архивно-следственных делах КГБ Республики Беларусь имеются оперативные материалы по розыску грузовой машины, якобы осуществившей наезд на Михоэлса и Голубова. Эти документы занимают несколько томов, поскольку подозревались разные лица, допрашивались подозреваемые и свидетели, потом этих людей отпускали и т. д. Впечатление деятельных, активных поисков – но безрезультатных.

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In the archives and investigation files of the KGB of the Republic of Belarus, there are operational materials on the search for the truck that allegedly ran over Mikhoels and Golubov. These documents take up several volumes, since various persons were suspected, suspects and witnesses were interrogated, then these people were released, etc. The impression of an active, active search - but to no avail. A few details from this account are useful. * There is no indication that the vehicle that struck Mikhoels and Golubov was found in the garage of the Belorussian MGB, much less that it was registered to that organization, as Bel’chenko claimed more than 50 years later and as Kostyrchenko repeats. * The name “Sergeyev” appears here as a friend and old classmate of Golubov’s. Kostyrchenko claims that this was a pseudonym used by MGB man Fyodor Shubnyakov to dupe Mikhoels. But this cannot be true since if this document is correct Golubov was also present and knew Sergeyev. Golubov graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Railway Transport in 19313 and Shubnyakov only graduated from the 7th grade of school in 1931, after which he continued his studies at the evening faculty of public sciences in a communist higher educational institution.4 Thus, they could not be fellow students at the institute. Kostyrchenko knew this account. One wonders why he fabricated his false story. Additionally, Ioffe refers to the publication of a certain V. N in the newspaper "We and Time" dated January 12, 1994, which says: 3 See https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Голубов,_Владимир_Ильич Accessed

02.15.2023.

4 See https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Шубняков,_Фёдор_Григорьевич Accessed

02.15.2023.

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I have repeatedly happened to read articles about the death in the winter of 1947/1948. in Minsk, of the famous artist Mikhoels (Vovsi Solomon Mikhailovich) .... The statements made by the authors of these articles amaze me due to their lack of evidence. The place of the death of the artist, the planners and perpetrators of the murder are not mentioned, there are no references to testimony or to official documents ... Now that there is renewed interest in this event in the press, I have decided to speak about what I had to face on duty in that ill-fated winter. After demobilization from the active Army in 1945, I was sent to work in the Ministry of State Security [MGB] of the BSSR ... At about 3 o'clock in the morning we were informed from the Ministry of Internal Affairs that near the hotel "Belarus" on Kirov Street, an unknown truck hit a hotel guest, an artist from Moscow, Vovsi S.M., whose corpse was found on the roadway near the entrance to the hotel ... The doctors of the Ministry of Internal Affairs established that before his death the deceased was in a state of intoxication, and the investigator reported that the name of the deceased was Vovsi S.M. Only a few days later, from conversations, I learned that the one who died that night was Mikhoels. Today the authors of articles about the death of Mikhoels claim that he was killed at Tsanava's dacha. But if so, then one asks: why did the killers have to take the body of their victim to the center of the city, to the most crowded, illuminated place - to the porch of the hotel - and leave it there, risking exposure? Wouldn't it have been easier to do it somewhere on an ordinary dark street or in ruins, and then blame everything on bandits? This article expresses skepticism about the story that Mikhoels was murdered.

Chapter 5. Official Documents That Disprove The “Stalin Had Mikhoels Murdered” Story

Document #8 – the Kruglov Report of January 14, 1948 The Kruglov Report is the first document recording the deaths of Mikhoels and Golubov. It contains no indication whatever that Mikhoels and Golubov were murdered. It also contains the exact location, with street names, of where Mikhoels’ and Golubov’s bodies were found. This alone is enough to prove that the “Beria letter” is a fake, for Beria and his aides would have had the Kruglov Report before them. Yet the “Beria letter” as is now presented to us has the month wrong and lacks the location of the bodies. The Kruglov Report is not printed in either collection of documents by Shimon Redlich and Gennadii Kostyrchenko, the Russian volume Evreiskii Antifashistskii Komitet v SSSR 1941-1948 (Moscow, 1996) or the English version War, Holocaust, and Stalinism (1995). The editors might have omitted it because it contains nothing negative about Stalin and no evidence that Mikhoels and Golubov had been murdered by the Soviet state. But the result of their omission is that readers of these volumes will not know that this report exists.

Document #9 – the Bodunov Report of February 11, 1948

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The Bodunov Report is printed in the two volumes cited above. It is compatible with the Kruglov Report, much less so with Zuskin’s statement, which we will examine elsewhere. The Bodunov Report insists that Mikhoels and Golubov “categorically refused the use of an auto which was offered to them.” This contradicts Documents #4 (Ogol’tsov Confession No. 1) and #7 (Shubnyakov Letter) which insist that the men were picked up in a car. The Bodunov Report states that Tsanava’s Byelorussian MGB assumed control of the investigation: …additional measures were formulated and were subsequently approved by Comrade Lieutenant General Tsanava of the Ministry for State Security [MGB] of the BSSR and Comrade Lieutenant General Belchenko of the Ministry of Internal Affairs [MVD].of the BSSR Since the circle of acquaintances of Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov consisted mainly of people from the artistic world, it was deemed more suitable for the organs of the Ministry for State Security to investigate this aspect, and the materials obtained by operative agents and the investigation concerning these people were turned over to Bureau 2 of the Ministry for State Security of the BSSR and any further examination of these links was being carried out by the staff of Bureau 2. (Redlich ed. 446) Tsanava was Minister of State Security, so this would have been under his jurisdiction. Bel’chenko remembers that Tsanava approached him “too politely”, and asked him not to bother Tsanava’s men any more. “Do your job, find the killers, but don’t go where you are not wanted,” was how Bel’chenko recalled Tsanava’s words. This makes no sense if Tsanava were trying to cover up a murder of Mikhoels in which he was involved. Why not just tell Bel’chenko that his bureau had been assigned responsibility? Instead he or-

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dered Bel’chenko to try to find the killers – something he would never have done if he, Tsanava, himself had been one of them. But it is compatible with the simpler explanation given in the Bodunov Report. A high-profile case involving a nationallyrecognized figure like Mikhoels would logically be considered Tsanava’s “turf” as the higher-ranking official.

The Bel’chenko Document At the age of almost a century Colonel-General Sergei Savvich Bel’chenko, People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs of Belorussia from 1943-1953, was interviewed in 2001 about the by then infamous “Mikhoels murder”. In 2003 Kostyrchenko admitted that Bel’chenko knew nothing about any murder. But Kostyrchenko fails to quote the beginning of Bel’chenko’s account, where Bel’chenko copies the story of the murder word for word from Sudoplatov’s account and mentions Sudoplatov by name. Bel’chenko: Михоэлс был ликвидирован в январе 1948 года. Этой операцией на месте руководили первый заместитель В. С. Абакумова С. И. Огольцов и министр госбезопасности Белоруссии Л. Ф. Цанава. Михоэлса и сопровождавшего его знакомого Голубова заманили на дачу Цанавы под предлогом встречи с ведущими белорусскими актерами, сделали смертельный укол и бросили под колеса грузовика, чтобы инсценировать бандитский наезд на окраинной улице Минска. За рулем грузовика сидел сотрудник транспортного отдела МГБ по Белорусской железной дороге. Mikhoels was liquidated in January 1948. This operation on the spot was led by the first deputy of V. S. Abakumov S. I. Ogol’tsov and the Minister of State Security of Byelorussia L. F. Tsanava. Mikhoels and his

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acquaintance Golubov were lured to Tsanava's dacha on the pretext of meeting with leading Belarusian actors. They were given a fatal injection and thrown under the wheels of a truck in order to stage a gangster run-in on a street on the outskirts of Minsk. An employee of the transport department of the Ministry of State Security for the Byelorussian Railway was driving the truck. Here is Sudoplatov’s test. The parts that are copied word for word in Bel’chenko’s account are in boldface. Михоэлс был ликвидирован в так называемом специальном порядке в январе 1948 года. К моему счастью, к этой операции я не имел никакого отношения. Подробности убийства мне стали известны лишь в апреле 1953 года. Помнится, что непосредственно этой операцией на месте руководили заместитель Абакумова Огольцов и министр госбезопасности Белоруссии Цанава. Михоэлса и сопровождавшего его Голубова заманили на дачу Цанавы под предлогом встречи с ведущими белорусскими актерами, сделали смертельный укол и бросили под колеса грузовика, чтобы инсценировать бандитский наезд на окраинной улице Минска. За рулем грузовика сидел сотрудник транспортного отдела МГБ по Белорусской железной дороге.1 Someone – either an editor or Bel’chenko himself at the age of almost a century -- inserted Sudoplatov’s words into his work. This raises the question: what, in fact, did Bel’chenko really remember? In his unacknowledged quotation from Sudoplatov’s account of the 1 P.A. Sudoplatov, Spetsoperatsiia. Lubianka i Kreml’ 1930-1950. Moscow: Olma-

Press, 2003, p. 197. The passage in the English translation is Pavel Sudoplatov and Anatoli Sudoplatov, Special Tasks. Boston and New York: Little, Brown, 1994, pp. 296-7.

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“murder” Bel’chenko uses the word for truck – gruzovik. But in his own account, he uses the word for automobile – avtomobil’ and mashina. Bel’chenko’s memory of the investigation of Mikhoels’ death has been thoroughly confounded with what he had read about it much later from Sudoplatov. Some features of Bel’chenko’s testimony betray ignorance of the streets of Minsk, which would be understandable in Sudoplatov’s case but unacceptable for the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Byelorussian SSR. So in his book Belchenko writes that the tragedy happened “on a street on the outskirts of Minsk.” But this is clearly not true, since “the tram line … leading from Sverdlova Street to Grabarnaya Street” (a quote from the Kruglov report, our Document #8) is located in the central part of the city of Minsk, a 6 minute walk (500 m) from the central railway station MinskPassazhirskii.2 Therefore the Bel’chenko interview is of no use as evidence. It has either been tampered with – someone added the verbatim quotation from Sudoplatov but without acknowledging it – or Bel’chenko’s memory has seriously betrayed him, or both. The story of the “Mikhoels murder” had already been bruited about for almost a decade by the time Bel’chenko was asked about his experiences at the time. It is simply impossible that these stories would not have affected the way Bel’chenko “remembered” the events. Had the interview been done at the time the event occurred, or even in Khrushchev’s day, it might have revealed something. As it is, there is simply no way to disentangle what actually happened from what Bel’chenko thinks he remembers. It ought to have no standing at all as evidence. This is really a very elementary point. The fact that some historians do not honor this obvious caveat speaks poorly of their understanding of their profession and devotion to the truth.

2 Grabarnaya Street is now Ul’ianovskaya Street.

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Bel’chenko did claim to remember that his second-in-command, commissar of police Krachenko, reported to him that the “automobile” was found inside the garage of the Belorussian MGB. Из министерства я снова позвонил Круглову и доложил о том, что в гараже МГБ Белоруссии была обнаружена машина, переехавшая Михоэлса и Голубова. Министр выслушал меня и сказал, чтобы поиск преступников продолжали, но не особенно популяризируя это дело. From the ministry, I called Kruglov again and reported that a car had been found in the garage of the Ministry of State Security of Belarus that had run over Mikhoels and Golubov. The minister listened to me and said that the search for criminals should continue, but without particularly popularizing this case. Kruglov might not have known about Tsanava’s participation in the murder. But according to Bel’chenko Tsanava himself told him to continue to search for the murderers! Делом занимайся, убийц ищи, но не лезь ты, куда тебя не просят. Keep working on the case, seek out the murderers, but do not go where you are not asked to go. If – as the “official version” of Mikhoels’ murder has it – Tsanava was one of the murderers, he would never has instructed Bel’chenko to continue the search for the criminals.

1988 – The Solomentsev-Yakovlev Commission: During Mikhail Gorbachev’s term as Chairman of the CPSU his regime sponsored a great many “rehabilitations.” “Rehabilitation” means that criminal charges and other penalties against an individual are dropped, often posthumously.

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However, what “rehabilitation” does not mean is that there is any evidence that the “rehabilitated” person was in fact innocent. In short, “rehabilitation” is a political, but not a juridical, label. A leading anticommunist researcher on Soviet history, Marc Junge, has written: Mit der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde das Ergebnis der Studie des Utrechter Historikers van Goudoever bestätigt, daß Rehabilitierungen in der Sowjetunion grundsätzlich ein politisches und nicht juristisches oder gar ethisch-moralisches Phänomen darstellten. With the present work the result of the study of the Utrecht historian van Goudoever has been confirmed that rehabilitations in the Soviet Union in principle represented a political and not juristic or even ethicalmoral phenomenon.

In Übereinstimmung zu van Goudoever kann abschließend festgestellt werden, daß Rehabilitierung in der Sowjetunion ein politisch-administrativer Willkürakt blieb, der vor allem von der politischen Zweckmäßigkeit der Maßnahmen bestimmt wurde, nicht aber von der strafrechtlichen Korrektheit. 3 In agreement with van Goudoever, it can finally be stated that rehabilitation in the Soviet Union remained an arbitrary political-administrative act, which was primarily determined by the political expediency of the measures, but not by the correctness of criminal law.

3 Marc Junge, Bucharins Rehabilitierung. Historisches Gedächtnis in der

Sowjetunion 1953-1991. Mit einem Dokumentenanhang. Berlin: BasisDruck Verlag, 1999, p. 259, 266.

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We know today that many persons “rehabilitated” were in fact guilty4. On October 26, 1988 a meeting of the “Rehabilitation” Commission was held, where A.N. Yakovlev took the floor.

Тов. Яковлев А.Н. Ну, хорошо. Повестка дня тогда исчерпана. Но я хотел бы, товарищи, вот о чем ещё сказать. Сегодня должен был бы обсуждаться вопрос по еврейскому антифашистскому комитету. Материалы все были подготовлены, но вскрылись новые данные по документам, которые находились только в Центральном Комитете, в частности, записка т. Суслова от 1946 года, записка Абакумова и допросы Гринберга. Эти документы хранятся только в ЦК. Дело в том, что в 1946 году Суслов написал записку, очень плохую записку, она содержит политическое обвинение. Но 2 года после этого ничего не было. И только в 1948 году, используя те же аргументы, Абакумов тоже написал записку Сталину. Поэтому, я думаю, нужно ввести эти документы, то есть выяснить, как всё это началось. Очень странные и натянутые обвинения. Поэтому давайте с учётом их изучения и составим окончательный документ, чтобы мы уже всё знали и всем располагали.5 4 For some examples see Furr, New Evidence of Trotsky’s Conspiracy. Kettering

OH: Erythrós Press & Media, LLC, 2020, 28-29.

5 RKEB 1, 132-133. Also at https://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-

doc/66179

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Comrade Yakovlev A.N. All right, then. The agenda is settled. But, comrades, I would like to say one more thing. Today the issue of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee should have been discussed. All the materials were prepared, but new data has come to light concerning documents that were only in the Central Committee, in particular, Comrade Suslov's note of 1946, Abakumov's note, and Grinberg's interrogations. These documents are kept only in the Central Committee. The fact is that in 1946 Suslov wrote a note, a very bad note containing a political accusation. But for two years after that, there was nothing. And only in 1948, using the same arguments, Abakumov also wrote a note to Stalin. Therefore, I think it is necessary to introduce these documents, that is, to find out how it all began. Very strange and strained accusations. Therefore, considering their study, let us draw up the final document so that we already know everything and have everything at our disposal. In other words, before the final discussion of the issue of the JAFC, which took place on December 29, 1988, special work was done to search for materials in the archives of the Central Committee of the CPSU (the current AP RF) to compose a “final document” in order to take into account all the circumstances associated with the case. But no materials about the mystery of Mikhoels' death were found. In the following document, which is dated December 29, 1988, the Commission dealt briefly with the case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.

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Протокол № 7 заседания Комиссии Политбюро по дополнительному изучению материалов, связанных с репрессиями, имевшими место в период 3040-х и начала 50-х гг., с приложениями. 29.12.1988 “Protocol No. 7 of the meeting of the Politburo Commission on additional study of materials related to repressions that took place in the period of the 30, 40s and early 50s, with appendices.” 12/29/1988 In this report we find the following paragraph:

На основании показаний Гольдштейна 28 декабря 1947 года был арестован Гринберг. На допросе 1 марта 1948 года, подтвердив показания Гольдштейна, он показал, что «Еврейским антифашистским комитетом» почти с самого основания проводится активная националистическая работа, направленная к искусственному обособлению еврейского населения и распространению среди него враждебной сионистской идеологии. Вокруг Комитета группируется еврейское население, особенно интеллигенция, которое обрабатывается Комитетом в антисоветском духе. Руководитель «ЕАК» Михоэлс (погиб в автокатастрофе в г. Минске в 1948 году), являясь ярым националистом, стянул в «ЕАК» своих единомышленников Фефера, Бергельсона, Маркиша, Квитко, Шимелиовича, Штерн, Нусинова».6 6 RKEB 4, 157. Online at https://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-

doc/66196 (as of June 25, 2022).

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Based on Goldshtein's testimony, Grinberg was arrested on December 28, 1947. During the interrogation on March 1, 1948, confirming Goldshtein's testimony, he testified that the “Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee” had been carrying out active nationalist work almost from the very beginning, aimed at artificially isolating the Jewish population and spreading among it hostile Zionist ideology. The Jewish population is grouped around the Committee, especially the intelligentsia, which is cultivated by the Committee in an anti-Soviet spirit. The head of the JAFC Mikhoels (died in a car accident in Minsk in 1948), being an ardent nationalist, drew his likeminded people Fefer, Bergelson, Markish, Kvitko, Shimeliovich, Stern, Nusinov into the JAFC. That is, on December 29, 1988 when beginning to discuss the issue of the JAFC, the members of the “rehabilitation” Commission already “knew everything and had everything” and confirmed that Mikhoels had been killed in an accident. They had nothing indicating that the death of Mikhoels had occurred at the hands of the MGB or was the result of murder. The main report was made by Yakovlev. He mentioned Mikhoels several times.7 A fierce anticommunist who certainly hated Stalin, Yakovlev never missed the opportunity to accuse Stalin and the state security agencies of criminal acts. But Yakovlev did not utter a word about any involvement of the Soviet regime in the death of Mikhoels or even suggest that there was anything suspicious about Mikhoels’ death. Mikhoels’ name appears in the “Report” (Spravka), also dated December 29, 1988 and signed by the USSR Prosecutor General A. Sukharev and the Chairman of the KGB of the USSR V. Chebrikov. 7 RKEB-3, pp. 165-178; see transcript

https://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-doc/66196

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As we saw above, the report states that “the head of the JAFC Mikhoels” “died in a car accident in Minsk in 1948.” Gorbachev’s men and their researchers had access to all documents in secret Soviet archives. Yet on December 29, 1988, no one - neither Yakovlev, nor Chebrikov, nor Sukharev - knew anything about any deliberate murder of Mikhoels, although special efforts had been made to find out all the circumstances. They could not find the “Beria Letter” that was supposedly sent by Beria to Malenkov on April 2, 1953. Nor could they find the document that we reproduce below -- the “Decision of the Presidium of the CC CPSU on the Results of the Verification of the Circumstances of the Murder of S. M. Mikhoels and the Punishment of the Guilty Parties,” dated the following day, April 3, 1953.8

№ 7 ПОСТАНОВЛЕНИЕ ПРЕЗИДИУМА ЦК КПСС О РЕЗУЛЬТАТАХ ПРОВЕРКИ ОБСТОЯТЕЛЬСТВ УБИЙСТВА С. М.МИХОЭЛСА И НАКАЗАНИИ ВИНОВНЫХ 3 апреля 1953 г. № 3. П. II – ЗАПИСКА МВД СССР О РЕЗУЛЬТАТАХ ПРОВЕРКИ МАТЕРИАЛОВ О МИХОЭЛСЕ. Учитывая, что убийство Михоэлса и Голубова является вопиющим нарушением прав советского гражданина, охраняемых Конституцией СССР, а также в целях повышения ответственности оперативного состава органов МВД за неуклонное соблюдение советских законов, принять предложение Министерства внутренних дел СССР: 8 RKEB 1, Doc. #7, p. 20.

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а) Об аресте и привлечении к уголовной ответственности быв. заместителя министра государственной безопасности СССР Огольцова С.И. и быв. министра государственной безопасности Белорусской ССР Цанава Л.Ф. б) Об отмене Указа Президиума Верховного Совета СССР о награждении орденами и медалями участников убийства Михоэлса и Голубова. АП РФ. Ф. 3. Оп. 32. Д. 17. Л. 129. Копия. Машинопись English translation: No. 7 Decision Of The Presidium of the CC CPSU on the Results of the Verification of the Circumstances of the Murder of S. M. Mikhoels and the Punishment of the Guilty Parties, April 3, 1953 No. 3. P. II - NOTE OF THE MIA [Ministry of Internal Affairs, i.e., the MVD] OF THE USSR ON THE RESULTS OF THE VERIFICATION OF MATERIALS CONCERNING MIKHOELS. Considering that the murder of Mikhoels and Golubov is a blatant violation of the rights of a Soviet citizen protected by the Constitution of the USSR, and also in order to increase the responsibility of the operational staff of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the steadfast observance of Soviet laws, to accept the proposal of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR: a) Concerning the arrest and criminal prosecution of the former Deputy Minister of State Security of the

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USSR Ogol’tsov S.I. and former Minister of State Security of the Byelorussian SSR Tsanava L.F. b) Concerning the cancellation of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on awarding orders and medals to the participants in the murder of Mikhoels and Golubov. AP RF. F. 3. Op. 32. D. 17. L. 129. Copy. Typescript

«Записка Берии» (А.Н.Яковлев)

Постановление Президиума ЦК КПСС

Учитывая, что убийство МИХОЭЛСА и ГОЛУБОВА является вопиющим нарушением прав советского гражданина, охраняемых Конституцией СССР, а также в целях повышения ответственности оперативного состава органов МВД за неуклонное соблюдение советских законов, Министерство внутренних дел СССР считает необходимым:

Учитывая, что убийство Михоэлса и Голубова является вопиющим нарушением прав советского гражданина, охраняемых Конституцией СССР, а также в целях повышения ответственности оперативного состава органов МВД за неуклонное соблюдение советских законов, принять предложение Министерства внутренних дел СССР

а) арестовать и привлечь к уголовной ответственности б[ывшего] заместителя Министра государственной безопасности СССР ОГОЛЬЦОВА С. И. и б[ывшего] Министра государственной безопасно-

а) Об аресте и привлечении к уголовной ответственности быв. заместителя министра государственной безопасности СССР Огольцова С.И. и быв. министра государственной безопасности Белорусской ССР Ца-

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сти Белорусской ССР ЦАНА- нава Л.Ф ВА Л.Ф.; б) Указ Президиума Верховного Совета СССР о награждении орденами и медалями участников убийства МИХОЭЛСА и ГОЛУБОВА — отменить.

Об отмене Указа Президиума Верховного Совета СССР о награждении орденами и медалями участников убийства Михоэлса и Голубова

These three paragraphs are rephrased from the fraudulent “Beria Letter”. In the table below the column on the left is text from the “Beria letter.” That on the right is from the “Decision of the Presidium.” . The “Decision” is a lightly rewritten version of the “Beria letter.” That is sufficient to prove that this document too is a fabrication. Gorbachev and his men were very hostile towards Stalin and his close associates. It is not possible that Gorbachev’s researchers, working for this high-level commission, would not have located these documents ##1-7 if they had existed in 1988. The only explanation for the fact that they believed Mikhoels had died in an auto accident is that the documents blaming Stalin and others for murdering Mikhoels did not exist in 1988. That is, they are forgeries. We also note that 33 years earlier Mikhoels was mentioned in a similar context in the “rehabilitation” report on the JAFC case dated December 12, 1955: Проверкой подтверждено, что 15 февраля 1944 года бывшие руководители ЕАК МИХОЭЛС, ЭПШТЕЙН (умерли) и ФЕФЕР с ведома ЛОЗОВСКОГО действительно направили на имя И.В. СТАЛИНА письмо, в котором поставили вопрос о создании еврейской советской социалистической рес-

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публики на территории Крыма и о назначении правительственной комиссии по этому вопросу.9 English translation: The verification process has confirmed that on February 15, 1944, the former leaders of the JAFC MIKHOELS, EPShTEIN (both of whom have died) and FEFER, with the knowledge of LOZOVSKY, did indeed send to J.V. STALIN a letter in which they raised the question of creating a Jewish Soviet socialist republic on the territory of Crimea and appointing a government commission on this issue. The report, signed by Deputy Chief Military Prosecutor D. Terekhov, was drawn up only 3 years after the so-called “Beria Letter.” Clearly, nothing was then known about any “Beria Letter” or any allegation that Mikhoels' death did not result from an accident. The whole “rehabilitation” report is devoted to the analysis of illegal investigative methods of the MGB, including torture. Why not take this opportunity to note that Mikhoels' death was a case of premeditated murder? But nothing of the sort was done. The most logical explanation for this is that there was no mention of the murder because the MGB did not organize it and Mikhoels died as a result of an auto accident.

9 Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm 209. At

https://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-doc/68522

Chapter 6. Critical Study of Kostyrchenko The most recent and most authoritative account of the alleged murder of Mikhoels at Stalin’s order is by Gennadii V. Kostyrchenko in his book Tainaia politika Stalina. Vlast’ i antisemitizm. Novaia versiia. Chast’ II. Na fone kholodnoi voiny. (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 2015), volume 2, pages 178-193. In this chapter we will study Kostyrchenko’s account in detail. An English translation of this account is appended to this chapter. Kostyrchenko’s account is 27 paragraphs long. I have divided the English translation in tabular format into 27 paragraphs, which we will analyze one at a time. Paragraph 1 begins with an outright lie: On December 27, 1947 Stalin issued his secret verdict against “the leader of the Jewish nationalists in the USSR” during a top-secret meeting in the Kremlin with the head of the MGB, Abakumov, and his lieutenant S.I. Ogol’tsov, who had been summoned there. In plain language, this is a lie. There is no evidence whatever that Stalin ordered Mikhoels’ murder at this meeting. Kostyrchenko invented it. We know that a meeting did take place, since the log of visitors to Stalin’s office has been published. We do not know what was discussed. Given the presence of Abakumov and Ogol’tsov, a good guess would be that the discussion was on the struggle against Ukrainian nationalist terrorists, in which Ogol’tsov was directly involved. Or, it may have been about the investigation of the “Alliluev affair” since we know Ogol’tsov had been involved in interrogations about this case on January 2, 1948. Paragraph 2 continues the same falsehood. It then quotes from the phony “Ogol’tsov confession” of March 18, 1953, a document whose source is not any archive but is taken from the novel by

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Viktor Levashov. Here and elsewhere in his account Kostyrchenko disguises the source of the document by citing his own collection, “State Antisemitism in the USSR.” Paragraph 3 quotes from the “Tsanava confession,” also from Levashov’s novel and also quoted not from the novel but from Kostyrchenko’s collection. The paragraph also alludes to the supposed murder of Soviet ambassador to China Bovkun-Luganets and his wife in 1939 and the tale that Stalin planned to murder Maxim Litvinov but then canceled this plan, as well as the allegation that Abakumov “kidnapped” Raoul Wallenberg in January, 1945. These tales are fabrications. We discuss them in the appendix to this chapter. Paragraph 4 quotes from the fraudulent “Tsanava confession” again, elaborating it with an invented “explanation” of the reason Minsk, rather than Moscow, was supposedly chosen as the site of Mikhoels’s murder. Paragraph 5 outlines a version of the reason for Mikhoels’ trip to Minsk from two sources that Kostyrchenko treats politely but never attempts to verify. Paragraph 6 cites a book by Arkadii Vaksberg as a reliable source, then quotes from the fraudulent “Beria letter.” Paragraph 7 quotes the unreliable passage from Svetlana Allilueva’s second memoir Only One Year that we discussed earlier. Paragraph 8 first quotes again from the “Tsanava confession.” Then Kostyrchenko invents a phone call from Abakumov to Stalin “to agree on the personnel composition” of the alleged MGB murder team. Kostyrchenko names Kosyrev and Povzun as members of this team without citing any source for this statement. No wonder – there is no such source! Kostyrchenko drops their names here because they appear in the version of Document #2, the “Awards Ukase”, that Kostyrchenko quotes in his own collection. Kostyrchenko hides from the unsuspecting reader the fact that the version of the “Awards Ukase” in Viktor Levashov’s novel says nothing about either Kosyrev or Povzun.

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Paragraph 9 quotes again from the “Tsanava confession, then makes the following statement that is not in any document: Observing strict secrecy, the “combat group,” without stopping at the republican MGB, would immediately go to his, Tsanava’s country cottage in Slepyanka. None of Documents ##1-7 – all of them fraudulent -- cited as “evidence” of the “Stalin plot” names the street on which Mikhoels’ and Golubov-Potapov’s bodies were found. However, it is identified in the Kruglov Report, our Document #8. Therefore, the composerforger of Documents ##1-7, the “Levashov” documents, did not have access to the Kruglov Report. That means he did not have access to the MGB documents on Mikhoels’ death, and the “Tsanava confession” is a fake. The “Slepyanka” business is an interesting part of the fraud. The fraudulent “Beria Letter” does not identify the location of “Tsanava’s apartment, i.e. his dacha.” Evidently Kostyrchenko or someone else recognized that this omission might cast doubt on the whole “Stalin-killed-Mikhoels” story. So the fraudulent “Tsanava confession” claims that it was in Slepyanka, a suburb of Minsk. Whether Tsanava’s “apartment, i.e. his dacha” was there or not, the point is that its location is omitted in the primary document of the case. Paragraph 10 is a patchwork of quotations from and paraphrases of Documents ##4, 6, and 7, all of them “Levashov” documents and all cited by Kostyrchenko not from Levashov’s novel but from his own collection. It appears that Kostyrchenko also wants to remove from Golubov-Potapov, who all sources agree was a secret MGB agent, any hint of blame for setting up Mikhoels to be murdered, so he invents a sequence of events to “prove” Golubov “innocent.” Paragraph 11 has a quotation – “secret abduction” – from Document #7, the “Shubnyakov confession," then a long discussion of the question of the “engineer Sergeyev.” This name crops up in Document #9, the Bodunov Report of February 14, 1948, an official document of the MVD and again in the document that we dis-

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cussed in Chapter 4. Bodunov concludes that Mikhoels and Golubov “invented” the name “Sergeyev” for some reason, perhaps to conceal the name of the person they were really going to visit. Kostyrchenko claims that “it is now clear” that Shubnyakov invented this name and introduced himself to the two men as “Sergeyev.” But there is no evidence in any of the documents for this, nor for Kostyrchenko’s tale that Shubnyakov used the name “Sergeyev” because there was a play by that title “popular among the Chekists” [Chekists = employees of the NKVD-MVD-MGB – GF] because the author was “their boss, People Commissar of State Security V.N. Merkulov.” 1 Paragraph 12 is based on Document #9, the phony “Shubnyakov confession.” Kostyrchenko’s claim here that Shubnyakov “introduced himself to the latter [Mikhoels] as “Sergeyev” is an outright lie -- there is nothing of the kind in Document #9 or anywhere else. This is also where the fictional “Shubnyakov document” attempts to explain away the statement in the “Tsanava confession” that the murder was accomplished at Tsanava’s “apartment.” Shubnyakov is imagined to say “Everyone went … to ‘the apartment,’ that is, to Comrade Tsanava’s dacha.” Why would a real Shubnyakov say this? Answer: he wouldn’t; nobody would. Paragraph 13 invents a story that neither Mikhoels nor Golubov suspected anything “until the very last moment.” Then a quotation from the “Tsanava confession” followed by inventing something that is not in any of these documents, Abakumov’s supposed call to Stalin to “confirm his death sentence against Mikhoels.” Kostyrchenko then quotes from the first “Ogol’tsov confession” and again from the “Tsanava confession.”

1 Evidently Merkulov did write a play of that title, but according to his son, Rem

Vsevolodovich Merkulov ,he did so under the pen name Rokk, not “Ross”, as Kostyrchenko has it. See https://fakty.ua/87470-o-kazni-ministragosudarstvennoj-bezopasnosti-vsevoloda-merkulova-arestovannogo-kakposobnika-lavrentiya-berii-ego-semya-uznala-tolko-iz-gazet Accessed 01.31.23.

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Paragraph 14 just summarizes points 1, 2, and 3 from Document #7, the “Shubnyakov confession.” Paragraph 15, Zuskin’s statement made at the trial of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee defendants, is in contradiction with the Kruglov and especially the more detailed Bodunov reports, Documents ## 8 and 9. It is remarkable that Kostyrchenko does not try to account for the contradictions in the descriptions of the injuries to both Mikhoels and Golubov between Zuskin’s statement and the conclusions of the medical examination reported in Documents ## 8 and 9. Does he not wish for some reason to contradict Zuskin’s account of Academician Zbarsky’s findings? Perhaps he simply hopes that his readers will not read Documents ## 8 and 9 and so will not realize that these contradictions exist. In Paragraph 16 Kostyrchenko admits that the account he has just related, while “based on the most complete source base to date,” contains many “assumptions.” Kostyrchenko goes on to state an outright falsehood. Concerning a Politburo meeting of January 13, 1948, of which nothing is known except the date and those in attendance, he states that Stalin “could tell his closest associations about … the true cause of [Mikhoels’] unexpected death. This assumption is supported by the fact that on January 10, the head of Stalin’s personal office, A.N. Poskrebyshev, sent a note to the members and candidate members of the Politburo officially formulated transcripts, prepared by Abakumov, of interrogations of I.I. Gol’dshtein, N.V. Molochnikov, and others who featured in the “Allilueva affair.” These contained literally murderous “confessions” about Mikhoels’ cooperation with the Americans.2 Footnote 2 is to the following source: Lubyanka. Stalin i MGB SSSR. Mart 1946 – mart 1953. Dokumenty vysshikh organov partiynoi i gosudarstvennoi vlasti, p.122.

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However, when you consult this work you find that nothing whatever is said about Mikhoels in these documents. Some of the persons giving the confessions admit to working with American spies, but Mikhoels’ name is not mentioned. Once again, Kostyrchenko is lying. But why lie when anyone who checked the reference would immediately see the lie? A significant omission in Kostyrchenko’s account here is the fact that Sergei Ogol’tsov is named as one of the interrogators in several of the confession statements reprinted here and dated January 2, 1948. This suggests that Ogol’tsov’s meeting with Stalin, along with Abakumov’s, may have been related to the “Alliluev affair”, the investigation of disloyal behavior by members of Stalin’s late wife’s family. Another curious coincidence is this: the journal of visits to Stalin's office in the Kremlin for January 10 records a visit by Ogol’tsov, accompanied by Leonov (head of the Investigative Unit for Particularly Important Cases of the USSR Ministry of State Security), Likhachev (his deputy), Kuleshov (assistant head of the Investigative Unit for Particularly Important Cases of the USSR Ministry of State Security),and G. A. Sorokina (assistant head of the Investigative Unit for Particularly Important Cases of the USSR Ministry of State Security). This visit is conventionally associated with the final decision on the liquidation of Mikhoels. However, on January 10, 1948, a note was dated with the results of a covert search at the dacha of Marshal G.K. Zhukov.2 The question is: what issue was discussed with Stalin? Mikhoels? Or perhaps the search at Zhukov's? Or something else? We can only firmly say that the journal records the fact of visiting Stalin's office by one person or another, but the topic of discussion almost always remains unknown. Paragraph 17 is taken almost verbatim from Document #9, the Kruglov report. Paragraph 18 is based on the Bodunov report of 2 Voennye arkhivy Rossii. Vypusk 1 [ca. 1993], pp. 189-191..

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about a month earlier. Footnote 3 is a long quotation from this document. In Paragraph 19 Kostyrchenko commits a deliberate and significant deception. He quotes the account of S.S. Bel’chenko, former Minister of the MGB of the Byelorussian SSR, as follows: When the Minister of Internal Affairs of the BSSR S.S. Belchenko, not knowing what a dangerous secret lay behind these facts, tried to give them a go, he was first “gently” advised from above: “You, in general, don’t dig there very much” (S. N . Kruglov). And then they rudely pulled me up: .”. Do not go where you are not asked” (Tsanava). After that, Belchenko considered it good to destroy the evidence, fraught with major troubles.1 The footnote is to Bel’chenko’s memoir: Popov, A. Yu. 15 vstrech s generalom KGB Bel’chenko. Moscow, 2002 pp. 274-275. How many of Kostyrchenko’s readers are going to check this source? If you do, however, you will find that Bel’chenko said something quite different: When I began to ask him how the search was going and where the car was found, my deputy replied that the car was in the garage of the Ministry of State Security of the republic. … I suspected something was wrong and called the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR S.N. Kruglov and reported this incident. He was terribly surprised and ordered me to intensify the search for the criminals. As for Tsanava, here is what he said to Bel’chenko: “Get busy, look for the murderers, but don't go where you're not asked.” Bel’chenko then said he returned to Kruglov.

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From the ministry, I called Kruglov again and reported that a car had been found in the garage of the Ministry of State Security of Byelorussia that had run over Mikhoels and Golubov. The minister listened to me and said that the search for the criminals should continue, but without particularly popularizing this case … I was even more surprised by the end of our conversation. “In general, do not dig there very much,” the minister said and hung up the phone. Bel’chenko concludes: “The search was carried out, but I did not urge my subordinates on.” So both Kruglov and Tsanava told Bel’chenko to continue to search for the criminals, the drivers of the vehicle that had had killed Mikhoels and Golubov and then fled. But this doesn’t fit Kostyrchenko’s scheme, according to which Bel’chenko was warned off the search for the killers. So Kostyrchenko dishonestly omits it from his account. By “don’t dig there very much,” “don’t go where you are not asked,” Kruglov and Tsanava probably meant something like “don’t get in the way of the MGB.” There is no evidence that the “car” – Bel’chenko is clear about this, avtomobil’, not truck – was registered or owned by the Byelorussian MGB, only that it was in their garage. Given that we know there was no “Stalin murder plot” it could have been found by the local police and brought to the MGB garage. Kostyrchenko also neglects to point out the difficulty that Bel’chenko said the vehicle was an automobile, not a truck as in all the phony confession documents. E. Ioffe, whose account we examined in Chapter 4, had the opportunity to acquaint himself with the archival file that reports the investigative measures of the search for the vehicle that struck Mikhoels and Golubov: In the archives and investigation files of the KGB of the Republic of Belarus, there are operational materials on the search for the truck that allegedly ran over

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Mikhoels and Golubov. These documents take up several volumes, since various persons were suspected, suspects and witnesses were interrogated, then these people were released, etc. They give the impression of an active, active search - but to no avail. Paragraph 20 summarizes Kostyrchenko’s version of the “Awards Ukase,” our Document #3. Kostyrchenko fails to point out to his readers the contradiction between the version of this Ukase he, Kostyrchenko, cites, and that quoted in Levashov’s novel, which does not mention either Kosyrev or Povzun. Yet Kostyrchenko’s whole account rests upon assuming that the Levashov documents are all genuine – except for this one! Paragraph 21 mentions the memorial services for Mikhoels held in many countries. Paragraph 22 continues but inserts a number of falsehoods. After mentioning that “thousands of Jews” came to meet Mikhoels’ coffin at the train station and then attended his funeral, Kostyrchenko makes this claim: Such an impressive demonstration of national feelings probably seriously alarmed Stalin, as evidenced by the anti-Jewish repressive measures he later sanctioned. In fact Stalin never “sanctioned” any “anti-Jewish repressive measures.” As Zhores Medvedev pointed out in 2003, Stalin was not in the least antisemitic. Concerning Alexander Fadeev, who was the head of the Writers’ Union and eulogized Mikhoels, Kostyrchenko states that “a year later, he became a fierce persecutor of Jewish writers and so-called cosmopolitans.” This is false. The anti-cosmopolitan campaign was not at all antisemitic and did not “persecute Jewish writers.” Benjamin Pinkus, Professor of Jewish History at the Ben-Gurion University in Israel, states that:

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....It is important to emphasize that in these attacks [the anti-cosmopolitanism campaign] there was no anti-Jewish tone, either explicitly or implicitly.3 We need to remember that it is ideologically – politically important for Kostyrchenko’s purposes to portray Stalin as antisemitic and that he will sacrifice the truth to support this falsehood. Paragraph 23 cites an archival document in support of Kostyrchenko’s accusation that the MGB spread “false rumors” about Mikhoels’ death. This document is unpublished, so we can’t verify his claim. What were these “rumors”? Does their “falseness” merely mean that they do not confirm the tale that “Stalin ordered Mikhoels’ murder”? If there is evidence, why didn’t he include it in his collection “State Antisemitism”? Perhaps because it is just a rumor, as Kostyrchenko himself admits? Then why mention it at all? Rumors are not evidence, no matter how many times they are repeated. In paragraph 24 Kostyrchenko claims that some Jews thought that Mikhoels had been murdered by the Soviet state. But if true, so what? Rumors again! Paragraph 25 repeats a claim made by Mikhoels’s daughter in a 1997 book that Lazar Kaganovich, one of Stalin’s right-hand men, warned his family against probing into Mikhoels’ death. This is more than doubtful. Towards the end of his life Kaganovich wrote an autobiography and gave interviews. He said nothing about this. Kaganovich also insisted that he did not identify himself as a Jewish public figure.4. 3 The Jews of the Soviet Union: The History of a National Minority. Cambridge

University Press, 1989, p 152. Pinkus shows that some Jews “took an active part in the anti-cosmopolitanism campaign.” (157) Pinkus also argues that Jewish writers were attacked more frequently and perhaps more intensely. So, the anticosmopolitan campaign may not have been entirely free of anti-Semitism. But it was not official – not “state” -- anti-Semitism. 4 Feliks Chuev. Tak govoril Kaganovich. Moscow: Otechestvo, 174.

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Paragraph 26 reports that Polina Zhemchuzhina, Molotov’s wife, said to some of Mikhoels’ associates that he had been murdered. Apparently she did say this – which of course is not evidence that it was true, Molotov himself never mentioned this. Zhemchuzhina was removed from office and underwent a criminal investigation for this and other indiscretions. Paragraph 27 quotes some lines from a poem by the poet Perets Markish lamenting Mikhoels’ death. A heartfelt expression of sorrow at Mikhoels’ death, the poem is irrelevant to the question of whether Mikhoels was murdered by Stalin’s order or not.

Conclusion Kostyrchenko is one of the primary creators of the fraudulent allegation of Stalin’s guilt in Mikhoels’ death. He may well have himself forged some of the faked documents on which this fraudulent case rests. Whether he was one of the forgers or not, I assume that he is at the very least aware of the fraudulent nature of this charge against Stalin and of the documents on which it rests. It is possible that like many other historians of the Stalin period Kostyrchenko has been misled by anticommunist / anti-Stalin bias to reject any attempt at scholarly objectivity and “see only what his bias wants him to see.” This fallacy of reasoning is called “Confirmation bias.”5 That is, it is possible that he is not consciously dishonest, only incompetent. Whatever the case, his is the most recent, best documented, and therefore “most authoritative” account of the tale of Stalin’s killing of Mikhoels.



5 See the article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Chapter 6a. Kostyrchenko, Mikhoels’ Death, fm Tainaia politika Stalina – tabled The Death of Mikhoels Text of Paragraph by Page + Footnotes to that Page

PARAG. NUMBER



p. 178



On December 27, 1947 Stalin issued his secret verdict against “the leader of the Jewish nationalists in the USSR” during a top-secret meeting in the Kremlin with the head of the MGB, Abakumov, and his lieutenant S.I. Ogol’tsov, who had been summoned there. From the analysis of entries in the visitor’s register of the Vozhd’’s Kremlin office, it follows that this visit was no ordinary one. After all, the previous visits by Abakumov to the main office of the country were both short-lived (from 5 to 25 minutes); and were held in the presence of Stalin’s comrades-inarms in the Politburo, as well as some ministers and other high-ranking officials. In contrast, this conversation took place because of its special importance and confidentiality. Without others present, and lasted more than one hour – from 20:20 to 21:35.2



1

2 Arkhiv vozhdei. Posetiteli kabineta I.V. Stalina. // Istoricheskii arkhiv. 1996. Nos. 5-6, p. 24.



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p. 179



That evening, the directors of state security intended to acquaint the Vozhd’ with Goldstein’s confessions, already “beaten out” of him but not yet formalized, about “Mikhoels’ espionage activities” and about his “increased interest in the personal life of the head of the Soviet government” and to receive, first, permission for the arrest of Grinberg, involuntarily named by Goldstein and second (and most important), instructions on further actions in relation to Mikhoels. This intention was also realized, which is confirmed by the following testimony of Ogol’tsov, requested by Beria, dated March 18, 1953. About his visit to Stalin more than five years later: “During the conversation … Comrade Stalin mentioned the name of Mikhoels, and at the end of the conversation instructed Abakumov about the need to carry out special measures in relation to Mikhoels, and that for this purpose to arrange an “automobile accident” 1



2 Doc. #4

1 Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm v SSSR. С. 111.



Why didn’t Stalin simply order Mikhoels’ arrest in order to settle scores with him in the cellars of the Lubyanka? Why did he prefer such an artificial method of eliminating him, fraught with some risk? Firstly, since the Jewish artist was widely known in the world, an obvious reprisal against him could turn into a major international scandal. When the Minister of State Security of Byelorussia L.F. Tsanava asked Ogol’tsov for the reason for the choice of the disguised liquidation of Mikhoels, he replied that “the Americans are placing a big bet on Mi-

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Doc. #6 Discussed In text.

khoels ... it is not expedient to arrest him, as he is well known abroad.”2 Secondly, the Vozhd’ had already managed to take a hand in such special operations by that time. Back in July 1939 he had dealt with the former ambassador to China, I. T. BovkunLuganets and his wife through a staged car accident, A little later, following the same scenario, the liquidation of the deposed People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs M. M. Litvinov began to be prepared (it was canceled at the last.



2 Ibid, pp. 114-115.



p. 180



moment).1 A similar method was used by Abakumov in January 1945 during the covert kidnapping of the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest.

3 Doc. #6

4

1. Stoliarov, K.A. Op. cit.[= Palachi i zhertvy, Moscow, 1997] pp. 268, 276-277. After Stalin gave the order to deal secretly with the Jewish artist, the fulfillment of his wish became a “technical” matter of time. Ogol’tsov then let Tsanava know that the “combat group of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR” formed under Stalin’s “order” initially “took measures to kill Mikhoels while still in Moscow, but it was not possible to do this, since Mikhoels walked around Moscow surrounded by many women”2. It was this circumstance, obviously, that later led Abakumov to the idea of choosing not the noisy and crowded capital as the place for the special operation, but a remote province with life not yet settled after the hard years of wartime, where, if necessary, it was easier to write off the sudden death of a person as an accident. That is why Minsk, badly damaged and not yet recovered from the Nazi occupa-

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tion, was destined to become the place of Mikhoels’ death. This does not mean that the place and time of the murder were determined in advance at the Lubyanka and that Mikhoels' business trip to Minsk in early January 1948 was inspired by the MGB. 2. Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm v SSSR, p. 111.



There is also an opposite point of view. It is alleged that Mikhoels had to go to Leningrad in order to participate in the appropriate selection of theatrical performances there as a member of the committee for the Stalin Prizes in the field of literature and art. However, having succumbed to the persuasion of an old friend of the theater critic V. I. Golubov (who published under the pseudonym “V. Potapov,” and was a clandestine agent of the MGB), he suddenly changed his mind, deciding to go on the same mission to Minsk. 3 3. Tyshler, A. Ya vizhu Mikhoelsa, in Mikhoels Solomon Mikhailovich. Stat’i, besedi, rechi, p.504; Vaksberg, A.I. Iz ada v rai i obratno. Evreiskii vopros po Leninu, Stalinu i Solzhenitsynu. Moscow, 2003, p. 300-301.

5





p.181





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6 Doc. #1

From the testimonies of the participants in the special operation, despite the inconsistencies and contradictions in them (given more than five years after the death of Mikhoels), it is clear that the decision to liquidate Mikhoels in Minsk was made after it became known that he would go there on the evening of January 7 by train, accompanied by GolubovPotapov and an employee of the Committee for the Arts, I. M. Barashko. Although such information was received by Abakumov already on January 2, 1948. (when Mikhoels was issued a travel certificate 1), the minister reported to Stalin about it no earlier than the evening of January 6, when he was absolutely sure that this trip would not be cancelled. It was then, and not upon the arrival of Mikhoels at his destination, as Abakumov later claimed in his somewhat defective testimony, that Stalin “gave the order to carry out the liquidation of Mikhoels precisely in Minsk ...”2 1. Vaksberg, A.I. Op. cit. p. 301-302. 2. Gosudarstvenniy antisemitism v SSSR p. 118.



7 Allilueva,

This order came, most likely, from the “Near” dacha of the Vozhd’ near Moscow, since it is known that Abakumov's first visit to the Kremlin of 1948 took place only on January 10 3. During this telephone conversation Stalin also confirmed the previous decision (now applied to Minsk): Mikhoels must “accidentally” die on the road. They reported something to him (Stalin. -- G.K.), and he listened. Then, as a summary, he said: “Well, a car accident.” I remember this intonation very well -- it was not a question, but a statement, an answer. He

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Only One

did not ask, but suggested this car accident 4,

Year – see 3. Arkhiv vozhdei. Posetiteli kabineta I.V. Stalina. // text Istoricheskii arkhiv. 1996, No. 5-6, p.25.



4. Allilueva, S.I. Tol’ko odin god, p.134.



It was right after this that Abakumov contacted Tsanava for the first time within the framework of this special operation. And although the conversation



p. 182

was conducted on the HF apparatus (high-frequency classified telephony), the head of the Lubyanka was extremely careful. Only after making sure that his Minsk interlocutor was alone in the office, he inquired without preamble: “Are there opportunities in the MGB of the Byelorussian SSR to carry out … an important decision of the government and Stalin’s personal instructions?” Since this phrase sounded like an order, a positive answer followed. Nothing concrete was discussed then, because there Doc. #6 was not yet even a rough plan for the special opera tion. Having drawn one up only a few hours later, Abakumov called Stalin again to agree on the per sonnel composition of the brigade of operatives sent to Minsk. As a result, General Ogol’tsov was ap pointed its head, at whose disposal came: ColoNot in any nel F. G. Shubnyakov – head of the 2nd Main (Counterintelligence) Directorate of the USSR document Ministry of State Security Department “2-3” (op erational development of institutions related to foreign countries); Colonel V E. Lebedev and sen ior lieutenant B. A. Kruglov – a special kind of “transport worker” from the “DR” department (terror and sabotage service) headed by P. A. Sudopla-



8

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

tov, who disguised “liquidations” as random car accidents; and Major A. Kh. Kosyrev – Ogol’tsov’s sec retary A certain major N.F. Povzun, who most likely was an employee of the Byelorussian state security Kosyrev agencies and who was for some reason already in and Povzun Minsk, also participated in the special operation. not named by Tsanava or any others.



On the evening of January 7, that is, immediately after Mikhoels’ departure from Moscow, Abakumov instructed the personnel of the brigade, announcing its departure the next morning to Minsk in two cars. Having released his subordinates, Abakumov once again contacted Tsanava, whom he had already informed that on the evening of January 8, a “combat group of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR” headed by Ogol’tsov, whom he, Tsanava, would help lead the operation on the spot, should Doc. #6 arrive in Minsk. Observing strict secrecy, the “combat group,” without stopping at the republican MGB, would immediately go to his, Tsanava’s country cotNot in any tage in Slepyanka. But reporting all this, this time Abakumov did not reveal the specific details of the document. special operation over the phone.



9





p. 183



The fact that it was aimed at the liquidation of Mikhoels, Tsanava had already learned from Ogol’tsov, when he, together with his team, arrived in Slepyanka 1. The very next morning, Lebedev, Kruglov and Shubnyakov, as the latter later recalled, went by car to Minsk, where for

Doc. #6

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Doc. #7

10 Doc. #7

Doc. #4

Doc. #7

the next three days they “were monitoring Mikhoels, finding out the situation and conditions for organizing a car accident.” During this “reconnaissance” it was established that “Mikhoels was always surrounded by a large group of local intelligentsia. He often used the car of the Council of Ministers of Byelorussia and he was accompanied by employees of the apparatus of the Committee for the Arts.” Ogol’tsov considered it excessively risky to carry out the scenario of a “car accident” under such public conditions. At the same time, he believed that “the liquidation of the subject by striking him with a truck on a sparsely populated street ... also did not guarantee the certain success of the operation.” In the end, the proposal of Shubnyakov was recognized as optimal, who believed that the immediate liquidation of Mikhoels should be preceded by his “secret abduction.” When this consideration was reported to Abakumov, he demanded “by all means to carry out the operation,” approved the option of “abduction” and ordered the involvement of an “agent of the 2nd Main Directorate of the MGB of the USSR”2 who was in Minsk. That meant GolubovPotapov who was accompanying Mikhoels. The fact that Abakumov’s order had not been given earlier indicates that it was remembered at the Lubyanka only during the forced readjustment of the special operation in Minsk, and this proves that contrary to the popular version,3 Golubov-Potapov’s trip there had not been planned in advance by state security and he knew nothing about the impending elimination of Mikhoels. Abakumov’s people did not fail to take advantage of this accidental combination of circumstances, using this agent without knowing anything about him.

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1. Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm v SSSR p. 114-115. 2. Ibid., pp. 111-115. 3. Borshchagovskii, A.M. Obviniaetsia krov’. Moscow, 1994, p.3; Geizer, M.M. Mikhoels: zhizn’ i smert’. Moscow, 1998, p. 270.



p. 184



Shubnyakov, who was put in charge of the “secret abduction” of Mikhoels, was instructed to get in touch with Golubov-Potapov. This secret meeting soon took place. In it, Shubnyakov told the agent that “there is a need to meet privately with Mikhoels,” who should be invited to some “personal friend who lives in Minsk.” Not suspecting the terrible background of this request, Golubov-Potapov agreed to fulfill it. He easily managed to persuade Mikhoels, who loved friendly feasts, to honor with his presence either a wedding or some other family celebration at a certain “engineer Sergeyev,” about whose personality a lot of conjectures and assumptions later arose. For example, the legend that the murder of Mikhoels took place immediately after he visited his friend, the commander of the troops of the Byelorussian Military District, Colonel General Sergei Georgievich Trofimenko, was widely spread, a visit that he decided for some reason to “disguise,” telling his Byelorussian colleagues that he was going to meet with “engineer Sergeyev” 1. However, the results of recent research leave no doubt that “engineer Sergeyev” had nothing to do with S. Trofimenko, whom Mikhoels really did visit, not on January 12 but on January 8, immediately upon arriving in Minsk 2. Now it is clear that “engineer Sergeyev” was not an invention of Mikhoels, but of

Doc. #7

Doc. #9

11

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Shubnyakov, who invented this newly-minted “lieutenant Kizhe,” [title of a short story by Soviet writer Yuri Tynyanov about a fictitious officer – GF] apparently under the impression of the post-war perfor mance of the same name in the capital’s Maly Theater. This conjecture is supported by the fact that this production of Vsevolod Ross’s play “Engineer SerNot in any geyev” was especially popular among the Chekists, document! who knew that the sonorous name of its author was the literary pseudonym of their boss, People’s Commissar of State Security V. N. Merkulov. 1. Borshchagovskii, A.M. Zapiski balovnia sud’by. Moscow, 1991, pp. 152-153. 2. Frezinskii, B.Ia. General Trofimenko i aktior Mikhoels. Minsk, 1948 (nekotorye utochneniia k knigam memuaristov i publitsistov). Narod Knigi v mire knig. Evreiskoe knizhnoe obozrenie. 2003, No. 48, p. 5.





p. 185



And so, on January 12, 1948, at about eight in the evening, Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov left the Minsk hotel “Byelorussia” where they were living, sharing a two-room “suite” with Barashko, and headed to the agreed meeting place with “engineer Sergeyev,” who was supposed to deliver them by car to his home, where guests were allegedly already languishing in anticipation and a festive table was laid. As Shubnyakov later testified, he was sitting in the car with Kruglov (he was driving) when Golubov-Potapov and Mikhoels approached at about nine o'clock. He introduced himself to the latter as “Sergeyev,” after which “everyone went to



12

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

Doc. #7 Not in any document.

me (Shubnyakov. -- G.K.)” to ‘the apartment’, that is, to Comrade Tsanava's dacha” 1. 1. Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm v SSSR p. 116

Doc. #7 Contrary to the widespread version of the violent nature of the kidnapping of two important theater figures (with an attack and a struggle), it can be assumed with a high degree of certainty that neither Mikhoels nor Golubov-Potapov knew that they were in a trap until the very last moment, “at about 10 o’clock in the evening” (testimony of Tsanava, - G.K.), when they entered the courtyard of the dacha of the Minister of State Security of Byelorussia, and the operatives waiting there roughly dragged them out. Further, according to Shubnyakov (of all the participants in the special operation, he gave the most detailed and, it seems, the most accurate de scription of it), the events developed as follows. When he “reported to Comrade Ogol’tsov that Mikhoels and the agent had been delivered to the dacha,” he immediately contacted Abakumov via HF, who, holding Minsk on the line, connected Doc. #7 via “turntable” (the Kremlin’s automatic telephone exchange apparatus) with Stalin, who was then at the “Near” dacha and was preparing for the next night’s meeting of the Politburo 2 (more on that beNot in any low). Since both the liquidation scenario and the document. murder weapon – a truck (ZiS-5?) – had been discussed in advance, the Vozhd’ only had to confirm his death sentence against Mikhoels. Which he did, giving at the same time 2. Arkhiv vozhdei. Posetiteli kabineta I.V. Stalina.



13

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Istoricheskii arkhiv, 1996, No. 5-6, p. 25.



p. 186





a sanction for the liquidation of Golubov-Potapov, who, as Ogol’tsov later explained, “was aware of all the undercover activities carried out on Mikhoels” but “did not enjoy the trust of the authorities …” and, most importantly, found himself, according to Shubnyakov, in the position of “an involuntary and dangerous witness to the death of Mikhoels.”1



1. Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm v SSSR p. 111, 116



Doc. #4 Doc. #7

This paragraph -- Doc. #7 points 1,2, and 3.

14

Then came the bloody denouement, as described by Shubnyakov: “In order to create the impression that Mikhoels and the agent were hit by a car while drunk, they were forced to drink a glass of vodka. Then they were killed one by one (at first the agent, and then Mikhoels), crushed by a truck … Convinced that Mikhoels and the agent were dead, our group took their bodies to the city and threw them on the road of one of the streets located near the hotel . Moreover, their corpses were located in such a way that it seemed that Mikhoels and the agent were hit by a car that ran them over with its front and rear wheels.” 2

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

2. Ibid., p. 116.

This paragraph is completely at odds with all other documents.

15

According to the testimony given by Zuskin in 1952 at the trial of the “JAFC case,” immediately after the delivery of Mikhoels’ body to Moscow, it was transferred to the laboratory at the Lenin Mausoleum, where its director Boris Zbarsky examined the corpse and applied makeup to the face of the deceased artist. At the funeral, Academician Zbarsky told Zuskin that the injuries received by Mikhoels (bone fractures, etc.) could well have been caused by a car accident. But, as he added, these injuries were not fatal, and “if he (Mikhoels. – G.K.) had received help right away, then maybe something could have been done. He died from freezing, because … he lay for several hours in the snow” 3. 3. Nepravedniy sud pp. 308-309.



Thus, the life of a talented Jewish artist and wellknown public figure ended tragically. And although the reconstruction presented above of the events hidden until recently of this historical political crime, without exaggeration –



p. 187



is a reconstruction, it is based on the most complete source base to date. Unfortunately, it is also impossible to do without assumptions when recreating the picture of the events that took place at the top immediately after the death of Mikhoels. This refers to the meeting of the Politburo that took place at that time, about which it is reliably known only that Stalin, Molotov, Zhdanov, Beria, Mikoyan, Malenkov,





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Voznesensky, Kosygin, Bulganin and Kaganovich participated in it 1. But if we carefully analyze the Completely complex of known indirect data about this meeting, invented – the following version of what took place on it no evidence emerges. During this night vigil, which ended at for any of 0140 on the night of January 13, 1948, Stalin could this. tell his closest associates in detail about Mikhoels’ “Crime and Punishment” or at least hint transpar ently at the true cause of his unexpected death. This assumption is supported by the fact that on January 10, the head of Stalin’s personal office, A.N. Poskre byshev, sent a note to the members and candidate members of the Politburo officially formulated tran scripts, prepared by Abakumov, of interrogations of I.I. Gol’dshtein, N.V. Molochnikov, and others who featured in the “Allilueva affair.” These contained literally murderous “confessions” about Mikhoels’ cooperation with the Americans.2 Stalin, who always tried to substantiate his repressive actions in the spirit of revolutionary expediency, this time, obvi ously, decided to prove to his comrades-in-arms the state need for the secret liquidation of the public leader of the Jews. Most likely, it was at this meeting of the Politburo, convened, apparently, by no means by chance on the night of the murder of Mikhoels, that Stalin announced the execution of his death sentence. Perhaps that is why Polina Zhemchuzhina, the wife of Molotov, who did not hide anything from her, confidently and almost 1. Arkhiv vozhdei. Posetiteli kabineta I.V. Stalina. Istoricheskii arkhiv, 1996, No. 5-6, p. 25.

16

Documents about accusations

2. Lubyanka. Stalin i MGB SSSR. Mart 1946 – mart 1953. Dokumenty vysshikh organov partiynoi i gosudarstvennoi vlasti, p.122.

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against her do not mention this incident.

p. 188 openly later said at the funeral of Mikhoels that he did not die because of an officially declared accident but was the victim of a deliberate murder. After such a careless statement, the arrest of Zhemchuzhina and the disgrace of Molotov, who was later accused of disclosing (through his wife) the most important state secrets, was just a matter of time.1 1. RGASPI. F. 589. Op. 3. D. 6188. L. 12-26 [= Gosudarst. antisem. 156-60]. Efremov L.N. Dorogami bor’by i truda. Stavropol’, 1998, p. 12-14.

Doc. #8



Meanwhile, the official investigation into the death of Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov began immediately. On January 1 at 7:10 a.m. passers-by stumbled upon two mutilated corpses lying on the tram tracks near the Dynamo stadium in Minsk and reported this to the police. Already on January 14, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR S. N. Kruglov reported to Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov and Zhdanov: “According to the inspection of the scene and the initial conclusion of medical experts, the deaths of Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov were the result of a collision with an automobile that was traveling at an excessive speed and overtook them, following a steep slope …” 2



17

2. Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm v SSSR p. 106.



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Doc. #9

18

Since a criminal case was initiated on the fact of the violent death of the famous Moscow cultural figures, it was not the local police that took up the investigation but a group of investigators from the Main Police Department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs who were sent from the capital. In the report that this department submitted on February 11, 1948 to I. A. Serov, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, it was stated: There is no indication that the death of Mikhoels and Golubov- Potapov was caused by anything other than their being accidentally run over, and the investigation did not turn up any other possible reason.3. 3. This document includes the following description of the location where the bodies of Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov were found: “Both bodies were pressed into the snow that had been falling since the evening of January 12 with a strong wind. The clothing of the deceased, as well as their money, documents and wristwatches (Mikhoels’ / p. 189 / was gold) were found intact.. Mikhoels’ watch was missing the glass but both his and Golubov-Potapov’s watch were still running at the time of the inspection of the bodies. А forensic examination of the bodies, carried out on January 13 by Prilutsky, the chief forensic expert of the Ministry of Health of the BSSR, and medical experts Naumovich and Karelina, established that the deaths of Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov resulted from being run over by а heavy cargo vehicle. Both bodies had all ribs broken and torn lung tissue. Mikhoels had a broken vertebra and Golubov-Potapov had broken pelvic bones. AII these injuries were inflicted preceding death. Judging from the condition of the bodies, death oc-

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

curred 15-16 hours before their discovery, that is, at approximately 20:00 on January 12, soon after Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov had left the hotel. The condition of food in their stomachs confirmed the fact that the food had been eaten 1-2 hours before death, and the composition of the food corresponded to what had been served to them in the restaurant. …” (Gosudarstvenniy antisemitism v SSSR p. 107)



p. 189



However, in reality, such “evidence” was indeed “obtained.” At the very beginning of the investigation (until it was handed over to the center), the operatives of the Byelorussian Ministry of Internal Affairs managed to find the crime weapon – the truck that crushed Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov – and also established that the car was registered with the republic’s MGB. When the Minister of Internal Affairs of the BSSR S.S. Belchenko, not knowing what a dangerous secret lay behind these facts, tried to give them a go, he was first “gently” advised from above: “You, in general, don’t dig there very much” (S. N . Kruglov). And then they rudely pulled me up: .”. Do not go where you are not asked” (Tsanava). After that, Belchenko considered it good to destroy the evidence, fraught with major troubles 1.



19

Lie by omission – 1. Popov, A. Yu. 15 vstrech s generalom KGB Kruglov Bel’chenko. Moscow, 2002 pp. 274-275. told B. to intensify the search. Tsanava told him “look for the mur-

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derers.”



20

The secret special operation to eliminate Mikhoels was highly appreciated by Stalin. “For the successful fulfillment of a special task of the Government” its Vozhd’ and participants were awarded, by a closed decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the military orders of the Red Banner, the Patriotic War of the first degree and the Red Star 2. 2. Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm v SSSR p. 110.



Meanwhile, Soviet Jewry, having lost in the person of Mikhoels a teacher, a wise rabbi, and their national support,



p. 190



mourned. Although by that time Jews in the USSR had largely assimilated and for the most part had lost contact with their native language and traditional culture, many of them perceived this death as a national tragedy. The international public outcry caused by the death of Mikhoels was also impressive. From all over the world, telegrams were sent to Moscow expressing deep sympathy and condolences. Among them were heartfelt messages from Albert Einstein and Marc Chagall 1. In the USA, Australia, France, Argentina, Palestine, Yugoslavia and other countries, mass gatherings, rallies and religious ceremonies dedicated to his memory were held. In Manhattan, New York, such an event was organized on February 14 by the American Committee of Jewish Writers, Artists, and Scholars, which brought together more than 2,000 people. Dissonance in this Western choir of sympathy sounded only the voice of the Jewish writer Menachem Bore-





21

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

isho, who on January 17 published an article in the New York Jewish newspaper Der Tog, where he recalled that in 1943 the late Mikhoels came to the United States – “ with a certain task from his government” and “performing some kind of political game,” then repeated at rallies “words memorized earlier” 2. 1. Vovsi-Mikhoels, N.S. Moi otets Solomon Mikhoels. Vospominaniia o zhizni i gibeli. Moscow, 1997, pp. 235-236. 2. RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 128. D. 1152. L. 198.



22

Forced to reckon with the considerable authority and popularity of Mikhoels in the country 3 and in the world, and in order to counteract the “provocative” rumors about the involvement of security in the death of a Jewish artist, the authorities decided to demonstrate that they shared their grief. On the eve of the funeral, Pravda came out with an eloquent obituary, in which 3. Thousands of Jews came to the Belorussky railway station, where the coffin with the body of Mikhoels was delivered from Minsk, and then to the Donskoye cemetery, where his funeral took place. Such an impressive demonstration of national feelings probably seriously alarmed Stalin, as evidenced by the anti-Jewish repressive measures he later sanctioned. p. 191 Mikhoels was called “an active builder of Soviet artistic culture,” “a major public figure who devoted his life to serving the Soviet people.” On January 17, TASS published an official message about the farewell to Mikhoels at the Jewish Theater. A fragment

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of Alexander Fadeev’s speech at the civil memorial service held there was reproduced. l Fadeev also called the deceased artist “a man of exceptional integrity, cheerfulness, with a crystal clear soul.” Following on the wide screen came a documentary chronicle of the funeral of Mikhoels, and GOSET was soon given his name. A series of memorial evenings were also held there, at which prominent figures of Russian and Jewish culture spoke. On April 27, at a meeting of the Presidium of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, Shimeliovich, as a close friend of Mikhoels, was even instructed to apply to the Moscow City Council with a proposal to rename Malaya Bronnaya to Mikhoels Street 1, but nothing came of this. 1. RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 128. D. 444. L. 170.

In order to cover the death of Mikhoels with an impenetrable veil of secrecy, the MGB, as a so-called There is no active measures, spread contradictory rumors that evidence to Mikhoels had been dealt with by a gang of Polish support nationalists -- “Mikolaiczyk's agents” and that he these had been killed by Zionists who feared that he could claims. reveal to the authorities their “intrigues” “directed towards the creation of the State of Israel and the overthrow of the Bolsheviks” 2.



23

2. Ibid., Op. 119. D. 1078. L. 93.



The overwhelming majority of Soviet citizens believed that Mikhoels fell victim to a tragic accident. But among the Jews, especially among those who were involved in national cultural and social activities and clearly felt the negative reaction of the au-

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thorities to it, there were, to put it mildly, many doubters. And although Ehrenburg later claimed that the official version of the Jewish artist’s death



p. 192



“seemed convincing in the spring of 1948,” 1 he himself hardly trusted Soviet propaganda at that time. Arrested a year later, B. Shimeliovich testified during interrogation that Ehrenburg said meaningfully at the funeral of the head of the JAFC, “A few days ago Mikhoels died in the same place where tens of thousands of Jews had already been exterminated” 2. Fefer, who headed the JAFC after Mikhoels and was later arrested, also stated during interrogation that immediately after the tragedy in Minsk he heard there from the writer A. Kh. Platner that Jews in the capital of Belorussia believe that this was an officially organized murder with the aim of “taking the head off the Jewish community” 3.





24

1. Erenburg I.G. Sobr. Soch. V 8 tt. T. 8. Liudi, gody, zhizn’. Kn. 5-7, p. 214. 2. Kostyrchenko, G.V. V plenu u krasnogo faraona. Moscow, 1994, p. 106. 3. Ibid, p. 103.



Most of all, his close circle – relatives, friends, colleagues in the theater and the Jewish Committee – did not believe in the accidental death of Mikhoels. After his death, they recalled that on his last business trip he left in an extremely depressed mood, being discouraged by the recent arrests of friends and acquaintances (in the “Alliluev case”) and the growing flow of anonymous threats in the form of letters (“Ugly Jew, you have flown so painfully high, watch that your head doesn’t fly off too,” etc.). Even

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25

a resident of the Kremlin, L. M. Kaganovich, who knew much more than mere mortals and had known Mikhoels since 1936 (since his first visit to the Jewish Theatre), did not remain indifferent. He sent his niece Iulia (daughter of his brother Mikhail who had shot himself in 1941) to the artist’s relatives, through whom he conveyed urgent advice “never to ask anyone about anything”4. 4. Vovsi-Mikhoels, N.S. Op. cit. p. 195.



26

During those days, the Jewish artist V. L. Zuskin, who replaced Mikhoels as artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater, was in agonizing bewilderment. When, two days before his departure for Minsk, he went to Mikhoels’s office, Mikhoels got up and seated him in his place at the desk; saying sadly: “Here, p. 193 in this chair, you will soon, very soon, be sitting …”1 It seems that the last doubts that his friend was killed left Zuskin after the words of P. S. Zhemchuzhina, heard at the funeral of Mikhoels, who once called her “our Esther” and “good Jewish daughter.” Having found the appropriate moment, nodding at the dead man, she whispered to Zuskin and Fefer: “Things are not the way they are presented. This is murder.”2 1. Copy of the document TsA FSB RF [= Central Archive of the FSB of the Russian Federation. This archive has the old NKVD – MVD – KGB, etc. files – GF]. (Sledstvennoe delo No. 2354. T. 23. L. 118-119. Arkhiv avtora [= author’s archive].

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2. Ibid., l. 69. Arkhiv avtora.



27

But perhaps more than others, the poet Markish was convinced of an official reprisal against Mikhoels, who already on the day of the funeral of the artist-martyr on January 16, composed the poem “Mikhoels is an inextinguishable lamp,” in which he put such an eloquent phrase into the hero’s mouth: “Oh Eternity! I'm on your desecrated threshold / I'm going hacked, killed, lifeless”3. 3. A few years later, Markish, fighting for his own life in court, was forced to declare that this poem was born in a fever, in a state of passion, and out of the ninety lines that make it up, he wrote only twelve, and the rest were composed by other poets. He also stated that this item was never published, which was refuted by Fefer, who said that it was printed in Hebrew in "Einikait"



Chapter 6b. Kostyrchenko, Mikhoels’ Death, fm Tainia politika Stalina … novaia versiia (2015) / 178 / Гибель Михоэлса Свой тайный приговор «главарю еврейских националистов в СССР»: Сталин вынес 27 декабря 1947 r. в ходе сверхсекретной встречи в Кремле с вызванными туда шефом МГБ Абакумовым и его заместителем С. И. Огодьцовым. · Из анализа записей в журнале регистрации посетителей кремлевского кабинета вождя следует, что. этот визит не был обычным. Ведь предществующие посещения Абакумовым главного кабинета страны были и непродолжительными (от 5 до 25 минут); и проходили в присутствии соратников Сталина по Политбюро, а также некоторых министров и других высокопоставленных чиновников. В отличие от них, означенная беседа проходила вследствие ее особой важности и конфиденциальности. без посторонних и продолжалась более одного часа - с 20:20 до 21:35.2 2 Архив вождей. Посетители кабинета И. Б. Сталина // Исторический архив. 1996. No 5-6. С. 24. / 179 / В тот вечер руководители госбезопасности намеревались ознакомить вождя с только что “выбитыми», но пока не оформленными “признаниями» Гольдштейна о “шпионской деятельности Михоэлса» и о его “повышенном интересе к личной жизни главы Советского правительства» и получить,

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во-первых, санкцию на арест Гринберга, оговоренного поневоле Гольдштейном и, во-вторых (самое главное!), -- инструкцию о дальнейших действиях в отношении Михоэлса. И это намерение было также реализовано, что подтверждается следующими затребованными Берией показаниями Оrольцова от 18 марта 1953 г. о его более чем пятилетней давности визите к Сталину: «Во время беседы ... товарищем Сталиным была названа фамилия Михоэлса, и в конце беседы было им дано указание Абакумову о необходимости проведения специального мероприятия в отношении Михоэлса, и что для этой цели [следует] устроить «автомобильную катастрофу» 1 Но почему Сталин не приказал просто арестовать Михоэлса, чтобы свести с ним счеты в подвалах Лубянки, а предпочел чреватый некоторым риском имитационный способ его устранения? Во-первых, поскольку еврейский артист был широко известен в мире, явная расправа с ним могла обернуться крупным международным скандалом. Когда министр госбезопасности Белоруссии Л. Ф. Цанава спросил у Оrольцова о причине выбора замаскированной ликвидации Михоэлса, тот ответил, что «на Михоэлса делают большую ·ставку американцы ... арестовывать его нецелесообразно, так как он широко известен затраницей» 2 Во~вторых, на такого рода спецоперациях вождь к тому времени уже успел набить руку. Еще в июле 1939 r. он посредством инсценированной автомобильной катастрофы разделался с бывшим послом в Китае И. Т. Бовкуном-Луrанцем и его женой. А чуть позже по такому же сценарию стала готовиться и ликвидация смещенного наркома иностранных дел М. М. Литвинова (была отменена в послед- 1 Государствен:ный антисемитизм в СССР. С. 111. 2 Там же. С. 114-115. / 180 /

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ний момент) 1 Похожий метод был использован Абакумовым и в январе 1945 г. при негласном похищении в Будапеште шведского дипломата Рауля Валленберга. После того как Сталин приказал тайным образом расправиться с еврейским артистом, исполнение этой его воли стало «техническим» вопросом времени. Огольцов потом проговорился Цанаве, что сформированная под «заказ» Сталина «боевая группа МГБ СССР» первоначально «предпринимала меры к убийству Михоэлса еще в Москве, но сделать это не удалось, так как Михоэлс ходил по Москве в окружении многих женщин»2. Именно это обстоятельство, очевидно, и навело потом Абакумова на мысль избрать местом проведения спецоперации не шумную и многолюдную столицу, а отдаленную провинцию с еще не устоявшейся после военного лихолетья жизнью, где при необходимости проще было списать внезапную гибель человека на какую-либо случайность. Вот почему разрушенному и не оправившемуся после нацистской оккупации Минску суждено было стать местом гибели Михоэлса. Однако это не означает, что место и время убийства были определены на Лубянке заранее и что состоявшаяся в начале января 1948 г. командировка Михоэлса в Минск была инспирирована МГБ. Впрочем, существует и противоположная точка зрения. Утверждается, что Михоэлс должен был выехать в Ленинград, чтобы в качестве члена комитета по Сталинским премиям в области литературы и искусства участвовать там в соответствующем отборе театральных спектаклей. Однако, поддавшись уговорам давнего знакомого театроведа В. И. Голубова (публиковался под псевдонимом «В. Потапов», был негласным агентом МГБ), неожиданно передумал, решив направиться с такой же миссией в Минск.3 Между тем, судя по материалам проведенного Берией в марте 1953 r. следствия, руководство МГБ отнюдь не пыта- 1 Столяров К.А. Указ. соч. С, 268, 276-277. 2 Государственный антисемитизм в СССР. С. 114.

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3 Тышлер А. Я вижу Михоэлса // Михоэлс Соломон Михайлович. Статьи, беседы, речи. С. 504; Ваксберг А. И. Из ада в рай и обратно. Еврейский вопрос по Ленину, Сталину и Солженицыну. М., 2003. С. 300301. / 181 / лось в начале 1948 r. заманить Михоэлса в Минск. Из показаний участников спецоперации, несмотря на имеющиеся в них нестыковки и противоречия (давались по прошествии более пяти лет после гибели Михоэлса), ясно, что решение о ликвидации Михоэлса в Минске принималось уже после того, как стало известно, что он вечером 7 января отправится туда поездом в сопровождении Голубова-Потапова и работника Комитета по делам искусств И. М. Барашка. Хотя такая информация поступила к Абакумову уже 2 января 1948 r. (тогда Михоэлсу было выписано командировочное удостоверение 1 ), министр доложил о ней Сталину не ранее вечера 6 января -- будучи абсолютно уверенным в том, что эта поездка не сорвется. И тогда же, а не по прибытии Михоэлса к месту назначения, как потом в своих несколько аберрированных показаниях утверждал Абакумов, Сталин «дал указание именно в Минске и провести ликвидацию Михоэлса ... »2 Данное распоряжение поступило, скорее всего, с «Ближней » подмосковной дачи вождя, поскольку известно, что первый визит Абакумова в Кремль состоялся в 1948 r. только 10 январяю 3 В ходе этого телефонного разговора Сталин также подтвердил прежнее решение (теперь уже применительно к Минску): Михоэлс должен «случайно» погибнуть «Ну, автомобильная катастрофа". Я отлично помню эту интонацию - это был не вопрос, а утверждение, ответ. Он не спрашивал, а предлагал эту автомобильную катастрофу». 4

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Именно сразу после этого Абакумов и связался впервые - в рамках данной спецоперации - с Цанавой. И хотя разговор 1 Ваксберг А. И, Указ. соч. С. 301-302. 2 Государственный антисемитизм в СССР. С. 118. 3 Архив вождей. Посетители кабинета И. В. Сталина// Исторический архив. 1996. No 5-6. С. 25. 4 Аллuлуева С. И. Только один год. С, 134. / 182 / велся по аппарату ВЧ (высокочастотная засекреченная телефония), шеф Лубянки был предельно осторожен. Лишь убедившись, что его минский собеседник один в кабинете, он без предисловий осведомился: «Имеются ли в МГБ Белорусской ССР возможности для выполнения ... важного решения правительства и личного указания Сталина?» Поскольку эта фраза прозвучала как приказ, последовал положительный ответ. Ничего конкретного тогда не обсуждалось, ибо пока не было даже примерного плана спецоперации. Составив таковой только через несколько часов, Абакумов вновь позвонил Сталину, чтобы согласовать персональный состав бригады оперативников, направляемых в Минск. В результате ее руководителем был назначен генерал Огольцов, в распоряжение которого поступали: полковник Ф. Г. Шубняков -- руководил во 2-м главном (контрразведывательном) управлении МГБ СССР отделом «2-3» (оперативная разработка учреждений, связанных с заграницей); полковник В. Е. Лебедев и старший лейтенант Б. А. Круглов - особого рода «транспортники» из возглавлявшегося П. А. Судоплатовым отдела «ДР» (служба террора и диверсий), имитировавшие «ликвидации» под случайные автокатастрофы; майор А. Х. Косырев -- секретарь Огольцова. В спецоперации участвовал и некий майор Н. Ф. Повзун, который, скорее всего, был сотрудником белорусских органов

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госбезопасности, задействованным в силу каких-то обстоятельств уже в Минске. Вечером 7 января, т. е. сразу после отбытия Михоэлса из Москвы, Абакумов провел инструктаж личного состава бригады, объявив о ее выезде на следующее утро в Минск на двух легковушках. Отпустив подчиненных, Абакумов еще раз связался с Цанавой, которого уже проинформировал: вечером 8 января в Минск должна прибыть «боевая группа МГБ СССР» во главе с Огольцовым, которому он, Цанава, будет помогать руководить операцией на месте; соблюдая строгую конспирацию, «боевая группа», не заезжая в республиканское МГБ, сразу направится на его, Цанавы, загородную дачу в Слепянке. Но сообщая все это, Абакумов и на сей раз не стал раскрывать по телефону конкретную суть спецоперации. / 183 / О том, что она направлена на ликвидацию Михоэлса, Цанава узнал уже от Огольцова, когда тот вместе со своей командой прибыл в Слепянку. 1 Уже на следующее утро Лебедев, Круглов и Шубняков, как потом припомнил последний, отправились на машине в Минск, где последующие три дня «вели наблюдение за Михоэлсом, выясняли обстановку и условия для организации автомобильной катастрофы». В ходе этой «рекогносцировки» было. установлено, что «Михоэлса всегда окружала большая группа местной интеллигенции,· он часто пользовался автомашиной Совмина Белоруссии и его сопровождали работники аппарата Комитета по делам искусств». Реализовывать в условиях такой публичности сценарий «автомобильной катастрофы». Огольцов счел чрезмерно рискованным. При этом он полагал, что и «ликвидация объекта путем наезда на него грузовой машины на малолюдной улице ... также не гарантировала успех операции наверняка». В конце концов оптимальным было признано предложение Шубнякова, считавшего, что непосредственной ликвидации Михоэлса должно предшествовать его «секретное изъятие». Когда это соображение было доложено Абакумову, тот, потребовав «во что бы то ни стало осуществить операцию», одобрил вариант

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«изъятия» и приказал задействовать в нем находившегося в Минске «агента 2-го Главного управления МГБ СССР». 2 Данное не известное ранее распоряжение Абакумова, имевшего в виду сопровождавшего Михоэлса Голубова-Потапова, указывает на то, что на Лубянке о нем вспомнили только в ходе вынужденной корректировки спецоперации в Минске, а это доказывает, что вопреки расхожей версии,3 его поездка туда не была заранее спланирована госбезопасностью и он ничего не знал о готовившемся устранении Михоэлса. Таким случайным стечением обстоятельств не преминули воспользоваться люди Абакумова, задействовавшие этого агента «втемную». 1 Государственный антисемитизм в СССР. С. 114-115. 2 Там же. с. 111,115. 3 Борщаговский А.М. Обвиняется кровь. М., 1994. С. 3; Гейзер М.М. Михоэлс: жизнь и смерть; М., 1998. С. 270. / 184 / Войти в контакт с Голубовым-Потаповым поручили Шубнякову, назначенному ответственным за «секретное изъятие» Михоэлса; Вскоре такое тайное свидание состоялось. На нем Шубняков сообщил агенту, что «имеется необходимость в частной обстановке встретиться с Михоэлсом», которого следует пригласить к некоему «личному другу, проживающему в Минске». Не догадывавшийся о страшной подоплеке этой просьбы Голубов-Потапов согласился ее исполнить. Ему без труда удалось уговорить любившего дружеские застолья Михоэлса почтить своим присутствием то ли свадьбу, то ли еще какое-то семейное торжество у некоего «инженера Сергеева », по поводу личности которого потом возникло множество догадок и предположений. Широкое распространение получила, скажем, легенда о том, что убийство Михоэлса произошло сразу после того, как он побывал в гостях у своего друга, командующего войсками Белорусского военного окру-

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га генерал- полковника Сергея Георгиевича Трофименко, визит к которому он по каким-то соображениям решил «зашифровать», сказав белорусским коллегам, что собирается встретиться с «инженером Сергеевым» 1. Однако результаты исследований последнего времени не оставляют сомнений в том, что «инженер Сергеев» не имел никакого отношения к С. Трофименко, к которому Михоэлс действительно приходил, но не 12, а 8 января - сразу по прибытии в Минск 2. Теперь ясно, что «инженер Сергеев» - выдумка не Михоэлса, а Шубнякова, который измыслил этого новоявленного «поручика Киже», видимо, под впечатлением от одноименного послевоенного спектакля столичного Малого театра. В пользу этой догадки говорит то, что данная постановка пьесы Всеволода Росса «Инженер Сергеев» была особенно популярна среди чекистов, знавших, что звучное имя ее автора -- это литературный псевдоним их шефа -- тогдашнего наркома госбезопасности В. Н. Меркулова. 1 Борщагский А. М. Записки баловня судьбы. М., 1991. С. 152153. 2 Фрезинский Б.Я. Генерал Трофименко и актер Михоэлс. Минск, 1948 (некоторые уточнения к книгам мемуаристов и публицистов) // Народ Книги в мире книг. Еврейское книжное обозрение. 2003. No 48. С. 5. / 185 / И вот 12 января 1948 г., примерно в восемь вечера Михоэлс и Голубов-Потапов вышли из минской гостиницы «Беларусь» (проживали в ней, деля двухкомнатный «люкс» с Барашко), направившись к условленному месту встречи с «инженером Сергеевым», который должен был доставить их на машине к себе домой, где уже якобы томились в ожидании гости и был накрыт праздничный стол. Как потом показал Шубняков, он сидел в автомобиле вместе с Кругловым (был за рулем), когда

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около девяти часов подошли Голубов-Потапов и Михоэлс. Последнему он представился как «Сергеев», после чего «все отправились ко мне (Шубнякову. - Г. К.) "на квартиру", т. е. на дачу т. Цанава» 1. Вопреки широко распространенной версии о насильственном характере похищения двух столичных театральных деятелей (с нападением и борьбой), можно с большой долей уверенности предположить, что ни Михоэлс, ни Голубов-Потапов вплоть до самого последнего момента - пока «примерно в 10 часов вечера» (показание Цанавы Г. К.) они не въехали во двор загородного дома министра госбезопасности Белоруссии, и поджидавшие там оперативники не стали грубо выволакивать их наружу -- не догадывались, что оказались в западне. Далее, если верить Шубнякову (из всех участников спецоперации он дал самое детальное и, похоже, наиболее точное ее описание), события развивались следующим образом. Когда он «доложил т. Огольцову, что Михоэлс и агент доставлены на дачу», тот немедленно связался по ВЧ с Абакумовым, который, держа на линии Минск, соединился по «вертушке» (аппарат АТС Кремля) со Сталиным, который находился тогда на «Ближней» даче и готовился к очередному ночному заседанию Политбюро 2 (о нем ниже). Поскольку и сценарий ликвидации, и орудие убийства -- грузовик (ЗиС-5?) -- были заранее обговорены, вождю оставалось только подтвердить свой смертный приговор Михоэлсу. Что он и сделал, дав одновре- 1 Государственный антисемитизм в СССР. С. 116. 2 Архив вождей. Посетители кабинета И. В. Сталина// Исторический архив. 1996. No 5-6. С. 25. / 186 / менно санкцию и на ликвидацию Голубова-Потапова, который, как пояснил потом Огольцов, «был в курсе всех агентур-

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ных мероприятий, проводившихся по Михоэлсу», «доверием у органов ... не пользовался» и, самое главное, оказался, по словам Шубнякова, в положении «невольного и опасного свидетеля смерти Михоэлса» 1. Потом наступила кровавая развязка, так описанная Шубняковым: «С тем чтобы создать впечатление, что Михоэлс и агент попали под автомашину в пьяном виде, их заставили выпить по стакану водки. Затем они по одному (вначале агент, а затем Михоэлс) были умерщвлены -- раздавлены грузовой автомашиной ... Убедившись, что Михоэлс и агент мертвы, наша группа вывезла их тела в город и выбросила их на дорогу одной из улиц, расположенных недалеко от гостиницы. Причем их трупы были расположены так, что создавалось впечатление, что Михоэлс и агент были сбиты автомашиной, которая переехала их передними и задними скатами» 2. По показаниям, данным Зускиным в 1952 r. на процессе по «делу ЕАК», сразу после доставки тела Михоэлса в Москву, его перевезли в лабораторию при Мавзолее Ленина, где ее директор Борис Збарский осмотрел труп и наложил грим на лицо погибшего артиста. На похоронах академик Збарский сказал Зускину, что полученные Михоэлсом предсмертные повреждения (переломы костей и пр.) вполне могли быть вызваны автомобильной катастрофой. Но, как он добавил, эти травмы не носили летального характера, и «если бы ему (Михоэлсу - Г. К.) оказали сразу помощь, то, может быть, можно было что-нибудь сделать, он умер от замерзания, потому что ... лежал несколько часов в снеrу» 3. Так трагически оборвалась жизнь талантливого еврейского артиста и известного общественного деятеля. И хотя представленная выше реконструкция потаенных до недавнего времени событий этого без натяжки исторического политического пре- 1 Государственный антисемитизм в СССР. С. 111, 116.

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2 Там же. С. 116. 3 Неправедный суд. С. 308-309. / 187 / ступления -- версия, но она базируется на самой полной на сегодняшний день источниковой базе. К сожалению, без предположений невозможно обойтись и при воссоздании картины событий, происходивших в верхах сразу после гибели Михоэлса. Имеется в виду состоявшееся тогда заседание Политбюро, о котором достоверно известно только то, что в нем участвовали Сталин, Молотов, Жданов, Берия, Микоян, Маленков, Вознесенский, Косыгин, Булганин и Каrанович 1 .Но если тщательно проанализировать комплекс известных косвенных данных об этом заседании, то вырисовывается следующая версия того, что имело на нем место: во время данного ночного бдения, закончившегося в 1 час. 40 мин. ночи 13 января 1948 r., Сталин мог в деталях поведать ближайшим соратникам о «Преступлении и наказании» Михоэлса или, по крайней мере, прозрачно намекнуть на истинную причину его неожиданной смерти. Это предположение подкрепляется тем, что 10 января руководитель личной канцелярии Сталина А. Н. Поскребышев разослал членам и кандидатам в члены Политбюро специально подготовленные Абакумовым первые официально оформленные протоколы допросов И. И. Гольдштейна, Н. В. Молочникова и других фигурантов «дела Аллилуевых», содержавших в прямом смысле слова убийственные «признания» о сотрудничестве Михоэлса с американцами 2. Сталин, который всегда старался подвести под свои репрессивные акции резоны в духе революционной целесообразности, и на сей раз, очевидно, решил доказать своим соратникам государственную необходимость тайной ликвидации общественного лидера еврейства. Скорее всего, именно на этом заседании Политбюро, созванном, как представляется, отнюдь не случайно в ночь убийства Михоэлса, Сталин и объявил об исполнении самолично вынесенного ему смертного приговора. Возможно, поэтому Полина Жемчужина

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- жена ничего не скрывавшего от нее Молотова - уверенно и почти 1 Архив вождей. Посетители кабинета И. В. Сталина// Исторический архив; 1996. No 5-6. С. 25. 2 Лубянка. Сталин и МГБ СССР. Март 1946 - март 1953: Документы высших органов партийной и государственной власти: С. 122. / 188 / открыто говорила потом на похоронах Михоэлса, что тот погиб не в результате официально объявленного несчастного случая, а стал жертвой преднамеренного убийства. После столь неосторожного высказывания арест Жемчужиной и опала Молотова, обвиненного впоследствии в разглашении (устами жены) важнейших государственных секретов, стали вопросом времени 1. Между тем официальное расследование по факту гибели Михоэлса и Голубова-Потапова началось сразу после того, как 1З января в 7 час. 10 мин. утра случайные прохожие наткнулись у минского стадиона «Динамо» на два лежавших на трамвайных путях обезображенных трупа и сообщили об этом в милицию. Уже 14 января министр внутренних дел СССР С. Н. Круглов доложил Сталину, Молотову, Ворошилову и Жданову: «По данным осмотра места происшествия и первичному заключению экспертов смерть Михоэлса и Голубова-Потапова последовала в результате наезда автомашины, которая ехала с превышающей скоростью и настигла их, следуя под крутым уклоном ...» 2 Так как уголовное дело было возбуждено по факту насильственной смерти известных московских деятелей культуры, его расследованием занялась не местная милиция, а коман-

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дированная из столицы группа следователей Главного управления милиции МВД СССР. В отчете, который это ведомство представило 11 февраля 1948 г. замминистра внутренних дел СССР И. А. Серову, .констатировалось: «Никаких данных о том, что Михоэлс и Голубов-Потапов погибли не от случайного на них наезда, а от каких-либо других причин, расследованием не добыто 3. 1 РГАСПИ. Ф. 589. Оп. 3. Д. 6188. Л. 12-26; Ефремов Л.Н. Дорогами борьбы и труда. Ставрополь, 1998. С. 12-14. 2 Государственный антисемитизм в СССР. С. 106. 3 В этот документ включено следующее описание места обнаружения тел Михоэлса и Голубова-Потапова: «Оба трупа оказались вдавленными в снег, который шел с вечера 12 января при значительном ветре. Вся одежда покойных, деньги, документы и ручные часы (у Михоэлса - зо- / 189 / Однако в действительности такие «данные» как раз и были «добыты». Оперативникам белорусского МВД уже в самом начале следствия (пока его не передали центру) удалось обнаружить орудие преступления - грузовик, которым были раздавлены Михоэлс и Голубов-Потапов, а также установить, что автомобиль числился за республиканским МГБ. Когда министр внутренних дел БССР С. С. Бельченко, не ведая, какая опасная тайна стоит за этими фактами, попытался дать им ход, ему сверху сначала «аккуратно» посоветовали: «Вы, в общем, не особенно там копайте» (С. Н. Круглов). А потом и вовсе грубо одернули: « ... Не лезь ты, куда тебя не просят» (Цанава). После чего Бельченко счел за благо уничтожить улики, чреватые крупными неприятностями 1.

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Тайная спецоперация по устранению Михоэлса была высоко оценена Сталиным. «За успешное выполнение специального задания Правительства» ее руководители и участники были награждены по закрытому указу Президиума Верховного Совета СССР боевыми орденами Красного Знамени, Отечественной войны первой степени и Красной Звезды 2. Тем временем советское еврейство, потерявшее в лице Михоэлса учителя, мудрого рабби, свою национальную опору, лотые) оказались в сохранности. У часов Михоэлса отсутствовало лишь стекло, однако часы эти, как и часы ГолубоваПотапова, в момент осмотра трупов были на ходу. Судебномедицинским исследованием трупов, производившимся 13 января главным судебно-медицинским экспертом Министерства здравоохранения БССР Прилуцким и экспертами - врачами Наумович и Карелиной, установлено, что смерть Михоэлса и Голубова- Потапова последовала в результате наезда на них тяжелой грузовой автомашины. У покойных оказались переломанными все ребра с разрывом тканей легких, у Михоэлса - перелом позвонка, у Голубова-Потапова - тазовых костей. Все причиненные повреждения являлись прижизненными. Судя по наступлению и развитию трупных явлений, смерть их наступила за 15-16 часов до момента исследования трупов, т.е. примерно в 20 часов 12 января, вскоре после выхода из гостиницы. Состояние пищи в желудке подтвердило тот факт, что пища эта была принята за два часа до смерти и состав пищи соответствовал той, которая подавалась им в ресторане … » (Государственный антисемитизм в СССР. С. 107). 1 Попов А.Ю. 15 встрече генералом КГБ Бельченко. М., 2002. С. 274-275. 2 Государственный антисемитизм в СССР. С. 110. / 190 /

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скорбело. Хотя к тому времени евреи в СССР в значительной мере ассимилировались и в большинстве своем утратили связь с родным языком и традиционной культурой, многие из них восприняли эту кончину как национальную трагедию. Международный общественный резонанс, вызванный смертью Михоэлса, был также впечатляющим. Со всего мира в Москву шли телеграммы с выражением глубокого сочувствия и соболезнования. Среди них были и прочувствованные послания от Альберта Эйнштейна и Марка Шагала 1. В США, Австралии, Франции, Аргентине, Палестине, Югославии и в других странах прошли массовые собрания, митинги и религиозные церемонии, посвященные его памяти. На нью-йоркском Манхэттене такое мероприятие организовал 14 февраля Американский комитет еврейских писателей, художников и ученых, собравший более 2 тыс. человек. Диссонансом в .этом западном хоре сочувствия прозвучал только голос еврейского писателя Менахема Борейшо, который 17 января опубликовал в нью-йоркской еврейской газете “Дер тог» статью, где напомнил о том, что в 1943 г. покойный Михоэлс приезжал в США “С определенным заданием от своего правительства» и, .«исполняя некую политическую игру», повторял тогда на митингах .«вызубренные ранее слова» 2. Вынужденные считаться с немалым авторитетом и популярностью Михоэлса в стране 3 и мире, да и чтобы противодействовать «провокационным» слухам о причастности tосбезопасности к смерти еврейского артиста, власти решили продемонстрировать, что разделяют это. горе. Накануне похорон «Правда» вышла с выспреннцм некрологом, в котором 1 Вовси-Михоэлс Н. С. Мой отец Соломон Михоэлс: Воспоминания о жизни и гибели. М., 1997. С. 235-236. 2 РГАСПИ. Ф. 17. Оп. 128. Д. 1152. Л. 198.

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3 На Белорусский вокзал, куда из Минска был доставлен гроб с телом Михоэлса, а затем и на Донское кладбище, где состоялись его похороны, пришли тысячи евреев. Такая впечатляющая демонстрация национальных чувств, вероятно, серьезно встревожила Сталина, о чем свидетельствовали санкционированные им потом антиеврейские репрессивные меры. / 191 / Михоэлс был назван «активным строителем советскоц художественной культуры», «крупным общественным деятелем, посвятившим свою жизнь служению советскому народу». 17 января было опубликовано официальное сообщение ТАСС 0 прощании с Михоэлсом в Еврейском театре. Был воспроизведен фрагмент выступления Александра Фадеева на состоявшейся там гражданской панихиде. Ставший через год яростным гонителем еврейских литераторов и так называемых космополитов, он еще называл погибшего артиста «человеком на редкость цельным, жизнелюбивым, с кристально чистой душой». Следом на широкий экран вышла документальная хроника похорон Михоэлса, а ГОСЕТу вскоре присвоили его имя. Там же прошла серия вечеров памяти, на которых выступили видные деятели русской и еврейской культуры. 27 апреля на заседании президиума ЕАК Шимелиовичу, как близкому другу Михоэлса, даже поручили обратиться в Моссовет с предложением о переименовании Малой Бронной в улицу Михоэлса 1, но из этого так ничего и не вышло. Чтобы окутать смерть Михоэлса непроницаемой завесой тайны, МГБ в н:ачестве так называемых активных мероприятий распространило противоречившие друг другу слухи о том, что с Михоэлсом разделалась банда польских националистов - «агентов Миколайчика» -- и что он был убит сионистами, опасавшимися, что он может раскрыть властям их «происки», .«направленные в сторону создания Государства Израиль и на свержение большевиков» 2. В то, что Михоэлс пал жертвой трагической случайности, поверило подавляющее большинство советских граждан. Но

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среди евреев, особенно среди тех, кто бьш вовлечен в национальную культурно-общественную деятельность и явственно ощущал негативную реакцию на нее властей, было и много, мягко говоря, сомневающихся. И хотя Эренбург и утверждал потом, что официальная версия гибели еврейского артиста 1 РГАСПИ. Ф. 17. Оп. 128. Д. 444. Л. 170. 2 Там же. Оп. 119. Д. 1078. Л. 93. / 192 / «казалась убедительной весной 1948 rода» 1 , сам он вряд ли доверял тогда советской пропаганде. Арестованный через год Б. Шимелиович показал на допросе, что Эренбург многозначительно произнес на похоронах руководителя ЕАК, «Несколько дней тому назад Михоэлс погиб на том же месте, где уже были истреблены десятки тысяч евреев» 2. Фефер, возглавивший ЕАК после Михоэлса, а потом арестованный, также на допросе заявил, что сразу после трагедии в Минске услышал там от литератора А. Х. Платнера: евреи в столице Белоруссии считают, что это официально организованное убийство с целью «снять голову у еврейской общественности» 3. Больше всего не верило в случайность гибели Михоэлса его близкое окружение - родные, друзья, коллеги по театру и Еврейскому комитету. После его смерти они вспомнили, что в последнюю командировку он уезжал в крайне подавленном настроении, будучи обескуражен недавними арестами друзей и знакомых (по «делу Аллилуевых») и нарастанием потока анонимных угроз в виде подметных писем ( «жидовская образина, больно высоко ты взлетела, как бы головка не слетела» и т. п.). Даже обитатель Кремля Л. М. Каганович, знавший много больше простых смертных и знакомый с Михоэлсом с 1936 r. · (с момента первого посещения Еврейского театра), не остался безучастным: послал к родным· артиста племянницу Юлию (дочь застрелившегося в 1941 r. брата Михаила), через

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которую передал настоятельный совет «никогда никого ни о чем» не расспрашивать4. В мучительном недоумении пребывал в те дни еврейский артист В. Л. Зускин, заменивший Михоэлса на посту художественного руководителя Московского государственного еврейского. театра. Когда за два дня до отъезда в Минск он зашел к Михоэлсу ·в кабинет, тот, встав, усадил его на свое место за письменным столом; печально произнес: «Вот здесь, 1 Эренбург И.Г. Собр. соч.: В8т. Т. 8.Людиrоды,жизнь. Кн. 5-7. С. 214. 2 Костырчеюсо Г. В. В плену у красного фараона. М., 1994. С. 106. 3 Там же. С. 103. 4 Вовси-Михоэлс Н. С. Указ. соч. С. 195. / 193 / на этом кресле, ты скоро, очень скоро будешь сидеть ...»1 . Думается, последние сомнения в том, что его друг был убит, покинули Зускина после слов П. С. Жемчужиной, услышанных на похоронах Михоэлса, называвшего ее когда-то «нашей Эсфирью» и «хорошей еврейской дочерью». Улучив подходящий момент, она, кивнув на покойника, шепнула Зускину и Феферу: «Дело обстоит не так, как это пытаются представить. Это – убийство» 2. Но пожалуй, больше других в официальной расправе над Михоэлсом был уверен поэт Маркиш, который уже в день похорон артиста-мученика 16 января, сочинил поэму «Михоэлс - неугасимый светильник», в которой вложил в уста героя такую красноречивую фразу: «О Вечность! Я на твой поруганный порог/ Иду зарубленный, убитый, бездыханный» 3.

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1 Копия документа ЦА ФСБ РФ (Следственное дело No 2354. Т. 23. Л. 118-119). Архив автора. 2 Там же. Л. 69. Архив автора. 3 Через несколько лет Маркиш, борясь на суде за собственную жизнь, вынужден был заявить, что это стихотворение родилось в горячке, в состоянии аффекта, и из девяноста строк, его составляющих, он написал всего двенадцать, а остальные сочинили другие поэты. Он заявил также что эта вещь никогда не публиковалась, что было опровергнуто Фефером, сказавшим, что она была напечатана на еврейском языке в «Эйникайт» (Неправедный суд. С. 62, 67).

Chapter 7. Kostyrchenko, Mukhin, Medvedev Fabrication Solomon Mikhoels was not murdered by order of Joseph Stalin. All the supposed documents of primary source evidence that he was so murdered are fabrications. The evidence in support of this conclusion is overwhelming. We have followed the trail of the piecemeal forgery of the “Beria Letter”, which changed shape as it went through several stages of fabrication until finally granted “official” status by being smuggled into archives and published in document collections such as War, Holocaust, and Stalinism (1995), Lavrentii Beria. 1953 (1999), Reabilitatsiia. Kak Eto Bylo (2000), and Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm (2005). These collections have been edited by well-known academic historians and published in collections by prestigious publishers like “Mezhdunarodniy Fond ‘Demokratiia’”, Yale University Press, Harper Collins, Routledge. Academic historians directly involved in perpetuating the falsehood that Stalin ordered Mikhoels’ murder include Robert Conquest, Shimon Redlich, Jonathan Brent, and Gennadii Kostyrchenko. Stalin’s supposed murder of Mikhoels and Golubov is cited as just one example of “state antisemitism” and of Stalin’s own supposed antisemitism. But if Stalin and the Soviet state during his time were actually antisemitic, why would it be necessary to fabricate false stories about it? All the other supposed examples of Stalin’s or of Soviet antisemitism during Stalin’s time are equally groundless. Perhaps the best known example is the trial and execution of leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAFC) in 1952. But this was not an exam-

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ple of antisemitism. The JAFC leaders were tried, convicted, and executed for espionage, not because they were Jewish. It is not antisemitic to arrest, try, convict, and punish someone for a crime just because the accused is Jewish even if, as in this case, the defendants were later declared to be innocent.

Zhores Medvedev vs. Kostyrchenko In 2003 the well-known Soviet dissident and staunch anti-Stalinist Zhores Medvedev published a book titled. “Stalin and the Jewish Problem – A New Analysis.”1 Here is what Kostyrchenko writes about Medvedev’s treatment of the “murder of Mikhoels by Stalin.” Medvedev, like practically all specialists in history, does not doubt the genuineness of the official documents, and likewise of the Order of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 26 October 1948 concerning the awarding of decorations “for the successful completion of a special government task” to the killers of Mikhoels. A sharply contrasting opinion is held by Y.I. Mukhin, editor of the scandalous newspaper “Duel”, and author of the work of “scientifichistorical research” “The Murder of Stalin and Beria”, published in a massive press run. In the pages of this latter work all documents that in any way refute the deductions, based upon primitive hatred of Jews, of this history-lover concerning an anti-Stalin “Jewish plot”, are declared with unusual ease to be forgeries.2 This statement of Kostyrchenko’s is false. Medvedev explicitly “doubts the genuineness” of the “Beria Letter”! Medvedev gives

1 Stalin i Evreiskaya Problema. Novyi Analiz. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Prava

cheloveka”, 2003.

2 Kostyrchenko, “’Delo Mikhoelsa’: Noviy Vzglad.” Lekhaim 10 (2003). At

https://www.lechaim.ru/ARHIV/138/kost.htm Accessed 02.12.2023.

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four additional reasons for thinking the contents of the “Beria” letter are false. We will examine them below.

Yuri Mukhin It appears to be untrue that Mukhin is a “hater of Jews”, at least in the book in question where Mukhin explicitly criticizes antisemitism.3 But the real point is this: regardless of the opinions of their author, any argument must be met on its own terms. An ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy. There is no excuse for ad hominem attacks in honest scholarly research and discussion. Here it serves as a smokescreen, a way for Kostyrchenko to avoid confronting Mukhin’s argument. Kostyrchenko claims that only Mukhin had hitherto expressed doubts about the authenticity of these documents and would like to dismiss him out of hand. The last sentence of his attack upon Mukhin, quoted above (“In the pages… to be forgeries”) evidently means that, in Kostyrchenko’s view, Mukhin’s “crime” is that of questioning the prevailing anti-Stalin interpretation of Mikhoels’ death.

Kostyrchenko cannot so easily dismiss Medvedev, a prominent and well-respected Soviet dissident famously hostile to Stalin. Instead, he distorts Medvedev’s position. It’s easy to see why: Medvedev rejects the “Beria Letter” too, though without saying so explicitly. Kostyrchenko’s statement, therefore, serves to remind the reader – and, no doubt, Medvedev as well -- that to question the validity of this letter is to put oneself in the company of Mukhin and so “beyond the pale.” In the context of his own larger purpose Mukhin’s interest in the Mikhoels case is incidental. But it appears that Mukhin was the first to subject the “Beria Letter” to careful scrutiny. So, Mukhin’s 3 Yuri I. Mukhin, Ubiystvo Stalina i Beria. Moscow: Krymskiy Most 9-D, 2003.

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study deserves serious examination. After discussing each of Mukhin’s arguments that the “Beria Letter” is a forgery, we will examine Medvedev’s arguments.

Yuri Mukhin’s Analysis of Document #1, the “Beria Letter” 1. The “Beria Letter” consistently dates the murder of Mikhoels as “February 1948.” In reality, Mikhoels and his companion GolubovPotapov were killed during the night of January 12 to 13. Vaksberg calls this “an obvious error” (p. 179) but otherwise ignores it. “Obvious” it indeed is! But it’s also a gross error in an investigation. And it is made twice in the same document. How likely is it, Mukhin asks, that an official report of the investigation of the murder of a leading Soviet citizen would not only omit the date of the crime itself but even get the month wrong? Answer: virtually impossible. A genuine Beria letter would be based on reports from and drafted by subordinates. There is no way they could have presented a document with such a blunder in it to their boss the minister. So where did “February” come from? Not from the investigation materials. Therefore, the person or persons who forged the “Beria Letter” did not have access to those materials. And, therefore, they were not working for Beria and the document is a forgery. 2. No grounds existed for Ogol’tsov’s and Tsanava’s arrests. No article in the Criminal Code is cited as evidence that they have committed a crime – something that would certainly be in a report of the arrest of any person, including high-ranking officials. According to the “Beria Letter” Ogol’tsov and Tsanava were carrying out an order from Abakumov, Minister of State Security (head of the MGB), and Stalin, Head of State of the USSR. Therefore, they were doing their duty; were in violation of no law; and so there was no basis for any arrest.

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3. The letter purports to be an explanation to the Central Committee of the CPSU of the arrests of Ogol’tsov and Tsanava (the Central Committee had to approve arrests of higher government or Party officials). Yet it begins by declaring Mikhoels not guilty and devoting a good deal of praise to him. Neither – but especially not the praise of Mikhoels – is at all in place in a letter to the Central Committee justifying the arrest of two high government officials. Moreover, Mikhoels had not yet been “rehabilitated”, that is, officially declared innocent. 4. Why did Stalin supposedly want to kill Mikhoels? The letter makes clear that observation of Mikhoels by the security forces over several years had not disclosed any facts indicating that he had committed any crime. That meant that Stalin too had no such information.4 In other words, “at the beginning of the 1990s the forgers still could not think up any motive at all for the murder of Mikhoels … by Stalin.” (Mukhin 668) 5. According to the “Beria Letter” Mikhoels and his companion were killed at Tsanava’s dacha and their bodies later brought to Minsk and dumped on a dark and little-used street. Because Mikhoels was such a prominent citizen a large team of police and investigators raced to the scene. If they had been killed elsewhere, those on the scene would have noticed the lack of blood under the bodies – it would have drained out elsewhere or congealed within the bodies so that they would not have bled. But the Kruglov Report (Document #8), written the day after the men’s deaths, explicitly mentions the “large quantity of blood” at the scene. There would also have been no signs of a collision with a truck – tire tracks in the expected patterns, for instance. 6. The place of the supposed murder is simply given as “Tsanava’s dacha.” But any investigation report would have given the precise 4 At least two brief reports critical of the work of the JAFC in 1947, before

Mikhoels’ death, have come to light. But neither goes beyond criticism, intended to improve its work, much less alleges any violation of Soviet law. See Redlich and Kostyrchenko eds ., Evreyskii Antifashistskii Komitet, Nos. 179-80, pp. 347-50.

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address of the place of death, since “Tsanava’s dacha” is not a town or on any map as such. The most obvious reason for such an omission is that the forgers themselves did not know where Tsanava’s dacha was located. No more, we might add, did they have a street location for the spot where the two men’s bodies were found, so the street name is also omitted from the “Beria Letter.” All this information would have been contained in the investigative reports and be at Beria’s elbow. If Beria had really written the letter, the information should be in it.5 7. If Mikhoels had really been murdered by Stalin’s order and Beria, with the agreement of the Presidium of the Central Committee, had really arrested the murderers, then this fact would have been widely publicized at the time of the attack on the “Cult of Personality” beginning with Khrushchev’s Secret Speech in 1956. Instead, neither Malenkov (to whom the “Beria Letter” is addressed), nor Khrushchev, nor any of the other members of the Presidium, ever said anything about it. As we have shown in a previous chapter, aside from rumors nothing at all was said – or known – about it until Vaksberg “discovered” it “in the Spring of 1992.”

Arrests Beria did, in fact, arrest Ogol’tsov in April 1953 – or, at least, all the writers agree on this point while falsely claiming that he was arrested for participating in Mikhoels’ murder. 6 But neither Ogol’tsov nor any of the other supposed “murderers” apparently ever knew that they had been charged with Mikhoels’ death.

5 I am aware that some of these points are “arguments e silentio.” But arguments

from silence can be very significant, when combined with positive evidence, as in Conan Doyle’s famous “dog in the night-time” (“Silver Blaze”). 6 I have been unable to locate an authoritative source to document this arrest. Medvedev claims the date of Ogol’tsov’s arrest was April 3 rather than April 4.

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The alleged arrest of Tsanava goes to the heart of the question of whether or not the “Beria Letter” is a forgery. According to Sudoplatov, Tsanava was not arrested at this time but six months later, as a member of “Beria’s gang.” Shubnyakov was arrested earlier, in 1951, along with Abakumov, as a part of a trumped-up “Zionist plot.” He was released as soon as Beria was put in charge of the newly-unified MGB-MVD. By March 17 Shubnyakov was the second in command of the 1st main directorate. According to Yakovlev’s volume on Beria, Shubnyakov continued to work in the 1st, and subsequently in the 2nd , main directorates of the KGB, apparently unaware that he had been “arrested for Mikhoels’ murder and deprived of his medals.” Kostyrchenko (Lekhaim, 27) simply claims that Beria did arrest Tsanava, as alleged in the disputed “Beria Letter” of April 2, 1953. Why does he not acknowledge the controversy over this – specifically, his disagreement with Sudoplatov? It would be one thing to openly state that there is no objective evidence for or against Tsanava’s arrest if that is the case. But to pass over the whole controversy in silence is an attempt to deceive the reader. As for Ogol’tsov, Khrushchev freed him shortly after Beria himself had been arrested – in all probability, killed – in June 1953. Eventually, in 1958, he was arrested again, but according to the hearings of the Party Control Commission he was expelled not for anything to do with Mikhoels but for falsification in a case Leningrad in 1941.7 In a letter dated July 30, 1953, Ogol’tsov’s wife, in a letter addressed to Malenkov, reported that in the days before his arrest, “Ogol’tsov tried to explain [to Beria] that, having worked for ten months in Tashkent, he was not responsible for what was being 7 Mukhin cites Zaleskii K.A. “Imperiia Stalina. Biograficheskiy entsiklopedicheskiy

slovar’” (“The Empire of Stalin. Biographical Dictionary”). Moscow: Veche, 2000. This is confirmed in the on-line biographical dictionary based on Zaleskii’s work at http://hronos.km.ru/biograf/ogolcov.and by the updated version of Zalesskii’s biographical dictionary Kto est’ kto v Istorii SSSR (Moscow, Veche, 2011) 356.

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done here” in Moscow.8 There is nothing about Mikhoels’ murder being the cause of his arrest. Mukhin concludes: That is, in reality there was no murder of Mikhoels and Beria never arrested anybody in connection with it. (672)

Zhores Medvedev Medvedev opens one chapter of his book by declaring that Stalin was not antisemitic at all. Stalin’s antisemitism, about which one can read in almost all his biographies, was not religious, nor ethnic, nor cultural. It was political, and appeared in the form of anti-Zionism, and not of “judophobia.” (92) So Medvedev sharply disagrees with Kostyrchenko about the historical value of the purported “Beria Letter”. Furthermore, by declaring that Stalin’s “antisemitism” was confined to “anti-Zionism” Medvedev is tacitly claiming that Stalin was not antisemitic at all, for a great many Jews have scorned Zionism and still do. Medvedev rejects the fundamental positions taken by Kostyrchenko, Vaksberg, Conquest, and other anti-Stalin researchers. By implication Medvedev calls Vaksberg a liar since throughout his bestknown work, Stalin Against the Jews, Vaksberg strives mightily to make the accusation of antisemitism against Stalin, normally with the most tortured reasoning, and since it is Vaksberg who claimed to have been the person who “found” the Beria documents.

8 Reabilitatsiia. Kak Eto Bylo. I, 62-3. Online at https://istmat.org/node/57785

Accessed 02.17.2023.

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Medvedev and the “Beria Letter” After summarizing the “Beria Letter” and its accompanying documents, Medvedev cites the report that Kruglov, Minister of Internal Affairs (MVD), sent to Stalin on January 14, 1948, the day after Mikhoels’ death (our Document #8). It states that “around the bodies was a large quantity of blood.” (17) Medvedev comments as follows: This is the first document, the reliability [or ‘the authenticity’ – dostovernost’ – GF] of which raises no doubts, that contradicts the confessions of Ogol’tsov and Tsanava cited in Beria’s letter. (15) Here Medvedev tacitly acknowledges Mukhin’s arguments. By implication Medvedev is calling the “Beria Letter” and its accompanying documents fakes. Kostyrchenko tries to dismiss Mukhin’s arguments. But Medvedev rejects the “Beria Letter” too. Kostyrchenko’s dismissive rejection of Mukhin, therefore, is a reminder to the reader – and, no doubt, to Medvedev as well -- that to reject the validity of this letter is to put oneself in the company of persons like Mukhin and so to be expelled from the company of “respectable” anticommunists, to be cast “beyond the pale.”

Medvedev’s Arguments Medvedev gives four reasons for doubting the authenticity of the account in the “Beria Letter”. Kruglov’s report to Stalin of January 14 stated that “a large quantity of blood” was found around the bodies. According to the “Beria Letter”, Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov were murdered elsewhere, at Tsanava’s dacha, and earlier, so they could not have bled on the spot. Medvedev concedes that “professionals” might have brought a lot of blood with them to splash around the corpses when, hours later, they were supposedly thrown on the little-used street where they

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were found. Sure, anything is possible – but what is likely? It is in principle invalid to replace a simpler theory with a more complicated one just because one specific theory of the events demands it. Any theory that requires such complicated assumptions is almost certainly wrong and should be viewed with the greatest skepticism. This is a crucial indication that the “Stalin-had-Mikhoelsmurdered” story is false. None of the supposed accounts of Mikhoels’ “murder” say anything about bringing blood to splash around the corpses on the road in Minsk. Would all of them have just “forgotten” this – the job of obtaining of animal blood, carrying it in containers, spreading it around where the bodies were to be dumped? Hardly! The Beria letter contains a serious contradiction concerning the timing of the assassination plan. According to Abakumov’s confession as recorded in the Beria letter, Stalin gave Abakumov a “rushed assignment” (srochnoye zadaniye) to kill Mikhoels. Mikhoels arrived in Minsk on January 8, 1948, so that, Medvedev argues, Abakumov must have received this “rushed assignment” on January 8 or 9. But according to Tsanava’s confession – again, as recorded in the Beria letter under dispute – the director of the whole affair, Ogol’tsov, arrived in Minsk a day or two before Mikhoels’ arrival with the plan for his “liquidation” already worked out. (20) The supposedly guilty parties were not treated as though they were guilty. Ogol’tsov was arrested on April 3, 1953, Tsanava a day later. Shubnyakov had already been arrested in 1951 in connection with another matter. But after Beria’s arrest – probably, his murder – on June 26, 1953, both Ogol’tsov and Shubnyakov were “rehabilitated” and freed. By 1954 Shubnyakov had received a high post in the KGB. Meanwhile, Tsanava was not freed after Beria’s arrest because he had long been a close friend and associate of Beria’s. This pattern of arrests and liberations is incompatible with any belief by the

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members of the Presidium, to which the purported Beria letter was addressed, that these men were guilty of murdering Mikhoels. 4. Medvedev’s fourth argument against the genuineness of the Beria letter’s contents is as follows: In Tsanava’s confessions, as recorded in Beria’s letter, it is confirmed that, upon arrival in Minsk Ogol’tsov told him (that is, Tsanava together with some Byelorussian colleague) that the liquidation of Mikhoels was being carried out “according to the decision of the Government and the personal command of J.V. Stalin.” Such a declaration by Ogol’tsov is completely excluded on the part of a professional employee of State Security. It is also highly improbable that Abakumov, having received such a command from Stalin, could have told Ogol’tsov, his subordinate, about it … A minister of State Security, having received a command of the utmost secrecy from the head of state about a ‘special operation’, did not have the right to inform all those involved that this command came “personally from Stalin,” and in addition to invent the fact that there had been some kind of “Governmental decision” about this matter. The Minister of State Security gives his subordinates orders, not explanations. (24-5) Without explicitly charging forgery, Medvedev again concludes: We must not consider Beria’s letter of 2 April 1953 as a document that fully reflects the actual circumstances of this crime [Mikhoels’ murder] (23) So, the allegation that Stalin ordered Mikhoels’ murder was analyzed and refuted long ago – by Yuri Mukhin in 1999, and again by Zhores Medvedev in 2003. Neither Kostyrchenko nor any of the other writers who claim Stalin had Mikhoels killed confront Medvedev’s arguments, much less refute them. Like Mukhin’s,

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Medvedev’s arguments are simply ignored. His book “Stalin and the Jewish Question” has never been translated.

Chapter 8. Conclusion National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Antisemitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism. Antisemitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Antisemitism is dangerous for working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of antisemitism. In the U.S.S.R. antisemitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active antisemites are liable to the death penalty. - Stalin, January 12, 1931. Works (1951), vol. 13, p. 28.1 English edition, p. 30.

“Stalin was not an antisemite, as they sometimes try to portray him.” - Molotov, in Feliks Chuev, ed. Molotov. Poluderzhavniy vlastelin. Moscow, 2000, p. 333.

1 At https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/stalin/t13/t13_05.htm Accessed

02.17.2023.

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“There are statements of Stalin’s on this issue - that antisemitism is criminally punishable in our country. Stalin was not an antisemite … Stalin was afraid that the Jews had many petty-bourgeois elements . But this is not antisemitism.” - Lazar’ Kaganovich, in Feliks Chuev, ed. Tak govoril Kaganovich. Moscow, 1992, p. 128.

“... The last meeting was in December 1952, 2-3 months before Stalin’s death. We sat and discussed (Malenkov always led the Politburo, and Stalin sat on the side, he didn’t seem to have anything to do with this) -- and suddenly Stalin says: “Comrade Malenkov, what, have we got anti-Semites in the Central Committee?! This is a disgrace, this will disgrace our party!” This was what he said (lit. his monologue). And this was the time of the “Doctors Plot” when there was such an anti-Semitic atmosphere. Fadeyev and I exchanged glances. It turns out that Stalin did not know anything about what was happening.” - Tikhon Khrennikov, memoir, as recorded by Radio Svoboda (Radio Liberty) February 27, 2005.2

The Allegation that Stalin Had Mikhoels Murdered is a Falsification The question of Mikhoels’ death is, in fact, a very simple matter. All primary documents that are unquestionably genuine exclude the

2 At

https://web.archive.org/web/20210824104615/https:/www.svoboda.org/a/12 6809.html Accessed 02.15.2023..

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version of the premeditated murder on Stalin's orders of Mikhoels and Golubov. Without exception, the anti-Stalin interpretations of the tragedy in Minsk in January 1948 are invalid. They give preference not to the documents that are undoubtedly genuine, but, on the contrary, to the most dubious primary sources and rumors. Among the weakest aspects of such works is the violation of chronology and the inability to explain a number of important details. For example, no one can explain why Lebedev, Kruglov, Kosyrev and Povzun were deprived of their awards, and why none of them was interrogated along with Ogol’tsov, Tsanava and Abakumov. None of the proponents of the “Stalin had Mikhoels murdered” story interviewed Shubnyakov when he appeared at Pitovranov’s lawsuit in Moscow in 1995. None of them made the elementary effort to obtain and study the trial documents. None of them refer to the fact that Shubnyakov gave a written statement to the court in which he specifically denied having had anything to do with Mikhoels’ murder. The obvious explanation is that doing so would have conclusively disproven the “Stalin murder” story. Our study of the different versions of the “Beria Letter” has revealed it to be a forgery. The only other documents that support the “Stalin murdered Mikhoels” tale originate in a work of fiction. So why have some researchers gone to such lengths to create and propagate this falsehood? After all, doing so runs the risk of their dishonesty being discovered, as we have done here, to the detriment of their reputations. Nevertheless, they have done it. It is natural to seek a reason: Why have they created the notion that Stalin murdered Mikhoels? I suggest that there are two obvious motives.

Anticommunism - Anti-Stalinism The demonizing of Joseph Stalin by many forces, including historians, has been going on since at least Leon Trotsky’s continual pillorying of his arch-rival and nemesis began in the mid-1920s, con-

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tinuing until his assassination in 1940. But few people paid much attention to Trotsky’s writings. Nikita Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech” to the XX Party Congress in Moscow on February 25, 1956, and its publication abroad beginning in June of that year, gave an enormous boost to anti-Stalinism. Khrushchev’s allegations against Stalin and Lavrentii Beria, which we now know to be totally false, were almost universally believed at the time, not just by anticommunists but by the vast majority of the world’s communists as well.3 A few communists in the West followed the example of Mao Zedong and his close associates in the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party in questioning and, at least in part, rejecting Khrushchev’s accusations against Stalin. But none of them had proof that Khrushchev had lied. Today, we do have it. Khrushchev’s allegations against Stalin fit well in the mold of Cold War propaganda in the West that tended towards comparing communism with fascism. Hannah Arendt’s 1951 book The Origins of Totalitarianism was influential in distracting attention away from the fundamental similarities between Hitler’s Germany and in the imperialist-capitalist states of the non-communist West. In reality, Arendt really knew very little about the Soviet Union, but the book made her famous. Since Khrushchev’s day anticommunist writers and propagandists have continued to insist that the USSR was more similar to than different from Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Within the field of Soviet history the “totalitarian school” has had periods of ebb and flood. Some anticommunist scholars have rejected it, but many others have embraced it and continue to do so. 3 See Grover Furr. Khrushchev Lied: The Evidence That Every “Revelation” of

Stalin's (and Beria's) Crimes in Nikita Khrushchev's Infamous “Secret Speech” to the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on February 25, 1956, is Provably False. Kettering, OH: Erythrós Press & Media LLC, 2011.

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During the last years of the USSR’s existence Mikhail Gorbachev, Party leader and later President of the country, oversaw an enormous and sustained campaign of anti-Stalin propaganda. As with the similar campaign launched by Khrushchev after the XXII Party Congress in October 1961S, this multi-year-long Gorbachev propaganda campaign demonizing Stalin was widely believed at the time. In anticommunist circles it still is. Like the similar Khrushchev-era allegations, those of the Gorbachev era can now be disproven thanks largely to the release of a great many documents from former Soviet archives. In the present book we have shown that the allegation that Stalin had Mikhoels murdered was not widely current until shortly after the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, but that it spread rapidly almost immediately thereafter. It is clearly useful to the cause of anticommunism generally that as many people as possible believe that Stalin, and the cause of communism itself, is evil – so evil that, whatever the injustices of capitalism, it is always to be preferred to communism. Likewise, the anticommunist cause is served by the claim that Stalin was like Hitler and the USSR similar to Nazi Germany, both being “totalitarian” states, as alleged by Arendt. This viewpoint is in fact obligatory in the educational systems of a number of Eastern European countries, and commonly taught as fact in Western Europe, Canada, and the United States. To strengthen the false comparison of Stalin with Hitler it is useful to depict Stalin as antisemitic. One influential and highly dishonest book to do this is Yale professor Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands. Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. I have published a refutation of the crude lies in Snyder’s book.4 Others have also criticized it. Nevertheless, it continues to circulate because of the service it provides to anticommunist and anti-Stalin discourse and propaganda. 4 Grover Furr. Blood Lies. The Evidence that Every Accusation Against Joseph Stalin

and the Soviet Union in Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands Is False. New York: Red Star Publications, 2014.

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Zionism In an article critical of Kostyrchenko Viktor Levashov, author of the novel that most of the “murder documents” come from, wrote: And you also got excited about “widely advertised.” If only! I hoped that the more people who read my book, the fewer anti-Semites there would be in Russia. But it was not read. The remainders of the first edition -- 11,000 copies -- are still lying around in the publisher's warehouse. The second edition of three thousand was released with the support of the Israeli Embassy to somehow arouse interest in the topic. Do you think it aroused any? No.5 Why would the Israeli government want to stimulate interest in the allegation that Stalin had Mikhoels murdered? Possibly because Russia was the biggest potential source of Jewish immigrants to Israel as well as of potential supporters of Israel among Jews who would not choose to emigrate.

Scholarly dishonesty The “Stalin murdered Mikhoels” case is remarkable for the extent of the fabrication involved. At least 8 documents were forged (Documents ## 1-8). Many writers and scholars have participated in it.. A much larger number of writers are also implicated in this fraud by uncritically repeating it. Of course it is the responsibility of all writers to check and verify the evidence before passing the story on to a wider public. But with very few exceptions this has not been done. What is happening here? Scholars are supposed to be skeptical, check the evidence, strive for objectivity. But when it comes to the 5 Levashov, “Kto tvorit mify?” [Who is creating myths?”] Lekhaim, March 2004. At

https://www.lechaim.ru/ARHIV/143/pismo_kost.htm (Accessed 01.25.23).

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subject of communism and especially Stalin, scholarly caution, doubt, method – out the window they go! Why question a good anti-Stalin story? Given the pervasive, though unspoken, practice in the field of Soviet history of what I have called “the Anti-Stalin Paradigm” it is virtually “taboo” to question, let alone disprove, any allegation of crime leveled against Stalin.

The Anti-Stalin Paradigm The Anti-Stalin Paradigm has ruined a great deal of what is supposed to be scholarship on the Stalin period of Soviet history. It was not only Khrushchev and, later, Gorbachev, who accused Stalin of committing many terrible crimes that we now know he did not commit. Hundreds if not thousands of Soviet and Russian scholars and writers have followed them in repeating allegations of “crimes of Stalin” for which they had no evidence and many of which have now been refuted. So have almost all writers, both academic and non-academic, in the rest of the world. In Russia it is still possible for historians who refuse to kowtow to the Anti-Stalin Paradigm to teach and publish. Perhaps this reflects the fact that it was in Russia that the home-grown 1917 revolution took place, and where the role of Stalin and the leadership associated with Stalin in preparing for and winning the war against Nazi Germany and its allies is still widely respected. Everywhere else the Anti-Stalin Paradigm remains the Procrustean bed into which all research on the Stalin-era Soviet Union must be forced. It is obligatory for professional historians of the Soviet Union. No historian who questions its tenets can be published by “respectable” academic journals or publishers. But publication in these venues is essential to having an academic career – to being hired, gaining tenure, being invited to conferences, winning research and travel grants, and so on. Adherence to the Anti-Stalin Paradigm is essential to maintaining academic respectability in this field. I have been explicitly warned about this by two “mainstream” historians of the Soviet Union. The Anti-Stalin Paradigm can be discerned by anyone who reads thor-

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oughly in the historiography of the Soviet Union during Stalin’s time. Stalin is blithely called “tyrant,” “dictator,” “paranoid” without a shred of evidence, routinely accused of “killing millions,” “framing” defendants, etc., when there is no evidence whatever to support any of these claims. Here are a few examples – a partial list only -- of events in Soviet history of the Stalin period that expose the falsehood of the AntiStalin Paradigm but where the evidence that the “respectable” viewpoint has been refuted is never mentioned. * The December 1, 1934, murder of Sergei M. Kirov at Party HQ in Leningrad. According to the Anti-Stalin Paradigm the murderer, Leonid Nikolaev, acted alone but was either induced with false promises or forced to inculpate supporters of Zinoviev who were put on trial with Nikolaev, convicted, and executed. We now have a great deal of primary source evidence that these Zinovievists were indeed guilty, along with Nikolaev, of conspiring to kill Kirov. Nikolaev told the truth when he implicated them in his crime. 6 * The Moscow Trials. According to the Anti-Stalin Paradigm the accused were innocent, “framed” by Stalin (i.e., by the prosecution and NKVD). Today we have an enormous amount of evidence from the former Soviet archives and from non-Soviet sources too that the defendants were guilty of at least those crimes to which they confessed. We also have their written appeals of their sentences, in which they repeat their guilt.7 * The ‘Tukhachevsky Affair.” According to the Anti-Stalin Paradigm Marshal Mikhail N. Tukhachevsky and the seven other highranking military commanders tried and executed in June 1937, 6 See Grover Furr. The Murder of Sergei Kirov. History, Scholarship and the Anti-

Stalin Paradigm. Kettering, OH: Erythrós Press and Media, LLC, 2013.

7 See Grover Furr. The Moscow Trials As Evidence. New York: Red Star Publishers,

2018

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were innocent men, framed by Stalin. We now have a great deal of evidence of their guilt both from the Soviet archives and from other sources. We also have the transcript of their trial, in which they confess their guilt in detail.8 * Leon Trotsky always claimed that the charges leveled against him in the Moscow Trials were false. These charges were of conspiracy with his secret followers inside the Soviet Union and with other clandestine oppositionists to murder Soviet leaders; with his followers, domestic fascists, and German spies to sabotage Soviet industry; with the Tukhachevsky military leaders to stab the Red Army in the back in the event of a hostile invasion; with the Germans and Japanese to undermine Soviet security. We now have a great deal of evidence from former Soviet archives to sustain all these accusations.9 * The Katyn Massacre. We now have a great deal of evidence that the Soviets did not murder the Polish POWs in the killings, at various places in the Soviet Union, and good evidence that the socalled “evidence” supporting Soviet guilt is fraudulent.10 * We now know that every allegation of crime by Stalin in Stephen Kotkin’s mammoth study Stalin. Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941, is false. Likewise, we now know that every allegation of crime by Stalin or other Soviet communists itemized in Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands. Europe between Hitler and Stalin is false. 8 See Grover Furr. with Vladimir L. Bobrov and Sven-Eric Holmström, Trotsky and

the Military Conspiracy. Soviet and Non-Soviet Evidence with the Complete Transcript of the “Tukhachevsky Affair” Trial. Kettering, OH: Erythrós Press and Media, LLC, 2021. 9 See Grover Furr. Leon Trotsky’s Collaboration with Germany and Japan: Trotsky’s Conspiracies of the 1930s, Volume Two. Kettering, OH: Erythrós Press & Media, LLC, 2017; The Fraud of the Dewey Commission. Leon Trotsky’s Lies. New York: Red Star Publishers, 2018; . Trotsky’s Lies. Kettering, OH: Erythrós Press & Media, LLC, 2019; New Evidence of Trotsky’s Conspiracy. Kettering, OH: Erythrós Press & Media, LLC, 2020; and Trotsky and the Military Conspiracy, cited above. 10 See Grover Furr. The Mystery of the Katyn Massacre. The Evidence, The Solution. Kettering, OH: Erythrós Press & Media, LLC, 2018.

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I have researched and written books about both of these dishonest studies, examined every single allegation of crime or misdeed by Stalin, studied the evidence presented by Kotkin and Snyder; studied the evidence they have omitted; and proven that these studies by American historians with worldwide reputations are utterly fraudulent.11 * We now know that the crimes and misdeeds alleged against Stalin and Lavrentii Beria in Nikita Khrushchev’s world-shaking “Secret Report” to the XX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on February 25, 1956, is the proverbial “tissue of lies,” that all but a single one of these allegations can be proven false by the evidence, most of it from the former Soviet archives, that we now possess.12 Stalin is routinely accused of “frame-ups” against innocent Soviet citizens. The truth turns out to be just the opposite. It is Stalin who is routinely “framed” for crimes and misdeeds we can now prove, by primary-source evidence, that he did not commit!

The Fraudulent Accusation that Stalin Had Mikhoels Killed We can now add to this list of false accusations against Stalin the tale that Stalin had Solomon Mikhoels murdered. It too is a fabrication, deliberately created by “respectable,” “mainstream” historians and other writers. There is no evidence at all to sustain it, and we have solid documentary evidence proving that it is false. 11 See Grover Furr. Stalin. Waiting for … the Truth. Exposing the Falsehoods in

Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin. Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941. New York: Red Star Publishers, 2019; Blood Lies. The Evidence that Every Accusation Against Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union in Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands Is False. New York: Red Star Publications, 2014. 12 Grover Furr. Khrushchev Lied: The Evidence That Every “Revelation” of Stalin's (and Beria's) Crimes in Nikita Khrushchev's Infamous “Secret Speech” to the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on February 25, 1956, is Provably False. Kettering, OH: Erythrós Press & Media LLC, 2011.

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The field of Soviet history of the Stalin period is a deeply corrupt field of study. Frauds like this one and many other claims of crimes by Stalin that can be exposed as frauds by a little research, are not questioned but accepted as the truth – as long as they have an antiStalin, anticommunist, and/or anti-Soviet tendency. Claims that Stalin committed some crime or other should never be accepted as true unless and until the primary-source evidence for them – if there is any – has been carefully studied in a thoroughly objective manner. But who is going to do this? We can hardly rely on academics in the field of Soviet history to do so. Even if they are objective, the Anti-Stalin Paradigm will prevent them from getting the results of their research published. And for the most part specialists in this field are devoted anticommunists – including anticommunists of the Trotskyist variety – so the chances are that they have no intention of doing objective research based on primary-source evidence. The truth about Soviet history of the Stalin period is of inestimable value to all those – surely the vast majority of humankind – who want to know the truth. Those who wish to create a better world than capitalism has to offer need to know what the Soviets during Stalin’s time did that was right, valuable, worthy of respect and even of imitation, and what has turned out to be mistaken, to be errors that future movements struggling for a better society must learn from and avoid. I hope that this study will contribute, however modestly, towards that end.

Chapter 9. Appendix of Russian Texts Chapter 01 V.L. Zuskin 1952: огда Збарский приехал на похороны, он мне говорил, что, безусловно, смерть Михоэлса последовала вследствие автомобильной катастрофы, и объяснил мне, что одна рука сломана и потом эта же щека в кровоподтеке. Это случилось вследствие того, что одна машина, шедшая навстречу, налетела на другую и их обоих отбросило в сторону, значит они погибли в результате удара машиной. И здесь же он мне сказал, что он умер хорошей смертью. Если бы ему оказали сразу помощь, то может быть можно было кое-что сделать, но он умер от замерзания, потому что он лежал несколько часов в снегу.1 L.E. Lur’e, in Sovetskaia Litva, January 13, 1963: Сегодня исполняется 15 лет со дня гибели выдающегося деятеля советской театральной культуры С. М. Михоэлса. Он был убит подлой кликой Берия – теми, кто расчетливо и безжалостно растаптывал материальную и духовную культуру народа, уничтожая выдающихся деятелей партии и государства, работников науки, литературы, искусства. Сегодня мы вспоминаем одного из них – художественного руководителя Московского Государственного еврейского театра, народного артиста СССР Соломона Михайловича Михоэлса. 1 Nepravedniy sud. Poslednii stalinskii rassrel. Moscow: “Nauka”, 1994, p. 309.

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Ilya Erenburg, from Chapter 15 of his autobiography: И вот Михоэлса убили … Тогда нам сказали, что Соломон Михайлович поехал в Минск вместе с Голубовым-Потаповым по поручению Комитета, присуждавшего Сталинские премии, — он должен был дать отзыв о постановке, выставленной на премию. Ночью его позвали в гости — он шел опять-таки вместе с ГолубовымПотаповым по одной из окраинных улиц, и там не то бандиты убили обоих, не то их раздавил грузовик. Эта версия казалась убедительной весной 1948 года; полгода спустя в ней многие начали сомневаться. Когда арестовали Зускина, все задумались: а как погиб Михоэлс?… Недавно советская газета, выходящая в Литве, рассказала, что Михоэлса убили агенты Берии. Не стану гадать, почему Берия, который мог бы преспокойно арестовать Михоэлса, прибег к злодейской маскировке; конечно, не потому, что щадил общественное мнение, скорее всего, развлекался. Я был на панихиде по Соломону Михайловичу в помещении его театра. Изуродованное лицо загримировали. Произносили речи. Помню выступление Фадеева. На улице стояла толпа, многие плакали.2

Vladimir Semichastniy 2002: … Мы боялись, что, получив рукопись «Двадцать писем к другу», американцы нашпигуют ее махровым антисоветским содержанием и этот пасквиль за подписью дочери Сталина растиражируют по всему миру. 2 Il’ia Erenburg, Liudi, gody, zhizn’. Kniga VI glava 15.

Chapter 9. Appendix of Russian Texts

Я предлагал, чтобы мы объявили, что подлинный экземпляр рукописи Аллилуевой находится в сейфе одного из швейцарских банков и после издания книги на Западе мы предоставим его для сравнения. Кроме того, я предложил упредить американцев и опубликовать подлинный текст «Писем» на Западе, используя каналы КГБ. Мы даже установили контакт с одним из западногерманских журналов, который был готов опубликовать исходный текст и заплатить нам при этом 50 000 долларов. При этом мы не хотели менять текст рукописи, чтобы Светлана не имела к нам никаких претензий. С этими предложениями я пришёл 18 мая на заседание Политбюро. Наша идея не нашла поддержки.3 Svetlana Allilueva 1984: Мое решение возвратиться на родину, и моей семье. – заявила она, -- основывалось исключительно на личных, человеческих мотивах. Я – не политический деятель, да и никогда им не была на протяжении всей своей жизни. Попав в этот самый так называемый «свободный мир», я сама не была в нём свободна ни единого дня. Там я попала в руки бизнесменов, адвокатов, политических дельцов и издателей, которые превратили имя моего отца, моё имя и мою жизнь в сенсационный товар. Мои действия контролировало ЦРУ, которое говорило, что я должна писать и как поступать4.. 3 Vladimir Semichaastniy, Bespokoinoe serdtse Moscow: Vagrius, 2002, 367-8. 4 “Vstrecha s zhurnalistami” [Meeting with journalists], Pravda 17 November

1984.

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Roi A. Medvedev 1974: Был убит в Минске и руководитель Еврейского театра, крупный общественный деятель и выдающийся артист С. М. Михоэлс. В книге д' Астье де ля Вижери о Сталине, изданной во Франции в 1964 году, рассказывается, что еще в 1946 году, по совету Кагановича Сталин пригласил к себе Михоэлса и попросил его исполнить роль короля Лира. В дальнейшем этот замечательный артист еще не один раз приглашался к Сталину и играл для него одного отрывки из ролей Шекспира. Каждый раз Сталин благодарил Михоэлса и высоко оценивал его игру. А в 1948 году, не без ведома Сталина, Михоэлс был убит в Минске. Через несколько лет, уже посмертно, этот артист был бездоказательно объявлен шпионом англо-американской и израильской разведок. (971) V.G. Gusarov 1978: Отец был… с [19]47 по [19]50-й – первым секретарём ЦК КП Белоруссии … Именно в годы правления моего отца в Минске был убит Михоэлс. Подробности этого убийства мне неизвестны. Вполне возможно, что его убил не папа, а министр МГБ Цанава, племянник Берия, а может, и еще кто, но дело не меняется от этого. Сам я в Белоруссии никогда не бывал, мы уже не жили с отцом, но и я причастен.5

Popov and Oppokov, in VIZh 1989: Так, в свое время высказывались предположения о причастности Берии и гибели Камо, Михоэлса, Ива 5 Published edition, p. 8; digital edition, p. 2.

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Фаржа. Основанием для подобного обвинения являлось то, что смерть всех троих стала следствием автомобильных происшествий, результаты расследования в трех случаях ни к чему не привели, а личную заинтересованность Берии в каждом трагическом происшествии утаить, словно шило в мешке, было не так уж просто.6 Popov and Oppokov, ibid., long footnote: МИХОЭЛС (Вовси) Соломон Михайлович (18901948). Известный советский актёр и режиссёр, народный артист СССР. С первых дней открытия государственного еврейского театра входил в его труппу, в 1929 стал художественным руководителем этого творческого коллектива. Этим самым, что можно предположить, он «перешёл дорогу» Берии. Как свидетельствуют факты, в стратегические планы последнего входило прослыть «отцом» не только грузинского, но и еврейского народов, истребив значительную часть и того, и другого. Причём «отец» должен быть просвещённым вроде Сталина, писавшего в свое время стихи. Берия решил стать новым мессией. спасающим «свой» народ от невежества и тьмы, благодетелем, возвращающим «своему» народу культурные ценности, в частности национальные театр и печать. Объявить себя таковым в области театрального искусства мешал в немалой степени авторитет Михоэлса. Народного артиста нужно было убрать, а по истечении нескольких лет, когда загадочная смерть стала бы забываться, объявить себя организатором еврейского театра. Именно организа 6 B.S. Popov and B.G. Oppokov, “Berievshchina.” VIZh 3 (1990), 81-90, at pages

84-5. The same text is in the article on Beria in V.R. Nekrasov, ed. Beria. Konets kar’ery. Moscow: Politizdat, 1991, 339-40.

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тором! ... На это Берия решился, вступив в должность... Министра внутренних дел СССР. Когда на допросе 10 июля 1953 г. его спросили какое отношение к нему имели вопросы восстановления (!) еврейского театра и издания еврейской газеты, он ответил, что в организации (!) театра и издании газеты «мы по линии МВД были заинтересованы, мое отношение к этим вопросам было с позиции освещения настроений интеллигенции». При этом, как бы в оправдание, уточнил, что готовил с связи с этим соответствующую записку в ЦК партии. Опровергая эту ложь, ему зачитали показания его приближенного Людвигова. Тот утверждал, что «часто вмешиваясь не в свои функции, Берия, по существу, подменял Центральный Комитет, игнорировал его ... По этим же мотивам работники Министерства внутренних дел, минуя ЦК, занимались вопросами деятельности Министерства культуры, вопросами восстановления еврейского театра, организации еврейской газеты, работной положения о порядке награждения орденами и т.д.» -- Дело по обвинению Л.П. Берии ... т.1 л. 115. A paragraph from Khrushchev’s memoirs as published in Voprosy Istorii 11 (1991): Произошла расправа с Михоэлсом , величайшим артистом еврейского театра , человеком большой культуры . Его зверски убили, убили тайно , а потом наградили его убийц и с честью похоронили их жертву : уму непостижимо! Изобразили, что он попал под грузовую автомашину, а он был подброшен под нее. Это было разыграно артистически. А кто сие сделал? Люди по поручению Сталина. Таким же образом хотели организовать убийство Литвинова . Когда подняли ряд документов после

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смерти Сталина и допросили работников МГБ , то выяснилось , что Литвинова должны были убить по дороге из Москвы на дачу. (page 59) The passage about Zhemchuzhina from Shkiriatov’s and Abakumov’s report of December 27, 1948: При очных ставках с Жемчужиной также установлено, что, находясь у гроба Михоэлса в еврейском театре, в беседе с Зускиным она говорила, что Михоэлс убит. Зускин на очной ставке о своем разговоре с Жемчужиной заявил следующее: «Вечером, 13 января 1948 года я стоял у гроба и принимал венки от всех организации и в это время увидел Полину Семеновну, поздоровался с ней и выразил ей печаль по поводу смерти Михоэлса. Во время беседы Полина Семеновна спрашивает: „Так вы думаете, что здесь было – несчастный случай или убийство?” Я говорил: „На основании того, что мы получили сообщение от т. Иовчука, Михоэлс погиб в результате автомобильной катастрофы, его наши в 7 часов утра на улице, невдалеке от гостиницы”. А Полина Семеновна возразила мне и сказала: „Дело обстоит не так гладко, как это пытаются представить. Это убийство”… Из разговора с Жемчужиной, и, в частности, ее заявления о том, что Михоэлс убит, я сделал вывод, что смерть Михоэлса является результатом преднамеренного убийства». Что действительно такой разговор Жемчужиной имел место, подтверждается и заявлением на очной ставке Фефера, которому Зускин в этот не день сообщил о своем разговоре с Жемчужиной: «Первое, что она мне сказала, – сообщил Зускин, – „какой же этот мерзавец Храпченко,14 не мог по-

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слать другого человека в Минск вместо Михоэлса”. Потом, после паузы. Жемчужина покачала головой и говорит: „Это не случайная смерть, это не случайность. Его убили”. Я спросил у Зускина: „Кто убил?”. „Она не говорила кто”, – ответил Зускин. Ну, видимо, убили его специально. При этом он сказал такую фразу: „Не то обезглавили, не то голову сняли”. Такого же мнения и Жемчужина, - заключил Зускин. Я вновь спросил, кто же обвиняется в этом деле. Зускин ответил, что из разговора с Жемчужиной у него сложилось мнение, что речь шла о советских органах». Подобное поведение Жемчужиной дало повод враждебным людям подтверждать распространяемые ими провокационные слухи о том, что Михоэлс был преднамеренно убит. - Записка М.Ф.Шкирятова и В.С.Абакумова о П.С.Жемчужной. 27.12.1948. Дело Еврейского Антифашистского Комитета. Док. №2, https://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/almanah/inside /almanah-doc/79

Chapter 02 The “Beria Letter” – the Argumenty i Fakty Text, May 1992 В Президиум ЦК КПСС тов.Маленкову Г.М. ...В процессе проверки материалов на Михоэлса выясилось, что в феврале 1948 г. В Минске бывшим заместителем МГБ СССР Огольцовым совместно с бывшим министром ГБ Белорусской ССР Цанава по поручению министра госбезопасности

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Абакумова была проведена незаконная операция по физической ликвидации Михозлса. В связи с этим в МВД СССР был допрошен Абакумов и получены объяснения Огольцова и Цанава. Об обстоятельствах проведения этой преступной операции Абакумов показал: «Насколько я помню, в 1948 г. Глава советского правительства И.В.Сталин дал мне срочное задание – быстро организовать работниками МГБ СССР ликвидацию Михоэлса, поручив это специальным лицам. Тогда было известно, что Михоэлс, а вместе с ним и его друг, фамилии которого я не помню, прибыли в Минск. Когда об этом было доложено И.В.Сталину, он сразу же дал указание именно в Минске и провести ликвидацию ... Когда Михоэлс был ликвидирован и об этом было доложено И.В. Сталину, он высоко оценил это мероприятие и велел наградить орденами, что и было сделано. (попутно ликвидировали и агента МГБ СССР Голубова В.И., сопровождавшего Михоэлса). Было несколько вариантов устранения Михоэлса: а) автомобильная катастрофа, 6) путем наезда грузовой машины на малолюдной улице, в) так как оба не давали гарантий – было принято следующее решение – через агентуру пригласить Михоэлса в ночное время в гости к каким-либо знакомым, подать ему машину к гостинице, где оп проживал, привезти его на территорию загородной дачи Цанава Л.Ф., где и ликвидировать, а потом труп вывезти на малолюдную (глухую) улицу города, положить на дороге, ведущей к гостинице, и произвести наезд грузовой машины...Так и было сделано. Во имя тайны убрали и Голубова, который поехал с Михоэлсом в rости... (на даче они были раздавлены грузовой машиной).

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МВД считает необходимым: а) арестовать и привлечь к уголовной ответственности зам. МГБ СССР Огольцова С.И. и бывшего министра ГБ Белорусской ССР Цанава Л.Ф. б) Указ Президиума Верховного Совета СССР о награждении участников убийства Михоэлса и Голубова отменить. 2.IV.1953 г. Л.Берия·

Chapter 03 “Awards Decree” from Levashov, Document #2 Публикации не подлежит. УКАЗ ПРЕЗИДИУМА ВЕРХОВНОГО СОВЕТА СССР

О награждении орденами генералов и офицеров Министерства государственной безопасности СССР.

За успешное выполнение специального задания Правительства наградить:

ОРДЕНОМ КРАСНОГО ЗНАМЕНИ: Генерал-лейтенанта ЦАНАВА Лаврентия Фомича

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*ОРДЕНОМ ОТЕЧЕСТВЕНОЙ ВОЙНЫ I СТЕПЕНИ:* 1. Старшего лейтенанта КРУГЛОВА Бориса Алексеевича 2. Полковника ЛЕБЕДЕВА Василия Евгеньевича 3. Полковника ШУБНЯКОВА Федора Григорьевича Председатель Президиума Верховного Совета СССР Н. Шверник Секретарь Президиума Верховного Совета СССР А. Горкин".

“Awards Decree” from Kostyrchenko, Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm, Document #3:

ВЫПИСКА ИЗ ПРОТОКОЛА п. 301. О награждении орденами генералов и офицеров Министерства государственной безопасности СССР

Утвердить проект указа Президиума Верховного Совета СССР о награждении орденами генералов и офицеров Министерства государственной безопасности СССР:

Без опубликования в печати

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«За успешное выполнение специального задания Правительства наградить: Орденом Красного Знамени1 генерал-лейтенанта Цанава Лаврентия Фомича Орденом Отечественной войны I степени 1) старшего лейтенанта Круглова Бориса Алексеевича 2) полковника Лебедева Василия Евгеньевича 3) полковника Шубнякова Федора Григорьевича Орденом Красной Звезды 1) майора Косырева Александра Харлампиевича 2) майора Повзун Николая Федоровича

Председатель Президиума Верховного Совета СССР Н. ШВЕРНИК Секретарь Президиума Верховного Совета СССР А. ГОРКИН» РГАСПИ. Ф. 17. Оп. 3. Д. 1072. Л. 74, 213. Копия. 1 За руководство спецоперацией по устранению

С.М Михоэлса ордена Красного Знамени получили также B.C. Абакумов и С.И. Огольцов. Это награждение было произведено по сводному указу Президиума Верховного Совета СССР (от 29 октября 1948 г.), куда была включена большая группа других руководящих сотрудников МГБ СССР.

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Chapter 04a Михоэлс прибыл в Минск 8 января 1948 г. вечером с Голубовым В. И., замредактором ж. «Театр», и секретарем парторганизации Комитета по делам искусств СССР Барашко (Илларион Матвеевич Барашко [1905–1968] – белорусский писатель; после войны работал в Министерстве культуры СССР, Министерстве культуры РСФСР. – Э. И.). Вечером 8 января в гостинице «Беларусь» был банкет, устроенный администрацией драмтеатра (замдиректора Гайдарин-Равинский Абрам Гершкович, главный администратор Залесский Яков Борисович, артист Сокол Моисей Борисович и др.). 9 января после просмотра в театре постановки «Тевье-молочник» Михоэлс, Голубов с участниками постановки до 4-х часов утра пьянствовали в ресторане «Заря». 10 января – банкет у артиста драмтеатра Глебова. 11 января днем обед у Сокола М. Б. Вечером после оперы «Алеся» в первом часу ночи ужинал у Арончик и Чайгорской. 12 января днем Михоэлс и Голубов с Гайдариным и Залесским был в ресторане «Заря» и в 5 часов дня ушел в гостиницу «Беларусь». Отдыхали до 9 часов вечера. Потом ушли якобы к другу Голубова – Сергееву, инженеру, работнику железнодорожного транспорта, с которым Голубов учился в институте Трупы Михоэлса и Голубова обнаружены около вновь строящейся трамвайной линии с улицы

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Свердлова на улицу Гарбарная. Вскрытие проходило в 14 часов 13 января. Смерть наступила за 15–16 часов ранее. За два часа до смерти был прием пищи У погибших все вещи и деньги были целы. У убитого Михоэлса среди документов был обнаружен договор с директором Белгосета о художественной консультации Михоэлса в подготовке и проведении спектакля. Трупы обнаружили в __ часов утра рабочие, которые шли на работу. Погибшие были запорошены снегом. Одна галоша (кажется, с ноги Голубова) валялась недалеко. По делу Михоэлса опрашивались актеры еврейского театра Арончик Ю. С., Сонкин С. М., Чайгорская М. М., Моин М. М., Рутштейн К. Л. Все они говорили примерно одно и то же. 9 января после встречи с актерами в ресторане (человек 40) направились в общежитие еврейского театра (в помещении еврейского театра по ул. Володарского, 5) на квартиру к Моину, где пили черный кофе. 10 января в 13 час. Михоэлс провел беседу с актерами в еврейском театре. 11 января находились у Гольдшварца. Во время спектакля в театре оперы «Алеся» сообщили, что приедет секретарь ЦК ВКП(б)Б (здесь ошибка: правильно ЦК КП(б)Б. – Э. И.) Иовчук, который хотел встретиться с Михоэлсом и поговорить с ним после спектакля. В связи с этим Михоэлс отказался от идеи ехать к другу Голубова на именины. После спектакля в кабинете у Гольдшварца состоялась беседа с Иовчуком, ко-

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торый предложил подвезти всех участников встречи в машине до дома. В машине с Иовчуком Арончик, Чайгорской доехали до здания еврейского театра (на Володарского). Михоэлс остался, Иовчук уехал, а Барашко с Голубовым вернулись в гостиницу. Актеры вспоминали, что накануне в театре рядом с Голубовым сидел незнакомый человек в штатском, которого Голубов ни с кем не познакомил, а потом лишь сказал, что это его однокурсник по институту. Вспоминали также о том, что Голубов очень уговаривал Михоэлса съездить к его другу на именины, что тот даже предоставит машину, т. е. Михоэлса отвезут и привезут обратно и что это много времени не отнимет, они побудут там буквально 30–40 минут. Актеры еврейского театра не соглашались отпускать Михоэлса. Голубов очень настаивал. Машина как будто должна была ожидать их около гостиницы 11 января, и они должны были сразу после спектакля «Алеся» съездить на именины. Но учитывая, что приехал Иовчук, времени на поездку в гости уже не осталось, было позднее время. На следующий день Голубов говорил о том, что его товарищ специально из-за Михоэлса отложил свой праздник и ждет его 12 января. На вопросы актеров, где живет его товарищ, Голубов ничего конкретного не говорил, адреса не называл, а лишь сказал, что это недалеко и они могут даже пешком дойти. После 21 часа 12 января они и ушли из гостиницы. Барашко на следствии показал, что он был вместе с Михоэлсом и Голубовым лишь на просмотрах

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спектаклей, а в свободное время уходил к своим родственникам, которые жили в г. Минске. 12 января он пришел вечером в гостиницу и Михоэлса с Голубовым уже не застал. Командировочные удостоверения и (кажется) билеты были у Голубова. Планировали уехать в Москву 13 января где-то около 12 часов (10–12). Когда Барашко проснулся утром, М. и Г. не было. Но Барашко не беспокоился, поскольку решил, что они заночевали у друзей. Однако ожидание затянулось, и Барашко решил ехать один. Оставил на столе записку, что больше ждать не может, и собирался уходить. Но тут (ктото из актерской среды) пришел и сообщил, что Михоэлса и Голубова нашли мертвыми на улице. Text from “We and Time” January 12, 1994: Мне неоднократно приходилось ранее читать статьи о гибели зимой 1947/1948 гг. в Минске известного артиста Михоэлса (Вовси Соломона Михайловича) Высказываемые авторами этих статей утверждения удивляют своей бездоказательностью. Не указывается место гибели артиста, виновники и исполнители убийства, отсутствуют ссылки на свидетельские показания, официальные документы Сейчас, когда в печати вновь возник интерес к этому событию, я решил рассказать о том, с чем мне пришлось по долгу службы столкнуться в ту злополучную зиму. После демобилизации из действующей Армии в 1945 г. меня направили на работу в МГБ БССР Около 3-х часов ночи нам сообщили из МВД, что около гостиницы «Беларусь» на ул. Кирова неизвестной грузовой машиной был сбит постоялец гостиницы – артист из Москвы Вовси С.М., труп которого был обнаружен на проезжей части улицы недалеко от входа в гостиницу Медики МВД установили, что перед смертью покойный

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был в нетрезвом состоянии, а расследующий сообщил, что фамилия погибшего – Вовси С. М. Лишь через несколько дней из разговоров я узнал, что погибший в эту ночь был Михоэлс. Сегодня авторы статей о гибели Михоэлса утверждают, что его убили на даче Цанавы. Но если так, то спрашивается: зачем убийцам надо было везти тело своей жертвы в центр города, в самое людное, освещенное место – к крыльцу гостиницы – и там его, рискуя разоблачением, бросать? Не проще ли было сделать это где-либо на обычной темной улице или в развалинах, а потом всё списать на бандитов?

Chapter 05 Quotation from the October 26, 1988 meeting of the “Rehabilitation” Committee: Тов. Яковлев А.Н. Ну, хорошо. Повестка дня тогда исчерпана. Но я хотел бы, товарищи, вот о чем ещё сказать. Сегодня должен был бы обсуждаться вопрос по еврейскому антифашистскому комитету. Материалы все были подготовлены, но вскрылись новые данные по документам, которые находились только в Центральном Комитете, в частности, записка т. Суслова от 1946 года, записка Абакумова и допросы Гринберга. Эти документы хранятся только в ЦК. Дело в том, что в 1946 году Суслов написал записку, очень плохую записку, она содержит политическое обвинение. Но 2 года после этого ничего не

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было. И только в 1948 году, используя те же аргументы, Абакумов тоже написал записку Сталину. Поэтому, я думаю, нужно ввести эти документы, то есть выяснить, как всё это началось. Очень странные и натянутые обвинения. Поэтому давайте с учётом их изучения и составим окончательный документ, чтобы мы уже всё знали и всем располагали.7 Quotation from “Protocol No. 7 of the meeting of the Politburo Commission on additional study of materials related to repressions that took place in the period of the 30, 40s and early 50s, with appendices.” 12/29/1988: На основании показаний Гольдштейна 28 декабря 1947 года был арестован Гринберг. На допросе 1 марта 1948 года, подтвердив показания Гольдштейна, он показал, что «Еврейским антифашистским комитетом» почти с самого основания проводится активная националистическая работа, направленная к искусственному обособлению еврейского населения и распространению среди него враждебной сионистской идеологии. Вокруг Комитета группируется еврейское население, особенно интеллигенция, которое обрабатывается Комитетом в антисоветском духе. Руководитель «ЕАК» Михоэлс (погиб в автокатастрофе в г. Минске в 1948 году), являясь ярым националистом, стянул в «ЕАК» своих единомышленников Фефера, Бергельсона, Маркиша, Квитко, Шимелиовича, Штерн, Нусинова».8

7 RKEB 1, 132-133. Also at https://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-

doc/66179

8 RKEB 3, 157. Online at https://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-

doc/66196 (as of June 25, 2022).

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227



“Decision of the Presidium of the CC CPSU on the Results of the Verification of the Circumstances of the Murder of S. M. Mikhoels and the Punishment of the Guilty Parties,” dated the following day, April 3, 1953: № 7 ПОСТАНОВЛЕНИЕ ПРЕЗИДИУМА ЦК КПСС О РЕЗУЛЬТАТАХ ПРОВЕРКИ ОБСТОЯТЕЛЬСТВ УБИЙСТВА С. М.МИХОЭЛСА И НАКАЗАНИИ ВИНОВНЫХ 3 апреля 1953 г. № 3. П. II – ЗАПИСКА МВД СССР О РЕЗУЛЬТАТАХ ПРОВЕРКИ МАТЕРИАЛОВ О МИХОЭЛСЕ. Учитывая, что убийство Михоэлса и Голубова является вопиющим нарушением прав советского гражданина, охраняемых Конституцией СССР, а также в целях повышения ответственности оперативного состава органов МВД за неуклонное соблюдение советских законов, принять предложение Министерства внутренних дел СССР: а) Об аресте и привлечении к уголовной ответственности быв. заместителя министра государственной безопасности СССР Огольцова С.И. и быв. министра государственной безопасности Белорусской ССР Цанава Л.Ф. б) Об отмене Указа Президиума Верховного Совета СССР о награждении орденами и медалями участников убийства Михоэлса и Голубова. АП РФ. Ф. 3. Оп. 32. Д. 17. Л. 129. Копия. Машинопись

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Chapter 06 – see two separate appendices: the Russian text of Kostyrchenko’s 2015 version; the English translation divided into 27 paragraphs.

Chapter 08 Quotations at the beginning of the chapter: Stalin, January 12, 1931: «Национальный и расовый шовинизм есть пережиток человеконенавистнических нравов, свойственных периоду каннибализма. Антисемитизм, как крайняя форма расового шовинизма, является наиболее опасным пережитком каннибализма. Антисемитизм выгоден эксплуататорам как громоотвод, выводящий капитализм из-под удара трудящихся. Антисемитизм опасен для трудящихся как ложная тропинка, сбивающая их с правильного пути и приводящая их в джунгли. Поэтому коммунисты как последовательные интернационалисты не могут не быть непримиримыми и заклятыми врагами антисемитизма. В СССР строжайше преследуется законом антисемитизм как явление глубоко враждебное Советскому строю. Активные антисемиты караются по законам СССР смертной казнью.» Molotov, from Chuev: «Сталин не был антисемитом, как его порой пытаются изобразить» Kaganovich, from Chuev: «Есть высказывания Сталина по этому вопросу — о том, что антисемитизм у нас уголовно наказуем. Сталин не был антисемитом Но боялся Ста-

Chapter 9. Appendix of Russian Texts

лин того, что у евреев много мелкобуржуазных элементов . Но это не антисемитизм» Tikhon Khrennikov: - «… [П]оследняя встреча была в декабре 1952 года, за 2-3 месяца до смерти Сталина, мы сидим, обсуждаем (а вел всегда Политбюро Маленков, а Сталин сидел в сторонке, не имел вроде бы к этому отношение), - и вдруг Сталин говорит: “Товарищ Маленков, у нас что, в ЦК антисемиты завелись?! Это же безобразие, это же позорит нашу партию!” И такой произнес монолог, а в это время было “дело врачей”, шла такая антисемитская атмосфера. Мы переглянулись с Фадеевым: оказывается, Сталин ничего не знает, что происходит.»



229

Appendix. The Primary Documents in the Mikhoels Case in Russian and English Document #1: The “Beria Letter” from Kostyrchenko, ed. Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm. Л.П. БЕРИЯ - В ПРЕЗИДИУМ ЦК КПСС О ПРИВЛЕЧЕНИИ К ОТВЕТСТВЕННОСТИ ЛИЦ, ВИНОВНЫХ В УБИЙСТВЕ С.М. МИХОЭЛСА И В.И. ГОЛУБОВА-ПОТАПОВА

2 апреля 1953 г. Совершенно секретно т. МАЛЕНКОВУ Г.М. В ходе проверки материалов следствия по так называемому «делу о врачах- вредителях», арестованных бывшим Министерством государственной безопасности СССР, было установлено, что ряду видных деятелей советской медицины, по национальности евреям, в качестве одного из главных обвинений инкриминировалась связь с известным общественным деятелем — народным артистом СССР МИХОЭЛСОМ. В этих материалах МИХОЭЛС изображался как руководитель антисоветского еврейского националистического центра, якобы проводившего подрывную работу против Советского Союза по указаниям из США.

Версия о террористической и шпионской работе арестованных врачей ВОВСИ М.С., КОГАНА Б.Б. и ГРИНШТЕЙНА А.М. «основывалась» на том, что они были знакомы, а ВОВСИ состоял в родственной связи с МИХОЭЛСОМ.

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Следует отметить, что факт знакомства с МИХОЭЛСОМ был также использован фальсификаторами из бывшего МГБ СССР для провокационного измышления обвинения в антисоветской националистической деятельности П.С. ЖЕМЧУЖИНОЙ, которая на основании этих ложных данных была арестована и осуждена Особым Совещанием МГБ СССР к ссылке. В связи с этими обстоятельствами Министерством внутренних дел СССР были подвергнуты проверке имеющиеся в бывшем МГБ СССР материалы о МИХОЭЛСЕ. В результате проверки установлено, что МИХОЭЛС на протяжении ряда лет находился под постоянным агентурным наблюдением органов государственной безопасности и, наряду с положительной и правильной критикой отдельных недостатков в различных отраслях государственного строительства СССР, иногда высказывал некоторое недовольство по отдельным вопросам, связанным главным образом с положением евреев в Советском Союзе. Следует подчеркнуть, что органы государственной безопасности не располагали какими-либо данными о практической антисоветской и тем более шпионской, террористической или какой-либо иной подрывной работе МИХОЭЛСА против Советского Союза. Необходимо также отметить, что в 1943 году МИХОЭЛС, будучи председателем еврейского антифашистского комитета СССР, выезжал, как известно, в США, Канаду, Мексику и Англию и его выступления там носили патриотический характер. В процессе проверки материалов на МИХОЭЛСА выяснилось, что в феврале 1948 года1 в гор. Минске б[ывшим] заместителем Министра госбезопаснос- ти СССР ОГОЛЬЦОВЫМ, совместно с б[ывшим] Министром госбезопасности Белорусской ССР ЦАНАВА, по поручению бывшего Министра государственной безопасности АБАКУМОВА, была проведена незаконная операция по физической ликвидации МИХОЭЛСА.

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В связи с этим Министерством внутренних дел СССР был допрошен АБАКУМОВ и получены объяснения ОГОЛЬЦОВА и ЦАНАВА. Об обстоятельствах проведения этой преступной операции АБАКУМОВ показал: «Насколько я помню, в 1948 году глава Советского правительства И.В. Сталин2 дал мне срочное задание — быстро организовать работниками МГБ СССР ликвидацию МИХОЭЛСА, поручив это специальным лицам. Тогда было известно, что МИХОЭЛС, а вместе с ним и его друг, фамилию которо го не помню1, прибыли в Минск. Когда об этом было доложено И.В. Сталину, он сразу же дал указание именно в Минске и провести ликвидацию МИХОЭЛСА под видом несчастного случая2, т.е. чтобы МИХОЭЛС и его спутник погибли, попав под автомашину. В этом же разговоре перебирались руководящие работники МГБ СССР, которым можно было бы поручить проведение указанной операции. Было сказано — возложить проведение операции на ОГОЛЬЦОВА, ЦАНАВА и ШУБНЯКОВА. После этого ОГОЛЬЦОВ и ШУБНЯКОВ, вместе с группой подготовленных ими для данной операции работников, выехали в Минск, где совместно с ЦАНАВА и провели ликвидацию МИХОЭЛСА. Когда МИХОЭЛС был ликвидирован и об этом было доложено И.В. Сталину, он высоко оценил это мероприятие и велел наградить орденами, что и было сделано». ОГОЛЬЦОВ, касаясь обстоятельств ликвидации МИХОЭЛСА и ГОЛУБОВА, показал: «Поскольку уверенности в благополучном исходе операции во время “автомобильной катастрофы” у нас не было, да и это могло привести к жертвам наших сотрудников, мы остановились на варианте — провести ликвидацию МИХОЭЛСА путем наезда на него грузовой машины на малолюдной улице. Но этот вариант, хотя был и лучше первого, но он также не гарантировал успех операции наверняка. Поэтому было решено МИХОЭЛСА через агентуру пригласить в ночное время в гости к каким-либо знакомым, подать ему машину к гостинице,

где он проживал, привезти его на территорию загород-

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ной дачи ЦАНАВА Л.Ф., где и ликвидировать, а потом труп вывезти на малолюдную (глухую) улицу города, положить на дороге, ведущей к гостинице, и произвести наезд грузовой машиной. Этим самым создавалась правдоподобная картина несчастного случая наезда автомашины на возвращавшихся с гулянки людей, тем паче подобные случаи в Минске в то время были очень часты. Так было и сделано». ЦАНАВА, подтверждая объяснения ОГОЛЬЦОВА об обстоятельствах убийства МИХОЭЛСА и ГОЛУБОВА, заявил: «... Зимой 1948 года, в бытность мою Министром госбезопасности Белорусской ССР, по ВЧ позвонил мне АБАКУМОВ и спросил, имеются ли у нас возможности для выполнения одного важного задания И.В. Сталина. Я ответил ему, что будет сделано. Вечером он мне позвонил и передал, что для выполнения одного важного решения Правительства и личного указания И.В. Сталина в Минск выезжает ОГОЛЬЦОВ с группой работников МГБ СССР, а мне надлежит оказать ему содействие. ...При приезде ОГОЛЬЦОВ сказал нам, что по решению Правительства и личному указанию И.В. Сталина должен быть ликвидирован МИХОЭЛС, который через день или два приезжает в Минск по делам службы... Убийство МИХОЭЛСА было осуществлено в точном соответствии с этим планом... Примерно в 10 часов вечера МИХОЭЛСА и ГОЛУБОВА завезли во двор дачи (речь идет о даче ЦАНАВА на окраине Минска). Они немедленно с машины были сняты и раздавлены грузовой автомашиной. Примерно в 12 часов ночи, когда по городу Минску движение публики сокращается, трупы МИХОЭЛСА и ГОЛУБОВА были погружены на грузовую машину, отвезены и брошены на одной из глухих улиц города. Утром они были обнаружены рабочими, которые об этом сообщили в милицию».

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Таким образом, произведенным Министерством внутренних дел СССР расследованием установлено, что в феврале 1948 года ОГОЛЬЦОВЫМ и ЦАНАВА, совместно с группой оперативных работников МГБ — технических исполнителей, под руководством АБАКУМОВА, была проведена преступная операция по зверскому убийству МИХОЭЛСА и ГОЛУБОВА. Учитывая, что убийство МИХОЭЛСА и ГОЛУБОВА является вопиющим нарушением прав советского гражданина, охраняемых Конституцией СССР, а также в целях повышения ответственности оперативного состава органов МВД за неуклонное соблюдение советских законов, Министерство внутренних дел СССР считает необходимым: а) арестовать и привлечь к уголовной ответственности б[ывшего] заместителя Министра государственной безопасности СССР ОГОЛЬЦОВА С.И. и б[ывшего] Министра государственной безопасности Белорусской ССР ЦАНАВА Л.Ф.; б) указ Президиума Верховного Совета СССР о награждении орденами и медалями участников убийства МИХОЭЛСА и ГОЛУБОВА — отменить. Л. БЕРИЯ АП РФ. Ф. 3. Оп. 58. Д. 536, Л. 1 03-107. Подлинник1

1 Опубликовано: Лаврентий Берия. 1953. Стенограмма июльского пленума ЦК КПСС и другие документы /Сост. В. Наумов, Ю. Сигачев. М., 1999. С. 25—28.

April 2, 1953 Top secret

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To Comrade MALENKOV G.M. In the course of checking the materials of the investigation in the so-called “case of the “doctor-saboteurs”, arrested by the former USSR Ministry of State Security, it was found that a number of prominent figures of Soviet medicine, Jewish by nationality, were charged as one of the main charges with connection with the wellknown public figure - People's Artist of the USSR MIKHOELS. In these materials, MIKHOELS was portrayed as the head of an antiSoviet Jewish nationalist center that allegedly carried out subversive work against the Soviet Union on instructions from the United States. The version about the terrorist and espionage work of the arrested doctors VOVSI M.S., KOGAN B.B. and Grinshtein A.M. had as its “basis” the fact that they knew each other and that VOVSI was related to MIKHOELS. It should be noted that the fact of acquaintance with MIKHOELS was also used by falsifiers from the former Ministry of State Security of the USSR to provocatively fabricate charges of anti-Soviet nationalist activities of P.S. Zhemchuzhina, who, based on these false data, was arrested and condemned to exile by the Special Council of the MGB of the USSR. In connection with these circumstances, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR subjected to verification the materials available in the former Ministry of State Security of the USSR about MIKHOELS. As a result of the audit, it was established that MIKHOELS for a number of years was under constant surveillance by state security agencies and, along with positive and correct criticism of certain shortcomings in various branches of state building in the USSR, sometimes expressed some dissatisfaction on certain issues related mainly to the situation of Jews in Soviet Union. It should be emphasized that the state security agencies did not have any data on any actual anti-Soviet, and even less on espio-

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nage, terrorist or any other subversive work of MIKHOELS against the Soviet Union. It should also be noted that in 1943, MIKHOELS, as chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee of the USSR, traveled, as is known, to the USA, Canada, Mexico and England, and his speeches there were of a patriotic nature. In the process of checking materials at MIKHOELS, it turned out that in February 19481 in the city of Minsk, the former Deputy Minister of State Security of the USSR OGOLTSOV, together with the former Minister of State Security of the Byelorussian SSR TsANAVA, on behalf of the former Minister of State Security ABAKUMOV, carried out an illegal operation to physically liquidate MIKHOELS. In connection with this, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR interrogated ABAKUMOV and received explanations from OGOLTSOV and TsANAVA. Concerning the circumstances of this criminal operation, ABAKUMOV testified: “As far as I remember, in 1948 the head of the Soviet government J.V. Stalin2 gave me an urgent task - to quickly organize the liquidation of MIKHOELS by employees of the USSR Ministry of State Security, entrusting this to special persons. It was then known that MIKHOELS, and together with him his friend, whose name I do not remember1, had arrived in Minsk. When this was reported to J.V. Stalin, he immediately instructed to liquidate MIKHOELS precisely in Minsk under the guise of an accident2, i.e. for MIKHOELS and his companion to die after being run over by a car. In the same conversation, senior officials of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR were selected who could be entrusted with carrying out this operation. It was said to entrust the conduct of the operation to OGOLTSOV, TsANAVA and SHUBNYAKOV. After that, OGOLTSOV and SHUBNYAKOV, together with a group of workers prepared by them for this operation, left for Minsk, where, together with TsANAVA, they carried out the liquidation of MIKHOELS. When MIKHOELS was liquidated and this was reported to J.V. Stalin, he ap-

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preciated this highly and ordered to award them decorations, which was done.” OGOLTSOV, referring to the circumstances of the liquidation of MIKHOELS and GOLUBOV, testified: “Since we had no confidence in a successful outcome of the operation during the “car accident”, and since this could lead to harm to our employees, we settled on the option of liquidating MIKHOELS by striking him with a truck on a sparsely populated street. But this option, although it was better than the first, also did not guarantee the success of the operation for sure. Therefore, it was decided to invite MIKHOELS through our agents to visit some acquaintances at night, provide him with a car at the hotel where he was staying, bring him to the place where TsANAVA L.F. had a dacha where he would be liquidated, then take his body to a littleused) street of the city, put on the road leading to the hotel, and run over it with a truck. This created a plausible picture of an accident of a car hitting people returning from a party, all the more since such cases were quite frequent in Minsk at that time. That's how it was done.” TsANAVA, confirming OGOLTSOV's explanations about the circumstances of the murder of MIKHOELS and GOLUBOV, stated: “... In the winter of 1948, when I was the Minister of State Security of the Byelorussian SSR, ABAKUMOV called me on HF and asked if we had the opportunity to complete an important task for J.V. Stalin. I told him we would do it. In the evening, he called me and told me that in order to fulfill an important decision of the Government and the personal instructions of J.V. Stalin, OGOLTSOV was leaving for Minsk with a group of employees of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR, and I should assist him.



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... Upon arrival, OGOLTSOV told us that, by decision of the Government and the personal instructions of J.V. Stalin, MIKHOELS should be liquidated, and that he would arrive in Minsk in a day or two on business ... The murder of MIKHOELS was carried out in strict accordance with this plan ... At about 10 pm, MIKHOELS and GOLUBOV were brought to the courtyard of the dacha (we are talking about TsANAVA’s dacha on the outskirts of Minsk). They were immediately removed from the car and crushed by a truck. At about 12 o'clock in the morning, when the movement of the public in the city of Minsk was reduced, the bodies of MIKHOELS and GOLUBOV were loaded onto a truck, taken away and thrown on one of the back streets of the city. In the morning they were discovered by workers, who reported this to the police.” Thus, an investigation carried out by the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs has established that in February 1948, OGOLTSOV and TsANAVA, together with a group of MGB operatives, technical executors, under the leadership of ABAKUMOV, carried out a criminal operation to brutally murder MIKHOELS and GOLUBOV. Considering that the murder of MIKHOELS and GOLUBOV is a blatant violation of the rights of a Soviet citizen protected by the Constitution of the USSR, and in order to raise the level of the responsibility of the operational staff of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the steadfast observance of Soviet laws, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR considers it necessary:

a) to arrest and prosecute former Deputy Minister of State Security of the USSR OGOLTSOV S.I. and former Minister of State Security of the Byelorussian SSR TsANAVA L.F.; b) to cancel the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on awarding orders and medals to the participants in the murder of MIKHOELS and GOLUBOV. L. BERIA AP RF. F. 3. Op. 58. D. 536, L. 1 03-107. Original1



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Document #2 – Awards Ukase, from Levashov See Chapter 09, Appendix of Russian Texts, under Chapter 03.

Document #3 – Awards Ukase, from Kostyrchenko See Chapter 09, Appendix of Russian Texts, under Chapter 03. 1 Published in: Lavrentii Beria 1953. Stenogramma iiul’skogo plenuma TsK KPSSi i drugie documenty. /Comp. V. Naumov, Yu. Sigachev. M., 1999. S. 25-28. Document #3 – A Different “Awards Ukaz” quoted by Kostyrchenko - Kostyrchenko, Tainaia Politika Stalina p. 392 and n. 57, p. 734, which cites “РГАСПИ. – Ф. 17 – Оп. 3. – Д. 1072 – Л. 74, 213. In Gosudarstvenniy antisemitizm 3-23, p. 110. За успешное выполнение специального задания правительства в октябре 1948 года указом президиума Верховного Совета СССР (в печати не публиковался) участники ликвидации Михоэлса удостоились государственнцх наград. Генераллейтенант Цанава получил орден Красного Знамени, полковники Шубняков, В.Е. Лебедев и старший лейтенант Б.А. Круглов – боевые ордена Отечественной войны 1-й степени, майоры А.Х. Косырев и Н.Ф. Повзун – ордена Красной Звезды.*57 * Руководивший устранением Михоэлса замести-

тель министра госбезопасности Огольцов был награжден по указу, вышедшему ранее.

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Document 4 – Ogol’tsov Confession #1 1953

March 18,

- Levashov, Убийство Михоэлса. М.: 1998. Ch. 10 pp. 464-466; M. 2002, Ch. 10, pp. 400-401. - «Как Убивали Михоэлса» - http://www.mk.ru/editions/daily/article/2005/09/06/191944kak-ubivali-mihoelsa.html - Государственный антисемитизм в СССР. От начала до кульминации. 1938-1953. Под общ. ред. акад. А.Н.Яковлева. Сост. В.Г.Костырченко. – М.: МФД: Материк, 2005, с.110-112. Cites Levashov’s novel as its source. «Совершенно секретно Экземпляр единственный, рукописный Товарищу БЕРИЯ Л. П. По Вашему требованию докладываю об обстоятельствах проведенной операции по ликвидации главаря еврейских националистов Михоэлса в 1948 году. В ноябре - декабре (точно не помню) 1947 года Абакумов и я были вызваны в Кремль к товарищу Сталину И. В., насколько я помню, по вопросу следственной работы МГБ. Во время беседы, в связи с чем, сейчас вспомнить затрудняюсь, товарищем Сталиным была названа фамилия Михоэлса и в конце беседы было им дано указание Абакумову о необходимости проведения специального мероприятия в отношении Михоэлса и что для этой цели устроить «автомобильную катастрофу». К тому времени Михоэлс был известен как главный руководитель еврейского националистического подполья, проводивший по заданию амери-

Appendix.

канцев активную вражескую работу против Советского Союза. Примерно в первых числах января 1948 года Михоэлс выехал по делам театра в г. Минск. Воспользовавшись этой поездкой, Абакумовым было принято решение во исполнение указания провести операцию по ликвидации Михоэлса в Минске. Организация операции была поручена мне и бывшему министру Государственной безопасности Белорусской ССР товарищу Цанава Л. Ф. Числа 6-7 января 1948 года я с группой товарищей: Шубняков Ф. Т., бывшим в то время зам. начальника 2-го Главного управления, Лебедев В. Е. и Круглов Б. А., бывшие работники аппарата тов. Судоплатова (последний об этой операции не знал) выехал на машине в Минск. После прибытия в Минск мы с товарищем Цанава Л. Ф. в присутствии т.т. Шубнякова и Лебедева наметили план проведения операции и проведения некоторых агентурных подготовительных мероприятий (документов никаких не составлялось, как положено в таких случаях). Поскольку уверенности в благополучном исходе операции во время “автомобильной катастрофы” у нас не было, да и это могло привести к жертвам наших сотрудников, мы остановились на варианте - провести ликвидацию Михоэлса путем наезда на него грузовой машины на малолюдной улице. Но этот вариант хотя и был лучше первого, но он также не гарантировал успех операции наверняка. Поэтому было решено Михоэлса через агентуру пригласить в ночное время в гости к какимнибудь знакомым, подать ему машину к гостинице, где он проживал, привезти его на территорию

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загородной дачи тов. Цанава Л. Ф., где и ликвидировать, а потом труп вывезти на малолюдную (глухую) улицу города, положить на дороге, ведущей к гостинице, и произвести наезд грузовой автомашиной. Этим самым создавалась правдоподобная картина несчастного случая наезда автомашины на возвращающихся с гулянки людей, тем паче подобные случаи в Минске в то время были очень часты. Так было и сделано. Операция была проведена успешно, если не ошибаюсь, в ночь с 11 на 12 января 1948 года. Для того чтобы сохранить операцию в строжайшей тайне, во время операции над Михоэлсом были вынуждены пойти с санкции Абакумова на ликвидацию и агента, приехавшего с ним из Москвы, потому что последний был в курсе всех агентурных мероприятий, проводившихся по Михоэлсу, бывал вместе с ним во всех местах, он же поехал с ним в гости. Доверием у органов агент не пользовался. Непосредственными исполнителями были: тов. Лебедев В. Е., Круглов Т. А. и тов. Шубняков Ф. Т. О ходе подготовки и проведения операции мною дважды или трижды докладывалось Абакумову по ВЧ, а он, не кладя трубки, по АТС Кремля докладывал в Инстанцию. Мне известно, что о проведенной операции МГБ СССР было доложено в Инстанцию, и участники операции за образцовое выполнение специального задания Правительства были награждены орденами Советского Союза.



Appendix.

С. ОГОЛЬЦОВ 18 марта 1953 г.».

Top secret The only copy, handwritten To Comrade Beria L.P. At your request, I report on the circumstances of the operation carried out to eliminate the leader of the Jewish nationalists Mikhoels in 1948. In November - December (I don't remember exactly) of 1947 Abakumov and I were summoned to the Kremlin to see Comrade J.V. Stalin, as far as I remember, on the issue of the MGB's investigative work. During the conversation, in connection with what I find it difficult to remember now, Comrade Stalin mentioned the name of Mikhoels and at the end of the conversation instructed Abakumov about the need to carry out special measures in relation to Mikhoels, and for this purpose to arrange an “automobile accident”. By that time Mikhoels was known as the main leader of the Jewish nationalist underground that, on instructions of the Americans, had carried out active enemy work against the Soviet Union. Approximately in the first days of January 1948, Mikhoels left for the theater in Minsk. Taking advantage of this trip, Abakumov decided to carry out an operation to liquidate Mikhoels in Minsk in pursuance of the instructions.

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The organization of the operation was entrusted to me and the former Minister of State Security of the Byelorussian SSR, Comrade Tsanava L.F. On January 67, 1948, I and a group of comrades: Shubnyakov F.T. the head of the 2nd Main Directorate, Lebedev V.E. and Kruglov B.A., former employees of the apparatus of comrade Sudoplatov (the latter did not know about this operation) went by car to Minsk. After arriving in Minsk, comrade Tsanava L.F. and I, in the presence of comrades Shubnyakov and Lebedev outlined a plan for carrying out the operation and carrying out some undercover preparatory activities (no documentation was drawn up, as was the practice in such cases). Since we had no confidence in the successful outcome of the operation during the “car accident”, and this could lead to casualties among our employees, we settled on the option of carrying out the liquidation of Mikhoels by striking him with a truck on a sparsely populated street. But although this option was better than the first, it also did not guarantee the certain success of the operation. Therefore, it was decided to invite Mikhoels through our agents to visit some acquaintances at night, give him a car to the hotel where he lived, and bring him to the territory of Comrade Tsanava L.F.’s dacha (country cottage), where we could liquidate him, and then take the corpse to a sparsely populated street of the city, put it on the road leading to the hotel, and run over it with a truck. This created a plausible picture of an accident of a car striking people returning from a party, all the more so because such cases in Minsk at that time were quite frequent. That is how it was done. The operation was carried out successfully, if I am not mistaken, on the night of January 11-12, 1948.

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In order to keep the operation in the strictest confidence, during the operation against Mikhoels it was necessary to liquidate, with Abakumov’s permission, the agent who had come with him from Moscow, because the latter was aware of all the undercover activities carried out on Mikhoels, [because] he had together with him in all places and went with him on the visit. The agent did not enjoy the trust of the authorities. The direct executors were: comrade Lebedev V. E., Kruglov T. A. and comrade Shubnyakov F. G. I reported two or three times to Abakumov via HF about the preparation and conduct of the operation and he, without hanging up, reported to the authority [i.e. to Stalin] via the Kremlin automatic telephone exchange. I know that the operation carried out by the Ministry of State Security of the USSR was reported to the authority, and the participants in the operation were awarded with decorations of the Soviet Union for exemplary performance of a special task of the Government. S. OGOLTSOV March 18, 1953”. For the successful completion of a special task of the government in October 1948 by order of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (not published in print) the participants in the liquidation of Mikhoels were honored with government awards. General-lieutenant Tsanava received the order of the Red Banner, Colonels Shubnyakov, V.E. Lebedev and senior lieutenant B.A. Kruglov – military order of the Patriotic War 1st class, majors

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A. Kh. Kosyrev and N.F. Povzun – order of the Red Star.* * Assisant to the minister for state security

Ogol’tsov, who directed the liquidation of Mikhoels, was awarded by an ukase that was issued earlier.

Document #5 Ogol’tsov Confession #2 19 March 1953 fm Levashov 2002 402-3 - Levashov 1998 466-468 / 2002 Ch. 10, 402-403. «Совершенно секретно Экземпляр единственный, рукописный В собственные руки Товарищу БЕРИЯ Л. П. В дополнение докладной записки, переданной мною вчера лично Вам, хочу доложить следующее: Я глубоко продумал все, Лаврентий Павлович, и считаю, что ликвидация Михоэлса является произволом и грубейшим нарушением законов советского государства. Несмотря на имевшееся указание, я виноват в допущении этого беззакония. Спрашивается, чем вызывалось подобное мероприятие? Считаю, что ничем. Раз Михоэлс был врагом Советского Союза, руководителем еврейских националистов, ведших по заданию американцев преступную работу против СССР, не было необходимости его уничтожать. Лучше было бы его арестовать или же секретно изъять и постараться разоблачить его вражескую деятельность, намерения, планы, преступные связи и тем самым

Appendix.

парализовать его преступную деятельность на территории СССР. Ликвидация же Михоэлса привела к тому, что все это ушло с ним в могилу. Моей обязанностью разведчика было доказать недопустимость и вредность этого мероприятия, что мною сделано не было. Недопустимое беззаконие совершено в отношении агента МГБ, который был ликвидирован вместе с Михоэлсом. Правда, это вызывалось, как мною Вам докладывалось, крайней необходимостью сохранения в строжайшей тайне проведения операции, так как агент не пользовался доверием, а он знал все подготовительные агентурные мероприятия по операции. Но, несмотря на это, мы, организаторы операции, обязаны были принять все меры к выводу и спасению агента. Серьезной моей виной является и то, что я, слепо выполняя указания по ликвидации Михоэлса, не задумался над тем, а знает ли об этом Центральный Комитет партии. Моя обязанность была спросить об этом ЦК, поговорить с Вами. Я этого не сделал. В этом я виноват. Лаврентий Павлович! Выполняя указания о проведении операции по ликвидации Михоэлса, я думал, что делаю благородное дело для нашего государства. Тогда я ни над чем не задумывался. Думал только об одном, как лучше выполнить указание. Только сейчас я осознал и осознал глубоко, что, несмотря на указание, действия эти были противозаконными. Лаврентий Павлович! Вся моя сознательная жизнь прошла в наших органах ЧК, в которых я работаю вот уже 35 лет беспрерывно. 34 с лишним года я являюсь членом нашей славной Коммунистической партии. За все это время я честно работал,

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старался работать, не жалея сил, здоровья, всего себя без остатка отдавал служению Родине, нашей партии, нашему родному Советскому Правительству. Любые решения партии и правительства всегда выполнял так, как подобает коммунисту, старался быть достойным высокого почетного звания чекиста-коммуниста. Обещаю дальнейшей честной боевой работой в органах МВД оправдать Ваше доверие, Лаврентий Павлович, доверие нашего Сталинского Центрального Комитета партии. С. ОГОЛЬЦОВ 19 марта 1953 г.»

Top secret Sole copy, handwritten Original handwriting To Comrade Beria L.P. In addition to the memorandum I gave you personally yesterday, I would like to report the following: I have thought everything through, Lavrenty Pavlovich, and I consider that the liquidation of Mikhoels was arbitrary and a flagrant violation of the laws of the Soviet state. Despite the instructions given to me, I am guilty of allowing this lawlessness. The question is, what caused such an event? Nothing, I believe. Even given that Mikhoels was an enemy of the Soviet Union, the leader of Jewish nationalists who, on the instructions of the Americans, carried out criminal

Appendix.

work against the USSR, there was no need to destroy him. It would have been better to arrest him or seize him secretly and try to expose his hostile activities, intentions, plans, and criminal connections, and thereby paralyze his criminal activities on the territory of the USSR. The liquidation of Mikhoels led to the fact that all this went with him to the grave. My duty as an intelligence agent was to prove the inadmissibility and harmfulness of this action, which I did not do. An unacceptable act of lawlessness was committed against the MGB agent who was liquidated together with Mikhoels. True, this was caused, as I reported to you, by the extreme necessity of maintaining the strictest secrecy of the operation, since the agent did not enjoy confidence, and he knew all the preparatory undercover measures for the operation. But, despite this, we, the organizers of the operation, were obliged to take all measures to withdraw and rescue the agent. It is also my serious fault that, while blindly following the instructions to liquidate Mikhoels, I did not think about whether the Central Committee of the Party knew about this. My duty was to ask the Central Committee about this, to talk to you. I did not do this. Of this I am guilty. Lavrenty Pavlovich! By carrying out the instructions to conduct an operation to eliminate Mikhoels, I thought that I was doing a noble deed for our state. Then I did not think about anything. I thought of only one thing, how best to carry out my instructions. Only now have I realized, and realized deeply, that, despite the instructions these actions were illegal.



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Lavrenty Pavlovich! All my conscious life has been spent in our Cheka organization, in which I have been working continuously for 35 years now. For more than 34 years I have been a member of our glorious Communist Party. During all this time, I worked honestly, tried to work sparing no effort or my health, giving myself completely to the service of the Motherland, our party, our own Soviet Government. I have always carried out all decisions of the party and government as befits a communist, striving to be worthy of the high honor of the title of ChekistCommunist. I promise to justify your trust, Lavrenty Pavlovich, the trust of our Stalinist Central Committee of the Party, by further honest work in the organization of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. S. OGOLTSOV March 19, 1953”

Document #6 – Tsanava Interrogation, 16 April 1953 fm Levashov 2002 403-405 - Levashov, Убийство Михоэлса. М.: 1998, Ch. 10 С. 468-471; M., 2002, 403-405. - Государственный антисемитизм в СССР. От начала до кульминации. 1938-1953. Под общ. ред. акад. А.Н.Яковлева. Сост. В.Г.Костырченко. – М.: МФД: Материк, 2005, с.113 – 115. Cites Levashov’s novel as its source. At http://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-doc/68461 «Совершенно секретно

*ПРОТОКОЛ ДОПРОСА* обвиняемого ЦАНАВА Лаврентия Фомича от 16 апреля 1953 года

Appendix.

ЦАНАВА Л. Ф., 1900 года рождения, уроженец села Нахуново Мартвильского р-на Грузинской ССР, грузин, гражданин СССР, член КПСС с 1920 года, образование среднее, до ареста не работал, с 17 марта 1952 года находился на пенсии. В о п р о с. На предыдущем допросе вы признали себя виновным в том, что выполняли поручения бывшего зам. министра государственной безопасности СССР Огольцова, связанные с подготовкой и организацией убийства народного артиста СССР МИХОЭЛСА и сопровождавшего его гр-на ГОЛУБОВА, которое было совершено в г. Минске в начале 1948 года. Покажите подробно, как было подготовлено и осуществлено убийство МИХОЭЛСА и ГОЛУБОВА. О т в е т. Все мероприятия по подготовке и осуществлению убийства МИХОЭЛСА и ГОЛУБОВА были проведены непосредственно командированной в Минск группой оперативных работников МГБ СССР во главе с первым заместителем министра ОГОЛЬЦОВЫМ С. И. Дело обстояло следующим образом. Насколько я припоминаю, в начале 1948 года мне позвонил по телефону в рабочее время бывший министр госбезопасности СССР АБАКУМОВ и, предварительно осведомившись, один ли я в кабинете, спросил, имеются ли в МГБ Белорусской ССР возможности для выполнения, как дословно сказал Абакумов, “важного решения правительства и личного указания Сталина”. Я ответил, что все, что в силах МГБ Белорусской ССР, будет выполнено. Ничего не сказав мне о ха-

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рактере задания, Абакумов обещал позже позвонить еще раз. Вечером того же дня Абакумов снова связался со мной по телефону и передал, что для выполнения задания, о котором он мне говорил, в Минск выезжает Огольцов с группой оперативных работников. Далее Абакумов сказал, что всю работу по выполнению задания будет проводить Огольцов, а мне надлежит оказывать ему необходимую помощь. В о п р о с. Содержанием этого задания вы у Абакумова интересовались? О т в е т. Нет. Сам Абакумов о характере задания мне опять ничего не сказал, а я не счел возможным по телефону выяснять существо поручения, которое Абакумов характеризовал, как важное. Спустя примерно час после разговора с Абакумовым мне позвонил Огольцов и, подтвердив, что через день он на автомашине выезжает в Минск, предложил о его приезде никому не говорить. Через два дня Огольцов с группой работников МГБ СССР на двух автомашинах прибыл на мою квартиру в пригороде Минска - Слепянке. Приехав домой со службы по вызову Огольцова, позвонившего мне по телефону с моей квартиры, я застал там, кроме Огольцова, полковника ШУБНЯКОВА, секретаря Огольцова подполковника КОСАРЕВА и двух незнакомых мне людей. Это, как оказалось, были полковник ЛЕБЕДЕВ и шофер КРУГЛОВ, которых Огольцов, знакомя меня с ними, назвал работниками “боевой группы МГБ СССР”. К моменту моего приезда на квартиру автомашины, на которых прибыла эта группа работников МГБ СССР, были помещены в гараж МГБ Белорусской ССР, расположенный вблизи дачи, в которой я прожи-

Appendix.

вал. Там же, в гараже, находились и два шофера, управлявшие автомашинами при их следовании из Москвы в Минск. Вскоре Огольцов пригласил меня, Шубнякова и Лебедева в одну из комнат дачи и сообщил, что он приехал в Минск для выполнения, как он сказал, “решения правительства” и “указания Сталина” о “ликвидации Михоэлса”. В о п р о с. Как вы реагировали на сообщение Огольцова? О т в е т. После телефонного разговора со мной Абакумова и сообщения Огольцова я не сомневался в том, что решение, о котором они оба говорили, существует. К тому же Огольцов в присутствии Шубнякова и Лебедева заявил, что такое “решение” состоялось несколько дней назад и что “боевая группа МГБ СССР” предпринимала меры к убийству Михоэлса еще в Москве, но сделать это не удалось, так как Михоэлс ходил по Москве в окружении многих женщин. Поэтому, продолжал Огольцов, убийство Михоэлса решено осуществить во время его пребывания в командировке в Минске. На мой вопрос, в чем обвиняется Михоэлс и почему избран такой метод наказания его, Огольцов ответил, что на Михоэлса делают большую ставку американцы, но арестовывать его нецелесообразно, так как он широко известен за границей. Впрочем, продолжал Огольцов, в политику вдаваться нечего, у меня есть поручение, его надо выполнит”. - in Gosudarstvennyi Antisemitizm edition: “ЦАФСБ РФ. Архивная коллекция составителя. Копия.»

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Top secret *REPORT OF INTERROGATION* of the accused TsANAVA Lavrenty Fomich dated April 16, 1953 TsANAVA L. F., born in 1900, a native of the village of Nakhunovo, Martvili district, Georgian SSR, Georgian, citizen of the USSR, member of the CPSU since 1920, secondary education, did not work before his arrest, retired from March 17, 1952. Question. At the previous interrogation, you pleaded guilty to carrying out the instructions of the former deputy. Minister of State Security of the USSR Ogoltsov, connected with the preparation and organization of the murder of the People's Artist of the USSR MIKHOELS and Mr. GOLUBOV, who accompanied him, which was committed in Minsk in early 1948. Show in detail how the murder of MIKHOELS and GOLUBOV was prepared and carried out. Answer: All measures for the preparation and execution of the murder of MIKHOELS and GOLUBOV were carried out directly by a group of operatives of the USSR Ministry of State Security sent to Minsk, headed by First Deputy Minister S. I. OGOLTSOV. The matter was as follows. As far as I remember, at the beginning of 1948, the former Minister of State Security of the USSR ABAKUMOV called me on the phone during working hours and, having previously asked if I was alone in the office, asked if the MGB of the Byelorussian SSR

Appendix.

might be able to carry out, as Abakumov literally said, “ an important decision of the government and Stalin’s personal instructions?” I replied that everything in the power of the MGB of the Byelorussian SSR would be carried out. Without telling me anything about the nature of the task, Abakumov promised to call again later. In the evening of the same day Abakumov contacted me again by phone and told me that Ogoltsov was leaving for Minsk with a group of operatives to complete the task he had told me about. Further, Abakumov said that Ogoltsov would carry out all the work to complete the assignment, and it was up to me to provide him with the necessary assistance. Question. Were you interested in the content of this assignment from Abakumov? Answer: No. Again, Abakumov himself did not tell me anything about the nature of the task, and I did not consider it possible to find out by telephone the essence of the task, which Abakumov characterized as important. About an hour after the conversation with Abakumov, Ogoltsov called me and, confirming that he was leaving for Minsk by car in a day, proposed that I not tell anyone about his arrival. Two days later, Ogoltsov, with a group of employees of the USSR Ministry of State Security, arrived in two cars at my apartment in Slepyanka, a suburb of Minsk. Arriving home from the service on a call from Ogoltsov, who called me on the phone from my apartment, I found there, besides Ogoltsov, Colonel SHUBNYAKOV, Ogoltsov's secretary Lieutenant Colonel KOSAREV and two people I did not know. As it turned out, these were Colonel LEBEDEV and the

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driver KRUGLOV, whom Ogoltsov, introducing me to them, called workers of the “combat group of the USSR Ministry of State Security.” By the time I arrived at the apartment the vehicles in which this group of employees of the USSR Ministry of State Security arrived had been put in the garage of the Ministry of State Security of the Byelorussian SSR, located near the dacha in which I lived. In the same place, in the garage, there were also two drivers who had driven the cars during their journey from Moscow to Minsk. Soon Ogoltsov invited me, Shubnyakov and Lebedev to one of the rooms in the dacha and said that he had come to Minsk to carry out, as he said, “the government's decision” and “Stalin's instructions” to “eliminate Mikhoels.” Question. How did you react to Ogoltsov's message? Answer: After Abakumov's telephone conversation with me and Ogoltsov's message, I had no doubt that the solution they both spoke about existed. In addition, Ogoltsov, in the presence of Shubnyakov and Lebedev, stated that such a “decision” had taken place a few days ago and that the combat group of the MGB of the USSR took measures to kill Mikhoels while still in Moscow, but it was not possible to do this, since Mikhoels walked around Moscow surrounded by many women. Therefore, Ogoltsov continued, it was decided to carry out the murder of Mikhoels during his stay on a business trip in Minsk.

When I asked what Mikhoels was accused of and why such a method of punishing him was chosen, Ogoltsov replied that the Americans were placing a big bet on Mikhoels, but it was not expedient to arrest him, as he

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is well known abroad. However, Ogoltsov continued, there is no reason to go into politics, I have an assignment, it must be carried out. - in State Anti-Semitism edition: “TS FSB. RF [Central Archive of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation] Archival collection of the compiler. Copy.”

Document #7 Shubniakov Letter, 18 March 1953 - Levashov, Убийство Михоэлса. М.: 1998. Ch. 10 С. 471-474; M. 2002, 406-408. - Государственный антисемитизм в СССР. От начала до кульминации. 1938-1953. Под общ. ред. акад. А.Н.Яковлева. Сост. В.Г.Костырченко. – М.: МФД: Материк, 2005, с.115-116. Cites Levashov's novel as its source. At http://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-doc/68462 «Совершенно секретно Министру внутренних дел Союза ССР товарищу БЕРИЯ Л. П. *ОБЪЯСНИТЕЛЬНАЯ ЗАПИСКА* по делу МИХОЭЛСА от полковника Шубнякова Ф. Т. В январе 1948 года б. министр АБАКУМОВ потребовал агентурную разработку на художественного руководителя еврейского театра ГОСЕТ МИХОЭЛСА, которую он оставил у себя. Спустя несколько дней Абакумов вызвал меня (в то время я был начальником отдела) и в присутствии находившегося у него в кабинете т. Огольцова заявил, что имеется специальное указание ликвидировать

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Михоэлса. Эта операция должна быть проведена в Минске путем организации автомобильной катастрофы. Абакумов сказал, что руководить операцией на месте будут Огольцов и Цанава, который получил от него лично по ВЧ соответствующие указания. Абакумов предупредил, что в Минск следует выехать на автомашинах и по приезде остановиться на даче т. Цанава. Кроме меня, в группу исполнителей Абакумовым были включены: полковник ЛЕБЕДЕВ, работник транспортных органов МГБ, оперработник спецслужбы КРУГЛОВ, а также секретарь Огольцова - КОСАРЕВ. На следующий день вся эта группа выехала на двух автомашинах в Минск и по прибытии остановилась на даче т. Цанава. В соответствии с полученными от Абакумова и Огольцова указаниями я, Лебедев и Круглов три дня вели наблюдение за Михоэлсом, выясняли обстановку и условия для организации автомобильной катастрофы. Однако, как показало наблюдение, Михоэлса всегда окружала большая группа местной интеллигенции, он часто пользовался автомашиной Совмина Белоруссии и его сопровождали работники аппарата Комитета по делам искусств. Таким образом, полностью исключалась возможность организации автомобильной катастрофы, если только не создать условий для секретного изъятия Михоэлса. Мне известно, что т.Огольцов докладывал о создавшейся обстановке Абакумову, который, однако, потребовал во что бы то ни стало осуществить

Appendix.

операцию. Абакумову было известно, что в Минске с Михоэлсом находится агент 2-го Главного управления МГБ СССР, и он сказал, что следует использовать это обстоятельство для секретного изъятия Михоэлса. Мне было поручено связаться с агентом и с его помощью вывезти Михоэлса на дачу, где он должен быть ликвидирован. На явке я заявил агенту, что имеется необходимость в частной обстановке встретиться с Михоэлсом, и просил агента организовать эту встречу. Это задание агент выполнил, пригласив Михоэлса к “личному другу, проживающему в Минске”. Примерно в 21 час я и работник спецслужбы Круглов (в качестве шофера) подъехали в условленное место, куда явился агент и Михоэлс, с которым я был познакомлен агентом, и все отправились ко мне на “квартиру”, т. е. на дачу т. Цанава. На даче была осуществлена операция по ликвидации Михоэлса. 1. После того как я доложил т. Огольцову, что Михоэлс и агент доставлены на дачу, он сообщил об этом по ВЧ Абакумову, который предложил приступить к ликвидации Михоэлса и агента - невольного и опасного свидетеля смерти Михоэлса. 2. С тем чтобы создать впечатление, что Михоэлс и агент попали под автомашину в пьяном виде, их заставили выпить по стакану водки. Затем они по одному (вначале агент, а затем Михоэлс) были умерщвлены - раздавлены грузовой автомашиной.

3. Убедившись, что Михоэлс и агент мертвы, наша группа вывезла их тела в город и выбросила их на дорогу одной из улиц, расположенных недалеко от

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гостиницы. Причем их трупы были расположены так, что создавалось впечатление, что Михоэлс и агент были сбиты автомашиной, которая переехала их передними и задними скатами. 4. Рано утром трупы Михоэлса и агента были обнаружены случайным прохожим и на место происшествия прибыли сотрудники милиции, составившие акт осмотра места происшествия. В тот же день судебно-медицинская комиссия подвергла патологоанатомическому вскрытию трупы Михоэлса и агента и установила, что их смерть наступила от удара грузовой автомашиной, которой они были раздавлены. Никакой документации по этой операции не проводилось. Все указания давались лично Абакумовым, который по ВЧ получал информацию о ходе операции. ШУБНЯКОВ Ф. Т. 18 марта 1953 г.».

Top secret To the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR Comrade BERIA L.P. * EXPLANATORY NOTE* on the MIKHOELS case from Colonel Shubnyakov F.G. In January 1948 b. Minister ABAKUMOV demanded an undercover development for the artistic director of the Jewish theater GOSET MIKHOELS, which he kept. A few days later, Abakumov called me (at that time I was the head of the department) and, in the presence

Appendix.

of Comrade Ogoltsov, who was in his office, announced that there was a special order to liquidate Mikhoels. This operation should be carried out in Minsk by organizing a car accident. Abakumov said that Ogoltsov and Tsanava would lead the operation on the spot, who had received relevant instructions from him personally via HF. Abakumov warned that they should leave for Minsk by car and, upon arrival, stop at Comrade Tsanava's dacha. In addition to me, Abakumov’s group of performers included: Colonel LEBEDEV, an employee of the transport authorities of the MGB, an operative of the special services KRUGLOV, as well as Ogoltsov’s secretary - KOSAREV. The next day, this whole group left in two cars for Minsk and, upon arrival, stopped at Comrade Tsanava's dacha. In accordance with the instructions received from Abakumov and Ogoltsov I, Lebedev, and Kruglov spent three days observing Mikhoels, finding out the situation and conditions for organizing a car accident. However, as observation showed, Mikhoels was always surrounded by a large group of the local intelligentsia, often used the car of the Council of Ministers of Byelorussia and was accompanied by employees of the apparatus of the Committee for the Arts. Thus, the possibility of organizing a car accident was completely excluded, unless conditions were created for the secret abduction of Mikhoels. I know that Comrade Ogoltsov reported on the situation to Abakumov, who, however, demanded that the operation be carried out by all means. Abakumov

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knew that an agent of the 2nd Main Directorate of the USSR Ministry of State Security was in Minsk with Mikhoels, and he said that this circumstance should be used to secretly seize Mikhoels. I was instructed to contact the agent and with his help take Mikhoels to the dacha, where he was to be liquidated. At the turnout, I told the agent that there was a need to meet with Mikhoels in private and asked the agent to arrange this meeting. The agent fulfilled this task by inviting Mikhoels to “a personal friend who lives in Minsk.” At about 21:00 I and Kruglov, an employee of the special service (as a driver), drove up to the agreed-upon place, where the agent and Mikhoels, to whom I was introduced by the agent, appeared, and everyone went to the “apartment”, i.e. to the dacha of comrade. Tsanava. At the dacha the operation was carried out to eliminate Mikhoels. 1. After I reported to Comrade Ogoltsov that Mikhoels and the agent had been delivered to the dacha, he informed Abakumov via the HF line, who proposed to proceed with the liquidation of Mikhoels and the agent, who was an involuntary and dangerous witness to the death of Mikhoels. 2. In order to create the impression that Mikhoels and the agent were run over by a car while drunk, they were forced to drink a glass of vodka each. Then one by one (at first the agent, and then Mikhoels) were killed - crushed by a truck. 3. After making sure that Mikhoels and the agent were dead, our group took their bodies to the city and threw them on the road of one of the streets located not far from the hotel. Also, their corpses were positioned in such a way that it seemed that Mikhoels

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and the agent were hit by a car that ran over their front and rear wheels. 4. Early in the morning the bodies of Mikhoels and the agent were discovered by a chance passer-by and police officers arrived at the scene of the incident and drew up a report on the inspection of the scene. On the same day the forensic medical commission subjected Mikhoels and the agent to a post-mortem autopsy and established that their death was caused by a blow from a truck, which crushed them. There was no documentation of this operation. All instructions were given personally by Abakumov, who received information on the progress of the operation via HF. SHUBNYAKOV F.G. March 18, 1953

Document #8 – Kruglov Letter 14 January 1948 Gosudarst. Antisem. p.106 - Kostyrchenko, Lekhaim, p. 5, note to Medvedev - Государственный антисемитизм в СССР. От начала до кульминации. 1938-1953. Под общ. ред. акад. А.Н.Яковлева. Сост. В.Г.Костырченко. – М.: МФД: Материк, 2005, с.106. At http://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-doc/68435 - Medvedev, Stalin i Evreyskaia Problema. M, 2003, n. 6, p. 278, quotes from it. Catalogued in Arkhiv noveyshey Istorii Rossii: ‘Osobaia Papka’ I.V. Stalina / Pod. Red. Kozlova V.A. I Mironenko S.B.// Iz materialov Sekretariata NKVD-MVD SSSR 1944-1953: Katalog dokumentov. M: Blagovest, 1994. – Vol. I, p. 247.

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Medvedev also gives an archival location: GARF, Stalin’s “Osobaia Papka”, d. 199, l. 53. - different text in Deich, “Kak ubivali Mikhoelsa” MK 09.06.2006. Оперативная информация министра внутренних дел СССР советскому руководству о смерти С.М. Михоэлса 14.01.1948 Совершенно секретно Экз. № 7 Товарищу Сталину И.В., Товарищу Молотову В.М. Товарищу Ворошилову К.Е., Товарищу Жданову А.А.

По сообщению МВД Белорусской ССР, 13 января с.г. в 7 часов 10 минут утра в городе Минске, на дороге около строящейся трамвайной линии, ведущей с улицы Свердлова на улицу Гарбарная, были обнаружены два мужских трупа. Выехавшие на место руководящие работники МВД Белоруссии и Управления милиции гор. Минска вместе с судебно-медицинским экспертом обнаружили два мужских трупа, лежащих лицом вниз. Около трупов имелось большое количество крови. Одежда, документы и ценности были не тронуты. Убитыми оказались Михоэлс С.М., художественный руководитель Государственного еврейского театра,

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народный артист СССР, и Голубов-Потапов В.И., член московской организации Союза советских писателей. У обоих оказались поломанными ребра, а у Голубова-Потапова также и правая рука в локтевом изгибе. Возле трупов обнаружены следы грузовых автомашин, частично заметенные снегом.

По данным осмотра места происшествия и первичному заключению медицинских экспертов, смерть Михоэлса и Голубова-Потапова последовала в результате наезда автомашины, которая ехала с превышающей скоростью и настигла их, следуя под крутым уклоном по направлению к улице Грабарная. Приняты меры к установлению автомашины. Ведется следствие. Министр внутренних дел СССР С. КРУГЛОВ Снята одна копия для секретариата МГБ СССР. ГА РФ. «Особая папка» И.В. Сталина. Д. 199. Л. 53. Копия. - From http://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issuesdoc/68435

Deich text:

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“Оперативная информация министра внутренних дел СССР советскому руководству о смерти C.М.Михоэлса. 14 января 1948 г. Совершенно секретно. Товарищу Сталину И.В., товарищу Молотову В.М., товарищу Ворошилову К.Е., товарищу Жданову А.А.

По сообщению МВД Белорусской ССР, 13 января с.г. в 7 часов 10 минут утра в городе Минске, на дороге около строящейся трамвайной линии, ведущей с улицы Свердлова на улицу Гарбарная, были обнаружены два мужских трупа. Выехавшие на место руководящие работники МВД Белоруссии и Управления милиции гор. Минска вместе с судебно-медицинским экспертом обнаружили два мужских трупа, лежащих лицом вниз. Около трупов имелось большое количество крови. Одежда, документы и ценности были не тронуты. Убитыми оказались Михоэлс С.М., художественный руководитель Государственного еврейского театра, народный артист СССР, и Голубов-Потапов В.И., член московской организации Союза писателей. У обоих оказались поломанными ребра, а у Голубова-Потапова правая рука в локтевом изгибе. Возле трупов обнаружены следы грузовых автомашин, частично заметенные снегом. По данным осмотра места происшествия и первичному заключению медицинских экспертов, смерть Михоэлса и Голубова-Потапова последовала в результате наезда автомашины, которая ехала с превышающей скоростью.

Appendix.

Приняты меры к установлению автомашины. Ведется следствие. Министр внутренних дел СССР С.Круглов.

Снята одна копия для секретариата МГБ СССР”. From Medvedev, p. 17: Выехавшая на место происшествия группа обнаружмла «...два мужских трупа, лежащих лицом вниз. Около трупов имелось большое количество крови. Одежда, документы и ценности были не тронуты ... У обоих оказались поломанными ребра, и у Голубова-Потапова также и правая рука в локтевом изгибе. Возле трупов обнаружены следы грузовых машин, частично замутенные снегом. По данным осмотра места происшествия и первичному заключению медицинских экспертов, смерть Михоэлса и Голубова-Потапова последовала в результате наезда автомашины, которая ехала с превышающей скоростью и настигла их, следуя под крутым уклоном...»

Operational information of the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR to the Soviet leadership concerning the death of S.M. Mikhoels 01/14/1948 Top secret Copy. No. 7

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To Comrade Stalin I.V., Comrade Molotov V.M. Comrade Voroshilov K.E., Comrade Zhdanov A.A. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Byelorussian SSR, on January 13 of this year. at 7:10 am in the city of Minsk, on a road near a tram line under construction leading from Sverdlova Street to Garbarnaya Street, the bodies of two men were found. Leading employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Byelorussia and the Police Department of the city of Minsk, together with a forensic expert, found the bodies of two men lying face down. There was a lot of blood around the bodies. Clothes, documents and valuables were not touched. Those killed were S.M. Mikhoels, artistic director of the State Jewish Theatre, People's Artist of the USSR, and V.I. Golubov-Potapov, a member of the Moscow organization of the Union of Soviet Writers. Both had broken ribs, and GolubovPotapov also had his right arm bent back at the elbow. Tracks of a truck, partially covered with snow, were found near the corpses. According to the inspection of the scene and the initial conclusion of medical experts, the deaths of Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov were caused by being struck by a car traveling, at excessive speed, that overtook them along a steep slope towards Grabarnaya Street. Steps have been taken to locate the vehicle. An investigation is underway. Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR S. KRUGLOV

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One copy made for the secretariat of the USSR Ministry of State Security.

Document #9 – Bodunov Report, 11 February 1948 - partially printed Kostyrchenko, Taynaia Politika Stalina, 391-2 + n. 56, p. 734 –printed in - Evreyskii Antifashistskii Komitet 1941-1948. Dokumentirovannaia istoria / Red. Gennadii Kostyrchenko. – M: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1996, p. 354-6. - Государственный антисемитизм в СССР. От начала до кульминации. 1938-1953. Под общ. ред. акад. А.Н.Яковлева. Сост. В.Г.Костырченко. – М.: МФД: Материк, 2005, с.107-108. At http://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-doc/68436 Главное управление милиции - руководство МВД СССР о результатах официального расследования смерти С.М. Михоэлса 11.02.1948 Совершенно секретно Зам. министра внутренних дел Союза ССР генерал-полковнику товарищу СЕРОВУ И.А. ДОКЛАДНАЯ ЗАПИСКА В соответствии с Вашими указаниями для расследования обстоятельств смерти Михоэлса С.М. и Голубова-Потапова В.И. в гор. Минск была командирована группа оперативных работников Главного управления милиции, которая под руководством инспектора для особых поручений полковника милиции Осипова, проверив на месте мате-

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риалы и проведя дополнительное расследование, установила: 12 января с.г., около 18 часов, Михоэлс и ГолубовПотапов, пообедав в ресторане, ушли в гостиницу, а находившимся с ними работникам минских театров сказали, что в этот вечер они будут заняты, так как намерены посетить какого-то знакомого Голубова-Потапова — инженера Сергеева или Сергея. От предложения воспользоваться автомашиной Михоэлс и Голубов-Потапов категорически отказались. Около 20 часов они вышли из гостиницы, а в 7 часов утра 13 января трупы их были обнаружены на временной малопроезжей дороге. Указанной дорогой, несмотря на то что она находится в черте города, водители автотранспорта мало пользовались, так как она проходила по пустырю и представлялась неудобной. Оба трупа оказались вдавленными в снег, который шел с вечера 12 января при значительном ветре. Вся одежда покойных, деньги, документы и ручные часы (у Михоэлса — золотые) оказались в сохранности. У часов Михоэлса отсутствовало лишь стекло, однако часы эти, как и часы ГолубоваПотапова, в момент осмотра трупов были на ходу.

Судебно-медицинским исследованием трупов, производившимся 13 января главным судебномедицинским экспертом Министерства здравоохранения БССР Прилуцким и экспертамиврачами Наумович и Карелиной, установлено, что смерть Михоэлса и Голубова-Потапова последовала в результате наезда на них тяжелой грузовой автомашины.

Appendix.

У покойных оказались переломанными все ребра с разрывом тканей легких, у Михоэлса перелом позвонка, а у Голубова-Потапова — тазовых костей. Все причиненные повреждения являлись прижизненными. Судя по наступлению и развитию трупных явлений, смерть их наступила за 15—16 часов до момента исследования трупов, т.е. примерно в 20 часов 12 января, вскоре после выхода из гостиницы. Состояние пищи в желудке подтвердило тот факт, что пища эта была принята часа за два до смерти и состав пищи соответствовал той, которая подавалась им в ресторане. Никаких данных о том, что Михоэлс и ГолубовПотапов погибли не от случайного на них наезда, а от каких-либо других причин, расследованием не добыто. В результате проведенных агентурнооперативных и следственных мероприятий, намеченных первоначальным планом, версия о том, что Михоэлс и Голубов-Потапов перед тем, как их настигла грузовая автомашина, направлялись к знакомому Голубова-Потапова — инженеру Сергееву, не подтвердилась. Все собранные материалы дали основание полагать, что Михоэлс и Голубов-Потапов по каким-то причинам намеревались посетить какое-то другое лицо и эту встречу тщательно зашифровали от своих знакомых и окружающих, назвав при этом вымышленную фамилию инженера Сергеева. В связи с этим был составлен план дополнительных мероприятий, утвержденный затем министром госбезопасности БССР генерал-лейтенантом тов. Цанава и министром внутренних дел БССР генерал-лейтенантом тов. Бельченко.

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Так как контингент знакомых Михоэлса и Голубова-Потапова состоял главным образом из среды артистического мира, разработку которых целесообразнее вести органам МГБ, то добытые следственные и агентурные материалы, касающиеся этих лиц, были переданы 2 Управлению МГБ БССР, и вся дальнейшая проверка этих связей проводилась аппаратом 2 Управления. Остальные мероприятия в части выявления автомашины и водителя, совершившего наезд, стали выполняться оперативным составом милиции и работниками госавтоинспекции. По имеющимся спискам автохозяйств были проверены и тщательно осмотрены в первую очередь все те машины, которые отсутствовали в гаражах в ночь на 13 января, а затем и все остальные, однако у этих машин ничего такого, что могло бы иметь отношение к делу, обнаружено не было. Очевидно, у машины, совершившей наезд, никаких следов от этого не осталось. По агентурному донесению была установлена автомашина ЗИС-5, водитель которой вечером 12 января курсировал в районе, прилегающем к месту обнаружения трупов, причем на нижних частях этой машины были даже обнаружены волосы, однако экспертизой, производившейся в Москве профессором Бронниковой, было установлено, что волосы эти отношения к делу не имеют, так как они оказались овечьей шерстью. Необходимо отметить, что работа по выявлению скрывшегося водителя представляет большие трудности. В автохозяйствах гор. Минска имеется свыше 4-х тысяч машин. Кроме того, значительное количество машин ежедневно прибывает в Минск

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из других областей, а также и из воинских подразделений, дислоцированных в Минской области. Проверку последних производит КРО МГБ Белорусского Военного Округа. Таким образом, несмотря на все принятые меры, установить водителя, совершившего наезд на Михоэлса и Голубова-Потапова, пока не представилось возможным. Дальнейший розыск производится под непосредственным руководством начальника республиканской милиции — комиссара милиции 3 ранга тов. Красненко. Зам. начальника Главного Управления милиции, комиссар милиции 3 ранга БОДУНОВ ГА РФ. Ф. 9401сч. Оп. 1. Д. 2894. Л. 329—332. Подлинник. Машинопись. Тор Secret From the Deputy Minister of lnternal Affairs of the USSR То Comrade Colonel-General 1. А. Serov, Report Pursuant to your instructions, an operations team from the Central Administration of the Militia was sent to the city of Minsk to investigate the circumstances of the deaths of S. М. Mikhoels and V. 1. Golubov-Potapov. The team headed by militia colonel Osipov, inspector for special assignments, examined materials on the spot and conducted а supplementary investigation. The investigation established the following: On January 12 of this year, at approximately 18:00, Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov went to their hotel after dining in а restaurant. They told workers from the Minsk theaters who were with them that they were busy that evening because they planned to· visit а

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certain acquaintance of Golubov-Potapov – engineer Sergeyev or Sergei. Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov categorically refused the use of an automobile which was offered to them. At approximately 20:00 they left the hotel, and at 7:00 in the morning of January 13 their bodies were discovered on a temporary little-traveled side road.

Drivers rarely used this road, even though it was within the town boundaries, because it passed through vacant land and was inconvenient. Both bodies were pressed into the snow that had been falling since the evening of January 12 with a strong wind. The clothing of the deceased, as well as their money, documents and wristwatches (Mikhoels’ was gold) were found intact. Mikhoels’ watch was missing the glass but both his and Golubov-Potapov’s watch were still running at the time of the inspection of the bodies. А forensic examination of the bodies, carried out on January 13 by Prilutsky, the chief forensic expert of the Ministry of Health of the BSSR, and medical experts Naumovich and Karelina, established that the deaths of Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov resulted from being run over by а heavy cargo vehicle. Both bodies had all ribs broken and torn lung tissue. Mikhoels had a broken vertebra and Golubov-Potapov had broken pelvic bones. AII these injuries were inflicted preceding death. Judging from the condition of the bodies, death occurred 15-16 hours before their discovery, that is, at approximately 20:00 on January 12, soon after Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov had left the hotel The condition of food in their stomachs confirmed the fact that the food had been eaten about two hours before death, and the com-

Appendix.

275



position of the food corresponded to what had been served to them in the restaurant. There is no indication that the death of Mikhoels and Golubov- Potapov was caused by anything other than their being accidentally run over, and the investigation did not turn up any other possible reason. This investigation undertaken by operative agents as well as other investigatory material did not confirm the version that Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov went to visit an acquaintance of GolubovPotapov engineer Sergeyev before being hit by the vehicle. AII the information gathered points to the fact that Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov for some reason intended to visit some other individual and carefully concealed this meeting from their friends and acquaintances, inventing the name "engineer Sergeyev" for this purpose. ln this connection, additional measures were formulated and were subsequently approved by Comrade Lieutenant General Tsanava of the Ministry for State Security of the BSSR and Comrade Lieutenant General Bel’chenko of the Ministry of lnternal Affairs of the BSSR. Since the circle of acquaintances of Mikhoels and Golubov- Potapov consisted mainly of people from the artistic world, it was deemed more suitable for the organs of the Ministry for State Security to investigate them and the materials obtained by operative agents and the investigation concerning these people were turned over to Bureau 2 of the Ministry for State Security of the BSSR and all further examination of these links was being carried out by the staff of Bureau 2. Other measures to discover the vehicle and driver responsible for the accident were handled by the operations staff of the militia and workers of the State Vehicle lnspection Department.

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According to the available lists of car fleets, first, all those cars that were absent in the garages on the night of January 13, and then all the rest, were checked and carefully examined, but nothing was found on these cars that could be relevant to the case. Obviously, the car that hit him had no traces of the collision left. According to an intelligence report it was established that a ZIS-5 automobile, the driver of which, on the evening of January 12, was cruising in the area adjacent to the place of discovery of the bodies, and hair was even found on the lower parts of this car, but an examination carried out in Moscow by Professor Bronnikova found that the hair these are irrelevant, as they turned out to be sheep's wool. It should be noted that the work of identifying a driver who is in hiding presents great difficulties. In the automobile fleets of the city of Minsk has over 4 thousand cars. In addition, a significant number of vehicles arrive in Minsk daily from other regions, as well as from military units stationed in the Minsk region. The latter are checked by the criminal-investigative section of the MGB of the Belarusian Military District. Thus, despite all the measures taken, it has not yet been possible to identify the driver who hit Mikhoels and Golubov-Potapov. Further search is being carried out under the direct supervision of the chief of the republican militia - militia commissar of the 3rd rank comrade. Krasnenko. Deputy Chief of the Main Department of Militia, police commissioner 3rd rank BODUNOV GA RF. F. 9401ch. Op. 1. D. 2894. L. 329-332. Script. Typescript. - Translated in Redlich, Shimon, ed. War, Holocaust and Stalinism: A Documented Study of the Jewish AntiFascist Committee in the USSR. Harwood Academic Pubs, Luxemburg, US, 1995. OCLC: 33989504 pp. 4457, with alterations by Grover Furr



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Bibliography The bibliography and errata are available at this link: http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/mikhoelsbibl.html



Index Because they occur dozens of times I have not indexted the names of Mikhoels and Stalin. Abakumov, Viktor, Minister of State Security of the USSR, 17, 22, 32, 39, 49, 92, 93, 96, 97, 98, 100, 102, 119, 125, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 144, 145, 146, 148, 149, 150, 151, 154, 157, 189, 192, 195, 196, 200, 215, 243, 245, 255, 256, 260, 261, 262, 263 Allilueva, Svetlana, daughter of Joseph Stalin, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32, 44, 134, 137, 148, 149, 157, 211 Bel’chenko, Sergei, head of MVD of Byelorussia, 115, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 139, 140 Beria, Lavrentii P., member of the Politburo, 7, 8, 12, 19, 21, 22, 23, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 48, 49, 51, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 80, 81, 82, 85, 93, 94, 97, 99, 101, 102, 103, 106, 108, 109, 117, 128, 131, 132, 134, 135, 145, 156, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 200, 201, 207, 213, 216, 230, 239, 243, 248

Bodunov Report, February 11, 1948 official report on Mikhoels' death, 13, 117, 118, 119, 135, 269 Borshchagovsky, Aleksandr, Soviet and Russian write, 72 Borshchagovsky, Aleksandr, Soviet and Russian writer, 45, 55, 58, 61, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 76, 77, 80, 109 Borshchagovsky, Aleksandr, Soviet and Russian writer Borshchagovsky, Aleksandr, Soviet and Russian writer, 62 Conquest, Robert, BritishAmerican scholar,anticommunist propagandist, 8, 9, 10, 11, 83, 86, 106, 186, 193 Erenburg, Il’ia, Soviet writer, 22, 23, 164, 210 Furr, Grover C., 2 Gorbachev, Mikhail, Chairman of CPSU, President of USSR, 122, 131 Gul’st, Veniamin, NKVD man, 39, 40

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Ioffe, E., author of an article in Lekhaim on Mikhoels’ death, 111, 140 Junge, Marc, German anticommunist historian, 123 Khrushchev, Nikita, member of Politburo, later First Secretary of the CPSU, 22, 29, 30, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 94, 121, 191, 192, 201, 202, 204, 207, 214 Kostylrchenko, Gennadii, Russian historian of Jewish subjects, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 69, 71, 72, 73, 83, 90, 92, 93, 95, 97, 98, 107, 115, 117, 119, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 167, 186, 187, 188, 192, 194, 230 Kosyrev, Aleksandr, MVD man, 88, 89, 91, 134, 141, 149, 150, 200, 246 Kruglov, Boris, MGB man named in Awards Decree, 87, 88, 91 Kruglov, Sergei, Minister of Internal Affairs, 12, 13, 103, 117, 121, 122, 140, 194 Lebedev, Vasily, MGB man named in Awards Decree, 87, 88, 91, 93, 96, 97, 98, 99, 149, 150, 200, 244, 245, 256, 261 Levashov, Viktor, Russian writer and dramatist, 11, 75, 76, 77, 80, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 100, 103, 106, 108, 109, 134, 135,

141, 203, 218, 239, 240, 246, 250, 257 Lur’e, Leonid, theater director, 20, 23, 41, 45, 209 Malenkov, Georgii, member of the Politburo, 7, 40, 42, 44, 49, 51, 53, 65, 128, 156, 191, 192, 199 Medvedev, Roi, Soviet writer and dissident, 28, 29, 30, 31, 43 Medvedev, Zhores A., Soviet dissident, scientist, 5, 99, 141, 186, 187, 193, 194, 196 Molchanov, Vladimir, Russian radio and television journalist, 90, 105, 106, 108, 109 Mukhin, Yuri, Russian writer and historian, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 192, 193, 194, 196 Ogol’tsov, Sergei, LieutenantGeneral of State Security of the USSR, 8, 45, 49, 50, 62, 63, 74, 75, 80, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 107, 108, 109, 118, 119, 130, 133, 136, 138, 144, 145, 146, 149, 150, 151, 154, 155, 189, 190, 191, 192, 194, 195, 196, 200, 240, 246 Oppokov, 32, 36, 43, 45, 212, 213 Pinkus, Benjamin, Professor of Jewish History, 141

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Pitovranov, Evgenii, head of counter-intelligence of Soviet MGB, 105, 106, 108 Popov, Boris, Soviet writer, 32, 36, 43, 45, 139, 160, 212, 213 Povzun, Nikolai., MVD man, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 105, 134, 141, 149, 150, 200, 246 Redlich, 74 Redlich, Shimon, Israeli writer on Jewish subjects, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 69, 71, 72, 117, 186 Rubenstein, Joshua, American anticommunist writer, 20, 25, 26, 28 Serov, Ivan, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, 13, 159, 273 Shkiriatov, Matvei, member of Central Committee of the Party, member of Committee of Party Control, 17, 215 Shubnyakov, Fedor, MGB man, 84, 87, 88, 91, 93, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 115, 118, 135, 136, 137, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 192, 195, 200, 244, 245, 256, 260 Solomentsev, Mikhail, Politburo member under Gorbachev, 122 Sotillo, Susana Magdalena, Ph.D., 4

Sudoplatov, Pavel, head of diversion section of the MVD, 96, 101, 119, 120, 121, 150, 192, 244 Golubov, Vladimir, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 49, 50, 96, 97, 98, 99, 107, 108, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 120, 122, 129, 130, 135, 136, 137, 140, 141, 147, 148, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 158, 159, 160, 186, 189, 194, 200, 268, 273, 274, 275, 276 Tsanava, Lavrentii, Minister of State Security of the Byelorussian SSR, 15, 30, 31, 45, 49, 50, 62, 68, 69, 70, 71, 74, 75, 76, 77, 80, 81, 82, 87, 88, 91, 93, 96, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 103, 107, 111, 116, 118, 119, 120, 122, 130, 134, 135, 136, 139, 140, 145, 146, 149, 150, 154, 160, 189, 190, 191, 192, 194, 195, 196, 200, 244, 245, 250, 261, 262, 275 Vaksberg, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 58, 62, 65, 66, 109, 134, 147, 148, 189, 191, 193 Vaksberg, Arkadii, Soviet and Russian writer, 193 Vayner, Arkadii and Georgii, brothers, authors of novel about Mikhoels’ murder, 9 Yakovlev, Aleksandr, Politburo member under Gorbachev, 31, 64, 66, 73, 74, 122, 124, 125, 127, 128, 192

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Stalin Exonerated: Fact-checking the Death of Solomon Mikhoels

Zhenchuzhina, Polina, wife of Vyacheslav Molotov, former Minister, 17, 18, 19, 44, 45, 143, 157, 158, 165, 215, 235



Zuskin, Veniamin, actor in the Yiddish theater, member of Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, 18, 19, 20, 22, 118, 137, 156, 165, 209