Stalin's Last Crime

Stalin's Last Crime

by Jonathan Brent and Vladimir P. Naumov

John Murray $135

In January 1953, an apparent conspiracy among Jewish doctors in the Soviet medical profession was discovered. The doctors were accused of murdering Soviet leaders or planning their murders in league with American intelligence. Hundreds were arrested, and fantastic rumours circulated that Jewish doctors were injecting Russian children with diphtheria and killing newborn infants in maternity hospitals. Today, the plot is generally thought to have been a conspiracy by the government to discredit Jewish doctors. However, the documents assembled in this book tell a different story. Academics Jonathan Brent and Vladimir Naumov have dug into the Soviet archives to show the case was invented by Stalin himself, who used it to remove rivals in government. This is a chilling account that casts light on a dictator at work.