Stalin's Last Crime

On January 13, 1953, the world learned that a vast conspiracy among Jewish doctors to murder Kremlin leaders had been unmasked. Pravda reported that several of the doctors had already confessed to the crime. Mass arrests quickly followed. Less than two months later, Stalin died, taking the secret of the “Doctor’s Plot,” as it came to be called, with him. But what was the truth behind this bizarre incident? Was it Stalin’s creation, or that of his Kremlin subordinates? How was it related to contemporary world events, including the Cold War? And did the “plot” have any actual connection with Stalin’s death? In Stalin’s Last Crime, Jonathan Brent and Vladimir P. Naumov draw on an astounding array of recently declassified documents, exposing for the first time the incredible story of the Doctors’ Plot. Jonathan Brent, Editorial Director of Yale University Press and founder of its distinguished Annals of Communism series, holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He lives in Connecticut. Vladimir Pavlovich Naumov, professor of history, has been Executive Secretary of the Presidential Commission for the Rehabilitation of Repressed Persons since its inception under Gorbachev. He is the author of numerous articles and books on Soviet history, and is co-editor of Stalin’s Secret Pogrom. He lives in Russia. “It is the best book ever written on the Doctors’ Plot and one of the best analyses of the Stalinist soul.” — Financial Times