On the bourgeois Riga seaside. Soviet doctors are good, but Germans are better

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“Medical and Sanitary Administration of the Kremlin.” This is the title of a new book by Kremlin historians, which for the first time, based on declassified archival documents, tells about the once famous “Lechsanupra”, about how Soviet leaders were treated. (Authors - Sergey Devyatov, Valentin Zhilyaev, Olga Kaykova and others, edited by the director of the Federal Security Service of Russia Evgeny Murov.) Today - on the day of Lenin's death - we are turning over exactly those pages that are dedicated to Vladimir Ilyich...

“Temperature and pulse are normal”

In March 1918, the Soviet government moved from Petrograd to Moscow, and the central authorities of the RSFSR were located in the Kremlin. And immediately the acute question arose - how to organize medical care for the state leadership and Kremlin residents? At that time, about three thousand people permanently lived in the Kremlin. But there was not even a first-aid post - only one dentist's office.

August-1918. Russia is in the midst of a civil war, plus unprecedented activity of the internal opposition.

On August 30, Socialist-Revolutionary Fani Kaplan shot at Lenin. After being wounded, Vladimir Ilyich was brought first to the Kremlin, then to the Botkin Hospital for surgery. And the leader was recuperating in Gorki.

“Politically reliable” medical luminaries were involved in the treatment of the Council of People’s Commissars. Among them is Professor V.M. Mints, doctors V.N. Rozanov, B.S. Weisbrod, N.N. Mamonov, A.N. Vinokurov, M.I. Baranov. It was they, together with the manager of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR V.D. Bonch-Bruevich signed official bulletins about the leader’s health.

In total, from August 30 to September 12, 1918, 37 of them were released. (The book contains the originals of these documents for the first time.) In one of them, dated September 3, 1918, at midnight, it is recorded: “V.I. Lenin’s health is satisfactory. Temperature 38.2. Pulse – 110; breathing - 24".

Bulletin No. 37, at 8 p.m. on September 18, 1918, reported: “The temperature is normal. The pulse is good... Vladimir Ilyich is allowed to do business.” And Lenin immediately added a note: “Based on this bulletin and my good health, my humble request not to bother the doctors with calls and questions... V. Ulyanov (Lenin).”

“You can already walk around in the Kremlin without covering your nose”

Even the state of the office of the leader of the world proletariat, not to mention the entire building of the workers' and peasants' government, did not stand up to criticism. “In the office of Comrade. Lenin, we read in the conclusion of the sanitary special commission, there is a lot of dust on the cabinets, stoves and palm leaves in the office, and in the corners near the ceiling there is a cobweb... In the corridor there is a broken iron cabinet with ashes, dust, bones from under meat..."

The situation was complicated by the fact that at the end of 1918 - beginning of 1919, an epidemic of typhus swept through the entire country. The Kremlin has created a sanitary inspection station “for new arrivals.” (It was located in front of the entrance to the Kremlin, at the Trinity Tower.) Everyone, without exception, who tried to enter the territory had to be examined by a doctor, then subjected to mandatory “disinfection procedures.” For this purpose, a “sanitary area” was created in the Kremlin.

And the “Sanitary Rules for Kremlin Residents” were signed by Lenin himself. This formidable circular ordered “to maintain personal cleanliness in the premises” and obliged all new visitors to the Kremlin to “wash in the bathhouse and hand over their personal belongings to a disinfector.” Ignoring these rules threatened with immediate eviction from the Kremlin and trial “for causing public harm”1.

According to Bonch-Bruevich’s recollections, Lenin once told him: “You know, I see the results of the work of the sanitary and medical organization. Already in the Kremlin you can walk without stopping your nose in places where it was completely impossible to walk before.”

BY THE WAY

...Plus a typhus hospital

As of December 17, 1920, the Kremlin Sanitary Department included a disinfection bureau, a bathhouse, a laundry, and an isolation checkpoint. The Kremlin also had its own typhus hospital - it was located on Bolshaya Polyanka. In February-May 1920 alone, 214 people were admitted to it with a total of 4,479 sick days used. Of the 214 patients, 12 died.

...And Ilyich did not like domestic resorts

If unknown “comrades” could go to domestic resorts, only a very limited circle of senior officials of the party and state apparatus were sent for treatment abroad (there was no talk of vacation there at all).

The treatment and recreation of statesmen abroad, as well as the invitation of foreign specialists to Soviet Russia, required significant foreign exchange expenses. Therefore, a special currency fund of the Central Committee was created, which was administered by the executive bodies of the Central Committee of the RCP - the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) - the Politburo, the Organizing Bureau and the Secretariat.

In 1921–1924, foreign medical specialists were repeatedly invited to Moscow regarding V.I.’s illness. Lenin. After all, Ilyich was very critical of the recommendations of domestic doctors. He was also skeptical about the restoration capabilities of domestic resorts. Therefore, Lenin recommended exclusively foreign medicine to his close friends and party comrades. In 1921 he wrote to A.M. Gorky:

“Alexey Maksimovich! ...I'm so tired that I can't do anything. And you have hemoptysis, and you don’t eat! This is, by all means, unconscionable and irrational. In Europe, in a good sanatorium, you will receive treatment and do three times more work. Hey, hey. But we have no treatment, no business - just vanity. Wasteful fuss. Go away, get better. Don't be stubborn, please. Your Lenin."

It was Lenin who raised the question at the Politburo “On the release of money to Gorky for treatment abroad.”

“I need the lifestyle of a sick person”

In the spring days of 1922, German doctors, having examined Lenin, recommended him to take a long rest with “mountain air.” Vladimir Ilyich even wrote an application for leave, which he, at the suggestion of the Secretary of the Central Committee V.M. Molotov was granted on February 22, and then extended by decisions of the Politburo of the Central Committee. Lenin was planning to go on vacation to the Caucasus in May-June 1922, was looking for a suitable vacation spot and corresponded on this issue, including with his comrade-in-arms G.K. Ordzhonikidze.

“(April 9, 1922) Comrade Sergo! ...I need to live separately. The patient’s lifestyle... Either separate houses, or only such a large house in which absolute separation is possible... There should be no visits. I read the “Companion to the Caucasus”... I see that I don’t need either a map or detailed descriptions in books (which I asked you for). For the whole point is to inspect suitable houses, and neither a map nor a book will give you this. Send a smart, business-like person for an inspection (if you don’t have time before 7/V, it’s better to postpone it for a week) and send me a choice: such and such houses; miles from the railway; miles along the highway; height; raininess. If repairs are needed, we will agree by telegraph (“repairs will take so many weeks”). Don’t forget the Black Sea coast and the foothills of the North Caucasus. It’s not fun at all to be beyond Tiflis: it’s far away. Your Lenin."

But the second letter is dated April 17, 1922... “T. Sergo. I am sending you a few more small information. They were reported to me by a doctor who was there himself and deserves complete trust: Abastuman (resort in Georgia - Ed.) is completely unsuitable, because it looks like a “coffin”, a narrow hollow; not suitable for nervous people; there are no walks, other than to climb, and Nadezhda Konstantinovna cannot climb. Borzhom is very suitable, because there are walks on level ground, and this is necessary for Nadezhda Konstantinovna. In addition, Borjom is a suitable altitude, but Abastuman is an excessive altitude, more than 1000 meters. It is forbidden. Our doctor especially warns against an early trip, as it will be cold and rainy until mid-June. On this last point, I am not so afraid if the house does not leak and is heated, because under these conditions the cold and rain are not terrible. Shake your hand. Your Lenin."

But Lenin never went to the Caucasus - “due to complications of the disease.”

THERE WAS A CASE

Predsovnarkom heated... a fake fireplace

In the early 1920s, statesmen were also treated in rest homes and sanatoriums, which were created on the basis of palaces, country estates and estates. Lenin did not like palaces, so they found him a not very luxurious, but comfortable and well-preserved mansion of the former Moscow mayor Rainbot in Gorki. But even there the situation was unusual for Lenin and Nadezhda Krupskaya. After all, the spouses are used to living in modest apartments and cheap boarding houses abroad. They settled in the smallest room of the estate. Nadezhda Konstantinovna recalled that next to her there was a large room in which “there were two fireplaces. We are used to fireplaces in London, where in most apartments this is the only heating.

“Light the fireplace,” asked Ilyich. They brought firewood, looked for pipes, there were none. Well, the guards thought, fireplaces must not have chimneys. Flooded. But the fireplaces, it turned out, were for decoration, not for heating. The attic caught fire, they began to flood it with water, the ceiling collapsed..."

The Soviet leadership passed through the Medical Commission

In the early 1920s, the young Soviet government began to think about organizing medical care and recreation for statesmen, because many of them were pretty “battered” by the civil war, went through prisons and exile. Famous German doctors were invited to Moscow, they held consultations together with Moscow specialists. At the beginning of 1923, a Medical Council was created under the Central Committee of the RCP, which monitored the health of “party comrades.” A little later, the Medical Commission of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) appeared (since 1926 - the Medical Commission of the People's Commissariat of Health). She organized treatment for leadership in the USSR and abroad. The commission issued cash benefits and helped “party members” who were temporarily unable to work. In 1923-1924. More than 3,000 people passed through it. The patients suffered mainly from nervous diseases and tuberculosis.

Holiday homes for children or members of the Politburo?

If no one except Lenin laid claim to the Gorki estate, then street children also relied on rest homes for less eminent “comrades”. In 1921, doctors recommended that A.I., who was seriously ill, Rykov, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, after treatment, to spend a vacation in the Moscow region. They decided to place the statesman at the Lipki state farm (the palace of the former estate of A. Ruppert). At the same time, the People's Commissariat for Education planned to establish a children's educational institution for street children on this estate. In May 1921, “representatives of the People's Commissariat for Education came ... to the Lipki state farm to move colonies of children into the main building of the state farm, but ... “The Central Committee of the Party decided to provide Lipki to Comrade Rykov...” More than a hundred street children who came from Petrograd were temporarily placed in in the homes of the residents of the village of Lipki, as well as in the state farm stables and cowshed.

A similar incident occurred at this time in another place. In April 1921, Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) E.M. Yaroslavsky sent the following note to the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee: “The dachas allocated for the children of emigrants in Tarasovka have been taken away from them for the Council of People’s Commissars.”

As for “Lipok”, they were left for the children for two years, and in the summer of 1923 another place was found for them. “After renovation, the estate again became a holiday home (state dacha), but this time for the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, where A.I. spent his country vacation. Rykov. Later, in the mid-30s of the twentieth century, this object became known as the Lipki state dacha near Moscow, which I.V. occasionally visited. Stalin."

Not treatment, but torture!

The Soviet government thought not only about the health of statesmen, but also tried to take care of the well-being of ordinary Soviet workers. For the preservation and development of domestic resorts in the early 20s. two million rubles were allocated. The leadership and the entire working population of the RSFSR and other autonomous Soviet republics went to the resorts of the Caucasian Mineral Waters. True, in the first years after the civil war there, “the most bleak, to say the least, picture emerges of the state of treatment of patients, among whom were a significant number of workers from various localities of Soviet Russia.”

In general, patients often came on vacation when their vacation period had already expired: for a month or even two they “hanged out” on the road. The “lucky” ones who managed to get to the resort on time received very dubious treatment. After all, “part of the medical staff was recruited with such economic calculations: for example, the doctors themselves were many sick, were being treated and at the same time had to treat others. Of course, as a result, almost no medical care existed.” Of course, you could find a good doctor for money, but not everyone could afford it.

In addition, “the patients did not finish eating, they were nervous, watching when food for personal consumption was prepared from their own products in the kitchen, the quality was much better than what they ate. Throughout almost the summer, the patients ate semolina porridge with water, which, according to the patients, was simply “sick of them.” ... In some sanatoriums, food was prepared together with worms, in dirty dishes, which resulted in poisoning of sanatorium patients... At the resorts, vacationers fled in droves from the “health resorts.” The reason for this treatment was that among the administration there were many people from bourgeois-White Guard circles. They paid main attention to personal interests.

In June 1922, Chairman of the Union of Metalworkers of Russia S.P. Medvedev wrote to the Central Committee of the RCP (b) I.S. To Stalin: “Two days ago I returned to Moscow from the Caucasian Mineral Waters region...

First of all: there is not yet a single sanatorium there, internally equipped and furnished so as to provide those undergoing treatment with real sanatorium peace and healing, in order to completely relieve the sick from everyday household problems and shortages... Lack of bed linen... Lack of evening lighting due to lack of light bulbs. Lack of such simple items as a glass, tea saucer, spoon, plate, knife, fork, etc. ...How great the need for these items is is shown by a note in the local newspaper with an appeal to everyone traveling to the Caucasian Mineralnye Vody - “Comrades, take all this from home.”

Favorite resorts of the USSR top leadership

In 1923, conditions for recreation and treatment improved at the resorts of the Caucasian Mineralnye Vody, and famous party leaders went there: G.E. Zinoviev, N.I. Bukharin. They were joined by I.V. Stalin, K.E. Voroshilov, M.V. Frunze. High-ranking officials hunted and took mud baths.

In 1924, the number of applications from senior government and party leaders for recreation and treatment at the resorts of the Caucasian Mineral Waters increased greatly. Naturally, there was a different attitude towards the famous “comrades”. For medical care of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee holiday homes in the Caucasian Mineralnye Vody, a special doctor was allocated, paid at the expense of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. According to his recipes for vacationers, “responsible comrade. (including more than 20 people, such as Krupskaya, Zinoviev, Bukharin, etc.) medications are dispensed from the pharmacies of the resort administration.” Medicines for patients of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee rest homes were free.

In subsequent years, the resorts of the Caucasian Mineral Waters enjoyed particular success among the highest government and political leadership of the Soviet Union.

True, unrest with the organization of recreation and treatment still continued during the 20s. “The sanatorium staff were selected by group institutions with almost no participation from the sanatorium managers. In the matter of hiring employees, the dominant principle was to hire “your own person”... The result is a lack of qualified workers, adhesions in the work of the staff.” In addition, “sanatoriums lived without income and expense estimates. They were advanced according to actual need from group departments. Consequently, the chief doctors had almost no money on hand.”

“It is better to be killed by the will of the “Almighty...”

The lack of qualified medical personnel at Soviet resorts forced eminent patients to seek help from German doctors. In 1928 G.K. Ordzhonikidze, chairman of the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the People's Commissariat of the RKI of the USSR in Kislovodsk, treated the kidneys, but doctors could not make an accurate diagnosis. People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs K.E. Voroshilov wrote to Ordzhonikidze: “I learned that they didn’t find anything on you, and that you were returning soon. Both made me very happy. Today I received a letter from you in which you confirm the initial information about the absence of tuberculosis indicators. For some reason I am convinced that you don’t have any tuberculosis. Before, I didn’t trust our doctors even a penny, but now, after experiments with you and a host of other comrades, I finally decided for myself - it’s better to be killed by the will of the “Almighty” than to use learned healers. I do not admit for a minute that the Germans could not detect bacilli (meaning the Koch bacilli, the presence of which indicates kidney tuberculosis. - Ed.), if they are present in the body, obviously they were not there, and the Germans, out of decency (support the authority of colleagues) dig, search and... earn money from the whole business. Well, to hell with them, let them earn money, as long as everything turns out well.”

Soviet doctors are good, but Germans are better

Member of the Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks L.D. was also skeptical about the capabilities of domestic medicine. Trotsky. In 1924, he and his wife went to the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus to Sukhum.

But rest and treatment did not help. Lev Davydovich was constantly unwell and had a fever.

The distrust in the capabilities of domestic doctors was similar to that of L.D. Trotsky, and some of the leaders of the Soviet state of that time. Lev Davydovich recalled the Kremlin doctor L.G. Levin: “He treated Lenin, Stalin and all members of the government. I knew this calm and conscientious man well. Like any authoritative doctor, he established intimate, almost patronizing, relationships with high-profile patients. He knows well what the spines of the gentlemen “leaders” look like and how their authoritarian kidneys function. Levin had free access to any dignitary.” And, nevertheless, the Kremlin doctor L.G. Levin and other Moscow doctors could not establish the cause of L.D.’s prolonged fever and poor health. Trotsky. To avoid taking responsibility, they insisted on his traveling abroad. And Lev Davydovich in the spring of 1926 went to Germany for treatment, but even after this trip he did not feel better.

Domestic medicine helped Stalin

Despite criticism of domestic doctors by some eminent patients, Soviet doctors were still able to help. For example, Stalin’s health improved at domestic resorts. In the second half of the 20s, he spent his holidays mainly on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus - in the Sochi-Matsesta region. Stalin complained of pain in the muscles of his arms and legs. Soviet doctors did not find any pathological changes in him and recommended a course of Matsesta baths. In August 1925, Stalin wrote to Molotov from Sochi: “I am recovering. Matsesta waters (near Sochi) are good against sclerosis, nerve damage, heart enlargement, sciatica, gout, rheumatism. I would send my wife here.”

The next year, Stalin again took Matsesta baths, but under closer medical supervision. Doctor of Medical Sciences Ivan Aleksandrovich Valedinsky (later the scientific director of the clinical sanatorium "Barvikha") advised him to take procedures in a special way: lie “under a sheet and blanket without clothes for 15–20 minutes, which contributed to a rush of blood to the skin, to the muscles of the limbs, and this rush gave a feeling of warmth in the arms and legs.”

With this method of taking baths, the effectiveness of the treatment was higher, and they were also easier to tolerate.

At the end of the course of treatment, Joseph Vissarionovich arranged a Saturday lunch for the doctors and treated them to cognac so much that doctor Valedinsky was at home only the next day, Sunday.

If Stalin was pleased with the treatment in Sochi, the Secretary General of the Central Committee did not like the improvement of the resort. The main disadvantage was the lack of centralized water supply and sewerage. As at the resorts of the Caucasian Mineral Waters, ordinary vacationers were fed disgustingly, there was a lack of bedding, and there was no medical care or medicine. The same thing was observed at the resorts of the southern coast of Crimea.

Stalin played bowls in Crimea

During their stay in Crimea, the top leaders of the USSR rested and received treatment at the All-Russian Central Executive Committee "Mukhalatka" rest house. In September 1925, K.E. Voroshilov wrote about his holiday in “Mukhalatka”:

“...We are resting as proletarians who have achieved real rest should. Me and Shkiryatich (Shkiryatov M.F., member of the Central Control Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. - Note. KP) spend 4-5 hours hanging out at sea, breathing in all our pores the beautiful sea air. The weather has always been favorable to us, and we are blissful. They don’t feel bad, etc. etc. and especially Koba. He rested thoroughly and was always cheerful and joyful. Among other things, Koba learned to play bowls and billiards. He really likes both.”

We express our gratitude to the Administration of the President of Russia. State Archive of the Russian Federation, Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History for the materials provided and assistance in preparing the publication.

With the assistance of the publisher Vagrius"Power" presents a series of historical materials in the ARCHIVE section. 85 years ago, in 1924, the Politburo decided to strengthen the health care of the party elite and created a special Medical Commission of the Central Committee. As a Vlast columnist found out from her documents Evgeny Zhirnov, the most responsible workers led the country in a state of painful overwork.

"God forbid from Bolshevik doctors"

When in 1918 Lenin convinced his colleagues on the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee to evacuate the capital from Petrograd, few of his colleagues guessed what was really driving him. The great expert on conspiracy informed everyone that the government was moving to Nizhny Novgorod, and only the closest people knew that the capital was being moved to Moscow. By organizing an escape from St. Petersburg, Lenin not only saved the core of the Bolshevik party from the advancing German troops and saved himself from a failed assassination attempt and two discovered conspiracies, but also shook off the ashes of the former bureaucratic elite from the feet of the new proletarian leadership. Tens of thousands of officials, former officers, entrepreneurs and lobbyists of all stripes remained in the former capital of the empire; in the conditions of growing devastation, they had very slim chances of settling in Moscow. As a result, the Bolsheviks could try to start governing the country from scratch, without regard to traditions or anyone else's interests.

True, the entire infrastructure supporting the activities of the government and the Central Committee in Moscow had to be created from scratch. Sovnarkomov economic managers had to look for a place for a horse-drawn base that served the Bolshevik elite, evict former residents from the Kremlin and divide the space between the families of the new Soviet leaders. And since there was not enough room for everyone, all the best Moscow hotels were nationalized and turned into hostels, or, as they were called, houses of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

A separate problem was the medical care of the Bolshevik leaders. As the White and Red Terror intensified, people became more and more embittered, and doctors were no exception. So many Bolsheviks began to fear that bourgeois doctors would be able, and most importantly, would want to heal them to death, and preferred to trust their lives only to Bolshevik doctors. The leader of the world revolution adhered to a completely different point of view.

Journalist Nikolai Volsky, close to the Bolsheviks, recalled: “In case of illness, Lenin usually turned to very good doctors or celebrities. He would not have been treated by his brother Dmitry. From Geneva at the end of 1903, he went to Lausanne to see a celebrity - Doctor Mermod. In Paris I was allowed to operate on my sister Maria for appendicitis only in a good clinic by a famous surgeon, Dr. Duboucher, who suffered from Graves’ disease, and took him from Krakow to Bern to the famous specialist Kocher.”

And in the complete collected works of Lenin there is his letter from 1913 to Maxim Gorky, whom Dr. Manukhin undertook to treat: “The news that you are being treated in a new way by a “Bolshevik”, although a former one, really bothered me. God forbid from doctors -comrades in general, Bolshevik doctors in particular! Really, in 99 cases out of 100, comrade doctors are “donkeys,” as a good doctor once told me, that you should only get treatment (except for minor cases) from first-class celebrities. The invention of a Bolshevik is terrible!”

Volsky claimed that on another occasion Lenin, speaking about communist doctors, said: “It is possible that they know how to write a proclamation and give a speech at a rally, but they, of course, have no medical knowledge. How can they have it when they “They didn’t acquire them, didn’t have a practice, but were involved in politics? I want to deal with real doctors, specialists, and not ignoramuses.” And in “minor cases” he preferred rest and increased nutrition to all types of treatment. About his sister Maria Ilyinichna, he wrote to his mother on August 24, 1909: “I advise her to drink more milk and eat yogurt. She prepares it for herself, but, in my opinion, she still doesn’t feed herself enough: because of this, we are with her all the time We're quarreling."

Lenin did not change his principles even when he headed the government. He sent sick comrades, including his wife Krupskaya, to rest with increased nutrition. He also sent suffering Bolsheviks for treatment abroad and allocated hard-to-find currency to pay for consultations with European medical luminaries. In 1921, for example, on his direct orders, the Politburo decided: “Include Comrade Gorky among the comrades receiving treatment abroad, and instruct Comrade Krestinsky to check that he is fully provided with the amount necessary for treatment.”

Even when choosing a doctor for a small, ten-bed, emergency hospital in the Kremlin, Lenin remained true to himself. He appointed practicing physician Alexandra Kanel as the head of the hospital, which suited the rest of the leaders who knew her husband well, a former member of the Moscow committee of the RSDLP, Veniamin Kanel. For those who could do without hospitalization, they opened a small outpatient clinic with one doctor.

But the Kremlin hospital and outpatient clinic turned out to have much more patients than they could serve. And this was not surprising. There were very, very few proven, and most importantly, capable of organizing and leading people among the Bolsheviks. So everyone who could really solve problems and implement the decisions of the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee was given a huge number of instructions and posts. And the natural result of overload was nervous exhaustion and exacerbation of old and new ailments. To provide everyone with the necessary help at home, the People's Commissariat of Health organized outpatient clinics in all the houses of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and soon rooms with hospital beds appeared in them.

The main hospital also grew very quickly. The number of beds in it tripled in 1919, to 30, and three doctors appeared. And in 1920, an additional isolation ward was opened for infected comrades. Then the increase in the number of patients made it necessary to acquire our own pharmacy. Then a physiotherapy department, laboratories, and an X-ray room appeared. In 1921, all departments of the Kremlin medicine were united into the Kremlin Sanitary Department. But this did not at all reduce the severity of the problem.

"To monitor the state of the old party guard"

Qualified doctors throughout the country charged considerable fees for their services. Care was also paid in a number of state clinics and hospitals. And the Bolshevik leaders had a party maximum salary, which did not allow them to receive high-quality medical care. Therefore, apparatchiks from the central authorities and from the localities tried by hook or by crook to get an appointment with Kremlin doctors. And some of those who were entitled to Kremlin medicine because of their position refused to carry out medical orders. By the end of 1921, it became obvious that the leadership of Sanupra (or Lechsanupra, as it was later called) must have a person with authority among the Bolsheviks, and, moreover, a doctor.

In January 1922, the Politburo obliged the People's Commissariat of Health to "indicate the person specifically responsible for the implementation of the Central Committee's resolution on the treatment of individual comrades." However, this candidacy should also suit Lenin when the leader, as all his faithful comrades hoped, would recover and be able to return to fulfill his duties in full. The search dragged on somewhat, and only towards the end of the summer of 1922 did the People's Commissariat of Health select a candidate for the post of head of Sanupra.

Pavel Obrosov (in some documents - Abrosov) became a rebel and revolutionary much earlier than a medical student. And due to constant participation in revolutionary gatherings, riots and subsequent imprisonments, he studied at the medical faculty of Tomsk University for nine years. By this parameter alone, he fit the Leninist criteria of an ignorant Bolshevik doctor. But in the gaps between anti-government events, Obrosov, according to his students and biographers, was engaged in scientific work. But the main thing that Lenin could have liked was that he was an ardent supporter of resort treatment and proved this by literally risking his head when he organized resorts on the banks of the Yenisei, where there were many enemies of the Soviet regime, to restore Siberian Bolsheviks who had recovered from typhus.

In Moscow, Obrosov was appointed head of the Lechsanupra and at the same time head of the department of medical areas of the People's Commissariat of Health. So he could work to improve the health of the leadership of the party and government in both positions at the same time. It just turned out that the funds allocated to Lechsanupru are extremely limited. And one of Obrosov’s tasks was their strict economy. For example, when foreign medical luminaries came to Moscow in early 1923 to consult Lenin’s doctors, Obrosov arranged for them to also examine members of the Politburo, whose condition was particularly alarming. He began to organize regular consultations and forcibly send leaders, including members of the Politburo, on vacation. So, in 1923, he sent the Secretary of the Central Committee Valerian Kuibyshev for treatment and the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic Leon Trotsky on a long leave.

It turned out to be much more difficult to fight off requests from middle managers for consultations with luminaries and trips to foreign resorts. Everyone asked, insisted, demanded and had every right to do so due to their condition. But the money allocated to Lechsanupru at the beginning of the year melted like snow in the spring, even before the arrival of real spring.

At Obrosov’s request, in the early summer of 1924, strict limits were established on the spending of medical money and a special fund was created in the amount of 100 thousand rubles. And soon they tried to limit the number of managers served by Lechsanupr. The Politburo adopted a decision “On the protection of the health of the Party Guard,” which organized the Medical Commission of the Central Committee, and the number of old guards from the top leadership was determined by a special list and amounted to one hundred people. The paragraphs of the decision read:

“1. To systematically monitor the health of the old party guard, create a commission.

2. The strict implementation of the decisions of this commission is considered, by force, the party duty of each comrade.

3. Introduce responsible comrades from the old guard into the observation circle for the near future on a special list of about 100 people.

4. The Bureau of the Central Committee and the secretaries of the provincial committees organize the same supervision over responsible party comrades in their regions, using, if necessary, the apparatus of the Central Commission.

5. The commission shall be given the right to invite control doctors to systematically monitor the treatment and compliance with the regime by the specified comrades.

6. The commission will provide medical assistance to the families of comrades taken under the specified medical supervision.

7. Narkomfin allocate appropriate funds at the disposal of the commission.

8. The commissions will take on general management of the treatment of party comrades.”

“I plunged headlong into work and felt bad”

However, the solutions yielded absolutely nothing. The treatment commission of the Central Committee was unable to remain within the established limits either in terms of the number of people served or in terms of costs.

Thus, in January 1927, the Treatment Commission, judging by its report, met eight times and met for a total of about 22 hours. During this month, the commission sent 422 people for treatment to the Lechsanupra clinic, and 129 patients for consultation there. More than one and a half thousand more were transferred to the city medical institutions of the People's Commissariat of Health. Apparently no one remembered the hundred party guards anymore. We spent about 18 thousand rubles in a month, which in annual terms more than doubled the limits of 1924. But the main thing, naturally, was the results. But they still left much to be desired.

Judging by documents from 1927, members of the Politburo and people's commissars who did not complain about their health could be counted on the fingers of one hand. About the member of the presidium of the Supreme Council of National Economy (VSNKh) of the USSR and the chairman of the Association of General Engineering of the Supreme Council of National Economy, who from time to time also served as a member of the court, Alexander Tolokontsev, the report of the Medical Commission of the Central Committee said: “Signs of fatigue have intensified.”

The old Bolshevik Varvara Yakovleva, who created the Cheka with Dzerzhinsky and worked in 1927 as deputy people's commissar of education of the RSFSR, felt no better: “The other day I completed a course of massage treatment. She still works extremely hard (especially at night). She feels a significant need for physical and mental rest." And the People's Commissar of Social Security of the RSFSR, Joseph Nagovitsyn, developed chronic tuberculosis from extreme fatigue.

The rector of the Sverdlov Communist University, Martyn Lyadov, at the insistence of doctors, rested in the Arkhangelskoye sanatorium, which then belonged to Lechsanupru near Moscow, but this did not bring any results: “My health improved, but not dramatically. Comrade Lyadov immediately plunged headlong into work and felt bad ".

The secretary of the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Sergei Gusev, who combined an incredible number of assignments with his main job, also, according to the doctors, overworked a lot and felt extremely bad - fatigue, weariness, weakness. The head of the Central Control Commission, Valerian Kuibyshev, according to doctors, suffered from dysfunction of the internal secretion organs due to extreme fatigue. And Sergo Ordzhonikidze, who replaced him, had regular heart attacks. Another party controller, Secretary of the Party Commission of the Central Control Commission Emelyan Yaroslavsky, began to lose heart due to fatigue.

The condition of those responsible for problematic sectors—heavy industry and agriculture—was especially difficult. For Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council of National Economy Moisei Rukhimovich, as doctors stated, no Kremlin treatment helped: “The state of weakness and irritability is increasing. Headaches, diarrhea (as before). He still pays little attention to himself. He has become especially irritable.” The diagnosis of the People's Commissar of Agriculture and the head of the Peasant International, Alexander Smirnov, is neurasthenia and dyspepsia.

What was there to say about the people's commissars if the country's top leadership suffered for the same reason. Only the head of government, Rykov, was tired, but more or less healthy. The overtired secretary of the Central Committee, Molotov, needed rest, and Stalin, due to extreme fatigue, developed a relapse of rheumatism that affected his right hand. People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov was also growing tired. People's Commissar of Trade Mikoyan also desperately needed rest.

One can imagine what decisions leaders made in such a state. A year earlier, when the situation was almost no different, Trotsky managed to push through the Politburo a decision on the construction of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station, which was untimely and extremely costly. Everyone was surprised for a long time how this became possible, and agreed that it was only because of the extreme fatigue and painful state of those present.

And one can only sympathize with those who were judged during periods of exacerbation by Supreme Court member Aron Solts, who suffered from incurable painful salivation and weakening of memory.

Obrosov sent everyone whom the medical councils allowed to go to the waters - to Kislovodsk, Zheleznovodsk, Borjomi, Karlovy Vary. And since rest, as a rule, did not help (Stalin, for example, in 1927, on vacation, he felt much worse and fell ill), patients were sent to leading foreign specialists, primarily to Professor Karl von Noorden (see "Power" N15 for 2007 year), who was visited by almost the entire Soviet elite in Frankfurt am Main.

And if this did not help, methods that were exotic for that time were used. For example, the secretary of the executive committee of the Communist International, Joseph Pyatnitsky, treated psychasthenia associated with thyroid disease with psychotherapy. And most high-ranking comrades relieved pain with the most common painkillers of that time - opium and morphine. How widespread these drugs were was evidenced by a note to Obrosov dated April 3, 1926 from the Secret Department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which served the Politburo and its members, with a request to create a first-aid kit in the department to provide assistance to those in need without the participation of a doctor. Among the thermometers and dental drops, the application included opium.

At times, however, there was a painful addiction to drugs, and it was necessary to take measures to weaken the dependence. The Deputy People's Commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate of the RSFSR, Mikhail Pastukhov, judging by the reports of the Medical Commission of the Central Committee, managed to reduce the dose: “According to the testimony of Prof. Minor, who examined M.D., only neurasthenia is noted from the nervous system. It is recommended to take advantage of an extra day of rest and abstain from taking drugs." And further improvements were noted.

Apparently, to combat the effects of narcotic stress relief, Kremlin medicine also used the latest medications for its time. Thus, the husband of the famous sculptor Vera Mukhina, doctor Alexei Zamkov, experimented with treating all diseases with purified urine of pregnant women, which he called gravidan (see "Power" N49 for 2001). Treatment of drug addicts and alcoholics with this drug has brought lasting and confirmed results. The head physician of the neuropsychiatric hospital for acute alcoholism, Professor Strelchuk, reported to Zamkov about the results of treatment of 11 drug addicts and 23 alcoholics: “None of the patients discharged after treatment with Gravidan have yet relapsed.” And the Kremlin pharmacy purchased Gravidan in significant quantities.

The only question was whether high-ranking patients wanted to recover from drug addiction. Since the beginning of the repression, it appears that the consumption of relaxing drugs has become widespread. As Kremlin doctors recalled, many members of the Partelite, who were threatened with arrest, feigned illness and asked doctors to inject them with morphine in order to somehow cope with the panic that gripped them.

And some managers, having once tried drugs, could not give them up. People's Commissar of Agriculture and Politburo member Andrei Andreev, they say, relieved ear pain with drugs. All the blame for the fact that he lost his ability to work was then placed on the doctors from the Kremlin Medical Center who were involved in the doctors’ case. But it is unlikely that Andreev was the last, much less the only, high-ranking consumer of morphine, because the work continued to wear out both after the end of the repressions and after the war.

"Serious heart disease detected"

The party elite, however, made an attempt to change the situation. In 1947, a draft decision of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers of the USSR “On the work and rest regime of leading officials of the Party and Government” was prepared, which stated: “Analysis of data on the state of health of leading personnel of the Party and Government showed that a number of people, even relatively young ones, age, serious diseases of the heart, blood vessels and nervous system were discovered with a significant decrease in working capacity. One of the reasons for these diseases is hard work not only during the day, but also at night, and often even on holidays. In addition, a number of workers developed the disease. the result of their clearly disdainful attitude towards the state of their health. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of Ministers of the USSR believe that maintaining the health and working capacity of the leading employees of the Party and the Government is a state matter, and not just their personal matter, in order to maximize the health of the leading personnel and for them. preventing a premature decline in their ability to work, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of Ministers of the USSR decide:

1. Establish from May 1, 1947 the following daily routine and work schedule for senior officials of the Party and Government:

a) the start of the working day is at 13.00, the end of the working day no later than 1 am with a two-hour break for lunch and daytime rest. On Saturdays and pre-holidays, finish work no later than 20.00;

b) prohibit work on weekends and holidays;

c) prohibit the holding of meetings and conferences between 17:00 and 20:00; set the duration of meetings to no more than 3 hours. Smoking is prohibited during meetings.

Changes to the established working hours of persons whose activities involve working primarily at night, as well as other withdrawals, can only be made with the permission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

2. Consider it mandatory for every managerial employee to take an annual monthly vacation. For persons in need of sanatorium-resort treatment, the time and duration of the vacation, as well as the place where it will take place, must be established for medical reasons.

3. Oblige the leading officials of the Party and the Government to strictly follow the diet regimen prescribed by doctors, which includes the nature of nutrition and meals at least 3 times a day. To organize rational and therapeutic nutrition, transfer the canteen of the USSR Ministry of State Security to the jurisdiction of the Medical and Sanitary Department of the Kremlin.

4. Oblige the head of the Kremlin Medical and Sanitary Department to:

a) expand and improve dispensary services for executives for the purpose of early detection and prevention of diseases. Conduct a comprehensive medical examination of executives in 1947 and subsequently carry it out systematically, at least once a year;

b) establish a special, individual regime of work and rest for workers suffering from chronic diseases, as well as for persons over 60 years of age, ensuring constant medical supervision of them;

c) organize control over the implementation of the work and rest regime established by this resolution, medical prescriptions and timely completion of dispensary examinations.”

However, apparently, Stalin did not like the project and remained on paper. In case of overwork, sick managers were prescribed rest, dietary nutrition and walks. However, such treatment was not always effective. On the contrary, in a number of cases, such as with Politburo member Andrei Zhdanov, it was contraindicated for the patient and resulted in his death. But the fulfillment of Lenin’s behests about rest and nutrition continued to be carried out by subsequent generations of ignorant doctors. Brezhnev had his working day reduced to a minimum and was given crude, addictive sleeping pills. Foreign luminaries were not invited to Andropov and he was treated with exhausting diets and rest.

Apparently, the elite are treated with rest to this day. And all the details accompanying this will become known many, many years later.

“AiF”: - Evgeniy Ivanovich, in the USSR the rulers promoted domestic medicine, therefore, when Brezhnev had a heart attack, he ordered the construction of a Cardiac Center. This is true?

Evgeny Chazov:- Not really. Brezhnev had a heart attack in his youth, when he worked in Moldova as secretary of the Republican Central Committee. In the mid-1970s, my colleagues and I often visited him at his dacha in Zarechye - he then had health problems. The visits took place in the morning and ended with a tea party, which was organized by Brezhnev’s wife. One day he remembered that he had suffered a heart attack. They began to discuss modern methods of treatment, and the conversation turned to health problems in general. I told him about our proposal to create a special cardiology service - already at that time, mortality from cardiovascular diseases occupied one of the first places. After listening carefully, he was surprised that the Ministry of Health could not resolve this issue. And within a week, these proposals with Brezhnev’s visa were discussed at all levels of government. And the fact that none of the Soviet leaders ever went abroad for treatment is indeed true. On the one hand, they probably didn’t want foreigners to know about their state of health. On the other hand, they believed that we already had everything: a high level of medicine, outstanding specialists recognized throughout the world. Moreover, there was even a certain ban on inviting foreign specialists to the country. Of the 19 leaders of various countries whom I treated, only three - Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko (I’m not counting Khrushchev) - were Soviet. And the rest are leaders of foreign states.

What the press didn’t write about me then... For example, that I supposedly killed Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko so that Gorbachev would come to power. But in medicine, decisions on the most complex cases are made collectively. So, many academicians took part in the treatment of those whom I “killed”. And at a meeting of the Academy of Medical Sciences, I showed that very article and said: “Dear colleagues, 12 academicians sitting here, it turns out, are criminals, murderers. That's what Pravda said. Everyone started talking. The president of the academy wrote a letter to the newspaper: “Are you creating a new “doctors’ business”?” And Pravda, I note, published this letter along with an apology.

Are overseas doctors in fashion?

“AiF”: - But starting with Boris Yeltsin, our leaders prefer to be treated by foreign specialists. It was you who invited the American heart surgeon Michael DeBakey to see him?

E.Ch.:- Andropov was the first. When, at the end of his life, he had serious health problems, he asked for a consultation with the participation of foreign specialists. We invited Professor Rubin from New York General Hospital, a world-renowned kidney specialist. And he confirmed all our diagnoses and the correctness of treatment. And Yeltsin had surgery with us. By the way, Chernomyrdin also performed operations in Russia. I actually asked my friend DeBakey to come to Yeltsin. Yeltsin liked him. But Yeltsin’s entourage was not satisfied with his verdict and decided to invite German specialists for consultation. When they saw Michael and me, they became nervous. In Germany, I am an honorary member of two universities, everyone knows me there, and suddenly they were sent to supervise me and our outstanding cardiac surgeon and academician Renat Akchurin, with whom we were supposed to operate. The Germans sat silently throughout the entire operation, literally pressed against the wall. As soon as we left the operating room, Michael immediately began applauding himself. He really performed the operation brilliantly. The heart didn’t even have to be artificially restarted - it repaired itself and “started up.” And the first of our people whom DeBakey operated on was the great mathematician Mstislav Keldysh. Then I turned to DeBakey as the author of the treatment method that was required for such a diagnosis as Keldysh’s. But that is another story.

P.S. How is medicine today different from what it was half a century ago? How was Marshal Zhukov saved? Read about this and much more in the continuation of the interview with Academician E. Chazov in the following issues.

Material prepared by: Yulia Borta, Savely Kashnitsky, Dmitry Skurzhansky, Vitaly Tseplyaev, Lydia Yudina

What is the difference between these papers?

The document with Getye’s signature said: sharp changes in the blood vessels of the brain were discovered, fresh hemorrhage, which was the cause of death...” Dr. Getye agreed with this. But his signature is not under the conclusion that “the cause of the deceased’s illness was atherosclerosis of wear and tear...” The diagnosis of Abnutzungsclerose did not exist either then or now. At the beginning of the last century, theories about the wear and tear of blood vessels were recognized as untenable by all experts in the world. And the number one pathologist in the country and the world, Alexey Abrikosov, who opened the body, could not help but know this. Just as his colleagues invited to Gorki couldn’t help but know. The autopsy lasted 3 hours and 10 minutes, as stated in the report. In his memoirs, Abrikosov indicated the time as 3 hours 50 minutes. Doctors can pay attention to this nuance.

Is the duration of the procedure an important detail?

Such an autopsy should have taken no more than two hours. What did you do for the remaining two hours? There was a telephone in Gorki, and, most likely, additional time was spent coordinating the diagnosis with the Politburo. That is, two pages of the report were written by doctors, and the final paragraph about unusual atherosclerosis is lowered from the top. But if you carefully read the pathological report, it will become clear to a person with a medical education that Lenin did not have any atherosclerosis.

What is atherosclerosis? It is characterized by certain morphological changes. The first is necessarily lipid (fat) stains on the walls of blood vessels, the second is atherosclerotic plaques. A plaque is a structural morphological formation that has edges. With the sharp development of atherosclerosis, the number of plaques becomes very large, they partly merge with each other and give the inner surface of the affected arteries over a long distance a rough, bumpy appearance.

In the autopsy report of Lenin it is written: vessels are like cords. And other details. All this describes another disease: meningovascular syphilis of the brain. The chief pathologist of Moscow in those years, Ippolit Davydovsky, has a detailed description of the characteristic features of this pathology. If his definition is superimposed on Lenin’s autopsy report, specialists’ doubts will disappear.

Doctors saw syphilis at the autopsy, but were afraid to make it public?

In public documents, Lenin’s doctors clearly wrote that during his lifetime the patient received treatment consistent with his diagnosis. And Lenin was treated only with antisyphilitic drugs. These are heavy metals: mercury, bismuth, arsenic, large doses of iodine every day. All this is described by Academician Lopukhin. At that time, this was the only way to fight syphilis throughout the world.

The composition of the team of doctors who treated Lenin can also say a lot. For example, his main attending physician Kozhevnikov in those years was considered the leading specialist in Russia on neurosyphilis. Also, Max Nonne, Europe’s leading specialist in the treatment of neurosyphilis, was called from Germany specifically for Lenin’s consultation.

Do you want to say that Lenin’s illness was not a secret to those closest to him?

Lenin had a standard clinical picture for that time. In psychiatric wards of Russian hospitals, patients with exactly the same symptoms ranged from 10 to 40 percent. Therefore, everyone understood perfectly well what it was. Including this patient, because it was no coincidence that he asked for poison. He saw how this disease usually ends: progressive paralysis, dementia. The chief pathologist of Moscow, Ippolit Davydovsky, wrote: “According to the data of the sections (autopsies - approx. "Tapes.ru"), the number of patients with syphilis in 1924-25 was 5.5 percent of the population." That is, out of a hundred Muscovites, at least five were sick. And these statistics are incomplete. The regions were very different from each other. In Kalmykia, for example, up to 43 percent of the registered population were sick. General examinations in the 1920s showed that in some villages in Central Russia, up to 16 percent of residents suffered from syphilis.

So there was a syphilis epidemic in Russia?

Syphilis was a colossal problem not only for Russia, but also for Europe. When antibiotics were discovered in 1940, the disease became quite easy to treat. Before that, he posed a threat to state security. We don’t know exactly how Lenin became infected; the history is poorly collected. But I want to emphasize that at that time household syphilis was widespread. Well, the path of infection itself is not interesting to me. For me, this is a common disease, which has become the most confusing event in the history of not only our medicine, but also the medicine of the whole world.

If syphilis is common, in theory, there is no shame in talking about it. Anyone could become infected, even a child. Why was everything classified?

Syphilis, no matter what, has always been considered an “undignified” disease. It had many names: French, Polish, rotten disease, French Venus. For doctors, it doesn’t matter who and what to treat: be it white or red. There is deontology - the science of what should be done. The doctor chose his path, followed the path of duty. But then politics intervened in medicine. What did the revolutionaries build? A new type of man. Syphilis did not fit into this “red project” in any way.

You mentioned the science of what should be. But isn’t the fact that doctors made a deal with the authorities and hid the truth a violation of deontology?

No one harmed the patient. The deal with the authorities was that the doctors remained silent and participated in a political game with the printing of false bulletins with information about the health of the head of state. A total of 35 bulletins were issued during the illness. Even Lenin laughed when he read these medical reports. There is an entry about this in the diary. “I thought that the best diplomats were in The Hague, but in fact they were my doctors,” he said. But it wasn’t the doctors who wrote the bulletins reporting that Lenin had gastroenteritis.

By that time, many Russian doctors who accepted the revolution and served the Soviet regime were demoralized. In the archives I found a letter from the organizer of Soviet medicine Nikolai Semashko, addressed personally to Vladimir Lenin and members of the Politburo. There he says that at the All-Russian Congress of Doctors, many spoke out against “Soviet medicine” and praised “insurance” and “zemstvo”. And on May 22, 1922, Lenin instructed Dzerzhinsky to deal with the doctors. Everyone knows how things were sorted out at that time.

Photo: courtesy of Valery Novoselov

Let's say the Russians were afraid. But there were nine foreigners in the “Leninist” medical team. Why didn't any of them spill the beans?

GPU (Main Political Directorate under the NKVD - approx. "Tapes.ru") walked around Europe as if at home. In addition, the foreigners received a lot of money. Some 50 thousand, some 25 thousand gold rubles. Today this amount is equivalent to millions of dollars.

What happened to the Soviet doctors who treated Lenin?

I think there was an unspoken agreement: as long as the doctors are silent, the authorities will not touch them. Nikolai Semashko, People's Commissar of Health, ensured its implementation. He served as a buffer between the doctors and Stalin, trying to smooth out the rough edges. The only thing that didn’t work out was Fyodor Getye, who refused to sign Lenin’s autopsy report. They treated him very cunningly. Old Getye had an only son, Alexander Fedorovich, at that time a famous boxing trainer. He was shot in 1938. My father couldn’t stand it and died two months later. Nikolai Popov was also shot. In the Lenin brigade, he was the youngest doctor, he had just entered residency and served as an orderly for a famous patient. In 1935, he tried to question Nadezhda Krupskaya about Lenin’s life and illness.

Well, did the fates of the others turn out well?

According to my calculations, the foreign doctors who treated Lenin lived on average 12 years longer than the Russians. For the first, the average life expectancy was 80 years, and for ours - 68.5 years. It's a big difference. I attribute this to a state of extreme stress. I met with the granddaughter of Academician Abrikosov, who performed Lenin’s autopsy, Natalya Yuryevna. When her grandfather died, she was six years old. She doesn't remember much. But she said clearly: everyone in the family understood that Abrikosov before and after Lenin’s autopsy were two different people.

Photo: courtesy of Valery Novoselov

Is there a connection between Stalin’s “Doctors’ Plot” and Lenin’s illness?

In 1949, Nikolai Semashko, the guarantor of the unspoken agreement between Stalin and the doctors, dies. Himself, by his death. And then you can put forward many versions. Perhaps Stalin remembered how the doctors “agreed.” And he just imagined what could happen to him. And the “Doctors’ Plot” was born. In 1953, about 30 leading professors of medicine were arrested in Moscow and Leningrad. No one counted how many ordinary doctors there were. At the end of March 1953, they were to be publicly hanged in the squares of both capitals. But - lucky. Stalin died. However, the consequences of all these cases are still being felt.

How?

I believe that the current attitude of Russians towards doctors is partly due to the incident with Lenin. I talked a lot with people, outstanding historians of the country and the world, great doctors, scientists and ordinary citizens. The majority believes that Vladimir Ilyich was treated “for the wrong reasons.” As a result, many people have a deep-seated mistrust of doctors. Therefore, we must show that our hands are clean, that Lenin was treated according to the highest standards of that time, the doctors did everything they could. Maybe then at least one small percentage of Russians will understand that doctors should not be treated like pests. Our colleagues, the doctors from that story, have earned the right to the truth.

Can modern scientific methods establish an official diagnosis of Lenin?

We need political will. Since the collapse of the USSR, 38.5 million people were born in Russia and 52 million died. The population is completely different than in Lenin's times. When those who studied scientific communism in universities and the former Octoberists finally become a thing of the past, perhaps then changes will become possible. History needs to be studied and published so that it does not happen again. Now, observing the speed with which criminal cases are initiated against doctors, it seems to me that the authorities have again begun to play their games with doctors. Maybe there was no direct order to imprison the doctors. But there are also non-verbal signals.

In No. 1 for 2016, readers of Rodina have already become acquainted with interesting details of the life of the Kremlin leaders from the new book “Medicine and Power. Medical and Sanitary Administration of the Kremlin,” prepared by the creative team of the Center for Press and Public Relations of the Federal Security Service of Russia. Next up is a magazine version of one of the chapters of the publication, dedicated to the organization of recreation for the Soviet elite.

"Don't be shy about the monetary terms..."

The issues of special medical care and organization of recreation became especially acute for the Bolsheviks after the end of the Civil War - in 1921. In the recent past, most of the leading officials of the RSFSR were professional revolutionaries; many of them went through the underground, prisons and exile. These high-ranking patients, according to medical councils, had a whole bunch of chronic diseases. Therefore, the treatment and recreation of senior management representatives occupied an important place in the activities of the People's Commissariat of Health and the Kremlin Sanitary Supervision Department.

Gradually, over the course of several years, the highest bodies of party and Soviet power created a certain system in this area, which was then constantly reformed and improved. The working division of the Central Committee apparatus, which carried out decisions on sending responsible comrades for treatment and rest, became the UD - Administration of the Affairs of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) (since 1925, the CPSU (b)). Thus, with the participation of representatives of the UD at a meeting of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) on January 1, 1921, the “Zemlyachka’s proposal on the procedure for sending patients to the resorts of the Soviet Republic” was discussed 1. Responsibilities for medical support of the highest Soviet state and party activists in accordance with the regulations approved on April 26, 1921 by the People's Commissar of Health N.A. Semashko, were entrusted to the Sanitary Department of the Kremlin and the houses of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

In mid-1921, a resort and sanatorium commission of the Central Committee was created under the UD. From now on, problems that arose, as a rule, were resolved quickly and positively through the highest party authorities - the Politburo, the Organizing Bureau, the Secretariat of the Central Committee. So, on March 6, 1922, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) discussed Lenin’s proposal “On the leave of Comrade Rudzutaku” by telephone poll. They decided: “To oblige Comrade Rudzutak to immediately go to a sanatorium and not to leave there until the congress, observing the strictest regime. To oblige Comrade Voytsik to immediately organize enhanced nutrition and treatment for Comrade Rudzutak in one better sanatorium. Secretary of the Central Committee (V. Molotov)” 2 .

At the end of February 1922, the Politburo decided to conduct an urgent medical examination of the country's top leadership. For this purpose, the most prominent doctors from Germany were invited to Moscow. March 1, Plenipotentiary Representative of the RSFSR in Germany N.N. Krestinsky received an urgent encrypted telegram: “Berlin. Krestinsky. The Central Committee instructs you to obtain an immediate departure to Moscow to examine a group of responsible comrades, two doctors Kremperrer (Klemperer - Author) and Zerster (Förster - Author). Do not be shy about the monetary conditions. Stalin, Molotov" 3.

Dzerzhinsky - to the Crimea, Stalin - to the Caucasus

The Germans arrived and discovered many different diseases among the Bolsheviks. April 10, 1922 People's Commissar of Health N.A. Semashko sent a memo to the Politburo (the spelling of the document has been preserved): “As a result of the examination of our responsible party comrades by the Council of German doctors, I propose that the Politburo adopt the following resolution:

2. Oblige t.t. Tumanova, Yakovleva, Sergusheva, Razmirovich, Sakharov, Sapronov, Dzerzhinsky, Khotamsky, Ibragimov, Malashkin, Yakovenko, Krivov, Mikhailov, Samoilova, Bokiy and Andreeva (number 16 in pencil - Author) go in May. to Crimea; t.t. Pavlovich, Sulimov, Galkin, Minkov, Karpinsky, Eltsin, Rozovsky, Volin, Gorbunov, Sokolov, Yurovsky, Unshlikht, Kiselev, Sokolnikov, Stalin, Kamenev, Kutuzov, Frumkin, Yagoda, Shlyapnikov, Fomin, Solovyov, Meshcheryakov, Sedogo, Bogdanov, Karklin, Smidovich, Solts, Preobrazhensky, Syromolotov, Antonov-Avseenko, Khinchuk, Aninst, Bubnov (number 34 in pencil - Author) in May. to the Caucasus. The People's Commissariat of Health will provide them with favorable treatment conditions from loans issued by the Central Committee for the treatment of party comrades...

3. Oblige t.t. Meshcheryakov, Cherlyunchikevich, Shkiryatov, Smirnova N.A. (number 4 in pencil. - Auto.) immediately go to a sanatorium in Riga for treatment.

4. Oblige the Central Committee to provide enhanced nutrition from its fund to those mentioned in the list of the council of German doctors.

5. The implementation of all these measures is entrusted to the Central Committee doctor, Comrade Ramonov, in the medical department, and Comrade Wojciech, in the economic department. Entrust general supervision to Comrade Semashko" 4.

On the same day, by a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR (clause 1 of Protocol No. 863), comrade. Semashko for sanatorium treatment of responsible employees was allocated "... from the reserve fund of the Council of People's Commissars, three hundred and sixty billion rubles, according to the last paragraph of the estimate of the Tax Committee of Healthcare" 5.

In some cases, the allocation of a certain amount of money for an operation and subsequent treatment was decided by the secretary of the Central Committee. So, on November 24, 1922, to Stalin regarding the treatment of his wife Z.I. Lilina was addressed by a member of the Politburo, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Comintern and the Petrograd Provincial Council G.E. Zinoviev: “Z.I. Lilina became seriously ill. The doctors demanded to travel abroad for the operation - she flatly refused due to the costs. The operation (very difficult) was done in St. Petersburg. Now the professors, the hospital, etc. need to be paid (everything is very expensive ) at least five hundred (500) gold rubles. I had to get the money. But I have not received anything and never received it from the newspapers, or from the Comintern, etc. - only a very small amount from the St. Petersburg Council. It is also impossible to remain in debt to surgeons, hospitals, etc. In view of this situation, I really ask you to help with the funds that, it seems, the Central Committee has for such cases - if possible, I will wait for a few words in response. priv. G. Zinoviev." Resolution on the document: "To T. Riskin or Comrade Ksenofontov. Satisfy. Secret. Central Committee Stalin. 24 November." At the bottom of the letter there is a note: “Issued on 28 December one million rubles.” 6.

All inclusive

In October 1923, the UD entered into an agreement with the People's Commissariat of Health to provide places for sick party workers in the best sanatoriums in the country. The agreement provided for the placement of party workers undergoing treatment, if possible, in separate rooms, their delivery from the station (pier) and back by cars, the provision of a varied diet of at least 5,000 calories per day, the provision of bed linen, and medical consultations by the best medical specialists 7 . Places were provided exclusively for the most active and overworked members of the RCP who fell ill, with qualifications no lower than members of the provincial and regional committees 8 .

On July 4, 1924, at a meeting of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), the issue of resort and sanatorium treatment for party workers was considered. From now on, the main work on the recreation of the Bolshevik elite was concentrated in the Medical Commission of the Central Committee of the Party. The commission worked three times a week consisting of the “Chairman, member of the Central Control Commission Comrade S.I. Filler and members Comrades A.N. Poskrebyshev, I.K. Ksenofontov, as well as the doctor of the Central Committee Comrade E.D. Pogosyants and representative of the Organizational and Distribution Department of the Central Committee, i.e. E.Ya. At each meeting, an average of 80-100 applications were considered, but it was not possible to satisfy all requests. The inner circle was usually not refused - here is the request of the young Stalinist secretary Boris Bazhanov, who in 1928 would flee to Iran and then to the West: “Head of the Bureau of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the RCP to Comrade Nazaretyan. Due to extreme overwork, I ask you to grant me a month and a half leave with the issuance of benefits and being sent on vacation with his wife to the Maryino rest home. I worked for the Central Committee for 2 years. During this time I did not use the Secretary of the Central Committee Bazhanov. Resolution on the document: “I agree. I. Stalin” 9.

In January 1925, the Resort (Treatment) Commission was removed from the subordination of the Administration and officially renamed the Medical Commission of the Central Committee with reassignment to the Secretariat of the Central Committee. In the same year, the rest conditions of responsible comrades began to be more strictly limited. Until now, the timing of holiday trips and the reasons for them were often very exotic. Thus, on April 10, 1924, Lenin’s elder sister received, signed by the head of the Kremlin hospital A.Yu. Kanel provided an interesting certificate: “We certify that comrade Anna Ilyinichna Elizarova suffers from an initial form of arteriosclerosis involving the vessels of the kidney. She needs systematic treatment provided she rests for at least three months.” On April 22, on the basis of this certificate, the Secretariat of the Central Committee, signed by Stalin and Molotov, decided: “Give comrade Elizarova a three-month leave, with maintenance of pay and payment for treatment” 10.

All good things must come to an end, and on May 29, 1925, at a meeting of the Organizing Bureau, it was decided: “... to establish a month’s leave for responsible employees of the Central Committee - an increase in the period is allowed only in cases of the conclusion of a medical commission with the corresponding resolution of the Secretariat of the Central Committee” 11.

About Trotsky's health

In the second half of 1926, a resolution was adopted by the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, according to which the Medical Commission of the Central Committee was abolished, and in return, to serve the party activists of the USSR, the Medical Commission of the People's Commissariat of Health was established, that is, under the department of the energetic People's Commissar Semashko. From now on, the number of Soviet leaders who were required to rest and receive high-level treatment was steadily declining. The main criterion in those years, and in subsequent years, was the position held, and not merits in the past.

However, there have always been exceptions. When L.D. Trotsky was removed from the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in October 1926; permission for another vacation was given to him by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. In the minutes of the meeting of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated March 1, 1927, it is written: “To grant the Chairman of the State Concession Committee (State Concession Committee. - Author) Comrade Trotsky, according to the conclusion of the doctors, leave for two months” 12. This point of the protocol was adopted on the basis of a certificate issued by a consultation of professors at the Kremlin Sanitary Department. In the conclusion of the specialists, it was noted that during the examination of Trotsky the following were observed:

"1. ...rises in temperature during mental and physical stress reach almost daily up to 37.0, with rapid remissions with profuse sweating. As the temperature rises, the state of health sharply worsens and general weakness is noticed...

4. The presence of a weakly positive tuberculin reaction undoubtedly indicates a latent tuberculosis infection, but the entire clinical picture of the present disease and anamnestic data in recent years do not provide sufficient grounds for the diagnosis of an active tuberculosis process..." 13.

The health of the “big leaders” in the second half of the 1920s. became more interested. On medical topics in 1926, at meetings of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, 45 issues were discussed, in 1927 - 35; in 1928 - 38; in 1929 - 53 14. The Kremlin's sanitary department began to issue official bulletins "On the state of health of responsible employees", which were sent out to a narrow circle of senior management according to a special list. The task of providing high-quality medical care for the assigned contingent was brought to the fore. On November 1, 1928, the Kremlin Sanitary Department was reorganized into the Kremlin Medical and Sanitary Department (Lechsanupr).

Near and far dachas

For operational recreation of Soviet leaders, estates near Moscow that survived the revolution began to be actively used. Thus, after renovation in 1923, the former estate of A. Ruppert became a holiday home (state dacha) of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, where its chairman from 1924 to 1930, A.I., was on a country holiday. Rykov. In the mid-1930s. this object became known as the Lipki state dacha near Moscow, which Stalin occasionally visited. If the dacha in Volynskoe was called “Near” by the state security units for its close location to the Moscow Kremlin, then the dacha in Lipki was called “Far” by the security officers - this historical name was fixed among the political and military leadership of the country. It should be noted that the holiday home of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR "Volynskoye" - the former estate of the Knopps, was located on the right bank of the Setun River, and the more famous state dacha in Volynskoye - "Blizhnaya", in which Stalin lived for almost two decades (from December 1933 to March 1953), was built by architect M.I. Merzhanov on the left bank of this small river.

The resort areas of the Caucasus and Crimea were most actively used for recreation by the party and Soviet elite, where almost all members of the Politburo regularly visited. They also did not forget about abroad - they preferred to receive treatment in Germany, with which, after the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922, the Soviet side developed relations in many areas. Closer abroad, in newly independent Estonia and Latvia, known to readers of Soviet newspapers for their long-standing anti-Soviet policies, not just anyone, but personally the Central Committee of the RCP(b) maintained two of its holiday homes - in Riga and Revel (Tallinn).

The holiday home of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) on the Riga seaside operated successfully for three seasons (1921-1923) and enjoyed well-deserved success among representatives of the Soviet party and state activists. At the same time, it was recognized that it costs the state very much. This was the main reason for its closure, as well as the rest house in Revel, which was destined to operate only for the 1922 season.

The author of the idea to acquire his own recreation center on the Riga seaside was the Bolshevik Yakov Ganetsky, known for his adventurous habits. On May 16, 1921, the plenipotentiary mission of the RSFSR in Latvia sent the following note to the Central Committee of the RCP(b):

“Dear comrades. According to your instructions, I am preparing a dacha in Riga on the seaside - a holiday home for visiting responsible comrades. Comrades can come only with the permission of the Central Committee. The procedure is established as follows. The Secretary of the Central Committee gives this comrade a note to the head of the visa department of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, Comrade Shantsev, approximately with the following content: Comrade... is sent with the consent of Comrade Ganetsky to the city of Riga for (1 month and two weeks, etc.) Secretary of the Central Committee (...).

All comrades traveling to Riga must have a bed with them.

I am attaching herewith an approximate estimate for the maintenance of a holiday home, from which it is clear that for 30 people for four months it will cost 2,760,000 rubles, and for 50 people. - 4.600.000 rub. Here we mean five-hundred tsarist banknotes. I ask you to send the indicated amount to me in Riga through the NKVT in 2-3 installments. An accurate report of the holiday home's activities and expenses will be sent to you monthly.

With communist greetings Ganetsky.

Hiring and maintaining a holiday home will cost approximately a month

So

On July 16, a positive response from the Central Committee came from Moscow to Riga: Ganetsky’s estimate was approved exactly in the amount he requested - 500-ruble Nikolaev bills made a quick trip to Latvia to the delight of the vacationing Bolsheviks 16.

Subsequently, the experience of establishing Soviet medical and health institutions abroad was not forgotten and was used after the war in the second half of the 1940s.

* In comparable prices of February 2016, this amount corresponds to 540,000 rubles.

Notes
1. RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 112. D. 103. L. 11.
2. Ibid. Op. 3. D. 277. L. 2.
3. Ibid. Op. 84. D. 406. L. 9.
4. Ibid. Op. 112. D. 318. L. 26.
5. Ibid. L. 28, 30-31.
6. Ibid. Op. 82. D. 41. L. 66.
7. Ibid. D. 94. L. 11.
8. Ibid. Op. 82. D. 94. L.16.
9. Ibid. Op. 120. D. 1. L. 31.
10. Ibid. Op. 112. D. 533. L. 140-141.
11. Ibid. D. 665. L. 210.
12. Ibid. Op. 113. D. 269. L. 239.
13. Ibid. L. 240-240 rev.
14. Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) - Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b). Meeting agendas. 1919-1952: Catalog / T. 1. 1919-1929. M., 2000.
15. RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 84. D. 53. L. 74-75.
16. Ibid. L. 97-98.