"Medicine is innocent here …" This is exactly what doctors Levin and Pletnev said at first, who treated the writer in the last months of his life, and later were prosecuted in the trial of the "Trotskyist bloc". Soon, however, they "admitted" the deliberately inappropriate treatment …
… and even "showed" that their accomplices were nurses who gave the patient up to 40 injections of camphor per day. But as it really was, there is no consensus.
The historian L. Fleischlan directly writes: "The fact of the murder of Gorky can be considered irrevocably established." V. Khodasevich, on the contrary, believes in the natural cause of death of the proletarian writer.
On the night when Maxim Gorky was dying, a terrible thunderstorm broke out at the state dacha in Gorki-10.
The autopsy was carried out right here, in the bedroom, on the table. The doctors were in a hurry. “When he died,” recalled Gorky’s secretary Pyotr Kryuchkov, “the attitude of the doctors towards him changed. He became just a corpse for them … They treated him terribly. The orderly began to change his clothes and turned him from side to side, like a log. The autopsy began … Then they began to wash the insides. We sewed up the cut somehow with a simple twine. They put the brain in a bucket …"
This bucket, intended for the Institute of the Brain, was personally carried by Kryuchkov into the car. In the memoirs of Kryuchkov there is a strange entry: "Alexei Maksimovich died on the 8th." But Gorky died on June 18 …
The widow of the writer Ekaterina Peshkova recalls:
Promotional video:
“June 8, 6 pm. Alexei Maksimovich's condition deteriorated so much that doctors, who had lost hope, warned us that an imminent end was inevitable … Alexey Maksimovich - in a chair with his eyes closed, with his head bowed, leaning now on one or the other hand pressed to his temple and resting his elbow on chair handle.
The pulse was barely noticeable, uneven, breathing weakened, the face and ears and limbs of the hands turned blue. After a while, as we entered, hiccups began, restless movements of his hands, with which he seemed to push something aside or take something off …"
“We” are the closest members of the family: Ekaterina Peshkova, Maria Budberg, Nadezhda Peshkova (Gorky's daughter-in-law), Chertkova's nurse, Pyotr Kryuchkov, Ivan Rakitsky - an artist who lived in Gorky's house. For all those present, there is no doubt that the head of the family is dying.
When Ekaterina Pavlovna approached the dying man and asked: "Do you need something?" - everyone looked at her with disapproval. It seemed to everyone that this silence should not be broken. After a pause, Gorky opened his eyes, looked around at those around him: "I was so far away, it is so difficult to return from there."
And suddenly the mise-en-scene changes … New faces appear. They were waiting in the living room. Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov walk in briskly to the risen Gorky. They had already been informed that Gorky was dying. They came to say goodbye. Behind the scene - the head of the NKVD Genrikh Yagoda. He arrived before Stalin. The leader did not like this.
“Why is this guy hanging out here? That he was not here."
Stalin behaves like a householder in the house. Shuganul Henry, frightened Kryuchkov. “Why are there so many people? Who is responsible for this? Do you know what we can do with you? " The "owner" has arrived … The leading party is his! All relatives and friends become only a corps de ballet.
When Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov entered the bedroom, Gorky recovered so much that they began to talk about literature. Gorky began to praise women writers, mentioned Karavaeva - and how many of them, how many more will appear, and everyone must be supported … Stalin jokingly besieged Gorky: “We will talk about the matter when you get better. Thinking of getting sick, get well soon. Or maybe there is wine in the house, we would drink a glass to your health."
The wine was brought … Everyone drank … As they left, at the door, Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov waved their hands. When they left, Gorky allegedly said: “What good guys! How much power they have …"
But how much can you believe these memories of Peshkova? In 1964, when asked by the American journalist Isaac Levin about Gorky's death, she answered: “Don't ask me about it! I won't be able to sleep for three days …"
The second time Stalin and his comrades came to the terminally ill Gorky on June 10 at two in the morning. But why? Gorky was asleep. No matter how afraid the doctors were, Stalin was not allowed in. Stalin's third visit took place on June 12. Gorky did not sleep. The doctors gave ten minutes to talk. What were they talking about? About the peasant uprising of Bolotnikov … We moved on to the position of the French peasantry.
It turns out that on June 8, the main concern of the secretary general and Gorky, who returned from the other world, was the writers, and on the 12th, the French peasants became. All this is somehow very strange.
The arrival of the leader seemed to magically revive Gorky. He did not seem to dare die without Stalin's permission. It is unbelievable, but Budberg will say it bluntly: "He died, in fact, on the 8th, and if not for Stalin's visit, he would hardly have returned to life."
Stalin was not a member of the Gorky family. Hence, the attempt at night invasion was caused by necessity. On the 8th, 10th, and 12th, Stalin needed either a frank conversation with Gorky, or a steel confidence that such a frank conversation would not take place with someone else. For example, with Louis Aragon, who was traveling from France. What would Gorky say, what statement could he make?
After the death of Gorky, Kryuchkov was accused of killing Maxim Peshkov, the son of Gorky, on the instructions of Yagoda, with doctors Levin and Pletnev. But why?
If you follow the testimony of other defendants, the "customers" - Bukharin, Rykov and Zinoviev had political calculations. In this way, they allegedly wanted to hasten the death of Gorky himself, fulfilling the assignment of their "leader" Trotsky. Nevertheless, even during this trial, it was not about the direct murder of Gorky. This version would be too incredible, because the patient was surrounded by 17 (!) Doctors.
One of the first to speak about the poisoning of Gorky was the revolutionary-emigrant B. I. Nikolaevsky. Allegedly, Gorky was presented with a bonbonniere with poisoned sweets. But the candy version doesn't hold up.
Gorky did not like sweets, but he loved to treat them to guests, orderlies and, finally, his beloved granddaughters. Thus, anyone around Gorky could have been poisoned with sweets, except himself. Only an idiot could have planned such a murder. Neither Stalin nor Yagoda were idiots.
There is no evidence of the murder of Gorky and his son Maxim. Meanwhile, tyrants also have the right to be presumed innocent. Stalin committed enough crimes to hang one more on him - unproven.
The reality is this: on June 18, 1936, the great Russian writer Maxim Gorky died. His body, contrary to the will to bury him next to his son in the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent, was cremated by the decree of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), an urn with ashes was placed in the Kremlin wall.
In the request of the widow E. P. Peshkova refused to give her part of the ashes for burial in her son's grave by a collective decision of the Politburo …