Unknown facts from the life of Gorky. Mental illness maxim gorky

Maxim spring May 11 (April 28 according to the old calendar) - Maxim's day. On this day, medicinal herbs were collected before sunrise, they have power from the earth and therefore especially

At the end of September 1935, Alexei Maksimovich Gorky came from Moscow to the Crimea, in Tesseli. Next to him was only one person close to him - Olympiada Dmitrievna Chertkova (Lipa).

Mysteries of the History of Russia / Nikolai Nepomniachtchi. - M .: Veche, 2012.

At the bedside of the patient A.M. Gorky. Artist V.P. Efanov. 1944 g.

Aleksey Maksimovich has long been "under the hood" in power. In Crimea, he was practically in complete isolation. Even Kryuchkov, his long-term secretary and permanent informant of the Lubyanka, remained in Moscow. Stalin and the head of the NKVD, Genrikh Yagoda, stopped responding to the writer's letters.

It would seem that now he has become uninteresting to the authorities. However, just six months ago, he was not allowed to go to Paris for the International Congress of Writers in Defense of Culture. And in Tesseli, he was still surrounded by NKVD officers in uniform and in civilian clothes. Almost no one was allowed to see Gorky, all his correspondence was watched.

But at the end of May 1936, Martha and Daria, two of his beloved granddaughters who remained in Moscow, fell ill with the flu. Alexei Maksimovich had an excuse to break out of the Crimean confinement. He immediately left for Moscow. On May 27, he was already in the capital, visited his granddaughters, visited his son's grave at Novodevichy cemetery, received the leaders of the Komsomol on Malaya Nikitskaya, and then his old friend Nikolai Burenin, who had come from Leningrad. On June 1, he became seriously ill. Diagnosis - flu, and then - croupous pneumonia and heart failure ...

The disease developed in the same way as two years ago in his son Maxim. And his son, he was almost sure of this, was killed by the NKVD officers. Now Aleksey Maksimovich is in Gorki, where Lenin died twelve years ago. Were treated and consulted the writer 17 (!) Of the most renowned doctors from Moscow and Leningrad. But the patient was getting worse. On June 6, 1936, Pravda began publishing bulletins about Gorky's health.

On June 8, doctors declared his condition critical. And then there was a call from the Kremlin. It was reported that Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov were going to Gorki. Chertkova (she was a midwife), at her own peril and risk, administered a very large dose of camphor to Alexei Maksimovich. “The result was overwhelming,” writes Arkady Vaksberg in his recently published book The Death of the Petrel, “Stalin expected to see, if not yet a corpse, then already dying, but saw a writer to whom life had clearly returned.” Gorky did not want to talk about his illness - he turned the conversation to "current affairs": about the publication of "History civil war"," Stories of two five-year plans "... Stalin demanded wine, and the three" leaders ", having drunk to the health of the" great proletarian writer ", departed for Moscow.

By June 16, there was such an obvious improvement that the doctors decided that the crisis was over. But on the night of the 17th, suddenly, for no apparent reason, the situation changed dramatically. Gorky began to gasp, his pulse was making incredible leaps, the temperature was rising strongly, then suddenly falling, his lips turned blue ...

At 11 hours 10 minutes in the morning on June 18, death occurred. They had not yet had time to take Gorky's body out of Gorki, when Genrikh Yagoda personally sealed all the rooms, glancing through the writer's papers. Two days later, Gorky's funeral took place on Red Square, an urn with ashes was walled up in the Kremlin wall.

Medical documents - medical history, death report, forensic medical "examination" at the trial of "killer doctors" in 1938, retrospective examination of 1990 and others - are full of contradictions and do not answer main question, from which, in fact, Gorky died. All his life he was treated for pulmonary tuberculosis, but this disease was not noted at all in the conclusion of the pathologist I. V. Davydovsky.

The medical report speaks of some kind of "serious infection" from which death allegedly occurred, and in the autopsy report - about an "acute infection", although the doctors knew perfectly well that infections "in general" were neither severe, nor acute, nor mild - does not exist, but there are specific, moreover, various infections that give rise to this or that disease.

Recently it became known that over those two-plus tragic weeks in Gorki, people from service personnel: the commandant, his wife, the cook - only seven people, and each was given the same diagnosis - angina. All had symptoms similar to those noted in Gorky. These people did not have any contact with him, they could not get infected from him, and relatives who constantly communicated with the writer did not get sick with anything. It remains to assume that the source of the infection was the food that was prepared for Gorky and that the sick could eat. A similar picture of the disease could be caused by serum from a mixture of pneumococci and staphylococci.

Back in 1933-1934, Genrikh Yagoda, a former pharmacist, organized a secret laboratory for the production of poisons in the bowels of the OGPU-NKVD to eliminate "enemies of the people", first abroad, and then inside the country. At the Lubyanka, special poisons were created, leading to instant or quick death with imitation of the symptoms of other diseases. As it became known from the partially accessible archival documents of this laboratory, experiments were conducted there to combine various pathogens to enhance the "effect". In experiments on living people and in killing them, prominent medical specialists, who were awarded awards and the highest scientific titles for their experiments, took part.

One gets the impression that, having given the impetus to Gorky's illness, the initiators hoped for its natural course, since the writer's organism, exhausted by all kinds of ailments, was really very weakened. But the reserve forces of the body, Gorky's will to live began to defeat the disease. When it became obvious (most likely - June 16), the disease decided to "help" ...

Let's note some more, almost mystical oddities of those dramatic days... Alexei Maksimovich fell ill, as already mentioned, on June 1, and the "professor-philosopher" Yudin, who is also the secretary of the Writers' Union and an unspoken employee of the NKVD, told his friends back on May 31 that Gorky was mortally ill and there was no hope that he would survive no.

In June, in the early days of Alexei Maksimovich's illness, unknown people called to the house on Malaya Nikitskaya, and then to Gorki (on the Kremlin turntable), asking where to deliver wreaths and send telegrams of condolences.

Several of these telegrams have even been received! People came to Malaya Nikitskaya with an order from the district architect to occupy the "vacated" house. It was some kind of eerie psychological pressure coordinated by someone!

It is unlikely that the illness and death of the writer were "organized" by Heinrich Yagoda according to own initiative... Stalin did not tolerate such independent action in relation to large figures. This means that the order to kill Gorky was given by Stalin himself. But why? What danger did Gorky pose for him in 1936?

“What he could give Stalin, he has already given, - writes Vaksberg. - Dead Gorky automatically turned into an ally, no one could vouch for the living. His friendship with Bukharin was obvious, his friendship with Stalin imaginary. Gorky should have been canonized as soon as possible, declared the best Stalinist friend, a Soviet saint, and done this before he could do anything, casting doubt on such a possibility. "

Arkady Vaksberg sets out another, more specific motive for the crime. In 1935-1936 a new, "Stalinist" constitution was being prepared. Part of the opposition-minded Soviet scientific and creative intelligentsia, and above all Maxim Gorky, put forward the idea of ​​creating a so-called "party of non-partisans", or "Union of intellectuals", which could stand in the elections to the Soviet parliament on a separate list, and in the future "constructively help" the ruling party - VKP (b).

It was assumed that the list of candidates for deputies from this party would be headed by A. M. Gorky, academicians I. P. Pavlov, A. P. Karpinsky (President of the USSR Academy of Sciences) and V. I. Vernadsky. Pavlov and Karpinsky were known for their rejection of the Soviet partocratic regime. Pavlov openly said that if what the Bolsheviks are doing with Russia is an experiment, then for such an experiment he would regret even providing a frog ...

Maxim Gorky strove to humanize power, tried to "re-educate" first Lenin and then Stalin. Of course, nothing could come of it. But Gorky thought differently. For the sake of this illusory goal, he made many sacrifices, compromises, stepped over his own moral principles, and as a result, he lost his freedom, and then his life.

"In the niche of the Kremlin wall," writes Arkady Vaksberg, "not only the secret of his life is walled up, but also the secret of death - one of the most terrible in the endless series of bloody Soviet mysteries."

DEATH OF MAXIM GORKY

Nikolai Nepomniachtchi - 100 Great Mysteries of the 20th Century ...

"Medicine is innocent here ..." This is exactly what the doctors Levin and Pletnev said at first, who treated the writer in the last months of his life, and later were prosecuted as defendants in the trial of the "Trotskyist bloc". Soon, however, they "admitted" the deliberately wrong 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.

As you know, the adopted son of Gorky, Zinovy ​​Peshkov, made a brilliant military and diplomatic career in France, which could have an extremely adverse effect on his closest relatives in the country of the Soviets. Aleksey Maksimovich warned about this in his letters to Zinovy, resorting to the "Aesopian language". The writer did not trust the mail, but conveyed them on an opportunity - through the journalist Mikhail Koltsov or through close friends whom he completely trusted. In these messages from Gorky, one could feel the "fear of death", - we read in the memoirs of Louis Aragon, now kept in the archival fund "Triolet - Aragon" in Paris. However, there are no originals of Gorky's letters and telegrams in this archive! No traces of their presence have been found in other writers' archives either. Some researchers believe that Gorky also wanted to send his personal diary to friends in France. However, this diary disappeared without a trace, repeating the fate of many of his letters.

In his letters to Aragon and Triolet, the writer repeatedly rushed them to come to Moscow, persistently called them to the USSR for the necessary and urgent conversation. Which one? This could not be trusted to the letter, and realizing this, in May 1936, Elsa and Louis went to the USSR. Their path ran through London and Leningrad. In the northern capital, they stayed for a while at Lily Brick. The delay of the guests in Leningrad looked strange, because at that time Aleksey Maksimovich fell seriously ill. And yet Aragon hesitated. One gets the impression that he deliberately delayed the day of his arrival in Moscow and appeared in the capital, as previously known documents testify, only on June 18 - the day of Gorky's death! However, in an interview with the Pravda newspaper, published on June 16 (!), 1936, Aragon said that he had arrived in Moscow the day before, that is, June 15!

It was officially reported that on June 1, Gorky caught an elementary flu, which gave serious complications. Bulletins on the state of health of the writer were published on the front pages of Pravda and Izvestia - an unprecedented fact even for the famous writer. The impression was that readers were being “prepared” for the worst, although there seemed to be no reason for this.

There were two periods of improvement in the patient's condition. The first refers to the time after the visit to Gorky on June 8 by Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov. As the magazine "Kolkhoznik" wrote in those days, "Gorky literally rose from his grave ...".

The second time the patient suddenly felt better from 14 to 16 June. Gorky then got out of bed and, according to eyewitnesses, said: “Enough to wallow! I have to work, answer letters! " He shaved, tidied himself up, sat down at his desk ...

Little is known about what happened in the next two days, but the fact remains: Gorky's health deteriorated sharply, and on June 18 at 11.10 am he died ...

In 1938, the aforementioned trial of the “Pravotrotskyist bloc” took place, in which the doctor Pletnev appeared among other “enemies of the people”. For "deliberately incorrect treatment" of the great proletarian writer, Pletnev received a substantial sentence and was sent to the Vorkuta camps. There, in 1948, he met with the German communist, who was serving time, B. Hermand. They often held conversations in which they touched upon the circumstances of Gorky's death. After her release, B. Germand told about these conversations in her memoirs. It followed from them that the sharp deterioration in Gorky's health on June 17 was due to the fact that he tasted ... the sweets given to him by Stalin! As you know, Yagoda had a special laboratory that made various poisons ... By the way, the protocol on the autopsy of Gorky's body does not mention "testing for poisoning." There is evidence of a certain A. Novikov, a former captain of the NKVD, with whom M. Brown, a member of the French Resistance spoke, who left a note about this conversation in his diary: “When I said that the autopsy should have detected poisoning, if poisons were used, Novikov just waved his hand : "You do not understand anything! The autopsy report was drawn up before Gorky's death! ”

A story about the last days of the writer's life would be incomplete without mentioning the woman who was the last to see Gorky alive. Her name is Mura Zakrevskaya-Budberg. She lived with Alexei Maksimovich for 12 years, of which 7 years - abroad, and he loved her passionately and selflessly. It is not surprising that the writer dedicated his largest novel The Life of Klim Samgin to her. Moore was admitted to all business and financial papers and to the most intimate archives of the writer. The tragedy is that Mura was closely associated with the Cheka, and every step of Gorky instantly became known to the authorities. This woman lived a long life and died in 1974, leaving behind hundreds of notes, drawings, abstracts and stories about herself. But none of these pieces of paper brought the researchers closer to solving the mystery of Gorky's death, for Mura destroyed her entire personal archive in advance ...

If we accept the version of the premeditated murder of Gorky by order of Stalin, then the question arises: why was it necessary to hasten the death of a writer who supported the policy of the “leader of the peoples”, approved the process of the “Industrial Party” in 1930, spoke very positively about “forced labor in the name of reforging”? But, on the other hand, it was Gorky who never wrote a biography of Stalin, although he was given such a "party assignment" and provided all the necessary materials for this. The writer disobeyed the leader, and this was not forgiven to anyone! In addition, Gorky fussed about the publication of Dostoevsky's Demons and defended the repressed writers and scientists.

The consequences of such disobedience were the refusal of a passport for a trip to Italy for treatment, the establishment of censorship on correspondence with Romain Rolland, the reproduction of correspondence addressed to the writer ... “Surrounded ... This is unusual! " - such a desperate confession escaped from Gorky in one of his letters. The assassination of Kirov was an event that put an end to hopes of reconciling the authorities with the intelligentsia and the Bolshevik opposition. Mass shootings, exile, the liquidation of the Society of Old Bolsheviks and the Society of Political Prisoners, the trials of Zinoviev and Kamenev, apparently, could not but lay a heavy burden on the writer's heart ...

Romain Rolland noted in his diary that the reason for Gorky's untimely and not entirely natural death was his high prestige in the West. This opinion was shared by many of the writer's contemporaries. Even the "accuser" A. Ya. Vyshinsky admitted this in his speech: "The enemies of the people could not deprive Gorky of the opportunity to conduct active political activity otherwise than to stop his life!"

After the death of M. Gorky, persecution and repression began against his collaborators and closest associates. And a certain G. Stetsky, who kept the correspondence between Gorky and Romain Rolland under personal control, was appointed chairman of the commission on the writer's literary heritage. This fact is sometimes referred to by literary critics to this day as the "second death" of the great writer ...

Material by M. Ershov

A day is a small life, and you need to live it as if you should die now, and you were unexpectedly given another day.

The patient's despondency is the most active ally of the disease.

How can you not trust a person? Even if you see - he is lying, believe him, that is, listen and try to understand why he is lying?

A.M. Gorky with his son
Maksim Gorky (Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov) was born on March 29, 1868. His father was a cabinet-maker (according to another version - the manager of the Astrakhan office of the shipping company I.S. At the age of nine he became an orphan, and his grandmother had a decisive influence on him,

“Due to the extremely difficult living conditions, disagreements and complex contradictions in views of reality with the populists, who took possession of Derenkov's bakery, the death of his grandmother, the arrest and death of people close to him, Gorky experiences mental depression, which he later described in the story“ A Case from the Life of Makar ". On December 12, 1887, in Kazan, Gorky tried to commit suicide.

Having bought an old revolver at the market, Maksim Gorky at eight o'clock in the evening on the banks of the Kazanka River near the Fedorov Monastery, he shot himself in the chest. " “The bullet passed the heart, only slightly hitting the lung. The wounded man was brought first to the police unit, and then to the zemstvo hospital. "
From December 12 to December 21, Gorky was in this hospital. In March 1888, at the suggestion of Romas, he left Kazan ... ". January 2 1888 years after the failed assassination attempt suicide discharged from the zemstvo hospital.

In a small essay "On the dangers of philosophy" Gorky artistically, colorfully, but apparently quite truthfully describes mental illness which he suffered in 1889—1890 years. However, it is unlikely that Gorky himself believed that philosophy made him insane, although cosmogonic delusional ideas or representations play big role in Gorky's delirium.

A friend of Gorky, who lectured him on philosophy, loved bread sprinkled with a thick layer of quinine, he repeatedly poisoned himself until he was finally poisoned with indigo in 1901. After two lectures, Gorky fell ill. And maybe even earlier! Already at the second lecture of Vasiliev, Gorky „

In this chaos of gloomy disunity, in a silent whirlwind of torn bodies, Hate and Love move majestically, opposing each other, Hate and Love, indistinguishable from one another, a ghostly, bluish radiance pours out from them, recalling the winter sky on a sunny day, and illuminates everything moving with a deathly monotonous light ".

„after a few days I felt that my brain melts and boils giving birth to strange thoughts, fantastic visions and pictures. A feeling of longing, sucking life, seized me, and I began to fear insanity. But I was brave, made up my mind to go to the end of my fear, and this is probably what saved me.".

A whole series of fantasies follows, which Gorky experienced partly in a hallucinatory way, and of which the most interesting, since it contains a "description" "of eternity, is the following:

„

“A naked woman approached me on bird paws instead of feet, golden rays emanated from her breasts. So she poured handfuls of burning oil on my head, and, bursting into flames like a clump of cotton wool, I disappeared. "

In addition to hallucinations of vision, at this time Gorka had clearly expressed hallucinations of hearing, which were so intense that they caused him to make noisy speeches:

„

I am unspeakably ashamed, I despise myself. "

A very important symptom that complements the picture of Gorky's illness, which we are trying to reproduce here from excerpts from "On the Dangers of Philosophy", is sharp dreamy stunnedness, leading to the fact that Gorky, while working, suddenly forgets himself and the environment and unconsciously introduces into the work elements completely alien to her, which are not in direct or indirect connection with her, as happens in a dream, where the most impossible contradictory facts are connected in one unit. Here is what Gorky says:

„

And fantasies and visions more and more take possession of Gorky:

To these extravagant antics of unbridled fantasy, to dreamy stupefaction, hallucinations, at times obsessions, actions and deeds are added:

Reality, the world of real phenomena, at times ceases to exist completely for Gorky:

My soul was in great pain. And if two years ago I had not been convinced personal experience how humiliating the stupidity of suicide is, I would probably use this method of treating a sick soul " .

(Delirium febrile ). This diagnosis is supported by the characteristic combination of symptoms (fantasies, illusions, hallucinations, the affect of fear), which we have already indicated, illustrating them with excerpts from Gorky's description of his illness, dreamy stupor and fever. Kraepelin characterizes briefly febrile delirium as delirium, "Accompanied by a more or less harsh dreamlike stupor, unclear, often perverted assimilation of the environment and fantastic experiences, sometimes also quite strong anxiety with a fearful or cheerful mood."

Gorky was undoubtedly suffering from feverish delirium, who, thanks to Gorky's fascination with cosmogonic fantasies, received especially rich food and flourished, perhaps longer than it would have been under other, less favorable conditions.

Gorky turned to a psychiatrist for advice and tells how his psychiatrist treated him, thus giving us the opportunity to judge the psychiatric science of that time in its application in practice.

„.

- And the butterfly is very useful for you. " .

I deliberately quote the entire passage where Gorky draws a psychiatrist, because of historical value of this passage. Oddly enough, but long before the emergence and spread of Freudian psychoanalysis (the book "Studien uber Hystherie", which Freud wrote together with Joseph Breuer and which served as the basis and starting point of psychoanalysis, was published only in 1895), attributing to the sexual sphere, in fact psychosexual disorders, the main role in the development of mental illness, there was a view among Russian psychiatrists that sex life takes an active part in the formation of a healthy and sick psyche of a person, and the psychiatrist who gave Gorky advice insists (!) "The woman who is greedy for the love game", assuring him that it will be good for him!

Gorky mentions many times that his sexual desire in his youth was poorly developed, explaining this partly by hard physical labor, partly by passion for literature and science. Dr. I. B. Galant (Moscow)psychiatry. ru ›book _ show. php ...

In 1918 Maxim Gorky published in the newspaper " New life"an article condemning the consequences of the Bolshevik coup in the country:" No, the proletariat is not magnanimous and not just, but the revolution was supposed to establish possible justice in the country ... Miliukov would have ruffled Lenin's lush curls ... But it is not the gentlemen who are fighting, but the slaves. And you will not rejoice when you see how the healthy forces of the country are perishing, mutually exterminating each other. And thousands of people walk the streets and, as if mocking themselves at themselves, shout: "Long live the world!"

The last riddle of the great writer

Soon, the writer, critic Pavel Basinsky, winner of the Big Book 2010 award for the book Leo Tolstoy. Escape from Paradise ”, another serious study comes out, which, undoubtedly, will cause heated discussion. It is dedicated to the key figure for the beginning of the 20th century in Russia - Maxim Gorky. How many fates crossed on him, how many he did, and how many heaped up - belongs to the court of history. And the facts are here. “MK” publishes excerpts from the book “Passion for Maxim. Gorky: 9 days after death ”.

With granddaughters Martha and Daria.

"When he died…"

According to the recollections of the nurse of Olympiada Dmitrievna Chertkova, who was constantly on duty near the gravely dying writer, the autopsy was carried out right in Gorky's bedroom, on his desk.

The doctors were in a terrible hurry.

“When he died,” recalled Gorky’s secretary and attorney PP Kryuchkov, “the attitude of the doctors towards him changed. He became just a corpse for them.

They treated him badly. The orderly began to change his clothes and turned him from side to side, like a log. The autopsy has begun ... "

When Kryuchkov entered the bedroom, he saw "a sprawled bloody body in which doctors were swarming." “Then they began to wash the insides. We sewed up the cut somehow with a simple twine, a rough gray twine. They put the brain in a bucket ... "

This bucket, intended for the Institute of the Brain, Kryuchkov himself carried into the car. He recalled that doing this was “unpleasant” for him.

The hostile attitude of the Gorky secretary (who was soon executed for the alleged murder of Gorky and his son Maxim) to the usual, in general, manipulations of doctors shows that dark passions raged around the dying writer, mysterious intrigues were woven and woven by themselves. None of the great Russian writers died in such a conspiratorial, but at the same time, atmosphere open to the interference of outsiders. You experience an involuntary shudder at what political intriguers are capable of transforming into the most important moment of human life after birth - dying, leaving earthly existence.

But, in truth, Gorky himself confused himself in these intrigues. He himself allowed alien forces hostile to his writing, artistic nature to interfere not only in his life, but also in his death. Gorky's tragedy was prepared by him. We can only be amazed at the courage of a person who was not afraid to become the central personality of his era, did not hide from its contradictions and still died with dignity, like a real one. strong man and a great Russian man. “Fastened to all the buttons”, fearlessly awaiting death and looking at everything that happened around him, even with some writer's irony.

"So I can go and see how they will gut him?"

Olympiada Chertkova was not just Gorky's nurse. She loved him and considered herself loved by him. “I began to live with a midwife and finish living with a midwife,” according to her recollections, as if he were joking. The Olympics claimed that it was she who was the prototype of Glafira, Bulychov's mistress in the play “Yegor Bulychov and Others”. She refused to be present at the autopsy of a person dear to her. "So I can go and see how they will gut him?"

This cry of pain and love for a strong and peculiarly handsome man even in old age, who was still alive a few minutes ago, and now, helpless, being cut to pieces by cold-blooded anatomists, cannot be imitated. These words touch today. Moreover, the memoirs of Olympiada (Lipa, Lipochka, as she was called in the writer's family) were recorded with her words by Gorky's assistant A.N. Tikhonov in the same bedroom and on the same table.

True, they were recording nine years after the death of Gorky. Sometimes the most banal feelings touch more vividly than the most dramatic passions. And nine years later, Lipa's memories breathe the tenderness of an ordinary earthly woman. Already not young - when Gorky was dying, she herself was over fifty. She does not speak of death globally famous writer, “The founder of socialist realism,” but an unhappy man, tormented by suffering.

The one who glorified Man as God, as Titan.

And what does the Olympics say?

“A.M. I liked to grumble sometimes, especially in the morning:

- Why does the curtain hang badly? Why is the dust poorly wiped off? Cold coffee ... "

V the last days In his stormy, confused, full of contradictions life, Gorky highly appreciated Lipochka's simple human concern. He called her "Lipka - good weather" and argued that "as soon as Olympias enter the room, the sun will shine."

On the night when Gorky was dying, a terrible thunderstorm broke out at the state dacha in Gorki-10. And about this, too, "Lipka - good weather" remembered nine years later, as if it were yesterday. Perhaps it is only from her memories that one can feel Gorky's dying state.

Chertkova: “The day before his death, he suddenly began to swear in unconsciousness. Cursing and cursing. Aloud. I am neither alive nor dead. I think: "Lord, if only others would not hear!"

“Once I said to AM:“ Do me a favor, and I will please you too ”. - "And what will you please me, devil?" - “Then you will see. And you eat, as happened before, two eggs, drink coffee, and I will bring the girls to you (granddaughters, Martha and Daria. - P.B.) ”. The girls' doctor was not allowed to see him, so as not to worry him, but I decided - all the same, since he feels bad, let at least the girls have a good memory of their grandfather for the rest of their lives. "

The granddaughters were brought in. He "talked well" with them, said goodbye. Exciting scene. Especially if you remember that the granddaughters became the involuntary cause of the grandfather's illness, infecting him with the flu when he came from Crimea ...

Doctors case

Pyotr Kryuchkov (Gorky's secretary): “If they hadn't been treated, but left alone, maybe he would have recovered.”

So the doctors are to blame?

It is known that Stalin did not like doctors. If Lenin did not recognize the "Bolshevik" doctors, preferring Swiss professors to them, then Stalin generally did not like them as a fact. First of all, he resolutely did not trust doctors, because he was afraid of being healed to death. I was saving myself from a cold folk remedy: lay down under the cloak and sweated. Secondly, doctors (the most unpleasant side of the profession) inform each person with age about his health less and less comforting things. And for this, Stalin especially hated them.

Why among the doctors who treated Gorky before his death, only L.G. Levin, D.D. Pletnev and A.I. Vinogradov suffered, who died in prison before the trial (not to be confused with V.N. Vinogradov, who in 1938 was just a member of the expert commission that helped the reprisal against his colleagues, and then became Stalin's personal doctor)? Why was not the prominent therapist, honored worker of science, Professor Georgy Fedorovich Lang, “under continuous and careful medical supervision” of whom the writer allegedly killed by doctors was condemned? (...) Professor Lang lived until 1948, founded his scientific school, in 1945 he became an academician, wrote several works on cardiology and hematology, and in 1951 he was posthumously awarded the State Prize. Of course, this is not a condemnation of a really very prominent scientist.

Why didn't they arrest A.D. Speransky, a pathophysiologist from the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine (VIEM)? After all, Gorky especially trusted him, and he had a certain priority among the doctors who treated the writer. (...)

Even a person who does not have medical knowledge, but is simply attentive to facts and details, involuntarily has questions. After all it comes about the same Speransky, who on June 20, 1936, two days after the death of Gorky, published the history of his illness in Pravda. In it, he wrote that “for twelve nights he had to be with Gorky constantly (italics mine. - P.B.) ”. This means that Speransky "constantly" watched how his patient was ruthlessly "killed" by his colleagues Levin and Pletnev? Including injecting the patient with excessive doses of camphor ... (...)

Are the doctors to blame? But why were some of them condemned during the trial and not touched by the rest? There was no objective logic in the “doctors' case”. And this could be understood by anyone who at least carefully read the newspapers of that time.

Today the innocence of the doctors who treated Gorky has been objectively proved. Academician E.I. Chazov writes about this, who examined the writer's medical history, medical records and the autopsy report. “In principle,” he writes, “it would be possible not to return to the question of the accuracy of diagnosis of A.M. Gorky's disease, given that even with modern methods treatment, not to mention the possibilities of 1936, the pathology that is described even in a short report, as a rule, leads to death. "

Let's not forget that Gorky was a difficult patient. Each of his visits to Moscow from the Crimea was accompanied by pneumonia. At the same time, Gorky smoked several dozen (!) Cigarettes a day until the end of his life.

It's just that Stalin had a grudge against Levin and Pletnev. Both the first and the second refused to sign a false conclusion about the death of Stalin's wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva from appendicitis (in fact, she shot herself).

In addition, Levin treated Stalin's relatives, constantly loomed before his eyes and annoyed him alone. Pletnev was an obstinate person and, in addition, the personal enemy of A.Ya. Vyshinsky, the prosecutor at the 1938 trial. That's all the logic ...

But why were the doctors in such a hurry with the autopsy? They were just afraid! They were in a hurry to make sure that their diagnosis and treatment were correct. After all, any mistake would cost them their lives.

Nevertheless, Kryuchkov's enigmatic phrase (“If they hadn’t been treated ... maybe I would have recovered”), as well as the haste with which the autopsy was performed, suggests a simple idea. Indeed, did they not heal Gorky? Not by order of Yagoda and not by Stalin's will. Out of excessive ... enthusiasm. Because of the monstrous nervousness that was going on in Gorki-10 in the last days of the writer's life. Due to the inevitable clash of medical ambitions (17 doctors, and all the best, all were “shining”!). Because of an understandable fear of making a mistake or "under-treating" a state-important patient, for whom his head will be removed.

Romain Rolland, who visited the USSR in the summer of 1935 and was staying at Gorky's, writes about the fear of Soviet doctors before the authorities in the Moscow Diary. In Moscow and Gorki, it was Levin and Pletnev who observed Rolland who had become ill. “How cautious Soviet doctors are forced to be, I begin to understand when Dr. Pletnev tells me:“ Fortunately, today's newspapers write about your overwork. It allows me to express myself in the same sense. ”

And finally, all the doctors understood perfectly well ...

Stalin did not like doctors.

Great Russian writer, classic of Soviet literatureAlexey Maksimovich Gorky was born on March 28 (16), 1868. Died June 18, 1936

"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 "revealed" that their accomplices were nurses, giving 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 badly. 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 incision somehow with a simple twine. The brain was put in a bucket ... "

This bucket, intended for the Institute of the Brain, Kryuchkov personally carried to the car.

In the memoirs of Kryuchkov there is a strange entry: "Alexei Maksimovich died on the 8th."

Ekaterina Peshkova, the writer's widow, recalls: “June 8, 6 pm. closed eyes, with his head bowed, leaning now on one or the other hand, pressed to his temple and resting his elbow on the arm of the chair.

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 ... "

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 resurrected 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.

"And why is this one hanging out here? So that he is 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 started talking 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’ll talk about the matter when you get well. We thought about getting sick, get better soon. there is wine, 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 strength they have ..."

But how much can you believe these memories of Peshkova? In 1964, to the question of the American journalist Isaac Levin about the death of Gorky, 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 me ten minutes to talk. What were they talking about? On 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 incredible, but Budberg will say it bluntly: "He died, in fact, on the 8th, and if it had not been 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 or straight Talk with Gorky, or the steel confidence that such a frank conversation will 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 having killed Maxim Peshkov, the son of Gorky, on instructions from Yagoda, with doctors Levin and Pletnev. But why?

If you follow the testimony of the 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, there was no question of 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 water.

The funeral of A.M. Gorky

Gorky did not like sweets, but he adored treating guests, orderlies and, finally, his beloved granddaughters with them. Thus, it was possible to poison with sweets anyone around Gorky, 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 the benefit of the doubt. 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 decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, an urn with ashes was placed in the Kremlin wall.