First people. Soviet general secretaries were treated only in the USSR

Since today is the anniversary of the collapse of the USSR and the Soviet system, let's remember Soviet medicine, supposedly "good" and supposedly "free".

In the Western world, the former Soviet man, like a horse, is recognized by his teeth. If they see a face of Eastern European appearance on the streets of London, Paris or New York, they immediately look into the mouth to clarify the diagnosis. There, in the mouth, the former Soviets always have a mess. Folk medicine print. Even Poles, Czechs and Bulgarians, that is, comrades who have gone a little farther from socialism than we do, have neater mouths.

In Latin, rima oris. Or "mouth gap".

This is what Soviet dentists called our mouths. "Open your mouth!" - a man in a white coat barked commandingly, seating a man with a face white with fear under the drill machine ...

Yesterday I saw a campaign banner by the leader of one of our few parliamentary parties by the road: “We will return worthy free medicine!” Probably, we used to have decent medicine, but today it is no good. Oh, I would wish this leader to go to the Soviet polyclinic for at least an hour. Better dental.

Any exploitation of false longing for non-existent Soviet happiness must be punished with at least a ruble, because playing on Soviet mythology turns into infantilization of the population. It ceases to really perceive the world and its responsibility for it, preferring to move away from reality into the languid past.

People who believe that there was good free medicine in the USSR are twice mistaken, because it was not free and was not good either.

The level of income of Soviet citizens lagged behind almost all countries except Africa, India, China and the Latin American juntas. For free medicine, free education and free apartments, the Soviet people paid at least 2/3 of their real earnings. In the early 1970s, each Soviet person had less than 65 rubles of net income, which even in the Central Committee of the party was considered life below the poverty line. So there were 3/4 of the population of the country. And 40% did not even reach the subsistence level.

People in Soviet times were treated by the state brazenly, hypocritically, cruelly. And for all those modest benefits that the state called free, they paid in full. And then they paid extra.

In 1965, ten tablets of levomycetin cost 64 kopecks, while their production, according to the State Planning Commission, cost the state only 18 kopecks. The well-known Soviet remedy "from the head" based on analgin banned in Europe, even more dangerous pyramidon and caffeine, cost 45 kopecks in pharmacies, and 8 kopecks were spent on its production. It was called "Troychatka".

Imagine that today a blister of antediluvian citramone would cost more than 100 rubles. Truly affordable in the Brezhnev pharmacy were iodine and brilliant green - 4 kopecks.

These simple remedies, and even cough lozenges, cough tablets, penicillin and the bronchodilator solutan, are, perhaps, all the medicines that an ordinary Soviet citizen knew. In the 1970s, the noshpa and the Indian festal joined them, but they were sold at close or exorbitant prices. In large cities, sulfur powder, calendula tincture, or acne lotion could be prepared according to a prescription. In the cities of small interruptions were even with the pyramidon.

Remember the satirical miniature of Kartsev and Ilchenko "Warehouse".

Pyramidone and analgin were already known for their severe side effects. Noshpa outside the socialist camp was considered a placebo with long-term side effects, including on the intrauterine development of the child. Festal is today called a pseudo-drug.

Zelenka used to disinfect scratches throughout the Soviet Union, while in the rest of the world it was used to dry the edges of wounds. From solutan, Soviet drug addicts cooked "screw".

Contrary to the memories of the patriots, even these meager medicines were not free in Soviet times. All pharmacies of the USSR were divided into outpatient, that is, self-supporting, and hospital. In the early days, drugs were sold for money. Pensioners in the pharmacy were entitled to only one benefit - service out of turn. Disabled people and war veterans, disabled people of the first two groups and children under one year old received medicines free of charge. Group III disabled people and children from one to three years old were given a discount. From beneficiaries formed its own queue.

Insulin diabetics bought themselves. And seriously ill patients also bought anesthesia. Both were chronically absent in pharmacies, often injections were received only at a doctor's appointment. The most successful, with connections and money, injected insulin at home from reusable syringes. They were boiled. There was, as a rule, one syringe per family, it was taken care of. Diabetics, by the way, lived very badly in the Soviet country: insulin was artisanal, it could not cope with a carbohydrate diet. The country lived on potatoes, pasta and bread. Only two products were produced for diabetics - sorbitol and buckwheat. Both were not issued free of charge, but were sold at a market price. And prescriptions.

Buckwheat - according to the recipe! Did you know?

In the Soviet Union, it was necessary to live young and healthy, because any disease carried a person to the sidelines. The words “cancer”, “stroke”, cerebral palsy in Russia are still synonymous with death or lifelong trouble, because they were not treated in the USSR, people died quietly, secretly, children with cerebral palsy were hidden.

This was because there was no free access to any effective drugs outside of Moscow at all, and in Moscow they were rare and expensive. Soviet people died not only from strokes, but also from diseases that are ridiculous by today's standards: bronchitis, pancreatitis, asthma, from inflammation of the throat, from a simple cut on the arm or an abscess.

There were no good antibiotics in the open market, which is why a huge proportion of child deaths were due to respiratory diseases. There were no pancreatin preparations. Asthmatics were injected with hormones in a hospital, during a planned hospitalization, a person himself could not remove an asthma attack. The chief engineer of the housing department from Mamin's film "Fountain" used an inhaler for asthmatics - a miracle unheard of even in the late Soviet Union.

People watched the film and understood that this marvelous romantic was an ordinary thief, because they didn’t give an inhaler to thieves, and even by prescription.

Any more or less serious illness turned into huge expenses, even if a person was admitted to a hospital: medicines in the hospital, like other shortages, were obtained through pull. It happened that tests were done through acquaintances and procedures were carried out for bribes. The clinics often did not have reagents, there was no laboratory equipment, there was no dressing material. What was distributed corruptly, taken away by the staff to their homes.

They dragged everything: droppers - for crafts, bandages - in reserve, alcohol - for vodka, tweezers, lancets, clamps - for the kitchen. A person who ended up in a Soviet hospital without money and acquaintances could simply lie under a glucose drip for 20 days, since often there was nothing in hospitals. Almost everyone had to lie like this, because people with a salary of up to 135 rubles, that is, at least 4/5 of the population, did not have access to the illegal drug market.

However, even the medicines distributed through blasphemy almost did not cure anyone, because they were Soviet medicines. Really effective Western preparations penetrated illegally - mainly through traveling diplomats, athletes, employees of trade missions. And they were a drop in the ocean. We produced almost nothing. In a closed country, science was also closed. The technical, medical, natural-scientific intelligentsia did not know foreign languages, and the damned bourgeois did not translate their publications into Russian. Contrary to proud myths, the Soviet pharmaceutical industry did not make any breakthrough discoveries.

Today, about 5 thousand effective original drugs are known in the world of evidence-based medicine. Of these, less than twenty were discovered by Soviet pharmacology.

A powerful pharmaceutical intelligence worked in the KGB - Chekists from all over the world brought other people's developments to the Union.

Against the backdrop of a total shortage of pharmaceuticals, Soviet people were treated with whatever they had to. Now it is customary to recall salt rooms in schools, wet salt rugs in kindergartens, morning exercises before lessons. This is all very good, of course. But apart from salt procedures and massage mats, there was actually nothing in the country.

Doctors were free, but what kind of doctors were accepted in ordinary hospitals and clinics? They didn't know the language either. They were taught by teachers who themselves learned in isolation from world science. Therefore, various obscurantist medical practices flourished in the Union. Especially in the field of physiotherapy.

UHF, polarized light, electrophoresis, UV, electrosleep, cans, leeches and mustard plasters were almost the only weapons of the Soviet doctor.

They fought against all diseases - from the consequences of perinatal hypoxia and pathologies of placental development to ischemia and osteoporosis.

A sick Soviet worker fell under double pressure. On the one hand, helpless medicine awaited him, which treated inflammation of the ear or mastitis for a month and a half. On the other hand, the poor fellow was on the lookout for a sick leave. The country had normative terms for being on sick leave. After a heart attack and ischemia, 20 days of rest were given. For all illnesses, sick leave had to be extended every three days, more than 10 days without a medical commission it was forbidden to sit on sick leave.

With a cold and SARS without a temperature, the sick-list was not relied upon - they went to work snotty. It was impossible to sit at home with a sick child for more than seven calendar days - the sick leave was closed, even if the child had whooping cough. Being on sick leave for more than a week in two years was generally not encouraged, everyone knew this and took vacations at their own expense.

Paid sick leave in full only for people with a long experience - over eight years. In Soviet times, the people were sick for their hard-earned money. But dues to the trade union were paid mandatory - 1% of the salary, including vacation pay. A teacher paid 12–14 rubles to the trade union fund per year. And I was sick 2.5 working days a year. And once every ten years I went on a ticket to a sanatorium. That is, the Soviet people paid for their own medical care.

Things were a little better in departmental hospitals - valuable workers were protected, so the bosses went to the hospital several times a year. But there was another problem in the special institutions - they got scarce Western equipment and Western medicines. For this reason, good hospitals were extremely corrupt, jobs were bread and distributed to their own. And where there is a big pull, there is no place for qualification. And they stole more in special hospitals than in district ones.

I personally know the family of a former judge of the Supreme Court and the family of one of the first secretaries of the regional committee of a non-poor region. Those and others were afraid to be treated in departmental clinics.

What can we say about ordinary outpatient clinics and hospitals? These places were terrible. Rooms for 12 people and one toilet for two departments are the standard design of the clinic. In maternity hospitals, there were ten people in a ward. There were five to ten chairs in the delivery room.

Soviet obstetrics and pediatrics are the main enemies of Soviet citizens. All pediatrics in the first year of a child's life were aimed at separating the baby from the mother as early as possible so that she would enter production as soon as possible. Therefore, until the 1960s, a woman did not have the right to sit with a child for more than three months. Then she was given first a six-month, then an annual, but unpaid leave.

Until 1982, a woman could stay at home with a child in the first year of life only at her own expense.

At the same time, all obstetrics in the USSR was arranged so that a woman went on maternity leave as late as possible. To do this, antenatal clinics specifically reduced the duration of pregnancy and a certificate stating that it was time to go on maternity leave was issued at 39 weeks. Women gave birth without having time to convey this certificate to their accounting department.

However, obstetrics and pediatrics were not the most terrible areas of Soviet medicine - otolaryngology and dentistry were worse. ENT doctors performed almost all operations without anesthesia: puncture of the nasal sinuses, removal of tonsils, tonsils, adenoids, puncture of the eardrum, cleaning of the middle ear - all at best with novocaine, that is, live.

And the teeth in the USSR were treated on pre-war machines, cement fillings were placed, the nerve was removed with arsenic, anesthetized with the same novocaine. People were afraid of this kind of dentistry. Any effective anesthesia, foreign fillings or good prostheses cost more than a monthly salary of a worker and appeared only in large cities, there was a queue for them for years to come. Preferential place in the queue received veterans and invalids of the war, labor veterans. A woman under 60 had no opportunity to insert her teeth without a huge bribe - she could not get through the beneficiaries.

The people who yearn for free healthcare today just don't remember the millions of toothless mouths. And in Soviet times, they didn’t get sick with anything serious.

Surprisingly, both our ultra-liberal and ultra-conservative citizens today equally scold modern medicine because it falls short of the Soviet one. And thank God, I'll tell you what falls short!

Almost without exception, diseases are now being treated in Russia without crazy queues and bribes. Yes, our medicine is not of the Western level. Yes, not everything is free. Yes, not everyone is cured. But the situation is not as bad as some nostalgic alarmists imagine. At least parents today don't have to sell wedding rings to pay nurses for injections.

Maybe that's why hospitals today are so far from ideal that they are constantly compared not with American or European clinics, but with Soviet institutions, where people were 12 people in a ward and where medicines literally cost more than gold?

Soviet health care can not stand any comparison with modern. And if only because for several decades, medicine and medical practice all over the world have made a breakthrough. And in our country too. Denying the superiority of post-Soviet healthcare, people, in addition to common sense, deny progress. Because even if the USSR were a super-open power, its medicine would still seem backward to us. Just because of progress.

Memories of good Soviet medicine are of the same romantic order as the longing for Brezhnev's ice cream. Most of those who today still have the strength to discuss the benefits of socialist health care were young in the USSR, for this reason they are happy and, by the way, very healthy. They just didn't have time to face the system. And to compare them with Russian medicine, in truth, there is nothing. But for those who really want to compare, I advise you to risk pulling out a tooth without anesthesia. I have never heard of such bold experimenters in the 21st century.

With the help of the publisher Vagrius"Vlast" presents a series of historical materials under the heading ARCHIVE. 85 years ago, in 1924, the Politburo decided to strengthen the health protection of the party elite and created a special Medical Commission of the Central Committee. As the Vlast observer 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 persuaded his colleagues in the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee to evacuate the capital from Petrograd, few of his colleagues guessed what really motivated them. The great conspiracy expert told everyone that the government was moving to Nizhny Novgorod, and only the closest people knew that the capital was being moved to Moscow. Organizing an escape from St. Petersburg, Lenin not only saved the backbone of the Bolshevik Party from the advancing German troops and himself escaped from a failed assassination attempt and two uncovered conspiracies, but also shook the ashes of the former bureaucratic elite from the feet of the new proletarian leadership. In the former capital of the empire, tens of thousands of officials, former officers, entrepreneurs and lobbyists of all stripes remained, in the conditions of growing devastation, who had a very illusory chance of settling in Moscow. As a result, the Bolsheviks could try to start running the country from scratch, without regard to traditions and 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. The economic executives of the Council of People's Commissars had to look for a place for an auto-drawn base that served the Bolshevik elite, evict former residents from the Kremlin and divide the area between the families of the new Soviet leaders. And since there was not enough space 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. only a well-known surgeon, Dr. Dubushe, allowed her to operate on her sister Maria for appendicitis. Krupskaya, who suffered from Graves' disease, was taken from Krakow to Bern to the famous specialist Kocher."

And in the complete works of Lenin there is his letter of 1913 to Maxim Gorky, whom Dr. Manukhin undertook to treat: “The news that you are being treated in a new way by the“ Bolshevik ”, although the former one, worried me, by her, by her. 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. I assure you that treatment (except for petty cases) should only be done by first-class celebrities. imagine the invention of the Bolshevik - it's terrible!"

Volsky claimed that in another case, Lenin, speaking about communist doctors, said: “It is possible that they know how to write a proclamation and deliver a speech at a rally, but, of course, they have no medical knowledge. they weren't acquired, they didn't have practice, but they were engaged in politics? I want to deal with real doctors, specialists, and not with ignoramuses. And to all types of treatment in "petty cases" he preferred rest and enhanced nutrition. On August 24, 1909, he wrote to his mother about his sister Maria Ilyinichna: “I advise her to drink more milk and eat curdled milk. She cooks it for herself, but, in my opinion, she doesn’t feed herself enough: because of this, we are with her all the time quarreling."

Lenin did not change his principles, and heading the government. He sent sick comrades, including his wife Krupskaya, on vacation with enhanced nutrition. He also sent suffering Bolsheviks for treatment abroad and allocated a severely scarce currency to pay for consultations of European medical luminaries. In 1921, for example, on his direct instructions, the Politburo decided: "Include comrade Gorky among the comrades who are being treated 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, most emergency hospital in the Kremlin, Lenin remained true to himself. He approved the head of the hospital, a practicing doctor, Alexandra Kanel, who suited other 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 patients at the Kremlin hospital and outpatient clinic turned out to be much more than they could serve. And this was not surprising. Proven, and most importantly, capable of organizing and leading people among the Bolsheviks turned out to be very, very few. So everyone who really could solve problems and implement the decisions of the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee was given a huge number of assignments and posts. And the natural result of overload was nervous exhaustion and exacerbation of old and new ailments. In order 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 department was opened for infected comrades. Then the increase in the number of patients caused the need to acquire their own pharmacy. Then came the physiotherapy department, laboratories, X-ray room. In 1921, all departments of the Kremlin medicine were merged into the Sanitary Directorate of the Kremlin. But this by no means lessened the severity of the problem.

"To monitor the state of the old party guard"

Qualified doctors throughout the country charged a considerable fee for their services. Assistance in a number of state polyclinics and hospitals was also paid. 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 the Kremlin doctors. And some of those who relied on the Kremlin medicine according to their position refused to comply with medical prescriptions. By the end of 1921, it became obvious that in the leadership of Sanupr (or Lechsanupr, as it was later called) there must be a person who was authoritative among the Bolsheviks, and moreover, a doctor.

In January 1922, the Politburo ordered the People's Commissariat of Health "to indicate a person specifically responsible for the implementation of the Central Committee's decision on the treatment of individual comrades." However, this candidacy should have suited Lenin as well, when the leader, as all his faithful comrades-in-arms hoped, would recover and be able to return to his duties in full. The search was somewhat delayed, and only by the end of the summer of 1922 did the People's Commissariat of Health choose a candidate for the post of head of Sanupr.

Pavel Obrosov (in some documents - Abrosov) became a rebel and revolutionary much earlier than a medical student. And because of the constant participation in revolutionary gatherings, riots and the imprisonment that followed them, 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 activities, 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 a fierce supporter of spa treatment and proved this by literally risking his head when he organized resorts on the banks of the Yenisei, where there were a lot of enemies of the Soviet regime, to restore Siberian Bolsheviks who had recovered from typhus.

In Moscow, Obrosov was appointed head of Lechsanupra and at the same time head of the department of medical areas of the People's Commissariat of Health. So he could carry out work on the improvement 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 austerity. For example, when foreign medical luminaries arrived in Moscow in early 1923 to consult Lenin's doctors, Obrosov arranged for them to also examine the members of the Politburo, whose condition was of particular concern. He also began to arrange regular consultations and forcibly send leaders up to the 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, Lev Trotsky, on a long vacation.

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

At the request of Obrosov, at the beginning of the summer of 1924, they set strict limits on spending medical money and created a special fund 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 points of the decision read:

"1. To create a commission for the systematic monitoring of the state of health of the old party guard.

2. The exact implementation of the decisions of this commission is to be considered, by force of obligation, the Party duty of each comrade.

3. To introduce responsible comrades from the old guard according to a special list of about 100 people into the circle of observation for the shortest possible time.

4. The Bureau of the Central Committee and the secretaries of the provincial committees organize the same monitoring of responsible party comrades in their districts, using the apparatus of the Central Commission in case of need.

5. To give the commission the right to invite control doctors for systematic monitoring of the treatment and compliance with the regimen by the indicated comrades.

6. Commissions to provide medical assistance to the families of comrades taken under the specified medical supervision.

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

8. The commissions will take over the overall management of the organization of the treatment of party comrades."

"I plunged headlong into work and felt bad"

However, the decisions did not give absolutely nothing. The medical commission of the Central Committee failed to remain within the established limits, neither in terms of the number of patients served, nor in terms of spending.

Thus, in January 1927, the Medical 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 to the Lechsanupra polyclinic for treatment, and 129 patients to the consultation there. More than one and a half thousand were transferred to the city medical institutions of the People's Commissariat of Health. Obviously, no one remembered about a hundred party guards. They spent about 18 thousand rubles a month, which on an annualized basis more than doubled the limits of 1924. But the main thing, of course, were the results. And they still left a lot to be desired.

Judging by the documents of 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 the National Economy (VSNKh) of the USSR and the chairman of the General Engineering Association of the VSNKh, who from time to time also served as a member of the court, Alexander Tolokontsev, the report of the Lechkomissiya of the Central Committee said: "The signs of fatigue have intensified."

The old Bolshevik Varvara Yakovleva, who created the Cheka with the Dzerzhinsky Cheka and worked in 1927 as Deputy People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR, did not feel better: “The other day I completed a course of massage therapy. 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 belonged to Lechsanupra at that time, near Moscow, but this did not bring any results: “Health improved, but not dramatically. Comrade Lyadov immediately plunged headlong into work and felt unwell ".

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 work, also, according to the doctors, overworked a lot and felt extremely bad - fatigue, fatigue, weakness. The head of the Central Control Commission, Valerian Kuibyshev, according to doctors, suffered from dysfunction of the internal secretion organs due to extreme overwork. And Sergo Ordzhonikidze, who replaced him, had regular heart attacks. Yet another party controller, Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, secretary of the Party Commission of the Central Control Commission, began to lose heart due to fatigue.

Particularly difficult was the condition of those responsible for problematic sectors - heavy industry and agriculture. According to the doctors, no Kremlin treatment helped Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council of National Economy Moisei Rukhimovich: "The state of weakness and irritability is growing. Headaches, diarrhea (as before). He still draws little attention to himself. He became especially irritable." The diagnosis of the People's Commissar of Agriculture and the head of the Peasant International, Alexander Smirnov, was neurasthenia and dyspepsia.

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

One can imagine what decisions the leaders made in such a state. A year earlier, when the situation was almost no different, Trotsky managed to get through the Politburo the decision to build the Dneproges, 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 sickness of those present.

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

Everyone who was only allowed by medical consultations, Obrosov sent 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 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, exotic methods for that time were used. For example, the secretary of the executive committee of the Communist International, Joseph Pyatnitsky, treated psychasthenia associated with a 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 help those in need without the participation of a doctor. Among the thermometers and tooth drops, the application also included opium.

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

Apparently, to combat the effects of narcotic stress relief, Kremlin medicine also used the latest drugs 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 Vlast, N49, 2001). Persistent and confirmed results were brought by the treatment of drug addicts and alcoholics with this remedy. Professor Strelchuk, head physician of the neuropsychiatric hospital for acute alcoholism, informed Zamkov about the results of the treatment of 11 drug addicts and 23 alcoholics: "None of the discharged patients has yet relapsed after treatment with gravidan." And the Kremlin pharmacy bought gravidan in solid quantities.

The question was only whether high-ranking patients wanted to be cured of drug addiction. With the onset of repression, apparently, the consumption of relaxing drugs has become massive. As the Kremlin doctors recalled, many representatives of the party elite who were threatened with arrest feigned illness and asked the doctors to inject them with morphine in order to somehow cope with the panic horror that seized them.

And some leaders, having once tried drugs, could not refuse them. People's Commissar for Agriculture and Politburo member Andrei Andreev is said to have used drugs to relieve pain in his ear. All the blame for the fact that he lost his ability to work was then placed on the doctors from the Lechsanupra Kremlin, who were involved in the case of doctors. But it is unlikely that Andreev was the last and even more so the only high-ranking consumer of morphine, because the work for wear and tear continued 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 mode of work and rest of leading workers 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 age, serious diseases of the heart, blood vessels and nervous system were found with a significant decrease in working capacity.One of the causes of 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 Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of Ministers of the USSR consider that the preservation of the health and ability to work of the leading workers of the Party and the Government is a state matter, and not only their personal business. prevention of 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 leading workers of the Party and the Government:

a) the beginning of the working day - 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-holiday days, finish work no later than 20.00;

b) prohibit work on weekends and holidays;

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

Changes in the established working hours of persons whose activities are connected with work primarily at night, as well as other exemptions, may be made only with the permission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

2. To consider it mandatory for each manager to use annual monthly regular leave. For persons in need of sanatorium treatment, the time and duration of the vacation, as well as the place of its implementation, should be established for medical reasons.

3. To oblige the leading workers of the Party and the Government to strictly comply with the food regime prescribed by doctors, which provides for the nature of nutrition and meals at least 3 times a day. For the organization of rational and therapeutic nutrition, transfer the dining room of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR to the jurisdiction of the Medical and Sanitary Directorate of the Kremlin.

4. To oblige the head of the Medical and Sanitary Department of the Kremlin:

a) to expand and improve dispensary services for executives for the purpose of early detection and prevention of diseases. To carry out in 1947 a comprehensive medical examination of leading employees and subsequently to 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 appointments and the timely completion of a dispensary examination.

However, apparently, Stalin did not like the project and remained on paper. In case of overwork, sick leaders were prescribed rest, diet food and walks. However, such treatment was not always effective. On the contrary, in a number of cases, as, for example, with Politburo member Andrei Zhdanov, it was contraindicated for the patient and ended in his death. But the fulfillment of Lenin's precepts about rest and nutrition continued by the next generations of ignorant doctors. Brezhnev had his workday reduced to a minimum and given crude, addictive sleeping pills. Foreign luminaries were not invited to Andropov and he was treated with exhausting diets and rest.

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

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“The Medical and Sanitary Department of the Kremlin.” This is the name of a new book by Kremlin historians, where for the first time, on the basis of declassified archival documents, it 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 turn 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, the central authorities and administration of the RSFSR were located in the Kremlin. And immediately the question arose sharply - how to organize medical care for the leadership of the state and the 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 dental office.

August 1918. In Russia, the height of the civil war, plus the 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 an operation at the Botkin hospital. And the leader was recovering in Gorki.

"Political trustworthy" medical luminaries were involved in the treatment of the Presovnarkom. 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-Bruyevich signed the official bulletins on the leader's state of health.

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

Bulletin No. 37, at 20:00 on September 18, 1918, reported: “The temperature is normal. The pulse is good ... Vladimir Ilyich is allowed to do business. And Lenin immediately made a postscript: “On the basis of this bulletin and my good health, my humble request is not to disturb the doctors with calls and questions ... V. Ulyanov (Lenin).”

“Already in the Kremlin you can walk without plugging 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, could not withstand criticism. “In the office of Comrade. Lenin, - we read in the conclusion of the sanitary special commission, - there is a mass of dust on the cabinets, stoves and palm leaves in the office, and cobwebs are covered in the corners near the ceiling ... In the corridor there is a broken iron cabinet with ashes, dust, bones from under the meat…”

The situation was complicated by the fact that at the end of 1918 - the beginning of 1919, an epidemic of typhus swept the whole country. The Kremlin has created a sanitary checkpoint "for newcomers." (He was in front of the entrances to the Kremlin, at the Trinity Tower.) Everyone, without exception, who tried to enter the territory, had to be examined by a doctor, then - mandatory "disinfection procedures". For this, a “sanitary district” was created in the Kremlin.

And Lenin himself signed the Sanitary Rules for the Residents of the Kremlin. This formidable circular ordered "to maintain personal cleanliness in the premises" and obliged all newcomers to the Kremlin "to wash in the bathhouse and hand over their clothes to the disinfector." Ignoring these rules threatened with immediate eviction from the Kremlin and prosecution "for causing public harm"1.

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

BY THE WAY

...Plus a typhoid hospital

As of December 17, 1920, the Kremlin Sanitary Department included a disinfection bureau, a bathhouse, a laundry, and an isolation checkpoint. There was also a Kremlin typhus hospital - it was located on Bolshaya Polyanka. In February-May 1920 alone, 214 people were admitted to it with a total of 4479 sick days used. Of the 214 patients, 12 died.

... And Ilyich did not like domestic resorts

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

The treatment and rest 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 CPSU (b) - the Politburo, the Organizing Bureau and the Secretariat.

In 1921–1924, foreign medical specialists were repeatedly invited to Moscow because of V.I. Lenin. After all, Ilyich was very critical of the recommendations of domestic doctors. He was also skeptical about the restorative possibilities 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 do not eat! This is her-same-her and shamelessly and irrationally. In Europe, in a good sanatorium, you will be treated and do three times as much work. Hey. And we have no treatment, no business - one fuss. Wasteful fuss. Leave, heal. Don't be stubborn, please. Your Lenin.

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

"I need a sick lifestyle"

In the spring days of 1922, German doctors, having examined Lenin, recommended him 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 from February 22, and then extended by the decisions of the Politburo of the Central Committee. Lenin was going to go on vacation to the Caucasus in May-June 1922, he was looking for a suitable vacation spot and corresponded on this issue, including with his colleague G.K. Ordzhonikidze.

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

And here is the second letter - dated April 17, 1922 ... “T. Sergo. I am sending you a few more small references. They were reported to me by a doctor who himself was on the spot and deserves full confidence: Abastuman (a resort in Georgia. - Ed.) is completely unsuitable, because it looks like a "coffin", a narrow hollow; nervous is not good; there are no walks, otherwise how to climb, and Nadezhda Konstantinovna cannot climb at all. Borzhom is very suitable, because there are walks on level ground, and this is necessary for Nadezhda Konstantinovna. In addition, Borzhom is a suitable height, while Abastuman is excessive, more than 1000 meters. It is forbidden. Especially our doctor warns against an early trip, de, there will be cold and rain, and especially until the middle of June. On this last point, I am not so afraid if the house does not leak and is heated, because under these conditions, cold and rain are not terrible. Shake your hand. Your Lenin.

But Lenin did not go to the Caucasus - "because of the complications of the disease."

THERE WAS A CASE

The Presovnarkom drowned ... fake fireplace

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

“Fire the fireplace,” Ilyich asked. They brought firewood, looked for pipes, they were not there. Well, thought the guards, there must be no chimneys near the fireplaces. Flooded. But the fireplaces, it turned out, were for decoration, and not for the firebox. The attic caught fire, they began to fill it with water, the ceiling collapsed ... "

The Soviet leadership went through the Medical Commission

In the early 1920s, the young Soviet government thought about organizing medical care and recreation for statesmen, because many of them were pretty “battered” by the civil war, went through prisons and exile. Well-known 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 the treatment of leadership in the USSR and abroad. The commission issued cash benefits, helped "party members" who temporarily lost their ability to work. In 1923-1924. more than 3000 people passed through it. Patients suffered mainly from nervous diseases and tuberculosis.

Holiday homes for children or members of the Politburo?

If no one except Lenin claimed the estate of "Gorka", then homeless children also counted on rest houses for less eminent "comrades". In 1921, doctors recommended a seriously ill A.I. 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, spend a vacation in the suburbs. They decided to place the statesman at the Lipki state farm (the palace of the former estate of A. Rupperti). At the same time, the People's Commissariat of Education planned to settle in this estate a children's educational institution for homeless children. In May 1921, “representatives of the People’s Commissariat for Education came ... to the Lipki state farm to move 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 homeless children who came from Petrograd were temporarily placed in houses of residents of the village "Lipki", as well as in the state farm stable 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 allotted for the children of emigrants in Tarasovka were taken from them for the Council of People's Commissars.”

As for the Lipki, they were left to the children for two years, and in the summer of 1923 another place was found for them. “After the repair, the estate again became a rest home (state dacha), but already of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, where A.I. Rykov. Later, in the mid-30s of the 20th century, this object became known as the Lipki state dacha near Moscow, which was occasionally visited by I.V. Stalin."

Not a cure, but a 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. On the preservation and development of domestic resorts in the early 20s. 2 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 "looms the most bleak, if not more so, picture of the state of treatment of patients, among whom there were a significant number of workers from various areas of Soviet Russia."

In general, patients often came to rest when their vacation period was already ending: for a month or even two, they “hang 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 an economic calculation: for example, doctors themselves were many sick, treated and at the same time had to treat others. Of course, as a result, almost no medical care existed. Of course, for money it was possible to find a good doctor, but not everyone could afford it.

In addition, “the patients did not eat up, they were nervous, watching when food for personal consumption was prepared from their own products in the kitchen, the quality was much better than they ate. For almost the whole summer, the patients ate semolina porridge on the water, which, according to the patients, was simply “tired”. ... In some sanatoriums, food was cooked together with worms, in dirty dishes, resulting in poisoning of sanatorium patients. ... At the resorts, vacationers fled en masse from the "health resorts". The reason for this appeal was that among the administration there were many people from the bourgeois-White Guard circles. They focused on personal interests.

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

First of all: there is not yet a single sanatorium there, internally equipped and furnished, so as to give those who are being treated in it a real sanatorium peace and healing, in order to completely save the sick from everyday household disturbances and shortages ... Lack of bed linen ... Lack of evening lighting, due to the lack of light bulbs. The absence of such simple items as a glass, tea saucer, spoon, plate, knife, fork, etc. ... How great the need for these items is, shows a note in the local newspaper with an appeal to everyone traveling to the Caucasian Mineral Waters - "Comrades, grab all this from home."

Favorite resorts of the top leadership of the USSR

In 1923, the conditions for rest and treatment improved at the resorts of the Caucasian Mineral Waters, and well-known 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, took mud baths.

In 1924, the number of applications from the highest state and party leadership 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 the medical care of the rest homes of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee 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, vacationers “responsible comrade. (including more than 20 people, somehow Krupskaya, Zinoviev, Bukharin, etc.) medicines are dispensed from the pharmacies of the resort Administration. Medicines for patients at rest homes of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee were free.

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

True, the unrest with the organization of recreation and treatment still continued during the 1920s. “The personnel of the sanatoriums were selected by group institutions almost without any participation of the heads of the sanatoriums. On the issue of hiring employees, the dominant principle was to hire “your person” ... As a result, there was a lack of qualified workers, and cohesion in the work of personnel. In addition, “sanatoriums lived without income and expenditure estimates. They were advanced according to the actual need from the group administrations. Therefore, the chief doctors had almost no money on their hands. ”

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

The lack of qualified medical personnel in 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 of Bolsheviks and the People's Commissariat of the RKI of the USSR in Kislovodsk, treated the kidneys, but the doctors could not make an accurate diagnosis. People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs K.E. Voroshilov wrote to Ordzhonikidze: “I learned that nothing was found with you, and that you would soon be returning. 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 do not have any tuberculosis. Before, I didn’t trust our doctors for a penny, but now, after experiments with you and a host of other comrades, I finally decided for myself that it’s better to kill by the will of the “almighty” than to use learned healers. I don’t allow for a minute that the Germans could not detect sticks (meaning the Kochov stick, 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 (to support the authority of colleagues) dig, search and ... earn on everything. Well, to hell with them, let them earn, as long as everything goes well.”

Soviet doctors are good, but the Germans are better

Skepticism in relation to the possibilities of domestic medicine was also a member of the Politburo of the CPSU (b) L.D. Trotsky. In 1924 he went with his wife to the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus in Sukhum.

But rest and treatment did not help. Lev Davydovich experienced constant ailments, he had a fever.

Distrust of the capabilities of domestic doctors was like 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. Levine: “He treated Lenin, Stalin and all members of the government. I knew this calm and conscientious man well. Like any reputable physician, he developed intimate, almost patronizing, relationships with high-profile patients. He knows very well what the backbones of 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 physicians could not establish the cause of L.D.'s prolonged temperature and poor health. Trotsky. In order not to take responsibility, they insisted on his trip abroad. And Lev Davydovich in the spring of 1926 went to Germany for treatment, but even after this trip he did not feel better.

Stalin was helped by domestic medicine

Despite the criticism of domestic doctors by some eminent patients, Soviet doctors could still help. So, for example, Stalin's health in domestic resorts improved. In the second half of the 1920s, 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 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 overwork, heart enlargement, sciatica, gout, rheumatism. I would send my wife here.

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

With this method of taking baths, the effectiveness of the treatment was higher, besides, they were easier to endure.

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

If Stalin was satisfied with the treatment in Sochi, the General Secretary 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 in the resorts of the Caucasian Mineral Waters, ordinary vacationers were disgustingly fed, there was not enough bedding, there was no medical care and medicines. The same was observed in the resorts of the southern coast of Crimea.

Stalin played skittles in the Crimea

During their stay in the Crimea, the top leaders of the USSR rested and were treated in the rest house of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee "Mukhalatka". In September 1925, K.E. Voroshilov wrote about the rest in Mukhalatka:

“... We are resting, as the proletarians who have seized upon real rest should be. I and Shkiryatich (Shkiryatov M.F., member of the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks - Note KP) spend 4-5 hours at the sea, breathing in the beautiful sea air with all my pores. The weather so far has been invariably favorable to us, and we are blissful. Do not feel bad, etc. t.t. and especially Koba. He rested thoroughly and was always cheerful and joyful. Among other things, Koba learned to play skittles and billiards. He likes both very much."

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

You can often hear that medicine in the USSR was the best in the world. Is it really? The statistics are inexorable: now only 44% of Russians, that is, less than half, consider it necessary to consult a doctor for any ailment, the rest avoid people in white coats with all their might. Two-thirds of the population is categorically dissatisfied with the quality of medical services, complaining about the inattention, rudeness and incompetence of doctors and nurses. How was it in the USSR? Let's compare Soviet and modern medicine, and then briefly touch on the topic of achievements and outstanding doctors from the times of the USSR.

Free healthcare in the USSR

Medical care at the time was free. Soviet citizens did not need any medical policies. An adult could receive qualified medical care in any locality of the USSR upon presentation of a passport, and for children, a birth certificate was enough. Paid polyclinics, of course, were in the Union, but, firstly, their number was negligible, and secondly, highly qualified and experienced doctors worked there, many with advanced degrees.

The current state of medicine

Today there is a semblance of an alternative. You can contact the district clinic at the place of residence or go to a paid one. In any case, a ticket to a doctor (even if we are talking about an ordinary therapist) must be taken one to two weeks in advance, and queues for specialized specialists stretch for six months or more. Some categories of the population can undergo certain procedures for free, but you need to sign up for them one or two years in advance.

Brilliant education of doctors

Soviet doctors received an excellent education. In 1922, in the young state, 16 new medical faculties were opened in various universities, at the same time the teaching staff was updated, and the training of medical personnel was expanded. A serious reform, which increased the duration of education at a medical university to seven years, took place in the late 60s. The same reform introduced the teaching of new subjects, a number of clinical disciplines were shifted to junior courses, and the practical training of students was strengthened.

What now?

Today, almost everyone can accept patients, make diagnoses and prescribe medications: both those who really studied and those who simply bought a diploma from an appropriate higher educational institution. Even those who have no education can become doctors. You don't have to look far for examples. graduated from vocational school with a degree in electrical mechanics and the Institute of Physical Culture, for several years he successfully hosted his health program on central television. He published books on alternative medicine, which were read by half of Russia. But in the USSR, a similar program on a healthy lifestyle was led by Yulia Belyanchikova, Honored Doctor of the RSFSR. The woman graduated from the I.M. Sechenov Medical Institute with a degree in General Medicine and worked for several years at the Central Institute of Blood Transfusion.

Fixed salary for medical staff

Soviet doctors received a fixed salary, not a salary that depended on the number of patients admitted. This made it possible to pay attention to each person who applied, to afford a leisurely and thorough examination, which resulted in a more accurate diagnosis and correct treatment. Today (even despite the latest diagnostic equipment), the number of incorrect diagnoses and inadequately prescribed treatment is growing, and in paid clinics, patient tests are often confused.

Preventive focus

The entire healthcare system in the USSR was aimed at the prevention of severe chronic diseases, vaccination and the elimination of the social foundations of diseases, and priority was given to childhood and motherhood. The preventive orientation of Soviet medicine made it possible to prevent many dangerous diseases and to identify pathologies at the initial stages. The network of health care institutions included not only polyclinics, but also sanatoriums, as well as various research institutes.

Doctors went to work places, visited kindergartens and schools for preventive examinations and vaccinations. Vaccination covered everyone without exception. When applying for a job, at a school, kindergarten, college or university, when visiting a polyclinic on issues that are not directly related to vaccinations, they required an appropriate certificate. At present, anyone can refuse vaccination, most often young mothers do this, fearing the harm of vaccinations for the baby's health.

Prevention in Russia

In modern Russia, attention is still paid to prevention: general medical examinations, routine and seasonal vaccinations are being carried out, new vaccines are appearing. How realistic it is to get an appointment with specialists within the framework of this very medical examination is another question. There were also diseases that did not exist before: AIDS, swine and bird flu, Ebola and others. The most progressive scientists claim that these diseases were bred artificially, and AIDS does not exist at all, but this does not make it easier for everyone. People continue to die from "artificial" diagnoses.

Medicine in the USSR did not appear overnight - it is the result of painstaking work. The healthcare system created by Nikolai Semashko is known all over the world. Henry Ernst Sigerist, historian, professor of medicine, who twice visited the USSR, highly appreciated the achievements of Soviet medicine. The system proposed by Nikolai Semashko was based on several ideas:

• unity of treatment and prevention of diseases;
• priority attention to motherhood and childhood;
• equal access to medicine for all citizens of the USSR;
• centralization of health care, uniform principles of organization;
• elimination of the foundations of diseases (both medical and social);
• active involvement of the general public in the cause of health protection.

The system of medical institutions

As a result, a system of medical institutions emerged that ensured the availability of health care: feldsher-obstetric station, or FAP - district hospital - district clinic - regional hospital - specialized research institutes. Special departmental institutions were preserved for miners, railway workers, military personnel, and so on. Citizens were attached to a polyclinic at their place of residence, and, if necessary, could be referred for treatment higher up the levels of the healthcare system.

Maternal and child health

Pediatric medicine in the USSR repeated the system for adults. For the protection of motherhood and childhood, the number of women's consultations was increased from 2.2 thousand in 1928 to 8.6 thousand in 1940. New mothers were provided with the best medicines, and obstetrics and pediatrics were considered one of the most promising areas. Thus, the population in the first 20 years of the existence of the young state increased from 137 million in 1920 to 195 million in 1941.

Prevention according to Nikolai Semashko

Nikolai Semashko paid considerable attention to the prevention of diseases and the elimination of provoking factors of their occurrence (both medical and social). The enterprises organized medical offices that were engaged in the prevention and detection of occupational diseases. Pathologies such as tuberculosis, venereal diseases, and alcoholism were especially monitored. An important preventive measure was vaccination, which took on a nationwide character.

Rest houses, resorts and sanatoriums were naturally added to the medical system of the USSR, treatment in which was part of the general therapeutic process. Patients were sent to sanatorium treatment free of charge, sometimes it was required to pay only a small part of the cost of the permit.

Main achievements

Soviet scientists have made a significant contribution to the development of medicine. For example, at the origins of organ transplantation was the genius of the scientist Vladimir Demikhov, who, being a 3rd year student (1937), designed and introduced an artificial heart to a dog. The whole world knows the Soviet ophthalmologist Svyatoslav Fedorov. In collaboration with Valery Zakharov, he created one of the best artificial lenses in the world, which was called the Fedorov-Zakharov lens. Svyatoslav Fedorov in 1973 for the first time performed an operation to treat glaucoma in the initial stages.

The collective achievement of domestic scientists is the creation of space medicine. The first work in this direction was carried out under the leadership of Vladimir Streltsov. Through his efforts, he managed to create a life support system for astronauts. At the initiative of the designer Sergei Korolev and the Minister of Defense of the USSR Alexander Vasilevsky, the Research Institute of Aviation Medicine appeared. Boris Egorov, who in 1964 flew on the Voskhod-1 spacecraft, became the world's first cosmonaut.

The life story of Nikolai Amosov, a cardiologist, became known after he performed his first heart surgeries. Tens of thousands of Soviet citizens read books about a healthy lifestyle authored by this outstanding person. During the war, he developed innovative methods of treating wounds, wrote eight articles on military field surgery, and then developed new approaches to lung resection. Since 1955, he began to help children with severe heart pathologies, and in 1960 he performed the first successful operation using

The world's best medicine: rebuttal

Was the level of medicine in the USSR the best in the world? There are many confirmations of this, but there are also refutations. It is customary to praise medicine in the USSR, but there were also flaws. Independent studies describe in detail the deplorable state of domestic health care before the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was not so easy to get into medical school, relying only on knowledge, and a medical career was often provided with connections. Most doctors did not know modern methods of treatment at that time.

Until the eighties, glass syringes and reusable needles were used in polyclinics. Most of the medicines had to be bought abroad, since the domestic pharmaceutical industry was poorly developed. A large number of Soviet doctors did not go into quality, and hospitals (as now) were overcrowded. The list can be long, but does it make sense?

The state of health of the leaders of the USSR has always been a matter of special importance and secrecy: the fate of millions of people in the country and in the world depended on how capable Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev were in the last years of their lives. Therefore, the personal doctors of the Soviet leaders could both rise up to the level of the Politburo of the Central Committee, and fall into the millstones of political repression. Below are the most dramatic stories of doctors of the first persons of the state ...

Vladimir Lenin. "God forbid from Bolshevik doctors"

Vladimir Ilyich and the doctors - this is how one could characterize the entire period of time when Ulyanov-Lenin was at the head of the Soviet state. Not initially in good health (his father, Ilya Nikolaevich, died of a stroke as a young man), Lenin also undermined him with exile in Siberia before the revolution and intense, 12-16 hours a day, work after the revolution.

It is noteworthy that, having destroyed the entire tsarist system of governing the country and promising to put a cook in charge of the state, Lenin himself and other leaders of the Soviet Republic did not trust class-reliable doctors with party cards, but turned for help to pre-revolutionary hardened specialists, or even simply to foreign doctors.

« The news that you are being treated in a new way by the “Bolshevik”, although the former one, bothered me, she-she Lenin wrote to Maxim Gorky. — God forbid from comrade doctors in general, Bolshevik doctors in particular! Indeed, in 99 cases out of 100, the doctors-comrades are “donkeys,” as a good doctor once told me. I assure you that it is necessary to be treated (except for petty cases) only with first-class celebrities. To try the invention of a Bolshevik on yourself is terrible!”

Lenin himself was treated by a whole staff of doctors - the stars of European medicine Ferster and Klemperer, Stryumpel and Genschen, Minkovsky, Bumke and Nonne, domestic luminaries - Kozhevnikov and Kramer, Elistratov and Bekhterev, specialists in brain diseases and spastic paralysis, neuropathologists and diabetologists. . But, despite the creation of Lechsanupra under the Central Committee and a host of foreign specialists invited for hard currency, the leader of the world revolution was slowly but surely fading away.

What did Lenin's doctors treat for? According to the memoirs of People's Commissar of Health Nikolai Semashko, a specially assembled council of doctors made three incorrect diagnoses to Vladimir Ilyich in turn: neurasthenia (overwork), chronic lead poisoning and syphilis of the brain. Accordingly, the treatment method was chosen erroneously. First, in 1921, that is, three years before his death, doctors diagnosed Lenin with severe overwork with a whole “bouquet” of accompanying sores.

« They say I suffer from progressive paralysis. It will probably be a mess. A guy told me this a long time ago. You have a short neck».

« He had three such things: a headache, and sometimes a headache in the morning, which he had not had before. Then insomnia, but he had had insomnia before. Then the unwillingness to work. It didn't look like him at all., — noted in the memoirs of Lenin's brother Dmitry Ulyanov. — He always had insomnia, but such a thing as unwillingness to work was new.

Since March 1922, such phenomena began that attracted the attention of others - frequent seizures, consisting in a short-term loss of consciousness with numbness of the right side of the body. These seizures were frequent, up to twice a week, but were not too long - from 20 minutes to two hours».

The patient was prescribed rest and peace, living in Gorki, but the doctors could no longer save him. It is noteworthy that all members of the Central Committee of the Party and the government then suffered from overwork, only the head of the government of the USSR, Nikolai Rykov, was recognized by doctors as more or less healthy, prescribing to everyone from chronic fatigue either increased nutrition and a strict daily regimen, or opium, or even an experimental remedy. "gravidan" - purified urine of pregnant women.

As a supporter of this method, the experimental doctor Alexei Zamkov (husband of the sculptor Vera Mukhina) noted, “ stable results of treatment were recorded in dozens of drug addicts and alcoholics". But the gravidan did not help the leaders of the revolution.

The next diagnosis made to Lenin in 1922 was “chronic lead poisoning from two bullets” left in the soft tissues after the assassination of Fanny Kaplan in 1918. After a complex operation, one of the bullets was removed, but this did not bring relief to the patient.

The head of state felt worse, worked less and less. And then a third diagnosis was proposed, which, for obvious reasons, was not widely advertised throughout the country - syphilitic inflammation of the inner lining of the arteries. Lenin was prescribed injections of arsenic and iodine compounds due in this case, but years later, one of the members of the council, Georg Klemperer, suddenly changed his mind. " The possibility of venereal disease was ruled out", he noted in his memoirs.

One way or another, but the leader of the world proletariat let his brain down, at a posthumous autopsy it was found " severe damage to the cerebral vessels, especially the system of the left carotid artery". The patient himself guessed why he was dying:

« They say that I suffer from progressive paralysis, but if this is not so, then at least it is a paralysis that is steadily progressing., Lenin once told his attending physician Otfried Förster. — It will probably be a mess. A guy told me this a long time ago. You have a short neck. Yes, and my father died about the same years from a stroke.».

It is noteworthy that for the doctors who failed to save the leader, no sad consequences occurred. The persecution of pest doctors began under the next Soviet leader.

Joseph Stalin and "pests in white coats"

The medical record of Stalin's "friend of athletes" is one of the most interesting among all Soviet leaders and is still the most closed. Suspicious Iosif Vissarionovich could not complain about his illness to either doctors or relatives. Much about the state of health of the leader of the peoples was learned only from a posthumous autopsy at the Department of Biochemistry of the MOLMI.

« No infarction was found, but the entire mucosa of the stomach and intestines was also dotted with small hemorrhages., - Alexander Myasnikov, academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the Soviet Union, wrote later, following the results of the autopsy, in his book “I Treated Stalin”. — The focus of hemorrhage in the region of the subcortical nodes of the left hemisphere was the size of a plum. These processes were the result of hypertension. The arteries of the brain were severely affected by atherosclerosis; their lumen was very sharply narrowed».

Academician Vinogradov was arrested, and Stalin did not trust anyone anymore and did not let anyone close to him.

The discovered atherosclerosis of the cerebral arteries, according to doctors, could "exaggerate the loss of adequacy in assessing people and events, extreme stubbornness, suspicion and fear of enemies." “Running the state, in essence, a sick man,” stated Myasnikov. “He hid his illness, avoided medicine, was afraid of its revelations.”

« On December 21, 1952, I saw my father for the last time. He looked bad. Apparently felt the signs of illness, - Alliluyeva later wrote. — Obviously, he felt high blood pressure, but there were no doctors. Vinogradov was arrested, but he did not trust anyone anymore and did not let anyone close to him.».

Partly, historians explain the famous “doctors' case” with this suspicion, within the framework of which in 1952 nine of the largest doctors of the USSR were convicted - professors Vovsi, Egorov, Feldman, Etinger, Grinshtein, Mayorov, Kogan M., Kogan B. and Vinogradov.

It is noteworthy that the latter two were considered Stalin's personal doctors, but here, as they say, "nothing personal." The "killers in white coats" were accused of "organizing a Zionist conspiracy" and striving to "shorten the lives of leaders of the Party and Government during treatment."

In order to obtain testimony from the detainees, according to the head of the Ministry of State Security, Semyon Ignatiev, “measures of physical coercion were applied to Yegorov, Vinogradov and Vasilenko, for which ... two employees were selected who could perform special tasks in relation to especially important and dangerous criminals.” Only the death of Stalin in March 1953 saved the doctors from the inevitable death sentences in such cases.

Who knows, trust Stalin to doctors - no matter how long he lived and what the USSR and the world in general would be like.

Nikita Khrushchev. Unruly patient

It is interesting that Nikita Sergeevich, who was dismissed with the wording “due to advanced age and deteriorating health,” practically did not complain about his health. Having become a “pensioner of allied significance” at the age of 70, he, who could not stand inactivity, fiddled in the garden, went, with the permission of the curators, to agricultural exhibitions. He fell into the hands of doctors only a few times, the first time with a myocardial infarction.

« At first I wondered why they put him in the neurology department, and not in the therapeutic? Praskovya Moshentseva, a former surgeon at the Kremlin Hospital in Sokolniki, later recalled. — After all, the diagnosis was obvious: myocardial infarction. Apparently, they wanted to isolate Khrushchev from the outside world. Moreover, the department was previously released from all patients and was guarded in the strictest way, both at the entrance and at the exit.».

The former Secretary General, who threatened to show the whole world "Kuzkin's mother", turned out to be an absolutely adequate patient, although not quite disciplined.

They wanted to isolate Khrushchev from the outside world: the department was previously released from all patients and was guarded in the strictest way.

« Opening the door to the ward, I cheerfully went to the patient's bed. Khrushchev was reading the newspaper Pravda and smiling at something. I decided not to interfere. She apologized and promised to come back later. But Nikita Sergeevich put down the paper.

“No, no, Praskovya Nikolaevna, don’t go,” he said. - I am waiting for you.

"I don't want to disturb you," I said. - You read Pravda.

- Who reads it? Khrushchev smiled. “I personally just look at it. Here it is written only about socialism. In general, one water.

Having lost influence and suffering from the human vacuum formed around him, the so-called. “friends, associates and like-minded people” - the former first secretary found an attentive and benevolent audience among doctors and nurses.

« In the middle of the room in an armchair, surrounded by pillows, sits Nikita Sergeevich. Around him are nurses, the elder sister is standing at the door at the post. Seeing me, everyone froze with guilty faces. They understood that they had seriously violated hospital rules by allowing a bedridden patient to leave the ward. Khrushchev laughed.

“Ah, dear Praskovya Nikolaevna,” he said. - I beg you not to punish anyone: it was I who ordered them. Please note: this is my last order. Now I am nobody. You know, I have always loved talking to ordinary people. Academicians, members of the Central Committee of the CPSU and responsible workers in general - what are they like? Cautious in statements, they like to complicate things. Before you say something sensible, everything is turned upside down ...

Nikita Sergeevich talked about five-story buildings, about the development of virgin lands, about our black soil: how during the war the Germans took it out of the country in whole trains, about many other things. After the end of the speech, I asked the nurses to take the willful patient back to the ward.».

The retired first secretary, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Yevgeny Chazov, who treated Brezhnev, remembered the same way.

« Khrushchev was in the hospital on Granovsky Street due to myocardial infarction, - Chazov wrote in his book “Health and power. Memoirs of the "Kremlin doctor". — One late evening I was in the department and I needed a nurse. Looking into the room of the medical staff, I saw a strange picture: the sisters and nurses on duty were sitting around an old sick man, wrapped in a hospital gown, who loudly proved something to them and asked passionately: “Well, do you live better under Brezhnev?”

"Dear Leonid Brezhnev" and hearse racing

The two decades that followed Khrushchev's resignation brought politics and medicine, the country's leaders and physicians closer together than ever before in the USSR, supporting strength and health in the leaders. Three heads of state in a row - Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko - did not feel well and led the country, as the people joked then, "on a drip."

It must be remembered that at that time the confrontation with the West was gradually growing, and in this somewhere obvious, somewhere hidden struggle, the leader of such a superpower as the USSR was obliged, if not to be, then at least to look strong, healthy and capable of adequately perceiving the situation in the world. And every year it got harder and harder.

Already in the early 1970s, the state of health of "dear Leonid Ilyich" inspired fair fears. Once, according to Chazov, Brezhnev lost control of himself during important negotiations in the GDR.

« Kosygin sat next to Brezhnev and saw how he gradually began to lose the thread of the conversation. “His tongue began to weave,” Kosygin said, “and suddenly the hand with which he propped up his head began to fall. We should have him in the hospital. Nothing terrible would happen." We tried to reassure Kosygin, saying that there was nothing to worry about, it was only about overwork, and that soon Brezhnev would be able to continue negotiations. After sleeping for three hours, Brezhnev left as if nothing had happened and continued to participate in the meeting.».

According to academician Chazov, who observed the health of the Secretary General for many years, “ losing the ability of analytical thinking, speed of reaction, Brezhnev more and more often could not withstand workloads, difficult situations. There were breakdowns that it was no longer possible to hide. They tried to explain them in different ways: cerebrovascular accident, heart attacks, often they were given a political connotation».

But even the rapidly weakening and aging leader was not allowed to take a well-deserved rest by "friends and comrades-in-arms" from the Politburo. Only equally sick candidates, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, who eventually ruled the country for about three years, could replace him at the helm of the state. Therefore, it remained only to hope that Leonid Ilyich would hold out for another year, two more ...

The ill health of the elderly general secretary became the subject of hundreds of jokes and gossip among the people, but life itself was more anecdotal than any invented tale. Here is a case Chazov recalls on this occasion:

« In connection with the decrease in critical perception, Brezhnev also had incidents. One of them is connected with the television series Seventeen Moments of Spring, which Brezhnev watched in the hospital. When discussing the picture, the nurse on duty with him conveyed as obvious the rumors that circulated among a certain circle of people that the prototype of the protagonist Stirlitz is Colonel Isaev, who lives forgotten by everyone, and his feat is not adequately noted.

Excited Brezhnev immediately called Andropov and seriously began to reprimand that we still do not appreciate the merits of people who saved the country from fascism. He asked to find Isaev, "whose work in the rear of the Germans is worthy of the highest award."

When Andropov began to reasonably say that he knew for sure that this was the author's fiction, that Stirlitz did not hide a real face, Brezhnev did not believe this and asked to find out everything again and report back. Isaev, of course, was not found, but the awards were nevertheless presented. They were presented to the actors in this film, which the Secretary General liked so much.».

The slightest change in the state of health of the Soviet leader was closely monitored not only by doctors and relatives, but also by the immediate political environment and intelligence services of many countries of the world.

« Attention was paid to this issue by the secret services of various countries, which were interested in the issue of the stability of the new leadership, - recalled Chazov. — Andropov told me that for this purpose they are trying to use any information - from official photographs and filming to the stories of people who meet him about his speech, gait, appearance».

Therefore, in public, Brezhnev, like Andropov and Chernenko, who later replaced him, tried their best to look healthy and full of strength.

“The opinion that the leader needs to be shown periodically, regardless of how he feels, which subsequently concerned not only Brezhnev, but also many other leaders of the party and state, became almost official and, in my opinion, was not only hypocritical, but also sadistic- said Chazov.

— Sadistic in relation to these unfortunates, overwhelmed by political ambitions and a thirst for power and trying to overcome their weakness, their illnesses in order to appear healthy and efficient in the eyes of the people. And now a system of television coverage of meetings and meetings with the participation of Brezhnev, and then Andropov, is already being developed, where the director and cameraman know exactly the angle and points from which they should broadcast.

In the new premises for the plenums of the Central Committee of the CPSU in the Kremlin, special railings are being installed for leaders to enter the podium. Special ladders are being developed for getting on the plane and on the Lenin Mausoleum on Red Square. By the way, if my memory serves me right, the creators of the ladder are awarded the State Prize».

The deaths of Brezhnev and the two general secretaries who followed him, aptly called by the people a "carriage race", put an end to the long epic "the leaders of the USSR and their doctors." The era of leaders is over, and their relationship with medicine has ceased to be the subject of the most important state secret.