"We hid this from the rest of the world? - We hid a lot of things. Actually, we live in a fog of historical myth..."

This article from our archives was first published on RI in May 2018

What if everything you think you know about Joseph Stalin isn’t true?

Similarly, what if the icon you perceive Winston Churchill to have been – is a mere illusion of history?

Anomalies in the way history is written is nothing new; the more or less objective truth is published many years later.

In this episode, Mikhail Poltoranin, former Head of the Government Committee on the Declassification of KGB Archives and Deputy Prime Minister (Wikipedia) talks about the way that the US air force bombed Soviet bases in 1950 – in reaction to Stalin’s power. But they didn't stop until their mission was complete - that is the death of Stalin.

It's even possible that others within the Soviet system were asked to take responsibility for his death - given the many theorists who took on that claim, as explained by Poltoranin.

Joseph Stalin has been attributed many crimes against humanity – the figures are in the hundreds of millions according to some liberal sources. In reality, contemporary Russian historians cannot account for even a fraction of the said deaths he is thought to have ordered.

That is not to say that he never did such a thing – the current figure is around 100,000 people over the course of his leadership (compared to many millions attributed to him in common text books.) But, in the words of President Putin himself – Stalin must be judged by the era that he lived in.

In a time when the country faced almost sure defeat, jeopardised by the fifth column - “enemies of the state” were done away with. Is this correct according to contemporary human rights law? Surely not – but I struggle to find an example of another country that faced the choice between survival, or its ultimate destruction at the hands of foreign powers and its internal accomplices in the most critical of times.

Stalin turned a mostly agrarian society into a force to be reckoned with in the defeat of Nazi Germany – albeit at a high human cost. But does that make him a dictator? For many Russians, it is a very personal question and is highly contested. Stalin is a figure about whom much is written – but not much of it is based on fact.

What remains, is that just 16 years after the USSR was reduced to rubble by the Germans – the Soviet Union won the space race, by launching the first man into space. Against a country that has never seen destruction on its own soil, together with the economy.

Very little about Stalin written in Western literature is true – you could test it now by doing a simple google search for “Stalin quotes”. Not one image that shows up is attributed to a real text. Why might the USSR not have publicised such crucial information earlier? Or even the modern Russian state?

In my personal opinion - nobody wants to admit defeat. If the MI6 was able to carry this out, this means the intelligence was somehow better equipped or more richly resourced to have been successful.

Of course that's not hard, when international bankers have their bets on you.

In 1950, the U.S. Air Force attacked Soviet bases in Eastern Russia destroying over 100 Soviet aircraft.

Following these events Stalin was poisoned with cyanide leading to his untimely death.

In order to keep this secret, Stalin's secretary, and even the corner that examined Stalin were killed and the house of the latter searched.

These events were carried out upon the orders of Churchill because he feared a strong USSR.

TRANSCRIPT:

You were the head of the committee on declassifying KGB archives, tell us, is it true that the u.s. Air Force bombed are Soviet bases in the Far East in the 1950s?

-Yes it's true.

-And we hid this from the rest of the world?

-We hid a lot of things. Actually, we live in a fog of historical myth...

-But you've seen the documents, so we will try to dispel some of those myths...

What did they bomb and when?

-Their group of fighter jets bombed our Naval bases...

-Which year?

-It was October 1950, and F80 group attacked our Naval bases

-How many of them?

-Four fighter jets

They bombed 5 of our bases...

-Where are these bases?

-30 km from Vladivostok. They destroyed a hundred and three aircraft.

-103?

-Yes, a hundred and three.

The Americans destroyed 103 of our aircraft, on our territory, when there wasn't a war?

-Yes, in 1950.

-What was Stalin's reaction?

-This actually has to do with why they killed Stalin...

-What do you mean they killed Stalin?

-It's exactly what I mean.

-Was Stalin poisoned?

-Yes he was

-Are you making an official statement, as the person who used to head the committee on declassifying KGB archives, under Yeltsin?

-Yes

-Joseph Stalin was poisoned?

-Joseph Stalin died an unnatural death... In 1981, the American, Stuart cahan who was the nephew of Lazar kaganovich, Stalin's close associate, visited Lazar in Russia... Lazar described him how Stalin was killed...

-Lazar's niece, Roza Kaganovich, was a Kremlin doctor. Stalin was (allegedly) given a pill-the equivalent of today's medicine would be a thrombo ASS pill, to prevent blood clotting. But when you change the composition, it becomes poison. Like rat poison.

This is what Kaganovich himself bragged about to Kahan.

-So who was it that killed Stalin?

-So listen...

-But I didn't believe this statement.

Then there were the statements of various officials – there was enverhoxha (Albanian president), when Mikoyan (Soviet statesman) came to visit A hoxha congress – he made a statement that the leadership of the USSR are 'cynical conspirators'

So the likes of Mikoyan traveled the world and bragged about the way they (allegedly) killed Stalin. When I went to look into it myself, what actually happened...

-the archives themselves?

-yes, the materials themselves...

-So what's being hidden from us? What's being hidden from us is that Stalin was poisoned. That it was special operation, which was prepared over a long time.

Because by then, a new number of people from Stalin's close circle had already been removed; Poskrebysheb (Stalin's secretary), Vlasik (head of security), the Kremlin commandant (Kosynkin) strangely died

-who was very close to Stalin

Then (Lavrentiy) Beria appointed a new head of the Kremlin clinic, responsible for all medicines.

In February, 1953 – Stalin began to feel unwell at his holiday home. (It may have come) from a drink of water, or he used to wet his finger when he turned pages – he used to read a lot – maybe that's how it got in... we don't know...

But we do know what the blood and urine samples showed. Well, firstly there was an enlarged liver – this shows toxicity. His leucocytos were four times the norm. This is the white blood cell that fights against toxins.

-He experienced vomiting with blood in it, and his skin was a bright pink color with dark patches under the arms, etc...

-was it cyanide?

-What was the medicine he was given?

-We looked through his medical log, all his checkups were in it. He was a healthy guy – he had mild first stage hypertension and some rheumatism in his knees.

-And nothing else?

-And nothing else...

-And all of the sudden these symptoms are documented. But a conclusion whether he's poisoned – it wasn't written...

-But there was one person, professor Rusakov, who carried out the anatomical examination of Stalin's body – and he wrote a report to the new head of the Kremlin clinic. The new one, that Beria had appointed...

-He wrote that Stalin was poisoned. Poisoned by cyanide, cyanic acid. All the symptoms pointed to that – and when the body was examined, his airways and mucus membranes were damaged with dots of cyanic acid.

Three days after the report – this person died.

Professor Ruskov?

-Yes...

-But not only did he die – his house was searched and all the documents in it were destroyed. But, through insufficient diligence, although the majority of his documents on Stalin were destroyed, Rusakov had another copy of the report.

-So a copy remained intact elsewhere? And you've had that in your own hands?

Yes, I read it with my own eyes. So there you go...

-So then the question is – why did they poison Stalin? What kind of act is this? So I started to research reports from the main headquarters of the intelligence services...

-We have a myth – that the USSR didn't know war was coming. This is why we mentioned Richard Sorge (soviet spy, working as undercover German journalist) it was Richard Sorge that said that Germany will attack the USSR on 22 June, (1941)

-Well I looked at the reports of our agents from March – April... goodness! It said everything we needed to know.

-Hitler wanted to start the war in May – but Denmark and Belgium had a bad crop season. Hitler said “let them work the fields first in the USSR and then we will begin our offensive”

-So let them plant, but we will eat it!

-Yes, of course, it was in their own interest.

-I was most impressed by the work of our informant in aviation. He described everything – which cities would be attacked first, with which forces. Moreover – he even mentioned who the guy would appoint as Gauloiters (official governing district under Nazi rule)

-In Kiev, Minsk, even Moscow...

-Our intelligence worked well! Were there German agents in the USSR too in 1941?

-I can say that it was very difficult to be a foreign agent ( in the USSR) in Stalin's time.

-Difficult?

-Very difficult...

-It's not that long ago that the theory arose, which said that powerful western forces were behind the death of Stalin.

-It's true that the USSR victory over fascist Germany, raised the authority of the state in the world to unprecedented levels

-Communist parties had a widespread influence not only on countries of the socialist camp, but on Europe at large.

-Both Italy and France experienced a lot of good feelings toward the USSR. This did not sit right with the “global behind the scenes” who started this war...

-How to fix the situation? The simplest thing is to remove the leader of the victors. This required the bringing of Winston Churchill to the role of Prime Minister for the second time who was known for his antipathy toward Stalin.

-Two weeks after the death of Stalin – Winston Churchill was knighted with the order of the Gartor. (Nikolai Starikov, historian)

take note, we think of churchill of as one of the victors of world war two. But in May 1945 – Instead of honors – he was removed from office having apparently lost the elections. He didn't receive any government honors.

-Because he had nothing to receive them for. As per the envisaged plan of the “global behind the scenes” and Britain, the war was supposed to end in the destruction of the USSR, then the destruction of Germany itself, leading to an entirely different configuration of political power on the world arena.

-Our tanks in Berlin didn't fit into the plan of our British friends. So here you have a British Prime Minister – during the reign of which the USSR obtained half of Europe – of course wasn't so popular with Britain's elite.

-Churchill won his respect much later. A number of years later, his party wins the elections, and he once again becomes Prime Minister - “the second coming” of Churchill.

-The main task of his was to correct the mistake. What was the mistake of Churchill? It was Stalin's Soviet Union. How can one fix it? By killing the leader, that is moving his country forward in the right direction and you can't stop it, so long as Josef Stalin is at the helm.

-I am absolutely assured that the government coup, of which the aim was the murder of Stalin, relied on some internal forces – Khruschev of which was certainly won. But in equal measures it was done with the use of foreign powers, and most likely the British intelligence MI6.