ABSTRACT
The enormous effort put into the war by Stalin, in guiding the course of his country and directing military operations, took toll of his already failing health. He had already suffered two heart attacks, one of them very serious, in 1944, when it was thought that he would die, and the other in the summer of 1945. The Dictator wished to secure the benevolent neutrality of the army so as to settle accounts with those whom, in his mentally sick condition, he considered to be his future murderers. Sinister rumours passed through the Kremlin. There was talk of the imminent arrest of Molotov, Beria, Mikoyan, Voroshilov and Kaganovich. It was said that Leo Mekhlis, the very man who had built up the legend of the ‘brilliant leader’, had fallen mysteriously ill at Saratov and had been brought to Moscow for treatment in the mvd infirmary—in Lefortovo prison.
