The Body Politic

Throughout its seventy year history, the political health of the Soviet Union was seen, both in the West and in Russia, as a reflection of the personal health of its leaders. From Lenin’s arrested vision to Brezhnev’s slurred speech, the true health of Russia’s communist leaders was a closely-guarded state secret, ever the subject of rumors, jokes and speculation. Only in recent years have secret archives been opened, so that information about past leaders’ health could become available. And only in the last few years have Russians, through the power of the press, public protests and free speech, successfully demanded the truth about their current politicians’ health. In this context, Russian Life asked noted historian Roy Medvedev to trace the history of Soviet and Russian leaders’ health, and how their health, or lack of it, reflected on politics.

In order to survive the many carnivorous power struggles endemic to climbing the political ladder in the Soviet Union and the current Russian Federation, virtually all Soviet and Russian leaders had to be vigorously healthy when they were young. The battles they engaged in, against ideological rivals and foes, required almost superhuman energy and efforts. Such demands on an individual’s health were intensified by the fact that, once obtained, the totalitarian crown required a single person to tackle all the problems the country might face.

At the same time, the ideological nature of power, the absence of any natural methods of succession and the top man’s multiple roles as head of state, head of Party and Commander in Chief meant that the leader could often stay in power until the end of his political, and physical, life. Once power was achieved, men usually held onto it long after their best years had passed.

In fact, absent free elections or an open political process, the country’s political stability demanded immortality. Lenin’s waxy corpse, the Muscovite Mecca of countless pilgrimages for the faithful, is a case in point. Eternal life was necessary because shake-ups in the Kremlin made people, both Russians and foreigners, nervous. In this new Egypt of undead idols, it was far easier to keep resurrecting a controllable mannequin, who could be counted on, than to train someone new.

The only Soviet leaders who did not die in office, Nikita Khrushchev and Mikhail Gorbachev, were both good old boys who harbored revolutionary tendencies. And both fell victim to the “extraordinary circumstances” of their own invention. Yet their fellow General Secretaries were determined to prolong, however artificially, the fading system which had given them so much. For the sake of unlimited power, with all of its obscene perks and pleasures, these men sacrificed their health, their ideals and, ultimately, their country.

Lenin is Always with Us

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was no stranger to sacrifice. A dedicated revolutionary who worked non-stop for his cause and comrades, Lenin would eventually live to usher in the Revolution, but not to save it from those who would manipulate it to further their own ends. The very events that enabled him and his party to come to power would eventually take their toll on his personal health, reducing him, in a few years, from an active Bolshevik to an invalid.

During the October Revolution and the ensuing civil war in Russia, Lenin worked almost continuously under huge pressure. Society was re-fashioning itself in his image and Lenin’s obligations to that society could not but exhaust him. He was everywhere at once: guiding, threatening, maneuvering, cajoling and, of course, leading the masses.

The Beginnings

of Mortality

When he was just past 50, he began to show symptoms of cerebrospinal sclerosis. This disease was compounded by his grueling daily schedule, as well as the lasting physical effects of Fanny Kaplan’s 1918 assassination attempt on his life.

Yet, in spite of his worsening condition, Lenin remained firmly in control as the idealized father of the Party, the one human being who could maintain a firm hold over the Party’s numerous, quarreling and ambitious revolutionaries. Yet his illness became increasingly pronounced, and Lenin was forced to move to Gorki, a retreat near Moscow. He took up residence there on December 13, 1922. Hoping for a quick return to the Kremlin, he refused to give in to his doctors’ wishes and retire from politics. During his first days at Gorki, Lenin worked several hours a day, but frequent and acute pains, as well as a heightening exhaustion, compelled him to limit his activity first to 15, and then 10 minutes a day. He used that time to dictate articles and letters to his devoted sister, Maria Ulyanova and to his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya.

In these final years, Lenin was especially concerned with the problem of naming a political heir. Lenin had achieved Party leadership because the people considered him to be the living embodiment of the Bolshevik cause, in all its flaws and virtues. But afterwards?

Stalin, among others, was acutely aware of the possibilities created by Lenin’s death. To realize his goals, he, under the guise of Bolshevik loyalty and friendship, “protected” Lenin’s failing health by severely limiting his movements, screening his contacts, and isolating him from the day-to-day activities and decisions of his comrades. Increasingly cut off from the political realm he had given so much to, Lenin’s health continued to ebb.

Lenin lived, Lenin lives,

Lenin will live!

This decline was aggravated on March 9, 1923, when Lenin suffered a severe stroke, or cerebral thrombosis. After Lenin’s right leg and arm were paralyzed, his consciousness dimmed and he lost the ability to speak, leading German and Swedish neurologists and hematologists were asked to treat Lenin. Special news bulletins were issued on a daily basis, keeping the whole country informed about Lenin’s health.

By the autumn of 1923, Lenin began to show signs of improvement; he was able to communicate by means of gesticula-tion and he even regained his motor skills somewhat. Hopeful that Lenin would pull through, the entire USSR was shocked to hear of his death on the evening of January 21, 1924.

Exhibiting methods that would soon become ritual, Joseph Stalin was lead pallbearer of Lenin’s coffin and spoke eloquently at the graveside of the man he had, slyly, helped to eliminate.

With Lenin safely dead, the path to power was clear.

Graven Idols

Stalin was notorious among his comrades for his mental strengths, for his seemingly tireless ability to work long hours and for his amoral appetites. Prone to arduous work days and nocturnal habits, Stalin usually rose late, then worked at his Kremlin office, nicknamed “the little corner,”, until 2 or 3 a.m. Government employees, in fear for their lives and careers, only dared to leave their offices after he had.

Stalin had never been a particularly healthy man. Since childhood he had had to fight to stay alive. At the age of seven, he contracted smallpox. Yet he survived (his three brothers all died from childhood diseases). The disease left his face scarred, but he was alive. As he got older, he knew he was an unprepossessing sight, with his short stature and pocked face (he is also reported to have a withered left arm, for reasons that are in dispute, and an imperfect left foot, on which two toes were joined). At the age of 27, he was pronounced physically unfit for military service during a general mobilization. Still, he was possessing of a formidable intellect. And intelligence more often than beauty is a means to power. After rising to power, he would be seen only in specially produced photos or newsreels, which smoothed his pock-marked skin, hid his diminutive size and muscled his left arm. He was the distant but adored father of millions; millions whom he feared and loathed.

The Lion in Winter

Stalin’s heavy pipe-smoking and drinking, combined with his ever-worsening paranoia and destructive ha-bits, destroyed his precarious health. Besides arterial sclerosis and high blood pressure, he suffered from terrible headaches and increasingly numerous attacks of dizziness. Justly suspicious of all those around him, and fearing for his life, he avoided confiding in anyone or seeking medical treatment, unable to believe that anyone could, or would, help him. As his daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva wrote, “He knew and understood that he was hated, and he knew why.”

Instead, he put his faith in his long-lived Georgian ancestors, hoping that he would follow in their footsteps. At the most, he sometimes dissolved iodine into a glass of boiled water, and drank that after dinner. This “medicine” of course, did not help him. In 1949, Stalin had a stroke which brought on a partial loss of speech.

Aware that he had to change his life somewhat if he was to live longer, Stalin stopped reporting to the Kremlin for weeks, preferring to work at the “Near” (in Kuntsevo) or “Far” (in Volynskoye) dachas, surrounded by his faithful lackeys: Georgi Malenkov, Lavrenty Beria, Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev. He spent the fall and early winter months at his southern residences, either in the Crimea or on Lake Ritsa, in the Abkhazian mountains, avoiding his home near Moscow in the wintertime, because of respiratory difficulties.

Killers in White

In 1953, Stalin transferred his fear of doctors to the nation as whole, with the infamous “Doctor’s Plot,” when he had his (mainly Jewish) Kremlin doctors arrested on the contrived charges of having murdered a number of Soviet officials on Zionist orders. Unfortunately for Stalin, his new doctors, Russian to a man, did not know him or his medical history, and terrified, were unable to do anything. However, after so many years spent ignoring the advice of his physicians, it is unlikely that Stalin could have ever become truly healthy. His vile activities had taken their spiritual toll on his maligned body and soul.

In his brilliant biography of Stalin, Stalin: Triumph & Tragedy, Dmitri Volko-gonov put forward the idea that “earlier disturbances of brain function had caused numerous cavities, or cysts, in the brain tissue, especially in the lobes.” Volkogo-nov further suggested that “such changes would have been responsible for changes in the psychological sphere, making an impact on Stalin’s despotic character and exacerbating his tyrannical tendencies.”

God is Dead

Joseph Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953 was a fitting cap to his grotesque existence. Following a late night party with his closest henchmen that lasted until 4 a.m., Stalin suffered a stroke while alone in his room in the early morning of March 2, 1953. Since his household staff was too terrified to enter his suite without being summoned, Stalin was left to lie, alone, in pain on his bedroom floor for almost an entire day and night. When, at 11 p.m. on March 3, one of his bodyguards finally got the courage to check on his boss, he found him, pale and barely breathing on the floor.

The deathly farce continued, since, without Marshal of the Soviet Union Beria’s permission, nothing could be done to help the Leader. But Beria, out drinking with one of his numerous conquests, was only found much later that evening. A victim of his own legendary bureaucracy, Stalin was left to suffer, surrounded by his helpless staff and children.

When Beria did arrive, he was drunk and belligerent. Either not willing to acknowledge what had happened, or hoping to use the Leader’s death to propel himself to power, Beria screamed, “Can’t you see Comrade Stalin is asleep, leave him alone!” He ordered Stalin’s personnel to “let him rest” for the night, and then calmly left. Only the next day did Beria, sure that Stalin would not make it, allow the doctors to see him. By then Stalin was unconscious and Beria was already nominally in charge.

Revelations

Beria’s power was, thankfully, short-lived, due to a timely coup organized by Nikita Khrushchev. Though Khrushchev seemed an unlikely choice for political maverick, given his history as a prominent Stalinist lackey and executioner, as well as the fact that it was he who wept the most at Stalin’s passing, he turned out to be the politician who did the most to destroy Stalin’s monolithic system.

During his ten years in power, Nikita Khrushchev never stopped surprising the world with his vigor and stamina. He could work 14 to 16 hours a day, never needing a break. He allowed himself to relax only during energetic hunting sessions.

He could speak at plenary sessions and party congresses for three to four hours at a stretch. People still remember how Khrushchev once delivered two reports in a row, standing on the podium for more than eight hours and taking only a short breather. When visiting the Stavropol region or Central Asian republics he spent hours in the scorching heat, with his bald head uncovered, inspecting cotton and maize fields.

But Khrushchev, with all his ill-planned reforms, and more importantly, revelations, was too dangerous for the loyal comrades to tolerate for long. He was exciting the masses too much, his “Thaw” was too threatening. The Party’s past and future was in danger.

Therefore, his associates, led by Leonid Brezhnev, pensioned the 70 year-old Khrushchev off, citing “his old age and poor health.” Vibrantly healthy before his humiliating dismissal, in exile Khrush-chev turned into a sad, lonely old man, sick in body and soul.

From Ilyich to Ilyich!

What an irony it is that Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev replaced Khrushchev “for reasons of health” while the former was still relatively young and healthy, but then himself hung on long after he was nothing more than a sick puppet, causing considerable damage to himself and his country.

When Leonid Brezhnev first come to power, at the age of 58, he gave no signs of his later chronic deterioration. In fact, he was originally thought to be the most handsome and physically healthy Politbu-ro member. Even the Western media admiringly cited his well-cut suits and cheerfulness.

It was in the mid-1970s, that Brezhnev’s health began to show serious signs of dilapidation. In early 1975, he suffered a stroke and a heart attack at the same time. He could not speak for two months, and a paralysis of facial muscles wiped away his former attractiveness. Brezhnev’s doctors managed to soften the aftermath of his illness, but by then he was quite another person. He became suspicious and a hypochondriac, his crafty intelligence weakened. On top of which, he suffered from insomnia, for which he chewed sleeping pills like candy, frightening his staff with his increasingly bizarre behavior. Trying to control him, they watered his vodka and gave him placebos instead of his potent sleeping pills. This created a Catch-22 si-tuation, as Brezhnev, frustrated by the weak pills and booze, ate and drank all the more. Doped up, he drove his sports cars with nary a care, almost killing himself and his terrified bodyguards. In his ‘second childhood,’ he soothed himself with drugs and alcohol at the state’s expense.

By the early 1980s, Brezhnev could not move unattended. He also had a great deal of trouble speaking. Uttering long words was too difficult for him, making the state-controlled media dub and correct his mistake-ridden public speeches, in order to hide his true predicament from the Soviet people. All of which was to no effect, as cutting jokes about his terrible pronunciation, buffoo-nery and illness were legion.

Finally, on November 10, 1982, Brezh-nev died of a heart attack in his sleep, putting both himself and his indolent nation out of their misery. Jeopardizing his country’s future, Brezhnev had wasted his final years by remaining only margi-nally in control and dreamily prolonging his death-in-life existence.

The Mystery Man

Brezhnev was dead, but the Soviet Union had a few years to go yet.

Yuri Andropov, Brezhnev’s successor, had had a lot of trouble with his health even before he assumed power. He had suffered from diabetes since the age of 30 and, when he was 52, he had a severe heart attack. His kidneys were in bad shape as a result of a case of salmonella contracted in China, and a case of Asian flu in Afghanistan.

But few peo-ple knew about the new Gene-ral Secretary’s troubles. While in charge of the KGB and as a Central Committee member, Andropov had demonstrated an exceptional capacity for work. He took no days off, and if he didn’t finish reading all the papers brought to him during his work day, he took them home. He spent what little spare time he had listening to Russian classical music, visiting art exhibitions and reading American detective stories. Though the country’s stagnating situation was having an adverse effect on Andropov’s already enervated health, many people hoped he would last long enough to guarantee a continued stability.

His outward appearance, however, was deceptive. In the spring of 1983, one of his kidneys stopped functioning, and he had to undergo at least twice weekly dialysis treatments. Later that year, in September, he caught a severe cold while vacationing in the south. Immediately afterwards he was readmitted to the hospital, never to be discharged. For five months he ran the country from his ward by means of notes, letters, and telephone calls. He dictated documents and speeches to his aides, but received only a very limited number of his friends and colleagues. Mikhail Gorba-chev, Yegor Ligachev, Dmitry Ustinov and Viktor Chebrikov were among his few visitors.

During these five months, Andropov very convincingly pretended to be recovering. He skimmed over huge amounts of documents and read new literary magazines, though he couldn’t turn the pages without outside assistance. But his condition continued to deteriorate in late January, 1984, and he died a couple of weeks later, on February 9.

From Bad to Worse

Still the country hung on. Reflecting the USSR’s weak heartbeat, the new leader of the nation and the party, 72-year-old Konstantin Chernenko, was a dying man. His diseases were legion, the most serious being emphysema. Chernenko could neither breathe, nor speak properly. At Andropov’s funeral he could hardly produce a single phrase without pause. On coming to power, he spent several weeks in the spring of 1984 in the hospital, writing notes and letters for the Politburo’s consideration. That summer he was taken to Kislovodsk, the best spa in Russia for lung problems.

But the place was unfriendly to Chernenko: the weather was cold and it did not stop drizzling for 12 days. At the spa, he contracted pneumonia and was immediately brought back to Moscow. Only in late fall was he able to return to his Kremlin office, and then only for a period of two months. On top of which, he couldn’t walk any more, and had to rely on a wheelchair for transportation.

In January, 1985 he was readmitted to the hospital. Now, realizing how seriously ill he was, his peers no longer treated his notes and letters as directives to be strictly obeyed. Yet, opting for the devil they knew, the leadership gave Chernen-ko sufficient power to be satisfied. His supporters knew how problematic it would be to find a useful replacement.

The Soviet people suspected what was up, and rumors flew about the General Secretary’s death. To quell them, it was decided to show him on television. A ward of the Central Clinical Hospital was disguised as a polling station where Cher-nenko was supposed to cast his voice for the Supreme Soviet election, now in progress. Everybody could see Chernen-ko trying, painfully, to put his ballot into the slot. Some time later, a new show was staged during which the Moscow party boss, Viktor Grishin, presented Chernen-ko with a deputy mandate. It was a sorry sight and no one was particularly shocked, three days later, when the news about Konstantin Chernenko’s death on March 10, 1985 was made public.

The Healthy Face

of Socialism

Unaware of Gorbachev’s revolutionary plans for Russia, most citizens were simply glad to see a young, healthy man in charge for once. (Referring to the top leader’s deaths in the early 1980s, Gorbachev wrote in his memoirs that, “All this was fraught with symbolic meaning. The very system was dying away; its sluggish senile blood no longer contained any vital juices.”)

Gorbachev, the first and the last Soviet president, was blessed with exceptionally good health, enabling him to withstand all the tests of life. Gorbachev used to leave the Kremlin late at night with his face gray from fatigue, but the next morning he was back in his office full of energy.

On the other hand, Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s current president and Gorba-chev’s greatest enemy and rival, was known both for his love of sports and his debilitating private lifestyle. After an energetic young adulthood of volleyball, Yeltsin systematically destroyed his health with rumored alcoholic binges (which allegedly brought on cirrhosis of the liver). He exacerbated the damage done to his body by playing tennis and refusing to take care of his weakening heart.

These grave problems were worsened during the most recent (June-July 1997) presidential elections, in which Yeltsin, determined to hide the extent of his career-threatening illness from the press, his rivals and even his supporters, continued to campaign ferociously, almost killing himself and his country’s chances for democracy.

In September 1996, with the elections won and after months of dodging the press, Yeltsin finally admitted to the world that he would be going under the knife for a heart bypass operation, which many specialists say he should have had years ago. Yeltsin’s serious heart problems were amplified by the fact that he suffers from a condition, where his heart is unable to pump all the blood it needs. Given the president’s age and condition, it was a potentially fatal operation (some Western doctors initially gave Yeltsin just a 50% chance of survival, but, after he was forced to rest for two months, his chances were upgraded to 90%).

Throughout 1996, concerns for the president’s health were mixed with voices from the press and parliament demanding his immediate resignation. After having given him their votes and confidence after being assured that Yeltsin was in good health, many Russians felt betrayed by how Yeltsin and his handlers had lied to get their support.

This feeling of betrayal was aggravated when, too soon after the November 5, 1996 quintuple bypass operation, Presi-dential Spokesman Sergei Yastrzhemb-skiy went on record as saying that the 65 year old President was making a wonderful recovery and would quickly return to the Kremlin as soon as he got over a “serious cold.” Yet, within days, there came news that President Yeltsin had actually contracted double pneumo-nia, quickly putting an end to such optimism. (Handlers had said on the eve of the July 1996 election that Yeltsin had missed three days of events because of a “cold,” when in fact the president had experienced a heart attack.) Russia settled down to wait and see. Would the President and his government survive?

As it turned out, Yeltsin shocked the world with his recovery, exuding his past vitality at this March’s summit in Helsinki with President Clinton. Gone was the elderly, haggard leader, caricatured in the press and Duma as a senile pawn, handing the state reins to shady advisors. Today’s Yeltsin seems to be revived, more decisive, willing to flex his political muscle, unwilling to take ‘nonsense’ from an uppity Duma. But the question remains: does the new and improved Yeltsin really have it in him to guide Russia through these rocky times? For that he will need more than a temporary quick-fix; he will need a powerful will and lasting good health.

One Small Step

for Democracy...

The authoritarian system is based not only on power, but also on a common ideology. The head of the system is the main interpreter of the current doctrine. He acts as both the political and the spiritual shepherd of society. It is not in the nature of such a ‘master’ to surrender to time by aging gracefully or retiring peacefully; such heights of glory are not meant for mere mortals.

Democracies abide by other rules. No ideology enjoys the status of “obligatory”; doctrines and religions are separated from the State. There are opposition movements, free elections and an independent mass media, all of which, in concert, assure that the public learns about the abilities and strength of possible leaders, in order to judge their governing powers.

In the spirit of glasnost, Yeltsin’s government has sought an image of openness and truthfulness. Yet Yeltsin, claiming issues of privacy and fearful of electoral repercussions, had to be forced by critics to reveal the true state of his health. Wisely, the press and the people recognized that, in a situation like this, “privacy” is reminiscent of the Soviets at their worst: secretive, deceptive and arrogant.

In a democracy, the truth, however unpleasant, will come out: perhaps not immediately, but eventually. And the truth is always the best medicine.