Why paranoid Stalin executed Russia's heroes of the Nazi siege of Leningrad

Claudia Joseph
Sunday 04 August 2002 00:00 BST
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For 52 years the fate of the Communist leaders who rallied the people during the Germans' siege of Leningrad has remained hidden in Soviet documents. While the world marvelled that the residents of Leningrad had survived the 900-day siege at the height of the Second World War, its heroes vanished without trace.

Now a BBC documentary team has seen Russian archives and discovered that Stalin led a witch-hunt after the war to purge the party of Leningraders. He had more than 4,000 people arrested, and executed the most senior officials. Stalin's role is revealed for the first time in the BBC2 programme Timewatch – Stalin and the Betrayal of Leningrad – on Friday.

Lev Voznesensky, nephew of a high-ranking official, who saw 23 members of his family arrested, is one of the few people who has seen the files. "There is no doubt that Stalin managed the Leningrad Affair," he says.

Hitler invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. Within weeks the Germans had smashed through defences and advanced to Leningrad. By 8 September the city was cut off from the rest of the Soviet Union. Hitler decided to starve it into submission. Although they appealed to Moscow for help, local Communist party boss Andrei Zhdanov and his deputy Alexei Kuznetsov were left to deal with the crisis on their own.

When Zhdanov's health began to decline, Kuznetsov assumed control. Kuznetsov's son Valeri said: "Stalin wrote a letter to my father saying he approved of my father's actions, and in effect gave him the authority to run the city. The letter ended: 'Alexei, your motherland won't forget you.'"

But after the Red Army liberated the city in January 1944, Stalin's words of support proved meaningless. Zhdanov was sent to a sanatorium to recover from heart problems but Kremlin doctors prescribed exercise, a sure way to kill him. In 1950, Kuznetsov and four high-ranking officials were arrested, tortured and forced to confess to treason. Within an hour they were executed.

Kuznetsov's son says: "For Stalin... [making] an independent decision was a terrible crime against the state."

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