To the biography of N.A. Semashko: on the work of the first People’s Commissar of Health in 1920–1925

History of Medicine, 2018, 5(3): 183–192 DOI 10.3897/hmj.5.3.32480 To the biography of N.A. Semashko: on the work of the first People’s Commissar of Health in 1920–1925 Evgeny V. Arsentyev1, Vladimir A. Reshetnikov1 1 FSAEI HE I.M. Sechenov First MSMU MOH Russia (Sechenov University) 8 Trubetskaya St., building 2, Moscow 119991, Russia Corresponding author: Evgeny V. Arsentyev () Received: 19 June 2018   Accepted: 10 September 2018   Published online: 19 December 2018 Citation: Arsentyev EV, Reshetnikov VA (2018) To the biography of N.A. Semashko: on the work of the first People’s Commissar of Health in 1920–1925. History of Medicine 5(3): 183–192. https://doi.org/10.3897/hmj.5.3.32480 Abstract The article deals with the main turning points in the life and work of N.A. Semashko, the first People’s Commissar of Health of the RSFSR, from 1920 to 1925. The authors of the article proceed from the fact that the historical and biographical data available about Semashko are interpreted according to ideologically tinted stereotypes that were formed in the Soviet historiographic school. Based on various sources (mainly documents from the State Archives of the Russian Federation and Semashko’s family archive), as well as critical analysis of data from literature, an attempt was made to give an ideologically neutral assessment of the participation of Semashko in the organization of the sanatorium and resort sector in the RSFSR and the assistance provided to Soviet Russia from foreign public organizations. New facts were discovered about Semashko’s life, which in particular made it possible to clarify his role in helping medical personnel in Crimea during political repressions there (after the Bolsheviks established power on the peninsula). The authors of the article point out that despite the difficulties that existed at that time, in many respects, it was only due to Semashko’s authority and organizational abilities that the famous Soviet All-Russia health resort was established in Crimea. While work was carried out on the archives, data were found on the supply of humanitarian aid to the People’s Commissar of Health by US public organizations, sympathizing with Soviet Russia in the first half of the 1920s. It is concluded that the formation of Semashko’s scientific biography, which assumes an objective assessment, in parti cular, concerning his contribution to the organization of medical care, will make it possible in general to move on to an objective analysis of the features of the Soviet health care system and the transformation of the Soviet model (the Semashko model) into the modern Russian model of health care. Keywords history of public health, scientific biography, N.A. Semashko, the first People’s Commissar of Health, Soviet model of health care Introduction Currently, an ideologically neutral revision of historical events of the 20th century is considered topical for Russian historiography. Regarding medicine, the history of the organisation of Soviet healthcare requires special attention. The first national system of healthcare for all citizens was established in the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federation of Soviet Republics) in 1918. Many of the principles of Soviet healthcare (the principle of district doctors, preventative medicine, regular clinical examination, etc.) were later used in international practice and intro- duced into the practical public healthcare of the Russian Federation. Comprehension of many historical events inevitably raises questions of the role of some individuals in history. One of the major figures of the Soviet public health system is N.A. Semashko, under whose leadership the foundations of the Soviet healthcare system were laid. However, there are a few little-known periods even in the biography of the first People’s Commissar of the Soviet public health. The period from 1920 to 1925 – the time when the foundations of sanitarium and resort business were laid in the USSR – was one of them. Copyright EV Arsentyev, VA Reshetnikov. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0). EV Arsentyev, VA Reshetnikov: To the biography of N.A. Semashko: on the work of the first People’s Commissar of Health in 1920–1925 N.A. Semashko’s activities and the establishment of health resorts in Crimea In Soviet historiography, the decree “On the Use of Crimea for the Medical Treatment of the Working People,” signed by V.I. Lenin on the 21st of December 1920, was for a long time considered to be the beginning of the recreational and resort development of the Crimea (Usov 1925, Nadinskiy 1951). However, at the all-Russian level, the prospects of organising resorts in Crimea were announced soon after the 29th–30th of August 1883, when the delegates of the VII Congress of Russian naturalists and physicians visited Yevpatoria. Doctor Pavel Andrianovich Dobychin shared his impressions of the trip in the newspaper Vrachebnye Vedomosti1 (October–November 1883). In his essay, he noted the opportunities for treatment in the resort of Yevpatoria. Thus, contrary to the claims of many Soviet sources, the organisation of the sanitarium and resort business on the Crimean Peninsula began even before the Bolsheviks came to power. Moreover, after the nationalisation of the Crimean resorts in 1920, for a long time recreational facilities on the peninsula was developed chiefly based on the material and technical base and infrastructure inherited from the Russian Empire (Meshkov 2016). Also, it wasn’t customary in the national historiography to mention the mass political repressions that followed the establishment of Soviet power on the peninsula. After the final military defeat of P.N. Wrangel’s army in November 1920, mass repressions against the “class enemies” of the new government began on the peninsula. So, on the 6th of December 1920, at a meeting of Moscow Party Activists, Lenin declared: “There are at present 300,000 bourgeois in the Crimea. These are a source of future profiteering, espionage and every kind of aid to the capitalists. However, we are not afraid of them. We say that we shall take and distribute them, make them submit, and assimilate them”2 (Lenin 1970, p. 74). The exact number of victims of political repressions in Crimea is difficult to establish: researchers, eyewitnesses, and direct participants of the events provide different information. But even according to official Soviet data, more than 56,000 people were executed by shooting in the largest cities of the peninsula alone from November 1920 to the end of 1921 (Grazhdanskaya voyna... 2010). According to the testimony of General Danilov, who served in the headquarters of the 4th Red Army, more than 80,000 people were executed by shooting in Crimea from November 1920 to April 1921. The Russian writer I.S. Shmelev, who lived in Alushta at the time, 1 2 Russian for “Medical Gazette”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AVladimir (...truncated)