Throughout the month of October the USSR Narkomzdrav received a number of complaints about mass dismissals of staff members of the Kiev Medical Institute and the Odessa Sanitary and Bacteriological Institute. At the Kiev Medical Institute, for example, in a single day director Shashko dismissed thirty two people "for failing to be in compliance with requirements placed on instructors of Soviet higher schools"; thirty five people were dismissed from the Odessa Sanitary and Bacteriological Institute in two days with no reasons specified.

An investigation conducted by a special commission of the USSR Narkomzdrav, with the participation of a representative of the All-Union Committee for Higher Education, confirmed the aforementioned facts.

All of the individuals dismissed from the Kiev Medical Institute were immediately dismissed from Kiev’s other medical institutions as well, and when they attempted to secure any medical job, they received rejections everywhere.

Of the forty seven individuals from the Kiev Medical Institute who were considered by the consolidated Commission of the USSR Narkomzdrav and the Ukrainian SSR Narkomzdrav, twenty six were reinstated in their former jobs, while the commission assigned the other twenty one to practical work and the previous formulation of their dismissals was canceled.

The individuals who were dismissed and reinstated by the Commission in their former jobs include many prominent specialists who are honest workers and are devoted to Soviet rule. The prominent bacteriologist Sheremet, who has a certificate from the USSR TsIK for developing bacterial filters and has been decorated by Comrade Ordzhonikidze for introducing them into industry, declared with certainty to the commission, "My dismissal is the act of a class enemy."

Professor of physics Rudenko was removed from Kiev Medical Institute No. 1 (reason: he supposedly was drunk once at a lecture), and the director of Medical Institute No. 2, covering himself, immediately removed him from his job at Medical Institute No. 2 for . . . holding a second job at Medical Institute No. 1.

When bacteriologist Skibinskaia, a physician with a twelve-year service record and scientific works, was removed from her job at the Kiev Medical Institute and was denied in her request that the City Health Department assign her to another medical job, she went to work as a seamstress at a factory, flaunting this and angering the workers.

At the Odessa Sanitary and Bacteriological Institute, institute director Anina, on the instructions of the Local Department of the NKVD, dismissed thirty five people from their jobs in two days, including four managers of major departments of the institute and eleven physician-researchers.

What all of the dismissed individuals have in common is that they have relatives abroad, although many of them do not maintain contact with their relatives.

The dismissed people include prominent specialists, and some of them (Professor Palavandov, docent Kupershtein, staff scientist Grinfel’d) had worked at the institute for more than fifteen years, had repeatedly received bonuses and were good producers and actively participated in public life.

Employees were removed from the Sanitary and Bacteriological Institute immediately, they were forbidden to hand in their current projects, and some of them were recalled from their vacations ahead of schedule to be dismissed. The dismissed employees were forbidden to enter the institute, wages and other monetary compensation were sent to their homes, and the Local Party Committee opened a reception desk in a little park near the institute to receive trade-union dues, issue registration cards and so forth. The dismissed individuals were not told the reason for their dismissals.

Despite the fact that the institute director told all of the dismissed individuals that they had not discredited themselves in any way as honest specialists and that they could work at another institution in their specialty, the local health agencies are not hiring any of them and at present these individuals are, in point of fact, unemployed.

If the aforementioned individuals had to be dismissed from the Sanitary and Bacteriological Institute for political reasons, it could have been done gradually, by transferring them to other jobs.

But these methods of "purging" higher educational and research institutions, as a result of which about seventy specialists have lost their right to a job, only causes panic and bitterness among the research workers and can benefit nobody but the enemies of Soviet rule.

Deeming these facts to be a counterrevolutionary act, I request that you call the attention of the TsK KP(b)U [Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of the Ukraine] [to them] and ask it to take urgent and necessary measures to prevent such acts in the future.