THE JEWISH QUESTION IN SOVIET AND SATELLITE PROPAGANDA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP65-00756R000500130010-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 26
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 23, 1999
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: February 10, 1953
• Content Type: REPORT

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SECURITY INFORMATION
10 FEBRUARY 1953
Supplement to
Survey of USSR.-Broadcasts
JEUJISHGUS '? POE_, :,,A:%nA
This material contains infor .tion affecting the national
defense of the Urea, ,ed It .te~,i the -t}-aiing of the
espionage i-2ws, '?,--)3 exx 794, the
tr8,.!sm ssic:s or x cve ~^ ~;:? 7:!1 ; whi.r5 ib) anY mangier to an
unauthorized person is prohibited by law,
FOREIGN BROADCAST INFORMATION SER171CE
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Supplement to
Survey of USSR Broadcasts
C O N T E N T S
Summary and Conclusions ? r . o o , o ? . . o . ? ? i
I, Anti-Semitism - 1946 to Slannsky Trial . , , . . . . iv
A. The Assimilation Goal . , o . iv
B. The Jewish "Cosmopolitans", . , vi
C... Satellite Propaganda, . o , . . m viii
II. Israel and Zionism - 1946 to Slansky Trial. .
A.
1946 -. 1949 , . . . . . .
.
.. o
ix
B.
1949 1952 . . . . . . .
..
. .
xiv
III. $lansky Trial and Soviet Doctor-Plot. , . . . . xxii
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THE JEWISH QUESTION IN SOVIET AND SATELLITE PROPAGANDA
Srriv%!y AND CONCLUSIONS
1. This study traces Soviet and Satellite propaganda relevant to
the Jewish question from 1946 to January 1953, shortly after the Slansk-
trial and the Soviet "doctors' plot." It is based largely on radio
broadcasts,
2. In line with the refusal of Leninist-Stalinist theory to recog-
nize the Jews as a people or as a nation and its stand on assimilation
as the only answer to the Jewish problem? Soviet propaganda, both inter-
nal and external, ignores the Jews as such, They are referred to as
Jews in internal propaganda neither in laudatory references, as in
awarding Stalin prizes, nor, customarily, in defamatory propaganda.
There is no longer a Yiddish press in the USSR, Moscow does not broad-
cast in Yiddish to its two million Jews, and no theoretical journals
are published in Yiddish, In MMM_oscowts program of foreign-language
broadcasting, which includes 34 languages, Hebrew to Israel is not
represented,
Soviet propaganda, during and since World War II, has con-
sistently avoided any propaganda which would foster the concept of a
homogeneous Jewish group among the Russian people, Propaganda on Nazi
atrocities during the war rarely mentioned the word "yew" despite the
obvious fact that the great majority of victims were Jews. Since the
war Soviet propaganda has almost completely avoided exploiting mani-
festations of anti-Semitism in the West, presumably because such ex-
ploitation would encourage the growth of Jzrish solidarity. The most
recent example of this taboo has been Moscow's refusal to utilize the
Rosenberg trial in anti-American propaganda,
3. Before the Prague trial Soviet propaganda had only once since
1945 manifested signs of anti-Semitism: in the campaign against the
literary "cosmopolitans" in 1948-49 it used the original Jewish names
of the sinners in parentheses after the adopted Russian names, Jewish
writers, however, were only one of the most likely targets for a poli-
tically motivated attack against all internationalist aspects of Soviet
culture which ran counter to the increasing stress of Great Russian
nationalism. That the Jews were only part of a larger target and that
the encouragement of anti-Semitism was not the goal was indicated by
failure of Soviet internal radio propaganda to exploit the Jewish names
for mass consumption, by confinement of the attack largely to the
literary and Party press, and by stopping the use of Jewish names
after March 1.949, although the campaign against cosmopolitanism has
continued to date,
4. The earliest Soviet warnings against Zionism significantly
coincided with the campaign against "cosmopolitans," at a time when
the newly consolidated state of Israel was undoubtedly attracting the
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sympathies and loyalties of many Jews, particularly intellectuals, be-
hind the Iron Curtain, This sympathy must have been encouraged by the
Soviet's expedient support for Zionism in 1947-48, when it was utilized
as a political weapon to harass the British. This support, misjudged
by Orbit Jews as a Kremlin change in attitude toward traditionally hostile
Zionism, must have served to fertilize the feeling of kinship to inter-
national Jewry throughout the Orbit,
That the Kremlin recognized this danger is evident from the
first Soviet anti,.Zionist statements which appeared in PRAVDA and
LIT?:,,PtAR1Y GAZETTE in the fall of 1948, soon after Israel had been con-
solidated and more than one year, before it was attacked by the Russians
for its foreign policy. These first charges stressed that the concepts
of "an international Jewish people" and an "international Jewish
literature" were treasonable and that allegiance to a "mystic" Jewish
nation was incompatible with Soviet patriotism. These charges
were not t"ollawc?- by m ,4y cor,sider& le anti="Zionist propaganda for mass
consumption, There had been virtual silence on the subject in Soviet
radio propaganda since,
5. The major outline-3 of Communist radio propaganda on the Jewish
question since 1048, however, bear out the implication of this early
significant charge, apparently intended for Party elite, that the Krem-
lin regards the possibility of divided allegiance on the part of the
Jews as dangerous, particularly in the Satellites, and that this inter-
nal problem is more serious than any posed by Israel's foreign policy.
Israel's gravitation toward the West aggravates the internal threat,
of course. This propaganda has been targeted on the Satellite Jews
themselves, especially those in Rumania and Poland, through Warsaw and
Bucharest broadcasts in Yiddish Only minimal and largely insignifi-
cant use has been made of anti-Israel propaganda to non-Jewish audiences
and no use, before the Prague trial, of anti-Zionist propaganda. Moscow
propaganda has manifested occasional concern over Israel's foreign policy
but has generally ignored the country except for scattered items concern-
ing Israel's alleged role in American military plans for the Middle East.
6. The Warsaw and Bucharest Yiddish programs, along with Bucharest
broadcasts in Rumanian to Israel, blacken the image of life in Israel by
stressing inflation, poor housing, economic hardships, etc., and dis-
credit the very concept of a Jewish state by pointing out that the
"class struggle" against Jewish "capitalists" goes on unremittingly even
in Israel. At the same time, they plug the great progress being made
throughout Eastern Europe in integrating the Jews into productive life.
The evident propaganda aim is to disillusion potential Jewish emigrants
from Eastern Europe and to combat the serious challenge of Diaspora
Zionism to Jewish loyalty throughout the Orbit. Israel's alignment in
the Cold War has thus been only a secondary target in the major attack
on the concept of an international Jewry,
7. Other considerations in Moscow's propaganda on the Jewish
question and on Israel have been matters of expediency, Moscow broad-
cast in Yiddish to North America during the war and for a time after
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when it sought to gain American Jewish support for the war effort. This
was the only Soviet propaganda which ever discussed anti-Semitism as an
evil or ever sought to project Soviet Jewry, None of it appeared in
internal broadcasts. The broadcast was discontinued in March 1949, soon
after the attack on "cosmopolitans" had begun,
Similarly, Soviet propaganda utilized Jewish nationalism and
the establishment of Israel in 1947?48 as a weapon with which to attack
the British. When it no longer was useful, and the weapon itself became
dangerous, the propaganda reversed itself, Since 1949, Soviet and
Satellite propaganda hag become increasingly vehement in scattered
attacks on Israel, but !;.h;ey have been a minor element except in propa-
ganda to the Jews themselves.
g. The Slansky trial and the Soviet "doctors' plot" mark a rela-
tive deluge in Cominform propaganda on the Jews,, It is the first time
that Zionism and "Jewish bourgeois nationalism" have ever been so-vigorously
dexiounced in mass propaganda. The release of the "doctors' plot" story
in the USSR was anticipated by two days in a Ukrainian regional refer-
ence to "Ukrainian bourgeois-nationalists and Zionists," the first such
reference ever observed on a Ukrainian radio,
Viewed in the perspective of previous propaganda, this new
campaign confirms the thesis that the Kremlin has been apprehensive
about the loyalty of the Jews in Eastern Europe ever since the con-
solidation of Israel in 1948 and is now serving severe notice that
Zionism is as grave a sin as Trotskyism, Titoism, and right-wing
Socialism.
9, Although it is apparent that the aims of Soviet foreign policy
would not be damaged if the anti-Zionist echoes of the P:: .gue trial
and the "doctors' plot" were heard and amplified in the Arab world, as
they were in fact by Damascus and other Moslem propagandists, Soviet
radio propaganda to the Arab world has not sought to capitalize on
these developments, just as it had not sought to exploit anti-Semitic
situations in the past,
10. The unprecedented "vigilance" propaganda which has followed
the Slansky trial and the "doctors' plot," subordinating the anti-
Jewish aspects of the propaganda, indicates that the Jews are once
again, as in the campaign against the "cosmopolitans," only part of
a larger target, namely the tightening of O.r.,it security and disci-
pline. That the Kremlin has for the first time on such a scale re-
sorted to evoking even a restrained anti-Semitism, however, is
testament to the gravity with which it now views the question of
Jewish loyalty and the larger problem of internal security.
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I. T l-SkMITISM - 1946 to SLANSKY 'R
A great many of the peculiarities of Communist propaganda relating
to the Jew can be understood only in the light of two important factors:
(1) Leninist-Stalinist theory on the Jews, and (2) the exigencies of
Soviet internal and external policy. Both have been decisive determinants
in the history of Soviet policy toward its own Jewish minority and toward
the Zionist movement,
It is of fundamental importance that Lenin and Stalin never recog-
nized the Jews as a nation. Lenin insisted as early as 1903 that "the
idea of a separate Jewish people is reactionary in its political impli-
cations and utterly untenable scientifically." Jewish national aspira-
tions and a Jewish national culture were regarded as fraudulent concepts.
The Jews, according to Lenin, and to Stalin after him, were a "caste" and
not a nation. They remained a caste wherever they were not allowed to
assimilate. Where they were allowed to assimilate, however, there was
no Jewish problem, The Bolshevik answer, then, to the Jewish question
has been the removal, of all administrative restrictions imposed on the
Jews by Tsarism and the encouragement of complete assimilation. The estab-
lishment of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast was a fortuitous prewar exception.
A. THE ASSIMILATION GOAL
The aim of assimilation which characterizes Soviet internal policy to.
ward its two td, ;,on jaws is reflected It, the pose of Soviet internal
propaganda which completely ignores the Jews as Jews, It similarly
accounts for the hostile Soviet attitude toward Zionism, which has been
illegal in the USSR since the first days of the Revolution.
Internally, it is manifested as follows: with the possible excep-
tion of one small local paper in Birobidsjan, there is no longer a
Yiddish press in the Soviet Union; no Soviet theoretical journals are
published in Yiddish; and the Jewish public school has almost completely
disappeared, Consistent with this policy, M scow does not broadcast in
Yiddish to its two million Jews and neither. .scow nor any other Comin-
form country broadcasts in Hebrew to Israel, apparently because the
Cominform refuses to accept the idea of Jewish nationalism even though
it had proved expedient in 1.947 to support it in order to harass the
British? Bucharest has directed a broadcast to Israel since 1950 and
has spearheaded Cominform propaganda on and to Israel since 194?3; but
its broadcasts are in Rumanian, not in Hebrew, and are addressed to
? "all decent people" abroad. Warsaw and Bucharest do broadcast in Yid-
dish to Jews at home and throughout Europe and North America, a
dialectic concession less compromising than the use of Hebrew, the
linguistic embodiment of Jewish nationalism, The suppression of Jewish
culture has not yet gone as far in Poland and Rumania as it has in
Russia, where also a considerable freedom had been permitted the
Jewish press and Jewish culture in the early days of the Soviet regimes
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Soviet propaganda, particularly during and since World War II, has thus
consistently avoided creating the impression among the Russian people
that the Jews are a homogeneous group. Throughout the war the Soviet
press and radio played down the fact that Nazi atrocities were being
committed against Jews. Soviet propaganda stressed that Nazi atroci-
ties were directed against the Russian people as a whole; A report on
Auschwitz in the Soviet press, for example, failed even to use the word
"Jew." A study of more than 600 Soviet radio commentaries dealing with
Nazi atrocities, gas chambers, etc,, during the war revealed that the
word "Jew",appeared only a few times despite the obvious fact that the
great majority of victims were Jewish. Moreover, although Nazi anti
Semitic propaganda is reported to have made strong inroads on the
Russian mind, the Kremlin never sought to counter the Nazi charges
that "Jewish Bolsheviks" were responsible for the war;
The taboo on Jews as Jews in Soviet propaganda during and since World
War II is also indicated by other practices. The positive contribu--
tions of Jews in the Soviet Union are not identified by Soviet propa-
ganda as to racial origin; Western attempts to deduce the number of Jews
among Stalin prize winners, for example, must guess by their names.
Most striking of all is the almost complete propaganda silence on the
subject of anti-Semitism both in the East and West.
Although , beginning in 1925, the Soviet press and Soviet officials waged
a campaign against latent anti-Semitism in the USSR, no such propaganda
ha.s appeared since the end of the war despite evidence which points to
a recrudescence of anti-Semitic feeling in the USSR and Eastern Europe
due to the impact of Nazi propaganda and the strains and dislocations
resulting from the war.2 More outstanding is the fact that Soviet
propaganda does not exploit anti-Semitism in the West; Since the end
of the war neither Moscow radio nor the central press has ever broad-
cast or published a single article wholly devoted to the subject of
Western anti-Semitism, They have alluded to it in passing in cowmen"
taries on the American and British domestic scenes, but these refer-
ences have been minute in relation to the total stream of Soviet propa-
ganda. The most recent manifestation of this policy is Moscowts com-
plete silence on the Rosenberg case, which has been played rather
heavily by Satellite media. East German as well as other Satellite
media have stressed the "persecution of,progressives" angle rather than
the anti-Semitic angle, it may be noted.
l The question of anti-Semitism in the USSR has been examined by Solomon
A. Schwarz at the instance of the.American Jewish Committee in a book
titled' he mews in the Soviet Union. Schwarz has made use of all
the available Yiddish and Russian material, particularly the valuable
collections of YIVO documents based on the experiences of Jewish emigres
who were in Russia during the war. He cites many examples of anti--
Semitism among Soviet partisans and peasantry and concludes that it
increased under the impact of Nazi propaganda.
2 Schwarz, gB', ,?, Part II
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The only sustained propaganda concerning anti-Semitism which has emanated
from the Soviet radio since the end of the war appeared in the Yiddish to
North America broadcast which was dropped in the spring of 1949 soon after
the Jewish Anti-Fasoist Committee in the USSR was abolished when the war-
time effort to woo foreign, particularly American, Jewish support had be-
come obsolete, Similarly, the only Cominform propaganda vehicles which
hswa alluded-to Western anti-Semitism are the Bucharest and Warsaw Yiddish
transmissions.
B, THE JEWISH 1100SMOPOLITANSt,
From the end of World War II to the Prague trial Soviet propaganda mani-
fested only once signs of anti-Semitism. This occurred in the great cam-
paign against "cosmopolitans" in early 1949, a campaign which later
broadened into a critique of all aspects of Soviet culture and art. The
great majority of critics and artists caught up in this purge were Jews,
and Soviet propagandists made note of the fact by including their original
Jewish names in parentheses after the adopted Russian names, Propaganda
on the '.'cosmopolitans" did not use the word "Jew, tr
The campaign against the "cosmopolitans," however.. was not primarily an
appeal to anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, The central thesis of the
first attack on the Jewish literary."cosmopolitans" was that the concept
of an "international Jewish peopldt was treasonable and that Yiddish
literature in the Soviet Union had nothing whatever to do with that of
the "dyed-in--the-wool businessmen" of Yiddish letters in America..
Palestine and elsewhere. The authors of'a literary glossary for the
second edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia were severely criti?
cited for "taking for granted" the existence of an international Jewish
literature "regardless of differences between countries and government
systems." The establishment of Israel had apparently developed a feeling
of double allegiance among many Soviet Jewish intellectuals. Ilya Ehren.-
burg had already sounded the first warning note against double allegiance
when, in the 21 September 194a issue of PRAVDA, he decried sympathies for
a "mystic" Jewish nation whose destiny was being shaped by "the intrusion
of Anglo-American capital," This warning coincided with the beginning of
the campaign against the "cosmopolitans" and officially launched the
attack against Zionism,
The fact that most of the "cosmopolitans" were Jewish did not necessarily
indicate a Soviet appeal to anti-Semitism. The Kremlin apparently felt
that its Jewish minority, which had once been th most loyal in the Soviet
Unions had become something of an Achilles heel, When the Soviets
3 Schwarz.. c,?, ;,, p. 2000: "Nazi horrors had made the Soviet Jews
keenly aware of their Jewishness and they were prey to the tormenting
thought that as a group. they were unwanted even in the Soviet Union,.,
there was frequently an articulate upsurge of Jewish national feeling.
All documents describing the wartime experiences of Jews in the Soviet
Union-letters, memoirs, testimonials of Displaced Persons-bear the
imprint of this emotional crisis,.""
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supported Jewish nationalism in the Genera]. Assembly and received
Israel's envoy, Golda Myerson, the spirit of Judaism must have been
rekindled in many thousands of Soviet Jews. A Western correspondent
has given a first-hand account of its manifestations.
This feeling of kinship was a potential source of disaffection which ran
counter to the order of the day, Great Russian nationalism, as indicated
by Stalin's pronouncement, soon after the end of the war, that the Great
Russians were the "greatest" of all. nations in the USSR. The attack on
the Jews thus formed part of a struggle against all internationalist
strains in Soviet life, all forms of kowtowing to foreign culture,
probably motivated by strategic considerations in the face of an intensi
Pied Cold War. The assault was directed not only against the Jews but
also against the Ukrainians and other Soviet minorities and has been a`
consistent but minor theme in Soviet internal propaganda ever since 1945.
The existence of Israel as a magnet to Eastern European Jewry and the
Nazi-inspired reawakening of a feeling of Jewishness throughout Eastern
Europe, particularly among Soviet intellectuals, apparently made the
Jewish "cosmopolitans" somewhat unique and more dangerous in Kremlin
eyes. But Soviet propagandists stopped utilizing Jewish names in the
attack against cosmopolitanism in March 1949, A more sustained or
blunter campaign might have undo. Communist parties throughout the
world which contained a great number of Jews in key positions.
Another indication of cautious approach is the fact that Ilya Ehren-
burg was chosen to make the first attack against Israel and the Zionist
movement, What better way to offset the shook in Communist ranks and
charges of anti-Semitism from the West than to utilize a well-known
Soviet anti-Zionist Jew to launch the attack? Ehrenburg had snubbed
Mrs. Golda Myerson, Israel's special envoy, because he had "no regard
for a Russian-born Jew who speaks English" rather than Russian..
4 Edmund Stevens, Moscow correspondent of the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR,
wrote in the 10 January 1950 issue;
"With the State of Israel an accomplished fact Soviet policy-makers saw
the chance to gain a foothold in the Middle East. Accordingly, Israel re-
ceived a favorable press, and party lectures were organized on the subject.
"After one such lecture in l scow, a man in the audience got up and asked
the speaker how Jews wishing to emigrate to Israel should make their appli-
cations. Instead of answering, the speaker launched into a violent tirade,
saying that such a question was unworthy of a loyal Soviet citizen, who
should prize his birthright too much even to think of wanting to emigrate,
and that the very idea was treasonable.
"When members of the Israel Legation, headed by Mrs. Golds Myerson, reached
Moscow, they received a tremendous spontaneous ovation from the local Jews,
first at the synagogue, then under the windows of their Metropol Hotel
rooms--.something without precedent in Soviet history. Immediately the
Legation was flooded with inquiries about how to get to Israel...,,"
5 Walter Bedell Smith, hree Years osco r, p. 275 JiA Approved For Release 2002/07/22 CIA-RDP65-00756R000500130010-2
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C. SATELLITE PROPAGANDA
The silence of the Soviet press and radio on the subject of anti-Semitism
is reflected in Satellite press and radio only to a degree, All have
generally refused to attack anti-Semitism at home, to utilize it as a
political weapon, or to exploit it very much against the West..
The Satellites are particularly less reticent in respect to Western anti-
Semitism, however. For example, whereas Moscow has not even mentioned
the Rosenberg espionage case, Satellite propaganda, particularly East
German, has been rather heavy; but even here it has stressed the war
preparations theme and utilized the case as an indication of persecution
of "progressives" rather than as an instance of anti-Semitism,
Although there is not enough systematic evidence to determine what the
relative emphasis among the several Satellites on Zionism and the Jewish
question has been, it is the impression of monitors who also follow the
press of their respective countries that the Rumanians have been the
most vocal in attacking Zionism, the Poles next, the Hungarians and the
East Germans somewhat further behind, and the Czechs considerably to
the rear.
It is significant that the Czechs have heretofore been the least vocal
of the Cominform countries in attaching Zionism, In fact, the propa-
ganda surrounding the Slansky trial was one of the few broadsides against
Zionism ever to have appearer?, in Czech propaganda. Czechs were the last
of the Cominfgrm countries to drop friendly relations with Israel. While
Zionist offices were closed in Rumania.. Hungary and Poland in late 1949
or early 1950, the Jewish Agency offices in Prague were not closed until
December 1950, A feeling of friendship toward the Czechs persisted in
Israel long after relations with Rumania and Hungary were deteriorating.
Czech arms supplied during the war with the Arabs had, of course, a great
deal to do with it.
Against this background the anti-Zionist aspects of the Prague trial
serve as a specific against Czech Jewish Communists in positions of importance
insufficiently screened for views on Zionism and as general
therapy for any softhearted attitude towards Israel in Czechoslovakia.
? With broader reference to the whole Orbit, Czechoslovakiats record '
would qualify it as the site of an object-lesson for Jewish intellectuals,
the party faithful, and East European Jewry in general. Zionism is
herewith formally denounced as a heresy along with Trotskyism and-
Titoism.
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II. T RAL AND ZIONISM - 1946 TO SLANSKY TRIAL
Since 191~9, Satellite press and radio propaganda in Yiddish has sought
to discourage emigration and to discredit Zionism and Israel, Soviet
propaganda in this respect has been minimal and opportunistic, serving
the development of Soviet foreign policy toward the Middle East. There
have been no real propaganda campaigns against Israel in Soviet propa-
ganda since relations between the two countries deteriorated, and vir-
tually nothing on Zionism prior to the Prague trial.
Aa 1946 -1949
Throughout 1946 and the early postwar period, Moscow maintained virtual
silence on the international aspects of the Jewish question, despite the
fact that it was already assuming major proportions, Illegal Jewish im-
migration into Palestine, the terrorist actions of the Stern gang and
Irgun Zvai Leumi against British troops, and the developing Jewish Arab
conflict were making headlines throughout the world. Moscow had appa-
rently not made up its mind which horse to back,
Soviet broadcasts to the Middle East and the Arab countries played upon
largely hackneyed themes: the implications of the Anglo-Transjordan
treaty as symbolized by the "British puppet" King Abdullah; the Anglo-
Egyptian negotiations inspired by British imperialism!s attempt to re-
gain its preeminence in the Middle East; and the "oil imperialism" of
both Britain and the United States,
Moscow's Yiddish broadcast to North America similarly ignored the
Palestine problem, It dealt primarily with Jewish life in the Soviet
Union, with the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, news of literature, art, the
theater, music, sports and economic activities connected with Jewish
personalities and Institutions in the USSR, This broadcast, designed
for foreign Yiddish-speaking consumption, was unique in that Jewish
personalities and institutions were seldom discussed in broadcasts to
other foreign audiences or to the Soviet people,
Diverging from Moscow's disregard of Palestine as a propaganda issue,
Warsaw's Yiddish broadcast was already notable in the early postwar
period for an extreme left-wing Zionist, anti,-British line. These
broadcasts contained news of economic and cultural relations between
Jewish communities in Poland and Palestine, visits to Poland of
Palestinian Jewish leaders, and the activities in Poland of such Zionist
organizations as the Poaleh Zion and the Hashomer Hatsair. The "British
imperialist" line formed the backdrop for most of the comment. In
addition to attracting support from the sizeable Jewish population
still rini~:in Poland, Polish propagandists found Palestine a
convenient issue on which to belabor the British, The propaganda
was less pro-Zionist than anti-British,.
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As the British attempt to settle directly the Palestine problem came to
a dead end in early 1947 with the failure of the London Conference, Moscow
slowly began to utilize the Palestine issue more and more in its Arabic
services, Arabic commentaries began to speak of the deteriorating
situation in Palestine, of Jewish "terrorism" resulting from British sup-
pression, and of American and British attempts to increase the gap between
Jew and Arab for strategic reasons, Moscow did not try to stir up the
Arabs against the Jews but rather tried to play both sides against the
British, who were 'accused of kindling internee ne and religious strife
while "progressive" Jewish and Arab organizations fought for the free-
dom and "independence" of Palestine.
When in February 1947 the British served notice that they would take
the Palestine question to the United Nations, it seemed evident that
the USSR would soon have to abandon its neutrality on the Palestine
issue, There is nothing, however, in Soviet propaganda prior to the
General Assembly Special Session which met in April and May 1947 to
suggest that Soviet propagandists anticipated the pro-Zionist Soviet
stand to be taken at Lake Success, Moscow radio continued to avoid
the Palestine issue in most beams and to discuss it in its Arabic
services along neutral anti-British lines.
This failure to anticipate the switch in Soviet policy is illustrated. by
a commentary, broadcast to the Arabs almost immediately prior to the
General Assembly meeting, which made the following points., (1) the
Palestine problem was the result of British imperialism which needed
Palestine in order to safeguard its oil lines and because of its
general strategic value; (2) British policy had changed-from World
War I, when its aim was to establish a Zionist state, to its policy
after World War II, when it "pretended" to support the Arab liberation
movement; (3) the British were now playing off the Jews against the
Arabs In order to divide and rule; (4) both Arabs.and Jews were peace-
ful peoples who wanted only peace and order; and (5) British press
suggestions for the partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and
Arab states was in reality a British scheme for placing the Arab part
of Palestine under Syrian hegemony and thus fulfilling Abdullah's
"Greater Syria" program.
Thus in the month prior to Gromyko's first call for partition of ,
Palestine before the General Assembly in May 1947, Soviet propagandists ,,,
were implying that British suggestions for a partition were in reality
a plot for installing the puppet Abdullah at the head of a Greater Syria,
At the General Assembly's special session on the Palestine question
Gromyko left little doubt as to where the Soviet Union had decided to
stand when he moved to invite representatives of the Jewish Agency to
ap ear before the Assembly. In an early speech, Gromyko held that
1 the British mandate was-unacceptable to both Jews and Arabs;
2 that the Jewish people were suffering great hardships; (3) that
since both Jews and Arabs held historic rights in Palestine, it would
be best if a unitary democratic state with equal rights for both
peoples should be established; but (4) if such.a state. proved unwork-
able, Palestine should be partitioned into separate Arab and Jewish
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Naturally, Soviet propaganda reflected this change in the official Soviet
attitude toward partition, but discussion of.the sensitive issue was
still held to a minimum. Propaganda on the U,N, session was largely con-
fined to news accounts which were objective except for attempts to dis-
tort the American position by statements that America was "categorically
opposed" to "independence" for Palestine, The terms of "independence,"
"self determination," and "equalityF" euphemisms for "partition," became
more prominent in Soviet propaganda on Palestine after Gromykots speech.
Soviet propagandists, as though cognizant of developing hostility toward
the Soviet policy throughout the Arab world, attempted to justify the
Soviet stand to Arabic audiences,, One Arabic language commentary spoke
of that section of the Middle East press which "feeds from the crumbs
of the U.S, table," spreading "malicious rubbish" about the Soviet posi-
tion, Commentators stressed that if it were not for British imperialism
there would be no enmity between Arabs and Jews. TASS noted the support
of Jewish workers in the United States and elsewhere for the Soviet pro-
posals,
In September 1947 a U.N. Commission, which included representation from
Czechoslovakia, recommended partition as a solution to the Palestine
problem, The Arabs rejected the recommendation categorically. The
Soviets supported the majority decision. In the months that followed,
Soviet propaganda continued to stress to the Arabs the correctness of
its position and also stepped up its attack on the Arab League and
"reactionary" Arab circles as tools of the British. The favorite target
was King Abdullah, who was accused of "promising bases to the British,"
Moscow comment in Arabic also continued to attack the British for stir-
ring up the Arabs against the Jews and accused the Arab ruling cliques
of attacking the Soviet stand on partition largely in order to divert
the attention of the Arab masses from British imperialism,
By and large, however, as the Soviet pro-Zionist position emerged, the
Arabic service tended to avoid concrete discussions of the Palestine
question except when the opportunity arose to indict the Western powers.
Moscow turned its Arabic propaganda to the British attempt to "stage a
comeback in the Middle East" in order to divide the imperialist spoils
with its more advantageously placed American partner, Anglo-American
rivalry and struggle now became an Important theme,
4
While Moscowts Arabic service was exhibiting some degree of reticence,.
Moscowts broadcasts in Yiddish to North America were marking the most of
+ Soviet support for the Jews. These broadcasts attacked Arab terrorism
and "pogroms" in Jerusalem, the alleged American supply of arms to the
Arabs with guns, and the U.S. reversal on partition. Other foreign-
language broadcasts and the Home Service referred to the Israeli-Arab
conflict only in passing as one aspect of the crisis of Anglo-American
imperialism.
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Satellite propaganda to the Jews also made the most of Soviet backing
for partition. Polish and Rumanian broadcasts in Yiddish and in Rumanian
to Israel told the Jews of Eastern Europe and Palestine that the attitude
of the Soviet Union toward Palestine had demonstrated that it had "cor-
rectly assessed the martyrdom of the Jewish people and the dangers at
or present threatening Jewry."
Within Poland and Rumania, Zionist organizations were enjoying what was
to be a short-lived freedom of expression. At a meeting of the two
largest Jewish parties in Poland at the Polish State Theater in October
1947, a huge picture of Borukhov, "the theorist of Socialist Zionism,"
was among those prominently displayed, according to a Warsaw broadcast.
The Polish news agency,PAP, displayed what would now be unpardonable
solicitude for Polish Jews who were refused entrance to the United
States. "It is unthinkable that the representatives of the surviving
remnants of Polish Jewry should be deprived of the means of direct
contact with their U.S, brethren, who have been giving and are still
giving moral and material help,"
On 15 May 1948, the British mandate was ended, the state of Israel was
proclaimed, and the Arab armies invaded Palestine, For the first two
months, Soviet propaganda gave maximum coverage to the Arab-Jewish war
in news reports and commentary in virtually all language beams. That
the conflict was considered to have a moral for the Russian people is
evident from the stress placed on it in PRAY DA, which devoted several
leaders to the beginning of hostilities. The Home Service continued
to devote considerable attention to the war until the summer of 1948,
when news reports and comment slowly faded.
Propaganda mainly attempted to illustrate that the Arab-Jewish conflict
was initiated by the British and Americans with the aid of their Arab
puppets, The theme of Anglo-American disunity over the Middle East
also came into prominence during the early course of the war. The
authoritative Soviet historical journal, "Questions of History," said,
"although for 25 years there had existed in Palestine an unholy alli-
ance between American gold and the British bayonet, the Arab-Jewish
war represented the first open breach in Anglo-American relations
since the Second World War." Soviet propaganda continually sought
to illustrate this disunity throughout the course of the war.
Moscow broadcasts to the Arabs continued to support the pro-Zionist
policy which had been laid down by t romyko, telling them that the Arab
invasion would only further the aims of American and British imperial-
ists and that each Arab country fighting in Palestine had its own
selfish ambitions. Abdullah wanted a Greater Syria, Farouk dreamed
of the Caliphate, and Ibn Saud wished to extend his territory. This
playing off of one Arab country against the other was new in Soviet
propaganda,
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Soviet propagandists also told the Arabs that their fighting men in Pales-
tine were being used as pawns by their reactionary ruling cliques who were
in the pay of Britain, and that these ruling cliques were holding Pales-
tine as the "ace card" by which they hoped to subjugate public opinion
and maintain their influence, While Iraqi soldiers were fighting "the
Jewish farmers and workers in Palestine," the Iraqi police were ready to
pounce on any Iraqi workers who dared to grumble,
Although Moscow did make the point that the Arab ruling classes as well
as the British were to blame for the Palestine fighting, the main brunt
of Moscowts propaganda continued to be directed against the British.
The British were out to further their own colonial policy in the Pales-
tine war, The USSR did not confine its support to the independence of
Israel but also wished "to deliver the Arabs of Palestine from the bond-
age of British imperialism." But, although the Soviet Union would con-
tinue to defend the independence of the Arab peoples, the fact remained
that they "have waged an armed aggression against the state of Israel"
and were "attempting by violent means to prevent the Jewish people from
creating their own state in accord with the United Nations decision."
By the end of 1948, the Arab-Israeli war was coming to a halt, the British
had more or less been eliminated from Palestine, and Israel was beginning
to stabilize itself. Soviet and Satellite comment dropped off during the
summer of 1948 and did not ever regain its previous level,
In September 1948, Ehrenburg's article in PRAVDA appeared warning Jews against
adouble allegiance, LITERARY CAZETTE followed suit with the warning
that the concept of "an international Jewish people" was treasonable.
The campaign against "cosmopolitans" in the Soviet press began to take
systematic form in January and February of 1949.
Hints and rumors of impending Cominform action against Jews in Eastern
Europe also began to develop toward the latter part of 1948, It was
claimed by several foreign radios that it was becoming increasingly
difficult for Hungarian Zionists to get exit visas and that the Hungarian
government was using Zionists as a bargaining weapon for Israeli trade,
Rumors of an impending purge of Jews in the Hungarian Communist Party
were in the air.
Toward the end of December 1948, NEW TIMES published an article broadcast
only in Yiddish to North America, which apparently for the first time
criticized the "anti-Soviet sections of the Israeli press" for spreading
slanders about the position of the Jews in the Soviet Union. In Decem-
s ber 1949 the Zionist offices in Warsaw and Bucharest were closed, and
although Jewish emigration from Rumania was not banned until a year
later, it ceased to all intents and purposes. The Hungarian Zionist
offices were closed in March 1949, The Jewish Agency offices in Prague
were not closed until October 1950.
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On 23 February 1949, the Rumanian Communist Party paper SCANTEIA pub-
lished an editorial, which also was broadcast, entitled: "Let Us
Unmask Zionism, the Poisoned Weapon of Imperialism," This article
claimed that Jewish workers had been misled by Zionist propaganda and
had abandoned their jobs, that the situation in Israel attested to
the falsity of Zionist claims that they had achieved national unity
inasmuch as there was a class struggle going on there, and that there
was only one unity for Jews, the unity with the workers in all countries.
Zionism was declared to be part of the "imperialists' plans for the
restoration of fascism," From this time on, Jewish groups were infre-
quently quoted in Warsaw and Bucharest Yiddish broadcasts to the effect
that they were struggling against the reactionary Zionist propaganda,
A notable element from the beginning of this attack on Zionism was its
target of "Diaspora Zionism," the movement toward and sympathy for
Israel and a Jewish homeland on the part of Eastern European Jewry,
not the foreign policy of Israel, Now that Israel had consolidated
itself, the Communist leaders must have become concerned about the
attraction it would have on the Jews of the Orbit, as well as on the
many Jews in the Communist Party throughout the world, A double
loyalty was a potential source of disaffection which also ran counter
to the campaign which Moscow was now beginning to wage against all
forms of internationalism,
B. 1242
1. 1242- ncreeasin Hos i ,
During the spring and summer of 1949, Israelis position of neutrality
between the two hostile camps in the world was becoming untenable.
Soviet propaganda on Israel had come to the standstill characteristic
of its treatment of neutrals in the Cold War, and only TASS reported
a smattering of news items, some sympathetic and some critical, items
on unemployment, strikes, etc., increased as the Israeli Goveritiment
moved further away from the Soviet camp,
In May, Warsaw made one of its first attacks on the World Jewish Congress,
which it said was attached to the "reactionary Jewish bourgeoisie, which
since the establishment of the state of Israel has set out to do the
bidding of the a a clerical, Israeli Government striving to trade
Israel to Anglo axon m a Tsm,f?"T is was one of the strongest
epithets so far applied to the Israeli Government by Cominform media.
A trade agreement was signed between Poland and Israel on 20 May 1949
(a year before the Czech trade agreement, which was to become one of
the reasons for indicting the"pro-Zionist" Slanskyites), but the second
anniversary of Gromyko+s U,N, speech on Israelis independence occasioned
a Soviet news item quoting the Secretary. of the Israeli Soviet Friendship
Society as saying that "the people of Israel will not permit their coun-
try to be converted into an Anglo-U.S, military base," one of the
earliest such references. Several day's later, TASS corrected the
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Israeli Labor Ministry on unemployment figures in Israel from 5,000 to
12,000. The Israeli radio, however, continued to speak of""constructive
neutrality" and to put out violent anti-British propaganda.
In May 1949, Mrs, Golda Myerson was replaced as Israeli Minister to the
USSR and Moshe Sharrett, Israeli Foreign Minister, made a trip to Czecho-
slovakia to visit Foreign Minister Clementisq Arab radio stations re-
ported developing tension between the Israeli and the Russians and
claimed that Sharrett had gone to ask Clementis to intervene with the
Russians. On 30 May the Israeli Ambassador to Poland officially denied
reports of the Polish hostility to Zionism, pointing to the new trade
agreement as evidence of mutual good will,
The question of Jewish emigration from the Satellite countries was appa-
rently becoming a thorn in the relations between Israel and the Communist
countries, The Israeli radio quoted the PALESTINE POST on the stiff atti-
tude toward emigration of the Rumanian Government. The Israeli Minister
in Poland said that "despite restrictions" hundreds of Jews were leaving
every month, adding the assurance that "hardly any anti-Semitism existed
in Poland anymore;" The Israeli Government and its radio and press were
leaning over backwards to avoid unnecessary aggravations in relations
with Satellite countries, but it was apparent that the Satellites had
taken Ehrenburg's hint,
On 9 June TASS reported the arrest of 25 Arab Communists in Galilee, On
10 June the Israeli radio reported that ten Zionist leaders were to go on
trial in Budapest on 18 June for assisting Jews across the border illegally.
The Hungarian radio was silent on the subject. Two weeks later a brief
Budapest item repor d iUt eight Hungarian Zionists had been sentenced for
terms of six months to three years for helping 1,500 Jews leave Hung;:-y?
This was the first such trial in any Satellite country. Jewish emigration
was now officially a crime. The text of the indictment was never broad-
cast over the Hungarian radio, but the prosecutor described Zionism as
"implying assistance to Imperialism." The Israeli Government stated that
this accusation was not just, that other states with "regimes similar to
that of Hungary's" had adopted a different attitude toward Jewish emigra-
tion, and that the Israeli Government had not yet given up hope of agree-
ment on Jewish emigration with all countries concerned, The Israeli radio
added its,greetings to the condemned Zionists "whatever the circumstances."
Four days after the announcement of the sentence, Soviet commentator
Lemin, in a rare commentary devoted wholly to Israel, charged that the
United States had sought to convert Israel into a "base for domination
of the Arab East," He noted that the Export-Import Bank had recently
granted Israel a loan and that talks were in progress for further
"usurious" credits,. He concluded that the U.S. had "considerable in-
fluence in Israeli high circles." Several TASS items in July 1949 noted
unrest in Israel and the signing of a "binding agreement" between Israel
and Standard Oil,
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Throughout this cooling-off period Moscow and the Satellite radios ignored
the Israeli-Arab conflict, There was virtually no comment on such issues
as the question of Arab refugees, the dispute over the Negev, the Trans-
jordan demand for an outlet to the Mediterranean, and the armistice nego-
tiations. Whatever small bits of news that appeared were related explicitly
to the British or American imperialists. The campaign against the Arab
League and the ruling cliques of the Arab world had also come to a halt.
Although the Israel Government had sought to create the impression after
the Hungarian trial of Zionists that Jewish emigration was proceeding
smoothly from other Satellite countries, this was obviously not so, in
late July the Israeli Foreign Minister announced that he had received no
reply to a letter sent to the Rumanian Foreign Minister on the question
of Jewish emigration from Rumania.
In August Moscow began to show increased concern over the "closer relations"
between America and Israel, On the eve of the London Conference of Western
diplomats in the Middle East Moscow said that the Americans had allotted a
"not unimportant role" to Israel and expressed concern over the "infiltra-
tion of U.S. oil companies into Israel." The secretary of the Israeli
Communist Party was quoted as criticizing the government for "tying itself
to the chariot of U,S. imperialism." The accent was on American "plans"
and American attempts at penetration--military and economic..-of Israel.
On 1 November Warsaw in Yiddish attacked the "Zionist reactionaries," and
claimed that anti-Semitism was a product of capitalism, It called on
Jewish workers to stay in Poland and lashed out at the "agitation of
reactionary elements among Jewish workers." In October Warsaw warned
that "Polish Jews must raise their voices against the warmongers" assist-
ants in New York and Paris." Comment from Bucharest in Yiddish on the
Rajk trial said that the Jewish workers must "rout the agents of the
U.S, imperialists In the ranks of the Jewish working masses in Rumania."
Home broadcasts in Rumanian said that the Jewish masses in Rumania must
combat nationalism in their own ranks, and all Yiddish broadcasts ended:
"Long live the Rumanian People's Republic."
Rumanian Yiddish propaganda stressed that the "integration of Jews into
productive work" was the only answer to Jewish nationalism, Zionism was
4i already "a tool of imperialism," a ""nationalist, reactionary movement of
the Jewish bourgeoisie which was trying to estrange the Jewish workers
from the peoples in whose midst they lived and make them give up the
struggle against their own bourgeoisie." Zionists were spreading the
malicious theories of "permanent anti-Semitism" although it was well
known that anti-Semitism had been eradicated in the People's Democracies.
The USSR, it was pointed out,, showed an example of how the Jewish masses
could be integrated into the productive processes.
It should be noted, however, that albeit Zionism and Jewish Nationalism
were thus attacked in Yiddish broadcasts the general propaganda approach
was primarily along class lines. A play at the Bucharest Jewish State
Theater in October 1949 cast as its heroes a group of Jews in the Ausch-
witz camp who organized an uprising but were betrayed by a former Jewish
capitalist. The play ends with the return of two inmates to Rumania
where i n"a1 r1106Yt?fRPdR~010-2
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Bucharest Yiddish broadcasts sought ; i these attacks on Zionism, to divert
any suspicion of anti-Semitism by (1) ponting up anti-Semitism in the West,
where it was used as a.."weapon in the hands of the warmongers" and (2) by
stressing that the Jewish workers were combatting both anti-Semitism and
Jewish bourgeois nationalism, grin enemies of the working class. The
struggle against nationalism of every kind and against ant.Semitism, it
claimed, had assumed an "official character" in the Peoples Democracies..
This is much the same defensive propaganda that has emanated from Satel-
lite radios following the Slansky trial.
The same thing was true of Polish Yiddish propaganda, Polish broadcasts
emphasized during this month that anti-Semitism in prewar Poland was a
product of capitalism and that this was fully realized by the Jewish
workers in Poland who gave their support to the revolution. It called
upon Jewish workers to remain and help build Socialist Poland. It paid
that agitation carried on by "reactionary elements among Jewish workers"
to leave the country was considered as "damaging action,"
The Governor of Lower Silesia in October declared that there was no more
discrimination against the Jewish minority there, noting that the govern-T
meet had turned Jewish schools into State schools, The Governor went on
to speak of certain Jews who had not yet become acclimated in Poland.
"Those who do not like the conditions existing in our country and want
to leave it may do so,"
An anniversary of the founding of the Jewish Cultural Society in Poland
provided an occasion in late October for Warsaw radio to praise its acti-
vities for raising the cultural and educational level of the Jewish masses
and establishing contacts between the "progressive" Jewish and the new
Polish progressive culture "although to a degree which is far from suf-
ficient." A Warsaw Yiddish broadcast in October proclaimed that "every
Jew leaving the People's Democracies and Poland weakens the campaigns
for peace and strengthens the front of those who are preparing for war."
210 0,+5 tt c - s e ve t
Until January 1950 Moscow's attitude toward the Israeli Government, al-
though cool, was marked by relative restraint, The new year saw the be-
ginning of a new phase in Soviet propaganda on Israel.
A court case brought against the newspaper KOL HARM, organ of the Israeli
Communist Party, was interpreted in a Tel Aviv TASS'dispateh on 16 January
as "a change on the part of the Government from persecution of individual
Communist Party members to a campaign against the Communist Party as a
whole and against all progressive forces in Israel." The dispatch ob-
served that "the Government of Israel is following in the footsteps of
the American reactionaries who organized the injurious trial of the
leaders of the American Communist Party," This was the first direct
Soviet attack on the Israeli Government, Several days later, the Rumanian
radio also attacked the "'reactionary Government of Ben Gurion" and a
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further Tel Aviv TASS dispatch drew attention to plans for building through
Israeli territory a section of the Istanbul-Cairo road which was "likely to
weaken Israeli security and could serve only to implement American
imperialism's anti-Soviet strategical plans," This Moscow comment was the
first suggestion of active Israeli collusion with the Western imperialists.
From January to June 1950, Soviet propaganda continued this attack on the
Israeli Government and its flirtation with the United States in a sus-
tained low key, At the end of January, for example, Moscow radio attacked
Morgenthau's visit to Israel as an attempt to create an aggressive Middle
Eastern bloc in which Israel could participate, and TASS began to stress
the danger of Israeli involvements in such blocs. On 26 March, the first
full-blown attack on a personality in the Israeli Government appeared in
a LITERARY GAZETTE article, not broadcast, attacking Foreign Minister
Sharrett; The unprecedented personal attack provoked immediate reactions
in Jerusalem, where the Israeli radio reported that there was a possi-
bility of official reaction, Almost simultaneously there appeared in
the organ of the Jewish Democratic Committee in Rumania two article,5 not
broadcast,against Zionism and the Israeli Government. The first article
attacked emigration, and the second one, "Titoism and Zionism-Two Agents
of Imperialist Warmongers," was illustrated by a caricature of the
Israeli Premier walking arm-in-arm with Marshal Tito, This was apparently
the first attempt to link Zionism directly with "imperialist warmongering"
and "Titoism," On 29 March Agerpress reported a RavJANIA LIBERA indictment
of Ben Gurion for the persecution of Israeli workers and "enslavement of
Israel" by American imperialists, Bucharest in Yiddish told listeners
that "we must unmask Zionism, the agency of imperialist monopolists.
Zionism is an ereuty of peace, it
In April 1950 the arrival of Jules Moch in Israel occasioned a violent
broadcast from Warsaw which called him "the hired criminal executioner
of the French people" who was "acting on instructions given him by the U.S.
State Department." "Moth's goods were in great demand among the Israeli
rulers, who could not contest the growing agitation of people wanting
work, housing and peace. He can teach them how to break up a hunger strike.
In Israel Moch is among people of his own kind, people who will fall over
themselves to get a good mark and a present from their U.S. bosses."
The transition from 1949 to 1950 is illustrated by a comparison of the
Warsaw radio treatment of the 1949 and 1950 anniversaries of the Warsaw
Ghetto uprising of April 1943,
In April 194% the sixth anniversary, Warsaw warned in Yiddish broadcasts
that Hitler's heirs, the Anglo-Saxon imperialists and warmongers and
"their Jewish helpers," were pushing mankind into another war. Neverthe-
less wreaths were placed at the Ghetto monument on behalf of Hashomer
Hatsaer, the young Zionist organization, Poaleh Zion and other Zionist
youth organizations. It was stressed that resistance to Hitler came from
all Jewish groups, including the Bund and the Zionists, who were con-
trasted to the "Jewish demogogues of London, New York and Tel Aviv,"
(It is noteworthy that this criticism of Jewish circles was utilized
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only in Yiddish propaganda and not for other audiences. The Polish Home
Service mentioned the anniversary but utilized the theme of American pro-
tection of war criminals who were responsible for the suffering of the
Jews. This is one of the many instances showing how carefully the Comin-
form media avoided playing on anti ,Semitism,)
In April 1950 a talk in Yiddish from Warsaw commemorating the seventh
anniversary took an entirely different line? It claimed that numerous
books and reminiscences concerning the uprising had given a false picture,
During the occupation, "many dangerous theories prospered in the Ghetto
and helped the Hitlerite policy of extermination, One was that of the
traitor Rumkowski who argued that the Ghetto., by preserving its national
characteristics, would be a means of salvation for the Jews," Other
theories were based on fatalism which abandoned any thought of resistance
and the policy of "wait and see" which easily turned into collaboration
with the occupiers. "These were particularly the attitudes of the Zion-
ists and the Bundy' the Jewish Social Democratic organization. It was in
fact only the appearance of the Jewish members of the Polish Workers
Party which began to rally the revolutionary elements. Without them
there would have been no rising." Polish press statements on the seventh
anniversary did not similarly accuse the Zionists of "collaboration" but
noted that the Jewish fighters were persecuted as "Jews, Poles and revolu-
tionaries,"
The attack on Zionism and the state of Israel entered a new and intensi-
fied phase soon after the Israeli decision to support the U.N. decision
on Korea in June 1950, NEW TIMES declared on 13 July that Israel had
now openly placed itself on the side of the American aggressors. LITERARY
GAZETTE on 21 July called Israeli Foreign Minister Sharrett, in a commen-
tary entitled "Acheson at the War Dance," a "henchman" of the warmongers,
who, it made clear, did not represent the Israeli people.
The main burden of the intensified campaign was left to Bucharest and
Warsaw, primarily the former, Soon after the start of the Korean War,
Bucharest commenced a new series of broadcasts in Rumanian for "all decent
people" abroad, which was beamed to Israel and which opened with a
vitriolic blast at Ben Gurion, This transmission has since led the
Cominform propaganda attacks on Israel,.
The Bucharest transmission declared that the Israeli Government attempted
to'persuade Rumanian Jews to emigrate to Israel largely because they needed
"cheap labor and cannon fodder." Such words as "flunkey," "Marshallized
haven," "Ben Gurion clique," "fascist," "imperialist," "dregs of society,"
spies, chauvinist elements and Zionists," etc, became standard usage in
these broadcasts. The Cominform home services, however, did not utilize
such abusive language,
Warsaw's Yiddish transmission called the Korean decision an act of
"national treason" on the part of the "Ben Gurion imperialist, fascist
clique" and followed this with a stream of abuse, Both Warsaw and
Bucharest now accused Israel of chauvinism and racial persecution of the
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Arabs and oriental Jews such as the Yemenites, of being the lackey of the
American warmongers, of drawing closer into the Middle Eastern bloc, of
giving free rein to the "bourgeois class's and so to inflation, unemploy-
ment, poor housing, etc., of persecuting its peace partisans and its Com-
monists, and of economic bankruptcy? In short, the broadcasts in Yiddish
and to Israel in Rumanian now ran the whole gamut of charges which Soviet
propaganda has been utilizing about the West and the United States since
194a.
The internal Cominform campaign was relatively subdued, however, and
Moscow remained aloof. The Kremlin was apparently. not surprised by
Israelis support of the Korean decision: there were no major articles
in PRAVDA or IZVESTIA attacking it, and in the six months following there
was no-increase in Moscow's still virtually negligible attention to Israel,
Only a few scattered TASS items reported the persecution of peace parti-
sans and war preparations, unemployment, etch Thus, the bulk of anti-
Zionist propaganda appeared in services intended for Rumanian and Polish
Jews who had emigrated to Israel or for Jews throughout Europe, There
was little comment in any of the Cominform countries' home services, and
virtually nothing from Prague,
That Rumania would be having the most difficulty of the Cominform coun
tries with its Jewish population would be evident from the size of its
Jewish population, some 270,000 according to the 1952 yearbook of the
World Jewish Congz5ess. It is not surprising then that Bucharest spear-
headed the anti-Zionist campaign.
The second mass arrest of Zionists began in Rumania in August 1950. Forty
Zionist leaders and rank-and-file Zionists were imprisoned, according to
the Israeli Government information based on reports from Jewish refugees.
The Israeli Government at this time was still bending over backwards to
maintain good relations with the Cominform. Foreign Minister Sharrett,
for example, had declared after the LITERARY GAZETTE attack on him that
Soviet policy was not to be judged by the Soviet press, The Rumanian
press and radio remained silent about the arrests, however, despite an
official resolution of protest passed by Mapai, several weeks later. At
the time, there were many rumors of an paading large.-sea1e trial to.
discredit Zionism throughout Eastern Europe and particularly in Rumania.
The Israeli radio reported that 50,000 Jews were at the time awaiting
exit permits from Rumania.
Israeli relations with Poland were still tolerable, however. On 24 Janu-
ary 1951 a Polish trade delegation arrived in Israel to renew the Israeli-
Polish trade agreement and the Israeli. radio announced that Jewish emigra-
tion from Poland would continue in 1951 after an agreement with the Polish
government. Similarly, it was announced that an agreement had been signed
with Hungary to allow for the emigration of 3,OOQ Jews in addition to the
.11800 already evacuated. This was still a minute segment of the Jewish
population, however.
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10 FEBRUARY 1953
In the spring of 1951,, Moscow comment on Israel, virtually negligible until
then, picked up somewhat with increasing references to Israel s role in'the
projected Middle Eastern. defense arrangement, A Home Service article in
March, for example] described Israel as a strategic country which stands
"at the approaches to the Suez Canal" and went on to discuss Ben Gurion's
trip to Athens as part of the Western attempt to form an aggressive Middle
Eastern pact, A commentary in English discussed Israel's conversion into
a military springboard.
In Novembers Moscow sent a brisk note to the Israeli Government warning it
against joining the Middle East military agreement, action which would be
interpreted as a sign of aggression by the Soviet government. After this
note, Moscow's Arabic service for the first time began to play on Arab-
Jewish rivalry,, in December 1951 a broadcast in Arabic said:
"For quite a long time, Wall Street has been exaggerating Israelis
military strength with the idea of scaring the Arabs. Now a U,St
Congressman has. announced that Israel will in the near future oc.-
cupy her place in the Middle East Command.,.,,"
'The dispatch of Israeli and Turkish forces to the Arab countries
makes it clear that the United States and Britain are using their
satellites as gendarmes in the Arab East."
Although this comment and similar usages of Arab-Jewish rivalry were not
often heard subsequently even in the Arabic services, they represent a
new departure for the Soviet radio,
Throughout 1952, Warsaw and Bucharest in their broadcasts to the Jews con-
tinued to carry the propaganda effort against Israel. Moscow's chief
references appeared in comment on the Middle East Command warning against
Israeli participation, Bucharest and Warsaw attacked the Ben Gurion
government for being subservient to Wall Street, for militarization.,
black markets, exploitation. Of workers, unemployment and inflation.
Scattered comments on Israel and the Middle East Command from Moscow
became relatively numerous throughout the latter part of 1952, mainly
contained in news items and in commentaries to the Arabs, Israel has
still not become a real propaganda target, In May, for example, a long
commentary in Arabic on the MEC claimed that Israel "will sign a separate
military alliance with the United States and become a member of the ag-
gressive bloc in the Middle East," In August, Moscow in Arabic quoted
the Vienna DER ABEND on alleged American bargaining for the territory
of Syria and Lebanon, it was claimed that negotiations were underway
between Israel, Turkey and the United States with the ultimate aim that
"Turkey should take over direct control of strategic bases in Syria and
Lebanon in the event of any tension,," Israel in turn had asked for a rem
defining of frontiers at the expense of Lebanese territory near Lake Hula.
A news item from LaHUMANITE broadcast to the Arabs discussed the persecu-
tion of Arabs in Israel,
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- -- - 10 FEBRUARY 1953
Bucharest in its service for Rumanians abroad continued to carry.the
brunt of the attack, It discussed the increasing anti-Semitism in the
United States, disclosed that "in Kansas any person who has more than
25 percent Jewish blood cannot live within the territory," complained
of discrimination in American colleges, and said that U.S. loyalty
committees asked the question: "Do you have any Jewish friends?" It
continued to berate Israel for the high cost of living, strikes for
higher wages, selling Israel's national interest to the U.S# monopolies
and remilitarization on Washington's orders.
Thus until the Slansly trial the propaganda campaign was, directed only
to European Jewish and Israeli audiences. There was still no general
use of anti-Zionist propaganda elsewhere,
III. S S0VOT
The propaganda pattern up to the Prague trial can be summarized as follows:
1. The bulk of propaganda on the Jewish question has been directed
to the Jews themselves (largely from Rumania and Poland) and
has been targeted on "Diaspora Zionism" and Israel.. The at-
tacks on Israel have been such as to blacken the image of life
in Israel and the concept of a Jewish state, so as to dis-
courage potential Jewish emigrants.
2, There has been no attempt to exploit the Jewish question, ant'
Semitism, Israeli policy or Zionism in propaganda to the Arabs
or to Orbit audiences,
3. Propaganda on the Jewish question has been cautious. The
Soviets have not tried to utilize latent anti-Semitism in
Eastern Europe nor to combat it.
4. The primary Soviet propaganda theme against Israel has been
entirely divorced from the Jewish question in propaganda to
non-Jewish audiences and has been rather Israel's role in
the Middle East Command. Even such Soviet propaganda on
Israel has been negligible.
The Slansky trial, the Soviet doctor-plot, and related developments con-
stitute a relative deluge on the Jewish question, In the light of the
pattern since the war, this appears to indicate that the loyalty of the
Jews-CoLnunists, intellectuals, and masses alike--a loyalty which had
been in'question ever since the consolidation of Israel in 194$, is
recognized as one of the principal vulnerabilities in Orbit security,
The Jews, the most loyal Soviet minority during the war In the face of
Nazi ideology, have'become the most potentially disloyal now that Zionist
is an active force. Golds Myerson's unprecedented welcome in Moscow in
1945, ,postwar criticism of Soviet Jewish writers, and Soviet and Cominform
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propaganda all indicate that the longing for a Jewish homeland and the feel-
ing of Jewish unity are still strong throughout the Orbit and in Western
Communist parties. They were encouraged in 1948 when Communist propaganda
endorsed Zionism, They probably particularly affected Jewish intellectuals,
who constitute an important element in Communist ranks,,
That the Kremlin has embarked on a campaign which may well inflame anti-.
Semitism throughout the Orbit testifies to the expediency which modifies
its doctrinal position on anti-Semitism and to the seriousness with which
it now regards the problem of Jewish loyalty., It has apparently not been
successful in destroying Jewish consciousness even among the assimilated
Soviet Jews, The Jews throughout the Orbit and in Western Communist
parties therefore remain a potential cohesive group with foreign allegi'
ance and consequently a potential source of opposition to the Kremlin
leadership. This is, of course, particularly true in Rumania, Poland and
Hungary.
There is no indication that the Kremlin proposes to imitate Hitler in the
use of racialist anti-Semitism with the ultimate intention of wiping out
the Jews. On the contrary, there are some signs, as the award of the
Stalin prize to Ehrenburg, of measures to forestall indiscriminate anti-
Semitism. The latent anti-Semitism in the peoples of Eastern Europe can
be used as an expedient weapon, however, to combat a potential locus of
opposition. The aim of the Prague;-trig3:rin this perspective would be to
place Zionism alongside Titoismm ' Ttrotslsyism and Socialism as heresy which
can no longer be tolerated" As in the case of these other heresies) the
propaganda would magnify th . strength o '?;the .:opposition elements so as not
only to crush any real oppo iicn but also to intimidate potential opposition,
It is fairly clear that the campaign is not mounted exclusively against
Zionism and Jewish "bourgeois nationalism." The great stress on the com.
placency-espionage-vigilance theme and the unprecedented attack on the
Soviet security organs since the doctor-plot suggest that the Jews are
once again, as in the campaign against the "cosmopolitan,,," only part of
a larger target, the tightening of internal discipline.
Although it is apparent that the aims of Soviet foreign policy would not
be damaged if the anti-Zionist echoes of the Prague trial and the doctor-*
plot were heard and amplified in the Arab world, as they were In fact
by Damascus and other Moslem propagandists, Soviet radio propaganda to
the Arab world has not sought to capitalize on these developments, Just as
it has not, sought so to capitalize on anti-Zionist propaganda in the
past. Any benefits accruing to Soviet foreign policy, therefore, will
be the by-product of a campaign aimed at the correction of internal con-
ditions.
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