Trudy Gold
Growth of Antisemitism in the Communist East

Trudy Gold - Growth of Antisemitism in the Communist East

- It’s fascinating, isn’t it? That Abbas, when he was in the UN and he talked about Goebbels equating it with Israel. And the question is, where on Earth does this kind of rhetoric that goes from anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism to the actual Nazification of Israel. Where on Earth does it come from? And what I’m going to be doing over the next few lectures, because I’m looking tonight at the growth of anti-Semitism in the Communist East, and then I’m going to run two presentations on what I’ve called the great libel, the Nazification of Israel, because it’s important to remember where Abbas was educated. He took his doctorate at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, and his thesis was on the link between Zionism and the Nazis. And this tragic twisting of a tale has become so pernicious that I think today it has seriously infected the left throughout the West, as well as the rest of the world. And it actually does come from Russia. But this is where we have the conundrum. If you think about the development of Communism, the development of Marxism, an absolute disproportionate number of the leadership of the parties from country to country to country, were born Jewish. Now, I’ve said this to you before in other contexts, the minute they become revolutionaries, they break away from their Jewish origins. They are internationalists, they are without religion. They want to create a world without divisions of people, and the majority of them are alienated Jews. Now, you could make the case that there’s such a tradition of social justice in Judaism. One has to refer just to some of the books of prophecy in the Hebrew Bible. One of my favourites is of course the Book of Amos, which was written over 3,000 years ago. And what does he talk about? He talks about how the poor are oppressed, how the wealthy will sell the needy for a pair of shoes.

There is this incredible stream of social justice within Judaism and also the outsideness of the Jew. And those characters who were most attracted to these movements in the 19th and early 20th centuries were people who’d walked away from their Jewishness. They are what Isaac Deutscher, who was himself a Trotskyite, calls the non-Jewish Jews. And yet the problem was, and this is where we always come back to the definition, who defines a Jew? Who actually decides who a Jew is? And the problem is that for many of those who opposed the Communist revolution or opposed any kind of Socialism, it was seen as a Jewish disease. Now, the irony is that many of the early Socialists, Communists, including Karl Marx himself, was violently anti-Jewish. Now, Marx is a wonderful study in self-hatred. The grandson of rabbis on both sides. He had been born in Trier in the Rhineland, brilliant boy, his father had lived in that area that had been conquered by Napoleon. And under Napoleon, Herschel Marx had become Heinrich Marx. He became a lawyer, but then Napoleon’s defeated. He’s a deist by this time. He’s a man of the Enlightenment. And he’s encouraged by non-Jewish friends to actually crossover. Ironically, his brother remained a rabbi, and it’s a deeply rabbinic family. But what he does is he converts his children. He converts Karl when he’s eight years old. And Karl, what is interesting is, his mother, his mother doesn’t convert for another year. And we have no evidence. But she also was the granddaughter of rabbis and the sister of a rabbi. What on Earth was this about? So, but he must have been bullied at school.

We know that he internalised it. He became a pupil of Hegel. And let’s have a look at one of his most famous statements on him, on being a Jew. “Let us observe the real worldly Jew, not the Sabbath Jew… But the everyday Jew. Let us not look up for the mystery of the Jew in his religion, let us look at the mystery of the religion in the actual Jew.” So, and Marx goes on to equate Judaism with capitalism, which of course, because who is the symbol of capitalism in the 19th century, the House of Rothschild. And later on, this is going to stick in the left. Now, another interesting character who was a third cousin of Marx who flirted with Socialism but had a much more wholesome relationship with his Jewishness, was of course Heinrich Heine. And let’s, because we just don’t want to look at the dark, can we see what Heinrich Heine said, if you don’t mind? “Moses created an ethical nation that was to defy the centuries. A great eternal people of God who would serve as a model for humanity.” In the end, Heine, the doubly alienated, remember he was a German Jewish poet, exiled from Germany, living in Paris at the centre of all sorts of interesting ideas. And yet in the end, he saw himself as a Jew. And what is fascinating about Heine, he was one of the few Jewish writers that the Nazis couldn’t ban because his songs, Lorelei, so much was set to music by Germany’s greatest musicians that they couldn’t expunge it. You’re going to expunge Schubert, you’re going to expunge all these wonderful musicians from the musical calendar. So it was written Anonymous, so that’s Heine. But Engels, who of course was the non-Jewish partner of Marx, what did he have to say? He was also incredibly ambivalent. He’s writing a letter to Frederick Babel, to August Babel, beg your pardon, telling him. And this is what he says. “Keep a sharp eye on Jews flocking into the movement because they are cleverer and more pushy than the German Philistines.”

Now let me say very, very, very carefully. The majority of Jews were never Communists. There was a very big Socialist movement amongst the Jews in Russia, it was called the Bund. And in Russia, it was still within the Jewish community. Yiddish was its language, it was Jewish workers caught striking against Jewish bosses. It was a completely different story. Can we see the next slide, please? Here you have Moses Hess. Moses Hess was a colleague of Karl Marx. He himself had been born in Bonn. And again, his father had had that choice. He chooses to remain a Jew. And he is brought up by his grandfather, who was a great Talmudist. But then he goes to university, he studies with Hegel. He moves into a different dream. He leaves his Judaism behind. And it’s not until 1862 when he writes an extraordinary work called Roman Jerusalem. Rome is modern Rome and Jerusalem is modern Jerusalem, which is really about being a Zionist. Ironically, when he was buried in Cologne, on his tombstone, here lies Moses Hess, the founding father of German Social Democracy. His body is re-interred in Kibbutz Degania and he lies alongside many of the founding fathers of Zionism. And this is what he says. He’s talking about this party, this revolutionary party. “My own experience not only among my own party comrades, has been born out by the fact that in every personal controversy they make use of the H.E. P weapon. ” If you remember, that was the battle cry in 1819 when the anti-Semites went on the march. “I have decided to make this even more effective. in my Old Testament name of Moses I only regret that my name isn’t Itzig”.

And can we now see a comment from Molotov who was such an important politician in Russia, and he wrote his memoirs. He was the man who, of course, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. And in his memoir, he’s saying this. Now remember, the revolutionaries split into the Menshevik and the Bolsheviks. Menshevik means minority, Bolshevik majority. And they actually met in a church hall not far from where I’m sitting in Kilburn. And these are the people who’ve determined the fate of much of the world. There were 44 of them. And this is what he wrote. “Almost all the Mensheviks were Jews. Even amongst the Bolsheviks, amongst the leaders, were many Jews. Generally,” and this is interesting, “generally Jews are a most oppositional nation. There is an explanation for this. Oppositional and revolutionary elements formed a higher percentage amongst the Jews than Russians. Insulted, injured, oppressed, They were more versatile. They penetrated everywhere. They were more active than Russians.” And here he’s talking about the fluidity of the Jew. Now this is Molotov observing what actually happened. Now let’s have a look at the Czar, Czar Nicholas II. Czar Nicholas II, of course, his family were executed by the revolutionaries and he wrote a most terrible letter, if I can find it, to his mother, in which he explains, yes, here it is. Sorry. This is in 1905, when there were a series, there were a series of terrible pogroms, there was a revolution and a series of pogroms.

And this is what writes to his mother. His mother, of course, was the sister of Alexandra of England. “I’ll begin by saying the situation is better than it was a week ago. In the first days, the subversives raised their heads, but a strong reaction set in quickly. And a whole massive loyal people suddenly made their power felt. The result was obvious. What would one expect in our country? The impertinence of the Socialists and the revolutionaries has angered the people once more. And because nine tenths of the troublemakers are Jews, the peoples whose anger is turned against them, that’s how the pogroms happened. It is amazing how they took place simultaneously in all the towns of Russia and Siberia, cases as far apart as Tomsk, Simferopol, Odessa, show clearly what an infuriated mob can do. They surrounded the houses where the revolutionaries had hidden, taken refuge, set fire to them and killed everyone trying to escape.” Another reason, of course, why so many Jews in the end did turn to revolutionary politics is an old famous Jewish quote, not out of love for Mordecai, but hatred of Haman. And now of course, you actually have to look at the Russian revolution itself. I’m going to quote a lot of names at you. It was almost too many to put on a slide. Of the original 11, who took power in Russia at the time of the revolution, six were born Jews. And the Comintern itself, when they actually set up the Comintern, 90% were Jewish. Zinoviev, Kamenev, Sokolnikov, Radek, Sverdlov. Sverdlov was the man who actually, working on Lenin’s orders, gave the order for the assassination of the Czar. Lev Deutsh, Martov, Balabanoff, Kibaltchitch, Vladimir Mazin.

And can we see the next slide? And of course, Trotsky, Lev Davidovich Bronstein, the genius from Odessa, who not only became Commissar for foreign affairs and signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the German high command. Can you just imagine that? The impact of that? And of course, was the architect of the Red Army. He was the man who pulled all the workers and soldiers into this army, which in the end held. And this is an image of him. And you can see, just look at the skulls and you see the, he is the eternal Jew. And this is a propaganda poster. And when I look at the Nazification of Israel, in inverted commas, what I’m going to be doing is showing you a lot of cartoons, because it’s an unbelievable story. So here you have Trotsky, the archetype of the revolution. And now let’s turn to one of my great heroes. Can we see the next slide? Simon Dubnow, one of the great Jewish historians. A wonderful, gentle, brilliant man, who tragically was murdered by the Nazis in 1941. He was shot in 1941 when he was 81 years old. What was it Walter Benjamin said, any damn fool could put a bullet through the most beautiful brain. “We shall never be forgiven for the share that the Jewish speculators of the Revolution have taken in the Bolshevik Terror. The Jewish fellow workers of Lenin, the Trotsky and the Uritskys eclipse even him.” Can we go on please?

And of course what happens in Russia is, and we have covered this, and when the website is up, you will have the opportunity to go back to all the lectures. Now, Lenin outlawed antisemitism. Of course he did because he is a Socialist. And amongst the Socialist dreamers, what was the notion? We are all created equal, or the divisions of people would disappear, each will have enough of the slice of the cake. And the other dream of those revolutionaries, including Trotsky, was permanent revolution. And also that the Communist revolution would spread. And it did, this is the point. In Hungary, you had the Jew Béla Kun. In Berlin, you had Rosa Luxembourg, You had, in Germany, and those of you who listened when I talked about Munich, when you think what happened in Germany, of the three revolutions in Munich, Hitler’s home city, they were all perpetrated by people of Jewish birth. The leadership. Now of course, the majority of Jews are not revolutionaries. I can say this until I’m absolutely blue in the face, but that’s not the point. The point is that it depends how you define a Jew. And enemies define Jews as a bloodline, as a people. Now following on, now, what can we say about Joseph Stalin? How on earth do you delve into the mind of a man like Stalin? He manages, Lenin has a stroke, he manages to outmanoeuvre Trotsky, who was the natural successor, Krupskaya the wife knew all of this, and he worked with two other Jews, Kamenev and Zivoviev, to out-maneuver Trotsky. Trotsky is finally pushed out of the party.

He’s exiled, he flees and finally finishes up in Mexico. And he is so hated that Stalin’s assassins follow him as they assassinate most of his family. So the end of the Trotsky story is terrible, but he is now still the symbol of international revolution. And many of the characters who brought this hatred to the West see themselves as Trotskyites. And it was Trotsky, which is absolutely ironic. Trotsky back in 1938. He actually looked at the world he saw and he looked at what was happening to the Jews of Germany, and he said it will be extermination. Along with Jabotinsky, along with Weizmann. They predicted it. Look, they didn’t do the details, but he knew how bad it was. Now, this is Stalin. This is Stalin, it’s reprinted in Prague during 1936. I’m going to read it for you. “National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-Semitism as an extreme form of racial chauvinism is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism. Anti-Semitism is advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-Semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle, hence Communists, as consistent internationalists,” although Stalin never was, “cannot but be irreconcilable sworn enemies of anti-Semitism. In the USSR anti-Semitism is punishable with the upmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system .

Under USSR law, active anti-Semites are liable to the death sentence.” Now, of course, many people of Jewish birth who were enemies of Stalin were killed in the purges. But they weren’t necessarily killed as Jews, they were killed as enemies of Stalin. Look, Stalin did make some terrible anti-Semitic remarks, but nevertheless, Kaganovich died in his bed. He was one of his few friends. So although at this stage we can say, look, how do you deal with a man, who, according to the latest Soviet figures, is responsible for the death of 40 million people, how do you actually penetrate? But what I’m looking at today is antisemitism. And the next point to make, can we see the next slide, please? Yeah. Now, the the next point to make, is that what is fascinating, in 1947, when the United Nations voted on partition, Stalin backed the establishment of the state of Israel. And why did he do that? Well, there are many reasons. If you think politics, let me first read Gromyko’s speech from the United Nations, because if you think what the United Nations have been doing this week and what you think of in 1975, and I’ll be talking about this when I again look at this, the great libel that I’m looking at next week, In 1975, Zionism is racism. That was actually promulgated as a United Nations decree. When? On the anniversary of Kristallnacht. Now go back to 1947, to Andrei Gromyko. At that time, the Russian representative at the UN, and also remember Russia has with with them, the Cold War is beginning, Russia has with them all the satellite states.

And this is Gromyko’s speech in 1947. “Large numbers of the surviving Jews of Europe were deprived of their countries, their homes, and their means of existence. Hundreds of thousands of Jews are wondering about in various countries of Europe, in search of means of existence and in search of shelter. A large number in DP camps and are still continuing to undergo great privations. The UN cannot and must not regard this situation with indifference. Since this will be incompatible with its charter, which provides the defence of human rights, irrespective of race, religion. The time has come to help these people, not by word, but by deed. The delegation of the Soviet Union thinks it’s essential to the following important circumstances. Past experience, particularly during World War II, shows that no Western state was able to provide adequate assistance to the Jewish people in defending its rights and its very existence from the violence of the Hitlerites and their allies. This explains the aspirations of the Jews to establish their own state.” Now, why did the cynical, evil Stalin decide to back Israel? You’ve got to remember the situation in the Middle East at this stage. There is still a vestige of British colonialism, French colonialism, are the Americans going to get involved? Oil is a factor. But what you had was a series of feudal monarchies. And none of them would be interested in doing any business with the Soviet Union. So consequently, what did you have with a prospective Jewish state?

You had a group of individuals who took power under Ben-Gurion. The left are going to take power. You know, back in the twenties there were lots of exchanges between trade unionists in Israel, in Palestine, and in Russia. There was a lot of cooperation. And consequently it was in Russia’s interest. Plus there was a very interesting ambassador in the UK called Ivan Maisky. He’d actually been born to a Polish Jew who converted to Orthodoxy. He had a very humanistic background. He had been a Menshevik, but he eventually joined the Bolsheviks. And in London, he was very close to the left wing intelligence. He was a very, very smart man. He was close to Churchill. He was very close to Litvinov. And in 1941 he had been lobbied both by Weizmann and Ben-Gurion. Remember they spent a lot of time in London in the war. And also Molotov had a Jewish wife who was also putting pressure on. So what you have is this extraordinary thing. Now can we go on please? Okay. Before that though, I am going to read you an article from the Daily Worker, September, 1948. Now think about it. This is the Communist newspaper in Britain, which Jeremy Corbyn said was the best paper in Britain, by the way. “Denounced.” This is what they denounced, “the reactory war, quote, conducted by chieftains of the Arab League under British control, there are, Iraqi fascist bands, Syrian and Lebanese Irregulars, professional transvergenians, Legionnaires, Egyptians, Britishers, and a few German Nazis, Anders’ Poles, and even Yugoslav Royalists.”

So that’s fascinating, because what’s happening is in this particular situation, the Daily Worker has come out in favour of Zionists. What goes wrong? Or was it inevitable? Golde Meir, her first big job after the estate was established, she became the Israeli ambassador to Russia. So she goes to Russia, she goes to Moscow, and she visits the Great Synagogue in Moscow. What, can we see the next slide, please. There you see Golde, Rosh Hashanah Eve. Now remember you have sections, the Jewish sections had destroyed Jewish life in Russia. As Christian life had been destroyed. Think Marx, religion is the opium of the people. Golde goes to the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, and what happens? Thousands, 50,000 young Jews came out to greet her. And in addition, the show up was awakening Jewish consciousness in quite a few young Russian Jews. Remember how many were involved in the liberation of the camps? Think of some of the great poets like Vasily Grossman. And already there was a problem. Back in May 1944, there was a trial of a man called Moshe Levkus, who was Hashomer Hatzair, on Sichem Toran 1945. In the Ukraine, young Jews put up notices for Jews to go to the land of Israel. They were illegal, they were carried in shopping baskets. And also after the liberation of Berlin, there were defections from the Red Army to Palestine, which was actually organised by the Jewish Agency. So there’s a leakage, it’s already happening. Ilya Ehrenburg, the famous Jewish writer, warned Jews not to get too close to Zionism. The message, remember the purges, he said. And when Golde went to the synagogue. So basically they’re saying, after this big demonstration, they’re saying, be careful. So when Golde went to the synagogue on Yom Kippur, fewer came to meet her. We have, and this was a quote.

“We have no God, we have no Torah. We only have the letters of the Yiddish alphabet.” And it begins to change. November 1948, Jewish bookshops were purged. Sholem Aleichem library of a 130,000 books were destroyed in Birobidzhan. That had been the, do you remember back in the late 20s Stalin had had this idea to try and create a Jewish enclave. The Jewish museum in Vilnius, established at the end of World War II, closed down. The historical museum of Georgian Jewry, which had been established in 33, was shut down in 51. And also members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were arrested and charged with bourgeois nationalism, cosmopolitanism, and using JACs as a spying device and planning to establish a Jewish republic in Crimea to serve the interest of the USA. And the arrests began. Now this, I’m going to talk about JACs because it’s very important. So treason, they’re accused of treason, they’re tortured and charged. Now, what was the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee? Can we go on please? Here you see Einstein with Mikhoels and Feffer, two of the most important members of the Anti-Fascist Committee. That’s in America. Look, after the Nazi invasion, when Moscow was in danger. Remember, go back to the Stalin-Hitler Pact, better known as the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. In August 1939, the Soviets did a deal with the Nazis. Madness. Of course, Hitler would break it, and he did in the summer of 41. And after the Nazis invaded. And of course, tragically, that is when the final solution really begins. The murders, wholesale murders begin. Stalin decides he needs to utilise Jewish world opinion, particularly in still neutral America.

So in the autumn of 1941, he orders the release of Bundists Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter to help set it up. Now the Bund was banned in Russia. Why? Because it was seen as Particularist. Particularist in Jewish. So what happens is, Solomon Mikhoels, the Director of the Moscow State Jewish Theatre, is appointed as chairman. And JACs begins to, Eisenstein was a member, Feffer was a member. JACs begins to broadcast pro-Soviet propaganda to foreign audiences. And in 1943, Mikhoels together with Itzik Feffer, were the first official representatives of the Soviet Union allowed to visit the West. They go on a seven month tour, they go to the United States, they go to Mexico, they go to Canada, they go to Britain to drum up aid for the Russian war effort. And in the United States, they’re welcomed by this huge reception committee, which is chaired by Albert Einstein and also by Ben-Zion Goldberg, who was Sholem Aleichem’s son-in-law. And it was sponsored by the amazing Joint, you know, the great American charity. It was the largest ever pro-Soviet rally in America. July the eighth, 1943. It was held at the Polo Ground. 50,000 people attended. The speakers, Einstein, Mikhoels, Feffer, La Guardia, Sholem Asch, Stephen Wise, Chaim Weizmann, Charlie Chaplin, Marc Chagall, Paul Robeson and Lion Feuchtwanger. So, it must have been an incredible, incredible, incredible event. Raised a huge amount of money. They raised 16 million dollars in America, 15 million in Britain, 1 million in Mexico, and 750,000 in Palestine. They have all sorts of help, machinery, medical equipment, medicine, clothes, ambulances. And on July the 16th, Pravda reported that Mikhoels and Feffer had received a message from Chicago that the Joint had financed a thousand ambulances for the the Red Army. Now towards the end of the war and immediately after the war, JACs became involved in documenting the Holocaust.

Now this ran contrary to Soviet policy. Because what they wanted to do was, you’ve got to remember that as the Soviet Union expanded into Poland, into the Ukraine, into Lithuania, into Latvia, many of those characters had been Nazi allies. They had worked for the Nazis. Russia has to create a union of Soviet Socialist republics. They’re going to use a lot of these ex Nazis to run the country. Plus of course, they don’t want the Particularism of the Jews. I mean, if you think of a man like Vasily Grossman, the wonderful, wonderful poet who David Hermann’s already lectured on. His mother had died in Berdychiv. Dovid Hofshteyn, another great poet, and member of the Jewish anti-Fascist Committee. His mother and brother were murdered in Babyn Yar. And some of the committee were also vocal in their support for a Jewish state. Now, Vasily Grossman had been exempt from military service, but became a war correspondent for the Red Army newspapers. He covered all its major events as early as 1943. He collects eyewitness accounts of the murders. He wrote an article, The Hell of Treblinka, which was disseminated at the Nuremberg Trials. Grossman also participated in the assembly of a black book, to be published in conjunction with American organisations. And unfortunately, the Russian edition was never published because we have the cold war. And then what happens is the leader members of JACs are put on trial. Mikhoels died in an accident in Minsk, we now know it’s a staged accident. He was murdered.

And what happens is many of the leading Jewish intellectuals who had been part of JACs were put on trial and they were, it’s known as the Night of the Murdered Poets. And they were executed in Lubyanka Prison on May the eighth, 1952. Their families were also charged with being traitors, relatives of traitors to the Motherland. And what begins, they begin to use language. Campaign against Zionism. Ruthless cosmopolitanism. American agency Begins to happen in the press. Cosmopolitanism. Trotsky was always accused of being a cosmopolitan. Well, think about it. What did the Soviet Union want? Originally, Communism was going to cover the world. And now what’s being singled out is Zionism. Zionism is cosmopolitan, it’s rootless and it’s also allied to the West. Now this is December the first, 52. Stalin at the Politburo. “Every Jewish nationalist is an agent of the American intelligence service. Jewish nationalists think that their nation was saved by the USA. They think they are indebted to the Americans.” And then he goes on to say. “Amongst the doctors, there are many Jewish nationalists.” And what that’s going to lead to is of course the Doctors’ Plot. Now can we go on and see the faces of Mikhoels and Feffer because they were great heroes. He just, can we go back ‘cause I’m going to just, those of you who don’t know, he adapted Sholem Aleichem’s Tevye the Milkman. He took the title role. Remember, he’s the director and leading actor of the Jewish Theatre. He took the title role in the Yiddish version of King Lear. He commissioned Bar Kokhba as a Socialist tale. Ironically, in that, I mean I don’t speak in the language, but I’ve been told that it does illustrate also criticism of Stalin, veiled criticism and also assertions of Jewish national identity. He had a dream of a post-war Jewish autonomy. Stalin labelled it, he wanted it within Russia, think Birobidzhan. But Stalin labelled it as a plot by American capitalists. So now the Jews in Russia, some Jews in Russia are being accused of rootless cosmopolitanism.

And as I said, he died in a car accident. Now can we have a look at Itzik Feffer please. Now he was a very important Yiddish poet. He was arrested with other members of JACs. He was not tortured. He did, it does seem that, there was a certain amount of cooperation. But at the trial he showed pride in the Jewish nation. And in June, whilst he was in prison, Paul Robeson had met Feffer in New York, the wonderful, wonderful Paul Robeson, who Patrick will be lecturing on. In August, we are going to have a different kind of month. We are going to look at heroes. And Paul Robeson is one of Patrick’s. And he’d met Feffer in New York. And remember, he was very, very left wing. And he and his wife Eslanda befriended both Mikhoels and Feffer. And in June 1949, which was the anniversary of Pushkin, Robeson was invited to the Soviet Union for a concert. And he wanted to know what had happened to Feffer. Questions of America. Robeson asked to see his friend. So what happened to Feffer is he’s taken out of prison, he’s fattened up. And when he was sufficiently healthy looking, he was allowed to meet Robeson. But the meeting was bugged. But nevertheless, he did ask Robeson to speak out. And at his concert, this is extraordinary, Robeson broadcasts across the whole country. He paid tribute to the two men and he sang, the Vilna Partisan song in both Russian and in Yiddish. Can we have a look at that? This is the Partisan Song. “The wine of enduring generations strengthened me in my wanderer’s way. The evil of pain and lamentations nothing that I hold dear, could slay. My people, my faith and my head unbowed, it could not stop me from being free and true.

Under the sword I cried aloud, I am a Jew.” Now what is also happening is that anti-Semitic purges are spreading to other Communist countries in the Eastern bloc. In 1949, the Communist Hungarian leader, László Rajk and his co-defendants were accused of, wait for it, worldwide Zionist conspiracy. He wasn’t even a Jew. But of the seven, the other six were. Jews had very high positions in the beginnings of the Soviet Union. In Hungary, in Poland, et cetera. And Zionist, and what also begins to happen is, the link of Zionism with Trotskyism. And ironically the greatest, the greatest anti-Zionists of all were the Trotskyites. Now Rajk was a fascinating man. He had been expelled from university as a Communist. Think about it. He lived under Horthy in Hungary. He became a building worker. He fought in the Spanish Civil War. He was the commissar of the Brigade, the 13th International. He was interned in France till 41. He returned to Hungary and he ran an underground Communist movement. He was arrested by the Arrow Cross, but luckily his brother was a member of the party. So he has survived. He entered politics and he becomes the Minister of the Interior. He organised the party’s private army and secret police. Now, and then what happens, he is arrested, he’s called the the chained dog of Horthy, Tito and imperialism. He’s imprisoned and tortured. And of course along with him were the six Jews. And it also spreads to Czechoslovakia. Can we go on please? Now it’s interesting because in the early days before, way before Golde’s visit to Moscow, what happened was Jan Masaryk, the Czech leader, was giving and selling arms to the Jews of Palestine. The Czechs were incredibly helpful and they wouldn’t have done it without the blessing of Stalin.

And this is from, this is Herbert Rutkai, who is one of Stalin’s people. “In London, it goes without saying that Czech citizens of the Jewish religion have the full status of equal citizens of the republic, but it will not be possible to recognise special nationality rights even for the Jewish minority. But having said that, the Czechs are going to assist the Zionists to their own national state.” And in fact, Kopecki, the new minister of information in the bulletin of Prague’s Jewish congregation. “Jews have to choose between total assimilation or to join their nation in helping to build up Palestine.” And Jews were allowed out, over 18,000, between 48 and 49. By 1950 there were only 16,000 Jews left in Czechoslovakia. Over half of them, more than half made it to Israel. So remember though, this was the Czechoslovak pre-war population. It had once been 357,000 people. It’s extraordinary. It was a great centre of Jewish life. And then of course it’s now 16,000. And today there’s about 4,000. And please don’t forget that the Nazis intended to make Prague their centre of a lost civilization. And that’s why you have so many extraordinary Jewish artefacts in the museums, in the synagogues, the old synagogues of Prague. But what was the Slansky trial? This is the first public anti-Zionist spectacle in the Soviet bloc. And it also indicates the huge switch of support for Israel. The most prominent Jews in the Czech Communist Party and government leadership of close links with the Zionists for the purposes of espionage and of treason. The Kremlin deliberately targeted the country which in 48 had sold arms, but with the will of Stalin.

The trial was totally organised by Soviet advisors who introduced a very nasty anti-Semitic tone. According to Eugene Löbl, who was the first high ranking Czech Communist to be arrested, he survived. The Soviet advisor, Livtechek, says to him. “You are not a Communist. And you are not a Czechoslovak. You are a dirty Jew. That’s what you are. Israel is your real Fatherland. And you have sold out Socialism to your bosses, the Zionist imperialist leaders of world, Jewry. Let me tell you that the time is past approaching when we will have to exterminate the lot of you.” I’m going to read this again, this is the really important statement. It’s a horrible statement. “You are a dirty Jew. That’s what you are. Israel is your only real Fatherland. And you’ve sold out Socialism to your bosses. The Zionist imperialist leaders of world, Jewry. Let me tell you, the time is fast approaching when we will have to exterminate the lot of you.” And the Kremlin informed the Czech prosecutors that the Rothchilds and other Jewish bankers were behind the treasonous activities of Slansky. Slansky was the highest representative of the old Czech government to be put on trial. And they also said. “They are the greatest enemies of Socialism, it’s not Western imperialism but international Zionism.” And by November 51, Stalinist leadership came to round all the propaganda points to that. Now, ironically, the Czech Jewish leadership were ardent advocates of pure Communism, according to which they believed that Zionism was a reactionary movement. They had turned their backs on Jewishness and Judaism and they saw themselves as Communists. And this is from Max Lerner writing in the New York Post in 1952. “The fact that the man on trial never was Zionist, doesn’t bother a Red Commissar.

The idea of the big lie,” remember, this was Goebbels, “is that the bigger the lie, the better.” Mordechai Oren later related what an interrogator said. “You, Slansky, the Jews that Slansky smuggled into the party and government machinery and all the others. You are the scum of the Earth, the human race.” And, it becomes, it got so bad that, this is an article in the New York Times. “The Jews are in great danger throughout the Communist Bloc as Stalin sought to emulate Hitler.” And this is an article in the New York Times, the 23rd of November 1952. “Here we have the infamous protocols of the Elders of Zion again, but a Stalinist version, for which the ground was laid four years ago. Soviet Russia’s campaign against cosmopolitanism, a campaign whose victims were primarily Jews. The Prague trial may well mark the beginning of a major tragedy, as the Kremlin swings further and further towards anti-Semitism masked as anti-Zionism.” Now the Prague trial, what happens is, Slansky and and 11 of his colleagues, very high ranking former members of the Prague government. I mean for example, Slansky was the General Secretary, of Vladimir Clementis was the Foreign Minister, Otto Fischl, Deputy Minister of Finance, Joseph Frank, Deputy General Secretary, Ludvik Frejka, Chief of Economic Committee. And going on and on, basically they are very, very important. And what happens is that they are put on trial and all but two of them are executed. Now the statement is very important. “The major tragedy as the Kremlin swings further towards anti-Semitism masked as Zionism.” So there are 13 people put on trial. 11 of them are Jews and Slansky was hanged, and then there’ the move to purge the Jews out of the high ranking areas of the Communist Party. And they all confessed under torture.

And that was the tragedy of it. So, but something else is happening, because what else is happening is that by this time Stalin is becoming more and more isolated. So, I’m going to read you from an article again from the American press. “The Prague trial exhibited a new kind of anti-Semitism, which put Israel and world Zionism at the centre. Zionist were spies, subverters, and saboteurs. The Czech Communist press called for the death sentence, called them cosmopolitan Jews without a homeland, Trotskyites, Titoists, Zionists, war criminals, swindlers and Gestapo agents.” And the prosecutor also at the Slansky trial also suggested the Jews exploited the Czech distaste of anti-Semitism and Hitlerism. And this is the prosecutor. “This fact was exploited by Jews owning shady businesses, factory owners and bourgeois elements of every variety to infiltrate our party. The emphasis on the suffering of the Jews in the period of the Nazi rampage served these elements as armour against any criticism and as a mass covering their true face. When the Czech nation raised its voice against Zionism, they cried anti-Semitism in order to cover the help they were giving to the class interests of the Jewish bourgeoisie , and their ties with the imperialists throughout the world.” So only six years. This is terribly important because this is in the left today, the extreme left. And it’s unfortunately permeated Britain. And I’ll be talking about that, I said, in my next two presentations. Only six years after the Holocaust, in a public trial, the assertion is made that Israel and Zionism manipulated anti-Semitism as a mask to cover up their crimes.

Now, this is going to get a lot worse, because then the last act of course was the Doctors’ Plot. Stalin in his paranoia believed that doctors were plotting to murder high ranking members of, can we go on please? There you have the trial of Rudolph Slansky, tragedy. He was, the irony, the committed Communist, who’s thrown away his Jewishness. Can we go on please? A notion that Jewish doctors were plotting to murder high ranking members of Stalin’s coterie. And in fact they were imprisoned. They were tortured. But then Stalin died and it all fell apart. This particular thing fell apart. Having said that, there are many historians who believe that Stalin was about to go for pogrom. That it started with the doctors, but there’s certainly this belief that what would happen in Russia was wild, widespread pogrom, even going towards potential for mass murder. Stalin dies and he is replaced by Nikita Kruschev. Let’s finish the story of Kruschev and I’m going to pick him up again next week. Can we see the last slide? If you don’t mind, Lauren. Now Kruschev. Kruschev is coming into a completely new world. Why? The Arab world is changing. Farouk loses power in Egypt to Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser takes over with his very strange blend of Nationalism and Socialism. Gradually the old fueled regimes, many of them are going to crash and the Cold War is escalating. And that is when the Russians believe that they could create huge alliances in the Arab world. And this is when you have, if you like, the beginnings of this close relationship where the propaganda is going to come out of Russia. It is going to tie in with the propaganda already in the Arab world.

And don’t forget, as Lynn told you tonight, there were many Nazis working for Nassar including a man called Lias, who had been one of Goebbels’ greatest propagandists. He actually, Arafat, he was very close to, not to Arafat, beg your pardon, Hajj Amin al-Husseini. And he became one of the main propagandists, he converted to Islam. So do you see how it all comes together? And unfortunately it’s going to lead, and then it’s going to exacerbate after Suez, when Israel ties up with Britain and France, anti-colonialism. And Israel is gradually going to be seen as an agent of America and it’s all going to culminate in the Six-Day War. So that’s what we’ll be talking about when I talk about the Great Lie. But it was important to look at this today so that you understand. I think it’s important to remember that Russia actually backed Israel in the its infancy. And if the Russians hadn’t have done and if the satellites hadn’t done, would the UN have passed the resolution?

And of course it was the the Russians in 75 response of the Zionism is racism motion. It was rescinded in 1991 after the collapse of Communism. It was in George Bush’s time. But in many ways the damage has been done. And today the left see Israel as this great power. But not only that, the other issue that’s going to come into the story, which we begin to see a little bit of echoes of already, is that the Zionists are going to collude. The Zionists actually colluded with the Nazis. That is the great libel. The language that was used in the United Nations, the language which is so often used, they’re going to take events in Israel’s history, like the Haavara agreement, the Kassner case, the Eichmann trial The Soviet press at the time of the Eichmann trial said that they wanted to kill Eichmann because he knew how much the Zionists colluded with the Nazis. That is the libel and it comes out of the Russian propagandists. So let’s stop now and have a look at questions. Thank you Lauren.

Q&A and Comments:

Peter. My paternal grandfather who traced our family roots in Austria to the mid-16 hundreds discovered that Heine belonged to one branch of the family amongst a long line of Schlesinger. It’s lovely Shelly. The historian’s essential creative act is the resurrection of the dead.

Simon Dubnow. That’s a wonderful quote. He was a wonderful man. Oh, anti-Semitism in the USSR began after they signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on the eve of World II. The Nazis asked Soviets to sack all the Jews in senior positions and Stalin agreed. The Nazis didn’t even ask. They did, Stalin played every game against the middle. That’s the problem. But antisemitism never went away. That’s the point I’m making.

Well this is a lovely comment from Sunny. We’ve just returned from three weeks in Europe, you and William and Lips. Thank you so much, Shelly.

Q: Why the expression Dirty Jew?

A: Why not? Just think of all the adjectives that you can.

I don’t know what this is about, Maya. Today, one is ready to fund the course of the end of Israel as a Jewish state. What a stranger amalgam of Communism and Nazism with always the Jews caught in the middle. You know that’s the problem. We’re such a small people, 14 million worldwide. But we’ve played a very important role in the West, in the old world of monotheism. Not in China, not in Hindu India. And I think that’s where you have to go back to actually look at the roots of it all.

Thank you. I think, is that all the questions? Alright, thank you very much Lauren and I hope you all have a good weekend and I’ll see you next week. Take care.