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{{for|the music album|Rootless Cosmopolitans}}
{{for|the music album|Rootless Cosmopolitans}}
{{Antisemitism}}
{{Antisemitism}}
'''Rootless cosmopolitan''' ([[Russian language]]: '''безродный космополит''', "bezrodnyi kosmopolit") was a term used during the anti-cosmopolitan campaign in the [[Soviet Union]] after WWII. Cosmopolitans were intellectuals who were accused of expressing pro-Western feelings and lack of [[patriotism]]. The term "rootless cosmopolitan" is considered to specifically refer to Jewish intellectuals. It first appeared during the campaign in a Pravda article condemning a group of theatrical critics, but was originally coined by the Russian nineteenth-century literary critic [[Vissarion Belinsky]] to describe writers who lacked national character.<ref name="Figes">{{cite book |last=Figes | first=Orlando |authorlink=Orlando Figes |title=The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia |year=2007 |publisher=Metropolitan Books |location=New York City |isbn=0-8050-7461-9 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=tbHMZAYRcLgC&printsec=frontcover |page=494}}</ref>
'''Rootless cosmopolitan''' ([[Russian language]]: '''безродный космополит''', "bezrodniy kosmopolit") was a [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] [[euphemism]] widely used during [[Stalin and antisemitism|Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic]] campaign of 1948&ndash;1953, which culminated in the "exposure" of the alleged [[Doctors' plot]]. The term "rootless cosmopolitan" referred mostly (but not explicitly) to [[Jews|Jewish]] intellectuals, as an accusation in their lack of [[patriotism]], i.e., lack of full allegiance to the Soviet Union. The expression was first coined by Russian literary critic [[Vissarion Belinsky]] to describe writers who lacked (Russian) national character.<ref name="Figes">[[Orlando Figes]] ''The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia'', 2007, ISBN 0805074619, page 494.</ref>

⚫
Stalin, in a meeting with Soviet intelligentsia in 1946, voiced his concerns about recent developments in Soviet culture, which later would materialize in the "battle against cosmopolitanism" in later years.

⚫
<blockquote>"Recently, a dangerous tendency seems to be seen in some of the literary works emanating under the pernicious influence of the West and brought about by the subversive activities of the foreign intelligence. Frequently in the pages of Soviet literary journals works are found where Soviet people, builders of communism are shown in pathetic and ludicrous forms. The positive Soviet hero is derided and inferior before all things foreign and cosmopolitism that we all fought against from the time of Lenin, characteristic of the political leftovers, is many times applauded. In the theater it seems that Soviet plays are pushed aside by plays from foreign bourgeois authors. The same thing is starting to happen in Soviet films."<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc0306/stalin.htm |title=Stalin On Art and Culture}}</ref></blockquote>


==Background==
==Background==
{{further2|[[History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union]]|[[History of anti-Semitism]]}}
In 1943 a new propaganda campaign of Russian patriotism began, with many well-known writers, composers and artists writing articles about patriotism in literature and the arts. At the same time the worship of foreign culture, which was defined as cosmopolitanism, was denounced.<ref name=Zhukov>{{cite book |last=Zhukov |first=Yuri |authorlink=Yuri Zhukov (historian) |script-title=ru:Сталин: Тайны власти |trans_title=Stalin: Secrets of State Power |publisher=Vagrius |location=Moscow |year=2005 |isbn=5-475-00078-6 |language=Russian |page=191}}</ref> The famous Soviet writer [[Ilya Ehrenburg]] wrote:
Towards the end of and immediately after [[World War II]], the [[Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee]] (JAC) grew increasingly influential to the post-[[Holocaust]] Soviet Jewry, and was accepted as its representative in the [[Western world|West]]. As its activities sometimes contradicted official Soviet policies (see [[Black Book (World War II)|Black Book]] as an example), it became a nuisance to Soviet authorities. The [[CPSU]] [[Central Auditing Commission]] concluded that instead of focusing its attention on the "struggle against forces of international reaction", the JAC continued the line of the [[General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia|Bund]] &mdash; a dangerous designation, since former Bund members were to be "purged".
<blockquote>We know that art is connected with the land, with its salt, with its smell, that outside of national culture there is no art. Cosmopolitanism - a world in which things lose their color and form, and words lose their significance. We love in our past all that we consider native, wonderful and fair.<ref>Zhukov, p. 193</ref></blockquote>

By the end of WWII, a new ideological orientation was taking shape. Instead of Reds and Whites, the population of the Soviet Union would be divided into patriots and cosmopolitans, which at that time was a euphemism for nationalists and separatists in the Western part of the country, and those who advocated for the rights of the Soviet republics.<ref>Zhukov, p. 278</ref>
In January 1948 the JAC's head, the popular actor and world-famous public figure [[Solomon Mikhoels]], was killed by the [[Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs|Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs]] (MVD) on the [[Politburo]]'s orders; his murder was framed as a car accident where a truck ran over him as he was taking a walk on a narrow road.<ref>According to historian [[Gennady Kostyrchenko]], recently opened Soviet archives contain [http://www.mk.ru/blogs/idmk/2005/09/06/mk-daily/60646/ evidence that the assassination was organized by L.M. Tsanava and S. Ogoltsov] of the [[MVD]]</ref> This was followed by eventual arrests of JAC's members and its termination.

The USSR voted for the 1947 [[United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine]] and in May 1948 it recognized the [[Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, May 14, 1948|establishment]] of the state of [[Israel]] there, subsequently supporting it with weapons (via [[Czechoslovakia]], in defiance of the [[embargo]]) in the [[1948 Arab-Israeli war]]. Many Soviet Jews felt inspired and sympathetic towards Israel and sent thousands of letters to the (still formally existing) JAC with offers to contribute to or even volunteer for Israel's defense.

In September 1948, the first Israeli [[Ambassador (diplomacy)|ambassador]] to the USSR, [[Golda Meir]],<ref>At the time, her last name was Myerson. She changed it to Meir in 1956.</ref> arrived in [[Moscow]]. Huge enthusiastic crowds (estimated 50,000) gathered along her path and in and around [[Moscow Choral Synagogue|Moscow synagogue]] when she attended it for [[Yom Kippur]] and [[Rosh Hashanah]].

The September 21, 1948 edition of ''[[Pravda]]'' contained [[Ilya Ehrenburg]]'s article "Regarding one letter", in which he criticized anti-Semitism but argued that the fate of Soviet Jews was [[Assimilation (sociology)|assimilation]] into the united "[[Soviet people]]". Later he admitted that it was ordered by the dictator [[Joseph Stalin]].<ref>Joshua Rubenstein, ''Tangled loyalties. The Life and Times of Ilya Ehrenburg''</ref>

These events corresponded in time with a visible upsurge of Russian nationalism orchestrated by official propaganda, the increasingly hostile [[Cold War]] and the realization by the Soviet leadership that [[Israel]] had chosen the Western option. Domestically, Soviet Jews were being considered a security liability for their [[Jewish diaspora|international connections]], especially to the [[United States]], and growing national awareness.

With United States becoming the opponent of the Soviet Union, by the end of 1948, the USSR switched sides in the [[Arab-Israeli conflict]] and began supporting the Arabs against Israel, first politically and later also militarily. For his part [[David Ben-Gurion]] declared support for the [[United States]] in the [[Korean War]], despite opposition from left-wing Israeli parties. From 1950 on, Israeli-Soviet relations were an inextricable part of the [[Cold War]]—with ominous implications for Soviet Jews supporting Israel, or perceived as supporting it.


⚫
=="About one antipatriotic group of theater critics"==
⚫
Stalin, in a meeting with Soviet [[intelligentsia]] in 1946, voiced his concerns about recent developments in Soviet culture, which later would materialize in the "battle against cosmopolitanism."
⚫
The aggressive stage of the state-wide campaign opened on January 28, 1949 when an article entitled "About one antipatriotic group of theater critics" appeared in the newspaper ''[[Pravda]]'', an official organ of the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee]] of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]]:
⚫
<blockquote>Recently, a dangerous tendency seems to be seen in some of the literary works emanating under the pernicious influence of the West and brought about by the subversive activities of the foreign intelligence. Frequently in the pages of Soviet literary journals works are found where Soviet people, builders of communism are shown in pathetic and ludicrous forms. The positive Soviet hero is derided and inferior before all things foreign and cosmopolitanism that we all fought against from the time of Lenin, characteristic of the political leftovers, is many times applauded. In the theater it seems that Soviet plays are pushed aside by plays from foreign bourgeois authors. The same thing is starting to happen in Soviet films.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc0306/stalin.htm |title=Stalin On Art and Culture}}</ref></blockquote>


<blockquote>
In 1946 and 1947 the new campaign against cosmopolitanism affected Soviet scientists, such as the famous physicist [[Pyotr Kapitsa]] and the president of the Belorussian Academy of Sciences, Anton Zhebrak. They along with other scientists were denounced for contacts with their Western colleagues and support for "bourgeois science."<ref name=Bibikov>{{cite report |last=Bibikov |first=V. |title=Science & Technology - USSR: Science & Technology Policy |chapter=Lysenko Foe Anton Zhebrak Rehabilitated |publisher=Foreign Broadcast Information Service |date=1988 |month=November |url=http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA350349 |pages=70-71}}</ref>
"unbridled, evil-minded cosmopolitans, profiteers with no roots and no conscience… Grown on rotten yeast of bourgeois cosmopolitanism, decadence and formalism… non-indigenous nationals without a motherland, who poison with stench… our [[proletarian culture]]."… "What can A. Gurvich possibly understand about the national character of a Russian Soviet man?"<ref>According to the English translation of the "Pravda" article by P.K. Volkov</ref>
</blockquote>


Standard [[Stalinism|Stalinist]] [[Conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]] (see [[Great Purge]]) were accompanied by a crusade in the state-controlled mass media to expose [[pseudonym]]s and highlight Jewish ethnic identity via patronymics.<ref name="Ro’i">{{cite web | url=http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Anticosmopolitan_Campaign | title=Anticosmopolitan Campaign | publisher=YIVO Institute for Jewish Research | date=2010 | accessdate=February 24, 2013 | author=Yaacov Ro’i}}</ref>
In 1947 many literary critics were accused of kneeling before the West, anti-patriotism and cosmopolitanism. For example, the campaign targeted those who studied the works of Aleksandr Veselovsky, the founder of Russian comparative literature, which was described as a "bourgeois cosmopolitan direction in literary criticism."<ref name=Dobrenko>{{cite book |last1=Dobrenko |first1=Evgeny |last2=Tihanov |first2=Galin |title=A History of Russian Literary Theory and Criticism: The Soviet Age and Beyond |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press |location=Pittsburgh |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-8229-4411-9 |pages=171–173}}</ref>


Many [[Yiddish language|Yiddish]] writers were arrested and eventually executed in the event known as the [[Night of the Murdered Poets]]. [[Yiddish theater]]s and newspapers were promptly shut down, books by some Jewish authors (including [[Eduard Bagritsky]], [[Vasily Grossman]], [[Mikhail Arkadyevich Svetlov|Mikhail Svetlov]], [[Iosif Utkin]], [[Boris Pasternak]] and others) were seized{{By whom|date=March 2012}} from libraries.
⚫
=="About one anti-patriotic group of theater critics"==
Even [[Vyacheslav Molotov]]'s wife, [[Polina Zhemchuzhina]], who was Jewish, did not escape arrest in 1949.
⚫
A new stage of the campaign opened on January 28, 1949, when an article entitled "About one anti-patriotic group of theater critics" appeared in the newspaper ''[[Pravda]]'', an official organ of the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee]] of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]]:
<blockquote>An anti-patriotic group has developed in theatrical criticism. It consists of followers of bourgeois aestheticism. They penetrate our press and operate most freely in the pages of the magazine, ''Teatr'', and the newspaper, ''Sovetskoe iskusstvo''. These critics have lost their sense of responsibility to the people. They represent a rootless cosmopolitanism which is deeply repulsive and inimical to Soviet man. They obstruct the development of Soviet literature; the feeling of national Soviet pride is alien to them.<ref name=Pinkus>{{cite book |last=Pinkus |first=Benjamin |title=The Soviet Government and the Jews 1948-1967: A Documented Study |year=1984 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=0-521-24713-6 |pages=183–184 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=V7g8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA183#v=onepage&q&f=false}}</ref></blockquote>


Stalin's daughter [[Svetlana Alliluyeva]] recalls in her book ''Twenty Letters to a Friend'' that when she asked her father about her arrested father-in-law, I.G. Morozov (also Jewish), he replied: "You don't understand! The entire old generation is infected with Zionism and they teach their youth."<ref>[[Svetlana Alliluyeva]], ''Twenty Letters to a Friend''. Letter 17 (Russian language 2000 ed. ISBN 5-8159-0065-6 p.174)</ref> In a December 1, 1952 [[Politburo]] session, Stalin announced: <blockquote>"Every Jewish nationalist is the agent of American intelligence service. Jewish nationalists think that their nation was saved by USA (there you can become rich, bourgeois, etc.). They think they're indebted to the Americans.
Russian historian [[Yuri Zhukov (historian)|Yuri Zhukov]] traces the campaign back to mid-November 1948, when [[Georgy Malenkov]], head of ideology in the Central Committee, received a letter from the [[Komsomol]], which complained about the low attendance rates for Soviet theaters. Malenkov tasked the Department of Agitation and Propaganda ([[Agitprop]]) headed by [[Dmitry Shepilov]] to look into the matter and formulate suggestions for the Central Committee. Agitprop officials turned to a group of theatrical critics for help with reporting on the issue. At a conference of critics and playwrights at the end of November 1948, recent plays of Moscow's theaters were attacked by one of the critics, Aleksandr Borshchagovsky, who was too arrogant and confident in his criticism. This made the playwrights realize that Agitprop was after them and they acted quickly. They admitted that there were mistakes made by theaters, but placed the blame on the critics. The playwrights hinted at the nationality of most of the critics by pronouncing their names in a certain way, and accused them of aestheticism and formalism, which were considered attributes of cosmopolitanism. The critics were now themselves the accused. In December 1948 the [[Union of Soviet Writers]] requested Malenkov's approval for publishing in Pravda the resolution of their recent plenum, which contained strong criticism of the theatrical critics. Shepilov and the Agitprop officials sought to prevent this and criticized the writers' union for shifting the blame on the critics; they asked Malenkov to have their own article published. Malenkov had to choose what side to support, the Union of Soviet Writers and the Committee for Culture or Agitprop and the critics. In the end, he chose to support the writers' union and the cultural committee. After learning about the decision of his boss, Shepilov completely changed his position and sent a note to Malenkov condemning the critics.<ref>Zhukov, pp. 479-494</ref>
Among doctors there are many Jewish nationalists."<ref>From the diary of Vice-Chair of the [[Sovmin]] V.A. Malyshev. See G. Kostyrchenko, ''Gosudarstvennyj antisemitizm v SSSR'', Moscow, 2005, pp. 461, 462</ref>
</blockquote>


Ehrenburg, who visited the US in 1946 and whose decidedly anti-American articles echoed the [[Soviet propaganda]], and who was by then an international [[peace activist]] and the winner of the [[Stalin Prize]] (1947), was so afraid of being arrested that he wrote Stalin a letter asking to "end the uncertainty". He claimed later that he was spared because the regime needed to conceal the campaign from the West, where the plight of Soviet Jews was becoming a major [[human rights]] concern.{{cn|date=December 2012}}
The article about the critics was published in Pravda and triggered a campaign that soon turned into a witch hunt. It was often enough for someone to have a non-Russian name to be accused of cosmopolitanism, and the campaign developed an anti-Semitic character. It soon spread to most cultural unions and organizations, and also to scientific institutions.<ref name=Zhukov/>


==Legacy==
The campaign included a crusade in the state-controlled mass media to expose literary [[pseudonym]]s, which were used by many Jews, by putting real names in parenthesis.<ref name="Ro’i">{{cite web |url=http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Anticosmopolitan_Campaign | title=Anticosmopolitan Campaign | publisher=YIVO Institute for Jewish Research | date=2010 | accessdate=February 24, 2013 | author=Yaacov Ro’i}}</ref><ref name=Ree>{{cite book |last=Ree |first=Erik van |title=The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin: A Study in Twentieth Century Revolutionary Patriotism |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |year=2004 |isbn=0-7007-1749-8 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=GY6bWw_tLf0C&pg=PA205#v=onepage&q&f=false |page=205}}</ref> However, Stalin is said to have spoken against this and the practice of revealing pseudonyms stopped.<ref name=Ree/>


In result of the campaign, scores of Soviet Jews were fired from their jobs. In 1947, Jews constituted 18% of Soviet scientific workers, but by 1970 this number declined to 7%, which can still be compared to about 3-4% of the Soviet population at that time.<ref>[[Paul Johnson (writer)|Paul Johnson]] ''The History of the Jews''. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987</ref>
==Results of the campaign==
Those condemned for cosmopolitanism were given warnings, lost their bureaucratic posts, and/or were dismissed from professional organizations like the writers' union. A more severe punishment was being fired from work or being expelled from the communist party, which left the person open for arrest.<ref>Pinkus, p. 161</ref>


Anything Jewish became suppressed by the Soviet authorities, and even the word ''Jew'' disappeared from the media. Many were shocked to find a Yiddish verse (sung by Mikhoels) cut out from the famous [[lullaby]] in the Soviet classic movie ''[[Circus (1936 film)|Circus]]'' ("Tsirk", 1936), known by heart by millions and still very popular in post-war Soviet cinemas.
The whole anti-cosmopolitan campaign started dwindling down in April 1949, as it became more and more absurd. Preference was given to patriotism in everything, for example, even "French" buns were renamed to "urban." The general population was not interested in the struggles among the intelligentsia.<ref>Zhukov, p. 493</ref>


A historian of Zionism, [[Walter Laqueur]], noted: "When, in the 1950s under Stalin, the Jews of the Soviet Union came under severe attack and scores were executed, it was under the banner of anti-Zionism rather than anti-Semitism, which had been given a bad name by Adolf Hitler." <ref>Walter Laqueur ''Dying for Jerusalem: the past, present and future of the Holiest City''. Naperville: Sourcebooks, Inc., 2006 ISBN 1-4022-0632-1; p. 55</ref>
The authors who felt victorious after the campaign against the cosmopolitan critics soon found themselves heavily criticized once again, as the flaws of their plays were pointed out in reviews.<ref>Zhukov, pp. 574-575</ref>


==See also==
==See also==
*[[Cosmopolitanism]]
*[[Cosmopolitanism]]
*[[Enemy of the people]]
*[[Anti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public]]
*[[Anti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public]]
*[[Yevsektsiya]]
*[[Yevsektsiya]]
Line 39: Line 57:
*[[Soviet Anti-Zionism]]
*[[Soviet Anti-Zionism]]
*[[Slánský trial]]
*[[Slánský trial]]
*[[Population transfer in the Soviet Union]]
*[[World citizen]]


== Notes ==
== Notes ==
Line 47: Line 65:
*[http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/kritikov-r.html "About one antipatriotic group of theater critics"], ''Pravda'' article (transliterated Russian)
*[http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/kritikov-r.html "About one antipatriotic group of theater critics"], ''Pravda'' article (transliterated Russian)
*[http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/egorov.htm "From Anti-Westernism to Anti-Semitism"] by Konstantin Azadovskii and Boris Egorov in ''Journal of Cold War Studies'', 4:1, Winter 2002, pp.&nbsp;66–80
*[http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/egorov.htm "From Anti-Westernism to Anti-Semitism"] by Konstantin Azadovskii and Boris Egorov in ''Journal of Cold War Studies'', 4:1, Winter 2002, pp.&nbsp;66–80
* http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cerh20/17/3 "Cosmopolitanism: The End of Jewishness?" Michael L. Miller and Scott Ury in ''European Review of History'', 17:3, 2010, pp.&nbsp;337–359.
* http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cerh20/17/3 "Cosmopolitanism: The End of Jewishness?" Michael L. Miller and Scott Ury in ''European Review of History'', 17:3, 2010, pp. 337-359.
* Michael L. Miller and Scott Ury, eds., ''Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism and the Jews of East Central Europe''. ISBN 978-1138018525


{{Joseph Stalin}}
{{Joseph Stalin}}

Revision as of 02:24, 17 January 2015

For the music album, see Rootless Cosmopolitans.
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Rootless cosmopolitan (Russian language: безродный космополит, "bezrodniy kosmopolit") was a Soviet euphemism widely used during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1948–1953, which culminated in the "exposure" of the alleged Doctors' plot. The term "rootless cosmopolitan" referred mostly (but not explicitly) to Jewish intellectuals, as an accusation in their lack of patriotism, i.e., lack of full allegiance to the Soviet Union. The expression was first coined by Russian literary critic Vissarion Belinsky to describe writers who lacked (Russian) national character.[1]

Stalin, in a meeting with Soviet intelligentsia in 1946, voiced his concerns about recent developments in Soviet culture, which later would materialize in the "battle against cosmopolitanism" in later years.

"Recently, a dangerous tendency seems to be seen in some of the literary works emanating under the pernicious influence of the West and brought about by the subversive activities of the foreign intelligence. Frequently in the pages of Soviet literary journals works are found where Soviet people, builders of communism are shown in pathetic and ludicrous forms. The positive Soviet hero is derided and inferior before all things foreign and cosmopolitism that we all fought against from the time of Lenin, characteristic of the political leftovers, is many times applauded. In the theater it seems that Soviet plays are pushed aside by plays from foreign bourgeois authors. The same thing is starting to happen in Soviet films."[2]

Background

Further information: History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union and History of anti-Semitism

Towards the end of and immediately after World War II, the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) grew increasingly influential to the post-Holocaust Soviet Jewry, and was accepted as its representative in the West. As its activities sometimes contradicted official Soviet policies (see Black Book as an example), it became a nuisance to Soviet authorities. The CPSU Central Auditing Commission concluded that instead of focusing its attention on the "struggle against forces of international reaction", the JAC continued the line of the Bund — a dangerous designation, since former Bund members were to be "purged".

In January 1948 the JAC's head, the popular actor and world-famous public figure Solomon Mikhoels, was killed by the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) on the Politburo's orders; his murder was framed as a car accident where a truck ran over him as he was taking a walk on a narrow road.[3] This was followed by eventual arrests of JAC's members and its termination.

The USSR voted for the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine and in May 1948 it recognized the establishment of the state of Israel there, subsequently supporting it with weapons (via Czechoslovakia, in defiance of the embargo) in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Many Soviet Jews felt inspired and sympathetic towards Israel and sent thousands of letters to the (still formally existing) JAC with offers to contribute to or even volunteer for Israel's defense.

In September 1948, the first Israeli ambassador to the USSR, Golda Meir,[4] arrived in Moscow. Huge enthusiastic crowds (estimated 50,000) gathered along her path and in and around Moscow synagogue when she attended it for Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah.

The September 21, 1948 edition of Pravda contained Ilya Ehrenburg's article "Regarding one letter", in which he criticized anti-Semitism but argued that the fate of Soviet Jews was assimilation into the united "Soviet people". Later he admitted that it was ordered by the dictator Joseph Stalin.[5]

These events corresponded in time with a visible upsurge of Russian nationalism orchestrated by official propaganda, the increasingly hostile Cold War and the realization by the Soviet leadership that Israel had chosen the Western option. Domestically, Soviet Jews were being considered a security liability for their international connections, especially to the United States, and growing national awareness.

With United States becoming the opponent of the Soviet Union, by the end of 1948, the USSR switched sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict and began supporting the Arabs against Israel, first politically and later also militarily. For his part David Ben-Gurion declared support for the United States in the Korean War, despite opposition from left-wing Israeli parties. From 1950 on, Israeli-Soviet relations were an inextricable part of the Cold War—with ominous implications for Soviet Jews supporting Israel, or perceived as supporting it.

"About one antipatriotic group of theater critics"

The aggressive stage of the state-wide campaign opened on January 28, 1949 when an article entitled "About one antipatriotic group of theater critics" appeared in the newspaper Pravda, an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party:

"unbridled, evil-minded cosmopolitans, profiteers with no roots and no conscience… Grown on rotten yeast of bourgeois cosmopolitanism, decadence and formalism… non-indigenous nationals without a motherland, who poison with stench… our proletarian culture."… "What can A. Gurvich possibly understand about the national character of a Russian Soviet man?"[6]

Standard Stalinist conspiracy theories (see Great Purge) were accompanied by a crusade in the state-controlled mass media to expose pseudonyms and highlight Jewish ethnic identity via patronymics.[7]

Many Yiddish writers were arrested and eventually executed in the event known as the Night of the Murdered Poets. Yiddish theaters and newspapers were promptly shut down, books by some Jewish authors (including Eduard Bagritsky, Vasily Grossman, Mikhail Svetlov, Iosif Utkin, Boris Pasternak and others) were seized[by whom?] from libraries. Even Vyacheslav Molotov's wife, Polina Zhemchuzhina, who was Jewish, did not escape arrest in 1949.

Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva recalls in her book Twenty Letters to a Friend that when she asked her father about her arrested father-in-law, I.G. Morozov (also Jewish), he replied: "You don't understand! The entire old generation is infected with Zionism and they teach their youth."[8] In a December 1, 1952 Politburo session, Stalin announced:

"Every Jewish nationalist is the agent of American intelligence service. Jewish nationalists think that their nation was saved by USA (there you can become rich, bourgeois, etc.). They think they're indebted to the Americans.

Among doctors there are many Jewish nationalists."[9]

Ehrenburg, who visited the US in 1946 and whose decidedly anti-American articles echoed the Soviet propaganda, and who was by then an international peace activist and the winner of the Stalin Prize (1947), was so afraid of being arrested that he wrote Stalin a letter asking to "end the uncertainty". He claimed later that he was spared because the regime needed to conceal the campaign from the West, where the plight of Soviet Jews was becoming a major human rights concern.[citation needed]

Legacy

In result of the campaign, scores of Soviet Jews were fired from their jobs. In 1947, Jews constituted 18% of Soviet scientific workers, but by 1970 this number declined to 7%, which can still be compared to about 3-4% of the Soviet population at that time.[10]

Anything Jewish became suppressed by the Soviet authorities, and even the word Jew disappeared from the media. Many were shocked to find a Yiddish verse (sung by Mikhoels) cut out from the famous lullaby in the Soviet classic movie Circus ("Tsirk", 1936), known by heart by millions and still very popular in post-war Soviet cinemas.

A historian of Zionism, Walter Laqueur, noted: "When, in the 1950s under Stalin, the Jews of the Soviet Union came under severe attack and scores were executed, it was under the banner of anti-Zionism rather than anti-Semitism, which had been given a bad name by Adolf Hitler." [11]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Orlando Figes The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia, 2007, ISBN 0805074619, page 494.
  2. ^ "Stalin On Art and Culture".
  3. ^ According to historian Gennady Kostyrchenko, recently opened Soviet archives contain evidence that the assassination was organized by L.M. Tsanava and S. Ogoltsov of the MVD
  4. ^ At the time, her last name was Myerson. She changed it to Meir in 1956.
  5. ^ Joshua Rubenstein, Tangled loyalties. The Life and Times of Ilya Ehrenburg
  6. ^ According to the English translation of the "Pravda" article by P.K. Volkov
  7. ^ Yaacov Ro’i (2010). "Anticosmopolitan Campaign". YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Retrieved February 24, 2013.
  8. ^ Svetlana Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters to a Friend. Letter 17 (Russian language 2000 ed. ISBN 5-8159-0065-6 p.174)
  9. ^ From the diary of Vice-Chair of the Sovmin V.A. Malyshev. See G. Kostyrchenko, Gosudarstvennyj antisemitizm v SSSR, Moscow, 2005, pp. 461, 462
  10. ^ Paul Johnson The History of the Jews. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987
  11. ^ Walter Laqueur Dying for Jerusalem: the past, present and future of the Holiest City. Naperville: Sourcebooks, Inc., 2006 ISBN 1-4022-0632-1; p. 55
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