Letter from Dimitrov to Zhdanov regarding
Le Jounal de Moscou.
Secret
CC VKP(b) To com. Zhdanov A. A.
Dear comrade Zhdanov!
The lead article of the French-language
newspaper "Journal de Moscou"[i]
of 11 April this year contains the following statement: "every Japanese
living abroad is a spy, just as every German citizen living abroad is a Gestapo
agent."
Letters expressing surprise and protest
against such a formulation have been coming in in connection with this clearly
erroneous and politically harmful characterization of all the Germans living
abroad, including the political émigrés persecuted by the German
fascism.
In my opinion, it would be expedient to
mention in the press, in Pravda, or in any other convenient form, the
erroneousness and harmfulness of this statement by "Journal de
Moscou."
With fraternal greetings /G.
Dimitrov/
26 April 1938.
[Attachment:]
Translation from Fr[ench]
“In fact, all the Japanese residents
abroad participate in anti-Soviet espionage. It is not an exaggeration to say
that every Japanese living abroad is a spy, just as every German citizen living
abroad is a Gestapo agent.”
The newspaper and the translation are
attached to the letter to c. Zhdanov.
RGASPI, f. 495, op. 73, d. 61, ll. 24-25.
Original in Russian. Typewritten.
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[i] Le Journal de Moscou, was a political, economic and literary weekly published in Moscow in French from 1934 to 1939.