| In the new book "Stalin’s Secret Pogrom; The
Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee,"
historian and Northeast Regional Director of Amnesty International
Joshua Rubenstein, along with Russian historian Vladimir P. Naumov,
recounts the 1952 trial of fifteen Soviet Jews associated with
Stalin’s "Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee." Of the
fifteen, fourteen were executed including writers Solomon Michoels
and Yitzhak Feffer. The author views this event through the prism of
Stalin’s anti-Semitism and paranoia and the anti-Semitism of an
emerging Russian nationalism. While this analysis may be technically
true, it entirely misses the central point regarding the cause of
what the author dramatically calls a Pogrom.
The Jewish Anti-Fascist committee, and like-minded committees
were set up by the Soviets as propaganda organs after the June, 1941
invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany. In the years leading
up to the Nazi invasion the Soviets and Nazis were allies and, as a
result of the Hitler/Stalin Pact of August 1939, had divided up
Eastern Europe. As devoted Communists, these 15 Soviet Jews were
probably pro Nazi at that time. The Communist world as a matter of
party loyalty was pro-Nazi during this period, including American
Communists who did their part by agitating against US involvement in
the War. A classic example of the pro-Communist attitude during the
Hitler-Stalin Pact period was folksinger Pete Seeger’s anti war
record "Songs for John Doe" released in 1941 where he
calls President Roosevelt a warmongering fascist who worked for
J.P.Morgan.
The Jewish Anti-Fascist committee agitated for support of the
Soviet Union in its war against its erstwhile ally, Nazi Germany. As
part of this effort, committee members Michoels and Feffer spent six
months in 1943 in the US where they spearheaded a large pro Soviet
rally near New York City. They specifically cultivated support from
Jews who were already sufficiently mobilized on the side of the US
in the war against the Nazi’s. The vast majority of American Jews
rejected Communist overtures and remained loyal Americans. A small
but vociferous minority of Jews, including certain high profile
spies such as Julius Rosenberg and Harry Dexter White, would embrace
communism and cast Jews in a pro Communist light amongst post war
anti-Semites. Contrary to anti-Semitic myth however, the majority of
the American communist structure was made up of non-Jews.
After the War, the Jewish Anti Fascist committee got involved in
documenting the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews on occupied Russian
territory. This ran contrary to official communist policy, which was
to deny the Holocaust, an official Soviet policy that remained
through the dictatorship of Michael Gorbachev in the late 1980’s. In
addition, the Soviet Jews of the committee were vocal supporters of
the State of Israel, established in 1948, something that Stalin
supported briefly as well. Both of these positions would eventually
make the Jews of the committee vulnerable to charges that they had
become politically incorrect.
Political or social incorrectness is a capital offence by
left-wing communist standards. It is almost the equivalent of being
a Jew in national socialist Nazi Germany. One becomes an "enemy of
the people" and as such, by socialist definitions, he becomes a
"reactionary" to the revolution and is subject to banishment or
execution. This socialist definition of a capital crime is the exact
opposite of the American definition, which is in accord with the
Biblical definition. In America, a capital crime, punishable by
execution, is the crime of murder. Anyone convicted of murder,
regardless of political or racial background, is subject to the
possibility of execution.
The members of the Jewish Anti Fascist committee were executed
not for being Jewish, but for being politically incorrect, which by
left-wing communist standards is the ultimate crime, punishable by
execution if deemed sufficiently severe. The committee members were
high level, life long, witting, articulate participants in the
international communist conspiracy to conquer the world. They
condoned, or at least didn’t oppose the execution and forced
starvation of millions of Russian citizens who were deemed to be
standing in the way of the "progressive" march toward a
Soviet world. If they discovered their Jewishness later in life, and
there is no definitive evidence that they did, it was too little too
late.
Execution of anyone, for any reason, is terrible to contemplate
and arouses natural sympathy. Certainly, from an American
perspective, the execution of the fifteen members of the Jewish Anti
Fascist committee was a gross injustice. But from a left-wing
communist perspective they had become politically incorrect, the
ultimate socialist crime, and therefore execution was a viable
remedy. As the old adage goes, he who lives by the sword dies by the
sword. They are not to be compared to the six million Jews who died
in the Holocaust, who, rather than being Nazi’s, were killed for
being Jews. This was not a Pogrom or an inquisition against Jews,
but a purging of Communists who became politically incorrect.
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