NOTE OF THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS OF THE USSR G.M. MALENKOV 'TO THE GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE CC CPSU (B)

Stalin, Soviets and Israeli Question

NOTE OF THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS OF THE USSR G.M. MALENKOV 'TO THE GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE CC CPSU (B), CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS OF THE USSR I.V. STALIN

September 18, 1948

Comrade Stalin.

Before leaving, you gave instructions to prepare an article on Israel.

The case was somewhat delayed due to the absence of Ehrenburg in Moscow.

Ehrenburg arrived the other day. Kaganovich, Pospelov and Ilyichev and I had a conversation with him. Ehrenburg agreed to write the article and spoke out against the article being published with several signatures.

I will emit for you an article by I. Ehrenburg “Concerning one letter”.

If there are no other instructions on your part, we would like to publish this article on Tuesday, September 21, in the Pravda newspaper.

G. Malenkov

ATTACHMENT

(Extract S.M)

(…)

Representatives of the Soviet Union in the United Nations said that our people understand the feelings of Jews who survived the greatest tragedy and finally got the right to exist on their land. Wishing success to the workers of Israel, the Soviet people do not close their eyes to the trials that await all honest people of the young state. In addition to the invasion of the Anglo-Arab hordes, Israel knows another invasion, less loud, but no less dangerous - the Anglo-American capital. For the imperialists, Palestine is primarily oil. Competition between predators - Standard Oil, on the one hand, Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and Shell, on the other, interferes in the life of a fragile state. The interests of the Potash Palestine Company concern, the issue of the Kirkuk-Haifa oil pipeline, the American projects of concessions and military bases - this is what threatens Israel after the thugs of King Abdullah. The state of Israel is not headed by workers' representatives. We have all seen how the bourgeoisie of European countries, with their great traditions, with their old statehood, betrayed their national interests in the name of the dollar. Moryr whether the Soviet people expect that the bourgeois of Israel will be more conscientious and perspicacious than the bourgeoisie of France or Italy?

Unlikely. We trust the peoples, but if in Israel the people are struggling and fighting bravely, this does not mean that the people rule there.

There are many workers in the State of Israel, both urban and rural. The whole burden of the country's defense fell on them. At the same time, they have to fight against the greed of their bourgeoisie, for which the war, as well as for any bourgeoisie, is, first of all, profit. It is not for nothing that Mikunis, the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the State of Israel, recently said: "We have neither property tax, nor profit tax, our industrialists have shamelessly raised their profits."

I believe that the advanced people of Israel, her workers will find the right way in extremely difficult conditions. I am convinced, that socialism will triumph throughout the world, it will triumph in Palestine as well. But if I believe in the future of Israel, then to the second question of my correspondent, who asks whether the creation of this state is a solution to the so-called Jewish question, I must answer in the negative.

I have always thought and continue to think that the "Jewish question" can be resolved everywhere only by a general social and, consequently, spiritual process. To resolve it is not a matter of utopians, and not of diplomats, but of workers of all countries. I admired the courage of the Israeli fighters when they repulsed the attacks of the British mercenaries, but I knew that the resolution of the "Jewish question" did not depend on military successes in Palestine, but on the victory of socialism over capitalism, on the victory of the high international principles inherent in the working class over nationalism, fascism, and racism.

(…)

Yes, many Jews left their homeland and emigrated to America. But they did not emigrate because they did not love their land, but because violence and abuse deprived them of this beloved land. Did some Jews sometimes seek salvation in other countries? Is not it did the Italians, Irish, Slavs of the countries that were under the yoke of the Turks and Germans, Armenians, Russian sectarians? Jewish workers, like all others, are firmly attached to the land on which they were born and raised.

(…)

The fate of the Jewish workers of all countries is connected not with the fate of the State of Israel, but with the fate of progress, with the fate of socialism.

Soviet Jews, together with all Soviet people, are now rebuilding their socialist homeland. They are not looking to the Middle East; they are looking to the future. And I think that the working people of the State of Israel, far from the mysticism of the Zionists, who seek justice, are now looking to the north - to the Soviet Union, which is ahead of humanity towards a better future.

Ilya Ehrenburg

On the document: "Comrade Stalin agrees."

AP RF, f. 3, op. 65, d.7, l. 167-177.