- Rootless cosmopolitan
Rootless cosmopolitan (
Russian language : безродный космополит, "bezrodniy kosmopolit") was a Sovieteuphemism introduced duringJoseph Stalin 'santisemitic campaign of1949 –1953 , which culminated in the "exposure" of the allegedDoctors' plot . The term "rootless cosmopolitan" referred mostly (but not only) to Jewish intellectuals, as an accusation in their lack ofpatriotism , i.e., lack of full allegiance to the Soviet Union.Background
Towards the end of and immediately after
World War II , theJewish 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, [SeeBlack Book as an example] it became a nuisance to Soviet authorities. TheCPSU 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 figureSolomon Mikhoels , was killed by the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) on Stalin'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. [According to historianGennady Kostyrchenko , recently opened Soviet archives contain [http://www.mk.ru/numbers/1806/article60646.htm evidence that the assassination was organized by L.M. Tsanava and S. Ogoltsov] of theMVD ] This was followed by eventual arrests of JAC's members and its termination.The USSR voted for the
1947 UN Partition Plan ofPalestine and in May 1948 it recognized the establishment of theState of Israel there, subsequently supporting it with weapons (viaCzechoslovakia , in defiance of theembargo ) in the1948 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 or even volunteer for Israel's defense.In September 1948, the first Israeli ambassador to the USSR,
Golda Meir , [At the time, her last name was Myerson. She changed it to Meir in 1956.] arrived inMoscow . Huge enthusiastic crowds (estimated 50,000) gathered along her path and in and around Moscowsynagogue when she attended it forYom Kippur andRosh Hashanah .The
September 21 , 1948 edition of "Pravda " containedIlya 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 thePolitburo . [Joshua Rubenstein, "Tangled loyalties. The Life and Times of Ilya Ehrenburg"]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 thatIsrael had chosen the Western option. Domestically, Soviet Jews were being considered a security liability for their international connections, especially to theUnited States of America , and growing national awareness.With growing connections between Israel and Unites States, the latter 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 partBen Gurion declared support for theUnited States in theKorean War , despite opposition from left-wing Israeli parties. From1950 on, Israeli-Soviet relations were an inextricable part of theCold War - with ominous implications for Soviet Jews supporting Israel, or perceived as supporting it."About one antipatriotic group of theater critics"
The state-wide campaign was set out 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?"
Standard Stalinist accusations of conspiracies [SeeGreat Purge ] were accompanied by acrusade in the state-controlledmass media to exposepseudonym s.Many
Yiddish writers were arrested and eventually executed in the event known as theNight of the Murdered Poets .Yiddish theater s and newspapers were promply shut down, books by some Jewish authors (includingEduard Bagritsky ,Vasily Grossman , Mikhail Svetlov,Iosif Utkin ,Boris Pasternak and others) were seized from libraries. EvenVyacheslav 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." [Svetlana Alliluyeva , "Twenty Letters to a Friend". Letter 17 (Russian language 2000 ed. ISBN 5-8159-0065-6 p.174)] In aDecember 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." [From the diary of Vice-Chair of the
Sovmin V.A. Malyshev. See G. Kostyrchenko, "Gosudarstvennyj antisemitizm v SSSR", Moscow, 2005, pp. 461, 462]Ehrenburg, who visited the US in 1946 and whose decidedly anti-American articles echoed the Soviet
propaganda , and who was by then an internationalpeace activist and the winner of theStalin 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 majorhuman rights concern.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%. [Paul Johnson, "A History of the Jews"]
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 the 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." [Walter Laqueur : "Dying for Jerusalem: The Past, Present and Future of the Holiest City" (Sourcebooks, Inc., 2006) ISBN 1-4022-0632-1. p. 55]Notes
ee also
*
Cosmopolitanism
*History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union
*Doctors' plot
*Great Purge
*Enemy of the people
*History of anti-Semitism
*Anti-Zionist committee of the Soviet public
*Yevsektsiya
*Jewish Autonomous Oblast
*Zionology
*Prague Trials
*Population transfer in the Soviet Union External links
* [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. 66-80
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