Thread by @Aabhas24

1/n Thread
#Antisemitism of #USSR
Remember, once Nehru & his followers celebrated #USSR & followed it. Same followers are today throwing mud on #Netaji for alliance with Axis Powers.

Let's begin with 1919, when #Lenin brought rules of #Ukraine

2/n Two sources tell us that #Lenin said as below:

"#Jews and city dwellers on the Ukraine must be taken by hedgehog-skin gauntlets (ruled by iron fist) sent to fight on front lines and should never be allowed on any administrative positions."

3/n The sources for it are as below:
1)Time of Darkness - lit. "Dusk" by A. N. Yakovlev
2)The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive, Edited by Richard Pipes

Although in public speeches, #Lenin always spoke against #Antisemitism

4/n We are told that #Stalin had #Antisemitism in mind lot before #Lenin's death.

The book "Jews and Jewish Life in Russia and the Soviet Union" gives us abundant information about it (check pages 100-105).

5/n It was in June-July, 1907 that #Stalin wrote a letter wherein he clearly talks of #JewishGroup & #TrueRussianGroup

Apart from the book mentioned above, the letter can be read from here marxists.org/reference/arch… (Snippet with concerned part attached)

6/n I came across this paper sites.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/egorov.… which speaks a lot.

In private conversations, #Stalin spoke about eliminating the #Jewish influence.

Stalin's daughter expressed how Stalin's approach led to murder of Jewish Actor Solomon Mikhoels in Minsk in Jan, 1948

7/n We are told that at #Stalin's behest, Jewish writers, artists, & academics came under attack in 1949.

Everything possible was done to "expose" them, remove them, and ultimately replace them with "real" (as assumed) Russians of known loyalty to the regime.

8/n If we dwell deeper into the same paper, following is found:
By 1949, the attacks on cosmopolitans acquired a anti-Semitic character.

The practice of equating cosmopolitans with Jews was heralded by a speech delivered in late December 1948 by Anatolii Fadeev (Read snippet).

9/n The speech titled "On Several Reasons for the Lag in Soviet Dramaturgy," had occurred at a plenary session of the board of the Soviet Writers' Union.

It was followed a month later by a prominent editorial in Pravda, "On an Anti-Patriotic Group of Theater Critics."

10/n It consisted of Aleksandr Borshchagovskii, Abram Gurvich, Efim Kholodov, Yulii Yuzovskii, and a few others of Jewish origin.

In all subsequent articles & speeches the anti-patriotism of theater and literary critics was unequivocally connected with their Jewish nationality.

11/n The backdrop for this campaign was the recent murder of Solomon Mikhoels (refer 6/n) and the arrests of the prominent Jewish authors David Bergelson, Lev Kvitko, Perets Markish, and Itzik Feffer along with other members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in early 1949.

12/n The paper tells us that based on latest available evidence there is no doubt that #Stalin himself orchestrated these events.

Initially the chief target of the campaign in early 1949 was the theater world, which had been ravaged in earlier years by severe purges.

13/n The Soviet press highlighted the new "threat" posed by cosmopolitans and "anti-patriots."

Bold articles featuring long lists of the "guilty" appeared in media.

14/n They featured in the journal Oktyabr', & following:
a) Vasilii Ivanov's "The Sabotage of the Cosmopolitan Holtzman,"
b)Aleksandr Belik's "The Anti-Patriot Brovman,"
c) Pavel Izmest'ev's "We Will Destroy the Rootless Cosmopolitans Once and for All!"