USSR-ISRAEL DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS
A SHORT HISTORY
15–18 May 1948
July 6–15, 1953
Establishment of diplomatic relations
May 15–18, 1948
Severance of diplomatic relations
February 11, 1953
Re-Establishment of diplomatic relations
July 6–15, 1953
3.1: Decisions of the Plenum of the CPSU and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on Beria
For a Lasting Peace, For a People’s Democracy !
No.2 8 (244) FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1953
CONTENT
THE WAR IN PALESTINE; JUNE 1, 1948
ANSWER TO A LETTER; ILYA EHRENBURG; JUNE 1949
WHO RULES THE STATE OF ISRAEL? ; S. MIKUNIS, GENERAL SECRETARY, COMMUNIST PARTY OF ISRAEL ; SEPTEMBER 1, 1949
PROGRAMME OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF ISRAEL; JUNE 1, 1952
U.S. INTELLIGENCE AGENTS, SPIES AND ASSASSINS IN GUISE OF SCIENTISTS-PHYSICIANS; JANUARY 16, 1953
“JOINT” − BRANCH OF U.S. SECRET SERVICE; FEBRUARY 6, 1953
ZIONIST AGENCY OF U.S. IMPERIALISM; M. MITIN ; FEBRUARY 20, 1953
THE WAR IN PALESTINE
For a Lasting Peace, for a Peoples Democracy!
No 11(14) TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 1948
At midnight on May 14-15 the Jewish National Council, meeting in Tel-Aviv, announced the formation of the Jewish state of Israel. Hardly had this announcement been made than the five British-controlled Arab states: Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Iraq and the Lebanon acting on the instructions of the British Government, declared war on Israel. At 1 a.m. on May 15, when Egyptian, Syrian and Transjordan troops simultaneously crossed into Israel from the South, North and East, they thereby proved that the new slaughter had been arranged beforehand in accordance with a well prepared plan.
It is no secret that this plan was elaborated in the metropolis of Britain which had only just “withdrawn” from Palestine after 30 years of uncontrolled administration there. All the Arab forces operating against the Jews are equipped with British arms and are led by British officers who have hurriedly taken to themselves the title of “pasha”, or receive orders from these officers through their Arab leaders. In consequence of this Britain, in the eyes of world public opinion, which supports the charge as absolutely indisputable is guilty of armed aggression in Israel.
It would be wrong, however, to regard Britain as being solely responsible for the new war. The US government, which is now trying to play the role of friend and patron of the Jewish state, has pursued a policy in Palestine which, if anything, aggravated the situation in the Near East.
As is known, after long discussion of the subject the UN General Assembly agreed last November to create two independent states in Palestine—a Jewish and an Arab state. This decision, which was to put an end to the feud, was warmly welcomed by the people of Palestine and also by world public opinion.
Then, a few weeks later the US Government suddenly abandoned this UNO decision, thus returning Palestine to the atmosphere of strikes, armed clashes, fear and terror. By means of its mechanical majority in UNO the American Government rendered the Assembly decision on Palestine, null and void.
Progressive American newspapers claimed at the time that the abandoning of partition by the US Government had been dictated by the American oil concerns, particularly by the Standard Oil Company of California and the Texas Oil Company, who own the Arab-American Oil Company (Aramco), which is closely tied up with the Arab feudal chiefs.
This disgraceful and irresponsible behaviour of the American Government caused bitter indignation both in Palestine and in the United States.
Alarmed at the growing dissatisfaction with American foreign policy Truman and Marshall performed yet another somersault. With a haste that surprised every UNO delegate Truman announced US recognition of the new Jewish state. While the US representatives in UNO, using their usual pressure methods tried to steamroller through their trusteeship proposal for Palestine as a single entity, the US Government first, recognised the fact of Palestine's division and second, gave its blessing to the new Jewish state.
Even that section of the American press which as a rule approves every aspect of the Government's aggressive foreign policy, is practically unanimous in condemning the Palestine policy pursued by Truman and Marshall, calling this policy “muddled”, “irresponsible”, and “dangerous”. The newspapers, however, are careful not to give the reasons for these unprecedented diplomatic somersaults. Evidently they don't dare inform their readers that the present US government, which is wholly in the hands of the trusts and bankers and their professional military hirelings, was trying to keep on both sides of the fence; it is anxious to secure the interests of a handful of monopoly concerns, which have big investments in the Near East and at the same time they are playing for popularity at home on the eve of the Presidential election. Last November the US Government prevented a UNO decision on Palestine in the interests of the oil monopolies which hope to rake in an annual profit of 550 million dollars there. Now, conditioned by the quest for votes in the forthcoming Presidential election, the Government has announced recognition of Israel.
For a Lasting Peace, for a Peoples Democracy!
No 11(14) TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 1948
ANSWER TO A LETTER
Ilya Ehrenburg
Introduction
A number of questions have repeatedly come up over the years as to why the Soviet Union in 1947 supported the partition of Palestine. Much of the analysis of this decision has been clouded by the traditions of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism. Internationalist positions have hardly come to the fore. The views of Gromyko given on partition at the United Nations are well known. (1) Here we publish the Pravda article of Ilya Ehrenburg on this question. There is now an added significance to the views expressed here as a recent collection of documents on Soviet-Israeli relations (2) has published a letter of Malenkov to Stalin, dated 18th September 1948, where it is recorded that Stalin had given instructions for an article to be published on the question of Israel. Accordingly, Malenkov, Kaganovich, Pospelov and Il’ichev had discussed the matter with Ehrenburg who agreed to write this, suggesting that the article should not carry a number of signatures. The article was proposed to be published in Pravda on the 21st of September 1948 subject to Stalin’s concurrence. (3) The volume records that a noting on the document indicates that the article had the approval of Stalin (4) and was published on the projected date. It needs to be remembered that this article was published in particular circumstances. It is planned to publish further materials in the future on the question of Israel through which it is hoped to shed further light on the Soviet attitude to this complex question.
Vijay Singh
References
ANSWER TO A LETTER
Ilya Ehrenburg
I have received a letter from one Alexander R. in Munich. He writes:
‘It may surprise you that I am writing to you, but I have read some of your books and I turn to you as a writer to help me solve what is to me a difficult problem. I am a German Jew, a medical student, and of course, an anti-fascist. In 1938 I managed to get away to France. When the Nazis invaded France, I went into hiding, then fought for two years in the ranks of the Maquis, in the Gabriel Peri partisan detachment. I returned to Munich after the victory. I confess I was naïve – I thought that fascism had been wiped out. Now I am daily subjected to insults. When Hitler was in power, I believed it was a temporary eclipse, I regarded anti-Semitism as one of the features of the 'brown plague.' But why must I still read disgusting inscriptions on walls? Why must I listen to fellow-students telling me, 'Get out of here, go to Palestine'? Why was my friend not given a professorship, but was frankly told: 'There's no room for Jews here'? You cannot imagine how intolerable are these insults to one's dignity. I long for a most simple thing, for the right to live without a brand of shame. The Nazis made us wear a yellow patch on our breasts. Now everything is more subtle, but it is the same nevertheless. Under the protection of the Americans, the same Nazis are entrenched in all responsible positions. You probably know this, and I am not writing to complain or inform.
‘I should like to know what is the attitude taken in the Soviet Union to the state of Israel. Can we see in it a solution to: the so-called Jewish question? To me, these are not abstract reflections, but a matter of life. In your novel, The Storm, I read gruesome descriptions of the murder of Jews at Oswiecim and other places. My entire family perished at the hand of the Nazis. What is to be done to prevent a repetition of those horrors? Yesterday I heard a colleague of mine say loudly: 'The Jews ought to be finished off.’ I have never been a Zionist, but I am beginning to believe in the idea of a Jewish state. I am expecting an answer from you – for you are a writer of the country in which I believe with all my heart…’
I think the question posed by my unknown correspondent is of interest not only to him, and not even only to Jews, but to all people of intelligence and conscience. I have therefore decided to answer, not in a private letter, but in a newspaper article.
Alexander R. wants to know what is the attitude taken in the Soviet Union to the State of Israel. This question can be answered briefly: the Soviet government was the first to recognise the new state, it protested energetically against the aggressors, and when the armies of Israel fought to defend their land from the Arab Legionnaires commanded by British officers, the sympathies of our people were all for the wronged, not for the wrongdoers. This is as natural as the fact that the Soviet people sympathise with the patriots of Viet-Nam and not with the French suppressors, with the patriots of Indonesia and not with the Dutch punitive forces.
However, Alexander R.'s first question may be answered at greater length. The representatives of the Soviet Union in the United Nations have said that our people understand the feelings of the Jews who have experienced the greatest tragedy and have at last obtained the right to exist on their own land. Wishing the toilers of Israel success, Soviet people do not close their eyes to the trials in store for all honest people in the young state. In addition to the invasion of Anglo-Arab hordes, Israel is exposed to another invasion – not so conspicuous, but no less dangerous – namely, the invasion of Anglo-American capital. To the imperialists Palestine is, first and foremost, oil. The competition between marauders – Standard Oil on the one hand and the Anglo-Iranian Petroleum Company and Shell on the other – intrudes in the life of the still frail state. Israel is threatened not only by King Abdullah's cutthroats, but by the interests of the Palestine Potash Company, the question of the Kirkuk-Haifa pipeline, American designs for concessions and military bases. The state of Israel is not headed by representatives of the working people. We have all seen how the bourgeoisie of European countries, with their longer traditions and older states, have sold out the national interests for the sake of dollars. Is there any reason why Soviet people should expect the bourgeoisie of Israel to have more scruples or display greater foresight than the bourgeoisie of France or Italy? Hardly. We trust the peoples. But the fact that the people in Israel are fighting, and that they are fighting bravely, does not mean that the people there are in power.
There are many workers, urban and rural, in the state of Israel. It is they who are bearing the brunt of the country's defence. Recently, the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Israel, Mikunis, stated: ‘We have no property tax, nor a tax on profits; it is a disgrace the way our manufacturers are piling up profits.’ The workers thus have to fight not only against the invaders, but also against the greed of their own bourgeoisie to whom war is, just as to any other bourgeoisie, primarily a lucrative business.
I believe that the progressive men and women of Israel, its toilers, will find the right road amidst their extremely trying conditions. I am sure that socialism will triumph throughout the world, and it will triumph in Palestine too. But though I believe in the future of Israel, I must reply in the negative to my correspondent's second question-namely, whether the creation of that state provides a solution for the so-called ‘Jewish question.’
I have always thought, and still think, that the ‘Jewish question’ can be solved everywhere only by general social and, hence, also intellectual progress. It can be solved, not by utopians, nor by diplomats, but by the workers of all countries. I admire the bravery of the soldiers of Israel in repelling the attacks of the British hirelings, but I know that the solution of the ‘Jewish question’ does not depend on military successes in Palestine but on the victory of socialism over capitalism, on the triumph of the lofty international principles inherent in the working class over nationalism, fascism and racism.
Obscurantists have since long ago invented fables designed to represent the Jews as some peculiar creatures different from the people around them. Obscurantists have maintained that the Jews live a separate life of their own, that they do not share the joys and sorrows of the peoples among whom they live; obscurantists have asserted that Jews have no sense of country, that they are eternal wanderers; obscurantists have affirmed that the Jews of various countries are a unit, held together by some mysterious ties. All these inventions found their extreme expression in Hitler's foul book, Mein Kampf, and were repeated by the SS-men who buried old Jews alive and flung Jewish infants down steep banks and into furnaces.
Yes, the Jews kept to themselves and lived their own separate life when they were compelled to do so. The ghetto was not invented by Jewish mystics, but by Catholic fanatics. In those times, when the eyes of people were blinded by the mist of religion, there were fanatics among the Jews just as there were fanatics among Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox Christians and Moslems. But as soon as the gates of the ghetto opened, as soon as the mist of the night of the Middle Ages began to lift, the Jews of various countries joined the general life of the nations.
Yes, many Jews left their native lands and emigrated to America. But they emigrated not because they did not love their native land, but because violence and insults deprived them of that beloved land. And were the Jews alone in seeking salvation in other countries? That was also what Italians did, what Irishmen did, what Slavs from the countries oppressed by Turks and Germans did, what Armenians and Russian non-conformists did. Jewish toilers, like all others, are strongly attached to the land where they were born and where they grew up.
Jews live in different countries. Many of them live in lands in which their ancestors lived since time immemorial. The first Jewish memorials in Tunis, Georgia, Italy date back to ancient times. Obscurantists say that there exists some mystical bond between all the Jews of the world. However, there is very little in common between a Tunisian Jew and a Jew living in Chicago, who speaks American and thinks American. If there is a bond between them, it is anything but mystical; it is a bond created by anti-Semitism. If tomorrow a maniac appeared who proclaimed that all red-headed or snub-nosed people must be hounded and wiped out, we should see a natural solidarity of all red-headed or all snub-nosed people. The appalling atrocities of the German fascists, their proclaimed policy of wholesale extermination of Jews, a policy which they put into effect in many countries, racial propaganda insults followed by the furnaces of Maidenek – all that gave rise to a sense of a deep bond among the Jews of various countries. It was the solidarity of offended and indignant people.
The splendid Polish poet Julian Tuwim wrote an article during the war entitled: ‘We Polish Jews.’ He wrote of his patriotism: ‘I am a Pole, because I was told this in Polish in my father's home; a Pole because I was fed on the Polish language from infancy, because my mother taught me Polish verse and Polish songs, because, when I was young, when I was shaken by the first tremor of poetry, it burst forth in Polish words. I am a Pole, because it was in Polish that I confessed the anxieties of my first love, and in Polish that I murmured of its happiness. I am a Pole also because I am fonder of the birch and the willow than of the palm and the cypress, and Mickiowicz and Chopin mean more to me than Shakespeare and Beethoven – for reasons which I cannot explain. I am .a Pole because I was born and grew up in Poland, because I was happy and unhappy in Poland, because it is to Poland that I want to return from my exile, even if I were assured heavenly bliss elsewhere. I am a Pole because: I want Polish soil, and none other, to swallow me up when I am dead.’ Julian Tuwim then went on to explain what bound him to the Jews: ‘Blood exists in two forms: the blood that flows in the veins and the blood that flows out of the veins. The study of the first belongs to the realm of physiology. Those who, beside physiological characteristics, attribute to blood some other properties, some' mysterious force, those, as we now see, reduce cities to ashes, massacre people, and, as we shall soon see, lead their own nation to ruin. The other blood is the one which the ringleader of international fascism is extracting from the veins of humanity in order to prove the triumph of his blood over my blood. It is the blood of millions innocently slain, the blood of Jews, and not ‘Jewish blood.’ Why do I say, ‘We Jews’? Because of blood.’
Of course, there are nationalists and mystics among the Jews. They produce the programme of Zionism. But it is not they who have settled Palestine with Jews. Jews went to Palestine: because: of the ideologists of misanthropy, the votaries of racism, the anti-Semites who drove people from their homes and made them migrate to distant lands in search – not of happiness so much as of the right to their human dignity. We all remember the epic of the Exodus,’ the ship which carried to Palestine refuges from Western Germany – people who by chance had escaped the furnaces of Oswiecim and Maidenek and then found themselves fired on by British soldiers. The state of Israel is something like that ship – an ark, a raft, holding people overtaken by the bloody flood of racism and fascism.
Why is my correspondent, Alexander R., ready to see salvation in Israel? Because the men who robbed him of hiscountry are still holding sway in Bavaria, because the German racists enjoy the protection of racists from New Jersey and Alabama; because to a Bavarian Jew Hitlerism is not just a terrible memory; but something that is still alive, protected and cultivated. Perhaps there remains nothing for Alexander R. under those circumstances, but to circumvent the barriers put up by various ‘observers’ and make his way into Israel. But, while this may resolve Alexander R.'s personal drama, it cannot resolve the drama of' Jews in the various countries where money, falsehood and prejudice dominate.
Eli Migniot, Communist Deputy of the French Parliament, writes in reply to the Zionist newspaper Gazette of Israel: ‘It can only occur to reactionary Zionist circles that the State of Israel will attract the Jews of the entire world. French Jews are French citizens, they are fused with the French nation, having fought together and toiled together. To them, as to all Frenchmen, the future is in the victory over the survivals of fascism, over treason, injustice and exploitation.’
The United States of America has the largest Jewish population. When I was there I saw how the transatlantic racists outrage the sense of dignity of the Negroes, Chinese, Italians. It is obvious that the growing racism in the United States is a menace to the American Jews, and it is also obvious that the salvation of the American Jews lies not in the state of Israel, which could not accommodate even a small part of them, but in victory of progressive America over the America of the racists.
The Zionists say that the tragedy which overtook the European Jews in recent years was due, to the fact that the Jews lived scattered among other nationalities. Let us go back to the autumn of 1942. Hider's hordes had then broken into Egypt and were not far from Palestine. Even if there had existed an independent Jewish state then, it could not have stopped Rommel's armoured divisions. What was it that saved the Jews of Palestine at that time? Stalingrad, the defeat inflicted on the fascists by Soviet people; for, instead of pushing on towards Jerusalem, Hitler had to turn his attention to the problem of defence.
In the fateful duel, the Soviet people smote down the enemy of all peoples – bloody German fascism. The Soviet people thereby saved Europe, and they also saved the lives of millions of Jews. I was recently in Wroclaw. Jewish settlers there invited participants in the World Intellectual Congress to visit them. There were among us Polish scientists, Negro writers, Brazilians, Czechs. A little girl, a member of the Young Pioneers, addressed these words to the Soviet delegate: ‘Tell the 'Soviet people that we, Jewish children of Wroclaw, bring flowers to your countrymen sleeping in the common grave. Tell the Soviet people that we know who saved us from death.’
Yes, there is only one solution for the ‘Jewish question’ – the victory of the progressive forces of mankind. Suppose for a moment that the most terrible thing happens – that world reaction triumphs. In that case it is quite certain that the state of Israel would become a new Oswiecim or Maidanek.
Before the war fascism was .in the ascendant in various countries of Eastern Europe and Southeastern Europe. The Jews in those countries were persecuted – we need but recall the ‘Iron Guard’ or the pogroms in pre-war Poland. Then came the Nazis. They encouraged the marauders among the dregs of society and organized the wholesale murder of Jews. But under the pressure of the peoples, aided by the Soviet Army, the fascist rulers fell. The gentlemen who expected to revive the pre-war practices, the various semi-liberals and semi-pogromists, fled across the ocean. The toilers took power into their own hands. And I have seen with what zeal and patriotism the Jews in the people’s democracies are rebuilding wrecked towns, working, studying, writing books, planting trees. In Poland, where before the war the Pilsudskyites harried Jews, there is now hardly a city, I think, without a street named in honour of the ‘Heroes of the Ghetto’; for the heroic fight of the Warsaw Jews has become a matter of pride to the entire Polish people. When the fascist scum tried to engineer a pogrom in Kielce a few years ago, the people's government punished them as enemies of Poland. The Bulgarian people succeeded in preventing large numbers of Bulgarian Jews from being sent off to ‘death camps.’ After the 9th of September, the people's courts condemned the Bulgarian fascists whose hands were stained with Jewish blood. Today the Bulgarian Jews, among whom there are many former partisans, are working together with the entire Bulgarian people to build up their new democratic state. Their future is not overseas, but on the building sites of Sofia, in Plovdiv and Rusa.
In tsarist Russia, the government in order to divert the anger of the people from themselves, blamed the Jews for the country’s poverty, for the strife and misgovernment. The ‘Black Hundreds’ organised bloody pogroms. Government dignitaries invented ever new restrictions. But the Russian nation was no party to these outrages. Maxim Gorki, in his article ‘On anti-Semitism,’ rightly noted that the' common people of Russia had not been affected by the frightful contagion of anti-Semitism. The finest representatives of the Russian intelligentsia always raised their voices against anti-Semitism: we need but recall Leo Tolstoy's ‘I Cannot Keep Silence!’, Saltykov-Shchedrin's sarcasm, Pirogev's noble speech and Korolenko's hearty words. Maxim Gorki fought against anti-Semitism passionately and implacably. He called it ‘a disgusting abomination.’ The first bill providing for equal rights for Jews was introduced in the State Duma by the representatives of the working class of Russia.
The tsarist government artificially kept Jewish toilers separated from their Russian comrades. But labour, struggle, and the blood of strikers and demonstrators proved stronger than all prohibitions and all prejudices. Progressive Jewish intellectuals shared the life of all Russia, took part in the revolutionary movement, contributed to the country's cultural progress. Even in those bitter times the land of their birth was their country: they loved their native towns, verdant Byelorussia, the high waters of the Dnieper, our entire great and magnificent country.
The founder of our state, V. I. Lenin, castigated anti-Semitism in wrathful articles and speeches as a shameful thing. The October Revolution brought freedom and equality to all citizens of what is now the Soviet Union, the Jews included. Some of them regard Russian as their mother tongue, others Ukrainian, still others Jewish, but they all regard the Soviet Union as their country and are proud of being citizens of the land in which there is no longer any exploitation of man by man. In 1931, when the dreadful cloud began to form over Europe, two years before Hitler's accession to power, J. V. Stalin, foreseeing the crimes of the cannibals, said:
‘National and racial chauvinism is a survival of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-Semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous survival of cannibalism.’
When cannibalism set out to devour Europe, the Soviet people, led by Stalin, crushed the cannibals. Soviet Jews, along with the people of all other nationalities, self-sacrificingly defended the lofty ideals of our society, defended their native land. Girls, youths, old men escaped from the ghettoes of Vilna and Minsk to join partisan detachments. The native land has become still dearer to every Soviet Jews: he remembers the death of the innocent victims of fascism; he remembers the severe battles and the fallen heroes; he is bound toall Soviet people by the ties of friendship in battle, and dear graves bind him to every inch of Soviet soil.
Let my correspondent, Alexander R. ponder over the events of the past decade, and he will realise that there is only one way to solve the ‘Jewish question:’ It is to abolish the ‘Jewish question.’
We sympathise with the struggle of the toilers of Israel, they have the sympathies, not only of the Soviet Jews, but of all Soviet people – there are no admirers of Glubb-Pasha in our country. But every Soviet citizen is aware that a state is judged not only by its national character, but by its social system as well. A citizen of socialist society regards the people of any bourgeois country, and that means also the people of the State of Israel, as wanderers in a dark forest who have not yet found their way out. A citizen of socialist society can never envy the fate of people who carry the yoke of capitalist exploitation.
The future of the Jewish toilers of all countries is bound up with the future of progress, with the future of socialism. Soviet Jews, along with all Soviet people, are working to build up their socialist homeland. They are not looking to the Near East; they are looking towards the future. And I believe that the working people of the State of Israel, who do not share the mysticism of the Zionists, are now looking northward, to the Soviet Union, which is marching in the van of mankind towards a better future.
Jewish Life (New York, NY) June 1949
Transcribed by George Gruenthal
WHO RULES THE STATE OF ISRAEL?
S. Mikunis, General Secretary, Communist Party of Israel
For a Lasting Peace, For a People’s Democracy !
NO. 17(44), THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1949
The State of Israel came in to being in the struggle against Anglo-American imperialism and its satellites in the Middle East. The success of this struggle became possible because of the change in the balance of forces between Socialism and imperialism after World War Two, and because the people of Israel received steady, all-round assistance from the camp of peace and democracy led by the Soviet Union.
The people of our country, especially the working class, suffered the sacrifices and hardships of war so that Israel could become a really free, independent and democratic state. But the aim of Israel’s big bourgeoisie and its mercenaries in the working class movement—the leadership of the “Mapai” Right reformist party—was quite different. The Provisional Government soon established direct contact with the British Government. It also lent a friendly ear to the American “mediators” who claimed they were carrying out the decisions of the United Nations Organisation. It obediently followed the instructions of these American “advisers” whose chief object was to gain positions from which they would be able to interfere in the country’s home affairs. In return, Washington was lavish in its declarations about its “friendly feelings” for Israel, about the forthcoming 100 million dollar loan, de jure recognition of Israel etc.
Under the smoke screen of “neutrality” and “orientation on U.N.O.” the Government of Israel harnessed itself ever more firmly to the chariot of American imperialism. Far from affecting the economic positions of British and American monopoly capital, the Government is opening up the country to the Anglo-American capitalists who are unrestrainedly plundering the people.
In the course of the past year “The Palestine Electric Corporation” (a British concession) has, with the Government’s consent, increased electricity prices by 40 to 70 per cent, in spite of its shareholders’ steadily growing dividends.
The mineral resources of the Dead Sea, which could become a world source of cheap chemical fertilizer, are being frozen by “The Palestine Potash Company” to keep an “equilibrium and safeguard high prices on the World market. During the past year the big Haifa plants of “Consolidated Refineries Ltd” which are controlled by the American and British firms, “General Electric” “Vacuum Oil!”, “Iraq Petroleum” and “Shell” have been sabotaging the production of oil benzene, petroleum, and pitch. This industry is used by the imperialists as one way of bringing political pressure to bear on Israel. The British “Steel Brothers” importing company is selling grain, flour and other products at speculative prices. The “Noor” match, monopoly is getting 13 milims (or a box of matches which sells in the world market for 3 milims. The “Pulbrick” monopoly company importing raw materials for the textile mills gets, with Government approval, £130 for each package worth £45. There are many other such examples.
The majority of the banks which influence the whole economy of the country are in the hands of British. The interest received by the Mortgage Bank in our country is three times more than that in Britain and America. The policy of these banks is to sabotage industrial development and create difficulties for agriculture and construction work. The Government of Israel is not even the master of its own currency which issued by “The Anglo-Palestine Bank”.
American capital investments soared from 39 million dollars in 1937 to 150 million dollars in 1947. Since then they have been going up steadily, particularly in the last year. The rate of American penetration in the Middle East can be illustrated by imports: in 1938 they were 2,900,000 tons, and 16,200,000 tons in 1947. It should be noted that whereas in 1938 only 21 per cent of this tonnage was carried by American ships, in 1947 this figure went up to 66.
The 100 million dollar American loan to Israel is a classic example of the Marshall Plan in operation. It gives plenty of opportunity for political interference in the country’s home affairs. The conditions on which the loan was granted make it possible for the American Government to dictate to Israel. The gates of Israel have been opened wide to delegations from American banks, for “experts”, “advisers” and “tourists” who became particularly “fond” of Israel after Mr. Kaplan, Minister of Finance, had declared that foreign capitalists would be able to get dividends in the currency of their countries, that they would be released from taxes for two years and would enjoy all kinds of other privileges.
The internal policy of the Government is extremely anti-democratic and is contrary to the vital interests of the working people. Along with a regime of “extraordinary laws” political censorship and racial discrimination against the Arab minority, the British mandate has also, left the legacy of the tax system. Nearly 70 per cent of the State budget is made up of indirect taxes which are borne by the people. The income tax and profits tax comprise only 20 per cent of the budget.
Credits for industry, agriculture and construction work are reduced; deposits and savings in the banks totalling tens of millions of pounds are not used for economic purposes; foreign trade is conducted almost exclusively with the Anglo-Saxon countries (only 6 per cent of trade is with the People’s Democracies)—these are the characteristics of the economic course of the present Government of Israel.
In 1948, our exports comprised only 13 per cent of imports!
Two years ago they were at least 33 per cent of imports. Agricultural debts reach 50 to 60 per cent of the value of all the property of the peasants. In 1948, the number of workers in industry dropped by 25 per cent compared with 1947. At the same time the profits of the capitalists are so high that many of them have increased their capital as much as five, seven and ten times in the past few years. According to official statements by the Minister of Trade and Industry, importers are making from 70 to 240 per cent on consumer goods. Many thousands of workers including 85 per cent of all the Arab workers, demobilised soldiers and invalids are out work and homeless. Tens of thousands of immigrants have to wait for months in camps, under terrible conditions. Capitalist anarchy has reached its climax in Israel. This situation is intensifying the people’s struggle for bread and homes. Strikes, demonstration and hunger-marches are becoming more frequent. Last March there were nine big strikes in industry. At five factories the workers put forward an ultimatum demanding higher wages.
The Government of Israel replies to the crisis, high prices, strikes and demonstrations with police measures and the introduction of a regime of “moderation”, suggesting that the working people should eat less.
The Communist Party of Israel is showing the way out of the present difficult situation to the working class and the mass of the people. We call upon them to fight against the country’s domination by foreign monopolist-exploiters and enslavers, for the development of the national economy and for economic relations with the Soviet Union and the People’s Democracies. The Communist Party is fighting against high prices and speculation for better living standards for the working people and for the organisation of public works and relief for unemployed and homeless workers, demobilised soldiers, invalids and immigrants.
We are continuing our struggle, to form a united front. We have purified the ranks of our Party of the enemies of the people and of the working class, of the so-called “Jewish Communists” who have turned to chauvinism and who have degenerated into ordinary gangsters.
True to the teachings of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, and learning from the great Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), the Communist Party of Israel will do everything to ensure that the working class and the mass of the people of Israel, who have defeated the imperialist forces on the battlefield, will also be victorious in the struggle for our State’s independence and sovereignty, for a really democratic system, for peace and friendship between the peoples.
For a Lasting Peace, For a People’s Democracy !
NO. 17(44), THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1949
Programme of the Communist Party of Israel
PEOPLES’ DEMOCRATIC ISRAEL – FOR A GOVERNMENT OF PEACE AND NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE – FOR A GOVERNMENT OF THE WORKING PEOPLE
(Adopted by the XIIth Congress of the Communist Party of Israel, June 1, 1952)
The Communist Party of Israel presents this programme to the masses of the people as the only realistic topical alternative to the bourgeois-Mapai government and to the reactionary political regime in Israel. The way to defeating the present government or any other similar combination of reactionary pro-American forces, is the way of establishing a broad anti-Imperialist People's front of workers, working peasantry, working intelligentsia, artisans, the middle classes, and part of the industrial bourgeoisie, – a front in which the leading force will be the working class and its Communist Party; a front which will establish a People's democratic government and the rule of People's Democracy, which will faithfully realize the proposed programme, which is in the best interest of the absolute majority of the people. The masses of the people in Israel will be able to realize the proposed programme, if they close their ranks and start a systematic, unfading struggle against the foreign and local enemies of the people and the State, while leaning upon, the friendship of the mighty camp of peace, democracy and Socialism headed by the Soviet-Union, and cooperating in the struggle of the international workers movement and of the anti-imperialist national liberation movements. The Communist Party of Israel, guided by the victorious teachings of Marx-Engels- Lenin-Stalin thus shows the way out of the present impasse, the road to an independent, democratic and peace loving Israel.
THE XIIth CONGRESS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF ISRAEL
The XIIth Congress of the Communist Party of Israel was opened in Tel Aviv on May 29th, 1952, and lasted three days – until June 1st.
In the centre of the work of the Congress stood the proposed programme for peace, national independence and democracy, aiming at the achievement of a People’s Democratic Israel, the establishment of a government of peace and national independence, in the place of the present rule of the United States imperialism through its local capitalist and “socialist” lackeys, – the Ben Gurion Government.
The way for the realization of these aims is the struggle for the creation of a broad democratic, anti-imperialist People’s front, led by the working class and its party, the Communist Party of Israel. The programme clearly and convincingly shows the way to peace, freedom and prosperity as the sole alternative to the Ben-Gurion Government of hunger and war.
Cde. Meir Vilner, Secretary of the Central Committee, opened the first session of the Congress, held in the “Beth Haam” Hall, Tel-Aviv. The hall was decorated with huge portraits of Lenin and Stalin and slogans calling for a People’s Democratic Israel, for friendship with the Soviet Union, for intensification of the struggle for peace and friendship among the peoples of the Middle East. A banner bearing the inscription “Long live Comrade Stalin, leader of the toilers of all countries!” and the symbol of the XIIth Congress crowned by the hammer and sickle. The table of the presidium was immersed in a sea of flowers and flags. The session was attended by 232 delegates from all parts of the country, Jews and Arabs, and by more than 5000 guests.
After the solemn opening ceremony, when dozens of Y.C.L.-ers carrying flags were called in by the call of drums and trumpets, and after singing the International, the presidium of the Congress was elected, composed of the outgoing Central Committee and Central Control Commission, district secretaries, secretaries of distinguished party branches, the Secretariat of the Y.C.L. and comrades who had distinguished themselves in the fight for peace, in trade unionactivity, and in work among the Israeli soldiers.
The Congress was attended by fraternal delegate, the General Secretary of the Working Peoples’ Progressive Party of Cyprus (AKEL), Cde. Papaioannou, who also represented the Communist Party of Greece, as well as representatives of the Israel National Peace Committee, the League of Friendship with the Soviet Union, the Arab Workers’ Congress, MAPAM, and many progressive personalities from the fields of science, literature and art.
Correspondents of local and international press were on the spot in full strength. In his opening address Cde. Vilner declared:
“The people of Israel will not follow the path of the American murderers of Koje Island. We solemnly declare before the bourgeois-Mapai agents of the warmongers, that their attempt to use our people for the ends of Wall Street will prove futile. The camp of peace is stronger than the camp of the warmongers, and we shall remember the words of Cde. Stalin that it is possible to prevent World War III.” Concluding, Cde. Vilner demanded the release of Jacques Duclos arrested on orders of the Germ-General, and the release of Cde. Fouad Nassar, leader of the Transjordan people and its Communist Party. Cde. Vilner declared that our party draws its strength from the teachings of Lenin-Stalin, from its internationalism and its faithfulness towards Soviet Union. – Cde. Vilner’s cheers for the great Stalin were received by the delegates with thunderous applause and prolonged ovations.
Cde. Esther Vilenska took over the presidency of the Congress and her proposal to elect to the honorary presidium the Politbureau of the C.P.S.U. (B) with Cde. Stalin at its head and the leaders of other fraternal Communist and Workers’ Parties was accepted unanimously by all delegates and accompanied by stormy applause in honour of Cde. Stalin.
The General Secretary of the Party, Cde Samuel Mikunis then read in Russian and Hebrew the cable of greetings received from the C.P.S.U. (B). The cable was translated into Arabic. The cable read:
“The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Israel. The XIIth Congress of the Communist Party of Israel. We send you fraternal greetings and wishes for the success of the work of the 12th Congress of the Communist Party of Israel.
(Signed) Central Committee of
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.”
This message was received by delegates and guests standing up with impassioned stormy cheers for Cde. Stalin, calling “Stalin, Stalin, Stalin…”
Messages of greetings arrived and were read from fraternal Communist and Workers’ Parties: from China, Korea, Hungary, Rumania, GDR, Bulgaria, Poland, Albania, France, Italy, Belgium, Japan, Norway, Vietnam, New Zealand, Canada, India, Britain, Western Germany, USA, Algeria, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, Holland, Morocco, Denmark and Transjordan, Trieste.
The Congress enthusiastically decided upon a special message of thanks and esteem to Cde. Stalin which was sent by cable. Another message of greetings was sent by the Congress to Cde. Mao Tse Tung.
Cde. Papaioannou, Secretary General of the AKEL-Party of Cyprus addressed the opening session of the Congress, conveying the greetings of the heroic fraternal C.P. of the Greece and the greetings of his own party. With wrath and bitter indignation he described the evil deeds of sanguinary terror of the Greek monarco-fascist butchers and their American masters, the criminal murder of Cde. Beloyanis, beloved leader of the Greek people; he told the delegates with pride about the heroic resistance and struggle of the Greek people, led by its Communist Party. Summing up Cde Papaioannou declared that the peoples of the Middle East unitedly are strong enough to nullify the criminal imperialist schemes.
All during the opening session, delegations from workers’ committees came in to greet the Congress. As representative of a workers delegation from the surroundings of Tel Aviv, Cde Nehemias, member of the Secretariat of the Workers Committee of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Port, addressed the delegates. Delegations of young Pioneers entered the stage to present flowers to the presidium and to beloved Comrade Mikunis, General Secretary of our Party.
In the second public session, on Friday, May 30th, further message of greetings, this time mainly from workers’ committees and workshops, from progressive organisations and from villagers were read, among them greetings from workers of Haifa Port, of the Oil Refineries, the railwaymen, from groups of soldiers in different parts of the country, from factory workers from Nazareth, Jerusalem, Rehovot, Ramle, well as from Arab villages, Cde. Ozi Burstein, Secretary of the Y.C.L. of Israel brought the greetings of the Young Communist League, the young guard of the party, to its guide, the C.P. of Israel and its Secretary General Cde Mikunis. He declared that the Y.C.L. which has crowned its activities for peace by collecting more than 100,000 signatures for a 5 power peace pact, which has carried out various militant actions in defence of peace and the interests of working youth, will intensify its efforts in studying Marxism-Leninism and in applying the Party line in its work among the masses of Jewish and Arab youth in Israel.
Cde. S. Mikunis, delivered the political report of the Central Committee. The report was repeatedly interrupted by prolonged cheers for Cde Mikunis.
In his report, Cde S. Mikunis pointed out that in the world-wide struggle between the two camps – the anti-imperialist camp of peace, headed by the great Soviet Union, and the imperialist camp of war, led by the USA, – the rulers of Israel joined with the warmongers and the germ war gangsters and thus betrayed the cause of peace and the people of Israel, sacrificed the sovereignty of the state for the benefit of Wallstreet magnates and endangered the security of the country.
Stressing the might, the historical achievements and the solidarity of the Soviet Union and the Peoples’ Democracies striving for peace and concerned with construction and providing a happy life for the peoples, as compared with the ever growing weakness, ever deepening crisis and impoverishment of the masses of the people in the capitalist countries, Cde Mikunis said that the broad working masses of Israel esteem the mighty camp of peace, they despise and oppose the bloodthirsty forces of war and their Israel agents. Cde Mikunis described the political and economic enslavement of the country by American imperialism and underlined the struggle for national independent as the immediate task, being our best contribution for the fight for peace. He delivered a grave bill of indictment against the Ben Gurion Government and its American masters, proving that Israel’s rulers, the big bourgeoisie and the Mapai leadership, active agents of American imperialism, bear full responsibility for turning Israel into an American base, for the loss of independence, the curtailment of democratic rights, the brutal discrimination of the Arab minority and for the economic disaster effecting the broad masses of the people.
“We come to present the people a grave bill of indictment against the Ben Gurion Government and its American masters and to prove that the ruling circles of our states – the big Israeli bourgeoisie and the MAPAI-leadership are fully responsible for the situation prevailing in Israel. The terrible shortage and economic backwardness, the attacks o the liberties of the people, the abandoning of the immigrants and the intensification of the national oppression of the Arab minority, the loss of national independence and the entangling of our homeland in the net of the aggressive aims of the American-British warmongers – all this is the direct outcome of the complete servitude of the Ben-Gurion Government to the dictate of the U.S. rulers. James MacDonald in the past, Monte Davies and MacDaniel at present fill the “vacuum” created by the expulsion of MacMichael, the last British High Commissioner”, – stated Cde Mikunis, while analysing the political side of Israel’s enslavement to American imperialism. Citing many times the enemy himself, the book written by MacDonald then USA Ambassador, and statements of the American press as well as organs of the MAPAI-government, Cde Mikunis provided the enslavement-character of ‘agreements” for so-called “aid” from USA. “We call upon all those faithful to peace and national independence, irrespective of political views and affiliation, to join together in order to fight more forcefully against the American domination, against the enslavement of our country to the plans of war and the abyss of Washington”
Cde Mikunis analysed the anti-national Israeli Budget of war preparation, being expended in the main on army and police, in accordance with the aggressive plans of the American-British warmongers. “We proved in parliament – he said – that this budget is not aimed at the defence of the homeland, it is aimed at alien schemes, criminal designs for a war against the USSR.” Here Cde Mikunis refuted the “argumentation” of the ruling quarters, who “explain” these war preparations by phrases about “security” and defence” against a “second round” in the war between Israel and the Arab States), while the very Ben-Gurion Government and the leaders of the American Zionist Organisation, continuously demand simultaneous “military aid from the U.S. for Israel and the Arab states”.
In the economic field Cde Mikunis stated, after reading a list of the profits made by foreign firms and the Israelian ones connected with foreign capital: “The Ben-Gurion Government declares again and again that Israel is a “state of the toiling people”, but in fact is is a paradise for the capitalists and a hell for the toilers!”
Concerning the discrimination and oppression of the Arab national minority, especially of the Arab villagers, Cde Mikunis declared: “This policy not only hits hard at the Arab peasant, it also hits and damages the economy of our country as a whole and the supply of the people with foodstuffs. This is a reactionary policy serving the interests of the monopolistic marketing companies and the feudalists.”
Cde Mikunis analysed the wide struggle developing against this policy of betrayal and pointed out that under the leadership of the Communist Party this struggle is steadily growing in strength.
Cde Mikunis said : “First and foremost the Communists have to mobilise every possible force in our country and to make it work for the peace movement. They are completely aware that by this they help to change the balance of power in Israel and throughout the world in favour of the World Peace Camp. The starting point of all our battles fought is the defence of peace!”
Stressing the responsibility of the Party in developing the mass struggle for peace and against imperialism, Cde Mikunis criticised the work of the Party and stressed the need to strengthen its mass activity. Criticising the insufficient work that was done in the field of political education, Cde Mikunis underlined that this is a most important task, imperative for strengthening the Party as leader of the masses and for raising new Party cadres. Then Cde Mikunis laid before the Congress the detailed programme for saving the people and the country from complete ruin and for attaining national independence, by organizing the mass struggle of and uniting the workers, farmers, the working intelligentsia, the petty bourgeoisie and part of the bourgeoisie under hegemony of the working class and its Party, the Communist Party of Israel. This struggle will lead to the liquidation of American domination and of the rule of foreign monopoly capital and local big bourgeoisie connected with it, to the break of the war policy, and the establishment of a People’s Democracy in Israel. He called for intensifying the struggle of the people against the war-treaty concluded by the rulers of USA, Britain and France with the neo-Nazi rulers of Western Germany. To support the policy of peace of the Soviet Union, demanding the creation of a united democratic and peace loving Germany, to struggle for a peace pact of the 5 big powers, to lead a consistent day-to-day struggle for peace and bread, against the inclusion of Israel in an aggressive anti-Soviet block – this is the road of salvation for our people.
Cde Mikunis designed the road to peace in the Middle East and Friendship between Jews and Arabs: through consistently supporting the Anti-imperialist national liberation movements of the Arab peoples in the neighbouring countries, by defending the right of the Arab Palestinian people for self-determination, leading to the establishment of the independent Arab State in Palestine, by opposing territorial annexations and by defending the right of the Arab refugees to return to their homeland.
The report calls for the unity of the working class as a nucleus of the peoples’ anti-imperialist front and for a united front between the Communist Party of Israel and Mapam. At the same time it unmasks in a striking way the treacherous role of the right social democratic leaders of Mapai agents of imperialism. The report laid bare the opportunist policy of the Mapam leadership and unmasked its right-wing, pursuing an anti-Communist and splitting policy.
Here Cde Mikunis stated : “The utterances of the MAPAM-leaders during the discussion in parliament on a specified status for the Zionist World Organisation to the effect that the Zionist Organization is the vanguard of the Jewish people, cannot be regarded but as a tragic-comic attempt to provide the reactionary political organisation of the big bourgeoisie with a “proletarian” theoretical justification. But the leaders of MAPAM chatting about Marxism ought to know that the vanguard of the Jewish people is the revolutionary proletariat and not the rich men from Wallstreet in New York and their rotten servants in the MAPAI-leadership!” and continued: “The rule of the MAPAI leadership and the bourgeoisie, irrespective of the actual government composition, is a rule adversary to the people! The present regime is not only incapable of creating anything for the good of the people, but it destroys and will continue to destroy anything good and useful, that has been created by the efforts and the sacrifices of the popular masses with the working class at its head!” – “To inflict defeat on this government is the patriotic duty of the working class and its allies!”
Summing up, Cde Mikunis particularly stressed that the ever growing influence and success of the work of the Party is the result of its orientation on the victorious theory of Marxism-Leninism, its being guided by the rich historic experience of the CPSU(B), its faithfulness to proletarian internationalism, taking into account the concrete conditions and the relation of forces in Israel and in the Middle East.
The programme was enthusiastically acclaimed and unanimously accepted by all delegates. An English translation of the new Party Programme will be sent to you very soon.
Cde Tawfiq Toubi, secretary of the Central Committee, delivered the organizational report of the Central Committee, showing the successes in the period since the XIth Party Congress (Oct. 49) in the fields of better Party organisation, increased distribution of the Party press and increased fund drives, the publication of the History of the CPSU(B), Short Course, in Hebrew and of 5 chapters in Arabic, the appearance, in both languages, of the first number of the theoretical organ of the party, “Haderekh”, and the general growth of the party and its increased influence on the working people.
Cde Toubi said: “The Communist Party being the vanguard of the working class and the masses of the people, headed the struggle against oppressive imperialism and its servants for the defence of the daily interests of the masses, their national rights and for the defence of power. This vanguard was always exposed to the attacks of reaction and imperialism, viz: throwing out of work, trials and arrests, under the cover of the so-called defence regulations and military rule; expulsion from cooperative villages and Kibbutzim (agricultural collective settlements); the libel-case of Ben-Gurion against Kol-Haam (the Party’s daily), the sending of spies and diversants into the ranks of our party; provocative police actions and open attacks on Party members and sympathizers, repeated threats of the Prime Minister and the imperialist agents.
In spite of the continuous attacks against the Communist Party, it has advanced from battle to battle. Brave, unafraid of the police rods and prison bars of Ben Gurion-Sheetreet, the members of our Party led by the Central Committee, march on their path, defending the rights of toiling masses for bread and work and leading the struggle of the new immigrants for dwellings and work; they keep high the banner of the friendship of the peoples and fight against racial discrimination and national oppression; they defend stubbornly the democratic liberties, fight against the war preparation plans and mobilise the masses of the people for the fight for national independence and sovereignty and for peace. In spite of the attacks of the ruling circles and the imperialist agents, in spite of hysteria against our leaders, the faithful leaders of the masses, the influence of our Party grows among the broad masses of the people.”
The report showed the way to turn the party into a mass-party able to deal with the great tasks confronting it in realization of the programme and stressed the need for increased MarxistLeninist education.
“Quality does not suffice in itself. The quantity does not only become another quality if it is great, but also if it small in relation to the historical circumstances we are living in. We should, therefore, open the gates of our party for its supporters and sympathizers, should help them to join and to be organized in our ranks. Our statute states that everyone, accepting the policy of our party and its statute, organised in a party organization, pays his fees and has reached the age of 20 – can be a member of the Communist Party. We don’t demand more from people wishing to join the Communist Party. Concerning the duties to be fulfilled by a member of the Party this is a matter to be decided by the Party organ in accordance with the objective possibilities and the degree of his party education, his consciousness and readiness to perform various party tasks. The level of devotion and party responsibility of a member rises simultaneously with the rise of his consciousness and political education.
“… During the party verification we met here and there statements by comrades – functionaries that they have no time for Marxist-Leninist study, that they are overburdened with ‘Party Work’. As if mastering the weapon which is Marxism-Leninism could not be regarded as party work! We like to stress that this duty of a comrade is more important than many other things. As great as may be the ideological level of our comrades-functionaries, if it is not renewed and enriched, it hampers the activity of the comrade and lowers subsequently his worth. There is no more dangerous thing in a Communist Party than the accumulation of rust in the brains of its instructors and leaders.
“A Party functionary, be his work what it may be, must understand that without the continuous and organised study of Marxism-Leninism he will become paralyzed, unable to fulfill his party job, which in any case is in essence a political job. He should consider the study of Marxism-Leninism as part of the duties laid up on him, when the Party choose him to be a revolutionary functionary in one of the organs or the apparatus of the Party, and this duty must be fulfilled as every other one.”
Cde Toubi pointed out that the centre of the Party’s activity must become the place of work. Our success in leading the day-to-day struggle of the working class is the key to our success in implementing the new programme of our Party.
The widening of our activities at the places of work and our leading the working class are unbreakably intermingled with our unceasing struggle against the right-wing treacherous leadership of the Histadrut (General Federation of Jewish Labour) and its unions, and are influenced by the extent of our successes and vice versa. Therefore the problems of realising our aims, – the building of cells at the places of work-, and our success in mobilizing the masses for the policy of our Party, are not only organisational problems, but they are at the same time problems of our political struggle against the MAPAI-leadership in the Trade Unions the agency of imperialism and betrayer of the interests of the working class. Our task is to unmask and to expose all their nationalistic make-up, to push them out of their defence positions within the professional organisations of the working class and to replace them by a democratic, progressive leadership, serving first and foremost the interest of working class unity and the raising of the standard of life of the workers. It is therefore our task to stress the importance our trade union activities for the benefit of the daily interests of the working class, while connecting this activity with political explanation, stressing the positions taken by our Party in every battle of the working class, and with the constant solidary struggle of the workers for their rights.”
“….The party cell, as every other party organ should be the Party on its restricted territory and has to fulfil its duties in this territory. It should not only act according to instructions received from higher Party organs, but also according to the own initiative of the local and district organs in their respective territories, guided by the general policy of the party. In order to fulfil the primary duties with regard to the mobilization of the masses and guiding them politically in their struggle, the cells should handle their work in such a way as to solve the important problems, the meeting of the cell should all well prepared and there should be no improvisations. It is necessary to have a secretariat of the cell and not only a secretary. The existence of a cell secretariat not only secures the preparation for the cell meetings, but at the same time strengthens collective responsibility and a stricter division of the different tasks. If the secretary of a cell is helped in his functions by an official organ controlling the activities of the cell, there will be a thorough change in the life and activity of the cell.”
Cde. Sh. Cohen, member of the Central Control Commission delivered the report on the work of the commission. Cde Dr. Biletzky, member of the C.C. explained the changes and amendments proposed in the Party Statute, comprising i.e. lowering the age required for acceptance as party member to 18 years, provided the candidate is coming through the Y.C.L., a new formulation of the duties and rights of Party member, aimed at facilitating the admission of fresh elements from among the workers and working peasantry into the Party on one hand, and the establishment of the Party actives, with special meetings and special care for the most active cadres on the other hand.
Fifty five delegates took part in the discussion following the delivery of the reports.
The discussion showed complete political, ideological and organisation unity and the increased political maturity of the Party.
The Congress unanimously endorsed the political and organizational report.
It unanimously accepted the amended Party Statute.
The Congress protested against the arrest of the leader of the French people, Cde Jacques Duclos, against the military treaty with Western Germany, against bacteriological warfare waged by the USA aggressors in Korea and China, against the imprisonment of the Leader of the Trans Jordan Party, Cde Fuad Nassar, and against the national aggression of the Arab minority in Israel. A protest cable was sent to the Adenauer Government against the refusal to grant an exit visa to the delegate of the Communist Party of Germany, deputy Otto Niebergall, who was to come to Israel as fraternal delegate to the XIIth Party Congress.
The Congress adopted an appeal to the people of Israel calling upon them to the aware of the increasing danger of war and fight with greater unity and strength for world peace, against the re-militarization of Western Germany, and against rearmament. The appeal called upon all people to intensify the struggle against the imperialist rulers and their lackey, the Ben Gurion Government, for national independence, democracy and peace.
The Congress elected the new Central Committee which unanimously re-elected Cde Mikunis as General Secretary.
Concluding, Cde Mikunis declared: “Let us gather strength from the conviction that the XIIth Congress most patriotically served the interests of the working class and the people, peace and independence. Let us gather strength and courage from the historical fact that on our side is the world camp of peace, democracy and socialism, headed by the Soviet Union, – that on our side is the great STALIN!”
After the closing session, a festive artistical evening was held is honour of the Congress and its delegates, attended by about 3000 people. In the course of the evening the audience enjoyed the reading by the famous Communist Hebrew poet Alexander Pen and the young Arab Communist poet Hanna Abu Hanna, of poems prize-crowned in a literary competition towards the XIIth Party Congress. Three choirs “RON”, “ATTALI’A” and “DIMITROFF” performed, the famous pianist Frederik Portnoi played Khatchaturian, Prokofieff and Chopin, several solo singers and a little child-pianist appeared on the stage and a play was performed by the theatrical group “MAHATZ” of the Communist producer A.A. Wolff.
An attempt by the reaction to disturb the closing celebration of the so successful Congress by throwing a smoke-bomb was doomed to failure, since the criminals were caught by the audience and the programme continued without further incidents.
Late after midnight this festive evening wound up while the three choir-groups together sang the “Cantata to Stalin” by Alexandrov, thus expressing the feelings of love, esteem and thanks for the leader and teacher of all the Communists all over the world, for our great Comrade Stalin.
The XIIth Congress of the Communist Party of Israel will be remembered as a historic event, a landmark on our peoples and party’s way to victory.
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Typed Text
RGASPI, F.17, Op.137, Delo 959 LL136-161
U.S. INTELLIGENCE AGENTS, SPIES AND ASSASSINS IN GUISE OF SCIENTISTS-PHYSICIANS
On January 13, the Soviet press published a TASS report concerning the arrest of a terrorist group of physicians, uncovered by the State Security Organs of the U.S.S.R. The group set themselves the aim of shortening the lives of active leading figures in the Soviet Union by means of injurious treatment. The members include: the therapeutists − all of them professors − M. S. Vovsi, V. N. Vinogradov, M. B. Kogan, B. B. Kogan, P. I. Yegorov, Y. G. Etinger; professor A. I. Feldman, otolaryngologist; professor A. M. Grinshtein, neuropathologist; G. I. Maiorov, therapeutist
As has been established, all these physicians-murderers monsters with scientific degrees and titles, who trampled underfoot the honoured and sacred banner of science, were hired agents of foreign intelligence services. The majority of the members of this terror group (Vovsi, B. Kogan, Feldman, Grinshtein, Etinger and others) had sold themselves body and soul to the U.S. intelligence service which recruited them with the aid of “Joint” − the international Jewish bourgeois nationalist organisation. Set up by the U.S. intelligence service allegedly for rendering material aid to Jews in other countries, this Zionist organisation, which plays by no means the least role in the evil designs of U.S. aggressive imperialism, actually conducts, on the assignment and under the guidance of the U.S. intelligence service, wholesale espionage, terrorist and other subversive activity in a number of countries, including the Soviet Union. Vovsi, the physician-murderer, now under arrest, received, as he testified during interrogation, from the United States, precisely via “Joint”, a terrorist-espionage organisation, the directive “to exterminate the leading cadres of the U.S.S.R.”
Other members of the terror group (Vinogradov, M. Kogan, Yegorov) proved to be British intelligence service agents of long standing.
Acting on assignments of the U.S. and British intelligence services the doctor-poisoners abused the trust of their patients, deliberately and villainously undermined their health made incorrect diagnoses and then wilfully killed them through incorrect treatment.
At the criminal hand of these foul murderers, masked in the noble profession of physicians, there fell Comrade A. A. Zhdanov, outstanding leader of the Communist Party and the Soviet State and of the international Communist movement. The criminals confessed that taking advantage of Comrade A. A. Zhdanov’s illness, they said not a word about the myocardial infarction from which he suffered, prescribed a regime the very opposite of that which his serious illness required, and, in this way, killed him.
Comrade A. S. Scherbakov, another outstanding leader of the Communist Party and the Soviet State, also fell victim to this gang of American hirelings. By deliberately applying strong medicines and prescribing an injurious regime the criminals shortened the life of Comrade A. S. Scherbakov.
On the orders of the U.S.-British Intelligence organs the physicians-criminals sought in the first place, to undermine the health of leading military cadres, to disable them and to weaken the defence of the Soviet Union. They tried to disable Marshal A. M. Vasilevsky, L. A. Govorov, I. S. Konev, Army General S. M. Shtemenko, Admiral G. I. Levchenko and others. But arrest thwarted their villainous designs, prevented the criminals from achieving their foul aims.
The exposure and arrest of the criminal gang of doctor-killers brings up for judgement by international progressive public opinion yet another evil act of U.S. intelligence and its foul masters − the U.S. war industrial and finance rulers, wallowing in the mire of monstrous crimes.
Seeing in the Soviet Union and the countries of people’s democracy the main obstacle to unleashing a new world war and to carrying out their sinister schemes, U.S. imperialism, along with frantic, slanderous propaganda and the setting up of strategic springboards on the approaches to the U.S.S.R., and the countries of people’s democracy, is sending into these countries gangs of espionage agents, diversionists and assassins for subversive terrorist and espionage activity. As is known, U.S. Congress appropriated, with cynical candour, a hundred million dollars for maintaining these gangs, in addition to the hundreds of millions expended on these dirty aims secretly
There is indeed no end to the bestial brutality of the U.S. insidious, cold-blooded murderers from napalm, poison gas, the bacteriological weapon and wholesale extermination of prisoners of war in Korea to round-the-corner assassination of progressive elements in different countries and of leaders of the Communist Parties, predatory killings of individual statesmen of the Soviet Union and the People’s Democracies − such is the arsenal used by the American slave-owners.
Seeking to strangle the freedom of the peoples, to suppress the democratic forces and implant fascism, U.S. imperialism aims its blows above all at the Communist Parties and their leaders. It was American imperialism which directed the hand of the fascist assassins who tried to murder Comrades Togliatti, Tokuda and Duclos, Comrade Julien Lahaut, Chairman of the Communist Party of Belgium, was assassinated precisely on its orders. It was the U.S.misanthropes, the mortal enemies of peace, democracy and Socialism who ordered Judas Slansky and the anti-state conspiracy centre headed by him to shorten the life of Comrade Gottwald.
Remnants of the smashed exploiting classes in the countries of people’s democracy, the existence of unstable strata of intelligentsia, infected with toadyism in relation to the capitalist countries, with cosmopolitanism and bourgeois nationalism, survivals of bourgeois ideology, the ideology and morals of private property owners, negligence, − this is the soil in the countries of the camp of peace, democracy and Socialism, from which there still stems and can stem the evil subversive activity of the U.S. imperialist spies.
Vigilance, vigilance and again vigilance − this is the conclusion that should be drawn from the uncovering of the criminal misdeeds of the U.S. gangsters by all Communist and Workers’ Parties and first of all in the countries of the socialist camp. No complacency and no dizziness from success, no smugness and conceit! Every Communist, every honest non-party citizen, be he a worker or peasant, office employee or scientist, must always remember that an enemy agent may infiltrate into his sector of work. Ability to unmask the imperialist hireling, provocateur and diversionist and to disarm him in time is the duty of every patriot of his country.
The arrest in the Soviet Union of the criminal terrorist group of doctor-poisoners is another defeat for the U.S.-British warmongers, another crushing blow to their perfidious designs.
Filled with burning wrath and hatred for the U.S. cannibals the peoples of the world have entered to their account yet another grave crime. The hour will strike when freedom-loving mankind will present to the fascist pretenders to world domination this bill of monstrous, bloody crimes. It will demand retribution in full. The U.S. fascist obscurantists and their hired assassins will not escape just punishment!
For a Lasting Peace, For a People’s Democracy !
No. 3 (219) FRIDAY, JANUARY 16, 1953
“JOINT” − BRANCH OF U.S. SECRET SERVICE
For a Lasting Peace, For a People’s Democracy !
Parties No. 6 (222) FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1953
Charity, it used to be said, covers a multitude of sins. In our days “charity” is shamelessly used by the U.S. imperialist pretenders to world domination as a cover for the espionage, sabotage, poisoning and assassination committed by their agents − spies and saboteurs − in many countries.
The Jewish bourgeois-nationalist organisation “Joint”, or to give it its full name “The Joint Distribution Committee”, is one of the so-called “charity” organisations through the medium of which the American espionage organs conduct their “cloak and dagger” work. Formed in the United States way back in the days or World I at by wealthy bankers and capitalists − the Warburgs, Morgenthaus, Guggenheims and their ilk for the alleged purpose of providing charity, for their co-religionists in other countries “Joint”, as pointed out recently in the “Ce Soir” by Georges Soria, well-known French journalist, “is wholly and completely dependent on the U.S. secret service”. Through the medium of “Dillon, Reed and Company”, the chiefs of which maintain close contact with their opposite numbers in “Joint”, the threads stretch to the U.S. Government and to the notorious warmongers Harriman and Draper.
Irrefutable evidence and documentary data from different countries prove that “Joint”, through its ultra-reactionary directors, is engaged in activities as far removed from charity as heaven is from earth. Actually, “Joint” is an international Zionist espionage-saboteur organisation working for U.S. intelligence agencies, in accordance with their plans and instructions, far beyond the borders of the U.S.A. The criminal activity of “Joint”, spearheaded against the people’s democratic countries, is directed by its “European Department” Headed by J. Schwarts, an old time American intelligence agent.
The espionage and terrorist activity of “Joint”, as an instrument of the U.S. secret service, was exposed way back in 1949, during the Rajk trial in Hungary. In December of that year the head of “Joint” in Hungary, an American named Jacobson, who operated in the country was condemned and expelled from Hungary. A few months later this exposed spy addressed a meeting in Toronto, Canada, in the course of which he openly boasted about his subversive work in Hungary.
To the disclosures made at the Rajk trial in Hungary there is now added the confessions made in November last year by Slansky and his henchmen in the anti-state conspiracy centre in Czechoslovakia. It was established at this trial that under the “Joint” signboard American secret service agents carried on large-scale subversive activity in Czechoslovakia; they engaged, as was stated in the indictment, in “espionage, sabotage, black-market currency machinations, speculation, and contraband”.
In the Soviet Union where “Joint” activity was banned, carefully camouflaged agents of this organisation operated from the underground. The majority of the exposed and recently arrested doctor-murderers who had set themselves the aim, by means of injurious treatment to shorten the lives of prominent figures in the Soviet Union, belonged to the criminal Zionist organisation. Vovsi, one of these degenerates, confessed that it was precisely “Joint” which instructed him directly to “exterminate leading cadres of the U.S.S.R.”.
The true aims of Joint’s” “charity-men” are clearly revealed by the fact that at the beginning of 1950 they took part in the “American Conference to Combat Communism”, held in the Hotel Astor in New York. It was at this conference that Carey, the reactionary trade union leader, earned the applause of the billionaires by saying that in the next “war we will join the fascists to fight the Communists”.
“Joint’s” character as an organisation patronised by the American secret service is also seen in the flat refusal of this “charity” gang to advance a single cent to the Jewish organisations in Western Europe which grew out of the resistance movement and which are too progressive for Washington. But “Joint” is most generous when it comes to subsidising Trotskyites, Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries, bourgeois nationalists, members of kulak parties and other spies and betrayers who were expelled from or who fled the U.S.S.R. and the countries of people’s democracy, the scum of society who, to quote “Ce Soir”, “found refuge in Jewish bourgeois-nationalist organisations directed by U.S. imperialism”.
The annual conference of the “Joint” organisation, held at the “beginning of January, approved its budget for 1953 to the amount of 25 million dollars. That these millions are not at all designed for charity is clearly evident from Senator Lehman’s address to the conference which from beginning to end, was a mass of foul insinuations and slander against the countries of democracy and Socialism.
Such, then, is the true physiognomy of “Joint”, the American secret service adjunct masquerading as a charity organisation. Its organisers and inspirers have now been pilloried. In vain do U.S. State Department sponsors of “Joint” and the reactionary American press spew out streams of lies and slander against the peace-loving democratic countries, bewailing yet another failure of their agency. All honest people on earth hold in execration the Zionist savages, spies and assassins who tried to masquerade in the guise of charity. All honest people are whetting their vigilance in relation to “Joint” and similar “charity” organisations of the U.S. espionage.
Jan MAREK
For a Lasting Peace, For a People’s Democracy !
Parties No. 6 (222) FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1953
ZIONIST AGENCY OF U.S. IMPERIALISM.
M. Mitin
For a Lasting Peace, For a People’s Democracy !
No. 8 (224) FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1953
I.
The different Zionist organisations to be found in many capitalist countries represent nowadays an altogether widespread international espionage network in the service of the U.S. imperialists carrying out their criminal assignments. There is nothing fortuitous in this role of Zionism. It stems from the entire history and activity of the Zionist organisations.
Zionism made its appearance at the end of the eighties of the last century as a reactionary nationalist, movement of the Jewish bourgeoisie in Austria, Russia, Germany and other countries.
In 1896 Theodor Herzi, a reactionary Austrian journalist, published the booklet “The Jewish State”, and a year later the first Zionist congress took place in Basle. This was quickly followed by the establishment of a Zionist society in London and a Zionist bank, supported by Rothschild, the notorious millionaire.
A central task of the Zionist movement right from its inception was to divert the Jewish working masses in all countries from participating in the general revolutionary struggle of the proletariat. In furtherance of this aim Zionism advanced its ultra-reactionary idea of the so-called “Jewish community”, irrespective of country, of the economic, social and cultural conditions of the Jewish people and of the classes to which they belonged. This Zionist “idea” of the “Jewish community” was a typical manifestation of bourgeois nationalism and cosmopolitanism designed to deceive the Jewish petty bourgeoisie and the backward sections of the Jewish proletariat with the aim of getting them to follow in the wake of the rich Jews. It differed radically from the Marxist understanding of the nation and ran counter to the interests of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat.
Way back at the beginning of the XXth century Lenin and Stalin sharply criticised such ideas and views, exposing both the Zionists and the nationalist and opportunist standpoint of the “Bund”.
In his article “Position of Bund in the Party” published in 1903, V. I. Lenin pointed out that the advancement by the “Bund” of the argument concerning the “Jewish nation” was simply a rehash of bourgeois ideas. Lenin wrote that “this Zionist idea is utterly false and reactionary in its essence”. He pointed out that “the idea of the ‘Jewish nation’ bears the obvious reactionary hallmark not only in the case of its consistent adherents (Zionists) but also of those who seek to make it compatible with the ideas of Social Democracy (Bundists)”.
J. V. Stalin, having smashed the reactionary nationalist “theories”, elaborated, in his work “Marxism and the National Question”, the Bolshevik theory and programme on the national question. He proved that a nation is not a racial or tribal, but a historically constituted community of people; that a nation is not a casual or ephemeral conglomeration, but a stable community of people. He gave a perfectly concise and clear, the sole correct and scientific definition of the nation, a definition which is an outstanding contribution to the advancement of social science.
“A nation”, wrote Comrade Stalin, “is a historically evolved, stable community of people which arose on the basis of community of language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a community of culture”.
Comrade Stalin further pointed out that only all the above mentioned characteristics taken together can define a nation and that not one of these characteristics taken separately is sufficient for defining a nation. Moreover, the absence of one of these characteristics is sufficient for a nation to cease to be a nation. In the light of these scientific theses in relation to the nation the reactionary-nationalist essence of Zionism becomes particularly clear.
The bourgeois-nationalist “ideas” of Zionism helped the Jewish capitalists and bankers to instil in the minds of the Jewish working masses the most harmful political illusions.
It should be borne in mind that in reality Zionism never combated anti-Semitism and those who fomented it in the interests of reaction. On the contrary. The above-mentioned Herzl, for example, crawled before the tsarist government in Russia. In May 1903 in a disgusting letter to von Plehve, the Tsar’s Minister of the Interior, butcher of workers and inspirer of anti-Jewish pogroms, Herzl attacked the Russian revolutionary movement and offered the tsarist government the services of the Zionists to combat the influence of this revolutionary movement on the Jewish youth.
In August 1903, Herzl recorded with satisfaction in his diary the following words of von Plehve: “We were sympathetic to your Zionist movement”. And this was said by the same von Plehve who, only four months earlier, had organised the terrible anti-Jewish pogrom in Kishinev the brunt of which was borne by the Jewish working masses.
The Zionists entered into contact with potentates and “high dignitaries in different countries: with Kaiser Wilhelm II, with the Sultan or Turkey, with the Pope, with Chamberlain, and so on. There is hardly a reactionary force in the world which the Zionist leaders did not try to contact. They had dealings with Petlura, with Pilsudski and Mussolini. The Zionist movement in the person of its leaders and inspirers was not averse to entering into contact even with Hitler fascism. It is common knowledge that Jewish financiers in America, the men who subsidised the Zionists, simultaneously lavished money on Hitler before his advent to power. Incidentally, the meeting between von Papen and Hitler, which took place just before fascist rule was installed in Germany, was held in the premises of Baron Kurt van Schroder, a director of the “Stein Bank”, which was connected with the Zionist movement, and correspondent for the “Levi”, “Solomon”, “Oppenheim & Co.” firms. The big American banking firms, “Dillon Read & Co.”, “Kuhn Loeb”, “Lehman Brothers” and others with which the Zionist movement has always been closely connected, gave tremendous financial help to the German monopolists and facilitated fascism’s advent to power. At present the same banking interests are again active in helping to revive predatory German imperialism.
II.
For years the Zionists have been closely connected with British imperialism and with the British Secret Service. Their head office was located in London for a long time and all their activity was directed by British diplomacy. The late Dr. Weizmann, leader of the Zionist movement and later President of Israel, was until 1946 an official of one of the British ministries. Other Zionist chieftains were direct agents of British imperialism. Eban, the Israeli representative to UNO, and Shiloah, who heads the Israeli intelligence service, worked for the British Secret Service for years.
Since the end of the second world war the Zionist movement, headed by reactionary bourgeois elements, has come more and more under the control of the U.S. imperialists. With branches all over Europe the Zionist movement, which includes numerous and varied organisations, has proved for the new pretenders to world domination a highly convenient instrument for organising espionage, sabotage and subversive work directed against the Soviet Union and the countries of people’s democracy.
American capital is establishing financial and political control over the world Zionist organisation, meeting all the expenditure incurred in maintaining a widespread espionage apparatus. In America the Zionist organisation was headed by Robert Szold, businessman and brother of Harold Szold, an associate of the Lehman banking firm.
At the Rajk trial in Hungary the accused Tibor Szonyi, who confessed that he was a U.S. secret agent, testified as follows: “I knew, and I understood this very well while in Switzerland, that the Zionist movement as a whole maintains very close contact with the U.S. secret service”. The trial in Czechoslovakia of the anti-state conspiracy centre headed by Slansky showed the important role the Zionists played in the organisation of the centre. The witness Ornstein testified in court that already “in 1947, prior to the formation of the Israel state, a secret conference was held in Washington attended by Truman, Acheson, Ben Gurion, Sharett and Morgenthau junior. At this conference Morgenthau, Ben Gurion and Sharett agreed that Zionist organisations would be used for espionage and other subversive activity in the People’s Democracies, while the U.S. on its part would help the Israel Zionists carry out their plans”.
Thus, recognition of Israel in May 1948 by the former U.S. President Truman was preceded by the Morgenthau-Acheson” plan, by an agreement between the U.S. rulers and Zionist leaders to the effect that the Zionists would place themselves wholly and completely in the service of U.S. imperialism for realisation of its aggressive designs.
III.
Israel, in recent years, has passed completely into the sphere of influence of the U.S. In a brief space of time U.S. capital largely dislodged British capital in Israel. Financial aid rendered Israel by American bankers amounts to 270 million dollars. “Kuhn Loeb”, “Dillon Read and Co.”, “Lehman Brothers”, “Mellon” and other big U.S. financial groups are becoming the actual rulers of Israel.
The Israel Government is at present subordinated to the U.S. monopolies. A big role in the Israel economy is played by the “Palestine Economic Corporation”. The chairman of this company is Morgenthau junior, former Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, who, simultaneously, is chairman of the “United Jewish Appeal”, an international Jewish organisation, collecting funds for Israel.
In June 1951 the U.S. State Department officially announced that the Israel Government had agreed to accept U.S. military aid and to purchase military equipment in the U.S. In August 1951 Israel granted the use of its harbours to the U.S. Navy. In this way Israel’s ruling circles have linked the fate of their state entirely with the aggressive policy of the United States. The American imperialists speak of Israel as one of their most faithful − after Turkey − pillars in the Near East. Israel, in the words of the U.S. political gangsters, is the advanced post of “American democracy” in the Near East.
In its aggressive plans in relation to the Soviet Union and the People’s Democracies U.S. imperialism has assigned Israel the role of its base in the Near East.
In March 1952 the “New York Herald Tribune” openly wrote that Israel is being converted with U.S. assistance into a state which from the military standpoint will have vital significance in this part of the globe.
This, without doubt, accounts for the fact that such a small country as Israel with a territory of 21,000 square kilometres already has five big inter-continental airfields: in Lydda, Haifa, Jerusalem, Galilee and Negev. It goes without saying that these airfields are useless from the point of view of normal air communication but they are very important strategically in the aggressive designs of U.S.-British imperialism.
Simultaneously, the Israel rulers arc taking a most active part in the “cold war” which the U.S. imperialists are waging against the countries of the socialist camp, and are doing all in their power to aggravate international tension. The Israel rulers have also established friendly “diplomatic” relations with the Tito-fascist gang.
In May 1952 Israel’s Foreign Minister Sharett travelled to Washington to beg for more credit. He was granted two loans of 76 and 25 million dollars. Immediately afterwards Ben Gurion, Sharett and other Israel “leaders” began a frantic campaign of lies and slander against the Soviet Union and the People’s Democracies, again the world peace movement, against the national-liberation movement in the Arab countries. The Israel rulers have now resolved to take their country openly into the aggressive North-Atlantic bloc.
The criminal act of terror perpetrated by the Zionist bandits against the U.S.S.R. Legation in Tel-Aviv was not fortuitous. It was the natural and logical result of the anti-Soviet line carried out in the past, and carried out now, by the Israel rulers at the instigation of the U.S. imperialists. It should be noted that the bomb thrown into the Soviet Legation, with the connivance of the police, was preceded by two attacks on the part of Zionist bandits against the Czechoslovak Embassy in Tel-Aviv.
Cultivating the lowest chauvinistic instincts the Israel Government seeks, on the one hand, to divert the attention of the working people in the country from the catastrophic state of the economy and, on the other, to fulfil the utterly provocative assignments of the warmongers with a view to aggravating the international tension.
All the foulness and the monstrosity of the crime of the Zionist fascist gang against the Soviet Legation in Tel-Aviv stands out particularly in the light of the fact that it was precisely the Soviet Union which, by smashing Hitler Germany, saved millions of Jews from extermination.
The wrath and burning indignation of the working people in the Soviet Union and of all progressive people in all countries were aroused by the foul crime of the terrorist group of doctor-killers, exposed and rendered harmless by the security organs in the Soviet Union. The majority of this criminal gang was associated, as is known, with the international Jewish bourgeois-nationalist, Zionist organisation known as “Joint” − a branch of U.S. intelligence.
The names of the doctor-killers, who, on orders from the U.S. and British secret services, killed Comrades A. A. Zhdanov and A. S. Shcherbakov, outstanding leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, will be cursed for ever. Progressive mankind will never forget these black crimes of the Zionist lackeys of the imperialist secret services.
The evil crimes of the group of doctor-killers, like the activities of the Zionists-participants in the anti-state conspiracy centre in Czechoslovakia and in the act of terror against, the Soviet Legation in Tel-Aviv-all are links in the same chain. All are manifestations of the criminal activity of the U.S.-British imperialists and their hangers-on, aimed at preparing a new word slaughter. This explains why active struggle by all progressive forces in all countries against the machinations of the warmongers, why the sharpest vigilance by the popular masses are vital tasks of the day.
The peace-loving people in all countries brand with shame the imperialist jackals committing monstrous crimes, who resort to provocation after provocation and whip up war hysteria. The day will come when the warmongers and their henchmen will be tried for all their crimes by the great court of the peoples!
For a Lasting Peace, For a People’s Democracy !
No. 8 (224) FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1953