Solzhenitsyn Reveals Stalin Plot to Incite Pogroms Was Foiled by His Death
By BORIS SMOLAR
Editor-In-Chief Emeritus
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK (JTA)—For
centuries Jews throughout
the world have been celebrat-
ing Purim as the day when
the Jewish population in an-
cient Persia miraculously es-
caped a general massacre
prepared for them by Haman,
the grand vizier of King Aha-
suerus.
The day of March 5—when
Stalin died in 1953 from a
stroke—should similarly be
marked by Jews. His sudden
death came as a great mir-
acle for the 3,000,000 Jews in
the Soviet Union. It thwarted
his plans, scheduled to be
started the next day, to anni-
hilate the Jews in Russia
through mass pogroms and
deportation of all surviving
Jews to slave labor camps in
remote Arctic regions to die
there a slow and tortuous
death.
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn,
the eminent Soviet writer and
Nobel Prize winner who has
been courageously exposing
the inhuman methods and
system of the Soviet secret
police, dwells at great length
on the Stalin plan in his new
book, "The Gulag Archipel-
ago"—a massive expose of
the Soviet terror system.
The book, already pub-
lished in Paris and soon to
be published in this country,
is "forbidden fruit" in the
Soviet Union from where the
manuscript had been smug-
gled out.
The signal to Stalin's bru-
tal plan was to be given
March 6 at the opening of the
notorious "Doctors' Trial" at
which six prominent Jewish
and three non-Jewish physi-
cians were accused by Stalin
falsely of having plotted to
poison him and other Soviet
leaders in the Kremlin.
The trial was cancelled im-
mediately upon Stalin's death,
the physicians were released
and rehabilitated. Soviet
Jews—who lived in mortal
fear during weeks of intensi-
fied anti-Jewish propaganda
in the Soviet press preparing
the climate Stalin wanted for
the trial—breathed freely.
Details of the p o g r o m
planned by Stalin and of his
sudden death which saved
the Jews in the Soviet Union
were related in my book,
"Soviet Jewry Today and To-
inorrow," published by Mac-
millan in 1971.
Stalin suffered a stroke
during an angry discussion
over his plan about the Jews
at a meeting with top Soviet
leaders in the Kremlin. He
anticipated that none in the
Kremlin would dare to op-
pose his plan and was shock-
ed when Marshal Clement
Voroshilov, the president of
the USSR and a popular mil-
itary figure in the country,
said that he would tear up
his Communist Party mem-
bership card if Stalin's plan
against the Jews was carried
out.
His sentiments were echoed
by Vyacheslav Molotov, So-
viet foreign minister whose
Jewish wife had earlier been
deported to distant Soviet ter-
ritory on Stalin's orders, al-
legedly because she had
shown- friendship to Golda
Meir when she was Israel's
first ambassador to the So-
viet Union.
Taken aback by this open
and sharp opposition—proba-
bly the first daring opposi-
tion since he became the dic-
tator of the Soviet Union—
Stalin collapsed at the meet-
ing from a stroke. Two days
later he died. With him also
died his brutal plan to de-
stroy all the Jews in the
Soviet Union.
According to Solzhenitsyn's
version, Stalin proposed the
holding of a public execution
of the accused doctors by
hanging them in Red Square,
in front of the Kremlin. The
mobs attracted to this mor-
bid scene would have to be
incited by speakers to vio-
lence. They would then, un-
der leadership of party offi-
cials, have spread out over
Moscow carrying out a po-
grom against Jews wherever
they were found in the style
of the czarist regime.
After a night of looting and
killing, Stalin would have
stepped in as a "savior" of
the Jews from the "anger of
the masses" by transporting
them to remote places in the
Arctic. There they would
meet a slow death in the
forced labor camps which
were prepared for them.
Stalin was known as an
anti-Semite in the inner cir-
cle of the Kremlin but, ac-
cording to his successor, Ni-
kita Khrushchev, was always
careful not to make his anti-
Jewish feelings known pub-
licly, since this would con-
tradict the tenets of Lenin-
ism.
Khrushchev pointed out in
his memoirs that Stalin's hos-
tile attitude toward the Jew-
ish people was a "major de-
fect" in his character; but
that he took care never to
hint at his anti-Semitism in
his written works or in his
speeches.
In his anti-Semitic acts, Sta-
lin liked others to do his dirty
work, while himself posing
as a fighter against anti-
Semitism, Khrushchev as-
serted.
Similarly, Stalin's daugh-
ter, S v e t 1 a n a Alliluyeva,
charged her father with the
murder of Solomon Mikhoels,
the noted and much decorat-
ed Soviet-Jewish actor and
chairman of the Jewish Anti-
Fascist Committee.
*
Soviet Jews
Look to U.S.
as Chief Hope
NEW YORK (JTA) — City
Council President Paul 0'
Dwyer and Manhattan Bor-
ough President Percy Sutton
said that Jews in the Soviet
Union, faced with a marked
upsurge in anti-Semitism, look
to the United States as their
principal hope for an end to
emigration barriers.
At the same time, O'Dwyer
and Sutton declared that the
Russians are "down right par-
anoic" on the subject of Is-
,
8—Friday, January 11, 1974 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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Aleksandr Feldman of Kiev,
who was sentenced to 31/2
years in a forced labor camp
for "hooliganism," and whose
appeal had been rejected by
the Ukrainian Court of Ap-
peals on Dec. 27, will now
appeal to the Supreme Court
of the Ukrainian Soviet Re-
public. 50 Soviet Jeivs issued
a public protest, and also
sent its text to the Interna-
tional Association of Lawyers.
Goren Meets Envoy
of Pope on POWs
JERUSALEM (JTA) —
Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren
met with the apostolic dele-
gate in Jerusalem, Monsig-
nor Pio Lagghi, to enlist his
church's aid on two humani-
tarian issues: Israeli POWs
in Syria and Israeli dead
still on the battlefields of
Sinai within the control of
Egypt's Second and Third
armies.
According to the chief
rabbi's bureau, the monsig-
nor promised to pass on
Rabbi Goren's representa-
tions immediately to the
Pope.
Contacts between Israel
and the International Red
Cross are proceeding.
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rael, and are conducting a
relentless propaganda cam-
paign that blames Israel for
the October war in the Mid-
dle East.
The two, who visited the
USSR last month, made the
following observations at a
news conference in the for-
mer's office at City Hall:
The Soviet Union is a ma-
jor source of propaganda in
the United States which con-
demns Zionism and blames
the October war on Israel;
the list of publications in the
USSR that are devoted main-
ly to an anti-Semitic theme
bas increased by 25 per cent
in the last few years; and
the Soviet press is trying to
"camouflage" the recent ac-
tion taken by the House of
Representatives to bar fa-
vored-nation treatment to the
USSR until all barriers are
lifted and free emigration is
permitted of Jews to Israel.
Grigory Svechinsky, a Mos-
cow activist, has been given
permission to leave for Is-
rael, and is expected to go
Monday, the Student Strug-
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