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From Labor Action, Vol. 13 No. 25, 20 June 1949, p. 1.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
A year and a half ago many Russian Jews heaved sighs of relief when Georgi F. Alexandrov, director of the propaganda section of the Russian Communist Party, fell into disgrace and was demoted to a minor post. Alexandrov and Alexander Shcherbakoff (died in 1945) were considered the chief architects of the Russian anti-Jewish policy initiated during the period of the Russo-German Pact. With the two most prominent promoters of governmental anti-Semitism either dead or disgraced, it was no wonder that many Russian Jews entertained the illusion that the dangerous anti-Jewish trends would be reversed.
At that time Labor Action pointed out that to saddle minor bureaucrats with full responsibility for initiating and carrying through a governmental policy on their own reflected a dangerously naive misunderstanding of the dynamics of Stalinist totalitarianism.
Confirmation of the view that the policies of Alexandrov have Politbureau backing and that the current anti-Semitic drive in Russia is Politbureau inspired is now to be seen in a minor notice in a dispatch to the N.Y. Times, June 6, by C.L. Sulzberger. Under the head Quiet Soviet Purge Held Taking Place, Sulzberger reports that “persons relegated to obscurity by Zhdanov are rehabilitating themselves. Typical of these is G.F. Alexandrov, one of the party’s propaganda chiefs, who is making a comeback with Mr. Malenkov’s aid.”
In light of the recently renewed and intensified governmentally inspired anti-Semitic drive against the Jews of Russia, this parallel rehabilitation by the Politbureau of the best known and leading anti-Semitic is a fact of great significance.
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