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Further research on the Doctors' plot has suggested that this was not just Stalin's overarching plan to campaign against the Jews, but rather, a plan to reaffirm his role as the undisputed leader of the government and the party. [1] By eliminating powerful individuals within the party by accusing them of partaking in the Doctors' Plot, Stalin was able to purge competition. Many Jewish doctors were arrested, tortured, and interrogated in order to establish a connection between the American government, security forces, Jewish nationalists, and party officials.[1]
It is not directly clear why there was an emerging of strong antisemitism during Stalin's last years, which was referred as "the black years of Soviet Jewry."[2] This movement was the first official expression of antisemitic policy in the Soviet Union, which targeted "cosmopolitanism." The anti-cosmopolitan campaign was initiated in mid-December 1948 at the Twelfth Board Plenum of the Writer's Union[3] where Jewish drama critics were represented as individuals who held anti-patriotic views. They were accused of trying to hide their true sentiments against the Soviet government and were constantly labeled as being "foreign." Individuals of the anti-cosmopolitan also charged that these Jews were sympathetic to the West. Jews in powerful positions, including intellectuals, were dismissed en masse. Arrests and executions of Soviet Jews took place during this time. Furthermore, plans were devised to expel all Jews from Russia to camps in Kazakhstan and Siberia. [2] Stalin's death spared the lives of the Soviet Jews that were accused in the Doctors' Plot.
Growing influence of popular feelings played a key role in the difference between antisemitism in the Stalin era and the subsequent years. It should thus be noted that the hatred for the Jews came from the public, rather than the government's pursuit of "national interest."[2] For example, specific quotas were secretly set by institutions to limit the number of Jews permitted to pursue higher education. A growing popular distrust towards Jews and competition in employment opportunities were the reasons for these secret instructions, rather than by the government itself.[2] These feelings of resentment stemmed from the fact that there was a growing number of prominent Jews in the field of science and other areas in the intellectual world. As a result, the general public began to see Jews as the enemy, or the hated middle class.
After Stalin's death, government repression was eased, as can be observed in Khrushchev's Secret Speech of 1956 (On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences). The rise of Khrushchev's "thaw" policies led to more liberalized opportunities of self-expression in the Soviet Union. Interestingly, the more relaxed policies enabled individuals to express their increased antisemitic views, rather than their support for the Jews. Although the Jews' talents were needed to support the economy, individuals who were disillusioned with the consequences of the war tended to blame the living conditions and the other economic difficulties on the Jews.[2] Khrushchev was responsible for allowing these sentiments to affect his views on the policies that shaped the outcome of the Jews because he ended up blaming the post-War economic difficulties on the Jews. This was because he himself believed that the Soviet Jews were conspiring to establish an anti-Soviet republic in the Crimea.[4] Moreover, although Khrushchev condemned Stalin's arbitrariness and paranoia of the intelligentsia in his Secret Speech, he never spoke out against the anti-Jewish connotations that were evident in the Doctors' Plot. In other words, the daily lives of Soviet Jews did not improve overall with the death of Stalin.
Further Readings:
[edit]- Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union: its roots and consequences- a collection of essays edited and with a preface by Theodore Freedman on antisemitism in the Soviet Union.[5]
- Everyday Stalinism- discusses ethnic slurs in anonymous letters during Stalin's time. These people, who were critical of Stalin's repressive regime, wrote antisemitic slurs in their letters, stating that the Russian Revolution was run by the Jews. They found a way to blame the regime's shortcomings on the Jews.[6]
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- ^ a b "YIVO | Doctors' Plot". www.yivoencyclopedia.org. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
- ^ a b c d e Ettinger, Shmuel (1984). "Historical and Internal Political Factors in Soviet Anti-Semitism" in Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. New York: Freedom Library Press of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. p. 174. ISBN 0-88464-051-5.
- ^ "YIVO | Anticosmopolitan Campaign". www.yivoencyclopedia.org. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
- ^ Baron, S. W. (1976). The Russian Jews under Tsars and Soviets, 2d ed. New York and London: Macmillan. pp. 272–273.
- ^ Freedman, Theodore (1984). Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union: its roots and consequences. New York: Freedom Library Press of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. ISBN 0884640515.
- ^ Fitzpatrick, Sheila (1999). Everyday Stalinism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 186–187. ISBN 978-0195050011.