Leaders of the Communist Party in the United States are seeking to avoid a specific party condemnation of Soviet policy toward Russian Jews, it was disclosed today.
A draft resolution calling for a national party conference “on work among the Jewish people and the light against anti-Semitism,” and conceding Soviet “shortcomings” in the treatment of Soviet Jewry, was made public last August in Political Affairs, the party’s theoretical journal. The draft was prepared by the party’s national Jewish commission. Some party members now reportedly fear that the conference will never be held.
An indication of the change in American Communist leadership views was contained in a party “discussion bulletin” by Daniel Rubin, a “member of the leading bodies” of the party. He asserted that “Jewish masses in the Soviet Union and other Socialist countries are the best off in the world.” He said Communists should ask themselves whether, “if it is true that Jewish culture in the U.S.S.R. will be dead in ten years, is this in itself bad?”
Jewish members of the party were reported today to be worried that the proposed conference had been cancelled, but a party spokesman said it had only been postponed to allow “more discussion.” He admitted no new date had been set. The current issue of Political Affairs declared that “this section of the resolution needs to be redrafted in the direction of unequivocally rejecting any idea of “Soviet anti-Semitism’ in whatever guise it may appear and any campaign of public criticism, however friendly.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
