Guardian Refutes Khrushchev Disclaimers About Soviet Anti-semitism

The Guardian of Manchester, Britain’s leading Liberal organ, challenged today assertions by Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev that there was no policy of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. The newspaper declared editorially that what Mr. Khrushchev “cannot claim is that the ‘progressive’ Soviet Government does anything to discourage or suppress manifestations of loathsome anti-Semitism.”

Mr. Khrushchev, in a letter to Lord Bertrand Russell, the full text of which was made public today, stated categorically that “There is not and never has been an anti-Semitic policy in the USSR because our multi-national, Socialist State excludes the possibility of such a policy. Our Constitution proclaims equality, regardless of nationality and race. Advocacy of racial or national discrimination is punishable by law. Our motto is: Man to man is friend, comrade and brother. In the future, I will continue (in that spirit) with all persistence and consistency.”

Mr. Khrushchev’s letter to Lord Russell was in response to a protest written by the philosopher about the large number of death sentences imposed upon Soviet Jews recently, after the latter had been convicted of “economic crimes. ” Lord Russell had requested clemency for the Jews.

Lord Russell did not make public the text of his letters to Mr. Khrushchev, in the belief that his intercession might be more effective if he did not publicize his views. He disclosed, through an aide, that he had been in touch with the Soviet Premier on the Jewish question since last year when he, with Prof. Martin Buber and Francois Mauriac appealed to Mr. Khrushchev for clemency for Jews sentenced to death for “economic crimes.”

The Soviet leader conceded in his reply that there were Jews among those sentenced to death, but insisted “the Western press admits that, among those punished, there are people of different nationalities. ” He stated that death sentences had also been imposed on “Russians, Byelorussians, Georgians and Ukrainians. ” “We appreciate your humanitarian considerations, ” he told Lord Russell, “but humanity is inconceivable without justice.”

The Guardian, in its editorial, said: “Of course there is anti-Semitism. There has never been a time in modern history when Russia and all other countries in Eastern Europe were truly free of anti-Semitism–not even when the Red Army fought its victorious civil war battles under the command of Leon Trotsky (who was a Jew), nor 25 years later when the Nazi extermination of Jews found all too many Russian helpers. A solid and apparently irreducible, basic element of Russian anti-Semitism never disappeared.”

The Guardian cited the growing number of “minor show trials” which ended in death sentences and in which “an alarmingly large number of the victims were Jews.”