Stone: if USSR Permits Jews to Emigrate Half the Population Would Convert to Judaism

I.F. Stone, an independent left-wing publicist, likened the situation of Jews in the Soviet Union to that of the separatist nationalities in Franco Spain. He predicted in his bi-weekly newsletter that if the Kremlin should ever allow Jews free emigration, “half the population (of Russia) would convert to Judaism.” Stone, long a bitter critic of Zionism and Israeli policies, claimed that the commutation of death sentences of Jews in Leningrad and of Basques in Burgos, have similar backgrounds, “Both occurred in slowly decaying dictatorships, one Communist, the other Fascist,” he wrote. “Both will be followed by new trials, in Russia of more Jews accused of Zionism, i.e. of national deviation; in Spain, not only of Catalans as well as Basques but of other Spaniards accused of ‘subversion.'” Stone said that “rebellious Basque and Catalan separatists have become focal points for general animosity to the senescent Franco regime. Kremlin fears of similar repercussions in the Soviet Union may explain why no national publicity was given the Leningrad trial until after it was over. Perhaps the Soviet bureaucrats feared other rebellious minorities or Great Russian dissidents would be sympathetic to the Jews and might try hijackings of their own to get out.” According to Stone, “Russia is again what it was under the Czars, ‘a prison house of nations.'”