Soviet General Jacob Shmushkevitch, twice awarded highest Communist honors as a “Hero of the Soviet Union” and top commander of the Soviet Air Force during World War II, was “rehabilitated” today in a eulogy in “Red Star,” organ of the USSR armed forces, 21 years after he had been murdered during the Stalin purges of prominent Jews, according to a Moscow dispatch received here today.
General Shmushkevitch was the son of a poor Jewish shoemaker in a small Lithuanian town. He Joined the Red Army in 1918 and rose to great heights as military strategist and administrator. Among other distinctions he held was that of candidate for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR. He disappeared in 1942. “Red Star” hailed his memory today as a “genius” who had been a victim of the “personality cult”–meaning Stalinism,
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