Laura E. Wolfson - Stalin's Secret Pogrom [2001][A]

Book Description
Publication Date: May 1, 2001
In the spring and summer of 1952, fifteen Soviet Jews, including five prominent Yiddish writers and poets, were secretly tried and convicted; multiple executions soon followed in the basement of Moscow's Lubyanka prison. The defendants were falsely charged with treason and espionage because of their involvement in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, and because of their heartfelt response as Jews to Nazi atrocities on occupied Soviet territory. Stalin had created the committe to rally support for the Soviet Union during World War II, but he then disbanded it after the war as his paranoia mounted about Soviet Jews. For many years, a host of myths surrounded the case against the committee. Now this book, which presents an abridged version of the long-suppressed transcript of the trial, reveals the Kremilin's machinery of destruction. Joshua Rubenstein provides annotations about the players and events surrounding the case.
In a long introduction, drawing on newly released documents in Moscow archives and on interviews with relatives of the defendants in Israel, Russia, and the United States, Rubenstein also sets the trial in historical and political context and offers a vivid account of Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign.

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
20th Century LegaciesIn 1952, near the end of Stalin's life, 15 Soviet Jews including five well-known writers and poets were secretly tried and convicted, wrongly, of treason and espionage, because they had protested Nazi atrocities on Soviet territory and been involved in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. That same year, 13 of them were executed in the basement of a Moscow prison. Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, edited by Joshua Rubenstein (Tangled Loyalties: The Life and Times of Ilya Ehrenburg) and Vladimir Naumov (executive secretary of the Presidential Commission for the Russian Federation on the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression), presents the long-suppressed trial transcript, abridged. Rubenstein's introduction, drawing on other newly released Moscow documents as well as interviews with the defendants' surviving relatives, places the "trial" within the historical context of Stalin's larger-scale anti-Semitic campaign.

From Library Journal
Using newly opened archives, Rubenstein (Tangled Loyalties) and Naumov present what is essentially an abridged transcript of the 1952 trial of 15 Soviet Jews associated with the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC). In his 60-page introduction, Rubenstein valiantly attempts to prove the title's claim that this was a "secret pogrom" a claim that is not established in the hundreds of pages of transcripts that follow. While secret transcripts from the KGB archives certainly qualify as primary sources, they are not necessarily proven to be factual, and a secret trial does not indicate a secret pogrom. Furthermore, Stalin's irrational tendency to eradicate various groups of people throughout his reign is well known, and the JAC appears to have been yet another group he used and then disposed of when it appeared threatening or at least no longer useful. Stephen Shenfield's Russian Fascism (LJ 4/15/01) more succinctly identifies anti-Semitism as a factor of most fascist ideologies. While a valuable source of information about this secret trial, this translation of trial transcripts hardly makes a book suitable for libraries. It's an organizational work, not an academic work. Not recommended. Harry Willems, Southeast Kansas Lib. Syst., Iola

Reviews
"A power-packed volume about one of the darkest and cruellest chapters of Stalinist anti-Semitism . . . . It must be read and reread." -- Elie Wiesel

"A vivid, tragic panorama full of prickly individuals." -- Richard Bernstein, New York Times

"Fascinating. . . . Brilliantly portrays Soviet attitudes to the Jews, [and] reveals a great deal about Soviet attitudes to justice in general." -- Anne Applebaum, Wall Street Journal

"Haunting…presents the fullest account to date of one of the most vicious episodes of anti-Semitism in Russian history." -- Anna Kuchment, Newsweek

"The transcripts, fluently translated by Laura Wolfson, are perhaps the most dramatic part of a mesmerizing book." -- Abraham Brumberg, New York Times Book Review

A significant work...provides new information about the trial that shatters many myths that have surrounded the case for years. -- Lifestyles

About the Author
Joshua Rubenstein is the Northeast Regional Director of Amnesty International USA and a longtime associate of Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian Studies. He is also the author of Tangled Loyalties: The Life and Times of Ilya Ehrenburg. Vladimir P. Naumov is executive secretary of the Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation on the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression and editor of the Russian-language edition of this volume.