The Soviet Government and the Jews 1948–1967

Provides the English reader with a comprehensive study, based on first-hand documentary material, of Soviet policy towards the Jews of the USSR from the Stalinist era, through to the interregnum (1953–7), the Khrushchev period and the 'collective leadership' of Brezhnev, Kosygin and Podgorny (1964–7). In 1948 the State of Israel was established with the support of the Soviet bloc. But the period 1948–53 (the so-called 'black years'), also witnessed the murder of the actor Shlomo Mikhoels, the closing of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, the liquidation of all Jewish cultural institutions, and the launching of the anti-cosmopolitan campaign and the 'Doctors' Plot'. After Stalin there were improvements in the policy towards the non-Russian nationalities, and even certain gestures of goodwill towards the Jewish population; but these proved to be more symbolic than substantive, and the Jews as individuals and as a national minority came to feel increasingly and inescapably trapped. Government restrictions, crude attacks on Judaism, Zionism, and on the State of Israel became regular features of the post-Stalin era.