re: #113 000G

Plausible rumors or implausible rumors? Stalin had a long history of deporting ethnicities he saw as hostile. He also had a long history of furthering anti-semitism.

The rumors started in late 40s, with the heightening of Stalin’s antisemitic campaign. They were echoed by some of the Western Jewish press in those same years (these old “news” items are now used by some H-Deniers to “prove” that Stalin really deported the foreign Jews who were allegedly “really” moved by the Nazis to the Soviet territory instead of murdering them in gas chambers). Step by step they acquired more and more flesh, which crumbles though upon close analysis. E.g. Yakov Etinger, one of the foremost “deportationists” and son of one of those Doctors, claims to have spoken to Bulganin, who told him about the deportation plans. The problem? Etinger never released the alleged notes that he made of those talks, and with years Bulganin’s stories grew with more and more details (even though in late 80s Etinger, when writing about this period, never even mentioned any such talks). Then there’s the purported letter by Jewish Communists asking to deport all Soviet Jews to Siberia. Etinger even provided a “text” of this letter, allegedly given to him by some anonymous woman (tho I suspect he fabricated it himself). The actual letter was published several years later, it resided in the Presidential archive and while it did castigate “Zionists” (as usual), it merely called for a creation of a proper Jewish newspaper. So the text was a fake in any case.

There are many such items that one could go over. Kostyrchenko analyzed the most important ones in his books and articles, and he is the premier expert on Stalin’s antisemitism. This whole “deportation” story is more of a “Jewish soap”-type legend than anything.