Page 124

57 ‘P’. to D.Ben-Gurion (Jerusalem)

COPY:CZA S25/486

[Cairo] 1 February 1946

          A CONVERSATION WITH M. KOROSTOVTSEV FROM TASS1

‘ I visited recently Palestine and traveled through some of the collective settlements. I spent some time in Givat Brenner. What struck me mainly in the kibbutzim is the lack of personal economic interest. That means there is no private property, no wages that the members could spend as they like, and no differentiation between various professions. It looks to me as a permanent selfsacrifice years of his life for his country, but this is a temporary measure. But this one is an economy built on a basis of permanent sacrifice. I must confess I do not believe in economy of such a kind. It can last ten to fifteen years, maybe a generation, but economy cannot be built on pure idealism. Let us compare kibbutz with a kolkhoz. There everyone has his house property, his garden, his poultry. And the commom work on the land is paid in money which he can dispose of as he likes. The sovkhoz is a [..] where the labourer gets wages which he can economize and save for the time he will leave this place. And of course the engineer of such a factory is paid much higher than a man who digs potatoes. That is the main stimulus to obtain more knowledge and more skill. What stimulus would have a young student to learn and to finish the university if ultimately he would be paid on the same level as an unskilled labourer. Of course I know also that people in the kibbutz in no way consider it as a sacrifice, that their works is paid in food, clothes, housing, and in education of their children. I know also that the members of the kibbutz are less affected by a crisis or unemployment and that this movement is a result of a new spirit in Jewry and a new understanding of social life. I know all that and still I cannot think about this experiment otherwise as about an idealistic effort which will change with the growth of the population or with the spreading of the land workers.

   But there is no doubt that it is a highly progressive socialistic experiment and that neither the British nor the Arab League can accepot it. All British relationship with the East is based on support of the big landlords, and the Arab League is an instrument of this system. Anti-Zionism is in many ways result of the fear of this new system of economy and life.’

                                                                 P.

注释

1.See Doc.55,n.1.

Page 125

58 Major-General Basilov to L.V.Samylovskii (Moscow)

COPY:AVP RF, F.0118, OP.9,P.5, D.5, L.1.

Moscow, 27 April 1946

Secret

To the Director of the Near East Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, Comrade I.V.Samylovskii,

   In the course of 1945 our representative in Egypt, Semin, recorded that there were in Palestine 206 Soviet citizens, qualified to be repatriated to the USSR, but the question of their repatriation has dragged on and has to be resolved through diplomatic channels.1

   According to available information, these Soviet citizens, who have declared that they wish too return home are at present being subjected to every sort of insult and persecution by reactionary Palestinian organizations.2 Please let us know how far this question has been sorted out, since in January 1946 our representative in Egypt was recall with the agreement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and further work on locating and repatriating Soviet citizens has been entrusted by the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Minister in Egypt, Comrade Shchiborin.

                                    Assistant Plenipotentiary of the Council of Ministers

                                             Of the USSR on Matters of Repatriation3

                                                           Major-General Basilov

Appendix:List of Soviet citizens registered in Palestine, 7 pp, sent only to addressee.4

注释

1.Another officer, Lt-Col, Karasov, head of the repatriation committee’s Middle East mission, arrived in Palestine and registered approximately 130 civilians said to be Soviet citizens. Karasov applied to the British military authorities to sent these people to the USSR; however, the British recommended approaching UNRRA (see Minister Resident in the Middle East to the Foreign Office, 18 July 1945, PRO FO 371/51226). Commenting on this, British Minister in Moscow Frank Roberts wrote:’ Palestine is no exception to general Soviet policy of Jealous refusal to give up anyone whom they regard as a Soviet citizen’ (Roberts to the Foreign Office, 1 August 1945, PRO FO 371/51226). On 2 July 1945, Sultanov, of the Soviet legation in Cairo, met a representative of the British embassy and urgently requested that all Soviet citizens in Palestine be gathered in one camp and then supplied transport facilities for their transfer to Italy or Tehran. The British diplomat replied that the embassy was not authorized to give orders to the high commissioner of Palestine, but he could recommend such an action (see AVP RF,f.0118, op.8, p.4, d.8, 1.3).

2.On 15 July 1945, Pravda and Izvestiia published a TASS report from Cairo entiled ‘Persecution of Soviet Citizens in Palestine’ which claimed that Soviet citizens who had requested to return to the USSR were being intimidated: fired from their jobs, evicted from their apartments and even assaulted in public.

3.The Chief Director for Repatriation was established in October 1944. It was manned by officials of Soviet counter-intelligence (SMERSH) and the secret police (NKVD). Its purpose was to return prisoners of war and civilians taken for forced labour during World War II to Germany and other countries under Nazi rule. More than 5 million people were brought back to the USSR in this repatriation effort.

4.Deputy Director of the Middle East Department Maksimov wrote by hand in the marfin of the document, ‘Comrade Maliarov, clarify this question’. On 2 April 1947, First Secretary of the Middle East Department Maliarov submitted a memorandum. according to which, in response to the Soviet demand for the return of 206 Soviet citizens from Palestine in 1946, the British

Page 126

had requested the emigration of 206 soviet Jews to Palestine. The British request apparently referred to Palestinian Jews who, visiting eastern Europe prior to WWII, foundd themselves on annexed Soviet territory in the wake of the Molitov-Ribbentroop Pact. According to Maliarov, Vyshinskii remarked that he preferred providing these Soviet citizens with Soviet passports and leaving them in Palestine (AVP RF, f.0118, op.10, p.5, d.7, I.1). British sources corroborate that the British representative in Moscow had asked Vyshinskii to grant Jewish citizens of Palestine, currently on the territory of the USSR, permission to emigrated to Palestine (F.K,Roberts to A.Vyshinskii, 10 September 1945, PRO FO 371/45396).