Stones on the Prairie: Acculturation in Texas

The Soviet Role in the Creation of Israel Reconsidered

Rude & Barbarous Kingdom Revisited: Essays in Russian History and Culture in Honor of Robert O. Crummey. Chester S. L. Dunning, Russell E. Martin, and Daniel Rowland, eds. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2008, 367–87.       The Soviet Role in the Creation of Israel Reconsidered Richard Hellie The  “living  spirit”  of  the  Eastern  support  to  Israel   was  Stalin  himself.1     It   is   doubtful   whether   Israel   would   have   come   into  being  had  it  not  been  for  Soviet  support.2     Certainly  one  of  the  most  enigmatic  events  of  the  20th  century  was  the  role  of   the  Soviet  Union  in  the  creation  of  the  state  of  Israel.  It  made  little  sense  in   1947,  and  with  six  decades  of  hindsight,  it  seems  to  have  been  an  even  less   wise  move  on  the  part  of  the  USSR.  No  one  doubts  that  Soviet  support  was   absolutely  vital  for  the  creation  of  Israel  out  of  the  League  of  Nations  mandate   of  Palestine.  But  there  seems  to  be  absolutely  no  concensus  on  why  the  Soviet   leaders,   Stalin,   Malenkov,   Beria,   Kaganovich,   Molotov,   Vyshinskii,   Khru-­‐‑ shchev  et  al.,  all  thoughtful  and  intelligent  (if  somewhat  mentally  disturbed)   individuals,  did  what  they  did  or  why  they  thought  it  was  either  in  their  im-­‐‑ mediate  or  long-­‐‑term  best  interest.  One  can  only  wonder  why  that  group  of   intelligent   men   could   not   (or   did   not)   foresee   at   least   some   of   the   negative   consequences  the  creation  of  Israel  would  have  for  the  Soviet  Union/Russia.  I   have  been  hoping  that  some  high-­‐‑level  discussions/communications/memoirs   on  the  issue  would  come  to  light,  but  to  date  I  am  aware  of  nothing.  The  pur-­‐‑ pose  of  this  essay  is  to  examine  these  issues  given  the  currently  available  data   and  see  whether  some  sense  can  be  made  of  them.   There  are  many  hypotheses  on  why  the  Soviets  pressed  for  the  creation  of   Israel—the  alleged  motives  of  Stalin  &  Co.:     1.   For   decades   one   position   was   that   the   Soviets   did   it   to   annoy   Britain   (“to   pull   the   British   lion’s   tail”),   to   which   Palestine   had   been  mandated  by  the  League  of  Nations  after  World  War  I  and                                                                                                                             1  Voroshilov  to  Mikunis  at  Dmitrov’s  funeral,  Sofia,  July  1949,  cited  in  Arnold  Kram-­‐‑ mer,  The  Forgotten  Friendship:  Israel  and  the  Soviet  Bloc,  1947–53  (Urbana:  University  of   Illinois  Press,  1974),  81.     2  Yaacov  Ro’i,  Journal  of  Israeli  History  22:  1  (Spring  2003):  21.   368 RICHARD HELLIE the  collapse  of  the  Ottoman  Empire.3  The  problem  with  this  thesis   is  that  Britain  was  scheduled  to  pull  out  of  Palestine  even  before   Israel  was  created,  as  discussed  below.4   2.   The  “logic”  of  the  first  point  is  aided  by  the  fact  that  the  British   consistently  hindered  Jewish  migration  to  Palestine,  and  the  Sovi-­‐‑ ets  reasoned  that  the  Zionists  had  no  more  love  for  the  British  than   they   did.   The   Soviets   calculated   that   with   a   mutual   adversary,   friendship   with   Israel   might   be   possible.   The   Soviet   expectation   was  that  Israel  would  be  an  anti-­‐‑colonial  and  anti-­‐‑West-­‐‑European   power.5  History  certainly  did  not  work  out  this  way,  at  least  not   for  very  long.     3.   At  least  modestly  convincing  is  the  proposition  that  Stalin  already   in   1928   proposed   exploiting   contradictions   between   capitalist   states.  After  1945  he  saw  his  chance.  Relations  between  the  United   Kingdom   and   the   United   States   became   quite   strained   over   the   problem  of  Palestine.6  Britain,  in  charge  of  the  Palestine  Mandate,                                                                                                                             3  Heller  traditionally  notes  that  Soviet  aid  stemmed  from  the  wish  to  undermine  Brit-­‐‑ ish   imperialism.   Joseph   Heller,   The   Birth   of   Israel   (Gainesville:   University   Press   of   Florida,  2000),  62.  See  also  Christopher  Andrew  and  Vasili  Mitrokhin,  The  World  Was   Going   Our   Way:   The   KGB   and   the   Battle   for   the   Third   World   (New   York:   Basic   Books,   2005),  222;  Paul  Johnson,  A  History  of  the  Jews  (New  York:  Harper  and  Row,  1987),  527.   Johnson  has  recently  stated  that  in  the  years  1944–48,  “Soviet  policy  was  more  pro-­‐‑ Israel  than  America’s”  (The  New  York  Times,  3  August  2006).  A  variation  on  this  was   that   Britain   converted   Lebanon   into   its   “springboard   to   reach   Russia’s   border,”   and   the  Soviets  hoped  to  be  able  “to  render  it  useless  by  intervening  in  the  Palestine  issue.”   Documents  on  Israeli-­‐‑Soviet  Relations  1941–1953,  ed.  Yaacov  Ro’i  (London:  Frank  Cass,   2000),  135.  Before  Gromyko’s  speech  in  1947,  getting  the  British  out  of  the  Middle  East   was  a  primary  Soviet  objective  (Documents  on  Israeli-­‐‑Soviet  Relations,  174).   4  Britain  decided  to  pull  out  of  Palestine  in  January–February  of  1947  and  turn  it  over...