[Karl Radl]

Part VI

‘In the vicinity of New York City the Communist camps include a very high percentage of Jewish boys and girls. There is no Federal law prohibiting such camps teaching disloyalty and practically treason to thousands of healthy and bright young future Americans, and they are permitted to exist and continue to warp the minds of immature children whose parents have fled from countries where they were oppressed to a land of freedom and of equal opportunity.’ (91)

‘Harry Novick

A son of a rabbi and loud in self-defense of repeated accusations made because of his membership in the Communist Party. Harry is one of the most militant fellow-travellers we have. There is no definite tie to link him in actual membership in the party, but no doubt whatsoever as to his beliefs.

If not a member it may be mainly or solely because of the position his father occupies in the Jewish synagogues. Loud and arrogant, completely the tool of the Reds, Harry is both a formidable foe and a pitiful figure.

Harry was an executive board member of our local by virtue of his position as chief shop steward of the radio Bond Street section of the Bridgeport General Electric plant.

Harry has attended Communist meetings and has also invited and taken neighbors of his from Stratford to these meetings.’ (92) [#]

‘I seldom went to the school library, since my work requires little reference reading. But one day I wandered in and was confronted immediately with Paul Radin’s “The Racial Myth.” This book is treasonable and anti-Christian. It states in bald terms that there is to be a World Soviet State and that it is to be established by Americans, Jews and Russians.’ (93)

‘Mr. Scherer. Today the Communist Party is violently anti-Semitic, isn’t it?

Dr. Dodd. Let me just put it this way, Congressman Scherer, to be fair, publicly they will say they are against it, but when the question arose, when the 10 or 12 doctors were arrested – what happened in the Daily Workers, the unit which gives the line out to the party people – the Daily Worker began using the same kind of lies which Fascist minded people might be using against the Jewish people. They kept saying, “Of course, there are Jews down in Wall Street, and therefore the doctors in the Soviet Union must be the same type of characters as those people.”

In other words, they mouthed the same kind of anti-Semitism which we hear from people who are a real menace.’ (94) [#]

‘Captain Schneur seemed to have rendered so many services to the Bolsheviki that I could not help asking him how he came to be arrested.

“Jealousy and vengeance of a woman,” he answered, and explained to me how the mistress of Comrade Krylenko, a Jewess named Mme. Rasmirovich, asked him for some “help” before he left Petrograd.

It seemed that Mme. Rasmirovich had obtained the right and exclusive privilege from Smolny to print The Soldiers’ Pravda (the Bolshevist trench newspaper) and wanted to make her business proposition still more profitable by confiscating large quantities of printing paper in the offices of a big Petrograd newspaper. She wanted Captain Schneur to sign the order of requisition and furnish soldiers to commit the theft. He refused both. In her anger she vowed that he would pay heavily for his offence to her and she began to spread the report that he had been in correspondence with the Secret Police while he lived in Paris, and finally persuaded Comrade Krylenko to have him arrested and sent to the Fortress.’ (95) [+]

‘The Communist organization of the Soviet Government has proved to be only a dream which cannot be practically realized. Bolshevism in Russia is only a part of the revolutionary anarchy and can be divided into two periods: (a) that of the decay and destruction of the army, which I call the period of the German agents; (b) that of the Red Terror, which I call the period of the historical vengeance of the oppressed in general and of the Jews in particular.’ (96) [+]

‘Together with other released Party members, Dzerzhinsky arrived at the conference held by the Warsaw committee of the Social-Democratic Party in connection with the revolutionary fervour which continued to mount in view of the October strike which had spread throughout Russia. (“The ovation that greeted them can easily be imagined,” wrote A. Krajewski.) Jakub Goldenberg, who was chairing the conference, immediately passed his functions over to Dzerzhinsky.’ (97)

‘Unfortunately there were still to be undergone the three or four years of civil war and famine, during which, at the hand of the contending armies, the bulk of the Jewish population suffered the worst excesses. All that can be said is that, on the whole, the White Armies were the most brutal, whilst the Red Army did its best to protect these poor victims, notwithstanding the fact that, for one or other reason, the majority of the Jews were, for some time, not sympathetic to the Bolshevik government. Its condemnation of profit-making trading, as of usury, bore harshly on the Jews of White Russia and the Ukraine, whose families had been for centuries excluded alike from agriculture and the professions, and confined to the towns of the Jewish Pale. In 1921 the New Economic Policy temporarily enabled many of them to resume their businesses; but by 1928 the all-pervading collectivist enterprises of the trusts and the cooperative societies, aided by penal taxation and harsh measures of police, had killed practically all the little profit-making ventures to which the Jewish families were specially addicted.’ (98)

‘For the economic rehabilitation of the Jews – apart from those whose education and ability enabled them to obtain official appointments or entrance to the brain-working professions – the main resource was placed upon the establishment of Jewish agricultural settlements, at first in Southern Ukraine and the Crimea, and latterly in the extensive territory allocated for this purpose at Biro-Bidjan on the Amour River, in Eastern Siberia. Largely by Government help with land and credit, assisted by a whole series of philanthropic associations promoted by Jews of the United States (notably the Jewish Distribution Committee), as well as those of the USSR in the great voluntary Jewish Colonisation Society (OZET), something like forty thousand Jewish families, comprising a hundred and fifty thousand persons, have within the past fifteen years, been added to the agricultural population of the Soviet Union, one fourth in Biro-Bidjan, which has already been made an “autonomous region”, ranking as an oblast, and will become a “Jewish autonomous republic” as soon as it obtains sufficient population.

To all the aggregations of Jews, although not recognised as a nation, the Soviet Government concedes the same measure and kind of cultural autonomy as it accords to the national minorities so called.’ (99)

‘Mr. Tavenner. What kind of a meeting was it?

Mr. Sampler. It was a Communist meeting, but whether it was under a committee or a commission, I don’t know.

Mr. Tavenner. Did he hold any position in the Communist Party in the District of Columbia at that time, to you knowledge?

Mr. Sampler. Not that I know of.

Mr. Tavenner. This address, 4402 Georgia Avenue, is it a private home or an apartment building, or what is it?

Mr. Sampler. It is the Jewish Community Center, I believe that is the name.’ (100) [#]

‘Mr. Moulder. What was Mr. Wahl doing at that time?

Mr. Lowenthal. He was Washington representative or secretary of the American Jewish Conference, which was an amalgamation of a great many Jewish organizations as I understand it.’ (101) [#J]

‘Mr. Arens. Could you kindly tell us again the circumstances of your joining the Communist Party when you joined?

Mr. Cherlin. The circumstances proceeding my actual joining was that I functioned as a music teacher in a Jewish fraternal organization called the Jewish People’s Fraternal Organization [Order].

Mr. Arens. Was that an adjunct of the International Workers Order?

Mr. Cherlin. That is right. We would go from 1 lodge or 1 group to another, a group of 3 or 4 teachers, were we would give lessons. One or two of these people were party people; and, in travelling from one place to another, we would have discussions, political, theoretical, philosophical, and practical; and pressures were put upon me to join the Communist Party.’ (102) [#J]

‘Mr. Arens. Have you appeared, given concerts, under the auspices of the School of Jewish Studies in the course of the last few years?

Mr. Hollander. I don’t recall, sir.

Mr. Arens. We display to you now a thermofax reproduction of an announcement in the Communist Daily Worker (March 30, 1948, p. 5), to the effect that there will be a concert at the School of Jewish Studies in which the artists listed include Max Hollander.

Look at that and see if that refreshes your recollection.

(The document was handed to the witness.)

(The witness conferred with his counsel.)

Mr. Hollander. It is possible, sir, but I don’t remember. Being a violinist of certain stature. I have played concerts a great deal, and I, as a rule, have not asked where the job comes from. May I elaborate, if I may, sir?

Jobs, as a rule, come through the telephone, and have to go through the union somehow. One accepts a job and does not ask who is the employer, but one finds out who has hired him. In effect, that particular person acts as a contractor. I have no recollection of having played a concert for a Jewish school. I may have, sir.

(Document marked “Hollander Exhibit No. 2,” and retained in committee files.)

Mr. Arens. You know the School of Jewish Studies has been repeatedly cited as a Communist-controlled outfit: do you not?’ (103) [#]

‘Mr. Arens. What connection, if any, have you had with the School of Jewish Studies?

Mr. Hellerman. Is that – Excuse me a moment.

(The witness conferred with his counsel.)

Mr. Hellerman. I am afraid I really don’t understand the question. I don’t know exactly what you mean when you say association.

Mr. Arens. Have you performed at the School of Jewish Studies?

Mr. Hellerman. I don’t know. I have performed in a great many places.

Mr. Arens. Do you have any recollection of performing there? If you do not, we will pass on to another question.

Mr. Hellerman. I have no recollection of performing there.

Mr. Arens. ‘Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?

Mr. Hellerman. I believe that I will decline to answer that question on the basis of the fifth amendment.

Mr. Arens. Are you now a member of the Communist Party?

(The witness conferred with his counsel.)

Mr. Hellerman. I decline to answer on the previous grounds.

Mr. Arens. I want to invite your attention, if you please, Mr. Hellerman, to the article appearing in the Daily Worker of 1947 (December 12), which I shall now display to you, in reference to a series of entertainment programs. We have marked here, just for the purpose of directing your attention to it, the name “Fred Hellerman,” of People’s Songs, who is to perform in “Village Varieties, a smash hit, “ and the admission is 75c or a subscription to the Worker. Kindly look at that article, if you please, sir, and tell us if that prompts your recollection of that incident.

Mr. Hellerman. I decline to answer that.’ (104) [#]

‘By a curious – what shall I call it? – coincidence all these men, most of whom were about to play a leading part in the great betrayal of Russia, were Jews.’ (105)

‘What was to all intents and purposes a branch of the Whitfield Street club was established at 49, Tottenham Street, under the title of the Social Democratic Communist Club. In Cable Street, a small thoroughfare turning out of Princes Square, there existed for some time a club known as The Dawn. Greater notoriety has attached to the anarchist club in Berner Street, Commercial Road. It was originally known as the Nihilist Club, and was founded by Russian refugees. The gulf between nihilism and anarchism is not great, the latter, indeed, including the former. The members of the Berner Street club were mainly recruited from the populous colony of foreign Jews that has settled in the East End of London. In April, 1891, the seventh anniversary of the foundation of this club was celebrated, one of the speakers remarking on this occasion that, though “the revolutionary movement among the Hebrews is of comparatively recent origin, at present wherever there are Jews in London, America, Australia, Poland or Russia, among those Jews will be found anarchists.”’ (106)

‘I had often heard of the honesty of the Jewish smugglers on the frontier; but I had never expected to have such proof of it. Later on, when our circle imported many books from abroad, or still later, when so many revolutionists and refugees crossed the frontier in entering or leaving Russia, there was not a case in which the smugglers betrayed anyone, or took advantage of the circumstances to exact an exorbitant price for their services.’ (107) [+]

‘We must have been there by the time I was six, for I remember the night of the 1935 General Election. It was raining and some people came to the door to take my father to vote for Lewis Cohen, the Labour candidate.’ (108) [#]

‘Because the Communist movement was so heavily infiltrated and influenced by Jewish activists it was natural that the Communist movement should be directed towards passionately attacking the anti-Semitism of National Socialism.’ (109) [#]

‘It was probably during the summer of 1946 that the Fabian Society obtained a very large property in Richmond Terrace, facing St. Peter’s Church. Of course, it was Lewis Cohen, boss of the Brighton-based Alliance Building Society, that provided the wherewithal.’ (110) [#]

References

(91) National Americanism Commission of the American Legion, 1937, ‘Isms: A Review of Alien Isms, Revolutionary Communism and their Active Sympathizers in the United States’, 2nd Edition, American Legion: Indianapolis, p. 130
(92) House Committee of Un-American Activities, 1947, ‘Hearings regarding Communism in Labor Unions in the United States’, 1st Edition, US Government Printing Office: Washington D.C., p. 156
(93) Bessie Burchett, 1941, ‘Education for Destruction’, 1st Edition, Self-Published: Philadelphia, p. 160
(94) House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1953, ‘Investigation of Communist Activities in the Columbus, Ohio, Area’, 1st Edition, US Government Printing Office: Washington D.C., p. 1756
(95) Andrew Kalpaschnikoff, 1920, ‘A Prisoner of Trotsky’s’, 1st Edition, Doubleday, Page & Company: New York, p. 160
(96) Ibid, p. 285
(97) Hya Doroshenko, Sofia Dzerzhinskaya, Alexander Katskevich et al, 1988, ‘Felix Dzerzhinsky: A Biography’, 1st Edition, Progress Publishers: Moscow, p. 49. Jakub Goldenberg we may presume to have been jewish as it is a common jewish first and surname in addition to Poland being one of the places where jews were most in evidence in the late 19th and early 20th century.
(98) Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb, 1937, ‘Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation’, Vol. I, 2nd Edition, Victor Gollancz: London, pp. 149-150
(99) Ibid, pp. 150-151
(100) House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1950, ‘Hearings regarding Communism in the District of Columbia’, Part 2, 1st Edition, US Government Printing Office: Washington D.C., pp. 3252-3253. It should be noted that Sampler here is referring to the building used to house local communist meetings as outlined on p. 3252.
(101) House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1950, ‘Hearings regarding Communism in the United States Government’, Part 2, 1st Edition, US Government Printing Office: Washington D.C., p. 2964. It should be noted that David Wahl seems to have been an individual of communist leanings and suspected of espionage inside the United States government as well as involvement with the communist infiltration of the United Nations (alongside Alger Hiss). Wahl, according to pp. 2962-2963, was the individual who got Lowenthal, who was also jewish, his job as a senior figure in a department of the Board of Economic Warfare in 1942. Wahl also had a civil service post as well as his lobbying responsibilities. We may assume Wahl was jewish because of his importance in the American Jewish Conference (to my knowledge non-jews are extremely rare in jewish organisations let alone in positions of authority).
(102) House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1957, ‘Investigation of Communism in the Metropolitan Music School, Inc., and Related Fields’, Part 1, 1st Edition, US Government Printing Office: Washington D.C., p. 629
(103) Ibid, pp. 754-755
(104) House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1957, ‘Investigation of Communism in the Metropolitan Music School, Inc., and Related Fields’, Part 2, 1st Edition, US Government Printing Office: Washington D.C., p. 873. It should be noted that ‘taking the fifth amendment’ was a common tactic used by communists in legal proceedings against them and/or interrogations of them since they did not wish to answer truthfully as it would ‘incriminate them’, but could not answer negatively without breaking the law.
(105) Princess Catherine Radziwill, 1919, ‘The Firebrand of Bolshevism: The True Story of the Bolsheviki and the Forces that directed them’, 1st Edition, Small, Maynard & Company: Boston, p. 228
(106) Felix Dubois, Trans: Ralph Derechef, 1894, ‘The Anarchist Peril’, 1st Edition, T. Fisher Unwin: London, pp. 269-270
(107) Prince Peter Kropotkin, 1899, ‘Memoirs of a Revolutionist’, Vol. II, 1st Edition, Smith, Elder, & Co.: London, p. 82. It should be noted that Kropotkin was and is one of the most important of all anarchist thinkers and that his experiences, although prior to the Bolshevik revolution, are instructive in informing us of the jewish role in the anarchist and marxist movements in Europe at that time.
(108) Denis Hill, 1989, ‘Seeing Red – Being Green: The Life and Times of a Southern Rebel’, 1st Edition, Iconoclast Press: Brighton, p. 16. It should be noted that the British Labour party was at this time avowedly socialist and often pro-communist although not affiliated with the Comintern like the Communist party of Great Britain (CPGB).
(109) Ibid, p. 88. It should be noted here that Hill was writing as a life-long marxist and long-time member of the CPGB as well as a senior trade unionist.
(110) Ibid, p. 118. The Fabian Society is a long-standing socialist, still pro-communist at the time referred to by Hill, group that has traditionally formed the intellectual backbone and provided a lot of funding for the British Labour party. It should also be noted that the Alliance Building Society still exists and has expanded its operations a great deal since Hill wrote.