Rootless cosmopolitan (Russian: безродный
космополит, bezrodnyi kosmopolit)
was a pejorative Soviet euphemism widely used
during Soviet anti-Semitic campaign of 1948–1953,
which culminated in the "exposure" of the
non-existent Doctors' plot.
The term "rootless cosmopolitan" referred
mostly to Jewish intellectuals, as an accusation
in their lack of patriotism, i.e., lack of
full allegiance to the Soviet Union.
The campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans"
began in 1946, when Joseph Stalin in his speech
in Moscow attacked writers who were ethnic
Jews.
The expression was coined in 19th century
by Russian literary critic Vissarion Belinsky
to describe writers who lacked Russian national
character.
== The antisemitic campaign ==
=== Beginning ===
After World War II, the Jewish Anti-Fascist
Committee (JAC) grew increasingly influential
to the post-Holocaust Soviet Jewry, and was
accepted as its representative in the West.
As its activities sometimes contradicted official
Soviet policies (see The Black Book of Soviet
Jewry as an example), it became a nuisance
to Soviet authorities.
The Central Auditing Commission of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union concluded that instead
of focusing its attention on the "struggle
against forces of international reaction",
the JAC continued the line of the Bund—a
dangerous designation, since former Bund members
were to be "purged".
During a meeting with Soviet intelligentsia
in 1946, Stalin voiced his concerns about
recent developments in Soviet culture, which
later would materialize in the "battle against
cosmopolitanism" (see Zhdanov Doctrine).
Recently, a dangerous tendency seems to be
seen in some of the literary works emanating
under the pernicious influence of the West
and brought about by the subversive activities
of the foreign intelligence.
Frequently in the pages of Soviet literary
journals works are found where Soviet people,
builders of communism are shown in pathetic
and ludicrous forms.
The positive Soviet hero is derided and inferior
before all things foreign and cosmopolitanism
that we all fought against from the time of
Lenin, characteristic of the political leftovers,
is many times applauded.
In the theater it seems that Soviet plays
are pushed aside by plays from foreign bourgeois
authors.
The same thing is starting to happen in Soviet
films.
In 1946 and 1947, the new campaign against
cosmopolitanism affected Soviet scientists,
such as the physicist Pyotr Kapitsa and the
president of the Belorussian Academy of Sciences
Anton Zhebrak.
They along with other scientists were denounced
for contacts with their Western colleagues
and support for "bourgeois science".In 1947,
many literary critics were accused of "kneeling
before the West", as well as anti-patriotism
and cosmopolitanism.
For example, the campaign targeted those who
studied the works of Alexander Veselovsky,
the founder of Russian comparative literature,
which was described as a "bourgeois cosmopolitan
direction in literary criticism".
=== 1948 ===
In January 1948, the JAC's head, the popular
actor and world-famous public figure Solomon
Mikhoels, was killed by the Soviet Ministry
of Internal Affairs on the Politburo's orders;
his murder was framed as a car accident where
a truck ran over him as he was taking a walk
on a narrow road.
This was followed by eventual arrests of JAC's
members and its termination.
The USSR voted for the 1947 United Nations
Partition Plan for Palestine and in May 1948,
it recognized the establishment of the state
of Israel there, subsequently supporting it
with weapons (via Czechoslovakia, in defiance
of the embargo) in the 1948 Arab–Israeli
war.
Many Soviet Jews felt inspired and sympathetic
towards Israel and sent thousands of letters
to the (still formally existing) JAC with
offers to contribute to or even volunteer
for Israel's defence.
In September 1948, the first Israeli ambassador
to the USSR, Golda Meir, arrived in Moscow.
Huge enthusiastic crowds (estimated 50,000)
gathered along her path and in and around
Moscow synagogue when she attended it for
Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah.
These events corresponded in time with a visible
upsurge of Russian nationalism orchestrated
by official propaganda, the increasingly hostile
Cold War and the realization by the Soviet
leadership that Israel had chosen the Western
option.
Domestically, Soviet Jews were being considered
a security liability for their international
connections, especially to the United States,
and growing national awareness.
With United States becoming the opponent of
the Soviet Union by the end of 1948, the USSR
switched sides in the Arab–Israeli conflict
and began supporting the Arabs against Israel,
first politically and later also militarily.
For his part David Ben-Gurion declared support
for the United States in the Korean War, despite
opposition from left-wing Israeli parties.
From 1950 on, Israeli–Soviet relations were
an inextricable part of the Cold War—with
ominous implications for Soviet Jews supporting
Israel, or perceived as supporting it.
=== "About one anti-patriotic group of theatre
critics" ===
A new stage of the campaign opened on January
28, 1949, when an article entitled "About
one anti-patriotic group of theatre critics"
appeared in the newspaper Pravda, an official
organ of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party:
An anti-patriotic group has developed in theatrical
criticism.
It consists of followers of bourgeois aestheticism.
They penetrate our press and operate most
freely in the pages of the magazine, Teatr,
and the newspaper, Sovetskoe iskusstvo.
These critics have lost their sense of responsibility
to the people.
They represent a rootless cosmopolitanism
which is deeply repulsive and inimical to
Soviet man.
They obstruct the development of Soviet literature;
the feeling of national Soviet pride is alien
to them.
According to the journalist Masha Gessen,
a concise definition of rootless cosmopolitan
appeared in an issue of Voprosy istorii (The
Issues of History) in 1949: "The rootless
cosmopolitan ... falsifies and misrepresents
the worldwide historical role of the Russian
people in the construction of socialist society
and the victory over the enemies of humanity,
over German fascism in the Great Patriotic
War."
Gessen states that the term used for "Russian"
is an exclusive term that means ethnic Russians
only, and so she concludes that "any historian
who neglected to sing the praises of the heroic
ethnic Russians ... was a likely traitor".The
campaign included a crusade in the state-controlled
mass media to expose literary pseudonyms of
Jewish writers by putting their real names
in parentheses in order to reveal to the public
that they were ethnic Jews.Thirteen Soviet
Jewish poets and writers, five of them members
of Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, were executed
in the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow on August
12, 1952.
== Legacy ==
As a result of the campaign, scores of Soviet
Jews were fired from their jobs.
In 1947, Jews constituted 18 per cent of Soviet
scientific workers, but by 1970 this number
declined to 7 per cent, which can still be
compared to about 3 to 4 per cent of the Soviet
population at that time.Anything Jewish became
suppressed by the Soviet authorities, and
even the word Jew disappeared from the media.
Many were shocked to find a Yiddish verse
(sung by Mikhoels) cut out from the famous
lullaby in the Soviet classic movie Circus
("Tsirk", 1936), known by heart by millions
and still very popular in post-war Soviet
cinemas.
A historian of Zionism, Walter Laqueur, noted:
"When, in the 1950s under Stalin, the Jews
of the Soviet Union came under severe attack
and scores were executed, it was under the
banner of anti-Zionism rather than anti-Semitism,
which had been given a bad name by Adolf Hitler."
== 
See also ==
Anti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public
Global citizenship
Jewish Autonomous Oblast
Slánský trial
Soviet anti-Zionism
Yevsektsiya
== Notes ==
== References ==
== External links ==
"About one antipatriotic group of theater
critics", Pravda article
"From Anti-Westernism to Anti-Semitism" by
Konstantin Azadovskii and Boris Egorov in
Journal of Cold War Studies, 4:1, Winter 2002,
pp. 66–80
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cerh20/17/3
"Cosmopolitanism: The End of Jewishness?"
Michael L. Miller and Scott Ury in European
Review of History, 17:3, 2010, pp. 337–359.
Michael L. Miller and Scott Ury, eds., Cosmopolitanism,
Nationalism and the Jews of East Central Europe.
ISBN 978-1138018525
