MIKHAILOVICH: One point is not clear to me…. In the formation of the state of Israel, the Americans were opposed.
MOLOTOV: Everyone objected but us–me and Stalin. Some asked me why we favored it. We are supporters of international freedom. Why should we be opposed if, strictly speaking, that meant pursuing a hostile nationalist policy? In our time, it’s true, the Bolsheviks were and remained anti-Zionist. We were even against the Bund, though it was considered to be a socialist organization. Yet it’s one thing to be anti-Zionist and antibourgeois, and quite another to be against the Jewish people…. Otherwise we favored a separate Israeli state. But we remained anti-Zionist.
Chuev, Feliks. Molotov Remembers. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993, p. 65
The Creation of Israel
The Creation of Israel
MOLOTOV AND STALIN SUPPORT THE CREATION OF ISRAEL
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I have met Israelis who received military training in the Soviet Union, certainly with Stalin’s approval. But Stalin later abandoned the Jewish policy advocated by my father [Beria], which he had supported at the outset.
Beria, Sergo. Beria, My Father: Inside Stalin’s Kremlin. London: Duckworth, 2001, p. 208
The Jewish Committee continued [after the death of Mikhoels], and Stalin would be the first to recognize Israel.
Montefiore, Sebag. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. New York: Knopf, 2004, p. 574
As Israel defended itself against an invasion by five Arab armies, Stalin authorized arms supplies through Czechoslovakia, an infusion of substantial support that proved essential to Israel’s success in the war.
Naumov & Teptsov. Stalin’s Secret Pogrom. New Haven, London: Yale Univ. Press, 2001, p. 40