Sunday, 23 February 1930

Moscow:  

The soviet government, communist party, and their newspapers lash out at the rest of the world on the 12^th anniversary of the founding of the Red Army, and in the continuing upheaval surrounding the allegation that death penalties were meeted out to rabbis in Minsk.  Izvetia writes: “All the forces of reaction throughout the world are mobilized against the Soviet Union, which is going full speed ahead toward socialism.  The Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the French police, the English die-hards, socialists, fascists, foreign counterfeiters of soviet money, and the German bourgeoisie have united into one holy union to launch new bandit attacks upon our country.  But the rulers of capitalistic Europe forget they are dancing the cancan on a barrel of powder.  We will remain firm and calm, watching this dance of dying capitalism.  In our country, all workers and peasants are convinced of the final results of the struggle between bolshevism and capitalism.  They know our government stands in defense of peace. They want peace themselves, but if the enemy directs his guns on the land of the proletarian dictatorship, each worker and peasant will consider it an honor to participate in the victorious marches of the Red Army in order to destroy the class enemy.”

 

Meanwhile the Jewish communist newspaper Oktiabre writes that rabbis in foreign countries are spies and therefore “these holy damagers should be carefully watched.”  Tass, the official government news agency, calls the report that rabbis in Minsk were going to be executed a “deliberate lie,” adding that “similar information emanating from Warsaw is false and part of the ring in the present anti-soviet campaign abroad.”  Supposedly, according to the soviet press, Jews themselves in Russia are marching in the streets, begging the authorities to close synagogues and convert them to secular uses. 

Nonetheless, U.S. Senator William Borah, who had written to Maxim Litvinov, Russian Acting Commissar of Foreign Affairs inquiring about the sentenced rabbis, says he has received word that the rabbis have been freed. 

In New York, speakers in churches and synagogues across the city attack Russia’s anti-religious persecution.  In Chicago, Jewish groups raise funds for the persecuted Jews in Russia.  And in Berlin, a mass meeting of Protestant churches is held to pray for the persecuted in Russia, and call on Christians worldwide to protest against it. 

Elsewhere:

Great Britain:  The worldwide depression deepens: a report says unemployment here now numbers 1.5 million.

Germany:  More bad economic news: unemployment among labor union members is now reported at 22%.