The Battle for Novorussiya

[Lauren Johnson]

Now there is this very long and convoluted article from Fort Rus. Who would have thought drugs might just be the tie that binds?

Nemtsov in a "Caucasian Knot"': chechens, drugs, ISIS, Batman and Kolomoisky

[Paul Rigby]

English in 3 hours

http://www.octpib.info/Articles.aspx?id=18880

One year after the Ukraine's "Revolution of Dignity", my town in Western Ukraine is going to become a ghost town. The inhabitants disappear every day. However, there is no mystery. People just immigrate legally and illegally.

Men are fleeing mobilization. Women are running away from the terrible economic disaster searching for any job abroad. Some of them are trying to learn foreign languages.

Last year we opened the language school. We got a huge success using the advertising "English in 10 days". Now such advertising does not attract many students. Today our people are looking for language courses where they could learn English in 3 days and Polish language in 3 hours.

We can change our advertising but our potential students expect from us teaching them English in 3 days during their trip to Kiev to the US or Canadian embassies. Now we have no experience to organize the school on the train.

In couple of last months, we have lost the stable middle class in our Ukrainian society. The Average Salary in Ukraine is 50 US dollars a month. The average pension in Ukraine is $ 30.

Young people are not happy about their future life in such country. Majority of them plan to move to the western countries. However, western countries cannot receive couple of millions of emigrants and refuges from Ukraine in the nearest future.

Foreign politicians want to help Ukrainian government and give the weapons to Ukraine to fight against separatists in the South-East of Ukraine. It is good idea but there is one question: to whom the arm will go?

Men are fleeing mobilization. Women are immigrating. May be babushkas can use the modern weapons? I am not sure about this because our grandmothers are very busy babysitters. They have to care about children instead of their mother and fathers immigrants.

Every foreign expert suggests starting reforms and sends to our government many good recipes. However, no one of them do not suggest reforming the Law on Partial Mobilization. This old soviet legislation destroy every attempt to protect the country.

Meanwhile our language school is preparing for new marketing campaign. We will promise to teach English in 3 hours. It takes exactly 3 hours for people of my town to get to the EU border.

A. M. from W. U.

[Paul Rigby]

What does Putin want?

http://slavyangrad.org/2015/03/12/what-does-putin-want/

BY Rostislav Ishchenko, president of the Centre for System Analysis and Forecasting, specially for "Current Commentary"

Original: Чего хочет Путин?

Translated by Alexander Fedotov / Edited by @GBabeuf

It is gratifying that Putin was not instantly blamed by "patriots" for a full-scale defeat of Ukrainian troops in the Donbass, which did not happen in January-February, and for the Moscow consultations with Merkel and Hollande.

However, that would negate neither their desire that victory should have already come yesterday, nor the certainty of the most radical that Putin will anyway "give up Novorossiya," nor the identical fears of moderates immediately on the signing of another truce (if it is going to be signed)which is necessary not only for regrouping and replenishing the army of Novorossiya (which really could be effected without ceasing active hostilities), but also to consolidate the changed configuration on the international front, as well as to prepare for new diplomatic battles.

In fact, no matter how much attention amateurs of political and/or military operations (internet "Talleyrands" and "Bonapartes") pay to the situation in the Donbass and Ukraine as a whole, that is only one point on the global front, as the fate of the war is being decided neither in Donetsk Airport nor in the hills by Debaltsevo. It is being decided in the offices of Staraya Square [the headquarters of the Presidential Administration of Russia -ed.] and Smolenskaya Square [the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia -ed.] as well as in offices in Paris, Berlin and Brussels. Because the war is just one of the many arguments in a political debate.

Political decisions will not always be understood by the public and military

This is the toughest, the last argument, the use of which is associated with a greater risk, but business neither starts with a war nor ends with the war. War is an intermediate step that fixes the impossibility of compromise and is designed to create a new environment in which either a compromise is possible or the need for it disappears in connection with the disappearance of one of the parties to the conflict. That comes at the end of hostilities, when the troops return to the barracks and the generals write their memoirs and prepare for the next war, and politicians and diplomats summarise the results of the confrontation at the negotiating table.

Political decisions will not always be understood by the public and the military. For example, the Chancellor of Prussia (later the German Reich Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck) during the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, in spite of the insistent desire of the King (the future Emperor), Wilhelm I of Prussia, and the demands of the generals, would not allow the taking of Vienna, and he was absolutely right. So he sped up a peace agreement on Prussia's terms, and made sure that Austria-Hungary forever (until its liquidation in 1918) became a junior partner of Prussia and later of the German Empire.

In order to understand how, when and under what conditions the fighting can be ended, we need to know what exactly the politicians want and how they see the conditions of the postwar compromise. At the same time, the reasons why the fighting took just such a characterlow intensity civil war with occasional truceswill become clear, not only in Ukraine but also in Syria.

We obviously cannot be interested in the opinion of Kiev politiciansthey do not decide anything. External control of Ukraine is not even hidden and no matter whether Estonian or Georgian ministers are over therethey are still American ones. It would be a big mistake to be also interested in the views of the leaders of the DPR and the LPR on the future. The republics exist because of Russian support and as long as Russia supports them; therefore, the interests of Russia must be guaranteed (including against making independent decisions and initiatives). Too much is at stake for Zakharchenko, Plotnitskiy or someone else, no matter who, to be able to make independent decisions.

In fact, today the EU can choose whether it stays under an American yoke or tilts towards Russia

We are also not interested in the EU's position. Much depended on the EU until the end of last summer, when the war could have been prevented or stopped at the very beginning. At that moment, a tough, principled anti-war position of the European Union was required and actually might have blocked US actions aimed at inciting a war; it would have made the EU an independent and important geopolitical actor. The EU missed that opportunity and acted as a faithful vassal of the US. As a result, Europe now stands on the brink of frightful internal upheavals, it has every chance in the coming years of repeating the fate of Ukraine, except with a greater roar, with great loss of blood and with fewer prospects that, in the foreseeable future, everything will calm down (someone will come and establish order).

In fact, today, the EU can choose whether it stays under the American yoke or tilts towards Russia. Depending on the choice, Europe can get away with only a slight shock (in the form of losing part of its periphery and fragmentation of some countries), or it may fall into collapse. Judging by the unwillingness of the European elites to openly break with America, collapse, as mentioned above, is almost inevitable.

In fact, we should be interested in the opinion of the two major players who define the configuration of the global front-line and who, in fact, аrе fighting for victory in the new generation of warfare (Third World Network-centric war). These players are the US and Russia.

The US position is clear and transparent. In the second half of the '90s of the twentieth century, Washington finally missed an opportunity to quietly reform the Cold War economy and thereby avoid the inevitable crisis of the system, the development of which was limited by the finiteness of the planet Earth and all its resources, including human one, which was in conflict with the need to indefinitely increase printing and the circulation of dollars.

As soon as Russia claimed its right to make its own political decisions, its clash with the US became inevitable

After that, the US could only prolong the agony by plundering the rest of the worldthe Third World countries to start with, then potential competitors, then allies and then close friends. That robbery could last only as long as the US remained the world hegemon and this hegemony was unquestioned.

That is why, as soon as Russia claimed the right to make its own political decisions (even if not of global but only of regional significance), its clash with the US was inevitable. And this clash cannot result in a compromise peace.

For the US, a compromise with Russia means a voluntary renunciation of hegemony; it will entail a rapid systemic catastrophe (not only economic and political crisis, but also the paralysis of state institutions and the inability of the state to perform its functions, i.e. its inevitable collapse).

If the US wins, a systemic crash awaits Russia. After such a "rebellion" its ruling class will be punished with liquidation, imprisonment and confiscation; the state will be fragmented, substantial territory annexed, military power destroyed.

We need to understand what the Russian leadership wants to achieve, specifically Russian President, Vladimir Putin

So the war will continue until victory, and any interim agreements should be considered only as temporary truces, a necessary respite for regrouping forces, mobilising new resources and recruiting additional allies.

In fact, for the sake of completeness, we lack only the position of Russia. We need to understand what the Russian leadership, specifically Russian President, Vladimir Putin, wants to achieve. We are talking about the key role of Putin within the Russian system of government. It is not an authoritarian, as many claim, but an authoritative role. Thus it is not based on a legislatively consolidated autocracy, but on the authority of the person who created that system, is forcing it to work effectively, and is standing at its head.

In fact, during fifteen years of rule, Putin, despite the difficult external and internal situation, has been trying to maximise the role of the government, the legislative assembly and even of the local authorities. These were quite logical steps that should have given the system completeness, stability and continuity. Since no politician reigns forever, ensuring political continuity, no matter who comes to power, is a key feature of the sustainability of the system.

So far, unfortunately, achieving full autonomy of the system, i.e. its ability to function without the president's supervision, has failed. Putin continues to be a key link in the system precisely because popular trust is concentrated in his person, whereas the system itself (represented by public authorities and individual agencies) is much less trusted.

In this situation, Vladimir Putin's opinion and his political plans have become critical for the formation of Russia's foreign policy; and while the phrase "no Putinno Russia" is an exaggeration, the phrase "what Putin wantsso Russia wants," from my point of view, reflects the real situation quite accurately.

The level of confrontation that Russia allowed herself in relation to the US grew very slowly

First, note that the man who, for fifteen years, gently led Russia to its revival, under conditions of American hegemony in world politics and significant opportunities for Washington to influence the internal politics of Russia itself, has a good understanding of the nature of the struggle and his adversary. Otherwise he would not have lasted so long.

The level of confrontation that Russia allowed herself in relation to the United States, grew very slowly, not to some point noticeable. Russia did not react to the first attempt at a the colour revolution in Ukraine in 2000-2002 ("cassette scandal", "Gongadze case" and the action "Ukraine without Kuchma").

Russia outlined an alternative position, but did not actively intervene in the coup of November 2003‒January 2004 in Georgia and of November 2004‒January 2005 in Ukraine. In 2008, in Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russia involved its troops against a US ally (Georgia). In 2012, Russian ships in Syria demonstrated a willingness to confront the US Navy and its NATO allies.

In 2013, Russia began preventive economic action against the regime of Yanukovich having contributed to his realisation of the harmfulness of signing the Association Agreement.

In each individual period of time, Putin allows himself only that level of confrontation with the US which Russia was able to withstand

Moscow could not save Ukraine from the coup d'étatbecause of the meanness, cowardice and stupidity of Ukraine's leaders (not only Yanukovych but all of them, without exception), but after the armed coup in Kiev in February 2014, Russia entered into an open confrontation with Washington. Before this, conflicts alternated with periods of improved relations whereas, since the beginning of 2014, Russian‒American relations have been deteriorating rapidly, and almost immediately reached the point at which a pre-nuclear era a war could be automatically declared.

Thus, in any given period of time, Putin allowed himself such a level of confrontation with the US which Russia was able to withstand. If, now, Russia does not limit the level of confrontation, then Putin believes that Russia can win the war of sanctions, the war of nerves, the information war, the civil war in Ukraine, the economic war.

That is the first important conclusion about what Putin wants, what he expects. He expects to win. And considering how well he prepares his actions, how thoroughly he calculate chances, one can be sure that when the decision was made not to retreat under pressure from the US, but to respond, the Russian leadership had double, if not triple, guarantees of victory.

I note that the decision to enter into conflict with Washington was adopted not in 2014 nor in 2013. The war of 08.08.08 was a challenge that the US could not let go unpunished. After that, each subsequent stage of confrontation led only to an increase in the stakes. Since, in 2008-2010, the resource (not only military or economic, but complex) potential of the United States was much higher than today, and the potential of Russia was much less than it is now, the main objective was to achieve a smooth, rather than explosive raising of the stakes. Therefore, it was necessary to delay an open confrontation where, as now, the masks are dropped and everyone understands that there is a war, as much as possible on the longer term. And better not to allow it to happen at all.

Every year the US has weakened whereas Russia has become stronger. These processes were objective, it was impossible to stop them. One could confidently calculate that by 2020-2025, without any confrontation, US hegemony would be finished in an evolutionary way; the US will not be thinking about how to rule the world but about how to be rescued from internal catastrophe.

In conditions of global peace, the final self-destruction of the politico-military and financial-economic global system created by the US is inevitable

Thus, Putin's second desire is to maintain peace or the appearance of peace as long as possible, because peace is objectively beneficial for Russia, since in the state of peace, without incurring huge costs it gets the same political result, but with a much better overall global situation. Therefore, Russia is now also constantly offering peace. Similarly, in the case of peace in the Donbass, the Kiev junta will also collapse. Here Russia's actions are correctly described in Sun Tzu's maxim: "The best war is one that does not start."

It is obvious that no fools are working in Washington, whatever has been said in Russian talk-shows or written by bloggers. In the US, they clearly understand the situation in which they have ended up. Furthermore, they understand that Russia has no plans to eliminate them and is really ready to cooperate on an equal footing. But the socio-economic situation in the US is such that any cooperation is not acceptable for themeconomic collapse and social explosion will occur before Washington (even with the support of Moscow and Beijing) is able to make the necessary reforms (especially considering that at the same time it will be necessary to reform the EU). In addition, the political elite that grew in the US in the last twenty-five years is accustomed to the status of the world owners. They truly do not understand how anyone can argue with them.

For representatives of the US ruling class (not so much for business as for bureaucracy) to suddenly have to go from arbiters of the destinies of wild natives to equal contracting parties is unbearable. It is like asking Gladstone or Disraeli to work as the Prime Minister of Cetshwayo in Zululand [Cetshwayo kaMpanda, King of the Zulu Kingdom, 1872-79 -ed.]. That is to say, unlike Russia, for whom peace is advantageous, for the US, war is an inevitability.

In principle, any war is a fight of resources. Typically, the winner is the one who has more resources, who can commonly mobilise more soldiers, build more tanks, ships, planes. However, sometimes a strategically lost war has been won tactically, directly on the battlefield. Such were the wars of Alexander the Great, Frederick the Great, as well as Hitler's campaign of 1939-1940.

Nuclear powers cannot face each other on the battlefield. Therefore, the question of the resource base is of paramount importance. That is why for the past year we have seen a desperate struggle between Russia and the US for allies. Russia has won. If on the US side are only the EU, Canada, Australia, Japan (and even then not always and not unconditionally), Russia managed to mobilise BRICS in her support, gained a firm foothold in Latin America, and began displacing the US from Asia and North Africa.

The United States had the option of two tactical decisions

Of course, it is not obvious, but to judge by the results of voting in the UN, it turns out that on the side of Russia (to not support the US officially means to speak out in support of Russia) there are countries who together control about 60% of world GDP, more than two thirds of the world population, and more than three quarters of the land mass . That is to say, Russia is able to mobilise more resources.

In this regard, the United States had the option of two tactical decisions. The first one gave a hope of success and was adopted by the US since the early days of the Ukrainian crisis.

This was an attempt to force Russia to choose between bad and worse. She was asked to either accept the existence of a Nazi state on her borders (and in this case a dramatic downgrading of her international prestige and the trust and support of her allies) and after a short time to be at risk of attack by internal and external pro-American forces, with no chance of survival, or to send the army into Ukraine, quickly sweep away the junta which had not had time to settle, to restore the legitimate government of Yanukovych, but to be accused of aggression against an independent state and the suppression of the people's revolution, and to suffer smouldering discontent in the Ukraine and the need to constantly expend significant resources (military, political, economic, diplomatic) to maintain the puppet regime in Kiev (as any other in such conditions would not have been possible there).

Russia has bypassed this decision. Direct invasion never happened. The Donbass is at war with Kiev. The Americans must now pointlessly pump scarce resources into the doomed puppet regime in Kiev, while Russia can calmly offer peace.

The task is to destroy as much as possible the life support system and push the population to the brink of survival

In this regard, the US employed a second variant. It is as old as the hills. If you cannot hold some ground which will inevitably be taken by the enemy, it should be destroyed as much as possible, so that victory for the enemy would be worse than defeat, and all its resources would be spent on the support of existence and attempts to restore the site destroyed by you. Thus the United States ceased any assistance to Ukraine other than political rhetoric, but encourages Kiev to spread civil war throughout the country.

The Ukrainian arena shall burn not only in Donetsk and Lugansk, but also in Kiev and Lvov. The task is to destroy as much as possible the life support system and push the population to the brink of survival. Then, there will be millions of very hungry, very bad and heavily armed men on the territory of Ukraine, conducting an internecine slaughter for food. And this massacre could only be stopped by placing an excessive foreign military presence on the territory of Ukraine (the Militia alone will not be enough) and by massive injections of funds to feed the population and to aid economic recovery (up to the point where Ukraine would be able to start to feed herself).

Clearly, all of these costs will fall on Russia. Putin rightly believes that not only the budget, but all public resourcesincluding the militarywill, in this case, be overstretched and unable to bear the burden. Therefore, the task is not to allow Ukraine to catch fire before the Militia is able to quickly bring the situation under control. It is necessary to minimize casualties, destruction, to preserve at least some economy and the life support systems of large cities so that the population would at the very least survive and not die; then the Nazi thugs will be hauled in by the Ukrainians themselves.

Herein, the EU appears as Putin's ally. Since the US has always tried to use European resources in dealing with Russia, the EU, that was the weakest link even without it, is finally exhausted; long overdue centrifugal processes have commenced within it.

Europe cannot resist the US, but it is mortally afraid of burning Ukraine

If now on its eastern border Europe also inherits a completely destroyed Ukraine, whence shall pournot only to Russia, which will be insulated by the buffer of the People's Republicsbut also to the EU, millions of armed men (not to mention such delights as drug trafficking, arms shipments to whoever wants them, export of terrorism, etc.); the European Union simply will not be able to withstand all this.

Europe cannot confront the US, but it is mortally afraid of burning Ukraine. Therefore, for the first time during the conflict Hollande and Merkel are not just trying to sabotage the US demands (introducing sanctions but trying not to implement them), but are also venturing a minimum of independent action, trying to achieve at least some compromise; if not peace, then at least a truce in the Ukraine.

If the Ukrainian arena flares up, it will burn out quickly, and the EU will become an unreliable partner; if it is not ready to go over to the camp of Russia, then at least it should take a neutral position. Washington, as part of its strategy, will be forced to incinerate Europe as well.

Russia does not need a fire from the Atlantic to the Carpathian Mountains (when the territory from the Carpathians to the Dnieper will still be smouldering embers)

It is clear that the complex of civil and interstate wars on a continent bristling with weapons up to its eyeballs, where more than half a billion people live, will be far worse than the civil war in Ukraine. The Atlantic ocean separates the United States from Europe. Even Britain could hope to sit behind the English Channel. But Russia and the EU share a very long border.

Russia does not need a fire from the Atlantic to the Carpathian Mountains (when the territory from the Carpathians to the Dnieper will still be smouldering embers). Therefore, another of Putin's desiresas far as possible to arrest the most negative effects of the fire in Ukraine and in Europe, since fully preventing them is not possibleif the US wants, it can start the fire; we must be able to quickly extinguish the fire and to save what is most valuable.

Thus, wanting to protect the legitimate interests of Russia, Putin wants peace, peace and once again peace, since peace allows it to be done with the greatest effect and the lowest cost. Well, since peace is no longer possible and the truces are becoming more virtual and fragile, it is necessary for Putin to end the war as quickly as possible.

Formally, nothing has changed, peace on almost any terms still benefits Russia

I want to stress that if, a year ago, a compromise could have been reached on the most favourable terms for the West (Russia still gets its, but over time, so why trifle?), now it is no longer possible, and each time the terms are getting worse and worse. Formally, nothing has changed, peace on almost any terms still benefits Russia. Only one, albeit the most important, component has changedpublic opinion. Russian society is longing for victory and retribution. As I pointed out above, the power in Russia is authoritative, but not authoritarian, public opinion (unlike in the "traditional democracies") is not an empty phrase for it .

Putin is the main link (binding the system) only as long as he is well respected by the majority of the population. If he loses the support of the people, since Russian political circles have not yet put forward a figure of equal stature, the system will lose stability. The government only enjoys authority as long as it successfully embodies the desires of the masses. So that the defeat of Ukrainian Nazism (albeit diplomatic) should be obvious and uncontroversialonly on that basis the compromise is now possible for Russia.

Thus, regardless of the desires of Putin and the interests of Russia, the overall balance of power, priorities and possibilities of the parties leads to the fact that the war, which should have ended in Ukraine last year, will almost inevitably affect Europe. And one can only guess what would be more effectiveAmerican gasoline or the Russian fire extinguisher; but certainly peacekeeping by Russian leadership will be limited not by its wishes, but only by real possibilities. One can not fight against the will of the people and the course of history even individually, and only when they match, then the only reasonable solution of an experienced politician is to understand what the people want and where the historical process is headed and to support it with all his power.

Given the scale of the coming fire, deciding the fate of all Ukraine is not something prohibitively complex

The logic of the described above processes makes it extremely unlikely that the wishes of supporters of the creation of a separate state of Novorossiya will be satisfied. Given the scale of the coming fire, deciding the fate of all Ukraine is not something prohibitively complex. At the same time it will be an expensive pleasure.

It is logical that the Russian people will have a question: if Russians, whom we rescued from the Nazis, live in Novorossiya, why do they have to live in a separate state? And if they want to live in a separate state, why should Russia rebuild their cities and factories? These questions have only one reasonable answerthe inclusion of Novorossiya into Russia (the more so because, for fighting, there is something already there; but for management, the situation is worse). Well, once a part of Ukraine can join Russia, then so can the rest. Moreover, it is likely that by the time this issue will have to be decided, the EU (as an alternative to the Eurasian option) will have already ceased to exist.

Logically, if reunion is the decision, it will be of a unified federal Ukraine, not some other strange formation. I think that today altering the political map remains premature. By the end of this year the war in Ukraine will obviously have ended, but if the US will be able to set the EU ablaze (and they will try), the final resolution of territorial issues will be postponed for at least a couple of years, maybe longer.

However, even here we benefit from peace. In conditions of peace, the expansion of the Russian resource base, the transfer to her side of new allies (former partners of the USA) and the marginalization of Washington, territorial reorganisation, firstly, will be greatly simplified and, secondly, will temporarily lose crucial importance (especially for those who are being reorganised)

.

[David Guyatt]

It's going to be interesting to see if things turn out the way the above article suggests. Very thoughtful piece.

[Lauren Johnson]

UPDATE: The Ukrainian gov is doing what was expected: not complying to the terms of Minsk II. Today was the last day for the Rada to give the LPR and the DNR a special status giving both regions semi-autonomy. That means Minsk II is now history. War could sell begin in earnest anytime. However, the fields still are not dry enough. I would expect the NAF to start moving their large weapons back to the front. Zackarchenko has hinted that Mariupol will be turned into the next cauldron. Most likely, things won't get going for another two or three weeks.

The Ukrainian gov has been promised $15+ billion from the IMF, which is like saying go to war. One question is the response of the Kremlin. With Putin being out of sight now for over a week, one has to wonder what that has to do with the Ukraine war. Col Cassad speculates that he is involved with establishing a new policy. Putin is supposed to re-surface on Monday.

In other news, Col Cassad has commented on the spate of suicides going on in Ukraine.

The wave of "suicides" among former "Regionals" in Ukraine is continuing.Former chairman of Zaporozhye Regional State Administration Alexander Peklushenko committed suicideThe Chief Inspector of the Public Relations Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Zaporozhye region, Alexander Soloshenko, informedthe correspondent of RBC-Ukraine."Yes. Aleksandr Peklushenko committed suicide at his home in the village of Solnechnoe . At the moment, an investigative team is working at the scene," said Alexander Soloshenko.Aleksandr Peklushenko was a suspect in the case of the dispersal of Zaporozhye Maidan on January 26, 2014.On the night of February 28, a former deputy chairman of the Party of Regions, Mikhail Chechetov, committed suicide.On the evening of March 9, Party of Regions People's Deputy of the Fifth and Sixth Radas, Stanislav Melnik, committed suicide.PS: Judging by the pace, new "suicides" are not far off. Belonging to the Party of Regions during Yanukovych's reign is apparently now a factor in raising the risk of a sudden "suicide". Nonetheless, the "Regionals" are in fact paying the price for last years cowardice with their positions, money and sometimes even lives, because unlike them, the coup ringleaders who replaced them are not so delicate and, in contrast to Yanukovych, they are not so embarrassed by blood.

Finally, Putin's latest poll results just keep going up: 88% positive.

[Paul Rigby]

March 14, 2015

Crimean California

Sergey GORBACHEV

Translated by Kristina Rus

Originally published in "Ostrov Krym" ("Crimea Island") in September, 1999

http://fortruss.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/h...s-with.html

1948. Returning from Sevastopol to his summer house, Stalin recalls everything that was recently associated with Crimea. As the main theorist in the field of ethnic issues, it was obvious to him: if the problems on the Peninsula are not properly addressed, these problems will turn into a time bomb of a tremendous destructive power in the future. In recent decades, the ethnic question, along with the victorious pace of its antipode - the ideas of proletarian internationalism, was the basis and the driving force behind processes on a global scale. It, of course, is not comparable with the power of the Marxist-Leninist ideology in general. But...

The Crimean peninsula usually either contained several small municipal entities, or the entire Crimea or a part of it was part of other states. Therefore none of the historical events in Crimea should be considered in isolation, without regard to the fate of not only the Northern Black Sea region, but also Europe, and most importantly - the Soviet Union (Russia).

- But... - Stalin mused, - now Crimea is just a region in RSFSR.

Crimea is Russian, as it should be, for it is a historically predetermined fact. Only Russian, otherwise there will be a lot of hunters for this land. Take, for example, the project to create "Crimean California"...

These facts are little known today to the general public. Unavailability of archives raises a lot of conflicting rumors and speculation, but the secret is securely hidden...

In the second half of the nineteenth century, Crimea and Southern Ukraine was a sparsely populated region. By the beginning of the twentieth century every fourth resident was a newcomer to the peninsula. The [Russian - KR] Imperial government has provided financial assistance and granted a number of privileges to some ethnic groups. The privileges were mainly enjoyed by German colonists, and some others, including Jewish settlers. The privileges were expressed in large land plots, tax incentives, special terms loans and exemption from military service. That's why these groups subsequently formed the basis of the forces that sought to create an independent national state in Crimea.

In 1920, after the liberation of Crimea from Wrangel and the establishment of Soviet authority, the privileged ethnic groups of colonists lost all benefits, and their plans to establish their own state became hopeless. In order to increase their influence they created societies and unions. In 1921 a [German] union called the "Bundestroy" was formed; in 1922 a Jewish consumer cooperative "Samodeiadelnost" was active.

In the early 1920's, taking advantage of the extremely difficult predicament of the young Soviet Republic, a number of foreign firms started negotiations with the Soviet government on the provision of economic assistance under appropriate conditions: the concession of a number of developments on the territory of Crimea and the establishment of a Jewish autonomy. It is in the hungry 1921-22 years Crimea for the first time learned about the charitable Jewish organization "Joint".

In 1920-30's "Agro-Joint," founded in the USA was already active in Crimea, relying on the Crimean Jewish colonists. In 1922 in Simferopol opened a branch of the "Agro-Joint" bank, financing resettlement of the new Jewish residents, as well as the training of Jewish human resources in educational institutions of Crimea. The largest office of "Agro-Joint" opened in Dzhankoy. It was at this time that more then 150 villages appeared in the Crimean steppes, which were inhabited exclusively by "persons of Jewish descent".

This activity soon grew to a scope of interstate relations. In 1923, in the USSR and the United States almost simultaneously began discussions of the idea of a national autonomy and resettlement of Jews from Belarus, Ukraine, Russia to the Black sea area. According to documents found in the Crimean archives and other sources, it is now possible to partially restore the sequence of those early events.

... The elite circles of the capital's intelligentsia began actively discussing the topic of resettlement of Jews to Crimea. From America arrived one of the leaders of "Joint", a native of Russia, Rosen, urging the chairman of Crimean Central Executive Committee, Gaven, to allocate vacant land on a trial basis for resettlement of 1,000 Jewish families in exchange for financial and technical assistance. The catastrophic situation in Crimea after the famine of 1921-22, the lack of assistance from the Center did not leave Crimean authorities much choice.

One of the main ideologists of the implementation of the idea was a prominent member of the Soviet government, Yury Larin (Michael Lurie), a native of Simferopol, the future father-in-law of N. I. Bukharin. He developed a plan to create a Jewish Republic in Crimea and settling on its territory of 280 thousand Jews. At the same time, through Abram Bragin, close to Maria Ulyanova and Nicholai Bukharin through the newspaper "Pravda", the head of the Jewish section of the Russian Communist Party of the Bolsheviks RCP(b), a hype was raised around "The Jewish pavilion" at the all-Soviet agricultural expo of 1923. It was financed by the same "Joint". It is noteworthy that during his last visit to Moscow in October 1923, half-paralyzed Lenin was taken through the entire Jewish exhibit at the all-Soviet agricultural expo. Analysis of literature, ordered for Lenin at the time indicates his heightened attention to the Jewish issue and Crimea.

In November 1923, Bragin prepared a draft document, in accordance with which by the 10th anniversary of the October revolution, it was proposed to form an Autonomous Jewish region on the territory of Northern Crimea, the southern steppes of Ukraine and the Black sea coast up to the borders of Abkhazia [including Sochi - KR], with a total area of 10 million acres, with the aim of relocating 500 thousand Jews. Based on this document, Bragin, Rosen and zamnarcomnats [Deputy National Commissar? - KR], Broydo, presented through Lev Kamenev a Memorandum in the Politburo, in which it was stressed that the formation of a Jewish state "would be politically advantageous for Soviet authorities". In case of successful implementation the authors of the note guaranteed the receipt of tens of millions of dollars "through Jewish, American, and international organizations", as this "will cause an unprecedented interest in all economically and politically powerful organizations in America and Europe".

The Politburo has repeatedly discussed the project. Its active supporters were Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinovyev, Bukharin, Rykov, and Tsuryupa and Chicherin. During the discussion, the emphasis has gradually shifted to just Crimea, since in Ukraine the memories of Jewish pogroms during the civil war were still fresh and a danger of repeating those tragic events still existed.

In January 1924, the talks were already about the "Autonomous Jewish government, federated with Russia", a draft decree on the establishment in the Northern part of Crimea of a Jewish Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was prepared. Jewish Telegraph Agency (ETA) on February 20, 1924, published the appropriate announcement abroad.

To address the issues raised in the appeals of Larin and Bragin about the resettlement of Jews from the shtetls of Ukraine and Belarus, the Presidium of the USSR at the meeting of August 29, 1924, decided to form a Committee for land settlement of Jewish workers (KOMZET) and the Public Committee for land settlement of Jewish workers (OZET). KOMZET was headed by P. G. Smidovich, OZET - by Larin.

KOMZET focused their activities on resettlement of 500-600 thousand people. The need for this was based on the fact that "the economic structure of the Jewish population is absolutely not adapted to the Soviet system, with its course on State trade, cooperation and concentration of industry, and if emergency measures are not taken for the transfer of the Jewish population to productive labor, then a significant part of it would face the prospect of extinction and degeneration...".

In May 1926 a long-term plan was established for the resettlement of Jews in the USSR for 10 years - 100 thousand families. In June of the same year a plan for the next 3 years was approved - 18 thousand families. In accordance with the decision of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party (VKP (b)) from July 26, 1928, the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) along with Birobidzhan became the main base of the Jewish resettlement. By October-November 1928, 131,901.24 hectares of land was allocated in Crimea for these purposes.

Since 1921 there was an Autonomous Republic in Crimea, with its own Constitution. Gradually the consequences of famine were overcome, Crimean Tatars were resettled from the Crimean mountains into the steppe areas in order to provide them with land. More than 200 thousand Tatars-immigrants from Bulgaria and Romania received official permission to return to Crimea with the granting of benefits (the corresponding decision of the Central Executive Committee of RSFSR has not been repealed until now).

On April 21, 1926, a visiting session of the Bureau of the OK VKP (b) (Regional Committee of the Communist Party) in Bakhchisarai approved the prospective resettlement plan for the Republic, but it turned out that the resettlement of the Jews to Crimea was contrary to the attitudes of local authorities in respect of land provision of Tatar peasants. Inevitably this has led to a conflict between the leadership of the Crimean Republic and [Communist] party authorities and Moscow. The top officials got on the case in the capital. 49 famous writers and poets spoke in support of the "Crimean project" and appealed to the West for funding. A number of delegations were sent to America and Europe with the aim of campaigning for the establishment of a Jewish Republic in Crimea. In Berlin at a meeting with representatives of the financial and political elites of Europe, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Chicherin, assured that the government of the USSR is treating the Crimean project "very seriously", and "not a slightest problem" is expected to come in the way of its implementation.


The reaction of the leaders of the World Zionist organization was to include the issue about the "Crimean project" on the agenda of the Jewish Congress of America, held in Philadelphia. 200 wealthiest people in America asked the participants to raise funds for the Crimean project. The discussion was welcomed by the future presidents Hoover and Roosevelt, and the wife of Roosevelt, Eleanor, took part in its work personally. On the eve of the Congress on behalf of the Soviet government, Smidovich reassured that in exchange for financial assistance there "will be colonization of Crimea by Jews." The Congress decided to support the "Crimean project" and to allocate $15 million.

During the Congress, some of its influential members have strongly opposed the project, describing it as a clever move of the Bolsheviks with the purpose of gaining access to international financial resources. However, the last word was made by L. Marshall, who positively characterized the situation in the USSR and the value of the "Crimean project". Thus, despite the absence of diplomatic relations between the USSR and the United States, the Congress decided to begin investing in Crimea through the "Joint".

The Politburo passed a resolution, in which the aim was "to stay the course on the possibility of organizing a Jewish Autonomous Unit under favorable results of resettlement" in Crimea. At the same time in the USSR and the USA simultaneously - probably not without the mediation of the Jewish community - began probing the soil with the purpose of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the countries. Thus, during the negotiations with one of the leaders of the "Joint," Rosenberg, Larin and former Bundestroy member, Weinstein, on behalf of the Soviet leadership has stated, that the implementation of the "Crimean" project" "will be carried to a successful result under all circumstances", but in connection with the "non-recognition by the American government of the Soviet government, the American Jewish community must move from a state of neutrality and to exert pressure on the government of the United States." Rosenberg promised to provide the necessary assistance. The same was negotiated in Moscow by Warburg. Their efforts produced an impact on Roosevelt, who shortly after his election to the post of President of the United States, established diplomatic relations with the USSR.

All decisions on Crimea were taken under conditions of top secrecy. Even the Secretary of the Crimean Regional Communist Party Committee, sent from Moscow, Petropavlovsky was not aware of them. And the Deputy of Menzhinsky in GPU (State Political Dpartment at the NKVD), Trilisser, at the meeting of the CC RCP(B) (Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks) on anti-semitism was surprised by rumors in Jewish circles of the USSR about the creation in Crimea of a Jewish Republic. The situation was suddenly "blown up" by the Chairman of the Ukrainian CIC (Central Executive Committee), Petrovsky, who leaked the information about the decision of the Politburo in an interview with the correspondent of "Izvestia".

On April 7, 1926, a Crimean Jewish conference opened in Simferopol, which was associated with an unpleasant for KOMZET incident. On April 11, "Red Crimea" published the basic ideas from the speech given in Yiddish by the representative of the Department of Nationalities of the Central Executive Committee, I. M. Rashkes: "We strive to create a solid land area with autonomy with a perspective in the future not for the concentration of world Jewry, but in order to settle the three million Jews from the USSR on this land". The situation in Crimea immediately escalated: Crimean Tatars and Germans became alarmed. However, three days later, the editors published a letter of Rashkes, in which he retracted his words, calling it a "ridiculous idea". Citing insufficient language skills of his employee, the editors apologized to the comrade from the capital...

In contrast to the project of resettlement of Jews, the Crimean Tatar Communists came up with the idea of creating in the North of Crimea of a German Autonomous Republic. One of the main opponents of the mass migration of Jews to Crimea became the Chairman of the Crimean CEC (Central Executive Committee), Veli Ibragimov. When the situation on the peninsula got out of control, he wrote an article in the Crimean Tatar newspaper "Yeni-Dunya": "They demand land for resettlement to Crimea of 8,000 Jewish households, but ...our inventory does not even satisfy our internal needs [this could justify Crimean Tatar deportation, see more later - KR], and therefore, the Crimean authorities has found it impossible to satisfy these demands. Recently we raised this issue in Moscow and hope that it will be resolved in our favor". Ibragimov was supported by the national intelligentsia, which formerly was part of the party "Milli-Firca".

On September 26, 1927, Larin has proposed a set of measures on settlement of Jews in Crimea, according to which the main specialization of their work would become grape alcohol production to supply the Crimean wine factories. One of the important points was the proposal of the NKVD of the Crimean ASSR "to develop... a plan of division for village councils of Jewish farming areas with the establishment of respective village councils in accordance with actual settlement and recognition of the official languages of Russian and Jewish on equal basis".

The proposal was met with resistance from the leaders of the Crimean ASSR, primarily Veli Ibragimov. Worried by the development, Larin has sent a letter to Stalin, in which he accused Ibragimov in "igniting the dark Tatar masses". Desperate telegrams were sent to Stalin and Molotov by completely bewildered Petropavlovsky. In the end, Ibragimov was summoned to Moscow, where at the beginning of 1928 he was arrested and charged with criminal offences in the civil war. Forced under pressure to confess to the murder of one of the Tatar activists and sheltering the bandits, he was shot.

At the same time the GPU was preparing a closed "process 63": thus the elites of Tatar ethnic intelligentsia were exiled to Solovki. Protests among the Crimean Germans were brutally suppressed, but about a thousand of them managed to leave the USSR.

To free the land for the resettlement of the Jews the Presidium of the CEC of USSR approved a law recognizing the Northern Crimean territory - "the lands of national significance". Decisive action of Moscow persuaded Americans to move from individual investments to large-scale long-term projects. The development of the loan agreement between the "Joint" and the government of the USSR had begun, which was signed on February 19, 1929. According to the contract, "Joint" allocated 900 thousand dollars a year for 10 years at 5% annual interest. In case of successful realization of the project the payout of the so-called incremental amounts up to 500 thousand dollars a year was agreed on. Debt repayment was to begin in 1945 and be completed in 1954 (when the transfer of Crimea from Russia to Ukraine was accomplished by Nikita Khrushev!). In case of violation of the Soviet party of its obligations, the funding would cease. "Joint" has reserved the exclusive right to reduce the loan amount from 9 to 7 million dollars without explanation.

The feature of the project was that the government of the USSR issued for the full amount of the loan and passed to the "Joint" the bonds that were distributed by subscription. Thus the largest financial and political families in America - Rockefeller, Marshall, Warburg, Roosevelt, Hoover, and others became the holders of the shares of land in Crimea.

On September 5, 1930, by the decision of the Crimean CEC , Freidorf became the center of Jewish National District. In 1931, OK VCP(b) and the Crimean government stated that "the Jewish resettlement to Crimea is politically and economically justified". A Jewish National Freidorf District, 32 Jewish national village council, and the newspaper "Lenin Weg" in Yiddish were established in the Republic.

The resettlement of the Jews coincided with the "dispossession" and forced deportation of Crimean peasants. GPU has deployed a network of camps across the peninsula (only in the Simferopol district there were four of them). According to a report by an employee of the Crimean OGPU, Salyn, by March 26, 1930, 16 thousand people were "dispossessed" and identified for deportation, and the total number of deported reached 25-30 thousand.

Regional authorities reacted differently to these events. In February, 1931, the Chairman of the CEC of the Crimean ASSR, Mehmet Ismail Kubaev at the party conference of Dzhankoy district said that Moscow is pursuing a policy of imperial chauvinism, impoverishing the labor masses of Crimea, first of all - Tatars. The OK Bureau regarded this speech as "counterrevolutionary" and Kabaev was immediately removed from his post.

Jewish collective farm in Crimea

The resettlement of Jews sometimes was met with rejection from the local population. Land, economic conflicts escalated into ethnic conflicts, in connection with which in July 1928, an outflow of immigrants was observed (certain farms lost 60-70%). According to the census of 1926 out of 39,921 Jews in rural areas lived only 4,083 people. On January 1, 1930, out of 49,100 Crimean Jews only 10,140 lived in villages. By 1941, the number of Jews increased, according to some estimates, up to 70 thousand, of which in 86 Jewish collective farms lived only 17 thousand people.

After the establishment of diplomatic relations with America, with the active assistance of the U.S. President Roosevelt activity in the colonization of Crimea began to decrease. At the same time increased the negative attitudes, fueled by the witch hunt on the "enemies of the people". The refusal of the Americans to sign a new loan agreement until the full fulfillment of the contract resulted in that instead of a Jewish Republic in Crimea, two Jewish districts were established. There, according to the general principles of national policy of the USSR, all administrative offices, courts, educational institutions had Yiddish as an official language, and public and educational institutions were maintained at the expense of the state.

The activities of nationalist forces in Crimea, fueled from abroad, did not stop until 1934, but in later sources it is difficult to find even a mention of it, apparently, because on May 7, 1934, a Jewish Autonomous region in Khabarovsk krai was established. The branch of "Joint" in the USSR was abolished by the decision of the Politburo of the VCP (b) on May 4, 1938. By this time D. Rosenberg had already spent on the activities for the establishment of Jewish colonies in Crimea $30 million.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic war one of the most important issues was the propaganda and socio-political provision of defense of the country. Simultaneously with the Anti-fascist Committee of Scientists, Slavic, Women's and Youth Anti-fascist committees, a Jewish Anti-fascist Committee (JAC) was established. The Chairman of the Presidium was awarded with the order of Lenin, national artist of the USSR, member of the Arts Council's Committee of SNK of the USSR, artistic director of the State Jewish Theater (GOSET), Solomon Mikhailovich Mikhoels (Vovsi). Executive Secretary - editor of the newspaper "Einikait" ("Unity"), journalist and theater critic Shakhno Epstein, and Deputy Chairman - the poet and playwright Itzik Fefer (Isaac Solomonovich).

To prevent the growth of Jewish nationalism in the country, the Committee was initially focused on overseas activities, having as its objective:

(1) To promote pro-Soviet sentiment in the world community, establishing contacts with international Jewish organizations;

(2) To attract foreign aid to the USSR.

On the proposal of Beria in 1943, Stalin allowed the heads of the Committee to visit overseas.

Officially, the trip of Mikhoels and Fefer was held on the initiative of Albert Einstein, but the mission pursued quite specific pragmatic purpose: to evoke sympathy for the Soviet Union from the Jews of the United States and other countries in order to influence public opinion, prompting them to agree about the necessity of opening a second front. Propaganda machine of F. Roosevelt wrongly represented the contribution of each of the allies to the war. Moreover, in the States, few people knew about the atrocities of fascism: no matter how paradoxical it may seem, the media in North America have kept silent about much of what was happening in occupied Europe.

The Americans, accepting the delegation of the Committee pursued its own goals. Although Mikhoels and Fefer acted as representatives of the Soviet Union, they were seen as messengers of all Russian Jews. (Note that by the beginning of the WWI on the territory of the Russian Empire lived 5.5 million Jews, and from the 1880's, their immigration to America exceeded 1.5 million. According to estimates, on the eve of WWII on the territory of the USSR lived at least 3 million Jews). Such treatment of the delegation of the Committee was consistent with the level of hospitality towards Mikhoels abroad.

During his stay in the USA (three months), Canada (two months), Mexico (two weeks) and England (three weeks), Mikhoels met with Albert Einstein, the Chairman of the Administrative Committee of the World Jewish Congress, N. Goldman, who was the leader of the Masonic Lodge of the "Sons of Zion", Senator D. Limen, the lawyer millionaire D. Rosenberg, writers W. Hashem, E. Sinclair, L. Feihtvanger, artist Marc Chagall, Charlie Chaplin, Chairman of the World Jewish Congress, the chief Rabbi of USA, Dr. Steven Wise, President of the American Federation of Labor, V. Green, the Oppenheimers, many prominent bankers and financiers. In England on the occasion of the arrival of Mikhoels the Honorary Committee was organised, which included the wife of Churchill, and politicians, and activists of working committees of Whitman. Mikhoels was seen as "a link between the best and the most beautiful of the old Jewish world and all the best and most beautiful of the new".

The public rallies of Mikhoels were visited by a total of more than 500 thousand people, while the Foundation of the Red Army collected about $32 million. It seemed that all of America was eager to welcome Mikhoels, so it was not without excesses - part of the journey Mikhoels had to do on crutches, because during one of the meetings the excited audience toppled the wooden platform, on which Mikhoels was standing.

"The Crimean issue" was discussed at almost every serious meeting. It was about the project "Crimean California", which did not come to fruition before the war, but was revived in 1943. D. Rosenberg admitted during the interview: "Crimea interests us not only as Jews, but as Americans, because Crimea - is the Black sea, the Balkans and Turkey". Apparently, the delegation of the Committee was reminded that the time to pay the debt of the USSR was approaching, but the situation can change if the idea of creation of Jewish Republic in Crimea is revived. The offer was for a fantastic sum of $10 billion.

The political leadership of the USA and the FBI made their conclusions on the results of the trip of Mikhoels: industrial and financial circles and American cultural elites, leaders of Jewish organizations were deeply interested in the provision of Crimea to not only the Soviet Jews, but to the entire diaspora, therefore, the establishment of a Jewish Republic in Crimea looked like quite a good idea. In the long run it was beneficial to the USA, including for the implementation of their military-strategic and geopolitical objectives.

After Mikhoels returning to Moscow the project "Crimean California" moved to a new stage. In February 1944 - the year of successful strategic operations, the year of "ten Stalin's strikes", a document arrived at Molotov's table, written in Moscow, on Kropotkin st #10, the headquarters of the Jewish Anti-fascist Committee:

"During the Patriotic war a number of issues related to life and settlement of Jewish masses of the Soviet Union emerged.

Before the war in the Soviet Union there were up to 5 million Jews from the Western regions of Ukraine and Belorussia, the Baltic States, Bessarabia and Bukhovina, as well as from Poland. In the Soviet areas, temporarily occupied by the Nazis, presumably, at least 1.5 million Jews were killed.

...At one time, a Jewish Autonomous Region in Birobidzhan was created with the prospect of transforming it into a Jewish Soviet Republic, so as to resolve the state-legal issue of the Jewish people. It must be recognized that the experience of Birobidzhan, due to a number of reasons, primarily the lack of mobilization of all possibilities, and also because of its extreme distance from the location of major Jewish labor masses, did not provide the desired effect. But, despite all the difficulties, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast became one of the most advanced regions in the Far Eastern region, which proves the ability of the Jewish masses to build their own statehood. This ability is better manifested in the development of the Jewish national districts in Crimea.

Judging from the above, we would have considered it appropriate to establish a Jewish Soviet Republic in one of the regions where it is possible for political reasons. It seems to us that one of the most suitable areas would be the territory of Crimea, which best suits the requirements in regards to the capacity for resettlement, and due to the successful experience in the development of Jewish national districts there.

The creation of a Jewish Soviet Republic once and for all would solve in the spirit of Bolshevism, in the spirit of the Leninist-Stalinist ethnic policy, the problem of state-legal status of the Jewish people and the further development of its centuries-old culture. No one has been able to solve this problem for many centuries, and it can only be resolved in our great socialist country.

The idea of creating a Jewish Soviet Republic enjoys exceptional popularity among the wide Jewish masses of the Soviet Union and the top representatives of the brotherly nations.

In the building of Jewish Soviet Republic the Jewish people's masses of all countries of the world would provide considerable assistance, wherever they were...

Based on the above, we offer:

1. To create a Jewish Soviet Socialist Republic on the territory of Crimea.

2. Before the liberation of Crimea to appoint the government commission for the development of this issue.

We hope that You will pay due attention to this issue, on the implementation of which depends the fate of an entire nation.

Chairman of the Presidium of
The Jewish Anti-fascist
Committee of the USSR, S. Mikhoels

Executive Secretary, W. Epstein

Deputy Chairman of the Presidium, I. Fefer

February 15, 1944, Moscow"

It is noteworthy that an attempt to move the issue into a practical realm was made, when Crimea was still occupied and two months were remaining until "the third strike of Stalin". A vital problem was being discussed from "the back door", behind the scenes. In 1920's and the 1940's the fact of the existence of the Crimean Autonomous Republic seems to have been ignored. In contrast to the 1920's, in 1944 the issue was not only about the Northern part of Crimea, but the entire peninsula.

Molotov sent the letter from the Committee to the archives - but not the idea itself. In June 1944 in Moscow, Eric Johnston met with the American Ambassador, Averell Harriman, Stalin and Molotov. The Americans offered to invest $10 billion into the Crimean economy, and also to create a Republic, where Jews from all over the world could resettle. The name of Michoels was raised as a possible leader of this Republic. Stalin insisted that the investments were directed not only to Crimea, but also other regions of the USSR, destroyed by the war, and, in turn, suggested Kaganovich for the post of the leader of the Republic.

Until June 1945 the "Crimean project", it seemed, remained in force and in the future could become the key reason for the implementation of the "Marshall plan" in the USSR. The idea of creation in the Crimea of a Jewish Republic, with the support of the United States has been increasingly widely supported among Soviet Jews. The core of these sentiments remained the Jewish Anti-fascist Committee headed by Mikhoels. Some of its leaders started to carelessly distribute the posts in the future republic among themselves.

On June 30, 1945, the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR adopted the Decree on the transformation of the Crimean ASSR into the Crimean region of the RSFSR. When in November 1945, Harriman tried to get in touch with Stalin through Molotov, to discuss issues of economic cooperation, his request for a personal meeting was rejected: Stalin had chosen a different political course. The USSR began to actively support the establishment of Israel on the territory of Palestine.

On May 15, 1948, the creation of Israel was proclaimed. The new state was immediately recognized by the USA and the Soviet Union, and on May 18, 1948, the Soviet Union first established diplomatic relations with Israel.

The Americans, in particular, Harriman, continued to test the boundaries of how far the Soviets are ready to go in their political concessions in exchange for support in the framework of participation of the USSR in the implementation of the "Marshall plan"? Is the "Crimean project" still on the table for Moscow? What benefits can be realized from promising financing to Russia?

"Strictly confidential.

To the Minister of Commerce of the United States,

A. Harriman

Dear Averell!

The President approves of Your plans. He added to them the following. Coexistence on the territory of Crimea of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet and the Jewish Republic, open for free entry of Jews from all over the world is not feasible, fraught with unpredictable consequences. This initially caused him to doubt the possibility of the "Crimean project". Crimea should become a demilitarized zone. Let Stalin know, that he should be ready to relocate the fleet from Sevastopol to Odessa and the Black sea coast of the Caucasus. Then we will believe that the Crimean Jewish Republic is a reality and not a propaganda myth.

J. Marshall"

Having received the message from Washington, the Secretary General [Stalin - KR] called the head of the Department "S" of MGB [Ministry of State Security] of the USSR, Lieutenant-General Pavel Sudoplatov, who participated in negotiations with Harriman, and instructed him to re-check the facts. Two weeks later he reported: the Americans are really prepared to put forward proposals for rejection of reparations; the information on Sevastopol was not confirmed...

"Ostrov Krym", No. 5
August-September 1999

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Maxpark.com:

In 1943, Stalin complained to Tito, that in Tehran, Roosevelt told him (Stalin) that the US can no longer continue land-lease deliveries, because the Jewish lobby is very strong in America, and is demanding the implementation of the project for the establishment of the "Crimean California". We (USA) are also unable to open a second front, if the decision on Crimea is not taken", - said Mikhail Poltoranin, the Chairman of the Inter-agency Commission on the KGB Archive Research.

[Under the pressure from the Americans, On May 11, 1944, Stalin signed the order to deport Crimean Tatars to Uzbekistan.

A month later, on June 6, 1944, the Americans opened the second front! - KR]


The pressure on Stalin, as we see, was enormous. The bonds for the Crimean land were coming due. "Crimea is almost ours. The Soviets have no money" - was the thinking in the United States.

[The letter cited above from George Marshall was written in 1945, the year the first Bonds came due. - KR]

Apparently, then Joseph Vissarionovich [Stalin] got the idea on how to trick the Americans.

Stalin reminded the world Jewish lobby about the Congress in Basel, held in 1887, where it was decided that the homeless Jews should create their own state in Palestine. In the mid-forties of the last century it was ruled by the British. And then Stalin in 1946 gave the order to supply weapons to the Jews who fought against the Arabs and the British. To Palestine through Bulgaria went tens of thousands of assault rifles, machine guns and howitzers. Stalin's idea was to establish Israel in Palestine, and not in Crimea," - says Poltoranin. In the end, on May 15, 1948 Israel was created.

But, despite the fact that the Jews received Palestine, the idea of "Crimean California" did not die.

- In June 1948, Golda Meir was appointed an Israeli Ambassador to the USSR, and arrived to Moscow on September 3. In two weeks she organized in Moscow two rallies with 50 thousand people each. These were people from Leningrad, Moscow, and even from Siberia. At rallies people demanded to fulfill the promise to America and give up Crimea. Finally it was decided to deport the "fifth column" from Crimea. In the summer of 1953 about 17 ships left for the the New Earth, behind the Arctic Circe. This was the beginning of the operation under the code name "Kuropatka", - says Poltoranin.

Also Stalin was planning to deport the Jews from the major cities of the country, in particular from Moscow. Minister Furtseva already made lists. But suddenly - Stalin mysteriously dies.

In 1954, Khrushchev gifts Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR. The RSFSR, i.e. the Soviet Union, ceased to carry the legal responsibility for the bonds, signed in 1920's by the Russian government . The Americans never saw their money.

And after 1991 the "Joint" again actively expanded its activities in Ukraine, including Crimea.

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From the Memoirs of Pavel Sudoplatov:


From the point of view of Soviet mentality the intention to create a Jewish Republic with support from abroad was seen as a blatant interference in our internal affairs. Foreign participation - was unheard of in our closed society.

When I probed the attitude of Harriman on the establishment of a Jewish Republic, I followed instructions received from Beria. I knew that such a probe often does not lead to any results, and is just a common practice of intelligence gathering. At that time I had no idea that the very fact of participation in such discussions could be subject to a death sentence.

The tragedy was in the fact that in a closed society, which was the Soviet Union, the creation of Israel in 1948 was seen as undesirable creation of a second homeland for the Jews. This was especially evident after Israel defeated the Arabs during the war for independence in 1948. The pride of Israel for the victory in the war led to a revival in our country of the national Jewish culture, which was virtually destroyed in the 20-30's. The Jews and the Germans, who had their historical homeland abroad and, and therefore, potential support, did not receive a permission to establish their own republics in the Union. Discrimination of these ethnic groups was especially cruel.

The Stalin's use of anti-semitism and cosmopolitanism in his political machinations, always characteristic of him, untied the hands of those leaders who harbored hatred against the Jewish population. For Stalin anti-semitism was a tool for achieving his goals, but in the hands of his subordinates, it became the principle of state human resource policy. Support of the senior leadership of anti-semitism ultimately deprived the state of capable people who participated in the revolution and worked for the creation of the Soviet state. When it fell on hard times and the USSR collapsed, a significant part of the creative and scientific intelligentsia, talented people found themselves outside Russia, emigrating to Israel and the West.
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Kristina Rus:

Looks like Stalin's attitude towards the Crimean issue had changed over the years. The situation in the early 1920's was desperate in the USSR and investments based on the idea of Jewish resettlement to Crimea (which came from the US) were welcome. Also it was welcomed by prominent Jews and their relatives inside the Soviet establishment.

At the time there was no Israel, and the Jews were literally homeless, but very numerous in the USSR.

Attempts to establish Jewish settlements and serious financial contracts indicate serious intent. Hardly Stalin conceived to gift Crimea to Ukraine and fool the Americans from the start. But looks like his trust of the Americans evaporated over the years.

Notably the focus was first only on the Northern Crimea, and only for the Soviet Jews, starting with 1,000 families.

By 1945, it changed to "the entire Crimea for all the Jews of the world, minus the Black Sea Fleet".

During the war the topic was revived as a bargaining chip to get more help in the war effort.

The entire possibility of the second front for the Americans depended on the "Crimean project".

It is quite reasonable to assume that such proposal enraged Stalin. When he was hearing the same tune from the Americans, with whom he had lost all illusions by that time, and the Soviet Jewish elites, he automatically classified the Jewish aspirations as a threat to national security, assuming the allegiance of the Soviet Jews to the World Jewish Community surpassed their allegiance to the Soviet Union. In his policies Stalin followed the interests of the state with cold pragmatism. When the Jews weren't a threat, Stalin was ready to provide them with their own geographic homeland, and when he saw them as foreign agents - it resulted in yet another tragedy, deportations and prosecutions.

In the end, Crimea was "hidden" from the long arms of American bankers in Ukraine in 1954. Vladimir Putin, who was 2 years old at the time, will complete the Crimean affair 60 years later.

[Magda Hassan]

This is a really interesting article Paul. I was particularly interested in this:

In 1943, Stalin complained to Tito, that in Tehran, Roosevelt told him (Stalin) that the US can no longer continue land-lease deliveries, because the Jewish lobby is very strong in America, and is demanding the implementation of the project for the establishment of the "Crimean California". We (USA) are also unable to open a second front, if the decision on Crimea is not taken", - said Mikhail Poltoranin, the Chairman of the Inter-agency Commission on the KGB Archive Research.

[Under the pressure from the Americans, On May 11, 1944, Stalin signed the order to deport Crimean Tatars to Uzbekistan.

A month later, on June 6, 1944, the Americans opened the second front! - KR]

And interesting that Crimea was considered as a Jewish homeland. It was eventually decided it would be in the Russian Far East. Yevreyskaya Autonomous Republic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast

More on the potential Crimean here also :

Before Crimea Was an Ethnic Russian Stronghold, It Was a Potential Jewish Homeland

Jews have lived in the area since ancient times, and leaders from Catherine the Great to Stalin encouraged their settlement there

By Jeffrey Veidlinger|March 4, 2014 12:00 AM|Comments
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Three young men in a wheat field at the Ḥakla'i (Farmer) settlement, Dzhankoi, Ukraine, USSR, ca. 1920s. (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York)


By Maria Danilova



"On the way to Sevastopol, not too far from Simferopol," begins what is probably the most famous Yiddish song from the Soviet Union, "Hey Dzhankoye." The song, named after a collective farm near the Crimean town of Dzhankoy, celebrates the alleged victories of the Soviet collectivization drive of the 1920s and 1930s, which, according to the song, magically transformed Jewish merchants into farmers. "Who says that Jews can only trade?" asks the final verse of the song, "Just take a look at Dzhan."
Now, as the new government in Kiev struggles to find its footing after the ouster of Ukraine's pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, Russian troops are occupying the Crimea in the name of protecting ethnic Russians and, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested at the United Nations, combating anti-Semitic ultra-nationalistsan ironic twist, less than a century after the Kremlin contemplated the peninsula as the site of a potential Jewish homeland.

Jews have been living in the peninsula since ancient times, largely divided into two communities: the Krymchaks, who followed rabbinical Judaism, and the Karaites, who rejected the Oral Torah. Soon after Catherine the Great conquered the region from the Ottoman Empire in 1783, she opened it up to Jewish settlement, hoping that the Jews would serve as a bulwark against the Turks. Although Jews were later barred from living in the major cities, the peninsula promised open spaces and freedom to adventurous Jews seeking new frontiers and willing to take up a spade.
Tens of thousands of mostly young Jews settled in this part of "New Russia" over the next century. The Crimea became so identified with Russia's Jewish history, in fact, that Jewish activists in St. Petersburg pointed to the long legacy of Crimean Jews as an argument for Jewish emancipation in the empireafter all, they claimed, Jews had been living there longer than Russians. (The 19th-century Karaite historian Avraam Firkovich even tried to argue that Karaites were living in the Crimea before the time of Jesus Christ, and he fabricated tombstone inscriptions to prove it.)
Jewish residents of the Crimea were also deeply engaged in the critical Jewish question of the timeZionismand by the late 19th century the area had become a training ground for future Zionist pioneers, who practiced agricultural techniques there before relocating to Palestine. Joseph Trumpeldorwho famously gave his life defending the northern Galilee settlement of Tel Hai with the motto "It is good to die for our country"once trained potential migrants in the Crimea. (One Crimean settlement was named Tel Hai in his honor.)
In the early 1920s, the new Soviet government once again turned its attention to the peninsula. Concerned that the Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians, and Germans who mostly populated the region were anti-Communist, officials in Moscow were eager to buy the loyalty of new recruits with land grants and promises of autonomy in the agriculturally rich peninsula. When the American agronomist and communal activist Joseph A. Rosen suggested providing financial support through the Joint Distribution Committee to resettle Jewish victims of the pogroms in the region, the Kremlin jumped at the opportunity. In 1923, the Politburo accepted a proposal for establishing a Jewish Autonomous Region in the Crimea, before reversing itself a few months later.
Nevertheless, from 1924 until 1938, the Joint Distribution Committee, through its subsidiary American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation and with the financial support of American Jewish philanthropists like Julius Rosenwald, supported Jewish agricultural settlements in Soviet Crimea. Numerous Jewish collective farms and even whole Jewish districts sprouted over the next few years. The dream of building a Jewish republic in the Crimea remained alive until the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Most of the Jewish colonists in the Crimea fled east to seek safety far from the front; entire collective farms fled together, traveling in convoys eastward, just ahead of the German troops, all the way to Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan.
There they reestablished their collective farms, and many joined the Red Army to fight the Nazis. As the war dragged on, Stalin dispatched two representatives of the newly established Soviet Jewish Antifascist CommitteeYiddish actor Solomon Mikhoels and Yiddish poet Itsik Feferto the United States and other Allied countries to raise support among Western Jews for the Soviet war effort. In New York, Mikhoels and Fefer met with representatives of the Joint Distribution Committee, who spoke of renewing their support for Jewish colonies in the Crimea once the peninsula was liberated from Nazi control.
In 1944, the Red Army routed the Germans out of the Crimea. Stalin ordered the deportation of about 180,000 Crimean Tatars in retaliation for their alleged collaboration with the enemy. Soviet troops ordered Tatar families to pack up their allotted 80 kilograms of belongings and board trains out of the region; soon thereafter, tens of thousands of Jews returned to the Crimea from the east to resettle the colonies they had been forced to abandon.
It was in the context of this chaos that Mikhoels and Fefer met with the Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and discussed the idea of establishing a Jewish homeland in the Crimea. Molotov seemed like a sympathetic ally. Stalin had appointed him in May 1939 to replace Maxim Litvinov, whose Jewish roots made him an awkward choice to lead the coming negotiations with Nazi Germany; three months later, Molotov signed the nonaggression pact that would allow Germany to invade Poland, beginning WWII. Yet Molotov was not unfriendly toward Jews; his wife, Polina Zhemchuzhina, was from a Jewish family in southern Ukraine and had a sister who had emigrated to Palestine. Mikhoels and Fefer left the meeting convinced that Molotov would support the plan and followed through by sending a memorandum outlining the proposal to Stalin.
But instead, Stalin used the Crimean proposal as a pretext for a major assault on Soviet Jewry. The United Nations vote in support of the establishment of the State of Israel in November 1947 had rendered a Jewish homeland in the Crimea superfluous and reinforced Stalin's suspicions of Jewish national aspirations. On the night of Jan. 12, 1948, Stalin had Mikhoels murdered, signifying the beginning of Stalin's campaign against the Jews. Over the next 13 months, Fefer, Zhemchuzhina, and numerous other members of the Jewish Antifascist Committee were arrested. Zhemchuzhina was exiled to Kazakhstan. Fifteen others were tried in secret on the charge of conspiring with the United States to establish a Jewish republic in the Crimea.
On Aug. 12, 1952, in what came to be known as the Night of the Murdered Poets, 13 of the defendants, including Fefer and well-known Yiddish writers Dovid Bergelson, Dovid Hofshteyn, Leyb Kvitko, Peretz Markish, and Yiddish actor Benjamin Zuskin, were executed in Moscow's Lubyanka Prison. Two years later, the Kremlin settled the fate of the Crimea when it transferred the peninsula to the administrative authority of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
***
Between 2002 and 2010, I traveled on numerous occasions through the small towns of Ukraine as part of a team conducting Yiddish-language oral history and linguistic interviews with elderly Jews. Some of those we spoke with spent their youth in nominally autonomous Jewish districts in the Crimea. They all knew the lyric "On the way to Sevastopol."
In one verse of the song, Abrasha rides his tractor like a train, Auntie Leye is at the mower, and Beyle is at the thresher, all symbols of progress in the revolutionary era. Nowhere does the song mention the 25,000 Red Army soldiers and factory workers who forced villagers into the collective farms, shooting or arresting those who resisted. As many as 15,000 families were sent to "special settlements" in the Soviet east, while thousands were shot on the spot.
Those we interviewed preferred to remember the Crimea the way the song described it, as a Jewish utopia. They spoke fondly of attending the Yiddish language schools, where they studied mathematics, history, Marxism-Leninism, and farming techniques in Yiddish, and they remember evenings out at the Crimean Yiddish State Theaters. Others emphasized how Jews lived alongside Russians, Ukrainians, Muslim Tatars, and Germans.
When we interviewed Tatiana Marinina in 2002, for example, she told us about how her family had moved to the Lunacharskii Collective Farm, named after the first Soviet Commissar of Enlightenment, in 1931. She fondly remembered the cows, the horses, the sheep, and the vineyards. She described how her mother, who was a "shock worker"the Soviet term for a worker who over-fulfills her quotawould work the cotton fields. She recounted friendly relations between the Jews on the farm and the ethnic Germans, who lived in the nearby villages, and between the various religious sectarians who made the peninsula their home. The Yiddish school was closed by the time her younger sister, Sofia Palatnikova, started her schooling; Palatnikova told us she went instead to a Russian language school in a nearby Tatar village.
Many people we spoke with remembered the tractors and farm equipment that American Jewish philanthropic organizations sent to the Jewish settlements. Zorekh Kurliandchik, whom we interviewed in 2003, told us of the collective farm he lived on for three years in the early 1930s. "The first combine was on the Jewish collective farm," he boasted, "the Tatars would come and stare at it."
The names of the agricultural settlements established during this decade reflect the optimism of the times and the multilingual nature of their communities: Fraylebn (Yiddish: Free Life); Fraydorf (Yiddish: Free Village); Yidendorf (Yiddish: Jewish Village); Ahdut (Hebrew: Unity); Yetsirah (Hebrew: Creation); Herut (Hebrew: Freedom); and Pobeda (Russian: Victory), to name but a few.
Today there are some 17,000 Jews still living in the peninsula. One of the few remaining synagogues, in Simferopol, was vandalized last week, when the slogan "Death to Jews" and swastikas were painted on its door. Now it's Russian tanks on the road to Sevastopol, not too far from Simferopol, and the Jewish tractors that once filled the road are just a fading memory.

[Paul Rigby]

This is a really interesting article Paul. I was particularly interested in this:

In 1943, Stalin complained to Tito, that in Tehran, Roosevelt told him (Stalin) that the US can no longer continue land-lease deliveries, because the Jewish lobby is very strong in America, and is demanding the implementation of the project for the establishment of the "Crimean California". We (USA) are also unable to open a second front, if the decision on Crimea is not taken", - said Mikhail Poltoranin, the Chairman of the Inter-agency Commission on the KGB Archive Research.

The American Jewish lobby of the 1930s and 40s must have been a remarkable outfit - powerful enough, according to FDR, to threaten the termination of land-lease but impotent when it came to getting action on the camps.

FDR spoke with forked-tongue.

[Lauren Johnson]

At least that is the language flying in the Twitterverse.

Apparently, some drunken Ukrops ran over a mother and her baby killing both. The soldiers took off in a taxi. There is talk of civilians storming an army base and setting some fires. Will this be like the second intifada that was ignited by a single event? Not likely because as of now, soldiers are firing over the heads of protesters. If it keeps up, they will lower their guns.

[Lauren Johnson]

Steiner ‏@Steiner1776 20s21 seconds ago
#NAF reports strong #Ukraine artillery attack on #Donetsk & large concentration of enemy ground forces http://vk.com/strelkov_info?w=wall-57424472_51413 …


Gleb Bazov ‏@gbazov 2m2 minutes ago
#IMPORTANTAcc. to #NAF intelligence, large convoys of #Ukraine army moving through #Konstantinovka, onward to #Donetsk. AA guns, artillery.


Gleb Bazov ‏@gbazov 51s51 seconds ago
.@VonHenrick1 I am not sure about full-fledge offensive yet, but I think we can safely say that #MINSK2 is now certainly dead.