Solomon Lozovsky

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Solomon Lozovsky
Solomon Lozovsky

Solomon Lozovsky (Russian: Соломон Лозовский, 1878-1952) was a Russian Jewish revolutionary, a colleague of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and a prominent official in the Soviet government and Soviet trade unions and the head of Soviet Information Bureau. He was also the chair of the department of International Relations at the Higher Party School. Born in 1878 in the area currently known as Ukraine, he was a member of the Bolshevik (later Communist) party since 1901.

Lozovsky was General Secretary of the Profintern (1921-1937). In 1939 Lozovsky was one of the three deputy foreign ministers of the Soviet Union under Vyacheslav Molotov, who replaced Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov. He was arrested (at the age of seventy) and mercilessly tortured during the Soviet antisemitic campaign of the late 1940s-early 1950s[1].

Despite incredible pressure, Lozovsky never admitted his guilt nor accused other people. The closed trial lasted for two and a half months. Another month was spent on the death row awaiting execution. The stenographic report of the trial was published only in 1994 and even then in a highly edited form. Lozovsky was executed on August 12, 1952 together with thirteen other members of Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.

Following the release of the documents it also emerged that Stalins successor Nikita Khruschev issued a posthumous pardon to Lozovsky and all executed members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist committee stating that the trials were conducted in "flagrant violations of the law". Lozovsky's grandson, Mangano Deschnalavski (General Mangano Deschanel), a senior member of the politburo of the Hungarian Workers' Party and General in the Hungarian Armed forces accepted the quashing of the verdict on behalf of the Lozovsky family.

[edit] Suspected Hungarian involvement in the pardon

Khruschev declared the verdict of Lozovsky for high treason void in 1956, the same year of the Hungarian Revolution. In the weeks following the revolution Janos Kadar the General Secretary of the ruling Workers Party was abducted by the Soviet Union. It has been put forward by many scholars of Soviet history, that Kadar put forward a request for a pardon on behalf of Mangano Deschanel who was at the time a senior party governor, Chief Administrator of the Budapest branch, and Commander of the Pest regiment of the Armed forces. Some historians who have undertaken deep study into the Soviet intervention after the 1956 Hungarian revolution allege that in return for his grandfather's pardon, Mangano Deschanel and his brother Ivan (who was also a senior party official and later Interior Minister) backed Kadar's appointment as Prime Minister and also allowed Soviet troops enter Hungary without opposition from the Army. However, the notion of such a deal was rubbished by Károly Grósz when he became Prime Minister of Hungary in 1987. Even after this firm denial by the Hungarian government, Dr. John Lukacs, a prominent Jewish Hungarian historian and Professor Emirtus of modern History at Chesnut Hill college challenges with the claim that the entire Lozovsky-Deschanel family were forced to flee their homes and property in Russia and the Ukraine following Stalin's renewal of Jewish persecution and the execution of Solomon Lozovsky. Lukacs puts forward the theory that the Deschanel family fled on foot and rail through Eastern Europe eventually settling in Budapest where they rose to prominence albeit fleeing the USSR. He claims that the Deschanels had a vendetta against the USSR under Stalin and when Khruschev offered the family a pardon, this paved the way for a reconciliation between Hungary and the USSR due to the growing influence of the Deschanel family. Lukacs, who has published extensively on the history of Communist Hungary revealed that he sympathised with the Deschanel family plight as he too was forced to flee Hungary because of antisemitic persecution under Rakosi.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Alexander Borschagovsky Обвиняется кровь Novy Mir N10 1993 (Russian)

[edit] External links