[lbo-talk] Stalin Was Pro-Zionist

[Michael Givel]

Interesting little tidbit from history.  Stalin for a short time was
pro-Zionist thinking the state of Israel would be a socialist outpost in the
Middle East. Evidently, Soviet/Stalinist  propaganda against Zionism
started a short time later when it was in the UUSR's national interest to
support various Arab states. Bottom line: seems that the Soviets had no 
problem calling
Israel socialist at one point in time and Zionism meant not too much to 
them.

 http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Israel_and_the_United_Nations

Soviet influence

Political Zionism was officially stamped out for the
entire history of the Soviet Union as a form of bourgeois nationalism.
Without changing its official anti-Zionist stance, the USSR briefly
supported the establishment of Israel in 1947. Before voting for the
1947 partition, Andrei Gromyko stated:

As we know, the aspirations of a considerable part of the Jewish people
are linked with the problem of Palestine and of its future
administration. This fact scarcely requires proof... The United Nations
cannot and must not regard this situation with indifference, since this
would be incompatible with the high principles proclaimed in its
Charter ... From late 1944 until 1948, Stalin had adopted a de facto
pro-Zionist foreign policy, apparently believing that the new country
would be socialist and would speed the decline of British influence in
the Middle East. Three days after Israel declared independence, the
Soviet Union legally recognized it. However, by the end of 1948 and
throughout the course of the Cold War, the Soviet Union unequivocally
supported various Arab regimes against Israel. The official position of
the Soviet Union and its satellite states and agencies was that Zionism
was a tool used by the Jews and Americans for "racist imperialism".