Project "Crimea - New California" - myth or reality? American project “Crimean California.

In the December weekly supplement to Komsomolskaya Pravda, one Yevgeny Chernykh under the catchy headline "Israel has 10 years left?" mentioned that at one time the Jews asked Stalin to grant him the Crimea.

This reminded me of one question that almost became a paragraph in my master's work. For some reason, there are still people who take seriously a series of rumors about the alleged sale of Crimea. I was even offered to consider this issue in detail as part of the search for the reason for the transfer of the Crimean region in 1954. As a result of my investigation, it turned out that this hypothesis has nothing to do with reality, but at the same time it was massively replicated in the "zero", and often in the central media. Since many people still believe in this nonsense, I consider it my duty to explain some facts and show what this myth about the “selling of Crimea to the Jews” was made of, and where its legs grow from.

I would like to start this story with one strange event that happened to me in the summer of 2010. At that time I was in the archives on Bolshaya Pirogovskaya Street. Somehow I ordered another batch of materials there. It seems that these were the documents of the State Planning Commission on the power supply for the construction of the North Crimean Canal. Unexpectedly for me, I was informed that they could not give out what I ordered to a comfortable reading room, therefore I would have to go and study them in the storage. Let me remind you that in that summer there was a terrible heat in Russia. Even the cats, protecting state secrets from rodents, suffered. While I was walking past the small park inside the archival town, I noticed that on the lawn, in the shade of trees, about two dozen cats were escaping from the heat, fed by local employees.

The employees of the State Archives of the Russian Federation themselves also had a hard time. As I passed the square with the cats, crossed the patio and climbed several floors up to the menacing blue sign saying that I had approached the Holy of Holies, I heard a noise. Some of the researchers were indignant that they did not provide him with the cases for study that he ordered. To which he was categorically informed that there were more than 30 degrees inside the vault, and no one was going to search again. Warm, I would even say hot, such an atmosphere of nostalgic Soviet life, in the middle of a collection of documentation from the highest Soviet and party bodies.

They began to give out what I ordered, and then it was time for me to be indignant. Not at all what I wanted to read that day. It happens. Once, on Berezhkovskaya Embankment, twice on the same order, they made a photocopy of a completely different document from the one I requested. And only the third time I was lucky. Therefore, I am not surprised by such incidents. Russia, it's time to get used to it.

I did not become particularly indignant, because I knew that it was useless. The surname in the issuance journal is mine, the name too. But instead of the State Planning Commission, they brought four completely different cases that have nothing to do with Crimea. Three volumes in a red cover with gold stamping and lead seals and some kind of gray unprepossessing daddy. Since the day had already been hopelessly lost and nothing would be given out in return, and if I ordered it again, they would only be given out another time, I decided to at least look through what was taken to me by mistake in the "holy of holies" - in the repository of important state documents. Again, curiosity got the better of me - what is there behind the lead seals?

And it should be noted that in this repository there is no reading room as such. There is a small room where tables of supervising workers (as a rule, two growling girls) are located opposite each other, and between them two or three researchers are lonely crowded on stools with an edge along the wall on one and a half tables (no longer fit). I was incredibly lucky that day - one of the employees was not there that day, and I comfortably settled down in her workplace - not only on a chair, but also at a separate table.

Each archive has its own atmosphere. The reading room of the RGANI on Ilyinka, in the former building of the Central Committee, where you now have to pass through the frames of the FSO guarding the Presidential Administration, most of all from the inside resembles a Gothic castle with internal columns and stucco framing. Only now, instead of portraits of feudal lords, Marx and Lenin still hang there. In RGASPI you feel like you are on the deck of an ocean liner, from where a spacious view of Dmitrovka opens - a panorama with the Prosecutor General's Office standing next to it and the Federation Council opposite. And although there are no air conditioners, the ventilation on the ceiling creates quite comfortable conditions in summer (however, in winter it is quite cool there). Yes, and in the reading room of the GARF on Bolshaya Pirogovskaya is also quite comfortable. But in the vault itself, you most clearly feel that you are not welcome here. However, I got carried away.

These three beautifully designed red volumes with gold lettering and lead seals disappointed me. It seems that there were some materials on supplying the OGPU fighters guarding some gold mines (I think Lenzoloto). Allowances, daily rations and the number of underpants issued per year. Nothing interesting for me - well, except for the autographs of Menzhinsky and Yagoda. I wanted to leave already, but to clear my conscience I finally decided to leaf through the remaining case, a gray nondescript daddy filled with some sheets of rough, colorless paper covered with a simple pencil.

Thus, the founding protocols of KomZet (Committee for the Land Management of Working Jews), chaired by Petr Smidovich and secretary of Merezhin and OZET, fell into my hands quite by accident.

When reading them, for some reason, I immediately remembered one author's TV program by Andrey Karaulov, dedicated to the activities of this committee. As I later clarified for myself, it was the program "Moment of Truth", it seems on TVC, which went on the air on June 30, 2008. The journalist Mikhail Poltoranin took part in it, who in 1992 was the head of the Interdepartmental Commission for declassifying documents of the CPSU in the rank of vice-premier of the government (this fact was emphasized in this program). According to them, the Crimean peninsula in the 1920s was allegedly mortgaged under promissory notes to American financiers on behalf of the RSFSR, and therefore was transferred to Ukraine in 1954 in order to avoid either paying off debts, or the complete loss of the then region (clear answer the transmission does not answer this question). Literally: "I did not know until recently that Stalin laid the Crimea to America." The shares or promissory notes for the territory of Crimea, according to the authors of the program, belonged to influential American circles, among which, among other things, the names of future presidents were named (which was already alarming and made it possible to doubt the feasibility of these plans). According to this version, the final payment of the debt was allegedly to take place on February 19, 1954. What would happen in case of non-payment was not specified, but the viewer was led to believe that the transfer of the Crimean region from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR helped the Soviet Union avoid losing the peninsula. Say, the agreement on the sale of shares for land was signed on behalf of the Russian Federation, which means that Ukraine did not have any obligations, and thus it was possible to fool the overseas moneybags around the fingers.

In this program, Andrei Karaulov even named the date of the appearance of these plans to sell the Crimean peninsula. Allegedly, this was first discussed in 1922, that is, before the unification of the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR within the Soviet Union.

At the same time, Mikhail Poltoranin recalled the project to create a kind of Jewish republic on the territory of the peninsula, that is, on the lands allegedly pledged under promissory notes. Mentions the creation within the framework of this project of the AgroJoint corporation, a joint organization of the Jewish organization Joint, which fed up to two million people, mostly children, at the peak of the famine of 1922 in Ukraine and the Volga region (for some reason, this charitable activity was not reported in that program) and the Soviet governments represented by the aforementioned KomZet. At the same time, Poltoranin for some reason insists that AgroJoint was founded in 1922, and not in 1924. And he even claims that, despite his illness, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin showed great interest in these plans, who even visited an agricultural exhibition organized by AgroJoint in 1923, which in turn was founded only in 1924. The Time Machine definitely exists.

Further, Mikhail Poltoranin spoke about plans to create a Jewish state on the territory of the Crimean peninsula, Greater Sochi, Odessa and Kherson regions - that is, most of the Black Sea coast of the Soviet Union. Allegedly, Roosevelt, one of the holders of the bills, insisted on this at the negotiations in Tehran. And even put it as a necessary condition for opening a second front. At the same time, the American president allegedly demanded the demilitarization of Crimea, that is, the removal of the military base from Sevastopol.

That is, according to Poltoranin, in this program of Karaulov, the following oil painting is drawn on canvas - Soviet Jews, with the support of their foreign compatriots, deceived Crimean land plots at a small percentage (only 5% according to the authors of the program), so that later, taking advantage of the difficult situation of the USSR during the war years, take a strategically important region. With a smell, you know, the plot came out. With subtext.

However, it is somehow embarrassing to accuse the authors of this program of anti-Semitism. Following the presentation of the myth (let's call it that) about the sale of the Crimea, they also launched some completely fantastic version in the "cranberry" genre about the alleged plans to exile 100,000 Moscow Jews to Novaya Zemlya and Svalbard (the authors have not fully decided where). That is, they balanced a certain “unrealized Holocaust”, which they had just thrown into the consciousness of the masses, the conspiracy theory of the sale. This operation to genocide the Jewish population was allegedly planned for the summer of 1954 and received the code name "White Partridge".

In general, in this program there are a lot of absurdities, contradictions, omissions and just tricks and distortions of facts. Sold or mortgaged either in the 20s, or in the 40s. Whether Lenin, or Stalin, - an inexperienced viewer probably did not understand - why they showed a close-up of the speaker Ilyich, when it was about completely different people, in general. Some “archival documents” are mentioned, but they show a page marked with a yellow marker, as it seemed to me, from the book of the publicist Alexander Shirokorad, who adopted the theory of selling the peninsula by Jews to their fellow tribesmen, transatlantic businessmen. That is, as evidence, on the central channel broadcast throughout Russia, a close-up of a certain text in Cyrillic was cited, supposedly a letter to US Secretary of Commerce A. Harriman signed “J. Marshal. That is, something in the spirit of “this amphora was created by me, an ancient Greek ...”, and not these mythical “archival documents” mentioned behind the scenes, which, most likely, simply do not exist in nature.

Lots of ambiguities. Either to Novaya Zemlya, or to Svalbard. Either they were going in the summer, or they had already managed to send 17 ships with prisoners there. Nobody knows anything about any of the passengers of these mythical ships. Looking ahead, I note that the Russian historian Gennady Kostyrchenko, checking this version, claims that, according to archival data, no noticeable increase in railway traffic was found in Moscow during this period. I appreciate the work of this researcher, but I have to note that he acted completely irrationally - it is much easier to prove the absurdity of these plans, implemented or not.

The fact is that before Stalin's death in 1953, these mythical "17 steamships", which Poltoranin mentions, in this case should have set sail in January-February 1954, that is, in winter. However, navigation beyond the Arctic Circle outside of the summer period is still a fantastic dream. But most importantly, I have great doubts about Mikhail Poltoranin's knowledge of elementary geography. It is worth recalling that Spitsbergen, mentioned by him several times, as the place of deportation of the mythical “one hundred thousand Jews” on “17 ships”, was not Soviet territory, and even on Soviet maps it was marked as Norwegian.

The archipelago was subject to the treaty of 1920, which the USSR joined in 1935, and, developing the natural resources of these islands along with Norway, undertook to observe their demilitarized status. That is, there could be no question of any mass concentration camps in these foreign territories, - in vain Poltoranin gesticulated so colorfully, describing “bays with barbed wire” on board those ships.

In general, I got the impression that many television workers have similar knowledge in the field of geography. For example, once on YouTube I came across a recording of a certain program - it seems that it was called “Russian Weapons”. There, in all seriousness, it was said that after the war on Svalbard, Stalin secretly manufactured flying saucers. Sorry, but I can't comment on this. I can only assume that the author of that program and Mikhail Poltoranin had the same geography teacher.

Well, in conclusion of the discussion of this “Soviet Holocaust” that did not take place, it is worth noting such a detail that, indeed, in 1947, Operation “White Partridge” was carried out in the Arctic. Only now, it was carried out by American aviators, and pursued completely different goals. It seems that Sergei Nekhamkin wrote about this in Izvestia. That is, our polar bird turns out to be a little duck for verification.

It’s completely incomprehensible to me - why was it necessary to invent these very “17 steamboats”, when real facts can be cited as Stalin’s reaction to the plans to create a Jewish republic in Crimea, for example, the case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee? The execution of 12 members of the JAC in 1952 is a fairly well-studied topic, and therefore I will not dwell on it, although I came across quite interesting materials about this in the archives.

Inspired by the idea of ​​creating a Jewish republic on the Crimean peninsula proposed by the Chekists, Mikhoels decided to address it to the top leadership of the USSR. According to Sudoplatov, on February 15, 1944, he sent a letter to Stalin, the contents of which are unknown. Presumably an exact copy of this letter was addressed to Molotov on February 21 - its text was published in 1991 in the Rodina magazine. It seems that even Kaganovich initially spoke out against this project, calling it a utopia. Nevertheless, these messages were left unanswered and even forgotten about for some time (however, later, Molotov's wife Polina Zhemchuzhina was arrested for mediating in this matter, and some members of the JAC were repressed and shot).

Why was the top leadership of the USSR pessimistic about the plans to create this republic in 1944? Personally, I believe that the point here is, first of all, in the ethnic component of the Crimean population at that time. Let me remind you that the mass deportation of the Crimean Tatars in February 1944 has not yet been carried out (maybe it was not even planned), and the peninsula itself has not been liberated. In addition, even before the war, the Jewish population there was only 70 thousand people, that is, only 5.8% - this is more than the Germans (4.5%), but much less than the Tatars (19.4%). In addition, out of these 70,000, the invaders destroyed 40,000 (mostly living on collective farms) - all those who did not have time to evacuate, and on April 26, 1942, the peninsula was declared by the Nazis "Judenrain", that is, completely "cleansed of Jews." That is, there were simply no physical prerequisites for planning the creation of the Jewish Soviet Socialist Republic in February 1944 on the territory of the Crimean ASSR.

Nevertheless, Sudoplatov argued that in order to create such a republic (or even a separate state) in the Crimea, the United States was ready to invest 10 billion dollars, which in itself is approximately equal to Lend-Lease supplies during the war years. Moreover, he himself notes that this proposal was not accepted, and the USSR never received such an amount - this, they say, was the so-called “Marshall Plan”, which was never accepted by the Soviet leadership. That is, there was no "sale" in the forties (we will return to the question of the possibility of such a transaction in the twenties).

However, Gennady Kostyrchenko is sure that negotiations on funding for a similar amount for the creation of a Jewish republic in the Crimea between the government of the USSR and the USA are nothing more than an invention of Sudoplatov. After checking the protocols of the negotiations to which this general refers, he comes to the conclusion that at the conferences of the three heads of state he mentions, this issue did not even arise. Moreover, according to him, the leaders of the Joint, who invested about 30 million dollars in the agricultural colonization of the northern Crimea, after the failure of this agrarian project, were skeptical about the possibility of creating a Jewish republic there and the effectiveness of further financing of such projects.

As Kostyrchenko found out, the version about the alleged sale of the peninsula in 1944 is found only in fiction by V.V. Levashov, in his novel "Murder of Mikhoels".

However, having paid tribute to the historian Gennady Vasilyevich Kostyrchenko in exposing the “myth of the sale of Crimea”, a little about what I managed to find in this direction.

Closing the discussion of the television “real sensation”, further simply “duck”, voiced on the air by Mikhail Poltoranin and Andrei Karulov, we also note that in this program they attributed the authorship of the transmission of Crimea to Stalin. Say, how cleverly he deceived American businessmen - instead of a republic in the Crimea, he created the Jewish Autonomous Region in the Far East in 1934. And in order not to pay the bills, even during his lifetime he planned to transfer the Crimean region to Ukraine. Literally, - "Stalin's preparation", which was subsequently carried out by Khrushchev.

Let me disagree with this statement.

In this version, everything is illogical and incomprehensible - why, for example, this program was scheduled for the very last day, that is, on February 19, 1954, according to their version? What was the amount of the bail - several million dollars at five percent in the twenties, or 10 billion in the forties, which we never took? And why did the holders of the bills never declare their rights? In a word, for verification we have a certain version for housewives, massively replicated, but not supported by anything decisively.

In addition, the version of the "Stalinist procurement" contradicts the available evidence.

There is information that N.S. Khrushchev made an attempt to transfer the Crimea even during his leadership of the Ukrainian SSR during the war. The first mention of the possible transfer of the Crimean region dates back to October 1944. According to L.I. Podgrebny, who at that time was Deputy Minister of Labor Reserves of the USSR, Khrushchev very reluctantly agreed to allocate migrants for the colonization of the half-empty Crimea. He mentioned that the day before he raised the issue of transferring this region to the Ukrainian SSR: “I was in Moscow and said:“ Ukraine is in ruins, and everyone is pulling out of it. So after that they didn’t call me anyone and as soon as they didn’t shake my soul. Powdered were ready! And nothing, as you can see, alive. Having signed a paper on the allocation of settlers, he said to Podgrebny: “I will give people people. And I'll take Crimea. Does not matter".

That is, turning to Stalin in the autumn of 1944 with a request to transfer the Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR, Khrushchev in his office not only received approval, but almost paid with his career for such plans. Stalin clearly did not want to transfer the peninsula to another republic. Neither in February nor in October 1944.

Thus, Podgrebny's testimony fundamentally contradicts Poltoranin's statement. Another question - which of them to believe? Personally, in my master's work, I came to the conclusion that Khrushchev needed the transfer of the peninsula in order to enlist the support of the Ukrainian comrades in the Central Committee in the struggle for leadership against Malenkov. Well, the “sale” version turned out to be so crazy that I gave it no more than two paragraphs. He mainly focused on the fact that all known editions of this myth (and there are several of them) not only contradict themselves, but also do not give clear answers - why it was necessary to transfer this peninsula when it was founded, by whom, on behalf of whom, for how long, etc.

Moreover, I have the opinion that the obvious and obvious stuffing of this disinformation into the mass consciousness clearly pursued some political goals, and, perhaps, was sanctioned in Russia at the highest level. I'll try to back this up with facts.

To begin with, we note for ourselves that there is a somewhat redacted version of this version of the alleged sale of the Crimea. Let's leave for a while the sensational program of Andrei Karaulov - Mikhail Poltoranin, who voiced this myth in it, contradicted himself and did not give a clear statement to the end, although the viewer could form an opinion about the reality of the "real sensation". Let's take a look at the versions that were published, and under which the authors put their signature.

As a rule, this version of this sale myth was not presented by professional historians, but mainly by journalists in the media (often under pseudonyms), or in works of fiction. Nevertheless, it was also mentioned in the monographs of at least one author, the publicist A.B. Shirokorad.

So, in his opinion, which he stated in several books, Khrushchev was forced to organize the transfer of the Crimean region from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR, due to the fact that back in the 20s the Soviet leadership agreed to the creation of a Jewish republic on the Crimean peninsula. Further, he mentions some negotiations in the mid-40s between the Soviet Jewish intelligentsia represented by the JAC, the Soviet government and large US business circles on the creation of a new state on the territory of the Crimean peninsula. Alexander Shirokorad does not directly state that the speech in the twenties and forties is about the same project, however, he leads the inexperienced reader to this conclusion. At the same time, the author does not indicate a single documentary source that would confirm this version, but only refers to two articles. This is "Crimean California" S.P. Gorbachev (an excerpt from his art project) and "Slow Action Peninsula" by a certain Boris Sibirsky.

The last author published under this name (which may be a pseudonym) in July 2005 in the newspaper "Duel" and simultaneously in the same month in the magazine "Behind the Seven Seals". In this article, he claimed that allegedly on February 19, 1929, an agreement was signed [I would like to see it, if it exists] between the American charitable organization "Joint" and the government of the Soviet Union on lending to the Jewish colonization of the Crimean peninsula. At the same time, according to his version, funding was extremely moderate even by the standards of the 20s. That is, for ten years at 900 thousand dollars a year at 5% plus an additional 0.5 million a year in case of success of colonization.

Allegedly, bills of exchange for 20 million dollars were issued, the owners of which, according to the authors, were "Rockefeller, Marshall, Warburg, and even future presidents H. Hoover and F. Roosevelt."

The author, rather cautiously, did not link the demand for the creation of a Jewish republic with the loan agreement of "February 19, 1929" he mentioned. According to him, the demand to return the debt was only accompanied by pressure of this kind. In addition, he vaguely hinted that none of the parties to the said agreement "did not want to disclose all the details." That is, in this way, several birds with one stone were killed at once - the question was removed - why the creditors did not show up in 1954, and whether the loan agreement was included in the loan agreement, even if there was such a clause on the creation of the republic - let the reader speculate on this myself. At the same time, Boris Sibirsky rather elegantly combined the versions about the sale in the 20s and 40s, - allegedly the United States was ready to forgive a debt of 20 million dollars, and was even going to provide new loans already in the billions of dollars, but only if the Jewish Autonomous (but not a socialist) republic.

Another, no less elegant move by the author is the explanation why the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine removes all problems. Allegedly, the “decision on resettlement” was made by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR, which is not necessary for the Ukrainian SSR. That is, it’s clear that it’s nonsense, but an inexperienced reader can read and retell to a neighbor, for example, that “Russia sold, but Ukraine owes nothing to anyone.” However, if you imagine for a moment how this text can be interpreted over a bottle of tea...

That is, nowhere directly does this same Boris Sibirsky claim that Russia gave obligations to create a republic - we are talking about resettlement. And it is not at all clear - what does this “strictly secret agreement” of “February 19, 1929”, concluded, according to him, on behalf of the USSR, and not the RSFSR, have to do with it? It is not clear the circumstances of the disclosure of the details of this "strictly secret agreement." In what archive is it contained and why can't mere mortals, and not this author without a patronymic, that is, a pseudonym, get acquainted with it?

And here it is worth paying attention to the fact that this “Boris Sibirsky” himself is a publicist who writes on a wide variety of topics. Trying to find his publications, I came across articles with themes from Harry Potter and a beauty contest, to a global confrontation in the Atlantic. If you believe the ruskline.ru portal, then he once published a text on a historical topic in the Rossiya weekly in the same 2005. Later publications with this pseudonym did not come across to me.

As for his article “The Peninsula of Slow Action,” in the part devoted to the Jewish colonization of the Crimean peninsula, it is surprisingly similar to two other articles by two other authors published in two official publications founded by the Russian parliament. First of all, these are the Rossiya newspaper and the article "The Sold Peninsula" by a certain Boris Gusyachkin, referred to as a "retired lieutenant colonel." And in the same 2004, an article by a certain Boris Nikolin “Crimea: from ukranization to Turkification” in the newspaper “Russian Federation Today”, the founder of which is the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.

All these three above-mentioned articles, the authorship of which is attributed to some three Boriss without a patronymic, are characterized by similar content, approximately the same structure, retelling and the same set of key individual sentences, repeated verbatim in these two articles, and repeated to the letter. There are also no links to any archival documents.

That is, most likely we are not talking about plagiarism, but about three different pseudonyms of the same author, who was published in 2004-2005 in publications belonging to the Russian parliament.

I would venture to suggest that I can name another author who published another clone of this article analyzed above, but much earlier and under his own name.

Most likely, the original author of this theory in the edition that came to Shirokorad is S.P. Gorbachev, naval officer (currently captain 1st rank), military journalist, deputy chief editor of the official newspaper of the Black Sea Fleet "Flag of the Motherland". It was he who, in the article "Crimean California", written back in 1999, and presented as part of his book "Reviving as a Russian City", was the first to observe just such a sequence of facts and conclusions. Based on the fact that this article contains an internal monologue of Stalin, this work was originally conceived in the genre of fiction.

The artistic nature of this work explains the fact that the scientist S.P. Gorbachev (I think he defended his dissertation on the patriotic education of young people with a degree in political science, but I could be wrong) gets confused about dates and does not cite sources. Moreover, even without resorting to content analysis, it is clear that his article “Crimean California” is a compilation from some scientific work, diluted with the author’s fiction.

Most of all, the set and sequence of facts and figures about Jewish colonization on the Crimean peninsula in the 20-30s is similar to the article by the historian and specialist in the pre-war history of the Crimean peninsula Alexander Efimov “Jewish Socialist Republic in Crimea. The history of one project. This article, written on the basis of local periodicals (including Nazi propaganda during the occupation) and some archival documents (in this case, it seems to me, there is no reason not to trust the author), tells the story of the colonization of the desert steppes of northern Crimea. It was led by the Jewish Workers' Land Management Committee (hereinafter referred to as KomZet) and the Public Committee for Jewish Workers' Land Management (hereinafter OZET) with the financial assistance of the Agro-Joint charitable organization led by James N. Rosenberg. In addition, he mentions the plan he had in 1923-1924 "to form an autonomous region of Jews on the territory of the Northern Crimea, the southern steppe belt of Ukraine and the Black Sea coast up to the borders of Abkhazia."

According to Efimov, the People's Commissar for Agriculture A.P. opposed the implementation of this plan in practice. Smirnov, seeing in him a threat of interethnic aggravation on the ground. As it turned out later, these fears were not groundless - the plans for land colonization received the most fierce resistance from the indigenous population, and most importantly, they contradicted the policy pursued locally by the authorities of the Crimean ASSR.

One way or another, but the project of agricultural colonization of the northern part of the Crimean peninsula by the Jewish population was not completed. Armed attacks by local landowners, crop failures, and the collectivization process that had begun forced the collective farmers, despite all the temporary benefits provided, to leave the countryside for the cities and return back - a similar process would take place in the 40s and 50s, already in time of Slavic colonization. According to Efimov's data, by 1941 about 70,000 Jews already lived on the peninsula, but no more than 17,000 people lived on the collective farms. Thus, there was no longer any talk of a separate Jewish territorial autonomy in northern Crimea.

We note in particular that the scientist Alexander Efimov (I think he was a graduate student at the Russian Academy of Sciences, but I could be wrong), who at one time worked as a press secretary in the Moscow-Crimea Foundation, did not have any large loan, nor any "strictly secret agreement" dated "February 19, 1929", and even more so there is no question of any "promissory notes". A small scientific article within the framework of the topic he is researching, nothing more. The author mentions the Jewish Soviet Socialist Republic only in the title, and the article itself, in fact, is devoted only to the topic of colonization and financing of the Jewish colonization of only the steppe territories of the northern Crimea, and of autonomy plans, following the examples of the existing plans of German autonomy in Crimea.

However, it seems that it was on top of the real facts taken from her (or a common source with her, which is unlikely) that the fiction about bills and shares and this very “strictly secret agreement” of “February 19, 1929” was superimposed.

That is, on the basis of the materials of this young scientist, the “myth of the sale” we are considering was most likely woven in those editions, which were very carefully interpreted in rather respectable publications in 2004-2005 by some three “Boris without a patronymic”.

Most likely, these three anonymous "Boris without a patronymic" drew their inspiration from the works of art of Captain 1st Rank Sergei Pavlovich Gorbachev, laureate of the International Literary Prize. V. Pikul, Deputy Editor-in-Chief Flag of the Motherland, the official newspaper of the Black Sea Fleet. It was he who first mentioned this most notorious agreement of February 19, 1929.

In order to understand my confidence, just put two texts in front of you - Efimov's article "The Jewish Soviet Socialist Republic in the Crimea", published by him at one time on the website of the Moscow-Crimea Foundation, and an excerpt from "Crimean California" by Sergei Gorbachev from his literary project . Comments will be redundant.

However, I do not exclude that there were earlier editions of the myth about the alleged sale of the peninsula to the Jews for some debts and under some kind of agreements. The same Alexander Yefimov mentions such eloquent headlines in the Nazi occupational press as “Stalin received dictatorial power in Russia for selling Crimea to the Jews” (according to this researcher, this was published in the Azat Krym newspaper on March 20, 1942, in No. 17). However, in 1942 they did not yet know that two years later, in February 1944, someone would come up with the initiative to create a new republic on the peninsula. And they still could not know the date of the transfer of the region, and not the republic, to neighboring Ukraine.

That the date of the mythical treaty of 1929 is artificially adjusted to February 19, I personally have no doubt. For I saw documents testifying to the mess (no other word comes to mind) in which this same transfer took place. In GARF there is a folder with silver embossing, which is studied by someone new almost every month - they ask for a photocopy, photo and video. As if they are trying to find something new there. And no one goes further than this daddy. I came across cases that remained unclaimed for forty years, and I was the first to open sheets of their use. I repeat - the fact that the date of the meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1954 was scheduled for February 19 is a coincidence. Moreover, the Decree itself was made public only a week later - all this time, the necessary documents were feverishly rewritten in the Presidiums of the Supreme Soviets of the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR, in which the body that allegedly came up with this initiative was not fully agreed - someone remembered the Constitution , and decided not to refer to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

And, I repeat, I saw the founding protocols of the mentioned KomZet and OZET.

Immediately disappoint lovers of "real sensations." In these protocols, begun on September 4, 1924 and completed by the end of November, there is no mention of any republic or autonomy in the Crimea. It was about the development of virgin territories by landless Jews. Emphasis was placed on the fact that the representatives of this people for a couple of thousand years did not have the right to own land and cultivate it, and only the Soviet government gave them such an opportunity. What territories were intended for the settlers? Mainly Ukraine and Belarus. Crimea was mentioned only a couple of times: “First of all, free areas should be identified as settlement areas for working Jews. Located in the area of ​​existence of Jewish colonies in the South of Ukraine, as well as Northern Crimea.

It was assumed that in order to accommodate the landless and create conditions for them to farm, the committee intends to continue to seek financial assistance from other organizations, not excluding assistance from abroad. Literally: “The travel item includes expenses for business trips of members of the Committee on Land Management of Working Jews to places of exit and settlement. As well as trips abroad in order to raise funds, to raise funds, to carry out the tasks of the Committee.

I note right away that no foreign sources of funding are named, neither names nor organizations. There is no mention of any “branch of the Agro-Joint bank”, which has been operating since 1922 according to Sergey Gorbachev (Alexander Efimov does not have such information). And as noted above, Agro-Joint was formed only in 1924 with the assistance of the KomZet and OZET created in the same year under the Central Executive Committee of the USSR (and not the RSFSR, as the myth-makers claim, in order to justify the transfer to the Ukrainian SSR) with one party, and the charitable organization "Joint", which has been operating since 1914.

And, of course, the seriously ill Vladimir Ilyich Lenin could not attend the exhibition held by this organization, which was created only a year later, in 1923, and therefore could not approve the plans to create some kind of separate republic or autonomy in the Crimea. And even if the authors of this theory were mistaken in the year of visiting that exhibition, then in the fall of 1924 Lenin lived for three months and already had a vague idea of ​​the reality surrounding him.

There are several protocols in the file - No. 1 of the founding one, and a couple of the "Committee under the Presidium of the Council of Nationalities on the land management of working Jews" devoted to estimates and states. The founding one referred to the decision of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of August 29, 1924 on the creation of this committee. At the very beginning, keynote speeches by Klimenko, Ibragimov, and Ignatovsky about work in Ukraine, Belarus, and the Crimea were cited: “One of the most oppressed peoples under the old regime was the Jews. Under the tsarist regime, Jews were not allowed to farm, despite their desire for agricultural work. At the same time, OZET, the Society for the Land Management of Working Jews, was created, which initially included 67 members.

In general, one gets the impression that, despite the impressive composition of the founders, the committee was created with rather moderate possibilities. Ultimately, for permanent functioning, he was given a room in the Kremlin and only two paid positions were approved - it seems that he was a typist and a stoker (he did not find among his statements), - other vacancies did not pass in the CEC. Even the cleaning lady was refused.

What surprised me the most was that they were denied the position of an agronomist - they were worth their weight in gold. Most likely, this was the cause of fatal consequences in the fate of the Jewish colonists. The fact is that the virgin lands in the northern Crimea, where it was planned to place the colonists, were initially not suitable for arable farming because of the arid soil. Slavic settlers from the regions of the Ukrainian SSR and the RSFSR would later face a similar problem in the 40s and 50s, - I read the reports of the MGB on the mood among the local population. The key issue - the supply of fresh water for irrigation, was resolved only in 1972, when the North Crimean Canal finally began its work.

Thus, for me personally, there is no doubt that all the stories about the alleged sale of the Crimea to the Jews in order to create some kind of separate republic are fakes. Yes, there was funding for agrarian colonization, including from abroad. For new collective farms, preferential taxation was created, which was periodically extended in the mid-30s - there are quite a lot of materials on this subject in the GARF. Perhaps, in the 1920s, someone had the idea of ​​some kind of local autonomy within the peninsula, similar to the plans for creating German autonomy. However, for the entire peninsula to be mortgaged for some ridiculous amount of 20 million dollars under the condition of creating a separate republic, this is pure nonsense.

And this is not the first fake that I came across while studying the history of the transfer of this peninsula. The second, no less common, is about the alleged lack of a quorum of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, which made the decision. A certain text with absolutely fantastic figures is circulating on the Internet that only 13 out of 27 members were present at that meeting - a fairly common misconception deliberately thrown by someone into the masses, despite the fact that in 1992 real data.

According to my calculations, at the meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR on February 5, 1954, 15 out of 26 members were present (minutes No. 41), as for the fateful meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, which took place on February 19, there were 23 out of 33 at all (minutes No. 35) . Even 24, if you count the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Latvian SSR K.M. Ozolin, who for some reason wished to remain among those invited and did not put his signature under this act.

In any case, after the unanimous approval of this Decree at the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on April 26, 1954, and also the unanimous approval of this decision on June 2 at the session of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, I personally consider any talk about the illegality of formalizing the transfer of the region provocative.

Russia had the opportunity to get the peninsula back during the divorce proceedings in the 90s, but the legally elected Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR signed an agreement with the Ukrainian parliament for 10 years on the observance of territorial integrity back in 1990 - for this reason, consideration of this issue was disrupted by the UN in 1992. Well, after the signing in 1997 of the friendship treaty, which canceled the mentioned 10-year one, and its ratification in 1998, Ukraine has a full peremptory right to this peninsula.

Perhaps it was after this in 1999 that this very “myth of sale” was born, which has a simple implication for the broad masses of the people - they say, we lost Crimea, but we must come to terms with this, otherwise, if Ukraine loses it, then it will not to us, but to the Jews. A bet on reliable, time-tested feelings. Accordingly, the second edition of this myth in 2004-2005 is associated with the failure of the pro-Russian forces in the elections in Ukraine, which caused another decline in revanchist sentiment, which urgently needed to be balanced with something. Find someone to blame for their own failures and unsatisfied imperial ambitions.

I'm just wondering what drives people who compose such myths, and why are they so stubbornly inventing some enemy intrigues coming from people of a different nationality in their failures?

The history of Jewish agrarian colonization in the Crimea and the events around it can be presented in completely different ways. For example, write about how many millions of people in Ukraine, Belarus and the Volga region were saved from starvation in 1922 by the activities of the charitable organization Joint, which subsequently contributed to agrarian colonization. Or you can write how the activities of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee contributed to the opening of a second front. How, under the influence of their activities, the ardent opponent of Soviet power, "President of the World Zionist Organization" Chaim Weizmann, began to call on Jews from all over the world to help the USSR in their struggle against Nazi Germany. As "the leader of the American Zionists, a notorious enemy of the Soviet regime," Rabbi Stefan Weiss welcomed the beginning of the work of the JAC and promised his assistance to the Red Army.

Or you can accuse AgroJoint of helping his fellow tribesmen not for free, but for some percentage. Moreover, to compose a fairy tale that one would have to pay for this help with access to the Black Sea. You can even broadcast on the central channel the myth that demands for territorial concessions were put forward as a condition for the opening of a second front.

The history of Jewish agrarian settlements is written in blood. I did not mention here the repressions against members of KomZet at the end of the 30s, nor the 14 Crimean Tatars shot in 1928 in the case of the Milli Firka party, nor the 12 members of the JAC shot in 1952. All this is not comparable with those 40,000 Jews, of which 17,000 were collective farmers, who were exterminated by the Nazis during the years of occupation. Prior to this colonization, for several hundred and even thousands of years, this people was deprived of the right to own land and cultivate it. It just so happened that the place that they got was initially unsuitable for agriculture until the opening of the North Crimean Canal in 1972.

One way or another, but in the mid-40s, when it was necessary to raise the agriculture of the peninsula, depopulated after the war and deportations, a bet was made on the Slavicization of the territory of the former republic, which had already become a region. For settlement, colonists were attracted from the countryside of Ukrainian and Russian regions, that is, they had centuries-old skills in working on the land. A massive renaming of local Turkic toponyms to Slavic ones was carried out - I found a lot of documents on this issue. The last mention of Jewish agricultural migrants that I came across in the archives was Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for 1947 No. 3823 “On the resettlement of 250 families from the Crimean region and 704 families from the Kherson and Nikolaev regions to the Jewish Autonomous Region.”

The project of Jewish agrarian colonization in the Crimea was completely curtailed.

Thus, if you try to figure out what is true and what is fiction in this story, then you must admit that there were some plans for Jewish autonomy in Crimea. Not as large-scale as Sergei Gorbachev is trying to present in his literary project, but nonetheless. If you believe Alexander Efimov, then a certain project appeared somewhere in 1923 (his chronological order is lame), but was abandoned because of its fantasticness. If you believe Sudoplatov, then again such plans appeared in 1944, then because of their frank utopianism, they were also not given a move.

Financing of agricultural colonization in the South of Ukraine and in the Northern Crimea was also there. So, for example, a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated June 10, 1937 that caught my eye was supposed to resettle 500 Jewish families on collective farms and build 330 houses for them with the allocation of 3,894 thousand rubles of loans. Has foreign capital been attracted? Gennady Kostyrchenko, whom there is no reason not to trust, mentions 30 million dollars invested before the war in this agrarian colonization by charitable organizations, but which, in the end, did not justify themselves. Salt marshes of the Northern Crimea did not become "California".

Now, where did fiction come from on these real facts. For the first time, such rumors were spread by the Nazi press during the years of occupation. It is possible that General Sudoplatov added something to the treasury of myth-making - you and I know why generals and marshals write memoirs since the time of Geoffroy Villardouin. At least he mentioned somewhere that the content of Mikhoels' letter to Stalin gave rise to the most ridiculous rumors.

Next, we have an inevitable point - the literary project of Sergei Pavlovich Gorbachev, in which, on top of real facts, surprisingly similar to the material from Alexander Efimov's article, the author's fiction was superimposed, as I understand it. Then, in 2004, this version from an excerpt of the received story or novel “Reviving as a Russian City” was very carefully retold by two Boriss, Gusyachkin and Nikolin (most likely pseudonyms). Moreover, in pretty solid central publications. And a year later, they were retold by someone Boris Sibirsky, whose traces are lost after 2005, that is, most likely, also someone's temporary pseudonym.

Sibirsky's ideas were picked up by Alexander Shirokorad and found a place in his monographs. And, most likely, some of his works after some time caught the eye of Andrei Karaulov, who, for the sake of the show, even found authoritative witnesses - Mikhail Poltoranin and Tikhon Khrennikov (whose short monologue, by the way, was taken out of some context).

This is exactly how I see the genesis of this myth about the sale of Crimea.

Non-factional People's Deputy Andrei Artemenko, on February 27 at a press conference, said that the USSR in 1954 was supposed to transfer Crimea to the United States to repay a loan of $ 50 million received in 1920 on the security of the territory of the peninsula.

"In 1954, the repayment period came. And there was a project called "New California", if anyone does not know - this is the territory of Crimea. I am sure that is why Crimea was transferred to Ukraine in order to keep this territory for the Soviet Union, " Artemenko said.

What is "Crimean California"?

It was not possible to find documentary evidence of the agreement between the USA and the USSR. At the same time, the term "New California" or "Crimean California" really exists. It first appeared in the Russian press in the late 1990s and concerned the idea of ​​creating Jewish autonomy in Crimea with the financial support of the Jewish diaspora in the United States.

One of his first mentions is the article of the same name, which was published in 1999 in the anthology "Crimea Island". Its author is Sergei Gorbachev, military journalist, deputy editor-in-chief of the official newspaper of the Russian Black Sea Fleet "Flag of the Motherland". The article was not of a scientific nature, for example, it contains "Stalin's internal monologue", the author does not provide any references to the sources of information that he published.

It follows from the article that in the 1920s the issue of creating Jewish autonomy was discussed in the USSR. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) volunteered to help in its creation. In 1929, he entered into a loan agreement with the government of the USSR to provide a $1.5 million loan at 5% per annum with subsequent repayment in 1945-1954. As a guarantee, the USSR allegedly issued shares for 375,000 hectares of Crimean land. More than 200 US citizens allegedly became their buyers, including President Theodore Roosevelt, John Hoover, who later headed the FBI, billionaire John Rockefeller.

Further, in 1944, during negotiations on the opening of a second front in Europe, the topic of Crimea surfaced at the negotiations of the members of the Anti-Hitler coalition, while the Americans allegedly promised the USSR in exchange for the creation of Jewish autonomy, 10 billion dollars of investment. But Stalin refused such an offer and began to support the idea of ​​creating a Jewish state in Palestine.

And what about US rights to Crimea?

In the 2000s, the topic of "Crimean California" was overgrown with details in the Russian state and nationalist press. media actively quoted the words of Mikhail Poltoranin(in 1992 - head of the Interdepartmental Commission for the declassification of documents of the CPSU in the rank of vice-premier).

He argued that from the declassified archival documents it followed that the Crimea in the 1920s was mortgaged by the US government through the issuance of bonds, the maturity of which ended in 1954. In order to prevent the transfer of the peninsula to the United States, Nikita Khrushchev transferred the Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR. This was done to preserve the Crimea in the structure of the USSR. According to Poltoranin, the agreement with the United States was concluded on behalf of the RSFSR, and its transfer to the Ukrainian SSR made it impossible to fulfill the agreement.

It is noteworthy that the appearance of information that allegedly the Americans have long laid claim to the Crimea coincided with the active campaign of the Kremlin to oppose the receipt by Ukraine of the "Action Plan for NATO membership." This issue was considered in 2008 at the NATO summit in Bucharest.

So is it true?

That in the 1920s. in the USSR, they really considered the possibility of creating a Jewish autonomous republic in the Crimea, historians confirm. Thus, in the monograph "Crimea Through the Ages", published in 2015 by the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, it is stated that for these purposes, in 1923, a special commission on the land arrangement of working Jews (Komzet) was even created. But in 1928, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR adopted a resolution "On assigning to Komzet for the needs of Jewish workers settling free lands in the Amur strip of the Far Eastern Territory."

Historians also confirm the fact of the financial assistance of the American fund "Joint" to the Soviet Union in the 1920s. But the fact of the existence of a certain agreement on the transfer of the United States as collateral for a loan of land in the Crimea, apparently, is a myth.

After the first Zionist congress, held in Basel in 1897, Jewish organizations around the world intensified their search for ways to create a Jewish state in Palestine, Africa and South America. Russian Jews did not lag behind, who not only developed the project of the so-called South Russian Republic on the territory of the Crimea, Volhynia and Podolia with the capital in Odessa, but also made an unsuccessful attempt to implement it in 1905. After that, the project was forgotten and remembered only after a decade and a half in America.

BOLSHEVIK AND JOINT - FRIENDSHIP FOREVER

In 1923, the Jewish charitable organization from the United States - "Joint" (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) proposed to the Soviet government "a project beneficial for the USSR to create a Jewish autonomy on the territory of the Soviet Union", which includes Odessa, Kherson, the northern part of the Crimea, the Black Sea coast. sea ​​to Abkhazia and Sochi. In the US, both this project and this future state formation were known as "Crimean California".
To begin with, 500,000 Jews from the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus were supposed to be resettled in the autonomy. In return, the Joint promised the Soviet Union assistance in obtaining large loans and in lobbying its interests in the United States.
The proposals of the "Joint" were actively supported by Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and approved by V.I. Lenin. During the discussion of the project, appetites had to be moderated and the Jewish Autonomous Republic was created as part of the RSFSR only on the territory of Crimea. But even here it turned out to be a “bummer” - I.V. Stalin intervened and insisted that, for a start, limiting himself to only creating a committee for the land management of Jews in the Crimea (KomZET), and making final decisions based on the practical results achieved. The wheel of the Crimean project has begun to spin.
On July 21, 1924, by a resolution of the Joint Executive Committee, the Agro-Joint Corporation was established, the main task of which was to settle several hundred Jewish families in the south of Russia in order to find out the possibility of mass Jewish colonization in the USSR.
KomZET was created on August 29, 1924 by the decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, with the aim of attracting the Jewish population to productive agricultural labor. On the initiative of interested party circles, on January 17, 1925, the Society for Land Management of Jewish Workers (OZET) was organized to help KomZET.
On November 29, 1924, Agro-Joint concluded an agreement on organizing Jewish land management with the Soviet government, on whose behalf KomZET acted. The essence of the agreement was the distribution of costs and responsibilities for the land management of the Jews between KomZET and Agro-Joint. KomZET provided the land and provided some of the funding for the project, while Agro-Joint provided the main funding.
Over the course of 14 years of Agro-Joint's work in the USSR (until its completion in 1938), new agreements were concluded with the Soviet government (January 31, 1927, February 15, 1929, March 22, 1933), clarifying the issues of organization work, financing, loans, etc.
M. Poltoranin in one of his TV interviews claimed that in the course of the implementation of the Crimean program, the organization "Joint" allocated a loan (credit) tied to the implementation of the program. Under the terms of the loan, the Soviet Union annually, for 10 years, received 900 thousand dollars at 5 percent. According to the same conditions in the USSR, state bonds-shares were issued for the entire amount of the loan, under the security of which almost all the Crimean land was divided into shares (apparently, the situation that had arisen had no other options for development and this was the only possible and optimal for that period of time solution).
200 people received shares in the Crimean land, including very famous Americans: Roosevelt, his wife Eleanor, Hoover, Marshall. In fact, the loan was taken against bills backed by the Crimean territory.
The repayment of the loan with conditional interest was to begin in 1945 and end in 1954 - that's why 1954 was "critical" for the Soviet leadership, both in terms of political and financial obligations - lenders had to give back either money or pledged land .
The project was illegal and dangerous - since 1921, the Crimean Autonomous Republic already existed with its own constitution. In addition, both the Crimean Tatars and other peoples of the peninsula had views of the lands of the future autonomy. Thus, the resettlement of Jews there was fraught with the transformation of the peninsula into a hotbed of ethnic tension, which was confirmed by subsequent events.
The resettlement of the Jews met with fierce resistance from both the Crimean Tatar population and the leaders of the Crimean ASSR, some of whom, in connection with this, were repressed.
In the rural areas of Crimea, two Jewish national regions were created - Freidorf and Larindorf, but the practical experience of resettling Jews there showed its inconsistency: the bulk of the settlers, faced with opposition from the local population and peasant labor unusual for them, returned to their native places. Of the Jews who remained in the Crimea, a smaller part of them settled “on the ground” - the majority settled in the cities (in 1930, out of 49,100 Crimean Jews, only 10,140 people lived in the village).
Taking into account these circumstances, in 1934, I.V. Stalin curtailed the Crimean project and made a "knight's move": in the east of the country, a special administrative-territorial entity was created for the resettlement of Jews - the Jewish Autonomous Region with its capital in Birobidzhan (so that there were "and the sheep are safe and the wolves are full). Despite all the social cataclysms, the Jewish Autonomous Region still exists in this status, thereby continuing to solve the original problem.
But the "wolves", unfortunately, remained hungry. The question of the need for the Soviet Union to implement the Crimean California project again surfaced already during the Great Patriotic War, and the Americans made us an offer that could not be refused ...

ALREADY "JEWISH SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLIC"

In 1942, in order to organize political and material support from wealthy American Jews in the USSR, the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC), headed by S. Mikhoels, was created. The Committee performed its functions quite successfully, but already at the end of 1943, at the Tehran Conference, Roosevelt warned I.V. Stalin that further lend-lease deliveries and the opening of a 2nd front are impossible without the implementation of the Crimean California project - this is the requirement of the US Jewish magnates.
And already on February 21, 1944, returning from the USA, members of the JAC delegation sent I.V. Stalin and V.M. Molotov so-called. "Note on the Crimea", in which they proposed:
"…one. Create a Jewish Soviet Socialist Republic on the territory of Crimea.
2. In advance, before the liberation of Crimea, appoint a government commission to develop this issue…”
The “note” was left unanswered, but soon, on May 18, 1944, the Crimean Tatars were deported from the Crimea, followed by Armenians, Bulgarians and Greeks on June 26.
In his TV interview mentioned above, M. Poltoranin also showed a Russian translation of D. Marshall's secret letter to US Secretary of Commerce A. Harriman, written in 1945. The letter sets out the wish of the President of the United States to let I.V. Stalin, so that he would be ready to relocate the Black Sea Fleet to Odessa and on the coast of the Caucasus, since: “The coexistence on the territory of Crimea of ​​the base of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet and the Jewish Republic, open for the free entry of Jews from all over the world, seems incongruous, fraught with unpredictable consequences…”.
Judging by this letter, the issue was worked out at the highest level and very serious people dealt with it.
It is quite obvious that I.V. Stalin was a staunch opponent of the creation of the Jewish SSR. According to the memoirs of Leonid Efremov, a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU, I.V. Stalin, at the last meeting of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU during his lifetime, criticized V.M. Molotov in a rather sharp form precisely for the fact that he had previously proposed to transfer the Crimea to the Jews.
It seems that the USSR carried out some insignificant, demonstrative actions to avert their eyes. The real measures to create the Jewish SSR were actually sabotaged - the deserted Tatar villages began to be quickly settled by Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian peasants from the destroyed villages in the regions liberated from the occupation.
Soon the international situation changed - the United States from an ally became our enemy in the unfolding "cold war", which allowed I.V. Stalin to sharply reduce attention to their "Wishlist". In addition, things in the Middle East have developed quite favorably for us. In Palestine, due to refugees from Europe, the Jewish population almost tripled in 1945-1946, reaching 600 thousand people. Thus, a "critical mass" was formed, which made it possible to start a struggle for the creation of an independent Jewish state in Palestine instead of a Jewish republic in the Crimea.
I.V. Stalin actively supported the long-standing Zionist idea of ​​​​creating a Jewish state in Palestine and in 1946 gave the order to supply weapons to the Jews who fought there against the Arabs and the British. On May 14, 1948, the Jewish State of Israel was proclaimed. On May 17, the Soviet Union became the first country to recognize the Jewish state in full.
But, despite the newfound Palestine, the idea of ​​​​exploring the Crimea among the Jews did not die. On September 3, 1948, Golda Meir, appointed ambassador to the USSR, arrived in Moscow. In two weeks, she organized two rallies in Moscow of 50 thousand people each - these were people from Leningrad, Moscow and even Siberia, who demanded that they fulfill their promises to America and give up Crimea.
Soon, on November 20, 1948, the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was dissolved and closed as a center of anti-Soviet propaganda - friendship with Israel ended. At the beginning of 1949, active members of the JAC were arrested and activities known as the "struggle against cosmopolitanism" began in the country. The events reached their climax by 1953, but were curtailed immediately after the death of I.V. Stalin, whose death was more like a murder.
The deadline for returning the debt to the Joint expired in 1954, but the Soviet Union, which was restoring the national economy destroyed by the war, could hardly complete all loan payments on time. A major scandal was brewing, undesirable both for the USSR and for the Joint.

KHRUSHCHEV'S CLOSURE OF THE CRIMEAN CALIFORNIA PROJECT

N.S. Khrushchev, who came to power, "was in the know." Using the 300th anniversary of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia as a cover, he transferred Crimea from the RSFSR to the jurisdiction of Ukraine. According to the agreement with the "Joint", the transfer of the Crimean lands to the Jews was provided for from the RSFSR, and Ukraine did not bear any legal responsibility for the implementation of this agreement.
In addition, the Jews already had their own land in Birobidzhan, and it is very likely that all this was still Stalin's "preparation".
Thus, the government of the USSR acquired the formal right to close the issue of the obligations of the Soviet Union to Jewish organizations in the United States on the creation of Jewish statehood in Crimea. And this right was strongly supported by the fact that the USSR had real nuclear weapons. On August 29, 1949, the first Soviet atomic bomb was tested, and on August 12, 1953, we tested the first hydrogen bomb ...
For the peoples of the USSR in those years, this action was also an empty formality - there was a single country inhabited by a single Soviet people. Then no one could have imagined that Ukraine would become a foreign state for Russia.
No one wanted to disclose all the details of the deal, and it seems that the interested American-Jewish side silently ("money loves silence") postponed the decision of this important issue until more favorable times.

INFORMATION FOR THINKING

The Americans never received the money, but it seems that, if necessary, “craftsmen” will always be found there who will be able to justify the penalty interest for non-payment of the loan, and inflate (taking into account them) the amount of debt at the moment to breathtaking proportions.
The same "craftsmen" will be able to prove that the Crimean land divided into shares continues to be legally pledged by the current holders of shares-bonds issued in the 20s of the last century.
Meanwhile, the "Joint" business on the lands of the former USSR continues to live.
Since 1991, the "CIS Department" has been operating as part of the "Joint" - judging by the amount of allocated budget funds, the organization is most active in Ukraine.
As of 2006, Ukraine received $41,421,785 (second from the top after Israel, which received $140,616,535).
Recently, quite interesting information has flashed on some Internet sites. For example, on the website of the Eurasian Jewish Congress on October 16, 2009, an article by Joseph Zissels "Restitution of Jewish property in Ukraine: raising the question" was published. This article discusses various aspects of the topic of former Jewish property in Ukraine and the problems of its restitution (i.e., returning the owners to their heirs or successors). An article “Zazubrin” appeared on the website of the newspaper Zubr, which tells how in the second half of last year 2013, an initiative group headed by A. Rapoport decided to recreate OZET in an updated format and hold the Founding Conference of OZET in April-May 2014 in the Crimea (Feodosia). The same website reports that on March 23, 2014, the appeal of the OZET Coordinator in Ukraine and Crimea, the Head of the Council of Beit Shlan (Center for Religious Zionism) Meir Landau to allied organizations and Jewish communities of Crimea was announced “to gather in the very near future for a conference on the issue of restoration of the national-cultural autonomy of the Jewish people in the Crimea”.
On March 4, 2014, the website of the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine published "Appeal to the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin on behalf of the multinational people of Ukraine, on behalf of national minorities, on behalf of the Jewish community." The document was signed by: the previously mentioned Iosif Zissels - Chairman of the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities (Vaada) of Ukraine, Executive Vice President of the Congress of National Communities of Ukraine and 36 other equally respected "Ukrainians".
In said "Appeal":
a) it is argued that the Russian-speaking residents of Ukraine are not subjected to humiliation and harassment, their civil rights are not limited, and that the stability of Ukraine is under threat from the Russian authorities, that is, from V.V. Putin;
b) there is a call "not to interfere in internal Ukrainian affairs, withdraw Russian troops to their places of permanent deployment and stop encouraging pro-Russian separatism."
At the same time, it should be noted that the actions to recreate OZET coincided in time with the main events of the political crisis in Ukraine, and it is highly doubtful that this was a mere accident.
To confirm the doubt, it should also be noted:
1. The highest involvement in political events in Ukraine of the employees of the US Embassy in Kyiv and the top American leadership.
2. The highest activity shown in the current political events in Ukraine by the head of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine, head of the European Council of Jewish Communities and President of the European Jewish Union (EJU) Igor Kolomoisky (2nd in the ranking of the Ukrainian rich in 2013).
3. The highest activity shown by the European Union in matters of restitution in the countries of the former Soviet bloc. After joining the association with the EU, the same awaits Ukraine, whose legislation it will have to follow.
It seems that everything is calculated, people are prepared, arranged and take the necessary actions ...
Of course, the reliability of the second version can be confirmed or refuted only on the basis of relevant archival documents, if any (according to A. Karaulov, M. Poltoranin's information is based on archival documents).
If the second version is true, the political events in Ukraine, coupled with OZET resuscitation measures, can be interpreted as the implementation of a certain plan of preliminary measures to seize the pledged lands of Crimea.
It seems that if Crimea was part of Ukraine, which joined the EU, its pledged lands would be seized by the United States through legal casuistry and restitution.
Experience shows that at present, with the help of brute military force, the United States can trample on any legal and moral norms and do with any NON-NUCLEAR power everything that it seems necessary to them.
Crimea escaped to its historical nuclear missile homeland literally at the very last possible moment - a little more, and the Russian world could lose it forever.
Judging by the fury that the entry of Crimea into Russia caused in the United States, it is extremely doubtful that our good comrades - ordinary Jews, together with whom we work, ride in trolleybuses and drink vodka in the kitchens, could have something to do with the withdrawal of Crimean mortgage bonds by the Americans lands.
Many events of the past show that ordinary Jews, as a rule, are used as an auxiliary, expendable material in the big games of very big people who are least of all interested in someone's personal fate.
It seems that the proposed measures to seize Crimean lands, first of all, should solve the global strategic task of organizing some form of absolute American presence on the territory of Crimea - up to the announcement of the peninsula as the 51st American state (like Alaska and Hawaii).
Therefore, dear comrades, Crimea must now be defended to the last nuclear warhead.

V.L. KHRAMOV,
member of the Military Scientific Society of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation,
retired 1st rank capital
Sevastopol

Source "Russian Messenger" http://www.rv.ru/content.php3?id=10742

From the USSR. We will talk about the American project "Crimean California" ...

Even before the Maidan events, the Simferopol Committee for Demanding Compensation, consisting of veterans of the National Movement of the Crimean Tatar People, demanded from Barack Obama nothing less than a public apology and compensation for the damage suffered by the Crimean Tatars as a result of repression and forced eviction in May 1944 . According to the authors of the appeal, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was directly involved in this event.

This story began in the 20s. The financial circles of the United States hatched the idea of ​​creating a Jewish state on the territory of Crimea, friendly to the United States. The Jewish-American organization "Joint", which before the establishment of diplomatic relations with the United States represented the interests of this country in Soviet Russia, gave us a loan of 20 million dollars.

375,000 hectares of Crimean land were pledged as security. Securities were issued for the entire borrowed amount, they were bought by powerful US families, including Roosevelt. That is, they would become the owners of the Crimean territories if the Soviet side failed to fulfill its loan obligations. The calculation period was 1954.

Part of the borrowed money was intended for the mass resettlement of Soviet Jews in the Crimea and the creation of national autonomy there. The process of resettlement began, the Jewish collective farms showed good results, but bad luck - friction began with the Crimean Tatar population. In addition, the growing Soviet state did not want to develop a project that could eventually turn into a separation of the territory. The resettlement process was slowed down, and the Jewish Autonomous Region was created in the Far East.

The United States returned to the idea of ​​secession of Crimea during the difficult war years for the USSR. In particular, in 1943, during a trip to America and Great Britain, the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee Mikhoels and Fefer, who were actually Stalin's envoys. Financial circles made it clear that in exchange for help in the fight against Germany, they are waiting for the creation of a Jewish state in the Crimea after the victory over Hitler.

In their address to Obama, the Crimean Tatars also refer to the memoirs of former Yugoslav vice-president Milovan Djilas. Allegedly, after the Tehran Conference, Stalin, in his presence, told Josip Broz Tito about his conversation with Roosevelt. Threatened by the termination of Lend-Lease supplies and the refusal to land allied troops in France, the US President demanded the revival of the Crimean California project. “We cannot open a second front until you make a decision on Crimea,” Djilas is quoted as saying.

It was the pressure from Roosevelt, the authors of the appeal are convinced, that caused Stalin's decision to deport the Crimean Tatars - it was necessary to show that the USSR heard his wish and freed the territory for the conflict-free existence of future settlers.

Stalin managed to successfully maneuver and prolong time - as a result, the status quo of Crimea remained the same after the war. By the way, is this why the USSR was perhaps the first to support the creation of Israel in 1948? This actually removed the question of the need for a Jewish state in the Crimea.

Jewish collective farmers of the Novozlatopol district

Moreover, there is a version, quite conspiratorial, that the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine is connected with old cases. The trick of this maneuver is that the "Joint" had a loan agreement with the RSFSR. And if someone presents something, Ukraine could not respond to such demands, because despite the unity of the USSR, each republic had room for economic and social maneuvering in a number of issues. For example, each republic had its own Criminal Code. And the Ukrainian and Belarusian Soviet socialist republics, along with the USSR, were full members of the UN.

Mikhail Poltoranin also spoke about the existence of the Crimean California project, referring to some papers that he allegedly saw in the KGB archives. However, many historians doubt this and demand proof. Reasonably. If you do not take into account the fact that a number of documents have not yet expired the period of secrecy, and many agreements between the powerful of this world could well have been oral.

Collection of Jewish collective farmers.

Related article:

How Nikita Khrushchev gave Crimea to Ukraine

Back in the 20s of the 20th century, the idea of ​​creating a Jewish autonomy in a sparsely populated part of the northern Crimea was circulating. A document was even signed under such an intriguing title: “On Crimean California” between the “Joint” (an American Jewish charitable organization that represented the United States in the early years of Soviet power) and the Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR.

According to this agreement, the "Joint" allocated 1.5 million dollars a year to Russia for the needs of Jewish agricultural communes. (Until 1936, 20 million dollars were transferred to Russia). Several of these communes worked very productively: they received high yields, introduced new equipment, and animal husbandry also grew. Then they were transformed into state farms. But over time, for various reasons, the so-called. "Crimean project" stalled. (And the money, until 1936, was transferred from the USA ... that's a scam)

In 1943 At the Tehran conference, Roosevelt, in a conversation with Stalin, said that his administration would soon have problems with Lend-Lease deliveries to the USSR if the Crimean California project was not reanimated. This was written by a very informed source - Milovan Djilas, the future vice-president of Yugoslavia. He and Josip Broz Tito secretly flew to the USSR and in a personal conversation asked Stalin why the Tatars were deported from Crimea in the spring of 1944. According to him, Stalin referred to the data Roosevelt's obligation to clear the Crimea for Jewish settlers.

Stalin understood that the Americans were pushing through the Crimean project not in the interests of Soviet Jews, but for their own geopolitical purposes. However, difficult circumstances forced them to maneuver, and the bargaining around the "Crimean California" continued. Stalin insisted that this state formation should be part of the USSR in the status of an autonomous republic (Lazar Kaganovich was going to be appointed head), and he wanted to receive a $10 billion loan to restore the country's economy. The money seemed to have been promised, but on the condition that Crimea seceded from the USSR. The case once again stalled ... http://www.kursants.ru/news/trojanskij_kon/1-0-4

But Crimea still left the USSR. The year 1954 arrived, which was supposed to be the time for the final payment of old debts. The Americans believed that the remainder of the twenty million loan was still hanging over the USSR, although a lot of captured German weapons were transferred to Israel through the Joint to pay off these debts for the war with the Arabs. Washington could start a squabble and demand the Crimean lands. And then the new collective leadership of the USSR - Khrushchev, Bulganin, Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich - decided to play it safe.

In autumn 1953 Khrushchev visited the Crimea. The peninsula made a depressing impression on him. Then he flew to Kyiv, where for a long time he persuaded the leadership of the Ukrainian SSR to accept the Crimea under their jurisdiction. The Ukrainian comrades did not want to take the Crimea - after the war they had enough of their own problems. However, using old connections, Khrushchev persuaded the Ukrainian leaders. Now the Ukrainian SSR had to answer for the old Soviet debt. Having transferred the peninsula to her, Moscow retained the main base of the Black Sea Fleet - Sevastopol. In fact, Kyiv took it into its own hands only with the collapse of the USSR. However, this is a completely different story.

Khrushchev apparently believed that he had found an ideal way, some kind of trick, a legal hook, to outsmart and the US, and their Jewish lobby. Perhaps, in terms of the 53rd year, it was so. Even in a nightmare, Nikita Sergeevich could not imagine that in less than 40 years the USSR would simply disappear from the world map!

I think that with the increase in military threats in the Promised Land, the question of a new resettlement of the Jewish people will definitely arise. And then, the old interests in the Crimea will become aggravated and materialize - that's Kolomoisky for you.

Of course, Russia will not give up Crimea now, but they are bargained to the point of colic in the stomach.