Illustration: a Second World War naval-intelligence collage of a Pacific theatre map, aerial reconnaissance photographs and radar plots.

Aleksandr Shcherbakov

Illustration, not an archive object

Secretary of the Central Committee and head of the Moscow party organisation; head of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army and of the Sovinformburo, 1942-1945 · Soviet Union

On the regime page: Soviet Union under Stalin

3 quotes, oldest first. Filter with other speakers.

  1. “Inadvisable at this present time. Let the Jewish writers work for Moscow newspapers.”

    English: Laura Esther Wolfson, in Stalin's Secret Pogrom (Yale University Press, 2001). Original-language text not found.

    July 1941 · Private-remark · Moscow, handwritten note on a petition to the Sovinformburo Verified (secondary source)

    Markish, Bergelson, Kvitko and other Yiddish writers wrote to the Sovinformburo on 18 July 1941. Rubenstein says Shcherbakov, then director of the bureau, dismissed the idea; he accepted a similar proposal in September 1941 and the newspaper Eynikayt began to appear in 1942.

    Shcherbakov's handwritten note on the letter of 18 July 1941 from Yiddish writers asking the Sovinformburo to establish a Yiddish newspaper, quoted in Joshua Rubenstein, "Introduction", in Joshua Rubenstein and Vladimir P. Naumov (eds.), Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, trans. Laura Esther Wolfson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 11 Source

  2. “Mekhlis is coming off the list. He's a general; let him go on fighting. Ehrenburg is coming off the list. He writes well and writes every day. Impossible to send him. Markish is coming off the list. He's muddle-headed and hysterical; he doesn't know what's going to come out of his mouth two minutes from now. And then there is Epshteyn.”

    English: Laura Esther Wolfson, in Stalin's Secret Pogrom (Yale University Press, 2001). Original-language text not found.

    1943 · Private-remark · Moscow, telephone call to Lozovsky in Kuibyshev Verified (secondary source)

    Lozovsky told the court that Shcherbakov went through the list of candidates for a Soviet delegation to the United States of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. The delegation of Mikhoels and Fefer travelled in 1943. Lozovsky was testifying at his own trial.

    Shcherbakov's words on a telephone call to Solomon Lozovsky, early 1943, as recounted by Lozovsky in his testimony of May 1952, in Joshua Rubenstein and Vladimir P. Naumov (eds.), Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, trans. Laura Esther Wolfson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 253 Source

  3. “We absolutely have to have one person in the delegation who isn't a party member.”

    English: Laura Esther Wolfson, in Stalin's Secret Pogrom (Yale University Press, 2001). Original-language text not found.

    1943 · Private-remark · Moscow, telephone call to Lozovsky in Kuibyshev Verified (secondary source)

    Said, according to Lozovsky, when the delegation list for the United States was being decided. Mikhoels, the theatre director, was then chosen as the delegate who was not a party member.

    Shcherbakov's words on a telephone call to Solomon Lozovsky, early 1943, as recounted by Lozovsky in his testimony of May 1952, in Joshua Rubenstein and Vladimir P. Naumov (eds.), Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, trans. Laura Esther Wolfson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 253 Source