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What is with the Soviet Union and the Soviet Blocks support for the creation of Israel? (hexbear.net)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Did they really believe Israel would be socialist?

Why was there an ideological change away from Lenin's anti-zionist position?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Agree. Zionism was "sold" to the USSR as a national question, but after it was exposed for what it really was, settler-colonialism, then the USSR changed positions and took a hostile position towards Israel. They even fought a secret war against Israel in support of Nasser in Egypt in the 1960s.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I have never had any issues understanding the position of the USSR on this. It would have been incredibly difficult for a Soviet leader to say no to the idea in the immediate aftermath of WW2. They would have immediately been alienated from the international community and drawn extreme criticism even from their own people. I think it's to their credit that they did a 180 once it became clear what the true nature of the Zionist project was... that it could never be the socialist society that "left-wing" Zionists had dishonestly marketed it as. The Soviet leadership were deceived just like many other people at that time. In hindsight it is easy to say that they should have acted differently, and it doesn't excuse their mistake but we always have to look at the full historical context.