Polina Zhemchuzhina

Polina Semyonovna Zhemchuzhina ( _ru. Полина Семеновна Жемчужина; 1897 - 1970) was the wife of Vyacheslav Molotov.

Born Pearl Karpovskaya (the word "pearl" in Russian is "жемчужина") to the family of a Jewish tailor in the village of Pologi, in the Yekaterinoslav region (today Dnepropetrovsk Oblast, Ukraine), she joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party of Bolsheviks in 1918 and served as a propaganda commissar in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War.

In 1921, she married Vyacheslav Molotov, by then a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU. She also made a successful career in the Soviet hierarchy, serving in the Narkomat of Food Industry under Anastas Mikoyan, to become in 1939 the first female Narkom (of Fishing Industry), and was elected a candidate to the Central Committee that year.

During the 1920s, her sister emigrated to the then-British Mandate of Palestine. According to historian Zhores Medvedev, Stalin was highly suspicious of Zhemchuzhina. He thought that she negatively influenced Molotov, and he recommended Molotov to divorce her. [ru icon Zhores Medvedev, "Stalin and the Jewish Question: New Analysis" (2003) ISBN 5-7712-0251-7] Her brother Karp was a successful businessman in the USA (Montefiore, Stalin n282)

In a secret meeting of the Politburo on August 10, 1939, the agenda item number 33, "Regarding Comrade Zhemchuzhina", her alleged "connections to spies" led to a request to verify that information by the NKVD. As it was customary during the Great Purges, many of her coworkers were arrested and questioned, but the "evidence" (frequently acquired by force) against her was so contradictory that (on October 24) the Politburo concluded the "allegations against comrade Zhemchuzhina's participation in sabotage and spying... to be considered slanderous." However, she was severely reprimanded and demoted for unknowingly keeping contacts with "enemy elements thereby facilitating their spying missions." In February, 1941, she was taken off the list of the candidates to the Central Committee.

During the Great Patriotic War, Zhemchuzhina actively supported the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) and befriended many of its leading members, most notably Solomon Mikhoels. She frequently attended performances by the Moscow State Jewish Theater.

Polina Zhemchuzhina befriended Golda Meir, who arrived in Moscow in 1948 as the first Israeli ambassador to the USSR. [Paul Johnson, "A History of the Jews", London, 1987, p.527]

Long distrusted by Stalin, she was arrested in December 1948 for "treason" and sentenced to a labour camp. She was released by Beria upon the death of Stalin in 1953.

References

External links

* [http://www.idf.ru/9/2.shtml Report by Shkiryatov and Abakumov about Zhemchuzhina to Stalin, in Russian]