Documents recently declassified by the U.S. government have shed new light on the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
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However, the political realities of the case remain the same in spite of the new revelations. If anything, the new information actually helps to show that the couple was carrying out the task of supporting the USSR against growing U.S. hostility to the socialist camp.
The two Rosenbergs were executed on June 19, 1953, at Sing Sing prison in Ossining, N.Y., for conspiring to pass atomic secrets to the Soviet Union during World War II. They were the first civilians in U.S. history to be executed for espionage.
Both Rosenbergs were committed communists who had joined the Young Communist League in New York City in the 30s. At a time when the United States and the Soviet Union were allies, and then after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, both actively supported the USSR, especially the heroic Soviet resistance to fascism. When the war ended, they remained active as organizers.
Throughout the case, there was widespread outrage and public opposition to the execution that included outcries and appeals for clemency from world governments, high profile intellectuals and religious leaders. The trial was marred by gross prosecutorial misconduct, including fabricated evidence that clearly demonstrated that the two activists were being framed and set up by the government. Nevertheless, President Dwight D. Eisenhower rejected a final plea for clemency after the Supreme Court set aside a stay of execution that had previously been granted. Within hours, the execution took place.
Anti-communist crusade
The Rosenberg case unfolded in an environment of extreme reaction in the United States. The convictions and death sentences handed down on April 5, 1951, coincided with the Korean War—the imperialist bloodbath aimed at curtailing the advance of the Korean people against colonial subjugation and occupation. At home, the prolonged government-sponsored anti-communist crusade that emerged at the end of World War II culminated with the persecution of the Rosenbergs.
During that period of U.S. history, progressives in trade unions, academic scholars, artists and intellectuals, peace activists, communists and socialists were harassed, jailed and purged from their jobs. These actions were part of the anti-communist witch-hunts of the 50s.
The “Cold War” was then dominated by the terrifying specter of a worldwide nuclear confrontation. Even though only the United States had ever deployed nuclear weapons against civilian populations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, killing hundreds of thousands, all sectors of U.S. society were inundated with propaganda to create the fear of a Soviet nuclear attack.
Anti-communism and red-baiting permeated all social spheres. The aim was to silence voices of dissent, to undermine working-class solidarity, and to instill a chilling effect on the progressive movement. Communist ideology was slandered at every turn in order to divert public attention away from the stunning industrial, technological and ideological growth of the USSR since the 1917 revolution. The socialist country developed in spite of imperialist encirclement, counterrevolutionary efforts from within and the brutal Nazi invasion that took the lives of 27 million Soviet citizens.
President Eisenhower’s rejection of clemency illustrates what political motivations were driving the imperialists to execute this humble, working-class couple for the so-called crime of helping the USSR defend itself from aggression. In a sweeping distortion of the truth, Eisenhower outrageously laid at their feet the “responsibility of condemning to death millions of innocent people all over the world.”
The statement, coming from the leader of the imperialist world, communicated clearly that the U.S. government is willing to prosecute, and even possibly send anyone to their death for daring to oppose U.S. expansionist policies or to carry out acts of international solidarity. The message behind the execution affirmed that all those organizing around working-class issues or speaking out against U.S. policy could be next to face decades in prison or even death in the electric chair.
Eisenhower’s statement reads, in part, as follows:
“I am convinced that the only conclusion to be drawn from the history of this case is that the Rosenbergs have received the benefits of every safeguard which American justice can provide. There is no question in my mind that their original trial and the long series of appeals constitute the fullest measure of justice and due process of law. Throughout the innumerable complications and technicalities of this case no Judge has ever expressed any doubt that they committed most serious acts of espionage.
“Accordingly, only most extraordinary circumstances would warrant Executive intervention in the case. I am not unmindful of the fact that this case has aroused grave concern both here and abroad in the minds of serious people aside from the considerations of law. In this connection I can only say that, by immeasurably increasing the chances of atomic war, the Rosenbergs may have condemned to death tens of millions of innocent people all over the world. The execution of two human beings is a grave matter. But even graver is the thought of millions of dead, whose deaths may be directly attributable to what these spies have done.
“When democracy’s enemies have been judged guilty of a crime as horrible as that of which the Rosenbergs were convicted, when the legal processes of democracy have been marshaled to their maximum strength to protect the lives of convicted spies, when in their most solemn judgments the tribunals of the United States has adjudged them guilty and the sentence just, I will not intervene in this matter.”
Solidarity with those resisting imperialism
Since the time of the Rosenbergs, scores of studies have delved into the particulars of the case. It continues to profoundly affect those who cite the obvious political motivations of the anti-communist right. It still impacts liberals and progressive people who are horrified by the brutality of the execution of two activists whose two young sons were orphaned when their parents were killed.
But underlying this case is an even more important point that informs how anti-nuclear activists and progressive people should understand the true character of the U.S. war machine and its insatiable drive for global domination.
The new information obtained from the release of the Rosenberg case documents has led to a flurry of press reports on the case and convictions.
The New York Times published an interview with co-defendant Morton Sobell on Sept. 11. Sobell, now 91-years-old, was tried and convicted with the Rosenbergs, serving more than 18 years in federal prison. Sobell asserted to the New York Times reporter that he and Julius Rosenberg turned over military secrets to the USSR during World War II, when the Soviets were considered U.S. allies of the and were bearing the brunt of Nazi brutality.
The right wing immediately jumped on this breaking story. In a major op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times on Sept. 17, ultra-conservative Ronald Radosh stated that “the end has arrived for the legions of the American left wing that have argued relentlessly for more than half a century that the Rosenbergs were victims. … A pillar of the left-wing culture of grievance has been finally shattered.”
Many liberals and progressives, on the other hand, have lamented this information because it means that some kind of spying, however low-level it might have been, was going on.
Mistakenly, some buy into the bourgeois notion that helping the USSR obtain information that could have enabled it to produce weapons to defend itself against U.S. aggression is criminal or even “unpatriotic.” This error stems from a perspective that is anti-communist and that fails to take into account the deadly U.S. history of countless acts of criminal aggression, including bombings, invasions, coups, occupations, sanctions, torture, genocide and nuclear attacks carried out against innocent civilians.
The Rosenbergs were, in fact, courageous individuals and principled working-class organizers acting in the spirit of international solidarity with the goal of helping to ensure the security of the Soviet Union and socialism.
Did the perceived nuclear capacity of the USSR really threaten the tens of millions that Eisenhower refers to in his statement? Were the Rosenbergs responsible for the lives lost in the Korean War, as the ultra-rightist Judge Kaufman proclaimed in his sentencing of the two?
Or did Soviet nuclear capacity help counter the United States and even possibly prevent a U.S. nuclear strike against the Soviet Union or its allies? The reality is that the ability of the USSR to defend itself preserved the status quo and helped stave off a possible nuclear conflagration. If the Rosenbergs did hand over information on the U.S. nuclear program to the USSR, paying for it with their lives, then the international working class has only the more reason to celebrate these heroes.
The crimes against humanity committed by the United States military in the name of “democracy” or “national security” are well documented and too numerous to cite. Sovereign governments that are possible targets of nuclear war or any form of aggression have the right to defend themselves in whatever way necessary against imperialist designs. Activists working in the United States have an obligation to forego chauvinism and stand in solidarity with all those around the globe who are resisting imperialism.
Having shown its willingness to slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese civilians, it is not far-fetched to conclude that, without the means to counter U.S. aggression, the Soviet Union or other nations might have fallen victim to nuclear attack.
At that time, the U.S. government had shown its willingness to obliterate whole cities with atomic bombs. Currently, it is U.S. imperialism, with thousands of nuclear warheads stationed all over the world, which represents the greatest threat to peace and global security. Anti-war and anti-nuclear activists must continue to demand the disarmament of the U.S. nuclear arsenal as the first prerequisite for global nuclear disarmament.
