Anna Milstein, a Jewish eighteen-year-old anti-Zionist and Young Communist in Mandatory Palestine jailed during the larger crackdown that followed 1929’s Revolt, died as a result of a hunger strike on April 15, 1930. Her funeral the following day attacked by police. Searching, this is one of the few references in English to a story, and a comrade, that deserves to be widely known.

‘The Anglo-Zionist Terror in Palestine’ by A–m from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 10 No. 22. May 8, 1930.

Jaffa. Simultaneously with the revolutionary upsurge in India the difficulties of the social-imperialist MacDonald Government are increasing in the Arabian countries. There is unrest in Transjordania; demonstrations are taking place in the towns of Iraq. In Palestine also, in spite of the greatest efforts of the British administration, which employed the most ruthless terror, it has not been possible to stifle the revolutionary movement. On the contrary, a few months after the bloody reprisals which followed the August revolt, the imperialists were forced to recognise that the masses are becoming more revolutionary and turning away from the reformist and nationalist traitors, and that Communist influence is growing, especially among the workers.

The recognition of this fact is the reason of the new acts of repression and the wave of terror observable in Palestine in the last few weeks. A fresh attempt is to be made to “liquidate” the revolutionary movement; and the means which are employed exceed in cruelty anything hitherto witnessed in Palestine.

First there should be mentioned the death sentences, numbering over thirty, which have been pronounced as “retribution” for the August revolt, and which have been confirmed by the highest court of appeal and whose execution now only depends on the confirmation of the British High Commissioner. The latter considers it advisable, so long as the popular excitement prevails, and in view of the mass movement which has commenced in all the Arabian countries in favour of the condemned, to postpone the executions in order to hold the condemned as hostages in case of a fresh popular rising; but there is little doubt that the pro-Zionist MacDonald Government is minded to act in the sense of the recommendation of the official organ of the Jewish telegraph agency in Palestine, which wrote: “Better to hang innocent people than not to hang anybody at all…”

The sentences on the fellaheen, which run to ten years’ hard labour, are in fact tantamount to death sentences, for the regime in the Palestine prisons is such that the inmates are slowly done to death. Only recently an Arab peasant was found dead in prison. The explanation given by the authorities was that he had been stabbed by a fellow prisoner.

Ever fresh arrestees are being placed in the already over-filled prisons. These are for the main part revolutionary Arab and Jewish workers. The arbitrary powers conferred by MacDonald’s prison law of 25th October, 1929, know no limits. Workers are sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment simply for belonging to the legal trade union opposition; Arab workers who make application for permission to hold a meeting of their legal workers’ association, are arrested on the spot; distributors of illegal leaflets are charged under paragraphs of the criminal code providing penalties of three to five years’ imprisonment; dozens of workers have been imprisoned for months on end without any trial.

The police persecutions were especially furious in the last two weeks during the great Arab national festival “Nebi Mussa”, which this time bore an outspokenly anti-imperialist character, and before the 1st of May. Police autos raced from one work place to another and indiscriminately arrested Jewish and Arab workers.

The arrested, even before they are tried and sentenced, are subjected to brutal treatment at the police stations. A worker named Miaskovitzky, who was arrested while distributing Communist leaflets in the Arab town of Gaza, was so brutally beaten and tortured by the police that even the English Governor of the central prison refused to admit him without a medical certificate regarding his condition. It is very significant that prominent Zionists–leaders of the so-called Zionist self-defence, who at the same time serve as spies for the British police–carry out these brutal acts; that these “peaceful idealists” in no way lag behind the bloodthirsty Polish defensive or the Rumanian Siguranza. British imperialism, of course, acquiesced in every shameful deed of its Zionist-fascist lackey.

The cruel prison regime of the MacDonald Government in Palestine has already demanded its victims; Anna Milstein, an 18-year-old Communist, died after severe suffering as a result of mishandling in the Jerusalem prison. This, however, did not suffice to glut the lust for revenge of the police who destroyed this young life. The funeral of Comrade Milstein was attacked by the hirelings of the Labour Government, in particular by the Zionist police officers, who brutally beat the workers, both men and women, who wished to lay a wreath on the coffin, and broke up the funeral procession. Even the sister of the dead was not allowed to approach the coffin and was severely injured with blows of the whip and police clubs.

The workers are very indignant at the brutal treatment accorded the prisoners. In spite of the agitation of the Zionist press, which shamefully supports the misdeeds of the police, it can be said that the great majority of the Arab and Jewish workers condemn MacDonald’s police terror. In Haifa there took place a spontaneous demonstration against the cruelties of the police. With regard to the political prisoners themselves (their number, quite apart from the hundreds arrested in connection with the August revolt, has increased to over 60), they have again submitted to the prison authorities their demands for a special regime for political prisoners and pointed out that the promises which were made to them at the time of the last hunger strike in October last year still remain unfulfilled. They have, as the last means which they have at their disposal, proclaimed a fresh hunger strike for the 28th of April if their demands are ignored.

The terror of the MacDonald government is directed not only against the workers who are engaged in political fights, but also against workers engaged in economic struggles. Thus when the workers in a box factory in Haifa went on strike, the police were called in order to help the employer to suppress the strike.

The fight against the Anglo-Zionist terror, for the release of all political prisoners, the repeal of the exceptional laws, cessation of repression against revolutionary workers and Arab national revolutionaries, occupies an important place in the anti-imperialist action of the proletariat in Palestine. It is very important that this fight should be supported by the solidarity of the workers in other countries, especially of the English workers.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecorr’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1930/v10n22-may-08-1930-inprecor-Virginia.pdf