Security Service release

Files of Jewish interest

Philip Piratinsky MP (KV 2/2033-2034)

Phil Piratinsky (Piratin) was born on 15 May 1907. These files chart Piratin's career within the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), through his organisation of tenant's strikes against East End landlords during the 1930s and his involvement with the anti-fascist struggle against the British Union of Fascists. Returned in 1945 as CPGB MP for Mile End, he served as an MP until 1950. As the files reveal, Piratin was an incredibly active MP (366a) tabling hundreds of questions and championing thousands of constituency cases whilst also introducing the Safety of Employment Bill designed to make employers responsible for safety at work. In 1950 Piratin was declared bankrupt after losing a libel case, a development that prevented him seeking re-election. Piratin was never again a national political figure though he remained a committed communist working as circulation manager for the Daily Worker. The file also contains many observations by the security service about Piratin's personal feelings and particularly his 'dissatisfied state of mind' (401A) at no longer being a national figure after 12 years as a CPGB councilor in Stepney and four years as an MP.

Jewish Defence Committee (KV 5/24)

This slim, reconstituted file covering 1942-1953 records the history of the Security Service's slight interest in the Jewish Defence Committee, which was suspected of being a group sponsored by the Communists, though it was constituted by the Board of Jewish Deputies in London. The Committee existed to monitor and answer anti-Jewish letters and articles appearing in the press, and the file shows that although the Service was occasionally fed information about the Committee, and did pick up references to its work in intercepted phone calls and correspondence, it did not systematically target the Committee. The file throws some light on the Committee's work during and immediately after the War, especially in its regional organisation.

Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women (KV 5/25-26)

These two files show that the Security Service kept the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen (AJEX) under surveillance with an eye to ensuring that the organisation was not infiltrated by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) through either its anti-fascist campaign against the resurgence of British fascism in the late 1940s or in its opposition to the rearmament of Germany in the 1950s. The Service appears from the evidence of this file to have been satisfied that AJEX was successfully combating Communist infiltration of its regional and central organisation.

See also the files on German Jewish refugee from Nazi persecution Otto Lehmann-Russbueldt (KV 2/2001-2006) and the former head of the Soviet State Bank, Aaron Scheinman (KV 2/1978) in the section on Communists and suspected Communists.