Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920. Oleg Budnitskii
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and oppression provided a natural environment that would inevitably lead to an increase in the number of revolutionaries from among the Jewish population. By October of 1906, the more rational government administrators understood this. The experience of the 1905 Revolution, among other things, led Stolypin to come up with a series of proposals to repeal restrictions on Jews in the Russian Empire.
Stolypin explained to the Tsar that the “Jewish question” was now being raised as “Jews have a legal basis to demand full equality in accordance with the civil liberties granted by the Manifesto of October 17.” Moreover, Stolypin sought to “placate the non-revolutionary elements of the Jewish population in order to rid our government of a situation that has served as a source of countless opportunities for abuse.” However, Stolypin's initiatives ran up against the inexplicable mystical inclinations of the Emperor, who returned the set of proposals on December 10, 1906 without approving them. “Long before I received these proposals,” Nicholas II would later write, “I thought about them day and night. And despite the most convincing arguments in favor of approving the matter, an inner voice continues to repeat to me ever more insistently that I should not take this decision upon myself.”41
A large portion of the Russian population was convinced that if another revolution were to occur, then Jews would be active participants. The far right claimed that Jews served as the “backbone” of the revolutionary movement, and that without their support no revolution would be possible. It comes as somewhat of a surprise, then, that Jews who had participated so actively in struggles against the autocracy, or who were at least extremely sympathetic to such actions, were such minor participants in its downfall. This “strange” fact is of course rather easy to explain. The revolution in Russia was predominantly Russian, and could not be the sole result of a well organized minority. It was instead the result of the decay of the state on the one hand, and the coincidence of a number of disparate factors on the other. In any case, its goal was not a solution to the “Jewish question.” The February Revolution of 1917 demonstrated this. There was no talk of any kind of Jewish conspiracy; the only conspiracy to be found was in the actions of the generals who refused to support the Russian Tsar, their commander-in-chief.
Although Jews would go on to play a more significant role in the Russian revolution, they never played a decisive one. Many Russian nationalist writers were fully aware of this. Ten years after the revolution, Lev Karsavin would write, “It's time to get rid of this stupid fairy tale…that Jews thought up and carried out the Russian revolution. One would have to be extremely uneducated and ignorant of history, as well as having a hatred of the Russian people, to believe that the Jews were capable of destroying the Russian state. This is a philosophy of history worthy of Ataman Krasnov, and apparently borrowed from Dumas-père, who likewise blamed Count Caliostro for the French revolution!”42
“After all, didn't our revolution start with the most typical of Russian rebellions, ‘unthinking and ruthless’ at first, but bearing deep inside it some kind of moral depth, some kind of idiosyncratic truth?” asked Nikolai Ustrialov, in an article tellingly entitled “Patriotica.” “No, neither we [the intelligentsia] nor the people can deny responsibility for the current crisis, whether with regard to its better or its darker aspects. This crisis is ours, it is genuinely Russian, it is from our psychology, from our past…And even if one day it is mathematically proven—whereas in the current situation it is yet not mathematically proven [The article was published in 1921]—that 90 percent of Russian revolutionaries were foreigners or that they were mostly Jews, that would take nothing away from the purely Russian character of the movement. Even if ‘foreign hands’ have joined in, the movement's soul, its ‘interior,’ is Russian for better or worse, is of the Russian intelligentsia, and is refracted through the psyche of its people.”
Nikolai Ustrialov, speaking of the ideological roots of the Russian revolution, blamed everything from the broken spirit of Slavophilia, to Chaadaev's pessimism, Hertzen's revolutionary romanticism, and the atmosphere captured in Dostoevsky's characters such as Petrusha Verkhovenskii and Alyosha Karamazov. “Or perhaps they [Verkhovenskii and Karamazov] aren't Russian?” he would note acidly, “And what of the Marxism of the 1890s, headed by people like Bulgakov, Berdiaev, and Struve, who we now consider to be the bearers of the true Russian Idea? It is not foreign [inorodtsy, non-Russian] revolutionaries who are now leading the Russian revolution, but the Russian revolution that is leading foreign revolutionaries to come to know the ‘Russian spirit’ in its current condition.”43
Let us return to March 1917. Before the return of exiles and emigrants from abroad, there were relatively few Jews in the Executive Committee (Ispolkom) of the Petrograd Soviet. In fact, there was only one, Yuri Steklov. The lack of Jewish members pleased Semion Dubnov. On March 17, he wrote in his diary, “The Jews are not at the forefront of this revolution…a tactical move, and a lesson learned from 1905.”44
On March 11, 1917, Vinaver called upon Russia's Jews to be patient, brave, and measured, not to “stick out in high or visible positions,” and to serve the motherland and the revolution without calling attention to themselves. Nirenberg, a Bund member, was of the opposite opinion: “Let Jews become senators, officers, and so on. If we do not take these rights now, they won't be given to us tomorrow.”45 Vinaver's humility did not last long. As if following the recommendation of his opponent on the left, Vinaver accepted the post of Senator, along with O. Gruzenberg, former Duma deputy I. Gurevich, and Odessa attorney G. Blumenfeld.46
On the evening of March 22, 1917, Dubnov wrote, “A remarkable day. Today the Provisional Government published its decision to remove all restrictions on nationalities and religion. In other words, it published its decision to emancipate the Jews of Russia. After forty years fighting and suffering, my life's dream has come true. I still cannot actually comprehend all the greatness of the moment. Later, when the fearful satellites of this new sun on the historical horizon disappear, and the German Hannibal at the gate with the ghosts of counterrevolution and anarchy melt away, we will be able to feel the light and warmth of a new world.”47
Dubnov's misgivings would soon turn out to be justified. In another entry, he writes, “I just came back home. Early today I saw people on the street running with their pound or so of ‘daily bread.’ I couldn't help but think that we are standing on the edge of a precipice. The majesty of the revolution and the absolute impotence in the face of famine, every political freedom but an utter lack of bread. How will these contrasts influence the dark masses?”48
The absence of Jews from the predominantly Russian revolutionary political elite did not last long. As mentioned earlier, the lack of Jews in revolutionary leadership was largely due to the physical absence of the large number of leaders who had been exiled or voluntarily emigrated. As Jewish revolutionaries made their way back to the capitals, their numbers would increase rapidly.
On October 16, 1917, in the newspaper Obschee Delo (Common Cause), V. Burtsev published a list of 159 emigrants who had returned to Russia in the infamous “sealed wagons” via Germany. The list was given to him by the Special Commissar of the Provisional Government, S. G. Svatikov. There were no fewer than 99 Jews on the list. In the group of 29 people who accompanied Lenin to Petrograd, 17 were Jews. The number of Jews who returned to Russia by less exotic means was also significant.
However, the vast majority of Russian Jews were not affiliated with Lenin and his followers. The February Revolution, and the repeal of restrictions enacted by the Provisional Government, were met with elation and enthusiasm among Russia's Jews. “The rebirth of Jewish cultural and political life,” aptly notes Zvi Gitelman, “created an institutional barrier against the penetration of Bolshevik ideas and organizations.”49 Jewish communities were reestablished, and busied themselves not only with religious tasks, but with cultural and educational ones as well. Jewish schools, charities, newspapers, musical societies, and reading circles began to thrive. At the same time, this blossoming of Jewish culture took place against the background of ever-deepening economic problems, including the bankruptcy of most small businesses and high unemployment (particularly among young people), problems that were caused by, or at the very least exacerbated by, the hardships of life in wartime.
The “political