Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920. Oleg Budnitskii
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overwhelming successes of the Zionists in numerous elections facilitated the publication on November 2, 1917, of a declaration by the British foreign minister, A. G. Balfour. Written in the form of a letter addressed to Lord L. Rothschild, the Balfour Declaration stated the intention of the British government to assist in the creation of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. The declaration was met with great optimism on the part of Russian Zionists. It seemed as if the centuries-old dream of the Jewish people was finally closer to becoming a reality. It is somewhat strange that in the future the Zionist parties in Russia were to play much less of a role in the lives of the Jews than the socialist ones. Gitelman attributes this change to the departure (both voluntary and forced) of many Zionists as a result of Soviet persecution.63 This is quite true, but it is only part of the picture. Voting for the Zionists in 1917 was the same as voting for a dream. It would have been impossible for even 10 percent, let alone 100 percent, of the Jewish population to move to Palestine. People were forced by circumstances to live in the “here and now,” already under the conditions of early Sovietization, threatened by the violence that was to accompany the civil war. The Jewish socialist parties were more capable of addressing the threats of physical annihilation presented by the current day. The “Zionist project,” on the other hand, seemed unrealistic.
Most Russians were unaware of the internal conflicts in the Jewish community. Leaders of the Jewish political parties or movements were well-known mostly among members of their own community. Those Jewish politicians who found success on the national stage beyond the Jewish political parties tended to identify according to class lines or social group. They often either completely ignored “Jewish” issues, or treated them as being of secondary importance (with some rare exceptions). Among the deputies of the Constituent Assembly, the number of Jews elected on the Soviet of Peasant Deputies list outnumbered those of all Jewish national organizations combined by a factor of four to one. In the Executive Committee of the All-Russia Soviet of Peasant Deputies, 20 percent of the members elected at the First All-Russian Congress of the Soviets of Peasant Deputies were Jewish.
By our admittedly rough estimate, the Soviet elite at the end of 1917 and the beginning of 1918 could be said to comprise a little over 3,000 individuals.64 This number includes members of the Constituent Assembly, members of the Provisional Central Election Committee, members of the Democratic Congress, members of the Council of the Russian Republic, and the Central Committees of the main Russian political parties. The period in question runs from the February Revolution until the establishment of one-party dictatorship in Soviet Russia in July of 1918. Of these 3,000 or so, nearly 300 were Jews of all political stripes and colors, from the anarchists and Bolsheviks on the left to right-wing Kadets.
The central committees of nearly all of the significant political parties of Russia had members of Jewish origin, and in the Bolshevik and Social Revolutionary parties the leadership was anywhere from a quarter to a third Jewish. At the Sixth Congress of the RSDRP, there were six Jews among the twenty-one members of the Central Committee (Zinoviev, Trotsky, L. B. Kamenev, Ia. M. Sverdlov, G. Ia. Sokolnikov, and M. S. Uritsky). A. A. Ioffe was one of eight candidates for the Central Committee. The Central Committee of the Menshevik coalition was nearly 50 percent Jewish. Three of the sixty-seven members of the Kadet Central Committee elected at the Eighth Congress were Jewish, including Vinaver, who was elected second from the list, after V. I. Vernadskii. Nearly one-fifth of the membership of the first five Provisional Central Election Committees was Jewish.
While Jewish revolutionaries did a lot of work behind the scenes, they were eager to take the stage as well, and there were a large number of Jews among the orators in various political arenas. In this respect, they refused to follow the model of behavior espoused by Vinaver and Dubnov, and made their presence felt. This fact was noticed by those who tended to see only Jews among the revolutionary parties, as well as those who were slightly more objective.
For the memoirists of 1917 among the most striking orators were Steklov (Nakhamkes), the Menshevik Fedor Dan, and the Bundist Meir Liber. Fedor Stepun would write, “In those days [the first weeks after February] the imposing, deafening figure of the bearded Steklov would appear on stage more often than any other. He was a zealous Anarcho-Marxist.”65 Liber and Dan appeared so often before the Petrograd Soviet that the verb “to Liberdanize” soon appeared in public discourse.
In Odessa, the most prominent speakers and social critics of the time included the Bolsheviks Aleksandr Khmelnitskii (the future People's Commissar for Justice in Ukraine in 1919), Ian Gamarnik, Sergei Ingulov (Reizer), Leonid Isaakovich Ruzer, and the SRs Rikhter and S. S. Zak (along with the “iconic” SR N. N. Kuliabko-Koretskii). Khaim Ryt served as the leader of Odessa's anarchists from 1917 to 1918.66
A similar picture could be found in Kiev, Minsk, Vitebsk, and any other city with a significant Jewish population, as well as in a few locales outside of the confines of the Pale of Settlement. In Rostov-on-Don the Social Democrats S. M. Gurvich, and A. S. Lokerman, as well as the SRs Shraiber, Freid, Berdichevskii and others, were elected to the city Duma and the Soviet of Workers' Deputies. At some points debate in both of these organizations would go on nearly exclusively between Jews.
The local summer elections of 1917 provided some intriguing results. Within the territory of the Pale, they demonstrated who controlled the sympathies of the local population. Yet even in territories outside of the Pale, Jews would become members of the government by election through party lists. This would seem to indicate that Jewish heritage was not a “deal-breaker” for the local Christian population, at least at this particular moment in history.
Seven Bund members joined the socialist coalition in the Kiev Duma, which also included the SRs and Social Democrats. Three deputies were elected on the united ticket of the OESRP and Poalei Zion. The Jewish Democratic Bloc, which included Zionists, members of Agudat Yisrael, and the unaffiliated Soviet of United Jewish Organizations, received five seats total.
In Minsk twenty-eight representatives of Jewish parties were elected to the city Duma, which amounted to more than 25 percent of the total number of voting deputies. Sixteen of these came from the Jewish National Bloc composed of non-socialist parties, whereas the Bund managed only ten seats as part of the Social Democratic Bloc, and Poalei Zion and Zionist Socialists won one seat each.
In Vitebsk, the Bund came out ahead, winning eleven seats as part of a coalition with the SRs and Mensheviks, while Zionist and Orthodox parties won nine seats, with one seat being held by the Folkspartei.
The dominance of the Bund in heavily Jewish territories can be explained by the fact that they gained votes by forming coalitions, allowing them to get extra support from non-Jews. This option wasn't a possibility for the Zionist or Orthodox parties, or for those Jewish socialist parties that decided to enter the elections on their own.67
In several cities, Jews were to assume leadership roles in local government structures and legislatures. A. Vainshtein (Rakhmiel) was elected chairman of the city Duma in Minsk, and the Menshevik Ilia Polonskii was elected to lead Ekaterinoslav, while his fellow party member A. M. Ginzburg (Naumov) became the second-in-command in Kiev. Bund member D. Chertkov was elected chairman of the Duma in Saratov.68 Later on, the Bolsheviks would be blamed for placing the two capitals in the hands of Jews (Zinoviev in Petrograd and Kamenev in Moscow). However, Jews were already leading the city governments as early as June 1917, with the SR G. I. Shreider being democratically elected to govern Petrograd,69 while his fellow party member O. S. Minor was elected chairman of the Moscow city Duma.
The Jewish population of Rostov served as a microcosm for the Jewish political experience in the year 1917. Like many other Jewish communities, Rostov Jews were split into a multitude of political parties and organizations. Zionists, Poalei Zion, SERP, the Bund, and a number of Jewish organizations sympathetic to the Kadets united to form the “United Committee of Jewish Social Organizations” (OKO). But the most politically active members of the Jewish community were to be found in the Russian political parties, ranging from the Kadets to the Bolsheviks.
The city Duma elections neatly illustrated the political sympathies of Rostov's Jews and their role in the political life of the city. Elections were conducted according to party lists. Mikhail Rabinovich was elected