Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920. Oleg Budnitskii
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the result of the zoological tendencies of agitated Russian citizens.
I, of course, will not take the trouble to provide these proofs—honorable people have no need of them, while those lacking honor would find them unconvincing.
Idiocy is a disease that cannot be cured by means of suggestion. To the person suffering from this incurable condition it crystal clear: since there are seven and a half Jews among the Bolsheviks, the Jews are to blame for everything…
And after all of this, the honest and sane Russian man will once more begin to feel alarmed, and will experience a tormenting shame for his Rus', and for the Russian blockhead who in times of trouble immediately looks for an enemy from without, instead of in the depths of his own stupidity.78
Stupidity, however, is an international phenomenon. After all, the belief on the part of many Jewish activists that a mere change in the external power structure of the country would solve the “Jewish question” could also be attributed to stupidity or naïveté. The Russian Revolution gave the Jews the March 22 declaration of equal rights, passed by the Provisional Government. However, it would also later give them an explosion of pogrom activity and an indescribable amount of suffering. As is often the case with such tragedies, all this would happen to a group of people who were, to a large extent, apolitical in nature.
After the events of July 1917 (the “dress rehearsal” for the Bolshevik coup), Stepun recalled how “janitors, shop-owners, cabbies, and barbers, all of the unwashed masses of the Petrograd petit bourgeoisie were dying for the opportunity to attack ‘comrades, Jews, and traitors.’”79
The renowned literary historian Boris Eichenbaum recorded a conversation he overheard in a bookshop on August 23, where an elderly sailor said “The revolution is insane, it was carried out by a minority, there aren't any Russians in the Soviet of Workers Deputies, they are all traitors that should be hanged.” The owner of the book shop agreed with him, saying, “The Jews did everything.”80
Dubnov writes the following on September 20: “the shops are filled with the most scandalous conversations about how the Yids are evil, how they made themselves rich during the war at the expense of the people's misfortune, how Jews have seized power in the city Dumas and government institutions.”81
It is somewhat curious that some far-right journalists, as well as a good portion of the military rank-and-file that the Bolsheviks were dependent on, would all agree that the Bolshevik struggle was a fight against the Jews. One possible explanation is that a number of the Bolsheviks' opponents in the Soviets and other organizations in Petrograd were Jews such as Iu. O. Martov, G. I. Shreider, and A. R. Gots (who would later head the anti-Bolshevik Committee for Saving the Motherland and the Revolution). Another possible explanation was the pronounced tendency of the political “base” to associate any hostile force with Jewishness.
At the same time, the rank-and-file would quickly forget the nationality of those speakers whose slogans were supportive of their own goals. Thus a battalion stationed in Mogilev were willing to “benevolently forgive” a female Bolshevik agitator who called for a quick end to the war, but nearly beat to death S. Ia. Lur'e, who, as a representative of the Soviet, claimed that any peace, even a separate one, could only be achieved through a long period of negotiations.82 The Ukrainian peasantry could also engage in such “internationalism” if it served their interests. Thus in Odessa, the Social Revolutionary S. S. Zak was wildly popular following the February Revolution and was considered an expert on the “agrarian question.” In fact, he became so popular, that it was said that peasants would come to the city and ask, “Where's the Yid who's giving out land?”83
“How fast are these changes in the psychological state of the masses!” wrote V. I. Vernadskii, a member of the Kadet Central Committee as well as Deputy Minister of Education for the Provisional Government. “Jews now command the military. Who could have dreamed of that even twelve or eighteen months ago?”84 A week earlier, he had written that some of the socialist Deputy Ministers reported, “among the crowds of Smolny monastery the word zhid is heard at every step.”85
The Cossacks, who had come to the defense of the Winter Palace, at first claimed that Lenin and “his whole gang were a bunch of Yids.” However, realizing the weak position of the defenders of the Provisional Government, they soon changed their minds and departed. As it turned out, according to a certain Cossack officer (Podkhorunzhii), the Provisional Government was only supported by “women and Yids” and “half the government are Yids too.” “But the Russian people stayed with Lenin” said the same officer, explaining his betrayal.86
Kerensky's decline in popularity led to a rumor that he was actually Jewish. Upon leaving the Winter Palace on the eve of the Bolshevik coup, he happened to catch a glimpse of the following piece of graffiti: “Down with the Jew Kerensky, long live Trotsky!”87
Contemporaries often remarked upon the “Jewishness” of this or that political actor during the Revolutionary period. This was especially true when the person in question belonged to the opposing camp. The Kadet V. D. Nabokov, a member of the All-Russian Commission for the Elections to the Constituent Assembly, was arrested towards the end of November 1917 for refusing to recognize the authority of the Soviet of People's Commissars. Sentenced to five days in Smolny, Nabokov was apparently indifferent to the Jewish heritage of his colleagues L. M. Branson, M. V. Vishniak, and V. M. Gessen, the last of whom had come to Smolny voluntarily in support of his fellow Kadets. However, Nabokov could not help but note the “repulsive, shabbily dressed figure” of M. S. Uritsky, who had “brazen, Jewish facial features.” Uritsky was the commissar of Tavricheskii Palace; Nabokov would have to deal with him later after his release from prison.88
The only newspaper of a more “traditional” antisemitic orientation that continued to publish after the February Revolution was Groza (Thunder-storm).89 After the Bolshevik coup, it claimed, “The Bolsheviks have seized power. The Jew Kerensky, lackey to the British and the world's bankers, having brazenly assumed the title of commander-in-chief of the armed forces and having appointed himself Prime Minister of the Orthodox Russian Tsardom, will be swept out of the Winter Palace, where he had desecrated the remains of the Peace-Maker Alexander III with his presence. On October 25, the Bolsheviks united all the regiments who refused to submit to a government composed of Jew bankers, treasonous generals, traitorous land-owners, and thieving merchants.”90
A week later, Groza evaluated the Bolsheviks' actions in much the same terms. “A remarkable order has been established by the Bolsheviks over the past eight days. There have been no robberies, nor any instances of violence!” “The Bolsheviks have an enemy in the Jewish [zhidovskii] kahals, the traitors from among the land-owners, generals, merchants, and government workers…. In Petrograd the Jewish Rescue Committee under the leadership of the Yid Gots transmitted a secret order from Kerensky on October 28 to Yids in military academies to resist turning in their arms, promising to return to the capital the next day. The Latvians and Armenians listened to the Jews, but many Russians refused.”91
The newspaper was closed by the Bolsheviks following the publication of this edition, their support for the new regime notwithstanding. The Bolsheviks were hardly in need of such “defenders.”
Ilia Ehrenburg wrote M. A. Voloshin from Moscow in November of 1917, soon after the Bolsheviks seized power:
The worst began after their triumph. It is strangely desolate. Moscow has been tortured, crippled, and left empty. The Bolsheviks are on a rampage. I find myself thinking more and more about going abroad; as soon as the opportunity appears, I will leave. I am doing this to save Russia for myself, to leave open the possibility of someday living here. These hideous abominations are truly “crayfish caviar.”92 I would really like to work, but this is impossible here. Yesterday I was standing in line, waiting to vote for the Constituent Assembly. People were saying, “Whoever's against the Yids, vote for number 5! (meaning the Bolsheviks),” “whoever's for world-wide revolution, vote for number 5!” The patriarch rode by, sprinkling holy water; everyone removed their hats. A group of soldiers passing by started to belt out the