Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920. Oleg Budnitskii
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Ia. Lur'e was shocked by the combination of Bolshevik propaganda and antisemitism prevalent in the campaign period leading up to the elections for the Constituent Assembly in Petrograd. In the Okhta area of the city where he lived, Bolshevik agitators assured voters that Kerensky was, in fact, a Jew.94
In a diary entry dated November 16, 1917, the publicist D. V. Filosofov recorded a story recounted to him by I. I. Manukhin, who had been serving as a doctor in the Peter and Paul Fortress, where the ministers of the Provisional Government were imprisoned:
Today in the fortress there was a curious incident. A group of Red Guards came to the Commandant's office quarters. One of them was drinking water, having grown tired of talking. He had been at Andreev's coffee house, “beating up Yids.”
—Are you a Bolshevik?
—Yes!
—Then why are you beating up Yids?
—I don't know, they told us to go to the coffee house, there were Yids there. What do I have to do with it? I don't know…. etc.95
Similar incidents could be found outside of the capitals. As the masses that the Bolsheviks depended on grew more radicalized, their antisemitic tendencies were noticed by the Jewish bourgeoisie as well as by socialist politicians of Jewish heritage, especially as they repeatedly spoke out against the Bolsheviks.
The first “shot” was fired in a meeting of the Rostov-on-Don Soviet on October 14, 1917, which was dedicated to preparations for the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. First Lokerman, and then Shraiber attempted to convince those gathered that the Congress would lead to the end of democracy, and criticized the tactics of the Bolsheviks. They were interrupted by whistles and cries of “Down with the Jewish [zhidovskikh] deputies! Get the Yid off the stage!”96 At the next meeting of the Soviet, where it was clear that a majority had sided with the Bolsheviks, Gdalii Freid, “taking note of the Bolshevik majority of the Soviet, expressed the desire that the comrade Bolsheviks would take measures to prevent the shouting of pogromistic sentiments such as were heard at the last meeting.”97
The “comrade Bolsheviks” promised to do so. But how could the Bolshevik leadership possibly control the dark masses on which they were so dependent?
All of the Jewish parties and groups took a negative view of the Bolshevik coup. The Zionist newspaper Togblat (Daily Newspaper) made a careful distinction between the two revolutions of 1917. “In March the revolution was of the people, in the fullest sense of the word. Now it presents itself as a conspiracy among the soldiers.” The Bund newspaper Arbeiter Shtime (Worker's Voice) called the Bolshevik coup “insanity.”98
An emergency session of the Central Committee of the Bund took place in Minsk after the Bolshevik coup. Attendees included A. I. Vainshtein, A. Litvak, Ester (M. Ia. Frumkina), M. G. Rafes, and A. I. Chemerinskii. A resolution was passed placing “full political responsibility” on the Bolsheviks for the “insurrection and civil war that was begun by them against the will of the majority of the revolutionary democratic parties during the two weeks before elections to the Constituent Assembly, where the problem of reorganizing the structures of power could have been achieved through peaceful means in concert with all of the revolutionary democratic forces.” The resolution claimed that the Bolsheviks had isolated themselves from the rest of “revolutionary democracy” and were forced to act “in means that would suppress democratic freedoms and condone unchecked terror, which is always a characteristic of government by a minority. The Bolshevik terror, which based itself on the military dictatorship of the armed forces, presents a great danger to the revolution and opens the path for the establishment of a military dictatorship of the counterrevolution.”99
One of the Bund's proclamations during the election period called upon the citizens of the Vitebsk and Mogilev gubernias not to vote for the Bolsheviks, “who were responsible for the civil war, who had led the revolution to the precipice by their insurrection, and who made use of oppression, persecution, and violence.”100 Their publications called upon people to engage in sabotage against Bolshevik power.101 At the same time R. Abramovich warned against armed resistance to Bolshevism, as this could push the masses, who were capable only of seeing in black and white, into the arms of the Bolsheviks. G. Erlikh foresaw that enthusiasm for Bolshevism would also come to the “Jewish street,” but also that such interest would be short-lived, as Jewish workers could not support a party that lived “next door” to the Black Hundreds.102
The leading articles of Jewish Week for the middle of November 1917 carried typical titles: “In the Chaos of Destruction” and “Waiting for Catastrophe.” The author of the latter wrote, “Russian Jewry, unlike the Ukrainians, Cossacks, or people of the Caucuses, cannot fence themselves off territorially from brazen experimenters. Their political and economic interests are too entwined with the native Russian population; we are compelled to undertake the most active and energetic part in saving Russia from the Bolshevik attack.”103
Russian citizens of Jewish heritage undertook armed struggle against the “Bolshevik attack” from the very beginning of the Revolution and the Civil War. Stereotypes in the social consciousness and historical literature somehow “automatically” place Jews in the Bolshevik camp. In reality, however, Jews fought on both sides of the barricade, at least at first.
“For the past several days the Jewish community in Petrograd has been mourning its numerous victims in the same way as if a pogrom had been taking place” noted the article “Funerals of the Jewish Cadets,” published in Vecherniaia pochta (The Evening Post) on November 6, 1917. “More than 50 victims were buried in the Jewish section of Preobrazhensky cemetery. Among those were 35 cadets who died during the siege of the Vladimir Academy and telephone station.”104 Before joining the academy, most of these victims were students enrolled in the Psychoneurological Institute.105 Jewish cadets also took part in the defense of the Winter Palace.106
The number of Jewish officers in the army should not come as a surprise. After Jews received full civil rights, many Jewish youths, who had early viewed military service somewhat indifferently, enthusiastically joined the ranks of the Russian army and joined in her defense. The relatively high levels of education among the Jewish population led to many being accepted to officers' school. They rushed to defend the democratic government, which they quite rightly considered to be their own.
Another Petrograd newspaper, Volia Naroda (Will of the People), published a brief article on November 5, 1917 entitled “In the Peter and Paul Fortress,” which listed a number of officers who had ended up in the prison. It included the names of thirty-five officers, including names such as Lifshits, Mirochnik, Berman, Levin, Soloveichik, and others. There were a total of twelve Jewish names.107
Nevertheless Jewish circles attempted to deny the Jewish heritage of many of the Bolshevik leaders. On November 26, 1917, a Zionist meeting took place in Petrograd. It had been called to celebrate the long-awaited liberation of Jerusalem by British forces; though those gathered had no way of knowing this, troops under the command of General Allenby were to enter Jerusalem on that very day. At the meeting, M. S. Shvartzman, a doctor, remarked, “We do not want Russian Jewry as a whole to be held responsible for the actions of these repulsive butchers, these renegades of Jewry. Rather, we would hope that they themselves will be held responsible for their actions before our entire people.”
The author of the short article “On the Threshold of the Promised Land,” published in Vechernii Chas (Evening Hour) on November 27, 1917, which quoted Shvartzman's words, commented, “The speaker chose not to name names. But the perceptive audience knew who he was talking about, the Na-khamkises, Bronshteins, and others.”108
Yet it was to prove difficult to disassociate the Bolshevik leadership from the rest of Russia's Jewry. Unlike the Jewish officers who perished in relative anonymity, the names of Trotsky, Zinoviev and others were on everyone's lips.
On January 7, 1918, the chronicler of Russian Jewry Semen Dubnov, wrote, “They won't forget about the participation of Jewish revolutionaries during the Bolshevik Terror.