Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920. Oleg Budnitskii
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Bolshevik Tovii Lazarevich Akselrod (1888–1938). There were several Jews among his staff (many of whom had no party affiliation) who worked as copy editors, typists, couriers, and so on.40 The “Sovietization” of the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which had earlier been closed to Jews, was a task given to Ivan Abramovich Zalkind (1885–1928), a representative of Trotsky. Zalkind, a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDRP) from the age of 18, had repeatedly been threatened with arrest and exile before the Revolution, and emigrated to France in 1908, where he completed a doctoral program in biology at the Sorbonne. Like Akselrod, he returned to Russia after the February Revolution, and participated in the October coup in Petrograd. Despite the resistance of many of the former workers of the ministry, Zalkind was able to transform it by relying on the relatively few supporters of the regime within the ministry itself, and by introducing new revolutionary workers into the mix. In December of 1917 he became head of the Western Countries bureau, and soon after, in January of 1918, was appointed Ambassador to Switzerland.41
Jews likewise played a vital role in the Soviet and Party apparatuses in Petrograd. In September of 1918 they composed 9 percent of all Party operatives, and nearly 54 percent of those among senior officials. According to M. Beizer, the total percentage of Jews in the Bolshevik City Committee (Gorkom) and Gubernia Committee (Gubkom) in 1918 was 45 percent, though by 1921 it was only 22 percent. The Zionist A. Idelson, in attempting to explain the growing numbers of Jews in the corridors of Bolshevik power, claimed that in the educated portion of the masses the majority were Jews. Perhaps he was right. As the lower classes grew in power and influence, so too did the role of Jews in Soviet and Party structures.42 Five out of the eleven people in the Petrograd Gorkom in 1918 were of Jewish origin, and three of the five members of the Presidium of the Petrograd Council of Trade Unions (Petrosovprof) in 1919 were Jews. This, of course, was the Party elite, with the “proconsul” of Petrograd, Zinoviev, at its head.
The situation was different at the lower levels of the Party machine. According to V. L. Burtsev, in 1919 the Bolshevik Party in Petrograd was 2.6 percent Jewish, as opposed to 1.8 percent of the general population. By comparison, the Bolshevik Party in Petrograd was 74.2 percent Russian (Russians made up 92.6 percent of the general population), 10.6 percent Latvian (0.7 percent), 6.3 percent Polish (4.2). From these numbers it is readily apparent that the Jewish rank and file did not immediately flock to the Bolshevik Party.43
Of the 23,600 members of the Bolshevik Party in January of 1917, nearly 1000 were Jews (4.3 percent).44 Towards the beginning of 1921 (after the major military conflicts of the Civil War), the number had grown to 17,400, although this was still only 2.5 percent of the party as a whole.45 The Bolshevik Party, which saw a rapid increase in membership in 1917 from 40,000 members in April to 200,000 by August (before decreasing to 115,000 in 191846) saw a proportionally smaller increase in the number of Jewish members. In 1922, according to a variety of sources, anywhere from 1,175 to 2,182 Jews joined the Party in 1917.47 Keeping in mind the fact that Jews in general tended to be more politically active than other ethnic groups, it would seem that on the whole they preferred to join other political organizations.
A brief list of the number of Jews who joined the Communist Party by year, according to Party documents: Before 1917, 964 members, 1917 (2,182), 1918 (2,712), 1919 (5,673), 1920 (5,804), 1921 (1,966). The Party census included 91 percent of all Party members, with the exception of Party organizations in Yakutia and the Far East, where there were very few Jews to begin with. It is clear that in 1920 there were more Jews than the Party records account for, and it is possible that some were expelled from the Party during purges that took place before the census. The reality of conditions during the Civil War period might also explain the difference in numbers. However, the discrepancy does not seem overly significant.48 By the beginning of 1922 the Party counted 19,562 Jews in the RKP (b), while the Party census listed 19,564 (5.2 percent of the Party as a whole). It is clear that the “stagnation” in the growth of Jewish members of the Party was due to purges going on within the Party. In 1920 there were 2,728,300 Jews in Russia, comprising 2.11 percent of the population of the country. In terms of absolute numbers, Jews occupied third place in Party membership, after Russians (270,409 or 71.90 percent) and Ukrainians (22,078 or 5.80 percent).49
Bolshevism was hardly widespread among the Jewish working class, to say nothing of its lack of popularity among the petty bourgeoisie. In 1917, the membership of Bund was more than ten times the number of Jewish Bolsheviks. In general, the Jewish socialist parties condemned the October coup.
After seizing power, the Bolsheviks were faced with two main tasks in regards to the “Jewish question.” The first was to assert control over the “Jewish street.” The second was to suppress the antisemitic and pogromistic tendencies among the soldiers, sailors, and workers whom the Soviets relied upon for support.
The Bolsheviks paid fairly little attention to the “Jewish proletariat” before the coup, due at least in part to the lack of Yiddish speakers in the ranks of the party. In January of 1918, the Jewish Commissariat (Evkom) was created within the People's Comissariat of Nationalities (Narkomnats) with S. M. Dimanshtein at its head. In July of 1918, the first Jewish section (Evsektsiia) of the RKP (b) was formed in Orel, and 12 other cities with significant Jewish populations soon followed suit. October 1918 marked the first nationwide Evsektsiia conference. Participants included Bolsheviks and non-Bolsheviks alike, with many of the latter being teachers or various cultural figures. At the conference, the Jewish communists elected the same Dimanshtein as head of the Central Bureau of the organization. The Evkom and the Evsektsiia were run by practically the same people, and were often referred to in tandem. Eventually, the Evkom was absorbed by the Evsektsiia.
The brightest faces of the new organization were Semen (Shimon) Markovich Dimanshtein (1886–1937), and Samuil Khaimovich Agurskii (1884–1947). Dimanshtein studied at a Lubavich yeshiva and at the age of 18 had received the title of rabbi, although he soon chose another path in life. He joined the party in 1904, participated in the 1905 revolution, and was sentenced in Riga in 1909 to four years of hard labor, which he served in the Saratov prison. He was then exiled to Siberia, which he fled in 1913 for Paris. Having returned to Russia after the February revolution, he worked in military organizations and edited the newspaper Okopnaia Pravda (Enshackled Truth). After the October revolution he briefly served as a member of the collegium at the People's Commissariat of Labor, and then was ordered to serve on the “Jewish front.” Agurskii had finished a heder, started to work at the age of 12, and joined the Bund at the age of 18 in 1902. In 1905, he left for the United States, where he worked as a tailor and wrote journalism for local Yiddish-language socialist publications. In 1917 he returned to Russia and became a Bolshevik.
The largest task facing the Evkom and Evsektsiia was the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat over the “Jewish street.” To achieve this, they needed to liquidate Jewish social organizations, Zionist organizations, and finally any Jewish socialist political parties. Jewish communism, having the full might of the Soviet State by its side, was ultimately successful in reaching its goal.50
It was also necessary to spread Bolshevik propaganda among the Jewish working class. Given the lack of Yiddish specialists at hand, this proved difficult at first. Of the three editors of the Party's Yiddish-language newspaper Die Varkheit (Truth), two of them did not know Yiddish.51
The Evkom was not shy about its goals. On May 18, 1918 at the second conference of the Union of Jewish soldiers, the chairman of the Evkom suddenly stood to make a speech. In no uncertain terms he expressed his dissatisfaction that when debate turned towards interaction between numerous social organizations, the Evkom was largely ignored.
The chairman announced that Soviet power was striving for a “complete destruction of Jewish organizations, as well as all other nationalist organizations. The State itself will recreate the institutions that will know how best to help the working class. The Commissariat itself will provide assistance to Jewish soldiers and prisoners of war, as they [the Commissariat] are the true representatives of the working class.”52
A. A. Vilenkin, a member of the Party of People's Socialists, was elected as chairman of the presidium. (Some months later, he was shot by the Bolsheviks