Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920. Oleg Budnitskii
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were Ukrainian, 1.7 percent were Polish, 0.6 percent were German, and 0.5 percent were Belorussian.140 Thus the total number of Jews working for the Cheka was approximately 4,500 individuals.
Naturally, this percentage would prove to be much higher in the territories of the former Pale. Before his execution, P. M. Molozhavskii wrote the following note to his wife and daughter: “I write this note in the hopes that it will reach you, and that you will be able to recover my body. They didn't bother to interrogate witnesses. They are killing everyone, without care for justification or guilt. All of them are Jews.”141 A Chekist who was taken prisoner by the Whites admitted that Jews comprised 75 percent of the Kiev Cheka.142 V. I. Vernadskii recorded the following story of Senator V. P. Nosovich, who had been captured by the Kharkov Cheka only to miraculously escape: “He [Nosovich] said he saw people going to their deaths, and heard shots. They walked past on the way to their execution, naked except for their shirts, while Red Army soldiers (not Jews) followed them from behind.”143 Apparently the “not Jews” marked this instance as exceptional.
The Kiev Cheka was particularly ruthless in carrying out the Red Terror. It was assisted by the All-Ukrainian Cheka (Vucheka), which had moved to Kiev after the surrender of Kharkov. The summer of 1919 would prove to be a true nightmare for the inhabitants of Kiev.144 The protocols of the Kiev Cheka from May until August 1919 contained lists of sentences carried out, sometimes at a rate of more than fifty a day. At the time, the Kiev Cheka was by led Degtiarenko, with Shub and Ivanov serving as secretaries. The following members had the right to propose executions: Grinshtein, Savchuk, Shvartsman, Ugarov, Latsis, Iakovlev, Shishkov, Apeter, Vitlitskii.145 Members Zakolupin, Rubinshtein, Livshits, David, and Balitskii served as advisors.146 By no means did the Kiev Cheka limit itself to slaughtering people for political beliefs or social status. Nor did it spare people due to their ethnic heritage. Among the fifty-nine cases reviewed by the Kiev Cheka on August 5, 1919 (Degtiarenko presiding with Shub as secretary; members present were Grinshtein, Savchuk, Shvartsman, and Ugarov) there were instances of charges against Jews. The Cheka was just as merciless towards them as it was towards the Orthodox. Moisei and Aron Meerovich Soiferman, Isaak Iosifovich Linetskii, and Shaia and Mikhel Avrumovich Bukh, were all sentenced to death for selling counterfeit Kerenskii currency, while Aba Afroim Feldman and Meilakh Iakovlev Vainer were found guilty of banditry. Pison Isaakovich Koltun was sentenced to imprisonment in a second-degree camp.147 Of course, given the swift carriage of justice, it was impossible to ascertain which of the condemned were actually guilty of the charges brought against them.
From 1917 to 1920 the membership of the upper echelons of the Cheka varied. In its first year (the Cheka was founded on December 7 (20), 1917), the Cheka appointed by the Sovnarkom included F. E. Dzerzhinsky (chair), G. K. Ordzhonikidze, Ia. Kh. Peters, I. K. Ksenofontov, D. G. Evseev, K. A. Peterson, V. K. Averin, N. A. Zhidelev, V. A. Trifonov, and V. N. Vasilevskii. By the very next day, only Dzerzhinsky, Peters, Ksenofontov, and Eseev remained. They were joined by V. V. Fomin, S. E. Shchukin, N. I. Ilin, and S. Chernov. By January 8, 1918, the collegium included Dzerzhinsky, Peters, Ksenofontov, Fomin, Shchukin, and V. R. Menzhinskii. They were joined by the leftist SRs V. A. Aleksandrovich (deputy chair, though he was later replaced by G. D. Zaks, who had by then joined the Bolsheviks), V. D. Volkov, M. F. Emelianov, and P. F. Sidorov.148 After the elimination of the leftist SRs and their removal from positions of power, the membership roll included Peters (who ran the Cheka for a period until the investigation of the leftist SRs was completed), Dzerzhinsky, Peters, Fomin, I. N. Polukarov, V. V. Kamenshchikov, Ksenofontov, M. I. Latsis, A. Puzyrev, I. Iu. Pulianovskii, V. P. Ianushevskii, and Varvara Iakovleva, the sole woman to serve in the Collegium of the Cheka during the Civil War period. They were later joined by N. A. Skrypnik and M. S. Kedrov. In March 1919, a new collegium was announced, which included Dzerzhinsky, Peters, Ksenofontov, Fomin, Latsis, Kedrov, Avanesov, S. G. Uralov, A. V. Eiduk, F. D. Medved, N. A. Zhukov, G. S. Moroz, K. M. Valobuev, and I. D. Chugurin.149 By 1920 the collegium consisted of Dzerzhinsky, Ksenofontov, Latsis, N. I. Zimin, V. S. Kornev, Menzhinskii, Kedrov, Avanesov, S. A. Messing, Peters, Medved, V. N. Mantsev, and G. G. Yagoda. Thus, from 1918 to 1920, four Jews served in the highest governing body of the Cheka: Zaks, Messing, Moroz (who first headed the Instructional Section, and later headed the Investigation Section), and Yagoda, who would work in the Cheka from 1920 onwards.
Jews also served in key positions in the administrations of the Central, Moscow, and Petrograd Chekas. Until his assassination on August 30, 1918, M.S. Uritsky served as the chair of the Petrograd Cheka. Yagoda served as Dzerzhinsky's second deputy (after Menzhinskii), and V. L. Gerson served as Dzerzhinsky's secretary. M. M. Lutskii served as Dzerzhinsky's Special Plenipotentiary (osoboupolnomochennyj). Of the five-person collegium of the Moscow Cheka formed under the chairmanship of Dzerzhinsky in December 1918, two were Jews: B. A. Breslav, the de facto chair up until April 1919, and Ia. M. Iurovskii, who had carried out the execution of the royal family.150
From the data above, it is clear that the number of Jews in the Cheka did not exceed the proportion of Jews involved in the Party, Soviet, or military and governmental organizations. Thus it hardly seems worthwhile to look for any particular motives that attracted Jews to the Cheka. On the whole, such reasons would differ little from the more general tendency of the Jewish population to support the Soviet regime. Much like their non-Jewish comrades, there were probably some Jewish Chekists who were fanatics, those who measured their zeal in accordance with the Terror of the French Revolution. Others worked for the Cheka for the material gains such employment conferred. Still others simply enjoyed playing with other peoples' lives. There were undoubtedly sadistic executioners among them as well, who either came to the Cheka as such, or managed to acquire such qualities while acquainting themselves with their new profession.151
Latsis was put in charge of the Ukrainian Cheka in 1919. Lenin was quick to instruct him that “[t]he Cheka have brought a cloud of evil to Ukraine, as they have been formed too hastily, and have admitted a large number of hangers-on.” Lenin demanded that the Chekas be reformed, and that these “hangers-on” be expelled.152 Latsis responded that he had started to purge the Chekas “from my very first day of work on April 10…Our misfortune lies in the fact that we have nothing to work with. In Ukraine we collected the very same workers that we had dismissed in Moscow as being incompetent or unreliable.” Moreover, Latsis claimed, the percentage of communists in the Cheka was three times greater than in other Soviet organizations.153
Latsis attempted to prevent excesses by liquidating the uezd-level Chekas and forbidding “petty speculation,” i.e., he forbade the Chekists from engaging in activities that could lead to abuse or corruption. It is indicative that from the very beginning Chekists in the Ukraine were forbidden from “seizing anything during an arrest, except for pertinent evidence.”154 Apparently, there were problems in assuring that Chekists kept their “hands clean,” as Dzerzhinsky once said. This was hardly limited to Ukraine. Komarov, a representative from the Kostroma gubernia at a Congress of local Cheka cells, had the following to say about the relationship between the troops and the local Cheka organization: “If a member of the [Cheka] walks by and you don't bow to him, he'll glare at you for three weeks. At the drop of a hat they turn into officials from the time of Nicholas. And what talk can there be of forming a cell when they're drunk every day?…Requisitioned goods are never sent off, they're just used for the benefit of the collegium's own wealth.”155
At the same time, the Cheka could not let good things go to waste. In August of 1919 the Presidium of the Cheka ordered that A. Ia. Belenkii be put in charge of collecting the personal effects of those executed by the Cheka, so that they could later be redistributed by the Presidium.156 The head of Lenin's personal security detail and a member of the Party since 1902, Belenkii was a particularly trusted figure.157
Working for the Cheka did have decided material benefits. In February of 1918, a Chekist's salary was 400 rubles a month, more than twice that of an unmarried Red Army soldier (150), and 1.5 times the salary of a married one (250). The salary of a collegium member (500 rubles) was equal to that of a People's Commissar (narkom). Cheka members also received food rations and free uniforms. Last but not least, they could always receive “bonuses” in the form of possessions taken from those