Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920. Oleg Budnitskii

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      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 who had been executed.¹⁵⁸ The Cheka were not alone in their use of confiscated goods. On occasion the VTsIK would request that its workers be given a list of “necessary fabrics and materials for clothes, linen, shoes, and other goods available at your canteen.” After the formation of the Commission for the Preparation of Gifts to be Sent to the Front (Komissiia po podgotovke otpravki podarkov na front), the Presidium of the VTsIK requested that the Cheka transfer “valuable items that you have that may be used as presents or awards (watches, cigarette cases, etc.) and place them at the disposal of the aforementioned Commission.”¹⁵⁹

      V. D. Bonch-Bruevich, then in charge of the Sovnarkom and a participant in the formation of the Bolshevik secret police, compared Dzerzhinsky to Antoine Quentin Fouquier de Tinville, the public prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal from the French Revolution.¹⁶⁰ N. I. Bukharin, who in 1919 represented the Central Committee of the Party at the Collegium of the Cheka, justified the Bolshevik terror several years later by quoting Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, claiming, “One needs to rule by iron, if it is impossible to rule by law.”¹⁶¹ M. I. Latsis gave the following blueprint for interrogating the accused: “[D]o not look for clues as to whether or not they rose up against the soviet in arms or in words. Your first duty is ask what class the accused belongs to, their social background, their education, and their profession. All of these questions will decide the fate of the accused.”¹⁶² In this sense, Latsis was simply paraphrasing Robespierre's statements from the National Convention concerning the introduction of the Law of 22 Prairial, which opened the Reign of Terror: “The only delay in punishing the enemies of the fatherland should be until such time as they are found out: it is not so much a question of punishing as of destroying them.”¹⁶³ It is worth remembering that according to the Law of 22 Prairial, all legal guarantees (the right to question, the right to defense, and to hear the testimony of witnesses) were suspended. Instead the inner convictions of the judge and jury were deemed sufficient to decide whether one was innocent or should be put to death. Revolutionary tribunals worked alongside committees that made do without juries. In this the Bolsheviks took much from their French predecessors. After all, was the “judicial troika” of December 1918, which included Dzerzhinsky, Latsis, Kedrov, and Ksenofontov, anything more than a direct “borrowing” from the French Terror?¹⁶⁴ Perhaps it was the following excerpt from Saint-Just's speech at the Convention on October 10, 1793 that led the Cheka to name their journal Red Sword: “You must punish nor merely traitors but the indifferent as well; you must punish whoever is passive in the Republic…between the people and its enemies there can be nothing in common but the sword.”¹⁶⁵

      It is possible that such majestic phrases were intended to raise the stature of the Chekists in their own eyes. Even among their comrades within the Party, their investigations and punitive actions were less than popular (to say nothing of the terror they enforced on the rest of the population). It was only later that the image of the “valiant Chekist” was to take hold, thanks to the efforts of some (far from untalented) journalists, writers, and directors. For the moment they were (to use M. I. Latsis's formulation) the “thugs” of the revolution. The Cheka constantly experienced a dearth of workers, one that was all the more pressing as they were unable to rely on the pool of civil servants who had served before the Revolution.¹⁶⁶

      At this stage the Cheka was hardly an elite intellectual segment of the Bolshevik apparatus, and its workers left much to be desired in the education department. Only 0.8 percent of those working for the Cheka in 1920 had completed a degree, 1.1 percent had at least spent some time in a post-secondary institution. 13.7 percent of workers had completed high school, while 12.5 percent had completed only some high school.¹⁶⁷ By 1921, the percentage of those with higher education had risen to 1.03 percent (513 individuals), while the overwhelming majority (57.3 percent) had not gone beyond primary school.¹⁶⁸ Of course, at this point the Cheka was not engaged in sophisticated special operations; their main function was to instill terror. Loyalty to the Bolshevik Party was more important than any education.

      A distinct picture of the Jewish Chekists can be found in the biographical directory of the elite of the NKVD from 1934 to 1941. Of the Jews serving in the upper echelons of the NKVD in the 1930s, three-quarters (seventy-eight individuals) had begun their careers from 1918 to 1921. Nearly all of them (sixty-nine) came from former Pale territories, while the lion's share (sixty-six) came from a rather suspect class background, with most coming from the families of petty merchants or craftsmen. All but four of them were less than 30 years of age when they joined the Cheka. Thirty-five individuals were between 15 and 20, twenty-four between 21 and 25, and fourteen between 26 and 30. Half of them (thirty-seven) came to the Cheka from the Red Army, where nearly all of them started in the ranks. Fourteen of them had even managed to serve in the Tsarist Army. Six of these future leaders of the NKVD had either never gone to school or are missing educational information, nineteen had a primary education or had studied in school for a year or two, fourteen had an incomplete secondary education, twenty-six had a secondary education, eleven had an incomplete higher education, while two had completed teachers' exams. Four individuals had joined the Party before the revolution, while most of the rest had joined during the Civil War. Some had been members of other political parties, including some Jewish parties (four from Poalei Zion, and one Bundist).¹⁶⁹

      The monograph ChK-GPU-NKVD in Ukraine: People, Facts, Documents, which examines the activities of Soviet security forces in Ukraine, includes some information about Jewish Chekists. Besides the individuals discussed, it lists thirty-five additional agents who began their careers in the period 1918– 21. Although some data is missing, the general picture is nonetheless intriguing. Of these thirty-five individuals, nine joined the Cheka between the ages of 15 and 20, ten between 21 and 25, and seven between 26 and 30. Fifteen of them came to the Cheka from the Red Army, where they had nearly all served in the ranks. Three had no formal education, eleven had failed to complete primary school, with an additional eleven completing a primary education, two had an incomplete secondary education, and six had completed secondary school. Twenty-six came from former Pale territories, while two were born beyond the Pale. Only three came from workers' families, while two were of the intelligentsia. The rest came from the craftsmen, servants, or small business owners (there is only information for twenty-eight people). Twenty-one СКАЧАТЬ