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

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СКАЧАТЬ crimes. From March 1903 to November 1904 more than half of those investigated for political activity were Jews (53 percent). This fact can most easily be explained as a reaction to the Kishinev and Homel pogroms. In 1905, Jews made up 34 percent of all political prisoners; of those exiled to Siberia, 37 percent were Jews.⁴ During the calmer period from 1892 to 1902, Jews comprised 23.4 percent of the Social Democrats under investigation, fewer than the number of Russians (69.1 percent, 3,490 individuals), but slightly more than the number of Poles (16.9 percent). The number of Jews who were Social Democrats exceeded the number of Russians (according to police data) in both the southwestern (49.4 percent to 41.8 percent) and southern territories (51.3 percent to 44.2 percent). They also comprised the lion's share of those under investigation in Odessa (75.1 percent Jews versus 18.7 percent Russians). In Petersburg and Moscow the situation was reversed—10.2 percent Jews and 82.8 percent Russians in the northern capital; 4.6 percent Jews and 90.1 percent Russians in Moscow.⁵ Without a doubt, the Bund, the largest revolutionary party in Russia, contained the largest numbers of Jews involved in criminal political activity. In the summer of 1904, the Bund could claim 23,000 members; in 1905–7, 34,000; and in 1908–10, when the revolutionary movement quickly began to decline, about 2,000 members. For comparison's sake, in the beginning of 1905, the entire Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (RSDRP) consisted of approximately 8400 members.⁶ There was also significant Jewish representation in the Russian revolutionary parties and organizations. During the time of the 1905 revolution, approximately 15 percent of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (PSR) was Jewish, and there were a number of “maximalist and anarchist terrorist groups that were almost entirely Jewish.”⁷ Among the SR-Maximalists, 19 percent were Jewish, while 76 percent were either Russian or Ukrainian.⁸ At the Fifth Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party in London in 1907, nearly a third of the delegates were Jewish.⁹

      At the same time, however, it must be noted that regardless of the extent of Jewish participation in Russian or Jewish revolutionary parties, Jewish revolutionaries comprised a minute portion of the general Russian population, as well as an extremely small percentage of Russian Jewry. In the perception of the typical Russian resident—from the lumpenproletariat to the intelligentsia—the role of Jews in revolutionary activity was greater than it actually was. A typical example can be found in a joke from the satirical liberal journal Vampir from the 1905–7 revolutionary period. Though of limited wit, it is nevertheless telling. It reads, “Warsaw. Eleven anarchists were shot in the fortress prison. Of these, 15 were Jews.”¹⁰

      The urban masses responded to the freedom given to them by the Manifesto of October 17, 1905 with pogroms.¹¹ The leading participants were those very workers whom the revolutionaries (including those of Jewish origin) had wasted so much strength and energy indoctrinating. Incidentally, it should be noted that previous strikes and demonstrations, in particular those associated with May 1, which often occurs around the time of Passover and Easter, had regularly threatened to grow into pogroms. Revolutionaries spent significant effort attempting to prevent or at least localize any ethnic or religious conflicts, such as those that occurred in the Donbass region, an industrial center located at the bend of the Dniepr River.¹² Jews comprised 20 to 35 percent of the urban population of these kinds of rapidly developing regions.¹³

      Despite their “love for the people” (narodoliubie), the Social Democrats in industrial centers such as Rostov-on-Don were well aware of the antisemitic tendencies of a significant portion of the working class. A leaflet entitled “To the Dockworkers” is a case in point. On one side, the leaflet called for the masses to take part in the May 1 demonstrations, while on the other side it instructed them not to beat Jews.¹⁴

      All these exhortations would come to naught in October of 1905. For Russian Jews, the first fruits of the “freedom” won in the 1905 revolution were more pogroms. Particularly severe and bloody pogroms were carried out in Odessa, Rostov-on-Don, and Ekaterinoslav. In Odessa, according to police statistics, about 400 Jews were killed, and nearly 300 were seriously wounded. In addition 1,632 Jewish homes, apartments, and places of business were destroyed.¹⁵

      The Rostov-on-Don pogrom, in many ways comparable to the one that occurred in Odessa, was one of the more bloody that took place during the first Russian revolution. Approximately 150 people were killed. On October 18, 1905, a confrontation took place between radicals carrying red flags with the slogans “We won!” (Nasha vziala!) and “Zion,” and participants in a “patriotic demonstration.” In the course of the conflict several people were killed. Among those murdered by the “patriots” was one Klara Reizman, who had been carrying a red banner. The “patriots” killed her by shoving the wooden pole of the banner down her throat. A pogrom ensued over the next three days. Local Jewish and worker militias opposed the pogromists. Thanks to the “neutrality” and sometimes outright support of the pogromists by the local Cossacks and police, the conflict turned out to be one-sided, although data from official sources indicate that the pogromists also suffered significant casualties.¹⁶

      The biographies of Samuel Gurvich and Solomon Reizman, who played a significant role in the revolutionary events in Rostov-on-Don, were fairly typical. Gurvich was the son of Meir Gurvich, a well-known optometrist in Rostov and an active participant in Jewish circles. Samuel Gurvich started out as a Zionist, but quickly switched over to the Social Democrats. He was one of the organizers of a student group with members throughout southern Russia, and was a member of the RSDRP committee for the Don region. During the time of the famous Rostov walkout of 1902, he was one of the speakers at the massive meeting that took place outside the city, although the police agents failed to recognize him at the time. After the schism in the RSDRP in 1903, Gurvich sided with the Mensheviks. He went abroad and received further political indoctrination, and was imprisoned upon his return to Rostov in 1905. Released in accordance with the Imperial Manifesto of October 17, Gurvich, who commanded a great deal of authority in revolutionary circles, was chosen as chairman of the Rostov-on-Don Soviet of Workers' Deputies. Though he himself was an opponent of armed rebellion, an uprising nonetheless broke out in December of 1905. After the insurrection Gurvich was forced to flee, and he reappeared in Rostov only in 1917, having served several years in prison.

      One of the leaders of the uprising was Gurvich's comrade in the southern Russian group, Solomon Reizman. Reizman had fled Rostov-on-Don in 1903 due to pressure from the police. In Petersburg he took part in the organization of the Soviet of Workers Deputies. He returned to Rostov after the October 17 Manifesto for personal reasons: his brother had died, and his sister had been murdered by the Black Hundreds. On November 28 he reported for work at a railroad workshop, and the next day he was elected a delegate of the railroad bureau. He became the chairman that very same evening. This twenty-year-old plumber was now in charge of running the Vladikavkaz railroad. It was here that the strike started, eventually growing into an armed rebellion. After the rebellion was put down, Reizman was arrested and handed over to be tried on charges of seizing the Rostov-on-Don station of the Vladikavkaz railroad. He was the central figure in the trial, which the government attempted to give a decidedly antisemitic character. Poalei Zion drew a lot of attention to the proceedings, even though its Rostov-on-Don organization had not played an active part in the rebellion. As a minor, Reizman received a fairly light sentence—64 months in prison. However, he did not have to serve them out; several months after the trial he died in prison.¹⁷

      Of the 657 pogroms in Russia during the period from October 1905 to January 1906, 41 took place in the Ekaterinoslav gubernia. These pogroms killed 285 people, and the 13.2 million rubles of damage exceeded that in any other region. The three-day pogrom that took place October 21–23 claimed 95 lives, while 245 were severely wounded. The perpetrators raped young girls and pregnant women. They also destroyed 311 businesses and 40 apartment buildings, razing several of them to the ground. In Iuzovka, 10 Jews were killed and 28 were wounded, 84 stores and shops were destroyed, along with over 100 apartments. Overall damages amounted to nearly a million rubles. Several miners who worked in the outskirts, when they heard that a pogrom was taking place, asked the conductor of the local train to head towards the city. Along the way, they forced СКАЧАТЬ