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

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СКАЧАТЬ in the pogrom. The miners were joined by factory workers and other members of the working class. It is readily apparent that workers in industrial regions constituted the majority of the pogromists.¹⁸

      This was not the case everywhere. In Debaltsevo, Lugansk, and Shcherbinovka, miners and workers thwarted attempted pogroms. In Kamenskoe and Ekaterinoslav, groups of workers fought against the miners, peasants, and soldiers who had attacked the local Jewish population. In Krivoi Rog, Annovka, and other towns and cities in the Donbass region, soldiers opened fire on pogromists, wounding several and killing 19 people.¹⁹

      The pogromists “rationale” for carrying out pogroms most often involved accusations that Jews defamed the Tsar, the Orthodox faith, and the Russian people. Occasionally added were claims that Jews organized strikes, which deprived workers of their wages. During the attacks of October 1905, Jews were not the only victims; students, members of the intelligentsia, and “people in glasses” were all in danger. In Transcaucasia, Armenians were targeted alongside the Jews.

      Several scholars maintain that the workers' participation in the pogroms cannot be explained exclusively by conservative beliefs, antisemitic prejudices, or the simple desire to pillage and plunder. Many workers had become disillusioned with the general strike, which, instead of improving their standing, had benefited only the organizers and agitators (of whom many were Jewish). While the workers felt deceived, at the same time they were now aware of their political power. That is why their rage was directed at students, the intelligentsia, and the Jewish population.²⁰ Be that as it may, it is not necessary to directly connect the pogroms with any kind of disillusionment regarding the general strike. For our purposes, it is sufficient to point out the obvious connection between periods of revolutionary violence and upheaval and the marked increase in the scope of pogrom activity.

      For several years, the Russian liberal intelligentsia had been consoling itself with the notion that the pogroms had been organized by the government. As contemporary historians have shown, the sins of the government have been greatly exaggerated. Government officials did not occupy themselves with the organization of pogroms. Putting aside for a moment questions of morality, it would have been irrational for the government to try to increase disorder in a country that was already in the throes of revolution. Moreover, this would hardly have been logistically feasible; the emperor's decision to sign the October Manifesto was sudden, leaving no time for government officials to organize pogroms (even if they had so desired). Antisemitic laws, however, were a completely separate issue. Government policy did contribute to an environment that allowed the pogrom activity to occur on a massive scale.²¹ Such policies included accusing Jews of creating their own misfortune, tolerating an increase in far-right organizations (and, on occasion, providing financial support for such groups), refusing to undertake any serious measures to disavow antisemitic propaganda, rejecting compensation for pogrom victims, and failing to prosecute to the full extent of the law those who participated in pogroms, as well as those who had allowed them to take place. Local authorities often failed to enact measures that would have prevented pogroms. Whether this was due to panic, incompetence, unreliable police and military forces, or any of a number of other reasons can only be discerned on a case-by-case basis.

      The year 1905 served as clear example of how freedom could turn against itself in a country that lacked democratic traditions and a sufficiently strong intelligentsia. The events of the 1905 revolution were to strike terror in the heart of Mikhail Gershenzon, one of the founders of Signposts (Vekhy): “Being who we are, it is not only impossible to talk of any ‘merging with the masses.’ Rather, we should fear them more than any possible punishment that could be carried out by the authorities. We should instead praise and be thankful for the government, as it is only their bayonets and prisons that stand between us and the fury of the people.”²²

      Gershenzon warned against the illusion of the intelligentsia's “love for the masses” and these warnings were particularly relevant for its Jewish contingent. Antisemitism, which up until now had been considered prevalent only among the masses and the far right, was to become more and more widespread among the Russian intelligentsia.

      An incident involving Aaron Shteinberg, a well-known Jewish philosopher and social activist, serves as a case in point. Shteinberg was shocked and dismayed by a number of articles in the newspaper Zemshchina written by the Russian philosopher Vasilii Rozanov in 1913 during the Beilis trial. In them, Rozanov allowed for the possibility that a “ritual murder” had taken place. Shteinberg went to Rozanov seeking an explanation. He was received warmly, and was given a rather eye-opening explanation and justification: “ ‘You see,’ Rozanov said, ‘Whenever my daughters come home from school and talk about a new friend of theirs with great excitement and amazement, I already know ahead of time that it's some Rachel, Rebecca, or Sara. But if I were to ask them about their new acquaintances Vera or Nadezhda, they'd always say, ‘She's such a bore, she's not very pretty, her eyes are always glazed over, there's no spirit to her! We Russians just simply cannot look at you with that fire with which you're looking at me right now! You will seize power, of course. But one has to stand up for Russia!”²³

      This speech deeply disappointed Shteinberg, who, by all accounts, had been prepared for a philosophical debate. As it turned out, it had nothing to do with any “ritual”; it had to do with politics. In a later article, Rozanov would “openly admit that he had been in favor of Beilis's conviction on political grounds in order to prevent Jewish dominance, the so-called Jewish “yoke.” Russia had escaped the Tartar-Mongol yoke, and now the Jewish version was to replace it. In order to prevent this, one had to fight against the Jews.”²⁴

      Antisemitic attitudes were common among other members of the intellectual elite of Russia as well. Aleksandr Blok told Shteinberg of his dislike of Jews, which had started during the Beilis trial when, among other things, people who had earlier hidden their Jewish heritage began to demand his signature on letters of protest. The context of the conversation, which took place in 1919 while both Shteinberg and Blok were sharing a cell as guests of the Cheka, precludes any possibility of insincerity on the latter's part. It was at this point that Shteinberg formulated an idea that he would later relate to Andrei Bely. According to Shteinberg, Blok's dislike of the Jews was, unbeknownst to Blok himself, the “other side of the coin” of Russian patriotism. Shteinberg noted that a number his close associates in the Russian cultural elite, including Andrei Bely, Ivanov-Razumnik, Petrov-Vodkin, Karsavin, and others, shared this quality.²⁵

      The liberal principles of the Kadets likewise became subject to erosion. P. B. Struve spoke of “asemitism” and a “national face” (natsional'noe litso) that the Russian intelligentsia should take vis-à-vis the Jewish community, although he did make a clear distinction between this democratic and constitutional “attitude” and “bigoted antisemitism.”²⁶ On March 17, 1910, Ariadna Tyrkova wrote in her diary, “Conversations about nationalism are everywhere. They seem to be more and more prevalent among the radicals. I was at Gredeskul's on January 6^th. We were arguing about the press. Gredeskul was there, as were Ervin Grimm and D. D. Protopopov…everyone was saying that we shouldn't tolerate the fact that we have no newspapers besides the ‘Jewish’ Rech' [Speech]. Only Rodichev and David Grimm disagreed, the latter stating that nationalism was an anti-cultural phenomenon.”²⁷

      However, antisemitism was not inherent to a majority of Russia's politicized elite. Quite the opposite was true. For the majority of liberals opposition to discrimination against the Jews was compulsory, and antisemitic statements were considered unacceptable. The first point of the platform of the Constitutional Democratic Party, which was to be the most influential and long-lived Russian liberal party, states, “All Russian citizens, without regard to sex, creed, or nationality, are equal before the law. Any social discrimination or restrictions regarding the personal and property rights of Poles, Jews, and all other ethnic groups without exception must be repealed.”²⁸ The Beilis trial, which had become a litmus test for true democracy and tolerance, demonstrated the best aspects of the Russian intelligentsia. Though hardly СКАЧАТЬ