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

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СКАЧАТЬ captured in Dostoevsky's characters such as Petrusha Verkhovenskii and Alyosha Karamazov. “Or perhaps they [Verkhovenskii and Karamazov] aren't Russian?” he would note acidly, “And what of the Marxism of the 1890s, headed by people like Bulgakov, Berdiaev, and Struve, who we now consider to be the bearers of the true Russian Idea? It is not foreign [inorodtsy, non-Russian] revolutionaries who are now leading the Russian revolution, but the Russian revolution that is leading foreign revolutionaries to come to know the ‘Russian spirit’ in its current condition.”⁴³

      Let us return to March 1917. Before the return of exiles and emigrants from abroad, there were relatively few Jews in the Executive Committee (Ispolkom) of the Petrograd Soviet. In fact, there was only one, Yuri Steklov. The lack of Jewish members pleased Semion Dubnov. On March 17, he wrote in his diary, “The Jews are not at the forefront of this revolution…a tactical move, and a lesson learned from 1905.”⁴⁴

      On March 11, 1917, Vinaver called upon Russia's Jews to be patient, brave, and measured, not to “stick out in high or visible positions,” and to serve the motherland and the revolution without calling attention to themselves. Nirenberg, a Bund member, was of the opposite opinion: “Let Jews become senators, officers, and so on. If we do not take these rights now, they won't be given to us tomorrow.”⁴⁵ Vinaver's humility did not last long. As if following the recommendation of his opponent on the left, Vinaver accepted the post of Senator, along with O. Gruzenberg, former Duma deputy I. Gurevich, and Odessa attorney G. Blumenfeld.⁴⁶

      On the evening of March 22, 1917, Dubnov wrote, “A remarkable day. Today the Provisional Government published its decision to remove all restrictions on nationalities and religion. In other words, it published its decision to emancipate the Jews of Russia. After forty years fighting and suffering, my life's dream has come true. I still cannot actually comprehend all the greatness of the moment. Later, when the fearful satellites of this new sun on the historical horizon disappear, and the German Hannibal at the gate with the ghosts of counterrevolution and anarchy melt away, we will be able to feel the light and warmth of a new world.”⁴⁷

      Dubnov's misgivings would soon turn out to be justified. In another entry, he writes, “I just came back home. Early today I saw people on the street running with their pound or so of ‘daily bread.’ I couldn't help but think that we are standing on the edge of a precipice. The majesty of the revolution and the absolute impotence in the face of famine, every political freedom but an utter lack of bread. How will these contrasts influence the dark masses?”⁴⁸

      The absence of Jews from the predominantly Russian revolutionary political elite did not last long. As mentioned earlier, the lack of Jews in revolutionary leadership was largely due to the physical absence of the large number of leaders who had been exiled or voluntarily emigrated. As Jewish revolutionaries made their way back to the capitals, their numbers would increase rapidly.

      On October 16, 1917, in the newspaper Obschee Delo (Common Cause), V. Burtsev published a list of 159 emigrants who had returned to Russia in the infamous “sealed wagons” via Germany. The list was given to him by the Special Commissar of the Provisional Government, S. G. Svatikov. There were no fewer than 99 Jews on the list. In the group of 29 people who accompanied Lenin to Petrograd, 17 were Jews. The number of Jews who returned to Russia by less exotic means was also significant.

      However, the vast majority of Russian Jews were not affiliated with Lenin and his followers. The February Revolution, and the repeal of restrictions enacted by the Provisional Government, were met with elation and enthusiasm among Russia's Jews. “The rebirth of Jewish cultural and political life,” aptly notes Zvi Gitelman, “created an institutional barrier against the penetration of Bolshevik ideas and organizations.”⁴⁹ Jewish communities were reestablished, and busied themselves not only with religious tasks, but with cultural and educational ones as well. Jewish schools, charities, newspapers, musical societies, and reading circles began to thrive. At the same time, this blossoming of Jewish culture took place against the background of ever-deepening economic problems, including the bankruptcy of most small businesses and high unemployment (particularly among young people), problems that were caused by, or at the very least exacerbated by, the hardships of life in wartime.

      The “political geography” of Russia's Jews in 1917 looked something like the following. The most popular parties by far were Zionist in orientation, with a total membership of approximately 300,000 in 1,200 local party organizations by October of 1917.⁵⁰ They were also victorious in nearly all of the elections that would take place in 1917–18. In a certain sense, the quickly growing number of Zionist adherents paralleled a nearly equal increase in the number of SRs. If Russian peasants voted for the SRs in order to gain ownership of their land, then Jews did so in order to realize their dream of going to the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael), the land of their fathers.

      The spring and summer of 1917 saw the formation of religious parties that often acted as a united front, demanding in their platforms that Saturday be a non-working day and funding for community institutions; and also an eight hour workday, the right for workers to strike, freedom of religion, rights to religious education, and land reform according to the SR platform. One such party appeared in the summer of 1917 after the merger of a number of Moscow and Petrograd groups under the name Ahdut (Unity). The same moniker was adopted somewhat later by Jewish religious groups in Ukraine. Such groups considered themselves to be representative of the religious majority of Russian Jewry, “the true people, silent and scattered” in the words of one of the founders of the party Netsakh Israel.⁵¹

      Among the socialist parties, the largest, most influential and most involved in Russian politics was the Bund, which had 33,700 members in December of 1917. The Bund's politics fell largely along Menshevik lines. In terms of Jewish policy, the Bund opposed the “romanticized utopia” of the Zionists and the “clerical aiders and abettors” of the bourgeoisie, and declared the language of the Jewish working masses to be Yiddish rather than Hebrew.

      In 1917, the Bund took a fiercely anti-Bolshevik stance. Soon after the February Revolution, the Bund newsletter Arbeiter Shtime declared Leninism to be a disease that was weakening the revolution.⁵² They would later depict Lenin as an anarcho-syndicalist, mocking his slogan for the immediate realization of the socialist revolution.⁵³

      In May of 1917, the Jewish Socialist Workers' Party (SERP) and the Zionist-Socialists (Zionist-Socialist Workers' Party) combined, creating the United Jewish Socialist Workers' Party (OESP), or, in Yiddish, Fareynikte. The party had a significant influence in Ukraine. They were close to the SRs, whom they later joined in a bloc during the parliamentary elections. SERP's founder, Kh. O. Zhitlovskii, had been one of the founders of the Social Revolutionaries, as well as the ideological protégé of its leader, V. M. Chernov. The new party collaborated with the Mensheviks in the organized labor movement.

      Poalei Zion, with its idiosyncratic ideology a hybrid of Marxism and Zionism, was more proletarian in character. Though the party had only 2,500 members on the eve of the February Revolution, by the summer of 1917 its membership had grown to between 12,000 and 16,000. Politically, they were close to the Menshevik-Internationalists. Some members of the party sympathized with the Bolsheviks, but the Zionist roots of their platform presented an insurmountable obstacle to a full merger. As in the Bund, there was no unanimity with regard to policy concerning the war. In the Ukraine they supported the Central Rada.

      Dubnov's Folkspartei, which was comprised mostly of Jewish intellectuals, was a “party for those who don't belong to any party,” as a contemporary once wittily remarked.⁵⁴

      The final major participants, though they did not enjoy widespread support among the Jewish working masses, were the “Jewish Kadets.” They advocated full civil rights for all Jews, as well as the maintenance of religious and educational rights, including the use of Yiddish and Hebrew as languages for instruction, and the preservation of the religious character of most СКАЧАТЬ