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

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      The steady stream of Jews entering the service of the Soviet state is hardly surprising. Unlike the vast majority of the population, Jews could not escape to the countryside to wait out the tumultuous times. During the period of War Communism the population of Petrograd was reduced by three-quarters, whereas the Jewish population only decreased by a little more than two-thirds (and some sources claim it only decreased by half). Civil service presented itself as perhaps the only means by which they could survive in an era characterized by the liquidation of private property. This was even more true for refugees, who had been subsisting on charitable donations. The revolution resulted in thousands of “vacancies,” and the very real chance to make a career by means of this sudden opportunity was tempting to many. Jews were particularly well situated to succeed in the new order due to their high rates of literacy and education. In addition, few Jews had deep ties to the previous regime. In the vast majority of cases, it is difficult to say whether the new workers entered the service because of their political convictions, or whether their political convictions were an extension of their new careers. Noting that the people “dispossessed” as a result of the revolution were disproportionately Jewish, the Menshevik St. Ivanovich (S. O. Portugeis) wrote:

      The plagues being visited upon the Jews (not as “Jews” of course, but as “bourgeois”) were mostly carried out with the assistance of Jewish agents from among the communists and renegade Jews from other parties. These “bourgeois” were persecuted by the same Jewish children who had grown up on the very same street, and who were now seduced by bolshevism…This terror and persecutor was no “dover-aher” but our “very own Yankel,” the son of Rabbi Moishe from Kasrilovka, a completely harmless young man who had last year failed his pharmacology exam, but had managed to pass his politgramota exam.³³

      Of course, the number of Bolsheviks of Jewish extraction was not limited to failed apothecaries. From 1918 to 1920, three Jews served as People's Commissars (Trotsky, I. E. Gukovskii, who headed Finance from April to August 1918, and M. G. Bronskii, who was the head of Trade and Industry from March to November of 1918) in the Soviet Government (Sovnarkom, the Soviet of People's Commissars). During the same period, there were 15 Russian People' Commissars, in addition to a Pole, a Georgian, and a Latvian, for a total of 21 people (not including left SRs). From April to May of 1918, Jews comprised approximately 20 percent of all collegiums of People's Commissariats (Narkomats) members (24 of 114). Here too the majority were Russians (76 of 114).³⁴

      Jews were also prevalent in those spheres that they had dominated under the old regime. All of the workers in the Department of Legal Publications at the Sovnarkom were Jews—S. M. Flaksman, M. A. Ziskin, A. F. Roizman, and R. B. Refes.³⁵ There were also a large number of Jewish workers in the Narkomat of Legal Affairs.³⁶ However, only an insignificant number of these were members of the Bolshevik Party. Among the professional lawyers who entered the Soviet civil service was Aleksandr Grigorievich Goikhbarg (1883–1962), who, according to V. A. Maklakov, “had never been a communist, but had always been a perfect scoundrel, and a corrupt one at that.”³⁷ From 1904 to 1917 Goikhbarg had been a Menshevik, but after the February revolution he became a lecturer at Petrograd University, taught at the Bestuzhev courses, and collaborated on the liberal journal Law Pravo (Law). In 1917, he had also served as one of the editors for the Menshevik publication Novaia zhizn' (New Life). He launched a brilliant career in the Soviet period. In 1918, he became a member of the Collegium of the Narkomat of Legal Affairs, as head of the bureau for law codification. In 1919 he was forced to work in Siberia, where he joined the Russian Communist Party (RKP (b)). In May of 1920 in Omsk, he served as a prosecutor in the first Soviet show trial following the defeat of the Kolchak Government. Trial records (particularly those regarding Goikhbarg's performance at the meetings of the Siberian Bolshevik Central Committee, where it was agreed on beforehand who would face the death penalty) do little to change the picture of Goikhbarg as a “perfect scoundrel.”³⁸ His zeal and “professionalism” were duly rewarded; from 1921 to 1923 Goikhbarg served as the chairman of the “small” Sovnarkom, and it was under his leadership that the civil code of the RSFSR was prepared.³⁹

      Of course, not all of those working for Soviet justice were scoundrels and careerists. Among the many true adherents to the revolution was Aleksandr Isaakovich Khmelnitskii (1889–1919). In 1918, he served as the general counsel for the Narkom Narkomat of Legal Affairs. A lawyer's son and native of Odessa, Khmelnitskii finished school at the top of his class and graduated from the Novorossiisk University law faculty with highest honors. Gifted with a remarkable memory, he served as a consultant for the Conference of Justices of Peace and the Society for the Defense of Women before the February Revolution. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1917, and became the leader of the party organization in Odessa, distinguishing himself as a fiery orator. By 1919, he had become the People's Commissar for the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government of Ukraine, a member of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Bolshevik Party, and the deputy of the head of the Political Directorate of Internal Military Security of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). At the age of 30, Khmelnitskii died of typhus. One can only guess how such a brilliant career might have continued.

      The Print Bureau of the Sovnarkom was headed by the Bolshevik Tovii Lazarevich Akselrod (1888–1938). There were several Jews among his staff (many of whom had no party affiliation) who worked as copy editors, typists, couriers, and so on.⁴⁰ The “Sovietization” of the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which had earlier been closed to Jews, was a task given to Ivan Abramovich Zalkind (1885–1928), a representative of Trotsky. Zalkind, a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDRP) from the age of 18, had repeatedly been threatened with arrest and exile before the Revolution, and emigrated to France in 1908, where he completed a doctoral program in biology at the Sorbonne. Like Akselrod, he returned to Russia after the February Revolution, and participated in the October coup in Petrograd. Despite the resistance of many of the former workers of the ministry, Zalkind was able to transform it by relying on the relatively few supporters of the regime within the ministry itself, and by introducing new revolutionary workers into the mix. In December of 1917 he became head of the Western Countries bureau, and soon after, in January СКАЧАТЬ