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

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      Another problem that the Bolsheviks faced after seizing power was antisemitism among their own supporters. The internationalist orientation of Bolshevism existed only in the upper echelons of the Party, while the masses from whom the Bolshevik leaders derived much of their support (the army in particular⁷⁹) were decidedly antisemitic.

      In the spring of 1918 members of the Red Army, retreating from Ukraine under pressure from German troops, carried out the first “full-fledged” pogroms of the Civil War period. The pogroms mostly took place in the Chernigov gubernia. The “reasons” used to justify the pogroms were strikingly reminiscent of those used during Tsarist times. Jews were accused of welcoming the Germans, of shooting Red Army soldiers in the back, and of being counterrevolutionaries. Fifteen Jews were killed in the city of Mglina during a punitive expedition in response to the murder of a local politician (Shimanovskii), while several more were beaten or wounded. The Red Army also destroyed a large number of Jewish apartments. The next day, the Red Army demanded compensation for the murder, and surrounded the homes of the wealthy (without regard for religion or national origin). At one such house several people had gathered, and the “internationalists” commanded, “The Russian can leave, but the Yids have to stay.” The Red Army soldiers killed seven Jews, including a two-year-old girl and a deaf-mute woman. When Zorin, one of the local Red Army commanders, heard that they were killing Jews, he immediately shot two of the perpetrators on the spot. He was then forced to flee for his life from his own subordinates.⁸⁰ Of course, the Jews had nothing to do with the murder of the politician in question, which was the supposed reason for the expedition in the first place.

      On April 6, 1918 in Novgorod-Severskii, a 600-man detachment of Red Army soldiers killed at least 57 Jews⁸¹ (later accounts, which included those killed on the road and in villages surrounding the city, place the total at 88, with an additional 11 seriously injured⁸²). Entire families were destroyed. The writer and Zionist activist A. Ia. Slutskii was killed along with his wife. Among the other victims were “an unknown elderly Jew of 65 years” and “an unknown impoverished Jew who had been a member of the synagogue for 70 years.”⁸³ About 20 Jews were murdered in Seredina-Buda, with additional victims in the surrounding villages.⁸⁴

      The bloodiest slaughter took place in the town of Glukhov, were more than 100 Jews were exterminated.⁸⁵ The newspaper Dawn published excerpts from a letter written by one of the local inhabitants who was fleeing “the horrors of Glukhov.” Dated April 23, 1918, it told how the author and his family, having hidden from the Reds in the town of Altukhov, moved constantly from house to house, and eventually took refuge in the forest. The decision was made to leave the children with one of their servants. Soon after, probably frightened by the appearance of the authorities, the servant ran after her masters, imploring them to take the children, as she was afraid that “someone would betray her and say she was hiding Jewish children, and that they would then kill the children, her and her family.”⁸⁶ In this case everything turned out for the better and they were not discovered, although the Red Army had succeeded in putting the fear of God into the local Jewish populace.

      There were other, less bloody examples of the “special” relationship Red Army forces had with Jews. In March of 1918 in Ekaterinoslav, for example, a group of “anarchist-maximalists” in conjunction with Red Army forces attacked a Jewish self-defense militia and disarmed them. They then opened fire on the militia, killing one of the militiamen. As this was going on, the attackers cried, “Yids [zhidy] are counterrevolutionaries and Whites.”⁸⁷

      In September of 1918, the well-known historian S. P. Melgunov, who was arrested in the first days of the Red Terror after the attempt on Lenin's life, was in a cell of the Butyrka prison with twenty-four Red Army soldiers, who had been incarcerated for the past three months without charge. When Melgunov was interrogated by Dzerzhinsky himself, he used the opportunity to remind the head of the Cheka about the imprisoned soldiers, who apparently had been forgotten about. Dzerzhinsky responded that “it will be good for them to sit in jail for awhile,” as they had tried to organize a pogrom in Vladimir. Melgunov thought that Dzerzhinsky was making up the charge on the spot, as it was highly unlikely that he had personally would know much about the situation. However, it is quite possible that Dzerzhinsky did in fact know what he was talking about. In any case, it is indicative that, invented or not, the first thing that came into Dzerzhinsky's mind at the time was the word pogrom.⁸⁸

      The history of the Bolsheviks' initial entry into Rostov-on-Don has been well documented. Soviet forces reached the city three and a half months after the coup in Petrograd. During this time the Jewish population of the city—even supporters of revolution from the Bund and the Mensheviks—had formed an extremely negative attitude towards the Soviet state. Reality was to prove worse than their most pessimistic expectations. For two and a half months terror reigned throughout the city. All the inhabitants, including the “clean” ones, were affected, but the Jews were again singled out for special treatment.

      Of course, there were no direct orders that encouraged the persecution of Jews. The “President” of the Don Republic, F. G. Podtelkov, was once asked during a public event, “What are we to do about the Jews?” He answered in a language that was easily understood by the audience at hand, “Under Soviet rule, we are ordered to accept even Yids [zhidy] as people.”⁸⁹