1 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 200 Years Together Russo-Jewish History
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Prior to the October coup, Bolshevism was not very influential among Jews. But just before the uprising, Natanson, Kamkov, and Shteinberg on behalf of the left Socialist Revolutionaries had signed a combat pact with Bolsheviks Trotsky and Kamenev.[89] And some Jews distinguished themselves among the Bolsheviks in their very first victories and some even became famous. The commissar of the famed Latvian regiments of the 12th Army, which did so much for the success of Bolshevik coup, was Semyon Nakhimson. “Jewish soldiers played a notable role during preparation and execution of the armed uprising of October 1917 in Petrograd and other cities, and also during suppression of mutinies and armed resurrections against the new Soviet regime.”*90+ It is widely known that during the ‘historical’ session of the Congress of Soviets on October 27 two acts, the ‘Decree on Land’ and the ‘Decree on Peace’, were passed. But it didn’t leave a mark in history that after the ‘Decree on Peace’ but before the ‘Decree on Land’ another resolution was passed. It declared it “a matter of honor for local soviets to prevent Jewish and any other pogroms by dark forces.”*91+(Pogroms by ‘Red forces of light’ were not anticipated.) So even here, at the Congress of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, the Jewish question was put ahead of the peasant one. Sources: [1] Delo Naroda, March 25, 1917, p. 3
[2] Russkaya Volya, April 14, 1917, p. 1; April 20, p. 1. See also Rech, April 16, 1917, p. 1; April 20, p. 1. [3] Russkaya Volya, April 23, 1917, p. 4. [4] Birzhevye Vedomosti, May 24, 1917, p. 2. [5] See, for instance, Russkaya Volya, May 10, 1917, p. 5; Birzhevye Vedomosti, May 9, 1917, p. 5; Birzhevye Vedomosti, June 1, 1917, p. 6; Rech, July 29, 1917, p. 6. [6] Kratkaya Evreiskaya Entsiklopediya [The Short Jewish Encyclopedia (henceforth —SJE)]. Jerusalem, 1994. v. 7, p. 399.
[7] Ibid., p. 380-381. [8] Ibid., p. 379. [9] G. Aronson. Evreyskaya obshchestvennost v Rossii v 1917-1918 [The Jewish Public in Russia in 1917-1918] // Kniga o russkom evreystve: 1917-1967 [The Book of Russian Jewry: 1917-1967 (henceforth — BRJ-2)]. New York: Association of Russian Jews, 1968, p. 6. [10] SJE, v.7, p. 378. [11] Izvestiya, April 9, 1917, p. 4. [12] SJE, v.7, p. 378-379. [13] SJE, v.7, p. 378.
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[14] Izvestiya, September 15, 1917, p. 2. [15] SJE, v.6, p. 85; v.7, p. 379. [16] SJE, v.7, p. 378. [17] Birzhevye Vedomosti, April 12, 1917, p. 4. [18] SJE, v.6, p. 463, 464. [19] D. Pasmanik. Chego zhe my dobivaemsya? [What are we struggling for?] // Rossiya i evrei: Otechestvennoe objedinenie russkikh evreev za granitsei [Russia and Jews: Expatriate Society of Russian Jews in Exile (henceforth—RJ)]. Paris, YMCA-Press, 1978, p. 211 [The 1st Edition: Berlin, Osnova, 1924]. [20] SJE, v.7, p. 378. [21] Ibid., p. 379. [22] Ibid., p. 380-381. [23] Ibid., p. 379. [24] Rech, April 27, 1917, p. 3. [25] SJE, v.7, p. 378. [26] Russkaya Volya, April 25, 1917, p. 5. [27] A. I. Denikin. Ocherki russkoi smuty. V1: Krushenie vlasti I armii, fevral -sentyabr 1917 [Russian Turmoil. Memoirs. V1: Collapse of Authority and Army]. Paris, 1922, p. 129 -130. [28] SJE, v.7, p. 379. [29] Birzhevye Vedomosti, May 5, 1917, p. 2. [30] SJE, v.4, p. 775. [31] SJE, v.5, p. 475. [32] Obshchee delo, October 14 and 16, 1917 [33] A. Sutton. Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution. Translation from English, Moscow, 1998, p. 14 -36. [34] Rech, June 27, 1917, p. 3; June 28, p. 2-3. [35] Rech, August 2, 1917, p. 3. [36] Russkaya Evreiskaya Entsiklopediya [The Russian Jewish Encyclopedia (henceforth—RJE)]. 2nd edition, Moscow, 1994 – 1997. v. 1, p. 240, 427; v. 2, p. 124; v. 3, p. 29, 179, 280. [37] RJE, v. 1, p. 473; v. 3, p. 41. [38] Narodnoe soprotivlenie kommunismu v Rossii: Ural i Prikamye. Noyabr 1917 – yanvar 1919 *People’s Resistance to Communism: Urals and Prikamye. November 1917 - January 1919. Redactor M. Bernshtam. Paris: YMCA-Press, 1982, p. 356. Volume 3 of the series Issledovaniya Noveishei Russkoi istorii [Studies of Modern Russian History].
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[39] RJE, v. 2, p. 85; v. 3, p. 106. [40] RJE, v. 3, p. 224, 505; v. 1, p. 239. [41] Rech, June 28, 1917, p. 2. [42] Russkaya Volya, April 13, 1917, p. 3. [43] Russkaya Volya, April 9, 1917, p. 3. [44] Birzhevye vedomosti, May 7, 1917, p. 3. [45] G. Aronson. Evreyskaya obshchestvennost v Rossii v 1917 -1918 [The Jewish Public in Russia in 1917-1918]. // BRJ-2, p. 7. [46] RJE, v. 7, p. 381. [47] Ibid. [48] I. O. Levin. Evrei v revolutsii [The Jews in the Revolution]. // RJ, p. 124. [49] RJE, v. 7, p. 399. [50] G. Aronson. Evreyskaya obshchestvennost v Rossii v 1917 -1918 [The Jewish Public in Russia in 1917-1918] // BRJ-2, p. 10. RJE, v. 7, p. 381. [51] RJE, v. 3, p. 162, 293. [52] G. Aronson. Evreyskaya obshchestvennost v Rossii v 1917 -1918 [The Jewish Public in Russia in 1917-1918] // BRJ-2, p. 7. [53] Izvestiya, November 8, 1917, p. 5. [54] D. S. Pasmanik. Russkaya revolutsia i evreistvo: (Bolshevism i iudaizm) [Russian Revolution and Jewry: Bolshevism and Judaism]. Paris, 1923, p. 153-154. [55] Rech, July 28, 1917, p. 3. [56] Ibid.; see also G. Lelevich. Oktyabr v stavke [The October in the general Headquarters]. Gomel, 1922, p. 13, 66-67.
[57] V. B. Stankevich. Vospominaniya, 1914-1919 [Memoirs, 1914-1919]. Berlin, publishing house of I. P. Ladyzhnikov, 1920, p. 86-87. [58] A. I. Denikin. Ocherki russkoi smuty. V1: Krushenie vlasti I armii, fevral -sentyabr 1917 [Russian Turmoil. Memoirs. V1: Collapse of Authority and Army]. Paris, 1922, p. 216. [59] Nik Sukhanov. Zapiski o revolutsii [Memoirs of the Revolution]. Berlin, Publishing House of Z. I. Grzhebin, 1923, v.5, p. 287. [60] Russkaya Volya, May 7, 1917, p. 4. [61] Ibid., p. 6. [62] Zhurnaly zasedanii Vremennogo Pravitelstva [Minutes of the meetings of the Provisional Government]. Petrograd, 1917. V1: March-May; April 6 meeting (book 44, p. 5) and April 27 meeting (book 64, p. 4). 134
[63] Rech, June 28, 1917, p. 2. [64] Rech, May 3, 1917, p. 6. [65] Ivan Nazhivin. Zapiski o revolutsii [Notes about Revolution]. Vienna, 1921, p. 28. [66] Rech, June 17, 1917, evening issue, p. 4. [67] Rech, September 9, 1917, p. 3. [68] Rech, August 8, 1917, p. 5. [69] Russkaya Volya, June 17, 1917, evening issue, p. 4. [70] V. Nabokov. Vremennoye pravitelstvo [The Provisional Government] // Archive of Russian Revolution, published by Gessen. Berlin: Slovo, 1922, v. 1, p. 80. [71] V. I. Lenin. Sochineniya [Works]. In 45 volumes, 4th Edition (henceforth — Lenin, 4th edition). Moscow, Gospolitizdat, 1941-1967, v. 4, p. 311. [72] Izvestiya, June 28, 1917, p. 5. [73] Izvestiya, June 30, 1917, p. 10. [74] Rech, October 20, 1917, p. 3. [75] Izvestiya, October 26, 1917, p. 2. [76] Delo Naroda, October 29, 1917, p. 1. [77] Rech, July 11, 1917, p. 3. [78] Rech, July 21, 1917, p. 4. [79] Rech, September 16, 1917, p. 3. [80] G. A. Landau. Revolutsionnye idei v evreiskoi obchshestvennosti [Revolutionary ideas in Jewish society] // RJ, p. 105, 106. [81] D. S. Pasmanik. Russkaya revolutsia i evreistvo: (Bolshevism i iudaizm) [Russian Revolution and Jewry: Bolshevism and Judaism]. Pari s, 1923, p. 245. [82] Rech, July 26, 1917, p. 3. *83+ I. Eldad. Tak kto zhe nasledniki Zhabotinskogo? *So Who Are the Heirs of Jabotinsky?+ // “22”: Obshchestvenno-politicheskiy i literaturniy zhurnal evreyskoy intelligentsii iz SSSR v Izraile [Social, Pol itical and Literary Journal of the Jewish Intelligentsia from the USSR in Israel (henceforth - “22”)+. Tel-Aviv, 1980, (16), p. 120. [84] D. S. Pasmanik. Russkaya revolutsia i evreistvo: (Bolshevism i iudaizm) [Russian Revolution and Jewry: Bolshevism and Judaism]. Paris, 1923, p. 179-181. [85] Rech, August 16, 1917, p. 3. *86+ V. Boguslavsky. V sachshitu Kunyaeva *In Defense of Kunyaev+ // “22″, 1980, (16), p. 169.
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[87] Lenin, 4th edition, v. 30, p. 231. [88] SJE, v.7, p. 381. [89] Kh. M. Astrakhan. Bolsheviki i ikh politicheskie protivniki v 1917 godu [The Bolsheviks and Their Political Adversaries in 1917]. Leningrad, 1973, p. 407. [90] Aron Abramovich. V reshayuchshey voine: Uchastie i rol evreev SSSR v voine protiv natsisma [In the Deciding War: Participation and Role of Jews in the USSR in the War Against Nazism] 2nd Edition, Tel Aviv, 1982, v. 1, p. 45, 46. [91] L. Trotsky. Istoriya russkoi revolutsii. T. 2: Oktyabrskaya revolutsia [The History of Russian Revolution]. Berlin, Granit, 1933, v. 2: October Revolution, Part 2, p. 361.
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Chapter 16: During the Civil War Trotsky once boasted that during the Civil War, “even” traveling in his special Revvoyensovet’s *Revolutionary Military Council+ railroad coach, he was able to find time to acquaint himself with the latest works of French literature. Not that he realized exactly what he said. He acknowledged that he was able to find not just time, but room in his heart between appeals to the “revolutionary sailors,” forcibly mobilized units of Red Army, and a thrown order to execute every tenth soldier in a unit that wavered in battle. Well, he usually did not stay around to supervise carrying out such orders. Orchestrating a bloody war on the vast plains of Russia, he was absolutely untouched by the unprecedented sufferings of her inhabitants, by her pain. He soared aloft, above it all, on the wings of the international intoxication of the Revolution. The February Revolution was a Russian revolution: no matter how headlong, erroneous and pernicious it was, it did not aspire to burn down the entire pre-existing life, to annihilate the whole pre-revolutionary Russia. Yet immediately after the October [Bolshevik revolution], the Revolution spilled abroad and became an international and devastating plague, feeding itself by devouring and destroying social order wherever it spread — everything built was to be annihilated; everything cultivated — to be confiscated; whoever resisted — to be shot. The Reds were exclusively preoccupied with their grand social experiment, predestined to be repeated, expanded and implemented all over the world. From an easy, quick blow, the October coup snowballed into a fierce three-year-long Civil War, which brought countless bloody calamities to all the peoples of Russia. The multinationality of the former Empire and the cannon recoil from the Great War complicated both the inhumane Bolshevik plot and its implementation. Unlike the French Revolution, which unfolded on the territory of mono-national France and did not see much foreign intervention apart from a short incursion of hostile troops, and with all its horrors being a national affair from beginning to end, the Russian Revolution was horribly aggravated by its multinational madness. It saw the strong participation of Red Latvians (then Russian subjects), former German and Austrian prisoners of war (organized into full - blown regiments like the Hungarians), and even large numbers of Chinese. No doubt the brunt of the fighting for the Reds was carried out by Russians; some of them were drafted on pain of death while others volunteered in a mad belief they would be fighting for a happy future for themselves. Yet the Russian Jews were not lost in all that diversity. The politically active part of Russian Jewry, which backed the Bolshevik civic regime in 1917, now just as boldly stepped into the military structures of Bolsheviks. During the first years after the October Revolution in the midst of the internationalist frenzy, the power over this enormous land was effortlessly slipping into the hands of those clinging to the Bolsheviks. And they were overwhelmed by the newfound immensity of that power. They immediately began using it without a backward glance or any fear of control — some, without doubt, in the name of higher ideals, while others — in the name of lower ones (“obstinacy of fanaticism in some and ability to adapt in others” 1 ). At that time, nobody could imagine that 137
the Civil War would ignite enormous Jewish pogroms, unprecedented in their atrocity and bloodshed, all over the South of Russia. We can judge the true nature of the multi-ethnic war from the Red pogrom during the suppression of the Kronstadt Uprising in March 1921. A well-known socialist-revolutionary and sociologist Pitrim Sorokin writes: “For three days, Latvian, Bashkir, Hungarian, Tatar, Russian, Jewish and international rabble, crazed by alcohol and the smell of blood, raped and killed without restraint.” 2
1918, an Orthodox Sacred Procession stirred forth from the gates of the Kremlin in Tula – and an “international squad” gunned it down. Even with the ruthless international squads, the force of the “Red Guard” alone was no longer sufficient. The Bolshevik regime needed a regular army. In 1918, “Lev Trotsky, with the help of Sklyansky and Jacov Sverdlov, created the Red Army.” “Many Jews were fighting in its ranks. Some units were entirely Jewish, like, for example, the brigade of Josef Furman.” 3 The Jewish share in the command corps the Red Army become large and influential and this trend continued for many years even after the end of the Civil War. This Jewish involvement has been researched by several Jewish authors and encyclopedias. In the 1980s, Israeli scholar Aaron Abramovich used many Soviet sources (including The Fifty-
highly ranked Jewish commanders (exclusively Jewish ones) in the Red Army during the period from the Civil War up to the aftermath of Second World War. Let’s skim through the pages allocated to the Civil War. 4 This is a very extensive roster; it begins with the Revvoyensoviet, where Abramovich lists L. Trotsky, E. Sklyansky, A. Rosengoltz, and Y. Drabkin-Gusev. Trotsky ordered the “establishment of fronts with headquarters, and formation of new armies,” and “Jews were present in almost all the revvoyensoviets of the fronts and armies.” (Abramovich lists the most prominent individuals: D. Vayman, E. Pyatnitsky, L. Glezarov, L. Pechyorsky, I. Slavin, M. Lisovsky, G. Bitker, Bela Kun, Brilliant-Sokolnikov, I. Khodorovsky). Earlier, at the onset of the Civil War, the Extraordinary Command Staff of the Petrograd Military District was headed by Uritsky, and among the members of the Petrograd Committee of Revolutionary Defense were Sverdlov (the chairman), Volodarsky, Drabkin-Gusev, Ya. Fishman (a leftist Socialist Revolutionary) and G. Chudnovsky. In May 1918 there were two Jews among the eleven commissars of military districts: E. Yaroslavsky-Gubelman (Moscow District) and S. Nakhimson (Yaroslavsky District). During the war, several Jews were in charge of armies: M. Lashevich was in charge of the 3 rd
th Army of Eastern Front; V. Lazarevich was in charge of the 3 rd Army of the Western Front, G. Sokolnikov led the 8 th Army of the Southern Front, N. Sorkin – the 9 th , and I. Yakir – the 14 th Army. Abramovich painstakingly lists numerous Jewish heads of staff and members of the revvoyensoviets in each of the twenty armies; then the commanders, heads of staff and military commissars of divisions (the list of the latter, i.e., those in charge of the ideological branch of command, was three-times longer than the list of Jewish commanders of divisions). In this manner Abramovich describes brigades, regiments and separate detachments. He lists Jewish heads of political administrations and revolutionary
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military tribunals at all levels, noting that “especially large percentage of Jews can be found among political officers at all levels of the Red Army….” “Jews played an important role in the provision and supply services. Let’s name some of them….” “Jews occupied important positions in military medicine as well: heads of sanitary administrations of the fronts and armies, senior doctors of units and bodies of troops….” “Many Jews — commanders of large units and detachments — were distinguished for their courage, heroism and generalship” but “due to the synoptic character of this chapter we cannot provide detailed descriptions of the accomplishments of Jewish Red Army soldiers, commanders and political officers.” (Meticulously listing the commanders of armies, the researcher misses another Jew, Tikhon Khvesin, who happened to be in charge of the 4 th Army of the Eastern Front, then — of the 8 th Army of the Southern Front, and later of the 1 st Army of the Turkestan Front. 5 )
(Here I would like to commend this encyclopedia (1994), for in our new free times its authors performed an honest choice — writing frankly about everything, including less than honorable things.) Drabkin-Gusev became the Head of Political Administration of the Red Army and the Chief of the entire Red Army in 1921. Later he was the head of IstPart (Commission on the History of October Revolution and Bolshevist Party) and a big figure in the Comintern, and was buried in the Kremlin wall [in Moscow]. Mikhail Gaskovich-Lashkevich was a member of many revvoyensoviets, and later he was in charge of the Siberian Military District, and even later — the First Deputy Chairman of the Revvoyensoviet of the USSR (yet he was buried merely on the Field of Mars [in St. Petersburg]). Israel Razgon was the military commissar of the Headquarters of Petrograd Military District and participated in the suppression of the Kronstadt Uprising; later, he was in charge of the Red Army of Bukhara, suppressing the uprising in Central Asia; still later he worked in the Headquarters of the Black See Fleet. Boris Goldberg was Military Commissar of the Tomskaya Guberniya, later of the Permskaya Guberniya, still later of the Privolzhskiy Military District, and even later he was in charge of the Reserve Army and was acknowledged as one of the founders of Soviet Civil Aviation. Modest Rubenstein was Deputy Head of the Revvoyensoviet of the Special Army, and later he was head of political administration of an army group. Boris Hippo was the Head of Political Administration of the Black Sea Fleet. (Later he worked in the political administrations of the Baltic Sea Fleet, the Turkestan Front, was the Head of Political Administration of the Central-Asian Military District, and later of the Caucasian Army.)
Michail Landa was a head of the political division of an army, later — Deputy Head of Political Administration of the entire Red Army, and still later Head of Political Administration of the Byelorussian and then of the Siberian Military Districts.
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Lev Berlin was Commissar of the Volga Military Flotilla and later worked in the Political Administration of the Crimean Army and still later in that of the Baltic Fleet. 6
Yet how many outstanding characters acted at lower levels? Boris Skundin, previously a lowly apprentice of clockmaker Sverdlov, Sr., successively evolved into the military commissar of a division, commissar of army headquarters, political inspector of front, and, finally, into Deputy Head of Political Administration of the 1 st Cavalry Army. Avenir Khanukaev was commander of a guerilla band who later was tried before the revolutionary tribunal for crimes during the capture of Ashgabat and acquitted, and in the same year of 1919 was made into political plenipotentiary of the TurkCommission of the All- Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviet of People’s Commissars on Kashgar, Bukhara and Khiva. Moses Vinnitsky (“Mishka-Yaponchik”) was a member of the Jewish militia squad in Odessa 1905, and later a gang-leader; he was freed from a hard labor camp by the February Revolution and became a commander of a Jewish fighting brigade in Odessa, simultaneously managing the entire criminal underworld of Odessa. In 1919 he was a commander of a special battalion and later he was in charge of an infantry regiment in the Red Army. His unit was “composed of anarchists and criminals.” In the end he was shot by his own side. Military commissar Isaiah Tzalkovich was in command of a composite company of the [Red] cadets during the suppression of the Kronstadt Uprising. 7
Nadezda Ostrovskaya rose from the Head of Gubkom [Party Committee of a Guberniya, the highest executive authority in a guberniya] of Vladimir Guberniya to the post of the Head of Political Administration of the entire 10 th Army. Revekka Plastinina headed Gubrevkom and later the Gubkom of Archangel Guberniya. Is it proper to mention here Cecilia Zelikson-Bobrovskaya, who was a seamstress in her youth, and became the Head of the Military Department of the Moscow Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks? 8 Or take one of the Furies of the Revolution Eugenia Bosh (or her sister Elena Rozmirovich)? Or another thing — the Soviets used the phrase “Corps of Red Cossacks.” Yet those were not Cossacks who embraced communist ideology but plain bandits (who occasionally disguised themselves as Whites for deception). Those “Cossack Corps” were made of all nationa lities from Romanians to Chinese with a full-blown Latvian cavalry regiment. A Russian, Vitaly Primakov, was in command and its Political Department was headed by I. I. Minz (by Isaac Greenberg in the Second Division) and S. Turovskiy was head of the Headquarters. A. Shilman was the head of operative section of the staff, S. Davidson managed the division newspaper, and Ya. Rubinov was in charge of the administrative section of the staff. 9
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