1 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 200 Years Together Russo-Jewish History
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form of anti-Semitism.” At different times, a certain Aaron Baron was his Chief of Staff, Lev Zadov-Zenkovsky was his head of counter-intelligence, Volin-Eikhenbaum was head of Makhno’s agitprop, Arshinov was his close adviser, and one Kogan headed Administration of Huliaipole [his "capital"]. There was even a 300-strong separate Jewish company among his troops, led by Taranovsky, and though at one point they betrayed Makhno, nevetheless Taranovsky was later pardoned and even made the Makhno’s Chief of Staff . “The Jewish poor joined Makhno’s army in masses” and allegedly Makhno trapped and executed ataman Grigoriev for the latter’s anti-Semitism. In March 1919 Makhno executed peasants from Uspenovka village for a pogrom in the Jewish agricultural colony Gorkoye. However, despite his indisputable pro-Jewish stance (later in emigration in Paris “he was always in a Jewish milieu” until his death), his often uncontrollable troops carried out several Jewish pogroms, for instance, in 1918 near Ekaterinoslav 58
or in the summer of 1919 in Aleksandrovsk, though Makhno and his officers rigorously protected Jewish populations and punished pogromists with death.” 59
To examine the anti-Jewish pogroms during the Russian Civil War, we consult a large volume Jewish Pogroms: 1918-1921 compiled by Jewish Public Committee for Aid to Victims of Pogroms in 1923 and published later in 1926. 60 (The year of publication explains why we find nothing about pogroms by the Reds — the book “aims to examine the roles of Petliura’s troops, the Volunteer [White] Army, and Poles in the carnage of pogroms in the described period.”) Regular troops participated in pogroms in larger cities and towns as they marched, whereas independent bands acted in the hinterlands, thus effectively denying the Jews safety anywhere. Pogroms by Petliura’s troops were particularly atrocious and systematic and sometimes even without looting, such as, for example, pogroms in Proskurov, Felsztyn and Zhytomir in February of 1919, Ovruch in March, Trostyanets, Uman and Novomirgorod in May 1919. The worst pogroms by bands were in Smila (March 1919), Elisavetgrad, Radomyshl, Vapniarka and Slovechno in May 1919, in Dubovka (June 1919); by Denikin’s troops – in Fastov (September 1919) and Kiev (October 1919). In Byelorussia, there were pogroms by Polish troops, for example, in Borisov and in the Bobruisk District, and by Polish-supported troops of Bulak-Balachowicz in Mazyr, Turov, Petrakov, Kapatkevitchy, Kovchitsy and Gorodyatitchy (in 1919, 1920, and 1921). Ukrainian Jewry was horrified by the murderous wave of pogroms. During brief periods of respite, the Jewish population fled en masse from already pillaged or threatened places. There was indeed a mass exodus of Jews from shtetls and small towns into larger cities nearby or toward the border with Romania in a foolish hope to find aid there, or they simply “aimlessly fled in panic” as they did from Tetiiv and Radomyshl. “The most populous and flourishing communities were turned into deserts. Jewish towns and shtetls looked like gloomy cemeteries — homes burnt and streets dead and desolated. Several Jewish townships were completely wrecked and turned into ashes — Volodarka, Boguslav, Borshchagovka, Znamenka, Fastov, Tefiapol, Kutuzovka and other places.” 61
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Let us now examine the White side. At first glance it may appear counter-intuitive that Jews did not support the anti-Bolshevik movement. After all, the White forces were substantially more pro-democratic then Bolsheviks (as it was with [White generals] Denikin and Wrangel) and included not only monarchists and all kinds of nationalists but also many liberal groups and all varieties of anti-Bolshevik socialists. So why didn’t we see Jews who shared the same political views and sympathies there? Fateful events irredeemably separated the Jews from the White movement. The Jewish Encyclopedia informs us that “initially many Jews of Rostov supported the White movement. On December 13, 1917 a merchant prince, A. Alperin, gave 800,000 rubles collected by the Jews of Rostov to A. Kaledin, the leader of Don Cossacks, `to organize anti - Bolshevik Cossack troops.´” 62 Yet when General Alekseev [another White commander] was mustering his first squadron in December 1917 in the same city of Rostov and needed funds and asked (note — asked and did not impress) the Rostov-Nakhichevan bourgeoisie (mainly Jewish and Armenian) for money, they refused and he collected just a dab of money and was forced to march out into the winter with unequipped troops – into his Ice March. And later “all appeals by the Volunteer Army were mostly ignored, yet whenever the Bolsheviks showed up and demanded money and valuables, the population obediently handed over millions of rubles and whole stores of goods.” 63 When former Russian prime minister (of the Provisional Government) prince G. E. Lvov, begging for aid abroad, visited New York and Washington in 1918, he met a delegation of American Jews who heard him out but offered no aid. 64
However, Pasmanik quotes a letter saying that by the end of 1918 “more than three and half millions rubles … were being collected in the exclusive Jewish circle” with accompanying “promises and reassurances” of goodwill toward Jews from the White authorities. Despite that, Jews were officially prohibited to buy land in the Chernomorskaya Guberniya because of “vicious speculations by several Jews,” though the order was revoked soon afterwards. 65
Here is another example from my own sources: again in Rostov in February 1918 when the White movement was merely nascent and seemed almost hopeless, an elderly Jewish engineer and manufacturer A. I. Arkhangorodsky, who sincerely considered himself a Russian patriot, literally pushed his reluctant student son into joining the White youth marching out into the night *February 22+, embarking on their Ice March (however, his sister didn’t let him go). The Jewish Encyclopedia also tells us that the “Jews of Rostov were joining Cossack guerilla squadrons and the student’s battalion of *White+ general L. Kornilov’s army.” 66
In Paris in 1975, Col. Levitin, the last surviving commander of the Kornilov Regiment, told me that quite a few Jewish warrant officers, who were commissioned in Kerensky’s times, were loyal to Kornilov during the so-called “days of Kornilov” in August 1917. He recalled one Katzman, a holder of the Order of St. George from the First Kutepov Division. Yet we know that many Whites rejected sympathetic or neutral Jews — because of the prominent involvement of other Jews on the Red side, mistrust and anger was bred among the White forces. A modern study suggests that “during the first year of its existence, the White movement was virtually free of anti-Semitism at least in terms of major incidents and Jews were actually serving in the Volunteer Army. However … the situation dramatically
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changed by 1919. First, after the Allied victory [in WWI], the widespread conviction among the Whites that Germans helped Bolsheviks was displaced by a mythos about Jews being the backbone of Bolshevism. On the other hand, after the White troops occupied Ukraine, they came under influence of obsessive local anti-Semitism that facilitated their espousal of anti- Jewish actions.” 67
Central Committee] and that caused the identification of Bolshevism with Jewry and led to pogroms.” 68 The Whites perceived Russia as occupied by Jewish commissars – and they marched to liberate her. And given considerable unaccountability of separate units of that nascent and poorly organized army strewn over the vast Russian territories and the general lack of central authority in that war, it is not surprising that, unfortunately, some White troops carried out pogroms. “A. I. Denikin …, like some other leaders of the South Army (e.g., V. Z. Mai-Mayevsky), endorsed Kadet [the Constitutional Democratic Party] and Socialist Revolutionary views and sought to stop the outrages perpetrated by his troops. Yet those efforts were not effective.” 69
Naturally, many Jews were driven by survival instinct and even if they initially expected goodwill on the part of the Volunteer Army, after pogroms by Denikin’s troops they lost any inclination to support the White movement. Pasmanik provides a lively case. “Aleksandrovsk was taken by the Volunteers from the Bolsheviks. They were met by unanimous sincere joy of the citizenry…. Overnight half of the town was sacked and filled by the screaming and moaning of distressed Jews…. Wives were raped … men beaten and murdered, Jewish homes were totally ransacked. The pogrom continued for three days and three nights. Post-executive Cossack cornet Sliva dismissed complaints of the Public Administration saying `it is always like that: we ta ke a city and it belongs to the troops for three days.´” 70 It is impossible to explain all this plunder and violence by soldiers of the Volunteer Army by actions of Jewish commissars. A top White general, A. von Lampe, claims that rumors about Jewish pogroms by the Whites are “tendentiously exaggerated”, that these pillaging “requisitions” were unavoidable actions of an army without quartermaster services or regular supplies from the rear areas. He says that Jews were not targeted deliberately but that all citizens suffered and that Jews “suffered more” because they were “numerous and rich.” “I am absolutely confident that in the operational theaters of the White armies there were no Jewish pogroms, i.e., no organized extermination and pillaging of Jews. There were robberies and even murders … which were purposefully overblown and misrepresented as anti-Jewish pogroms by special press…. Because of these accidents, the Second Kuban Infantry Brigade and the Ossetian Cavalry Regiment were disbanded…. All the people, be they Christian or Jewish, suffered in disorderly areas.” 71 There were executions (on tip offs by locals) of those unfortunate commissars and Chekists who did not manage to escape and there were quite a few Jews among them. Events in Fastov in September 1919 appear differently. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, Cossacks “behaved outrageously … they killed, raped and flouted Jewish religious feelings (they had broken into a synagogue during Yom Kippur, beat up the whole congregation, raped the women and tore apart the Torah scrolls.) About one thousand were killed.” 72 A
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methodical quarter-by-quarter pillaging of Jews in Kiev after a brief return of the White troops in the end of October 1919 was dubbed the “quiet pogrom.” Shulgin writes: “The commanders strictly prohibited `pogroms.´ Yet the “Yids” were really an annoyance and, secondly, the `heroes´ were hungry…. In general, the Volunteers in large cities were starving.” There were nights of plunder but without murder and rape. It was “the end of Denikin’s period … and the beginning of the agony of the Volunteer Army.” 73
“By the route of its offensive and, particularly, its retreat,” during its last brutal retreat in November-December of 1919, the White Army carried out “a large number of Jewish pogroms” (acknowledged by Denikin), apparently not only for plunder but also for revenge. However, Bikerman says that “murders, pillage and rape of women were not faithful companions of the White Army, unlike what is claimed by our [Jewish] National Socialists who exaggerate the horrible events to advance their own agenda.” 74
and children, and robbing someone’s property are absolutely impossible things to do.” Thus, the “true Whites” in this case are guilty of negligence. They were not sufficiently rigorous in checking the scum adhering to the White movement.” 75
Pasmanik concurred that “everybody understands that General Denikin did not want pogroms but when I was in Novorossiysk and Ekaterinodar in April-May 1919, i.e., before the march to the north, I could sense a thickened and pervasive atmosphere of anti-Semitism everywhere.” 76 Whatever it was — negligence or revenge — it served well to ignite the “White” pogroms of 1919. Still, “by unanimous testimony of those unlucky enough to experience both types of pogroms [those by Petliura's troops and those by White Army], it was predominantly Petliura’s troops who went for Jewish life and soul — they did the most killing.” 77
in the “reborn” Poland the day after she become a free and independent state. While in Russia itself they were started by the Ukrainian troops of the Democrat Petliura a nd the Socialist Vynnychenko…. The Ukrainians turned pogroms into an everyday event.” 78 . The Volunteer Army did not start the pogroms but it carried on with them, being fueled by a false conviction that all Jews were for Bolsheviks. “The name of L. Trotsky was particularly hated among the Whites and Petliura’s soldiers and almost every pogrom went under a slogan `This is what you get for Trotsky.´” And even “the Kadets who in the past always denounced any expression of anti-Semitism, and all the more so the pogroms … during their November 1919 conference in Kharkov … demanded that Jews `declare relentless war against those elements of Jewry who actively participate in the Bolshevist movement.´” At the same time the Kadets “emphasized … that the White authorities do everything possible to stop pogroms,” namely that since the beginning of October 1919 “the leadership of the *Volunteer+ Army began punishing pogromists with many measures including execution” and as a result “pogroms stopped for a while.” Yet “during the December 1919-March 1920 retreat of the Volunteer Army from Ukraine the pogroms become particularly violent” and the Jews were accused “of shooting the retreating Whites in the back.” (Importantly, “there
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were no pogroms in Siberia by A. Kolchak’s troops,” as “Kolchak did not tolerate pogroms.” 79 ) D.O. Linsky, himself a former White Guard, emphatically writes: “Jewry was possibly given a unique chance to fight so hard for the Russian land, that the slanderous claim, that for Jews Russia is just geography and not Fatherland, would disappear once and for all.” Actually, “there was and is no alternative: the victory of anti-Bolshevik forces will lead from suffering to revival of the whole country and of the Jewish people in particular…. Jewry should devote itself to the Russian Cause entirely, to sacrifice their lives and wealth…. Through the dark stains on the White chasubles one should perceive the pure soul of the White Movement…. In an army where many Jewish youths were enlisted, in an army relying on extensive material support from Jewish population, anti-Semitism would suffocate and any pogromist movement would be countered and checked by internal forces. Jewry should have supported the Russian Army which went on in an immortal struggle for the Russ ian land…. Jewry was pushed from the Russian Cause, yet Jewry had to push away the pushers.” He writes all this “after having painful personal experience of participation in the White movement. Despite all those dark and serious problems that surfaced in the White movement, we delightfully and with great reverence bow our uncovered heads before this one and only commendable fact of the struggle against the ignominy of Russian history, the so-called Russian Revolution.” It was “a great movement for the unfading values of *upholding+ the human spirit.” 80
a humiliation people like doctor Pasmanik had to go through (many Jews were outraged after finding him “among the pogromists”)! “The Volunteer Army persistently refused to accept Jewish petty officers and cadets, even those who in October 1917 bravely fought against Bolsheviks. It was a huge moral blow to Russian Jewry.” “I will never forget,” he writes, “how eleven Jewish petty officers came to me in Simferopol complaining that they were expelled from fighting units and posted as … cooks in the rear.” 81
`revolutionary democracy´ or in `constitutional democracy´ before that….” Yet only a tiny part of Jewry joined the White Guards … only very few individuals, whose dedication could not be overvalued as the anti-Semitism [among the Whites] was already clearly obvious by that time. Meanwhile, there were many Jews among the Reds…, there, most importantly, they often occupied the `top command positions´…. Aren’t we really aware of the bitter tragedy of those few Jews who joined the Volunteer Army” The lives of those Jewish Volunteers were as endangered by the enemy’s bullets as they were by the `heroes of the rear´ who tried to solve the Jewish question in their own manner.” 82
flames among the young White officers from the intellectual families — despite all their education, tradition, and upbringing. And this all the more doomed the White Army to isolation and perdition. Linsky tells us that on the territories controlled by the Volunteer Army, the Jews were not employable in the government services or in the OsvAg (“Information-Propaganda Agency,”
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an intelligence and counter-intelligence agency, established in the White Army by General A.M. Dragomirov). Yet he refutes the claim that publications of OsvAg contained anti-Semitic propaganda and that pogromists were not punished. No, “the command did not want Jewish pogroms, yet … it could not act against the pogromist attitudes of their troops … it psychologically couldn’t use severe measures…. The army was not as it used to be, and requirements of the regular wartime or peacetime military charters could not be fully applied to it,” as the minds of all soldiers were already battle-scarred by the Civil War. 83
Semitic propaganda loudly,” despite the fact that the pogroms inflicted great harm on Denikin’s army. Pasmanik concludes: the Volunteer Army “generally assumed a hostile attitude toward the entire Russian Jewry.” 84 But I. Levin disagrees, saying that “the views of only one part of the movement, those of the active pogromists, are now attributed to the whole movement,” while in reality “the White Movement was quite complex, it was composed of different factions … with often opposite views.” 85 Yet to bet on Bolsheviks, to walk in their shadows because of fear of pogroms, is … obvious and evident madness…. A Jew says: either the Bolsheviks or the pogroms, whereas he should have been saying: the longer the Bolsheviks hold power, the closer we are to certain death.” 86 Yet the “Judeo- Communists” were, in the parlance of the Whites, agitators as well. All this was resolutely stopped by Wrangel in Crimea, where there was nothing like what was described above. (Wrangel even personally ordered Rev. Vladimir Vostokov to stop his public anti-Jewish sermons.) In July 1920, Shulim Bezpalov, the aforementioned Jewish millionaire, wrote from Paris to Wrangel in the Crimea: “We must save our Motherland. She will be saved by the children of the soil and industrialists. We must give away 75% of our revenue until the value of ruble has recovered and normal life rebuilt.” 87
Still, a part of the Jewish population of the Crimea chose to evacuate with Wrangel’s army. 88
True, the White Movement was in desperate need of the support by the Western public opinion, which in turn largely depended on the fate of Russian Jewry. It needed that support, yet, as we saw, it had fatally and unavoidably developed a hostility toward the Jews and later it was not able to prevent pogroms. As Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill “was the major advocate of the Allied intervention in Russia and military aid to the White armies.” Because of the pogroms, Churchill appealed directly to Denikin: “my goal of securing the support in the Parliament for the Russian national movement will be incomparably more difficult,” if the pogroms are not stopped. “Churchill also feared the reaction of powerful Jewish circles among the British elite.” 89 Jewish circles in the USA held similar opinions [on the situation in Russia]. However, the pogroms were not stopped, which largely explains the extremely weak and reluctant assistance given by the Western powers to the White armies. And calculations by Wall Street naturally led it to support Bolsheviks as the more likely future rulers over Russia’s riches. Moreover, the climate in the US and Europe was permeated by sympathy toward
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