Jews and Communism

The Jewish question played an important role in rise and collapse of the Russian communism. Many prominent, educated Jews held very influential positions within Leftist organizations. Those who were tainted with Jewish nationalism turned their pens against the revolution once it became clear that the Russian communism eventually became predominantly Russian. In order to justify their betrayal they had spread the black lie of ‘Russian antisemitism’.

These sour grapes are served up fresh by Trotskyite writer Alan Woods: I wrote in my article: “Were Jews persecuted as racial group under Stalin? Obviously not, for Stalin’s daughter was married to a Jew; some of his best comrades and party leaders had Jewish wives (Molotov, Voroshilov) – or Jewish sons and daughters-in-law (Malenkov, Khrushchev). So much for racism. Were Jews discriminated against under Stalin? In 1936, at the pinnacle of Stalin’s power, his government included nine Jews”. 

The best reply Woods could think of is “This is absolutely incredible. It is common knowledge today that Stalin was a rabid anti-Semite.” The reference to common knowledge is not generally considered to be a sound argument. Indeed, it was at one time common knowledge in England that women perform witchcraft and that noble-folk have blue blood. Today it is common knowledge that the Da Vinci Code tells us that the Holy Grail is in fact Mary Magdalene.

Woods is strong on common knowledge (read: western prejudice) but weak on facts. He writes: “The Bolshevik revolution gave freedom to the Jews.” As a matter of fact, Jews were always free – even when the vast majority of Russians, Poles, and Ukrainians were serfs. All limitations on Jewish rights were removed – not by Bolsheviks, but by the bourgeois February revolution. Woods writes: “After 1917, Lenin and the Bolsheviks even granted those Jews who wished to live in their own autonomous region, the area known as Birobidjan”. Wrong again: this was done by “rabid anti-Semite” Stalin in 1934. 

He writes: “In 1930 Stalin closed  Yevslektsia, an official Soviet entity meant to expose anti-Semitic incidents”. It was the other way around – Yevsektsia1 fought Jewish nationalism and was much hated by many powerful Jews; they schemed for its demise and its replacement with a Jewish Homeland, in this case the Jewish Autonomous Oblast.

He writes: “On February 28, 1953 there were deportations to Siberia of a large number of Jews from Moscow. Plans were being made to commence mass deportations from other parts of the Soviet Union.” This is just another sample of the “eternal persecution of Eternal People” story. There were neither deportations nor plans for deportations. The Russian historian Kostyrchenko proved in a research paper called Deportation or Mystification 2 that it was an urban legend promoted by a Jewish nationalist, professor Jacob Ettinger of Hebrew University, a man who admitted his “deep hatred of Communism.” Plenty of juicy research grants await scholars who are willing to trade ethics for a good story on Jewish suffering.

Woods writes: “Members of JAFC [ Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee] were accused of being part of a Zionist-U.S. conspiracy against the Soviet Union… all accused of espionage, nationalist propaganda, and of seeking to establish a Jewish republic in the Crimea as a ‘bridgehead’ for American imperialism”.

Does Woods believe that these Russian Jewish nationalists would shrink from establishing a Jewish Crimea on the ruins of Tatar villages? It would have been a kind of sister state to Israel – established on the ruins of Palestinian villages. Publications in Russian post-Soviet and Israeli media indicate that the Jewish activists of JAFC supported the ethnic cleansing of Tatars and envisaged the creation of a Jewish Crimean Republic.1 The mass immigration of Russian Jews to Israel in the 1990’s furnishes additional proof that Jewish nationalist propaganda was quite up to the task.

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevsektsiya 2 www.lechaim.ru/ARHIV/125/kost.htm 

Woods writes: “[In 1953], Stalin ordered the arrest of all Jewish colonels and generals in the MGB, and a total of some 50 senior officers and generals were taken into custody.” So many Jews in top positions after 30 years of Stalin’s rule! What kind of a “rabid anti-Semite” was he, anyway? Woods decries the brutal tactics of State Security with one side of his mouth, and with the other he complains at Stalin’s treatment of its Jewish chiefs.

For Woods, Jews are always innocent. Whether they are involved in the excesses of State Security or promote the mass deportation of Tatars, whether they bend towards Zionism or ally with the US – they can’t be touched. He writes: “Molotov’s wife was Jewish. Stalin forced Molotov to separate from his Jewish wife, and she was exiled in 1949 by a direct vote of the Politburo, Molotov abstaining.”

If he would but read the memoirs of Golda Meir, the first Israeli ambassador in Moscow, he would learn that Polina Molotov embraced Golda, and tearfully called out: “Ich bin ein Yiddische tochter” (I am a Jewish daughter). Such Jewish nationalist feelings were indeed dangerous for the Soviet state and made Mme Molotov quite unsuitable for her powerful position as Deputy Member of Politburo. Woods is far too tolerant of Jewish nationalism and far too intolerant of the nationalism of “backward” Russia. Stalin’s Russia treated Jews as equals – not as superiors like the US. If Jewish nationalism were treated in England and the US as it was in Moscow in the days of Stalin, the citizens of Baghdad and Teheran, Basra and Ramallah would be able to sleep peacefully in their own homes.

1 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3955/is_n2_v48/ai_18349159/pg_2

Masters of Discourse

by Israel Shamir