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Home , Felix Dzerzhinsky, Genrikh Yagoda, Julius Martov, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Rose Cohen (feminist), Yakov Sverdlov

COVER V

WAS THE

A hundredJEWISH? years after the swept to power, historians and contemporaries still struggle to understand the prominent role played by

• SETH j. FRANTZMAN Yorker about “Lenin and the Russian Spark,” chron- icling 100 years since the journey, entirely discounts n April 9, 1917, a train pulled into a sta- the Jewish aspect of the . tion at Thayngen, a Swiss town on the The reason for this is complicated and tied up with German border. There was a group of notions of antisemitism as well as attempt by the revo- 32 on board and the customs lutionaries themselves to whitewash their ethnic and officials confiscated chocolate and sugar religious differences. Even though Lenin often praised from them. The passengers were exceedingJews the in legal his circle, his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya's own limitO on importation of goods. Then the train shuffled Reminiscences of Lenin (1933) sought to remove these in to Gottmadingen on the German side of the border. touchy subjects in line with policy. Two German soldiers boarded the passenger cars and A hundred years after the Russian Revolution, there separated the Russians from the rest, moving them to is nostalgia and renewed interest in those figures who second- and third-class berths. led it and the tragedies it unleashed. The 2016 Spanish The “Russians” were an eclectic group, including 10 film The Chosen follows Ramon Mercader, the assassin women and two children. Their names would have of , and this year’s British film The Death been known in left-wing and circles of of Stalin turns that event into something of a come- the time, so some traveled under aliases. On board dy. In , a new series looks at Leon Trotsky. Pro- was Karl Radek from Lvov in what is now , ducer Konstantin Ernst told the Guardian, “I think he and and his wife, Zlata, also from [Trotsky] combines everything, good and evil, injus- Ukraine. There was the half-Armenian Georgii Safarov tice and bravery. He’s the archetypal 20th-century rev- and his wife as well as Marxist activist Sarah “Olga” olutionary. But people shouldn’t think that if Trotsky on antisemitic websites. Ravich. Grigory Useivich from Ukraine was accompa- had won and not Stalin, things would have been bet- On October 16, the Jewish Museum and Tolerance nied by his wife Elena Kon, the daughter of a Russian ter, because they wouldn’t have been.” Center in hosted an exhibition called “Free- woman named Khasia Grinberg. The vivacious French The question of “what might have been” is unique- dom for All? The History of One People in the Years feminist Inessa Armand sang and cracked jokes with ly tied to Trotsky because he often symbolized the of Revolution.” With exhibitions and first-person Radek, Ravich and Safarov. Eventually their shouting anti-Stalinist, the wild revolutionary with global im- accounts, it focused on Jewish luminaries of the era, angered the leader of the group, who poked his head pulses and intellectual imagination, as opposed to the such as Trotsky, Julius Martov, Marc Chagall, Vera In- into their berth and scolded them. The leader was doer and statist Stalin with his murderous purges. Part her, Simon Dubnov and Vasily Shulgin. , and he was taking his small group by of that motif is tied up in Trotsky's Jewishness and the Dubnov, born in 1860 in what is now , was sealed train for a weeklong journey that would end at larger number of Jewish revolutionaries, activists and an enthusiastic Jewish activist. A professor of Jewish Station in St. Petersburg. Half a year later Le- followers who were attracted to Communism in the history in St. Petersburg (then called Petrograd), he nin and some of his cohorts would be running a new late 19th century. supported Jewish self-defense units and literature and state, the Russian Soviet Republic. The role of Jews in the Russian Revolution, and by thought the revolution would bring equality. Howev- Some observers saw Lenin and his band as a motley extension Communism writ large, has always been er, he left in dismay in 1922, eventually settling Riga, group of Jewish revolutionaries. Alexander Guchkov, a sensitive subject because antisemitic voices often . He was murdered by the Nazis in 1941. Before the Russian minister of war in the Russian Provisional painted Soviet Communism as a Jewish plot, or “Jew- his death he reflected on Jews like Trotsky who joined Government after Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in March ish .” When Alexander Solzhenitsyn be- the Revolution. 1917, told the British military attache General Alfred gan work on a book called 200 Years Together, he was “They appear under Russian pseudonyms because Knox that “the extreme element consists of Jews and criticized for what touching this taboo issue. His own they are ashamed of their Jewish origins. It would be imbeciles.” Lenin’s train had included 19 members comments to the press didn’t help the matter, claim- better to say that their Jewish names are pseudonyms; of his Bolshevik party, several of his allies among the ing two-thirds of the () in Ukraine they are not rooted in our people.” and six Jewish members of the Jewish La- were Jewish. Winston Churchill agreed. In a piece in the Illustrat- bor Bund. Almost half the passengers on the train were “I will always differentiate between layers of Jews. ed Sunday Herald in 1920, he broadly stereotyped Jews Jewish. One layer rushed headfirst to the revolution. Another, as either “international” communists, loyal national- Yet history has largely forgotten them. Catherine to the contrary, was trying to stand back. The Jewish ists or Zionists. He called it the “struggle for the soul Merridale’s recent Lenin on the Train doesn’t delve into subject for a long time was considered prohibited.” of the Jewish people” and claimed the Jewish role in the preponderance of Jews. A recent article in The New Unsurprisingly, his book has been posted in PDF form the Russian Revolution “probably outweighs [the role] Tob. Hbhhh OHH1U/IET 3e«» OT H6HMCTM.

A BOLSHEVIK posterfrom 1920 shows Lenin sweeping away monarchs, clergy and capitalists. The Russian translates as 'Lenin cleans the dirt from the Earth,' {Wikimedia Commons)

FLAGS FLUTTER in front of a monument to Vladimir Lenin during a rally held by Russian Communist Party supporters to mark the 's centenary in St. Petersburg, last week. (Anton Vaganov/Reuters)

of all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the HOW DID it all go so wrong? To look for some answers, ery sphere of Russian life while, in time, much of the majority of the leading figures are Jews.” YIVO Institute for Jewish Research held a conference singular richness of Jewish cultural life in Russia was Churchill claimed that the driving power came from on Jews in and after the Russian Revolution earlier this flattened, eventually obliterated.” Jewish leaders, who eclipsed their counterparts. He month in . In the introduction to the The roughly three million Jews of the named names: Maxim Litvinoff, Trotsky, Grigory Zi- conference they note the paradoxical role of Jews and at the time of the revolution constituted the largest noviev, Radek, Leonid Krassin. He called this tendency their fate during the revolution. Jewish community in the world, but they were only “astonishing” and accused Jews of playing “the prom- around 2% of the USSR's population. They were con- inent, if not indeed the principal part in the system of centrated in the Pale of Settlement (a western region of terrorism” that had then become known as “red ter- Were their actions infused with Imperial Russia) and in Ukraine and Belarussia, where ror” or the suppression of those in the Soviet Union Jewishness, a sense of Jewish they were 5% to 10% of the population, whereas in who deviated from the communist line. Russia itself the 1926 census found only 600,000 Jews. One of those whom Churchill singled out for op- mission like the tikkun olam and As a group in the vastness of the USSR, they were one probrium was Bela Kun, the Hungarian Jew who brief- of the largest minorities, alongside Georgians, Arme- ly played the leading role in Hungary when it was a *light unto the nations' values nians, Turks, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kyrgiz, Tartars, Moldo- Soviet republic in 1919. Kun fled when Hungary was we hear about today or were vians, and Germans. None of these other groups invaded by Romania, fleeing to the Soviet Union played such a central role in the revolution, although where he was put in charge of the Revolutionary their actions strictly pragmatic as members of many of them rose to senior levels. Stalin Committee in Crimea along with Rosalia Zemlyach- was a Georgian. , who established ka. Their regime there was responsible for murdering a minority group struggling to be the Soviet secret police, was a Polish aristocrat. around 60,000 people. Kun was arrested during Sta- Given the Soviet Union’s complexity and predilec- lin’s purges, accused of promoting “” and part of larger society? tion for numerous layers of bureaucracy it is a difficult executed in 1938. His life was symbolic of so many to quantify the number of Jews throughout senior others: a young revolutionary whose idealism was “The Russian Revolution liberated the largest Jewish leadership positions during and just after the revolu- colored by the murderous methods of Communism community in the world. It also opened the floodgates tion of 1917. Half of the top contenders in the Central and who ended up a victim of the very regime he for the greatest massacre of Jews before the Second Committee of the Communist Party to take power sought to create, like so many Jewish revolutionaries, World War amid the civil war and its aftermath in 1918 after Lenin's health declined in 1922 - , accused of being counter-revolutionaries. to 1921.” However, Jews also “entered into nearly ev­ Trotsky and Zinoviev - were Jewish. ,

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VLADIMIR LENIN in 1920. (Wikimedia Commons) internal affairs of Ukraine before being arrested and communists at a show trial, besides Kamenev and Zi- LEON TROTSKY in 1920. (Wikimedia Commons) shot in 1938. David Petrovsky from Berdychiv became noviev, names like Yefim Dreitzer, Isak Reingold, Mois- BOLSHEVIK FORCES march on Moscow’s Red an influential economic planner until being arrested sei and Nathan Lurye and Konon Berman-Yurin ring Square in 1917. (Wikimedia Commons) and shot in 1937. His wife, Rose Cohen, a founder of out as Jewish. In a twisted irony, some of these Bol- the Communist Party of Great Britain, was also shot. sheviks who had played a prominent role executing Trotsky’s life before the revolution is more instruc- others, such as NKVD Director , were tive of the networks of Jewish Bolsheviks. Arrested in themselves executed. Solzhenitsyn estimates that Jews 1906, he was sent into exile by the tsarist state. He es- in leading positions went from a high of 50% in some caped and made his way to Vienna, where he became sectors to 6%. Many Jewish officers in the friends with Adolph Joffe. Joffe came from a family of also suffered in the purges. Millions of Jews would re- Jewish Crimean Karaites and became an editor of Pra- main in Soviet territories, but they would never again vda. Close friends for the rest of their lives, they op- obtain such prominent positions in the USSR. posed the more lenient attitude of their fellow Jews In a July 1940 letter, Trotsky imagined that future Kamanev and Zinoviev on the Central Committee in military events in the Middle East “may well transform 1917, opposing the inclusion of other socialist parties Palestine into a bloody trap for several hundred thou- in the government that emerged after the revolution. sand Jews.” He was wrong; it was the Soviet Union that Trotsky was expelled from the Central Committee in was a bloody trap for many of those Jews who had seen equality probably was one of the underlying causes of 1927 along with Zinoviev. He went into exile in 1929 salvation in communism and thought that by total as- my dissatisfaction with the existing order, it was lost and was assassinated on Stalin’s orders in 1940. Joffe similation and working for a zealous greater good they among all the other phases of social injustice. It never committed suicide in 1927; his wife Maria and daugh- would succeed. played a leading part, not even a recognized one in the ter Nadezhda were arrested and sent to labor camps Instead, many ended up being murdered by the sys- lists of my grievances.” and were not released until after Stalin’s death in 1953. tem they helped create. Of particular interest, Trotsky never mentions the Late in life, as many thousands of Jews were being ex- word “Jew” after his fifth chapter dealing with his ecuted in the purges by Stalin, not as Jews but as leading WITH 100 years of hindsight it is still difficult to un- early education up to the year 1891. Despite being sur- communists, Trotsky penned several thoughts on Jew- derstand what attracted so many Jews to communism rounded by Jews, he buries this ethnic and religious ish issues. He said that in his early days, “I rather leaned in the . Were their actions infused with issue entirely. toward the prognosis that the Jews of different coun- Jewishness, a sense of Jewish mission like the tikkun How could he skip over the Jewish context when it tries would be assimilated and that the Jewish question olam and “light unto the nations” values we hear was all around him? Stepan Mikoyan, born in 1922, a would thus disappear.” He argued, “Since 1925 and about today, or were their actions strictly pragmatic as test pilot and son of prominent Stalin-era politician above all since 1926, antisemitic demagogy - well cam- a minority group struggling to be part of larger soci- , wrote an autobiography in 1999. ouflaged, unattackable - goes hand in hand with sym- ety? The answer lies somewhere in the middle. In it, he calls Stalin a “militant antisemite.” Molotov, bolic trials.” He accused the USSR of insinuating that Many Jews made pragmatic economic choices to however, insisted that Stalin was “not an antisemite... Jews were “internationalists” during show trials. leave for the New World when facing discrimination he appreciated many qualities in the Jewish people: The Central Committee of the USSR is instructive and poverty. Others chose to express themselves as capacity for hard work, group solidarity and political as an indicator of the prominence of Jews in leader- Jews first, either through Jewish socialist groups or Zi- activeness.” ship positions. In the Sixth Congress of the Bolshevik onism. Still others struggled for equality in the empire, However, being from a non-Russian minority, Sta- Russian Social Democratic Labor Party and its Central so they could remain Jews and be equal. One group lin always seemed suspicious of this other minori- Committee elected in August 1917, we find that five sought a radical solution to their and society’s predic- ty group. When he was commissar of nationalities of the committee’s 21 members were Jewish. This in- ament, a communist revolution, and one that would from 1917 to 1924, he was called upon to investigate eluded Trotsky, Zinoviev, Moisei Uritsky, Sverdlov and not include other voices such as the Bund or Menshe- a “mess,” according to Molotov. He didn’t appoint a Grigori Sokolnikov. Except for Sverdlov, they were viks, but solely that of their party. They had no com- single Jew to the committee and Lenin wondered why. all from Ukraine. The next year they were joined by punction at murdering their coreligionists. They were Trotsky’s aversion to seeing himself in a Jewish context Kamenev and Radek. Jews made up 20% of the central not more or less ethical than their non-Jewish peers. likely derived from the early disputes in 1904 when the committees until 1921, when there were no Jews on How can we explain their disproportionate presence revolutionaries had to decide whether Jews would be this leading governing body. in the leadership of the revolution? It would be as if included as a distinct group in the organization. The high percentage of Jews in governing circles in the Druse minority in Israel made up half of Benjamin these early years matched their percentage in urban Netanyahu's cabinet, or Armenians were half of Em- FOR THE Jewish revolutionaries, the years from 1904 environments, politburo member Sergo Ordzhonikid- manuel Macron’s government in . to the revolution were spent in a fever of activity. In ze told the 15th Congress of the party, according to Perhaps the only way to understand some of it is 1904, a dispute at the Russian Social Democratic Labor Solzhenitsyn. Most Jews lived in towns and cities due to recognize that at Nelson Mandela’s 1963 Rivonia Party between Julius Martov and Lenin led to the ere- to urbanization and laws that had kept them off the trial in South Africa five of the 13 arrested were Jew- ation of Lenin’s Bolsheviks and Martov's Mensheviks. land. ish, as were around one quarter of the 1960s Freedom Martov was Jewish, as were many Mensheviks. At the Jewish membership in top circles continued to de- Riders in the US. The 20th century was a century of heart of the debate that led to the split in the RSDLP cline in the 1920s. By the 11th Congress, only Lazar Jewish activism, often for non-Jewish causes and was a dispute over whether the General Jewish Labor Kaganovich was elected to the Central Committee often without an outwardly “Jewish” context. The Bund (the “Bund”), which had cofounded the RSDLP in 1922 alongside 26 other members. Subsequently Freedom Riders didn’t go as a “Jewish voice for Afri- in 1898, could remain an autonomous group. This was few Jews served in these leadership positions. In 1925 can-Americans,” they went as activists for civil rights. a harbinger of things to come. Eventually those Bund there were four Jews out of 63 members. Like the rest We prize minorities today who act for social justice leaders, such as Mikhail Liber, who sought to remain of their comrades, almost all of them were killed in the as minorities, but the 20th century required a more part of the revolution, but distinctly Jewish, would be purges. Others elected in 1927 and 1930 were shot as nuanced approach. The situation Jews were born into sent into exile or shot in the 1930s. well, including Grigory Kaminsky, who came from a in the 19th-century Pale of Settlement has no paral- Martov left Russia in 1920, calling the civil war that family of blacksmiths in Ukraine. With the exception lei with today’s Jewish experience. But despite eco- erupted after the revolution a “growing bestiality of Lev Mekhlis and Kaganovich, few senior commu- nomic hardship there was a spark in this community of men.” He died in exile. Some Jewish Bundists re- nist Jews survived the purges. amidst unique circumstances of radical change that mained in the USSR and rose to senior positions. Is- During the 1936 , numerous defen- impelled it forward to leadership in numerous sectors rael Leplevsky from Brest-Litovsk became minister of dants were Jewish. Of one group of 16 high-profile in Russia and abroad. ■