Official Antisemitism in the USSR?

[KurtFF8]

I had a teacher recently claim that under Stalin that there was a period of official Antisemitism in the USSR. I've tried to look into it (as I've heard this claimed before) but I can't find any good sources either making an argument that this was the case or the contrary.

Anyone know of any good sources on the subject?

[Hiero]

What does the teacher mean by offical? As in there was a law discriminating against Jews, or it was added to the consitution?

Here is the quote from the wikepedia aritcle, I have bolded the part that is most important. The quote is a letter to some Jewish newspaper in the USA in the 1930's.


In answer to your inquiry: National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism. Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of anti-semitism. In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty.

Joseph Stalin. Works, Vol. 13, July 1930-January 1934, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1955, p. 30

Secondly there was lots of Jewish institution, art, Yiddish newspapers and magazines etc in the USSR.

Thirdly alot of people in powerfull positions in the USSR come from European Jewish backgrounds, a notable person is Lazar Kaganovich. Kaganovich held many top position in the CPSU, he was a member of the Politburo and central commitee and an ally of Stalin up till Stalin's death and a defender and member of the anti-party group after Stalin's death.

If Stalin and the USSR was anti-semitic Kaganovich never would have made it this far. Anti-Semites do not care if the person is practicising Judaism or not, they view Jews as a race of people. For the anti-Semite even Karl Marx is a jew, who "invented" Communism only to further the Jewish race, you can find such ideas in Hitler's Mein Kempf. Stalin nor the Soviet union followed any of this anti-semitic (il)logic.

So there is no evidence that anti-semitism was offical. Challenge your teacher to show evidence that it was a government policy. There is no such policy.

What people get confused about is that certian Jewish people were targeted during Stalin's purges. Nationalist, religious preachers and religious institutions were also targeted during this era. But Jewish people were never specifically targeted for being just Jews, as compared to the history of anti-semitism in Europe. What ever errors occured due to zealous actions of the CPSU to maintan socialism that effected people's lives, Jews did not suffer any more then other nationalities and cultures.

Also the USSR suported the creation of Israel (a huge mistake in my opinion). There was also during Stalin's time a attempt to crete a Yiddish republic in th Soviety union. These attitudes generall conflict with claims of modern historians.

I will see if I can find any more sources, but you can always deal with Stalin's own words. Or even look at modern sources on Stalin, they generally contradict each other. Some will omit certian things to make a point, while others will take them onboard to make another piont. Both in a negative way, but when taken on mass what Stalin and the USSR did contradicts the interpretation. You only have to point this out and the fallacy becomes apparent. This is just a general problem with western style of recalling of history and the current trend to use biographies as accurate telling of history.

[KurtFF8]

Well the example used by the teacher was for a film we were watching called Circus (made in 1936) which was a Stalinist Musical Comedy. And there's a scene towards the end where all of the nationalities are singing a lullaby to this child (it's a mixed child from America, and an anti-racist film incidentally) and one of the languages represented was indeed Yiddish. My teacher claimed that that line was cut out "during the official antisemitism of the USSR" and the line was later reinserted.

[Revy]

I don't think that there was anti-Semitism in the USSR before or after Stalin. It was a quintessentially Stalinist phenomenon. Anti-Semitic purges of Jews most definitely occurred. The Night of the Murdered Poets, for example, the purges resulting from the supposed "Jewish doctors' plot" which was a hoax created to deliberately repress Jews in the USSR.

Of course, what else can you expect? Stalin was reactionary. He banned homosexuality in 1934, I believe, banned abortion in 1936, and regressed from other progressive reforms made under the Bolsheviks.

I like to call Stalin a crypto-Tsar.:sleep:

[scarletghoul]

I do not know much about antisemitism in the USSR, but I know that Stalin created the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Dunno what else though...

[Hiero]

I don't think that there was anti-Semitism in the USSR before or after Stalin. It was a quintessentially Stalinist phenomenon. Anti-Semitic purges of Jews most definitely occurred. The Night of the Murdered Poets, for example, the purges resulting from the supposed "Jewish doctors' plot" which was a hoax created to deliberately repress Jews in the USSR.

Why they hell did you ignore my post?

[Leo]

Antisemitism indeed existed in Stalinist Russia as a state policy for a period:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors'_plot (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors%27_plot)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_o...Murdered_Poets (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Murdered_Poets)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootless_cosmopolitan (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootless_cosmopolitan)

[black magick hustla]

yeah, whats the whole deal with the rootless cosmopolitan thing. also its an insult that apparently modern fascists have recuperated.

[Hiero]

So no one can show it was offical policy?

Come on you hacks, Soviet Union documents have been open for awhile now.

[Leo]

The rootless cosmopolitan thing was an official policy.

[Yehuda Stern]

It was not official policy just like discrimination of black people in the USA isn't official policy.

[Hiero]

It actually was official and legitimised by the state in the USA. There was slavery then jim crow laws.

There is no evidence that Jews were specifically targeted for being Jewish, nor treated any different to other ethnicities. The evidence points to Jewish nationalist and pro-Zionist being targeted, not Jews for being Jews.

[Yehuda Stern]

And do you believe that after slavery and Jim Crow were abolished, the American state was no longer racist?

[KurtFF8]

And do you believe that after slavery and Jim Crow were abolished, the American state was no longer racist?

Institutional racism still very much exists as official policy in the US via things like drug laws.

It's interesting that the Rootless cosmopolitan article actually mentions the example from Circus that I mentioned: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootless_cosmopolitan#Legacy

Well after looking briefly at some of the articles, it certainly seems that there was official antisemitism in the USSR under Stalin. This isn't surprising as was mentioned he rolled back other progressive reforms like banning homosexuality, abortion, rolled back feminist policies, etc.

Edit: I suppose this article could help me too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Russia#Under_Stalin_.281927-1953.29

[Hiero]

And do you believe that after slavery and Jim Crow were abolished, the American state was no longer racist?
No. But you said it was never offical policy, I said it was. And that having an offical policy laid grounds for later racism.

This never happened in the USSR, it was never "offical" policy. Ofcourse some susipicious actions did occur, and Zionist and nationalist sentiments could have been dealt differently. I will say it again Jews were not singled out, they did not suffer and great wrong doing then other nationalities and ethnicities in the USSR.

[Panda Tse Tung]

the only source I've seen jumping by is Wikipedia. Which is definitely horrible.
Can't anyone do better then that?

[manic expression]

I'm actually interested in this so I'll look into it sometime in the future. I recall hearing the Doctors' Plot was especially bad for Jews in the Soviet Union, but I'll look for a good source on that.

[Yehuda Stern]

you said it was never offical policy, I said it was.

OK, fair enough. But racism hardly requires that the state make it an official policy to exist. It exists due to the crisis of capitalism and the need of the capitalists to divide the workers.

At any rate, Jews were certainly singled out in the doctors trial, night of the murdered poets, and so on. While struggling against the United Opposition, Stalin also used a lot of anti-Semitic rhetoric.

[Rosa Provokateur]

I've heard of Stalin using anti-Semitism, it might not have been official policy but then again Stalin was the official policy.

[KurtFF8]

OK, fair enough. But racism hardly requires that the state make it an official policy to exist. It exists due to the crisis of capitalism and the need of the capitalists to divide the workers.

I think that's false. Racism doesn't exist as a result of capitalism, it has been around before capitalism, although capitalists have used it historically to divide the working class and that is why it persists today. (It may exist as a result of dividing oppressed classes in general, but I don't think it's unique to capitalism).

Edit: although evidently Wikipedia disagrees with me (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism#In_history) (That's right I looked it up on wikipedia out of curiosity hah)


While racism is most commonly accepted to be a product of European colonialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism) during the early modern period (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_modern_period), several authors have put forward the idea that racism may have its roots in Classical Antiquity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Antiquity) or the Middle Ages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages).

Although it doesn't completely contradict my point.

[manic expression]

I think that's false. Racism doesn't exist as a result of capitalism, it has been around before capitalism, although capitalists have used it historically to divide the working class and that is why it persists today. (It may exist as a result of dividing oppressed classes in general, but I don't think it's unique to capitalism).

Edit: although evidently Wikipedia disagrees with me (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism#In_history) (That's right I looked it up on wikipedia out of curiosity hah)



Although it doesn't completely contradict my point.

No, not completely, but racism, as we know it, developed relatively recently. In the feudal age, religious and linguistic groups were the rule of thumb, ethnicity was less important. Since there were no nation-states, there was little emphasis on race. Saladin was Kurdish, and yet he united most of the fractured Caliphate in Turkish Turkey and Arabian Iraq, Syria, the Levant and Egypt (which later became ruled by the Mamluks, a vast mix of soldiers of various Turkish backgrounds); when the Mongols appeared, Europeans were most concerned about their faith and not their blood. If you want to know about antiquity, just remember that a black African became the emperor of Rome (Septimus Severus IIRC). That's just off the top of my head.

Sure, there were examples of racism in these times, but it certainly was not the defining force as we know it today, it was secondary at most.

[spartan]

I was watching a repeat of a BBC program where this guy goes through Russia.

Anyway he came to the Jewish autonomous oblast where he met some old Russian Jews who told of how they were persecuted by Stalin post-WW2.

Stalin accused them of being bourgeois nationalists (even though he originally encouraged all this Jewish identity stuff) and the state forces closed down all the Synagogues and publically burnt up to 30,000 books connected to Judaism in one of the oblast's main cities which reminded me of the Nazi book burnings in the 30's I must say.

I don't know if any of this was official or widespread but it certainly did happen (though I expect one of the resident Stalinists here will dispute all this and proclaim these old Jewish blokes to be bourgeois scum who are under the pay of the western bourgeois media who are hell-bent on blackening the glorious name of comrade Stalin).

[Yehuda Stern]

Historically racism arose for all sorts of reasons; however, I never said that it never existed before capitalism, but that today it exists to serve the interests of the ruling class.

[Led Zeppelin]

If you want to know about antiquity, just remember that a black African became the emperor of Rome (Septimus Severus IIRC).

He was just born in the African part of the Roman empire, he wasn't black:


Severus was of Italian Roman ancestry on his mothers side and of either Berber or Phoenician ancestory on his fathers.

[KurtFF8]

Historically racism arose for all sorts of reasons; however, I never said that it never existed before capitalism, but that today it exists to serve the interests of the ruling class.

I agree with this for the most part, especially in places like the United States, when one learns of how much racism was promoted by the ruling classes it does indeed become clear that there have always been efforts to counter it. But to use an analogy, once it has been promoted, it at some point no longer requires continuation of the ruling classes efforts to go on (which is of course the point of their efforts so perhaps this is circular). Although there still are efforts of the ruling class in America to promote racism, and it was even official in the south until the 1960s.

[Yehuda Stern]

I don't think it's true that the ruling class doesn't need to promote racism anymore - ideologies don't come out of nowhere, and if people are racist, it's due to the effect of some class, probably the ruling class. Racist rhetoric is just much more camouflaged today than it used to be. For example, in Israel, few mainstream politicians would openly say that they want to expel all the Palestinians (although that would easily have flied a few decades back): they'll just talk about being "tough on terrorism" and let the common chauvinist perception of terrorist = Palestinian do the rest of the work.

[Devrim]

In the feudal age, religious and linguistic groups were the rule of thumb, ethnicity was less important. Since there were no nation-states, there was little emphasis on race. Saladin was Kurdish, and yet he united most of the fractured Caliphate in Turkish Turkey and Arabian Iraq, Syria, the Levant and Egypt (which later became ruled by the Mamluks, a vast mix of soldiers of various Turkish backgrounds); when the Mongols appeared, Europeans were most concerned about their faith and not their blood.

I don't think that even linguistic groups had much relevance in the Middle East. Salahuddin Ayyubi may have been a Kurd, but of course like every educated man, he would have spoken Arabic. The western idea of nationality had little impact in the Middle east until the end of the nineteenth century. The Turkish concept of 'Milliyet' existed, but wouldn't have differentiated between ethnic, or linguistic groups. There was for example, an 'Armenian Milliyet', but this is more connected to the fact that the followed the Armenian church than them being ethnic Armenians or Armanian speakers.

Devrim

[Valeofruin]

What does the teacher mean by offical? As in there was a law discriminating against Jews, or it was added to the consitution?

Here is the quote from the wikepedia aritcle, I have bolded the part that is most important. The quote is a letter to some Jewish newspaper in the USA in the 1930's.



Joseph Stalin. Works, Vol. 13, July 1930-January 1934, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1955, p. 30

Secondly there was lots of Jewish institution, art, Yiddish newspapers and magazines etc in the USSR.

Thirdly alot of people in powerfull positions in the USSR come from European Jewish backgrounds, a notable person is Lazar Kaganovich. Kaganovich held many top position in the CPSU, he was a member of the Politburo and central commitee and an ally of Stalin up till Stalin's death and a defender and member of the anti-party group after Stalin's death.

If Stalin and the USSR was anti-semitic Kaganovich never would have made it this far. Anti-Semites do not care if the person is practicising Judaism or not, they view Jews as a race of people. For the anti-Semite even Karl Marx is a jew, who "invented" Communism only to further the Jewish race, you can find such ideas in Hitler's Mein Kempf. Stalin nor the Soviet union followed any of this anti-semitic (il)logic.

So there is no evidence that anti-semitism was offical. Challenge your teacher to show evidence that it was a government policy. There is no such policy.

What people get confused about is that certian Jewish people were targeted during Stalin's purges. Nationalist, religious preachers and religious institutions were also targeted during this era. But Jewish people were never specifically targeted for being just Jews, as compared to the history of anti-semitism in Europe. What ever errors occured due to zealous actions of the CPSU to maintan socialism that effected people's lives, Jews did not suffer any more then other nationalities and cultures.

Also the USSR suported the creation of Israel (a huge mistake in my opinion). There was also during Stalin's time a attempt to crete a Yiddish republic in th Soviety union. These attitudes generall conflict with claims of modern historians.

I will see if I can find any more sources, but you can always deal with Stalin's own words. Or even look at modern sources on Stalin, they generally contradict each other. Some will omit certian things to make a point, while others will take them onboard to make another piont. Both in a negative way, but when taken on mass what Stalin and the USSR did contradicts the interpretation. You only have to point this out and the fallacy becomes apparent. This is just a general problem with western style of recalling of history and the current trend to use biographies as accurate telling of history.

Holy crap the first poster did fantastic, Props x247

[S. Zetor]

Hiero quotes a Jewish newspaper in the USA in the 1930's as quoting Stalin, "In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty."

The nature of USSR policy towards the nationalities changed in the mid-30s from an active korenizatsiya - when also anti-semitism was fiercely fought and when Stalin was a supported of korenizatsiya - to, basically, russification and "soviet patriotism", where things Russian played a dominant role.

"In the early years, Soviet patriotism promoted the 'internationalist motherland' and love for the all-Soviet homeland; elements of Russian nationalism were completely lacking. [..] Only after 1937 did propagandist language use convert the Great-Russian people into the 'great Russian people', 'first among equals', whom 'all the Union's peoples' treat with a 'holy' 'feeling of friendship, love, and gratitude'. Before World War II, Russian-national slogans were quite moderate, continuing what Stalin himself - long before 1937 - had considered the content of his 'revolutionary national pride'." (p. 149)

My main source btw is Gerhard Simon's 'Nationalism and Policy Toward the Nationalities in the Soviet Union' (1991), where my quotes come from. It's a bourgeois source, but as far as I can tell it seems pretty good, and as to the general facts about nationalities policy, it doesn't really contradict with e.g. Markku Kangaspuro's PhD findings about Soviet Karelia 1920-1939. (Available only in Finnish, I'm afraid.)

In 1929 Stalin upheld the view that at this stage, even though it was the final aim, it's not yet possible to merge nations and languages. In 1930, Stalin denounced Great-Russian chauvinism and demanded that minority cultures be given the chance to develop and grow, because he held that this was the precondition for the ultimate merger of cultures.

"In the mid-1930s, Stalin began to enforce a nationalities policy that assumed the USSR had entered the phase of national assimilation, of the 'merger of nations'." (p. 138)

No doubt all these changes in actual policies, centralization etc. were closely connected with the difficulties of building socialism in one isolated country. As far as socialist theory is concerned, I think the Soviet leadership made the wrong choice of explaining their actions with "corrected" theory, instead of openly admitting the problems.

The mentioned Yiddish Oblast, a "Soviet Zion" was a product of the 30s as well - it was part of the korenizatsiya policy when each nationality was given its own republic or autonomous area, with its own cultural institutions etc. It didn't really work out, not too many Jews migrated there, if I recall right.

About official anti-semitism, my impression is the same as Hiero's that there was no such thing, even though there indeed was national oppression in the form of russification after korenizatsiya was given up in the mid 30s. Simon writes that "Even though the percentage of Jews decreased after 1940, and particularly after the distinctly anti-Semitic policy pursued between 1948-1953, the percentage of Jews in the Party was more than twice as high, even during the Khruschev era, as in the total population. Several reasons explain this fact. As a people suffering discrimination, Jews supported the socialist movement in Tsarist Russia in disproportionately high numbers. Jews have by far been the most urbanized and educated ethnic group, and many members of the technical intelligentsia were Jews". (p. 34).

In general the book has only a few index notes on "anti-Semitism". Much of the actual beef is on pages 207-209:

"Relatively late - at the end of 1948 - zhdanovschina [the russification drive after 2 WW] became clearly anti-Semitic. Initially, the Soviet Union watched the birth of the state of Israel with a wait-and-see benevolence and recognized Israel in May 1948 [..] Since September 1948, the USSR distanced itself from the state of Israel; at the same time, a domestic propaganda campaign against 'Zionism' started. More and more Jews joined the ranks of the 'rootless cosmopolitans', and soon this group consisted nearly exclusively of Jews, who were accused of 'national nihilism', 'denunciation of national traditions', 'servility to the West', and soon even 'sabotage' and 'espionage'." (p. 207-208)

"On January 13, 1953, Pravda reported that a 'terrorist group of doctors' had 'been discovered', who had already murdered several Soviet leaders by giving them the wrong medical treatment and who planned further assassinations. Seven of the nine doctors named were Jewish. This so-called doctors' plot not only signalled a new great wave of purges, but must also be seen as a preview of the mass deportation of Jews, which Soviet authorities has already planned concretely and in detail. Stalin's death saved the Jews from meeting the same fate as Soviet Germans, Crimean Tatars, and the othe deported peoples." (p. 208-209.)

"The fact that Jewish national consciousness began to experience a renaissance in the USSR in the 1960s and the resulting determination of hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews to leave the USSR was primarily a consequence of the official and traditional anti-Semitism, which makes it impossible for Soviet Jews to give up their Jewish identity in Soviet society. Official anti-Semitism, which was camouflaged in the term anti-Zionism, reached proportions from 1967 to 1971 thta were reminiscent of Stalin's last years. When Soviet foreign policy increased its support for the Arabs' cause after the Six Day War in June 1967 and began a propaganda campaign against Israel, Zionism and World Jewry, it was only logical that these actions had repercussions on Jews in the Soviet Union. Any kind of support for Israel or American Jews was considered anti-Soviet. In addition to this official anti-Semitism, traditional anti-Semitism existed, which ignited as usual because so many Jews were among the different elites (science, art, Party) and because od the protectionist bonds among Jews." (p. 338)

Given that Simon seems not to distinguish between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, there must be certain qualifications as to the full implications of the text quoted above. I would agree with Hiero that there was no racist official policy against Jews as Jews, though - it is my intrepretation - there indeed was national oppression of Jews because they were subjects of russification just like other national minorities in the USSR. The fact remains, though, that along with Georgians, Armenians and Estonians, the Jews were among the most privileged national minorities in the USSR.

[manic expression]

He was just born in the African part of the Roman empire, he wasn't black:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septimius_Severus

I'm not saying you're wrong, but check out the circular painting on that page. This begs the question: what is "black"? If you ask me, if someone with that skin tone walked around today, s/he could very well be considered "black". It is up for debate, however.


I don't think that even linguistic groups had much relevance in the Middle East. Salahuddin Ayyubi may have been a Kurd, but of course like every educated man, he would have spoken Arabic. The western idea of nationality had little impact in the Middle east until the end of the nineteenth century. The Turkish concept of 'Milliyet' existed, but wouldn't have differentiated between ethnic, or linguistic groups. There was for example, an 'Armenian Milliyet', but this is more connected to the fact that the followed the Armenian church than them being ethnic Armenians or Armanian speakers.

Very interesting, thanks for the info. How would you characterize the relationship between Arabs and Persians in the medieval period?

[Devrim]

[/URL]Very interesting, thanks for the info. How would you characterize the relationship between Arabs and Persians in the medieval period?

It is not really my period. I know more about Turkish/Ottoman history, which of course for a long period was the history of the entire region.

However, I know that there were conflicts between Arabs, and non-Arabs (in this case Persians) during the period that you refer to. I think the conflict was as much religious as anything else. Basically, at the time of the conquests there was an idea that a Muslim was an Arab by definition. Of course, this was contrary to the teachings of Mohammed, but there were real reasons for people to believe it, i.e. the Arabs could tax non-believers, so they had a direct material interest in not 'accepting' conversions to Islam.

During the period following the conquest, there was a gradual shift of both the orientation of the Caliphate, from being an 'Arab' (but remember this is based on a collection of clans and tribe, not on national consciousness) empire to becoming a Muslim Empire, as there was simultaneously a shift in the religious adherence of the 'Persians'.

Although there is talk of Persian revival movements, it must be remembered that many of the leading families in these movements were actually Arabic speakers. Revival meant as much putting particular people of Persian ancestry into power, particularly the Samanids, who were actually Persian speaking, but they also included the Tahririds and the Saffarids, who were not.[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahirid"] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septimius_Severus) It should be remembered that of course these people spoke both Persian and Arabic. I am refering to the main language they used in court. Any educated man would have spoke Arabic as any educated European of the period would have spoke Latin. The difference being that many more people were educated in the Middle East at the time.

Persian culture became heavily Arabised. The adoption of the Arabic alphabet, and a considerable amount of its vocabulary is just one obvious example. However, the Arabs (in Persia) also became heavily 'Persianised' in that they adopted an urban culture and abandoned nomadism.

In some ways the struggle can be seen as one of nomads against pastorialists and urban dwellers.

The religious divergence after Kerbala can in some ways be viewed in this light.

Devrim

[MrSoul]

i hadnt heard anything this before. i wouldnt have though this would occur as the USSR was officially atheist... and lenin said the most clever russians were jewish