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| The term '''Jewish Bolshevism''' or '''Judeo-Bolshevism''' became popular among anti-Bolshevik and ] sources after 1917 ] in Russia, alluding to the fact that a majority of the Bolshevik leaders immediately after the revolution were ethnic ]s by birth. The derogatory meaning of the term is associated with the ] that Jews plot to ]. | |||
| In their battle against the Bolsheviks, the ] actively utilized antisemitism and according to ], "primarily through '']'', the Whites spread these charges to an international audience."<ref>] (1997): ''Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From'' (The Free Press - Simon & Shuster) p.93. ISBN 0-684-83131-7</ref> ] writes: "t is rare to find an anti-Semitic source after 1917 which does not stand in debt to the White Russian analysis of the Revolution."<ref>] (1976): ''Occult Establishment: The Dawn of the New Age and The Occult Establishment'', (Open Court Publishing), p.295. ISBN 0-87548-434-4</ref> | |||
| ] propaganda poster depicting ] ]] | ] propaganda poster depicting ] ]] | ||
| The term '''Jewish Bolshevism''', was used by enemies of the ]s alluding to the fact that, immediately after the 1917 Russian Revolution, a majority of the Bolshevik leaders, such as ], ], ], ], ], ], ] and ], were ethnic Jews by birth. Also, ] had a maternal Jewish grandfather (Alexander Blank). The derogatory meaning of the term is associated with the ] that Jewry is dominating or was planning to dominate the world. | |||
| ==Background== | |||
| ⚫ | |||
| The significant Jewish involvement in all ]ary movements ]. |
The significant Jewish involvement in all ]ary movements ]. For centuries Jews had been an oppressed and despised minority in the ]. They had long endured a form of physical segregation (see ], ], ], ], ]). | ||
| In 1922, of the 44,148 members of the Bolshevik party that had joined before 1917 (the Old Guard, as Lenin referred to them) only 7.1% were Jewish (65% were Russian). The numbers of Jews were higher at the top. Of the 9 members of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party in April 1917, during which Lenin's "April Theses" were declared, 3 were Jewish ( |
In 1922, of the 44,148 members of the Bolshevik party that had joined before 1917 (the Old Guard, as Lenin referred to them) only 7.1% were Jewish (65% were Russian). The numbers of Jews were higher at the top. Of the 9 members of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party in April 1917, during which Lenin's "April Theses" were declared, 3 were Jewish (], ] plus ] and not counting Lenin). Of the 12 people who, during a historic meeting on October 10, 1917, planned the details of the October Revolution, 6 were Jewish ( Zinoviev, Kamenev, ], ], Sverdlov, and ], although Kamenev and Zinoviev opposed the revolution). <!-- See for more numbers (in Russian). Also see Soljenitsyn's :"Deux Siecles Ensemble ...",Tome 2,page 85. --> | ||
| The number of Jews in top administrative positions began to decline soon after 1917 |
The number of Jews in top administrative positions began to decline soon after 1917. It continued to shrink heavily in the 1930s when Stalin had his old comrades Kamenev and Zinoviev executed while in prison, after a rigged trial in 1936. Kamenev and Zinoviev had previously been expelled, in 1926 and 1927, from the top positions they shared with Stalin in the Soviet ruling elite. Leon Trotsky had concurrently been expelled from the Soviet Union in 1927 and was then assassinated in Mexico City in 1940, by Soviet agent Raul Mercader. Thus by the year 1940, and after his rapprochement with Hitler's Germany, Stalin had eliminated virtually all Jews from very high level government positions inside the Soviet Union. Thus so-called ''Jewish Bolshevism'', in the new Soviet Union, had lasted not more than ten years (1917-1927). | ||
| Out of Lenin's 15 Peoples' Commissars ]s in 1919, 6 were Jewish (Trotsky, Uritsky, Isaac Steinberg<ref></ref>, I. A. Teodorovich, Simeon Dimanstein and Sokolnikov). Among the 23 narkoms between 1923–1930, there were 12 Russians, only 5 Jews, 2 Georgians (] and ]), 1 Pole, 1 Moldavian, 1 Latvian, and 1 Ukrainian. The situation had clearly evolved, within a relatively short time, to the advantage of the Russian majority. In the 1930s, there was only 1 person of Jewish descent in the Politburo, ]. | |||
| ⚫ | There are also claims that Jews were highly prominent among the members of the secret police and other instruments of oppression. Indeed, of the 12 members of the ] Counter-revolutionary department in 1918, 6 were Jewish. However, of the 42 Cheka prosecutors in September, 1918, at the height of ], only 8 were Jewish. The rest were 14 Latvians, 13 Russians and 7 Poles. Only 3.7% of the rank-and-file Cheka agents were Jewish at that time. | ||
| To restate the case again in fewer words: there were 3 Jews among the 5 members of the ] in the first half of the 1920's (], ],] and not counting Lenin ). There were none among the 9 members of the ] in 1927, the above three having been expelled from the Party. In the 1930's, there was only 1 person of Jewish descent in the Politburo, namely ]. | |||
| ⚫ | There are also claims that Jews were highly prominent among the members of the secret police and other instruments of oppression. Indeed, of the 12 members of the ] Counter-revolutionary department in 1918, 6 were Jewish. However, of the 42 Cheka prosecutors in September, 1918, at the height of ], only 8 were Jewish |
||
| In the mid-1930's, under the leadership of ] (who was Jewish), the Jewish presence in the secret police briefly became dominant: of the people surrounding Yagoda, 39% were Jewish and only 30% Russian. The immediate predecessors to Yagoda in that same position were also Jewish : Iosif Unschlicht and Meier Trillisser. Genrikh Yagoda's secret police oversaw the execution of both Zinoviev and Kamenev, but fell victim to Stalin's next round of purges: Yagoda was replaced with ethnic Russian ] in September 1936, then he was arrested and executed in March 1937. Under Yezhov, the number of Jews fell precipitiously (to just 6 people) while the number of ethnic Russians among the leadership of the secret police, ] rose to 102 people (67%) and the purges, at Stalin's instigation, entered their bloodiest period (1937–1938). | In the mid-1930's, under the leadership of ] (who was Jewish), the Jewish presence in the secret police briefly became dominant: of the people surrounding Yagoda, 39% were Jewish and only 30% Russian. The immediate predecessors to Yagoda in that same position were also Jewish : Iosif Unschlicht and Meier Trillisser. Genrikh Yagoda's secret police oversaw the execution of both Zinoviev and Kamenev, but fell victim to Stalin's next round of purges: Yagoda was replaced with ethnic Russian ] in September 1936, then he was arrested and executed in March 1937. Under Yezhov, the number of Jews fell precipitiously (to just 6 people) while the number of ethnic Russians among the leadership of the secret police, ] rose to 102 people (67%) and the purges, at Stalin's instigation, entered their bloodiest period (1937–1938). | ||
| ==Nazi Germany== | |||
| See and (in Russian) for sources, more numbers and commentary. | |||
| ⚫ | In ], this term expressed the common perception that ] was a Jewish-inspired and Jewish-led movement seeking world domination from its very origin: ]. The term was popularized in print by German journalist Dietrich Eckhart, who authored the pamphlet "''Der Bolschewismus von Moses bis Lenin''" in the early 1920s. This was followed by ]'s highly inflammatory statement in "Mein Kampf" (1924): "''In Russian Bolshevism we must see Jewry's twentieth century effort to take world dominion unto itself''". | ||
| ==United States and Great Britain== | |||
| Contemporary assessments in the |
Contemporary assessments in the United States and Great Britain during the 1920s of the involvement of ] in the Bolshevik revolution often tended, for political reasons, to overstate the case: | ||
| Captain Montgomery Schuyler, a military intelligence officer in Russia, reported regularly to the chief of staff of ] Intelligence (the Army handled intelligence before the ] was established), who relayed the reports to the President. In one of these, declassified in 1958, Schuyler states: | Captain Montgomery Schuyler, a military intelligence officer in Russia, reported regularly to the chief of staff of ] Intelligence (the Army handled intelligence before the ] was established), who relayed the reports to the President. In one of these, declassified in 1958, Schuyler states: | ||
| <blockquote>''It is probably unwise to say this loudly in the United States, but the Bolshevik movement is and has been since its beginning, guided and controlled by Russian Jews of the greasiest type …''<ref name="schuyler">U.S. National Archives. Record group 120: Records of the American Expeditionary Forces, |
<blockquote>''It is probably unwise to say this loudly in the United States, but the Bolshevik movement is and has been since its beginning, guided and controlled by Russian Jews of the greasiest type …''<ref name="schuyler">U.S. National Archives. Record group 120: Records of the American Expeditionary Forces, June 9, 1919.</ref></blockquote> | ||
| In another report on |
In another report on June 9, 1919, Schuyler cites ], who was then the chief correspondent in Russia for ''The Times'' of London. He writes the following, which the historical record shows, incidentally, to be mostly inaccurate: | ||
| <blockquote>''A table made up in 1918, by Robert Wilton, correspondent of the ''London Times'' in Russia, shows at that time there were 384 commissars including 2 Negroes, 13 Russians, 15 Chinamen, 22 Armenians and more than 300 Jews. Of the latter number, 264 had come from the United States since the downfall of the Imperial Government.''<ref name="schuyler" /></blockquote> | <blockquote>''A table made up in 1918, by Robert Wilton, correspondent of the ''London Times'' in Russia, shows at that time there were 384 commissars including 2 Negroes, 13 Russians, 15 Chinamen, 22 Armenians and more than 300 Jews. Of the latter number, 264 had come from the United States since the downfall of the Imperial Government.''<ref name="schuyler" /></blockquote> | ||
| ], in an article which originally appeared in the ''Illustrated Sunday Herald'' on |
], in an article which originally appeared in the ''Illustrated Sunday Herald'' on February 8 1920, wrote: | ||
| <blockquote>''There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistic Jews ''…<ref>Churchhill, Winston. Zionism versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People. ''Illustrated Sunday Herald''. |
<blockquote>''There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistic Jews ''…<ref>Churchhill, Winston. Zionism versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People. ''Illustrated Sunday Herald''. 8 February 1920.</ref></blockquote> | ||
| Even the American Ambassador to Russia, David Francis, wrote in January 1918 that most of the Bolshevik leaders were Jewish.<ref>Francis, David R. ''Russia From the American Embassy''. New York: C. Scribner's & Sons, 1921. p. 214.</ref> Also, in a report to the United States and other governments from British Intelligence, entitled "A Monthly Review of the Progress of Revolutionary Movements Abroad", it is stated in the first paragraph that international Communism is controlled by Jews.<ref>U.S. National Archives. Dept. of State Decimal File, 1910–1929, file 861.00/5067.</ref> | Even the American Ambassador to Russia, David Francis, wrote in January 1918 that most of the Bolshevik leaders were Jewish.<ref>Francis, David R. ''Russia From the American Embassy''. New York: C. Scribner's & Sons, 1921. p. 214.</ref> Also, in a report to the United States and other governments from British Intelligence, entitled "A Monthly Review of the Progress of Revolutionary Movements Abroad", it is stated in the first paragraph that international Communism is controlled by Jews.<ref>U.S. National Archives. Dept. of State Decimal File, 1910–1929, file 861.00/5067.</ref> | ||
| ⚫ | == References== | ||
| Russian writer and Nobel Prize winner ] has recently (2002) reviewed in great depth, and in a truly unbiased and heartfelt way, the role of the Jewish people in left wing movements in Russia,including in revolutionary Bolshevism. He writes (translated from Russian ): “ ''As we can see, during 1917, there was no selective preference of the Jewish people towards the ]. However the overall Jewish involvement in all forms of revolutionary movements had become apparent for quite some time. At the latest meeting of the Russian Social Democratic Party (London, 1907), if one includes the ], the Jewish representatives totaled over 160 seats or about one half of the 302-305 attendees of this congress.'' ” Also in the same chapter : " '' the Jewish population as a whole had a very guarded even hostile attitude towards the Bolsheviks at the beginning. But, as the revolution progressed, the Jewish population acquired complete freedom while it gained the expansion of its political,social and cultural activities which, incidentally, were very well organized ''. '' Consequently the Jewish population did nothing to | |||
| <div class="references-small"><references/></div> | |||
| prevent Bolshevik Jews from taking over the leadership of the new system . Unfortunately the newcomers took advantage of the change to cruelly exceed the powers that had fallen into their own hands " '' | |||
| ==Further reading== | |||
| ⚫ | * Arkady Vaksberg, " Stalin against the Jews ", 1994, Vintage Books (a division of Random House,New York),ISBN 0-679-42207-2 | ||
| ] | ] | ||
| ] | ] | ||
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| ] | ] | ||
| ] | ] | ||
| ⚫ | == References== | ||
| ⚫ | * Arkady Vaksberg, " Stalin against the Jews ", 1994, Vintage Books (a division of Random House,New York),ISBN 0-679-42207-2 | ||
| * Alexandre Soljenitsyne, "Deux siecles ensemble,1917-1972, Juifs et Russes pendant la periode sovietique", 2003,Librairie Artheme Fayard,Paris. ISBN 2-213-61518-7. This exhaustive historical study, originally published in Russian, has never been translated in English. | |||
Revision as of 11:37, 18 December 2006
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The term Jewish Bolshevism or Judeo-Bolshevism became popular among anti-Bolshevik and antisemitic sources after 1917 October Revolution in Russia, alluding to the fact that a majority of the Bolshevik leaders immediately after the revolution were ethnic Jews by birth. The derogatory meaning of the term is associated with the conspiracy theory that Jews plot to dominate the world.
In their battle against the Bolsheviks, the White movement actively utilized antisemitism and according to Daniel Pipes, "primarily through the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Whites spread these charges to an international audience." James Webb writes: "t is rare to find an anti-Semitic source after 1917 which does not stand in debt to the White Russian analysis of the Revolution."
Background
The significant Jewish involvement in all Russian Revolutionary movements had complex social roots. For centuries Jews had been an oppressed and despised minority in the Russian Empire. They had long endured a form of physical segregation (see Pale of Settlement, May Laws, pogrom, Cantonist, Beilis trial).
In 1922, of the 44,148 members of the Bolshevik party that had joined before 1917 (the Old Guard, as Lenin referred to them) only 7.1% were Jewish (65% were Russian). The numbers of Jews were higher at the top. Of the 9 members of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party in April 1917, during which Lenin's "April Theses" were declared, 3 were Jewish (Kamenev, Zinoviev plus Sverdlov and not counting Lenin). Of the 12 people who, during a historic meeting on October 10, 1917, planned the details of the October Revolution, 6 were Jewish ( Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Uritsky, Sverdlov, and Sokolnikov, although Kamenev and Zinoviev opposed the revolution).
The number of Jews in top administrative positions began to decline soon after 1917. It continued to shrink heavily in the 1930s when Stalin had his old comrades Kamenev and Zinoviev executed while in prison, after a rigged trial in 1936. Kamenev and Zinoviev had previously been expelled, in 1926 and 1927, from the top positions they shared with Stalin in the Soviet ruling elite. Leon Trotsky had concurrently been expelled from the Soviet Union in 1927 and was then assassinated in Mexico City in 1940, by Soviet agent Raul Mercader. Thus by the year 1940, and after his rapprochement with Hitler's Germany, Stalin had eliminated virtually all Jews from very high level government positions inside the Soviet Union. Thus so-called Jewish Bolshevism, in the new Soviet Union, had lasted not more than ten years (1917-1927).
Out of Lenin's 15 Peoples' Commissars Narkoms in 1919, 6 were Jewish (Trotsky, Uritsky, Isaac Steinberg, I. A. Teodorovich, Simeon Dimanstein and Sokolnikov). Among the 23 narkoms between 1923–1930, there were 12 Russians, only 5 Jews, 2 Georgians (Stalin and Ordzhonikidze), 1 Pole, 1 Moldavian, 1 Latvian, and 1 Ukrainian. The situation had clearly evolved, within a relatively short time, to the advantage of the Russian majority. In the 1930s, there was only 1 person of Jewish descent in the Politburo, Lazar Kaganovich.
There are also claims that Jews were highly prominent among the members of the secret police and other instruments of oppression. Indeed, of the 12 members of the Cheka Counter-revolutionary department in 1918, 6 were Jewish. However, of the 42 Cheka prosecutors in September, 1918, at the height of Red Terror, only 8 were Jewish. The rest were 14 Latvians, 13 Russians and 7 Poles. Only 3.7% of the rank-and-file Cheka agents were Jewish at that time.
In the mid-1930's, under the leadership of Genrikh Yagoda (who was Jewish), the Jewish presence in the secret police briefly became dominant: of the people surrounding Yagoda, 39% were Jewish and only 30% Russian. The immediate predecessors to Yagoda in that same position were also Jewish : Iosif Unschlicht and Meier Trillisser. Genrikh Yagoda's secret police oversaw the execution of both Zinoviev and Kamenev, but fell victim to Stalin's next round of purges: Yagoda was replaced with ethnic Russian Nikolai Yezhov in September 1936, then he was arrested and executed in March 1937. Under Yezhov, the number of Jews fell precipitiously (to just 6 people) while the number of ethnic Russians among the leadership of the secret police, NKVD rose to 102 people (67%) and the purges, at Stalin's instigation, entered their bloodiest period (1937–1938).
Nazi Germany
In Nazi Germany, this term expressed the common perception that Communism was a Jewish-inspired and Jewish-led movement seeking world domination from its very origin: Karl Marx. The term was popularized in print by German journalist Dietrich Eckhart, who authored the pamphlet "Der Bolschewismus von Moses bis Lenin" in the early 1920s. This was followed by Hitler's highly inflammatory statement in "Mein Kampf" (1924): "In Russian Bolshevism we must see Jewry's twentieth century effort to take world dominion unto itself".
United States and Great Britain
Contemporary assessments in the United States and Great Britain during the 1920s of the involvement of ethnic Jews in the Bolshevik revolution often tended, for political reasons, to overstate the case:
Captain Montgomery Schuyler, a military intelligence officer in Russia, reported regularly to the chief of staff of U.S. Army Intelligence (the Army handled intelligence before the CIA was established), who relayed the reports to the President. In one of these, declassified in 1958, Schuyler states:
It is probably unwise to say this loudly in the United States, but the Bolshevik movement is and has been since its beginning, guided and controlled by Russian Jews of the greasiest type …
In another report on June 9, 1919, Schuyler cites Robert Wilton, who was then the chief correspondent in Russia for The Times of London. He writes the following, which the historical record shows, incidentally, to be mostly inaccurate:
A table made up in 1918, by Robert Wilton, correspondent of the London Times in Russia, shows at that time there were 384 commissars including 2 Negroes, 13 Russians, 15 Chinamen, 22 Armenians and more than 300 Jews. Of the latter number, 264 had come from the United States since the downfall of the Imperial Government.
Winston Churchill, in an article which originally appeared in the Illustrated Sunday Herald on February 8 1920, wrote:
There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistic Jews …
Even the American Ambassador to Russia, David Francis, wrote in January 1918 that most of the Bolshevik leaders were Jewish. Also, in a report to the United States and other governments from British Intelligence, entitled "A Monthly Review of the Progress of Revolutionary Movements Abroad", it is stated in the first paragraph that international Communism is controlled by Jews.
References
- Daniel Pipes (1997): Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From (The Free Press - Simon & Shuster) p.93. ISBN 0-684-83131-7
- James Webb (1976): Occult Establishment: The Dawn of the New Age and The Occult Establishment, (Open Court Publishing), p.295. ISBN 0-87548-434-4
- ^ U.S. National Archives. Record group 120: Records of the American Expeditionary Forces, June 9, 1919.
- Churchhill, Winston. Zionism versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People. Illustrated Sunday Herald. 8 February 1920.
- Francis, David R. Russia From the American Embassy. New York: C. Scribner's & Sons, 1921. p. 214.
- U.S. National Archives. Dept. of State Decimal File, 1910–1929, file 861.00/5067.
Further reading
- Arkady Vaksberg, " Stalin against the Jews ", 1994, Vintage Books (a division of Random House,New York),ISBN 0-679-42207-2