Jews like Vinaver, Martov, and others have been as active on the
anti-Bolshevist side as Trotzky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, and others have
been on the Bolshevist side, the anonymous writer employed by the
_Dearborn Independent_ resorts to a more cowardly and despicable
controversial trick than I have hitherto encountered, even in
anti-Semitic literature. Having charged that the Jews were united "in
a perfect phalanx" in support of Bolshevism, when confronted by Mr.
Hard with the evidence that there are Jews at the head of the
anti-Bolshevist forces, he coolly abandons his charge and insinuates
another. He says: "Look how the Jews control every phase of political
opinion in Russia! Doesn't there seem to be some ground for the
feeling that they are desirous of ruling everywhere?"
Not often, I venture to say, has any American journalist descended to
this low level. I am justified in asking Mr. Ford, who is primarily
responsible for the _Dearborn Independent_ and for its policy, whether
he considers it to be compatible with sound American citizenship and
with the traditions of our race to spread broadcast through the land
such cruelly unjust appeals to prejudice. Surely it is not difficult
to see this matter from the viewpoint of the Jew, which in this
instance is also the viewpoint of every fair-minded non-Jew. For the
Jew it is a case of being damned either way. When it is noted that
there are a few Jews holding prominent positions in the Bolshevist
regime, the whole race is stigmatized and charged with being engaged
in a conspiracy to destroy civilization; but when attention is called
to the fact that other Jews, far more numerous, are engaged in
fighting Bolshevism and attempting to save civilization, no credit for
that fact is given to the race; it is not admitted as a fact modifying
the previously formed sweeping judgment, but, on the contrary, is held
to be additional evidence of guilt. Nothing that Bolshevist
propagandists have attempted to do in this country involves anything
like the peril to our institutions that is involved in this deliberate
attempt to silence the anti-Bolshevist Jews by making even their
propaganda against Bolshevism appear as part of a conspiracy against
those institutions.
I am not here and now concerned to defend the Jews. Even were my gifts
much greater, I should not presume to arrogate to myself that honor.
The defense of the Jewish people against the aspersions cast upon them
by this cruel propaganda belongs in the first place to Jewish scholars
and publicists and can be left to them. My concern is the defense of
Christian civilization, of American ideals and institutions, of the
noblest Anglo-Saxon traditions. These things are our greatest wealth;
they are the heritage of our children. When, therefore, this hateful
propaganda imperils these things, it is both my duty and my privilege
to defend them. Anti-Semitism has no place in Christian civilization;
its spirit and its language are both alien and hostile to our Republic
and to the genius of the race of Milton and Lincoln.
It can be demonstrated to the full satisfaction of any open-minded
person of normal intelligence that Bolshevism is the negation of the
faith and morals which constitute the strongest bond of the Jewish
people. Trotzky has many times declared that he is no Jew, but a
"general proletarian," and Bela Kun, in a formal statement, declared
himself to be opposed to all religions and national cultures, the
Jewish included, and that he stood only for the economic interests of
the proletariat. I could quote many similar statements by prominent
Jewish Bolsheviki, were it necessary. The position taken by these men
is, of course, entirely logical. Not only is Bolshevism fundamentally
opposed to the Jewish religion; it is equally antagonistic to the
principle of nationality itself. How, then, can it be possible to
regard Bolshevism as typically and essentially Jewish, or as part of
an all-Jewish conspiracy? Is it possible to believe that a great
conspiratory scheme to direct the whole weight and influence of the
Jewish people to a single political end, conceived and led by the
ablest leaders of that great people so remarkable for their
intellectual power, would or could rest upon principles diametrically
and irreconcilably opposed to the greatest psychological force
motivating the conduct of the masses of that people?
These questions by themselves shatter the charge we are discussing.
There is, however, an immense mass of direct and positive evidence
available to all who desire to know the truth, but which is carefully
and studiously ignored by the preachers of anti-Semitism. If such men
as Mr. Ford are ignorant of the existence of this evidence, as we must
suppose them to be, their offense against America and American ideals
is not thereby appreciably lessened; their reckless and irresponsible
use of the wealth and other influential agents at their command adds
to the sum of their shame and wrongdoing. The greatest and strongest
Jewish Socialist organization in Russia and Poland, the "Bund," has
stood in solid opposition to Bolshevism and the Bolshevist regime
from the very beginning until now. Not only have leaders of the right
wing, or moderate section of the "Bund," such as Lieber, fought
Bolshevism with their full might, but leaders of the radical left
wing, such as Kossovsky and Medem, have been equally courageous and
uncompromising on the same side[1]. A tiny and negligible minority
split off from the "Bund" because of its anti-Bolshevist character and
formed a new organization, the "Communist Bund." Similarly, the
overwhelming mass of the Zionist party has consistently opposed
Bolshevism and all its works, and such men as Doctor Pasmanick, the
well-known Zionist leader of Odessa, have given their full support to
every anti-Bolshevist movement, political and military.
I have already referred to the activity of the well-known Jewish
leader, Vinaver, in the fight against Bolshevism. Mr. Vinaver is not a
Socialist; on the contrary, during many years he has been a
consistent opponent of Socialism and one of the foremost leaders of
the Constitutional Democratic party, of whose Central Committee he
was, and I believe still is, the chairman. Immediately after the March
revolution of 1917, Mr. Vinaver was appointed Senator by the First
Provisional Government. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly
from Petrograd, and later on, after his escape from Petrograd, served
as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of the Crimea. This
prominent Jewish anti-Socialist testifies that "not a single Jewish
Socialist faction has joined the Bolsheviki." From a report on this
subject cabled to this country by Vinaver in July, 1919, I quote the
following paragraphs, which speak for themselves.
The entire Russian Jewry struggles against Bolshevism. This is
true not only with regard to the bourgeoisie, but to the
democratic classes of the Russian Jewry as well. It is
sufficient to say that not a single Jewish Socialist faction has
joined the Bolsheviki. All political factions of the Russian
Jewry are struggling against Bolshevism.
The great majority of the Jewish population, including many of
the poor, are being classed by the Bolsheviki with the so-called
bourgeoisie, and every place where the Bolsheviki rule, the
Jewish population, not to speak of very insignificant
exceptions, is suffering and starving.
The Bolshevist regime has destroyed the industries and the
trade, and the Jewish population, which made its living mostly
through participation in the industrial and commercial life, is
suffering probably more than other nationalities. At the same
time, the Bolsheviki are persecuting all religions, and the
Jewish religious institutions have suffered from their despotic
rule not less than the institutions of the Christian religion.
The anti-Semites are making very wide use of the fact that
Trotzky is a Jew, but the participation of several Jews among
the Bolshevist leaders does not nullify the fact that the
Russian Jewry, in its overwhelming majority, struggles actively
against Bolshevism. _It is significant that Bolshevism spread
mostly in central and eastern Russia where the Jews constitute
an insignificant minority._
It is a significant fact that the only Socialist elected to the United
States Congress in the recent election, Meyer London, a Russian-born
Jew, is a vigorous opponent of Bolshevism. In view of such evidence as
the foregoing, it is surely not less than ridiculous to attempt to
make Bolshevism appear as a phase of Jewish Socialism, and a part of a
world-wide Jewish conspiracy, instead of what it is--namely, the wild
anarchical outburst of despairing and desperate masses of men. I
venture to say that when the history of this tragic episode in the
life of Russia is authoritatively written, it will be found that Jews
have not been responsible for the most objectionable features of
Bolshevism. Not even Trotzky need be excluded from this
generalization, for, while it is true that his genius made Bolshevism
the formidable military power it became, the brutal excesses of the
Red Terror must be charged against such men as Peters, the Lett, and
Dzerzhinsky, the Pole.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] see the articles published in the New York pro-Bolshevist weekly,
_Die Neue Welt_, June 27, July 4 and 11, 1919.
VI
BOLSHEVISM AND THE JEWS
No one who knows how the Jews of Russia, in common with the rest of
the population, have suffered from Bolshevist misrule will be likely
to give credence to the theory that Bolshevism is part of a Jewish
conspiracy. As everybody knows, Jews made up a very considerable part
of the commercial class in Russia. The indemnities levied upon this
class by the Bolshevist commissions in the cities have applied equally
to Jew and Gentile. It is a fact that ordinary Jewish shopkeepers have
been compelled to pay their full share of the indemnities so levied.
Scores of thousands of Jews have had their property confiscated and
been reduced to abject poverty. Many thousands more have had to flee,
leaving everything behind them, thankful only that they could save
their lives. The _Chresvy-chaikas_ have drawn no distinction between
Jew and Gentile, and the available records, meager as they are, prove
that the Jews have contributed their full quota to the long list of
the victims of these infamous terrorist organizations. Pogroms and
other manifestations of anti-Semitism have been too common in
Bolshevist Russia to permit any suspicion that Bolshevism is a
pro-Jewish movement. The evidence upon this point is overwhelming.
I am quite well aware that the statement that pogroms have been common
in Bolshevist Russia will be challenged and indignantly denied by many
of our American defenders of the Bolsheviki, Jews and Gentiles alike.
It is none the less a well-attested fact. I have in my possession a
mass of evidence which amply proves the truth of the statement. At the
same time, I do not mean to charge that the Soviet government has
deliberately instigated or authorized pogroms. Indeed, I am quite
ready to believe that the Soviet government has honestly desired and
attempted to prevent such pogroms. Lenin accepted the presidency of an
organization formed to combat anti-Semitism. The truth seems to be
that just as pogroms have admittedly taken place in the new republic
of Poland, despite the efforts of the Polish government to prevent
them, and just as pogroms were carried out by Denikin's Volunteer Army
despite General Denikin's attempts to prevent them, and the severe
punishments inflicted by him upon the culprits, so regular Bolshevist
troops in southern Russia have plundered and murdered Jews and raped
and mutilated Jewish women and girls. Just as these lines are being
written word comes, from sources of unquestionable authority, of
pogroms against the Jews in the Ukraine, in which Bolshevist troops
participated.
The Pogrom Victims' Relief Committee of the Russian Red Cross Society
published a report of its investigations of the Jewish pogroms in
southern Russia during the period when General Denikin's forces were
fighting the Bolsheviki. The report, based upon evidence of
unquestionable reliability, showed that Jews had been plundered and
murdered not only by disorderly troops of Denikin's Volunteer Army,
and by the troops of Petlura and by the robber bands led by "atamans,"
like Makhno, _but also by regular Bolshevist troops_. The report
attributes to the latter the destruction of at least thirteen Jewish
communities in southern Russia and the murder of five hundred Jews.
And this is only one report of many. Before me as I write is the
account given by an eyewitness of the pogrom which opened at
Novo-Poltavka on September 1, 1919, and lasted through the whole of
the week following. _More than one hundred Jews were murdered,
numerous women and girls were raped, and the entire colony was
plundered._ This pogrom was carried on by the guerrilla bands led by
"atamans" Makhno and Grigoriev, together with regular Bolshevist
troops.[2] Do you ask me to believe that these pogroms were
deliberately brought about as part of a "Jewish" conspiracy?
Under the rule of the Bolsheviki the local organs of Jewish autonomy
in the Ukraine were entirely destroyed.[3] The chairman of the Jewish
Community in Kiev, Mr. D. Levenstein, has testified to the brutal
treatment of the Jews in that city during the Bolshevist occupation.
Vladimir Kossovsky, one of the foremost leaders of the "Bund," well
known in Socialist international circles, in an article published in
the Jewish Socialist monthly, _Die Zukunft_, of New York, says:
Jewish pogroms in Bolshevist Russia have occurred with
particular intensity during the first half of 1918. I shall
point, as an example, to the pogroms in Gulkhov, in the
government of Chernigov, where they assumed a particularly
brutal form, and in a number of places in the Poliesiye. _All
of these pogroms were the work of Bolshevist troops._
The Glukhov pogrom, which has attained such sad notoriety,
started on February 28, 1918, after a Bolshevist detachment had
entered the city. The Red Army men, transformed into savage
beasts, murdered the arrested Jews who were being taken under
guard to the building of the Soviet, _and the street which
housed the Soviet was literally sodden with Jewish blood. All
Jewish stores and residences were sacked._ Peasants from the
near-by villages soon joined the plunderers of the Red Guard in
their work of looting and pillaging. According to newspaper
reports, four hundred and fifty Jews were murdered, among these
some Jewish soldiers who had been rewarded with "St. George"
medals for bravery. Long lists of victims--such as could be
identified--were at that time published in the newspapers. _The
pogrom was directed exclusively against the Jews, and the
Christian population of the city did not suffer in the least._
Concerning the pogroms in Poliesiye, Kossovsky quotes from the
official organ of the Menshevist party, the _Novaia Zaria_, of Moscow,
June 10, 1918, the following:
The large Jewish population of this region (Poliesiye) finds
itself in a particularly tragic situation. The "activity" of the
Red Army in Novogorod-Sieversk, Seredina-Buda, and Glukhov,
where the Soviet detachments massacred the Jewish populations,
has found an echo in other cities, and the sword of Damocles
hangs at present over the unfortunate Jewish people. In the city
of Potchep the Jews saved themselves from a pogrom by collecting
in time fifteen thousand rubles, which they handed over to the
pogrom-mad Red Army detachment upon its entrance into the city,
in addition to giving it a splendid reception and a sumptuous
feast. As reward for this reception the bashi-bazouks of the
Soviet decided to spare the city.
Pogroms and other manifestations of anti-Semitism have been so common
in Bolshevist Russia as to make the "Jewish question" one of extreme
difficulty and importance. In numerous Soviets, notably Yaroslavl,
Vitebsk, and Smolensk, Jewish members were openly insulted by the
Bolsheviki; such epithets as "_szhid!_" ("sheeny!") were hurled at the
Jewish members. Once more I quote from the article by Kossovsky:
In the provinces the pogrom mania invaded even the Soviets, not
mentioning the Red Army which became more and more infected with
it. According to the Kiev _Naiye Zait_, in the Vitebsk Soviet
shouts were heard, "Chase the Jews out of the Soviets and its
institutions!" In the Yaroslavl Soviet, according to information
printed in the Moscow Social-Democratic newspaper, _Vperiod_,
there were often heard insulting and shameful cries directed
against the Jews. In Smolensk, according to _Svobodnaya Rossia_,
members of the Red Army would come to the Soviet and demand that
Jews be barred from holding posts as war commissaries and
commanders. A lively anti-Semitic propaganda was carried on in
Moscow and Petrograd, too, though it never reached the stage of
a pogrom. In Petrograd anti-Jewish posters, signed by a "Kamorra
of the People's Revenge," were spread broadcast. As a result of
the apprehensiveness aroused, detachments for self-defense were
organized by the Jews of Moscow. In Petrograd the Bolshevist
authorities did not permit the organization of self-defense
bodies, fearing lest the weapons of the self-defense detachments
be turned against the Soviet.
Upon the initiative of the Petrograd Jewish Community the day of
May 23, 1918, was designated as a Jewish National Day of
Mourning throughout Russia as a protest against the latter-day
Jewish pogroms in Russia. On that day the Jews were to close all
their business establishments, not to issue newspapers, etc.,
etc. The May 23d issue of the Petrograd Jewish daily, _Unser
Tagblat_, appeared in a black border and was full of articles
relating to anti-Jewish attacks and pogroms, entitled: "Protest
by Mourning," "Let Jewish Blood Boil," "The Day of Sorrow," "The
Bloody Roll (Statistics Concerning Jewish Pogroms)." To convey
to the reader the substance of these articles I will quote the
closing words of the article, "The Bloody Roll": "The old
tsarist, bloody Russia, fell, and a new Russia, a
radical-Socialist, a communist, Russia came in its place. And
still, as before, we stand facing a roster of Jewish pogroms, a
roster which is, as yet, far from ended, as each day adds new
names, new victims, and new massacres."
Mr. Louis Marshall, who is universally recognized as one of the
foremost leaders of the American Jewry and who headed the
American-Jewish delegation to the Peace Conference, in an interview
published in the New York Jewish daily newspaper, _The Day_, July 27,
1919, categorically denied the assertion that there have been no
Jewish pogroms under the rule of the Bolsheviki. He declared that such
pogroms took place in the districts of the Ukraine controlled by the
Bolsheviki as well as in those controlled by the robber bands. "We
know of such pogroms having occurred," he said, "and very often the
Bolsheviki care just as little about the Jews as others who make
pogroms. It is possible that some of their pogroms are at times
different, but in substance there were Jewish pogroms in Bolshevist
territory as well." Mr. Marshall added the following observation:
"_All Jewish representatives that I have met in Paris who came from
Russia are strong opponents of Bolshevism. Even to this day the Jewish
Socialist parties are no less sharp in their condemnation of the
Bolsheviki than are the bourgeois parties._"
So far as I have been able to discover, there is not a large Jewish
Community in Russia which has not repudiated Bolshevism. Not in a
single instance has the support of the leaders of such a Community
been given to the Lenin-Trotzky regime. For example, I have before me
the report of the annual general meeting of the Jewish Community of
Archangel, which took place on May 11, 1919. Therein is contained a
Memorandum by the Council of the Community on the relation of the Jews
to Bolshevism. The Memorandum points out that, while it is true that
there are Jews among the leaders of the Bolsheviki, it is also true
that there are many Jews among the leaders of the anti-Bolshevist
forces. It names such men as MM. Vinaver, Gotz, Minor, Bliumkin (who
assassinated Count Mirbach), Kannengisser (who shot Uritzki), and Dora
Kaplan (who attempted to assassinate Lenin and forfeited her own
life).
The Memorandum asks the non-Jewish world to remember that all of the
Jews connected with the Bolshevist movement in any prominent capacity
are apostates, that not one of them ever took the slightest part in
the affairs of Russian Jewry, and that the Jewish people only learned
of their existence at about the same time and in the same way as the
Russian people in general became aware of the existence of such
non-Jewish Bolshevist leaders as Lenin, Lunarcharsky, Tchitcherin,
Krylenko, Dybenko, and many others. Attention is called to the fact
that prominent Jewish national workers in Russia have been subjected
to the same persecution and maltreatment by the Bolsheviki as the
public-spirited men and women of other nationalities. The Memorandum
cites the imprisonment of Doctor Maze, Rabbi of the Moscow Community,
and the confiscation of the buildings belonging to the Petrograd
Jewish Community, where the cultural and religious institutions of the
Jews of that city were centered. I commend to the attention of all
fair-minded men and women the following paragraph from this document:
Aside from this group of Jewish Bolshevist leaders there is the
Jewish people, the many millions of the Jewish population of
Russia. The unassuming representatives of that Jewish Community
of Archangel take the liberty to affirm that neither the Jewish
people as a whole, nor any of its socially organized groups, are
responsible for the savagery, violence, acts of blasphemy, and
mockery of human rights which characterize the Bolshevist
regime.
The Jewish people are fully familiar with acts of brutality,
with the Red Terror, familiar from long-past experience and from
present experience in Bolshevist Russia, together with all the
other nations inhabiting that unhappy territory. But the hands
of the Jewish masses, of all the classes of the Jewish people,
are not stained with this blood. We have not heard, and we
believe that we shall never hear, of any act of terror
committed by any masses of Jews led either by Jews or by
non-Jews.
Let the Jewish Bolsheviki stand accused and condemned of their
guilt like their compatriots of other nationalities, but there
must be no room for generalization and wholesale accusation when
the people as a whole are guiltless and where millions,
permeated by a powerful cohesive force of an ancient culture
organically foreign to the spirit of violence and vandalism,
stand apart from a few individual persons.
Quite similar to the foregoing is a Memorandum addressed by the
Council of the Vladivostok Jewish Community to the Russian people. The
concluding paragraphs of this address seem to me to be a complete and
crushing refutation of the monstrous calumny that is being so
assiduously spread among our people: