Trudy Gold
Stalin and the Jews

Tudy Gold | Stalin and the Jews | 07.13.22

Visuals displayed throughout the presentation.

• Now let me state from the beginning and I mentioned this when I was lecturing yesterday, the presentation today is “Stalin and the Jews.” I’m not going to attempt to give you a detailed biography of Joseph Stalin. There are so many books on it. Actually, I’ve decided to recommend to you, Simon Sebag Montefiore’s two-volume work and it’s good scholarship. But the reason I’m recommending, if you can only read one, the reason I’m recommending Simon is because he is a journalist, and I just like his style. He’s very, very readable. And as I said to people yesterday, the problem when you’re dealing with a character like Stalin, who according to Russian figures, was responsible for the deaths of 40 million people, how on earth do you come up with any kind of evaluation? I’ve been asked many times was he an antisemite? It’s very complicated that. Because he turns against the Jews later on in his life, and I’m going to be dealing with that next Tuesday when I talk about Stalin, Zionism and Israel. But please don’t forget, under Stalin, Russia was the first country to give both dejure and defacto recognition to Israel. America, although was first, only gave defacto recognition. Stalin supported the existence, the establishment of the State of Israel. He did have many of his Jewish comrades executed, but he had anyone executed and of course, you’ve already had a session on the purges from Dennis.

The problem with Stalin is you are delving into a man who is completely amoral and has no sense of moral compass. What Stalin is about is about power. And anyone who he felt was a threat in any way be they whole swaths of population. He cared not a jot for human life. And it’s fascinating though. He was born in Georgia, his house is still a shrine. And a friend of mine who’s adjourned this went to do a piece on him. And what she found absolutely fascinating is every day women lay flowers at Stalin’s birthplace. He’s still ironically a hero in the Soviet Union. And one of the reasons he’s suspected specifically of antisemitism is because of course his huge enmity of Trotsky. But as someone pointed out yesterday, he also, one of his closest friends, if such a man can have friends, was Kaganovich, who died in his bed. Both his children married Jews. Two of his children married Jews. He had many affairs with Jewish women. He would make antisemitic comments, but he’d make anti comments about everyone.

So I think what we’re going to say, it’s almost impossible to pull that thread up. Having said that, what I am going to read to you is his statement on antisemitism because in theory, communism abolished all the differences between peoples and communism abolished antisemitism. And when Stalin was interviewed by an American Jewish organisation and the article was later reprinted in “Pravda,” he came out very strongly against antisemitism. So what I’m going to do is to give you a very brief biography of his, just to cover the early years until he’s involved in the revolution. Stalin by the way means steel. He was born Joseph Jughashvili in Gori in Georgia. He had very bad skin. He had smallpox as a child. He was very, very bright. He had an overwhelmingly adored mother and a totally brutal father. He went to a Russian Orthodox school where the Georgian is forced to speak Russian. At 16, this very bright young man who had a brutal father and an over adoring mother, very similar, ironically, to Hitler’s background. He won a scholarship to an orthodox seminary. He was expelled in 1899 for reading illegal literature, and for establishing a left wing study circle. Did it really happen or was that one of the fantasies about Stalin later put in?

But by 1903, what is true is he is a full-time revolutionary and an outlaw. He ties up with the Bolsheviks. He became their Chief of Operations in the caucuses. He organised paramilitary groups, strikes, propaganda, and he raised money for the revolution by robbing banks. He married for the first time in 1906. He had a son who died of typhus a year later. Most of his biographers think that if she lived, if the marriage had lasted, he might have been a different kind of man. And his father, as I said had started out as a shoemaker, but when he becomes an alcoholic, the whole family disintegrated into poverty, and he lived in nine different rented rooms in 10 years. Now, this is an academic report of his but bearing in mind of course, everything is suspect, drama, art, singing, best but the naughtiest of pupils. And also when he was 12, he was in an accident which led to a disability. So before he got involved in revolutionary activities, he worked in the Rothschild Refinery, organised strikes. During the exile, of course there’s a split between after the 1905 revolution, we’ve talked about it.

There’s a split between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. He is attracted to the Bolsheviks and in February of 1905, of course, he’s at the barricades. And he was always very, very tough. And he completely dismisses and despises the Tsar. He first meets Lenin in 1905 in Finland at the Bolshevik Conference. He saw the parliamentary processes a complete waste of time. And by 1907, he is the leading Bolshevik in Georgia. And in fact, one of his first acts when he takes over, he organised a huge bank robbery which led to the death of 40 people. He is robbing to bring in money for the revolution. He edits newspapers. There’s huge problems between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. He goes on the move. He tries to create armed insurrection against the Black Hundreds. And again, he raises money also by forging. They had a whole infrastructure of creating counterfeit currency to undermine the Tsarist regime. He goes on the move ‘cause these revolutionaries are always one step ahead of the Okhrana.

He meets up with Lenin in Geneva. He’s imprisoned. He then is back again in Switzerland. He’s in exile. He goes into exile, then back again, exiled to Siberia. This is very much the pattern. And whilst he’s in exile, he is actually invited by Lenin to join the Bolshevik Central Committee. He’s invited by Lenin and Zinoviev. And he becomes in 1912, he becomes the editor of the new Bolshevik Daily Pravda in St. Petersburg. He’s then sentenced again to three years in Siberia where he shared a room with Yakov Sverdlov, and they both, Sverdlov of course, and I talked about this yesterday, he was a Jew. So he’s in Vienna at the time of the revolution and he writes his most important peace, “Marxism and the Nationalist Question”. He becomes Commissar for Nationalities. And he actually identified 113 different nationalities within the Soviet Union. Again, it’s the war. He’s exiled to the edge of the Arctic circle. He then has another child. October 1916, conscripted into the army, fall into the Tsar’s Army, unfit for service. February revolution. He travels to Petrograd, and he becomes part of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet. So that’s just to give you a sort of compass of his early life.

Now what happens is he is a brilliant party man. He’s not at the top echelons of the party with Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, et cetera. He is at the lower level, but he’s becoming indispensable because he’s a brilliant organiser. And he later on, after the Bolsheviks take power, he’s really the Secretary of the Party. And what he does is he puts his people in positions of power. His enemity with Trotsky explodes, particularly during the Civil War, when Trotsky’s Red Army is trying to defeat the armies of General Sikorsky in Poland and Stalin doesn’t send the troops, and Trotsky at a conference actually blames Stalin for this. And the blood between the two of them was appalling. Lenin gradually begins to realise that Stalin is a problem. And of course, Lenin has a stroke. He dies in 1924. He wants Trotsky to succeed him. But Stalin, the wiley character with all his people in place, he with the help of Zinoviev and Kamenev, can we see the next slide please? That is Lenin and Krupskaya. That is Vladimir Lenin with his wife Krupskaya. She was an interesting figure. When it was discovered that Lenin had a Jewish grandfather, a man called Israel Blank, she wanted that publicised, but Stalin didn’t want it known because he was worried that that would turn people against Lenin and I’ll talk about the antisemitism of Russia in a minute. Can we see the next slide please?

There you see Lev Davidovich Bronstein, better known as Trotsky. That’s an amazing photo of him. And in August, when we are kind of calming down a bit, Wendy and I have decided that we’re only going to run 5:30 slots. I’m going to do a session on Jabotinsky and Trotsky because they’re very similar and they both spent a lot of time in Odesa. One wanted to save the world, one wanted to save the Jews. So there you see Stalin’s mortal enemy. And can we go onto the next slide please? There is Kamenev. And the next one please. Zinoviev. Now, they are both Jewish. And Stalin, the wiley Stalin makes a deal with Zinoviev and with Kamenev to oust Trotsky. So the three of them, the triumvirate take over after Lenin’s death, they take over and gradually Trotsky is marginalised. Trotsky becomes so marginalised that by 1929, he’s in exile, and Stalin hounds him into his death. And of course in 1940, it’s Stalin’s agents who murder Trotsky in Mexico. But see this please, not as an antisemitic gesture, this is just Stalin removing, he was paranoid about all his enemies. He is removing an enemy. So what happens to the Jews under Stalin? And this is what I think a great importance.

Now, having said that you’ve got this terrible enmity between Trotsky and Stalin, Stalin in power, he continues with Lenin’s five-year plan. He does the most appalling acts in his period of office. For example, we could run a whole session on the famine in the Ukraine, where millions of people died. The collectivization of the peasants, the starving of the peasants. In fact, 14 countries now recognise that as a genocide. But in terms of the Jews, I want to talk now about the creation of what Jewish life was in Russia under the Tsar. I beg your pardon, under the Soviets. Now remember, the concept of self-determination is complete enough and utter Bolshevism. So ironically, even though Stalin is Commissar of Nationalities, and we are later going to see that he does create a Jewish national enclave, antisemitism is outlawed by the revolution. And there’s a lot of work done on the Red Army, in the workplaces making antisemitism a crime. So before Stalin takes office, important to know that antisemitism in this brave new world of the Soviet Union, it’s no longer allowed to happen.

However, what about Jewish life in Russia? Now, those of you who were involved in the Refusenik campaign, and I actually taught in Russia, absolutely fascinating experience. You will know how difficult it was to transmit Jewish life in the 70’s and 80’s. Now, go back to the revolution itself. “Christianity is over in Russia. Judaism is over in Russia. Workers of the world unite who have nothing to lose but your chains. Religion is the opening of the people.” These are quotes from Karl Marx. The grandson of rabbis on both sides, another reason for hostility towards the Jews. Now, think about it. In this international world, Stalin is Commissar of Nationalities. There can be no religious differences between people. So Christian life has to be broken down. That didn’t mean they destroyed all the churches, but if you wanted any kind of career in Russia, you could not be a member of a church. If you wanted any kind of career in Russia, there is absolutely no way that you could belong to a synagogue. There is a deliberate move as it were to cut Jewish life. The Bund is completely outlawed of course, because the Bund is separatism, and of course that great quote on the Bund, “A Bundist or Zionist who suffered from seasickness.” The Bund is outlawed. Hebrew is outlawed, but Yiddish isn’t. And we’re going to see that.

Now, what happens? Who is going to work out? Who is actually going to work out how Jewish life should be conducted? And what happens is you have Evsektsiia, Commissariat for Jewish National Affairs are set up under a man called Semen Dimanshtein and they’re going to run the Jewish community until the Jews are completely integrated into Russian life. Important to remember, Russian Jews now are the third largest community in the world. They can’t leave Russia because who leaves paradise? So whereas and please don’t forget that as the Tsarist empire disintegrated, Trotsky held a lot, but Poland becomes independent, the Ukraine is parcelled up, the bulk of it of course goes to the Soviets, a slice of it goes to Poland, another little bit goes to the Czechs, and another little bit to the Romanians. And the civil war in the Ukraine was stopped brutally. So there are Jews living throughout these areas. Many of them of course are Hasidic or traditional Orthodox. And now we have Evsektsiia are going to break down Jewish life. Now Dimanshtein was, I couldn’t find a photo of him, I’m afraid. He was the son of a peddler. His dates are 1886 to 1938. He studied at the Chabbad Yeshiva. And in 1904, like so many of these characters, he abandoned religion for revolution. He actually translated the party programme into both Yiddish and Hebrew. He was arrested, of course, under the Tsars for sedition. He goes to Germany then back.

Then very, very similar to so many of these revolutionaries, flees to Germany, flees to Switzerland, back for the February Revolution. He joins the editorial board of the party’s paper in Riga. All these characters are clever. It’s important to remember this. And they did have a dream. In Riga, and also see how mobile they all are. They go from country to country, and they have the languages. He played a very active role in the revolution and his job, he is now Head of the Evsektsiia. He was a very firm supporter of Stalin. Later on though, he was critical of collectivization and what was happening in agriculture, particularly in the Ukraine. He was removed from office. He was also involved in Birobidjan which I’m going to talk about later, and he was executed like so many others in the great purges. Ironically, he was actually rehabilitated under Khrushchev. Now, the Bolsheviks under Stalin disliked minority nationalism, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t accommodate minority peoples, use of their own language for literary expression. Now, what is the language of the Jews? It’s Yiddish. As I said, Hebrew is identified with Zionism, and with bourgeois nationalism and imperialism. Whereas Yiddish is in the bones and the marrow of the people.

And ironically, under Stalin, a large number of Jewish schools were established in the Ukraine and in Belarus during the 1920s. Huge centres of Jewish life. The curriculum was strictly secular. You’ve got to remember what that does to the older generation. Yiddish is the language of instruction, it’s the language of the newspapers, it’s the language of journals. And they’re also establishing agricultural colonies. More and more agricultural colonies. Turn the Jews to wholesome pursuit. The Yiddish theatre was actively encouraged. It’s given all sorts of technical resources from the government. Yiddish literature flourishes, Yiddish theatre flourishes, and Yiddish cinema later on flourishes. It’s fascinating. There is a Yiddish cinema. I beg your pardon, there is a Yiddish theatre in most Jewish towns, but it has to fit in with Bolshevik ideology. Can we have a look at the next slide please? This is Alexander Bezmenisky. He is a poet writing in Yiddish. And this is a Jewish poet in 1925. “You know that I’m happy, that I live my days recruited in the ranks of struggle and love, anger, pain and laughter. Like my brothers of the Komosol, I love all things dear to me, deeds and men, days and years. The livelier pace of field and factory.”

This programme is going to actually be very successful, but even more successful is Russification. And by 1939, only a third of Russian Jews actually spoke Yiddish as their main language. Now, all religious groups are treated with total contempt. There’s a concerted attack on Judaism itself. And as I said, do be careful, it was never prohibited. But they had no say over education, over Jewish philanthropy. Maybe the word philanthropy is the wrong word. I’m talking about Jewish self-help. If you think about how they’d lived in Poland and even under the Tsars, they’d very much tried to live as a unit. Now this is completely abolished under the Tsars. And of course when a synagogue falls into disrepair, they couldn’t be restored. Cemeteries were converted into public paths. Shabbat. No Shabbat. No Jewish festivals. All discounted. And bibles were taken often by the Evsektsiia themselves, and used for cigarette paper. There was a group of Jews, people of Jewish birth I should say, because they’ve all thrown away their Jewishness. They called themselves the League of Militant Atheists. And this is their mantra: dethrone the heavenly Tsars as we have dethroned the earthly one.

And in 1932, an anti-religious museum opened in Moscow to actually illustrate the stupidities of Judaism. And it’s the Jewish communists who are the worst. They prepared public banquets for Yom Kippur and a whole generation grows up in this atmosphere. But what is fascinating is Jewish continuity and Jewish religious education was never fully eradicated. Just think of the size of Russia. Just think, I remember when we used to teach in Russia, we were told there were half a million people working for the KGB, even us going over there as little teachers, we were what? But having said that, in the more remote parts, particularly in the world of the Hasids, how much can they really get into it? And as one way to influence Jews against religion, public theatre, quite often theatre productions that everyone wanted to go to ran on festivals. So you have a choice, you can go to the theatre and not only can you go to the theatre, you can have a free meal on Yom Kippur. So all the time, Jewish commissars working to destroy Jewish life. And it was almost impossible to find kosher food or circumcision for your son. And something else that I think some of you will find quite painful, the invention of what is called the Red Haggadah.

The traditional, if you think of Pesach, this is what they said instead of- They called it the Red Haggadah and they would have this ceremony to coincide with Passover. And this is how they opened it. “Wash off the bourgeois mud, wash off the mould of generations and do not say a blessing, say a curse. Devastation must come upon all the old religious laws and customs, yeshivas and khaydorim that beat and enslave the people.” Let me read this to you again. Can you imagine what that did to young Jews? “Wash off all the bourgeois mud, wash off the mould of generations and do not say a blessing, say a curse. Devastation must come upon all the old religious laws and customs, yeshivas and khaydorim that beat and enslave the people.” And in some cases, the Red Haggadar had only to replace the, if you think about it, the matzah with a piece of bread which says October Revolution. This is something else that was part of the Red Haggadah. We were slaves of capitalists until October came and led us out of the land of exploitation with a strong hand.

If it were not for October, we and our children’s children would still be slaves. The tradition that we say next year in Jerusalem was replaced this year a revolution here, next year a world revolution. And let me just read this from Dayenu “It Would’ve Been Enough”. In fact, practically every Jew I know, whether they’re cultural, religious, they have a Seder service. It’s almost a badge of joining. And this is Dayenu. “Even if they took something but only left us trade, we would get everything back and that would be enough. With this unsuccessful trade, if only there were no taxation, we would like to do away with it, for it would not be enough.” And of course, young Jews were encouraged to eat bread, not matzah, everything in reverse. And we have a witness of what happened in Borovsk, in the town of Borovsk. And this is Yom Kippur. And this is a Jewish woman recording her memoirs. “On Yom Kippur eve, the Komsomol organised a demonstration with tortures and posters, posters saying we don’t need priests and rabbis. The demonstration was held in the house of Rebbe Schneerson, which was full of praying people of course, Hasidism. For half an hour speakers held forth, causing trembling amongst the prayers, praying people. And in that evening, post of notices in all the streets that a lot of restaurants will be open to serve the progressive youth.” Now, can we move on please?

Now this is a really nasty poem which shows you a generational conflict that was really pushed under Stalin’s Russia. He is a poet of the Komsomol, and this is his story of his break with his family. “Their love, but what about their lice eaten braids? The crooked jutting collarbones. Their pimples, their herring smeared mouths. The curve of their horse like necks. My parents, but growing old in the twilight. Hunchbacked and gnarled, like savage beasts. The rusty Jews keep shaking in my face their heavy fists. You outcast, pick up your miserable suitcase. You are cast and scorned. Get out. I am leaving my old bed behind. Should I leave? I will. Good riddance, and I don’t care.” Now. So there’s this terrible programme of de-Judaism going on to try and destroy Jewish life. And what I find absolutely fascinating that I’ll be talking about on Tuesday, and I mentioned this in last night’s presentation, that when Golda finally comes to Moscow as the first ambassador, 50,000 young Jews came out to greet her. And what is also interesting, Moscow and Leningrad of course were the centres of cultural life. And Jews were terribly well represented in what I would call the usual professions. They’re on the editorial board of newspapers, they’re disproportionate at the universities as professors. They’re disproportionate in the medical profession and amongst us. And also interesting, there’s a lot of Jewish generals in the Soviet army amongst the officer class. And of course, educational opportunities provided you give up your Judaism, they escalate under Stalin as long as you don’t fall foul of him, you have far more opportunities than you had under the Tsars.

Intermarriage had been very rare before 1917. In secular Soviet society, it’s far more frequent. And I’ve got figures for you. In 1926, 21% intermarriage in Soviet Russia, 11% in Soviet Ukraine. Because Ukraine is within Russia, but it is a separate socialist state within the Soviet Union. And by 1936, 41% in the Russian Federation, 15% in the Ukraine, 12% in Belarus. Of course Belarus and Ukraine, far more centres of Hasidic life and they’re still clinging on. Ironically, many of the Soviet leaders were married to Jewish women. I’ve already talked about just how many Jews are in positions of power. And when I say the word Jew, they’re not identifying as Jews. The point is other people are seeing them as Jews. So many of the Soviet leaders are married to Jewish women. There was a disproportionate number of Jewish women in the movement. For example, Lunacharsky, who was the Minister of Education, he had a Jewish wife. So did Kirov, so did Molotov.

Now, let’s talk about linguistic assimilation. 1926. And we’ve talked about you cannot use Hebrew anymore. So moving more and more to Russian. 1926, 25% who owns to Jewish nationality under Stalin’s idea of nationality gave Russian as their mother tongue. By 1939, it’s 54%. And ironically, Jews played a huge part in developing Soviet culture. The majority of the popular songs, once they’re allowed again, which was very much part of social mobilisation to accompany the five year plan, most of the popular songs are written by people of Jewish birth. The exact same thing is happening in America. And when classical music again became part of the Soviet repertoire, the majority of the performers were of Jewish birth. They also still play an incredibly important role in the upper echelons of the party until they fall foul of Stalin. And of course, by 1940, nearly all the old comrades had been executed by Stalin. But they were also very strong in the Cheka, in the secret police. In 1918, 20% of all the investigators in the secret police were Jews and 12 of the 20 who ran the department were Jews. So if you hate the regime, you hate the whole thing, then of course you don’t differentiate. It’s fascinating because Trotsky realised this.

When Lenin wanted him to be Commissar for Home Affairs, he said, “Don’t you dare, I won’t get away with it.” And it was Sverdlov who suggested he in fact take the foreign affairs and of course, as you already all know, he created the Red Army. What is fascinating under Stalin is that if you have a look at the pictures of the time, they managed to obliterate Trotsky. It’s fascinating to look at old photographs of Lenin and Trotsky. Okay, now I’m coming on to the second point about Stalin and his antisemitism and I think I clearly said that it’s almost impossible to judge because as I said, he is one of the worst murderers in history. And he destroyed all his enemies, be they Jew or Gentile. Now Simon Sebag notes that Beria’s son agreed that his father, that Beria had kept a list of all Stalin’s affairs and those with Jews. So we know that on that level, he didn’t differentiate. And don’t forget that not only Kaganovich, but Maxim Litvinov and head of the secret police, Yagoda, were all Jews and they survived. But what about his attitude to the Jews? He was actually, remember, Commissar for Nationalities and this is what he said. “The demand for national autonomy for Russian Jews is something of a curiosity.”

This is in 1913. “Preparing autonomy for a people without a future and whose very existence still has to be proved.” And as I said, he continued the campaign in the Red Army. They did all they could to stop antisemitism. Although of course, ironically, Bolshevism did bring economic ruin to the majority of Jewish peddlers et cetera. Nevertheless, they brought terrible ruin to the majority of anyone involved in those kind of professions. And in the end you have to say that the majority of Jews after the terrible bloody civil war against the whites and against and against the blacks, the blacks are the anarchists, and against the Ukrainians, when over a hundred thousand Jews were murdered, there were over a thousand pogroms. There’s a brilliant book by Jeffrey Vidaga on this. So at least the new society doesn’t bring them out. So starting in 1927, Stalin began a really important campaign against antisemitism. He was approached by an American organisation, American Jewish organisation to respond what’s going on in Russia. And this becomes an article in “Pravda”.

So let’s read it. “National and racial chauvinism is dangerous. Antisemitism is an extreme form of racial chauvinism. It’s the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism. Antisemitism is an advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Antisemitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leaves them off the right road and lands them in a jungle. Hence communists as consistent internationalists cannot but be sworn enemies of antisemitism. Antisemitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as it is a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under Russian law active antisemites are liable to the death penalty.” So that is the official position. And it’s not only that because he also finally decides to give the Jews, if Yiddish is their language and they are one of the peoples within Russia, then let us give them within the Soviet Union an autonomous area. And what in the end he gave them was Birobidjan. So can we see the map of Birobidjan please?

This is from Martin Gilbert’s historic atlas. And as I have mentioned to you many times, those of you who really, if you have children, if you have grandchildren, make sure you’ve got this book in your house because it is so useful in teaching kids. And I was asked the other day why I was so, I don’t know, depressed about the teaching of anti-racist education and holocaust studies. And I think I might have been a little bit too harsh, but what I do believe, the best way we can combat it for our own people is to teach them their own history. And this is an absolutely vital book because the problem, the great quote of Jewish history of course is Isaiah Berlin, “The problem with the Jews, too much history, not enough geography, but you need to understand where the Wandering Jews wander.” And I really think, I’m going off on one of my preaches, forgive me, but I really think that if our people and non-Jews, if we know a bit more Jewish history, at least we have a certain understanding of the strange people. So look where it is, it’s very near the Chinese border. Just see how far out it is. Bearing in mind that the size of Russia, it’s almost impossible to gauge.

So it was actually established in 1931. It was planned by a Swiss architect, a man called Meyer, and in 1937, it’s granted a town centre. It had been approved by the Polack bureau back in 1928. Two organisations worked on it. The Komzet Committee for the Settling of Toiling Jews on the Land, let’s turn the Jews back to the land. To help Jews of the former pale adapt to agricultural labour and also to try and get financial help from the diaspora to create an alternative to Zionism. This is actually government policy. And another branch, OZET, was established to assist in moving to the new location, house building, irrigation, training, providing cattle, tools, medical services, educational services, cultural services. So although in the end, Stalin is going to back Israel for political reasons, which I’ll talk about on Tuesday, at this stage, he’s trying to create a Jewish entity that could say yes, the Yiddish speaking Jews, the Yiddish speaking secular Jews who are turning more and more to agriculture within the Soviet Union can have their own entity. And Jewish communists, the Evsektsiia had been been dissolved because it’s all accomplished, but people like Dimanshtein were working on this and the quote was that “the Soviet creation was the only true and sensible way of solving the Jewish national question.”

And the slogan to attract Jews, this is the slogan the government used, to the Jewish homeland. Now ironically, this will interest I think some of our Canadian listeners. The organisation for Jewish colonisation in Russia, ICOR, was a communist sponsored organisation in America and Canada to actually sponsor Jews in the new collective settlements. You never forget just how left wing so many Jews were who had gone from Russia to Canada to America and to England. It was actually founded in America in 1924, and it was spread to Canada and it had a big fundraising arm. And the Americans actually set up committee for the settlement of Jews in Birobidjan. Okay. One of the original patrons was a man called Julius Rosenwald. A fascinating individual. An American multimillionaire. He was one of the original patrons and he gave more than $2 million and many wealthy Jews followed him, and also the poorer readers of the Yiddish Crest in America and in Canada. And the Canadian branch actually became a separate entity in 1935. Ironically, eventually these organisations were later unable to withstand McCarthyism. And later on, of course, the attraction of Israel took over. And really, the whole idea didn’t really work because what was the real motive of the Soviets?

On one level, they wanted to settle this region because it’s on the Chinese border and they wanted to relocate Jews from Ukraine, Belarus and Crimea because they were very much resisted by the local population and everybody loves each other in Soviet Russia. And also it’s a buffer against Japanese expansion. Also a link between the Trans Siberian railway and the natural resources of the area. Have a look at that Trans Siberian railway. One of the Tsar’s endeavours. So what were the natural resources of the area? Fish, timber, iron, tin and gold. So the problem was the people who were to administrate it all were completely corrupt. And also they had to compete with 27,000 Russians, the Cossacks, the Koreans, the Ukrainians who were already there. Now, in the end it didn’t work. The soil was harsh, they didn’t get any help. And by 2010, there were only 2000 Jews in the region. But ironically, Jewish culture was revived much earlier than in the rest of the Soviet Union. And by the 1970s, there was a real upswing in Birobidjan, but you can see the figures if you like. By 1932, 11,000 of them had made it there. It never became a big endeavour.

But what I think is absolutely fascinating is the fact that it was a dream of Stalin’s. Now, can we go on please, Judy? I beg your pardon, Lauren. Yeah. I pulled my page right? Okay. Sorry everybody. Okay, now, of course, already Dennis has given you a lecture on the show trials. The thirties were a terrible dark time for everyone. And then of course we come to 1939 when the world was completely stunned by the pact between Russia and Hitler. Just think about it, Stalin and Hitler make a deal. Molotov, who has a Jewish wife and Joachim von Ribbentrop, who was evidently the lover at one stage of Mrs. Simpson, that’s a nice story for you. They create an agreement and already the agreement was being discussed because from the spring of 1939, the Nazis stopped talking about Judaized Russia, you know the anti-Jewish sentiment coming out of Nazi Germany, the communist plot to take over the world, the Jewish plot to take over the world. And not only that, positions of Jews in power dropped to only 5% in 1940. What Stalin did, his foreign minister was actually Maxim Litvinov and of course he was a Jew. So he’s replaced with Molotov. And Molotov was told to purge the ministry of Jews to appease Hitler for the beginning of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Act, which was finally signed on the 23rd of August 1939.

And Litvinov in in his autobiography said, I’m doing the Jewish bit now, “Was I the right person to sign a treaty with Hitler?” Now, what was the deal? The deal was that, think in terms of Russia. Think in terms of Russian dreams, think in terms of Putin, the new czar. Stalin wanted back the old empire. Hitler wants Lebensraum. So the deal was Hitler would invade from the west, Stalin from the east. So Stalin orders the Soviet invasion of Poland. And September the 17th 1939, Molotov declares the Soviet government has ceased to exist. And this is the day after the Soviet-Japanese ceasefire. It later led to the annexation of part of Finland, part of Estonia, part of Latvia, Lithuania, and parts of Romania. They had all been independent at the end of the First World war. Never forget this when you’re thinking about Eastern Europe. What does Putin really want? What did Stalin want in the war? He played a blinder. To give you an example, at the time of the Polish uprising, he had an army the other side of the Vistula. He could easily have intervened, but he wanted the Polish government in exile, their representatives to fight it out with the Nazis.

He wanted them all destroyed. And of course, he took all these countries, they all became communist. Ironically, much of the leadership in many of these countries is going to be Jewish and that’s something we’ll be talking about in the next week or so. But of course, with the invasion of Eastern Europe, Poland was still the heartland of the Jewish world. Rabbis are arrested, they’re accused of being agents of Ben-Gurion and invites them. Think what happened to Begin. Begin fled to Eastern Poland. From Brest-Litovsk. He was arrested and he’s put in a gulag. The Soviets now gain over 1 million Jews. Many of them were Zionists, nationally conscious. And ironically, they were all educated to the ideas of the second Alliot. So the kind of Jews that Russian Jews are now going to come into contact with are Jews who have been allowed to keep their education. Even though there were problems in the countries in which they lived, they hadn’t suppressed Judaism. And the Soviets, they absolutely suppressed all Nazi criticism, all anti-Nazi publications were dropped. And also during the 1930s, many German anti-fascists had fled to Soviet Russia.

Tragically, 570 of them were rounded up by the Soviets. They’re taken to a bridge at Brest-Litovsk and handed over to the Nazis, including many Jews. In June 1940, the invasion of the Baltic states. Again, more nationally conscious Jews, 5 million of them. The oppression of Zionism continued, the oppression of Jews continued. An attempt to destroy Jewish life. Ironically, what then happens is as late as June the 13th 1941, the Soviets are deporting alien elements of Jews into Russia proper. About 10,000 of them, their lives were finally saved because of course, as you all know, in 1941, three weeks after this, the Nazis break the pact as everybody knew they eventually would and invaded Russia. Now, the Jewish reaction to the Nazi invasion. There’ve been no news in the Russian press, retreatment of the Jews. And of course, when the Einsatzgruppen entered the Baltic states, they were aided greatly by the local population but we’ve talked about that in the past and we can talk about it again. The destruction and devastation of the Jewish community. Nothing was printed in the Russian press. There were over 500,000 Jews in the Red Army. 200,000 of them died in battle. But then so many millions of people died in Russia.

Don’t forget that when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, there was none of the rules of law. Commissars should be shot. All Russians were Slavs. They were totally expendable. And you know, the first gassing experiments at Auschwitz was on Russian prisoners of war. There were over a hundred generals in the Red Army who were Jews, there were many heroes, but their Jewishness was suppressed. Now what is interesting is after the Nazi invasion and when Moscow was in danger, Stalin decided to utilise Jewish world opinion, particularly in still neutral America. Can we go on please? Thank you. In the autumn of 1941, he ordered the release of two Bundists. Of course, Bundists were in prison. Henryk Ehrlich and Viktor Alter, to help set up an anti-fascist committee but then they were rearrested. And then Solomon Mikhoels, he was the director of the Moscow state Jewish theatre. He was appointed the chairman and the Jewish anti-Fascist Committee, it’s going to broadcast pro-Soviet propaganda to foreign audiences. And they assured them all of the absence of antisemitism in Russia. And then something extraordinary happened. In 1943, Mikhoels together with Itzik Feffer. Can we see his face please? Yeah.

Of course later on, both of them are going to be murdered by Stalin. They were the first official representatives of the Soviet Union allowed to visit the West. And they embark on a seven month tour of America, Mexico, Canada, and Britain. And what they want to do is to create aid for the Russian war effort. And I want to show you, I’m going to talk more about them on Tuesday 'cause I don’t want to rush this. I will be looking at what happened under Stalin, how he turns, but the largest ever pro-Soviet rally in America. July the 8th 1943. 50,000 people attended. And I want you to see the next slide. Now, these are some of the people who attended. I hope you can guess most of them. It also gives you an, this is important.

Two of Russia’s leading cultural figures are attending a rally. 50,000 people, Jewish, mainly Jews, have come to help raise money for the Russian war effort. To buy ambulances. They raised millions of dollars by the way, they raised millions. Now present you’ll see Mayor LaGuardia. Next to him is Mark Sehgal. Next to him is Charlie Chaplin. Next to him is Leon Furtwangler. Next to him is Haim Weissman. At the bottom row you will see, of course, Paul Robeson, who was such an activist in fight for civil rights, as was Albert Einstein, and then Steven Wise. So these are the people who were speaking at that night when Mikhoels and Feffer appealed for help for Russia. Now I’m going to stop there, but I will pick this up on Tuesday when I talk tragically, in the end, when later on when Stalin turns against the Jews again, they’re going to be murdered. So I think I’m going to look at questions, please. Let’s have a look, Lauren.

Q&A and Comments

Well, this is from James. He’s being complimentary. Although I’m 83 year old who was born in Lviv. I’m pretty well informed. Your Jewish perspective is valuable and sometimes new to me. Oh, thank you James. That’s very nice.

Q: How can such a wicked man be called Uncle Joe? A: Look Andrea, I mentioned to you, his house in Georgia is still a shrine. It’s so complicated.

Q: In what way did Lenin view Stalin as a problem? A: He realised that Stalin, Tim, he realised that Stalin was taking over the party and he realised the ruthlessness. Lenin himself was totally ruthless. You see, Stalin was not an ideologue, let’s get real.

Q: What did Stalin want? A: Power, power, power, power. Unlimited, limitless power. I think that’s what happens.

Q: Is it possible for people to take power and it not turn them? A: You know, the Greeks are interesting on that. Hubris, the pride of power, nemesis. And does catharsis come? This is from Shelly.

Q: Why didn’t the Tsarist government execute these revolutionaries instead of just exiling them? A: The Tsarist government is autocratic and brutal. Yes Shelly, they did execute many of them, they did exile many of them. But the point about the Tsarist government, the Okhrana was absolutely inefficient. Of course they were autocratic and brutal. You know, Russia had six months, didn’t they? Between Kerensky and the Bolsheviks. That’s all they’ve ever had, the poor people.

Oh, this is from Erica. Interesting when I said about Stalin having bad skin. Not surprisingly, one thing that struck us when we visited his house was the number of large portraits in which he was portrayed as some Hollywood star. If you don’t know anything about him, you’d think what a good looking man. History was of course sanitised. Yes. You know, when I was running the LJCC, people who came to London after communism fell, Jews, it was fascinating. Some came to class and they were incredibly well informed in many ways. But they’d been taught completely under an authoritarian regime. So they didn’t know any of the nuances of history. Fascinating. But very well educated insofar as they were given a lot of knowledge, which they had to learn by rote. I mean, for example, I had this extraordinary woman in the class and I was teaching Bundism and she said, “Oh yes, they were like the Black Hundreds, they were subversives.” And I said, “No, the Black Hundreds were a ghastly antisemitic union. And the Bunds was Jewish Yiddish.” And nobody told her that. And that was in the eighties. That’s how she was taught in the eighties so imagine what it was like in Stalin’s time.

Tim, I hadn’t realised that antisemitism was made a crime after the revolution. Looks like it didn’t last long. Or was it anti-religion in general? Yes. It wasn’t much fun if you were a member of the Russian Orthodox Church. That’s why the Russian Orthodox Church is back with such a vengeance now. They’ve canonised Nicholas and his family and they are violently antisemitic. If you want a copy of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” in Russia, go to a church bookshop. Oh, this is from Robin. I can’t help but notice the madness in Trotsky’s eyes and mad illness in Zinoviev. Portrait photos reveal a lot. Right.

Q: Marilyn, does Stalin’s killing in Ukraine still play an anti-Russian feeling in the psyche of Ukrainians? A: That is a very interesting question, Marilyn. The problem is in the east, Ukraine is a created entity. Of course what the Russians did in the Ukraine was absolutely brutal. Millions of people died of starvation. They call it their genocide, but Russia believes it’s part of Russia. So you’ve got two people looking at the same piece of land with completely different eyes.

Q: How does Stalin’s approach the Jews in the Soviet Union compare with the approach to Muslims? A: Yehuda, that’s a very interesting question because of course there were Muslims in parts of the Soviet Union. He suppressed everything. Just as today in China, there are lots of Muslims and look how they’re suppressed. This is an authoritarian regime based on terror.

Tim, they must have known the dates of the entovs if they had theatres open on that day. How did they know the dates? Were the Jews doing it? Yes, Tim, it was the Evsektsiia who sorted all this out. Yes, of course. Look, the Nazis knew that, you know, the Nazis used to double the food rations in the camp on Yom Kippur. Yeah. Eichmann was an expert on the Jews. He’d studied Hebrew and Yiddish, the monster. Judy, when I was in Moscow, I visited the Museum of religions you mentioned. They made fun of all religions, including mummification in ancient Egypt. They had a large exhibit of paper rose. Very interestingly, if I recall correctly, museum was in a church. Yes, Judy. It isn’t just the Jews that were singled out. Religion is the opium of the people. Classic Marxist doctrine. It is used by the ruling classes to keep the masses down.

Yes Monty, see chapter four in the book by Dara Horn called “People Love Dead Jews”. How Stalin handled those involved in Yiddish theatre. Yes, of course. He murdered everybody in the end. Yes Jonathan, a notable Jewish survivor of Stalin’s paranoia was Lazar Kaganovich who built the impressive subways, but was notorious for being involved in the Ukrainian famine in which killed millions. Yeah. And he was a very, very close friend of Stalin. Look, there are Jews without moral compass as well, but he died in his bed.

Q: How did these people run foul of Stalin? A: Didn’t take much to run foul of Stalin. I’ll be talking more about that next time, Tim. I’m referring to people who were previously useful to him. If they’d been his enemy. You know, one of the problems Russia faced when in 1941 when the Nazis invaded, is he’d executed many of his brilliant generals.

Q: If there’s so much intermarriage, why is there so much antisemitism? Will it ultimately cause the Refusenik movement? A: Because… Ugh, don’t get me onto antisemitism. The problem with antisemitism, it is so rooted in the West. It is impossible, I believe, to eradicate. That’s what I was talking about the other day and I know I upset a few people. I upset myself as well. I wish I believed we could do something about it. You certainly don’t find it in China or India, by the way. It’s only in the world of monotheism. It’s still a problem now in the Muslim world, as you all know. It’s that line between legitimate criticism and hating Jews.

I believe that the acronym for the Communist Youth League is Komsomol. Thank you Paul. Jean, I can understand how Jews were willing to assimilate. It gave them security and economic opportunities. Coming to New York City from Joburg in 1974, New York City was so comfortable and secure in comparison that we felt we had little need to join a Jewish community. However, the Holocaust has taught us that one dare not stop being Jewish so within a few years we had joined a synagogue. The benefit of hindsight. Isn’t it fascinating, Gene? I really believe that when the outside world is hostile and at the moment the outside world is hostile to so many different groups, because we are going through a very, very bad patch. I do believe people become tribal. Whoever that tribe is.

Q: I’m so sorry, what book was it you mentioned we must have in our house? A: Martin Gilbert’s history atlas book. It’s a book on the history of the Jews in maps. Oh yes. The book about Stalin is “Stalin” and “Young Stalin,” two volumes by Simon Sebag Montefiore. I’m actually going to invite him in next term to give a lecture, he’s a wonderful lecturer.

Q: Did Stalin send Jews to the Gulag solely because they were Jewish? A: No, Lynn. He sent them if they were Zionists, he sent them if they were Bundists or to prison. He sent them if he saw them as enemies. Thank you, Michelle.

Q: How many Canadian and American Jews moved to Birobidjan? A: I don’t think any of them did. They helped financially. That was what’s so fascinating. Left-wing Jews, even wealthy left-wing Jews helped with these kind of endeavours.

Oh yes. Another book. Jonathan. Yes. Sebag is brilliant on this. “The Court of the Red Czar,” again by Simon Sebag. Thank you Jonathan. Yes. He is brilliant. Oh yes, here’s Erica. I’m a poor historian, but I love the film “Death of Stalin” for its black humour.

Q: The question is, how accurate was it about the intrigue, the manipulations of the top echelons and the fear amongst them of each other? A: Erica, it’s quite funny. It’s one of my daughter’s favourite films. It is black. Yes, there were terrible machinations. They were terrified. He’d had a stroke. And it was actually at the time of the doctor’s plot. A whole group of Jews were accused of trying to poison him. The fact that he died saved their lives.

Q: What were the grounds for the emnity between Trotsky and Stalin? A: Power. Power, power, power. Trotsky was Stalin’s natural successor. The problem with Trotsky, he was the pure intellectual. He was a genius. He was a man of action. Ruthless, he created the Red Army. He went along with all of Stalin’s, with all of Lenin’s policies. He was the man who was really responsible for holding Russia, for holding Soviet Russia. Stalin hated him. He hated Stalin. Stalin was the clever bureaucrat. The great genius is always taken over by the bureaucrats. It’s interesting, a great lesson in history.

Q: Was Stalin surprised when Hitler broke the pact? A: He shouldn’t have been, should he?

A Canadian Russian immigrant, from Abigail, has created documentary about Jewish women and their heroic participation in World War II Russian Air Force. Oh, that’s interesting, Abigail. That’s one thing about Soviet Russia, at least men and women were equal, equally able to be killed. Yes, in it’s height in the late forties, the Jewish population of Birobidjan peaked at around 50,000. I’m sure I should have told you that. About 25%. But as an idea, the whole thing failed, I’m afraid, Stuart. Komsomol, no it’s Komosol. Is it Komosol? I’m so bad at Russian.

Q: How was Stalin taken in by Hitler not recognising Hitler’s true intention to invade Russia? A: There are so many books on this, Jennifer. I can’t think of which one to recommend. And there are so many different historical angles on it. It’s a very, very important question.

Adrian, oh, lovely Adrian, how are you? Thank you. Thank you. Am I going to talk about Molotov’s wife? Not in any detail, but one of the things we might do is do a bit more biography as we go through.

Q: Rose, I always ask myself, were those communist Jews self hating? Are they often not the worst for us 'cause we fail to recognise them? Is Ben & Jerry not a typical example? A: It’s interesting, isn’t it, that many of- What I’m proposing to do, because we will be finishing this series on Russia at the end of July and August you’ll be pleased to know Wendy’s insistence, we’re going to have a lighter August. I’m actually going to be looking at how in the end, antisemitism is going to be exported out. Antisemitism, anti-Zionism is going to be exported out of Russia and I’m going to show how it came to England as a case study. And many of the characters involved, of course, were the people that Isaac Deutche called the non-Jewish Jews. Jewish self-hatred. And Merna, it was Unilever, the parent company that bought Ben & Jerry, yes.

Ruth, they were not self-hating Jews, they were outsiders and wanted a better world. I think there are two categories, Ruth. I think it’s absolutely possible to be an idealist and to want the world to change for the better. One of the reasons I’ve decided in August to pair up Trotsky and Jabotinsky, they’re nearly the same age, they died the same year. They both were genius. They were both brilliant orators. They were both activists. Trotsky wanted to save the whole world. Jabotinsky in the end decided just to save the Jews. And I’ve got this feeling that they must have met. You know, this is the undisclosed side of history. Can you believe these two fire brands were both in Odesa and they didn’t know each other? And can you imagine that Geneva or the Communists, the Bundists, the Zionists, who debated with who? Can you imagine if, I don’t know if there’s any brilliant playwrights listening in, but what a play it would be.

Oh, this is Abigail. Yoram Hazony’s book on politics in Esther expands the problem with authoritarianism as the principal problem with Hamman and the Persian King. Lovely, thank you. There is a movie, Mr. Jones, which shows Stalin’s treatment of famine in Ukraine and distrust of the English and American press. Yeah. Thank you. Hard to find Martin’s map books. Get them reprinted. Yes, I will talk to Lady Gilbert about that. You’re right. How are you Joan? I hope- Oh, Bobby found it on Amazon. Hope you’re well, Joan. This is from Eve. My parents lived under Stalin in Tashkent, which is now called Uzbekistan, but it was in the USSR in the 1930s. They were persecuted both for being Jewish and for business people running a collective. They immigrated in the early thirties, eventually ending up in Paris. Yeah. And then of course, where did they go from there? The wandering Jews, eh? Thank God they got out. Abigail, replacement theology is one reason why antisemitism is so central. The Indians have a stable of gods and so respect all gods and freedom of all to choose their gods. Yeah, I think this is the problem. Also, a psychologist will tell us that Judaism is the parent religion. They think of it as the parent religion, of both Christianity and Islam. Thank you, thank you. Abigail, I recommend watching any of Steven Kotler’s talks on his book on Stalin on YouTube.

Q: What about Laurenti Bary? A: Yes, another monster. Look, what I’ve tried to do is give you an overview. Unfortunately, we could spend a whole term on Stalin and I could bring in all sorts of experts, but that’s a good question.

Q: What did Churchill think of Stalin? A: Have you ever watched the body language at the great conferences? Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill. He hated communism. He hated Stalin. He didn’t want any accommodation with him. He was the junior partner though.

Yes, Stalin may have wanted more time before Hitler attacked, much like the recent film “Munich,” about Chamberlain’s wanting to get more time.

Q: What was the position of the Bund? A: They were outlawed. Emily, they were outlawed completely. They survived in Poland. The Bund survived in Poland.

Rhoda, I’m reading “Stalin’s Daughter” by Rosemary Sullivan. It’s brutal to read, but Sullivan’s a good writer. Thank you very much, Rhoda. Thank you. Oh, this is from Bernard. Try Thrift Books for Martin Gilbert’s maps. I got several copies. I hope you gave them to students, Bernard. Oh Eve, they came to London and now I’m in Jerusalem. Fabulous. The wandering Jews. Yes. And Jackie’s saying you could buy it secondhand. It’s on Amazon.

I think that’s it, Lauren. So I wish you all good night and the next presentation you really should listen to. It’s lovely David talking about Vasily Grossman. Now, Vasily Grossman is an incredibly important writer. So I wish you all well and as ever, Lauren, thank you very much and I’ll see you next Tuesday.