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In Ukraine
The breakdown of the universally hated Russian Empire cost all involved dearly,
including the Jews. G. Landau writes: “In general, revolution is gruesome, risky and dangerous
business. It is especially gruesome and dangerous for a minority, which in many ways is alien to
the bulk of population. To secure their well being, such minority should unwaveringly cling to
law and rely on unshakable continuity of social order and on the inertia of statutory power.
Forces of revolutionary misalignment and permissiveness hit such a minority particularly hard.”
It was looming — straight forward, into the so promising future! Yet in the near future,
during the Civil War, there was no law and Jewry was hit by pillaging and pogroms on the scale
not even close to anything they experienced in days of the Czar. And those pogroms were not
launched by the White side. Because of the density of the Jewish population in Ukraine, it was
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inevitable that a third force, apart from the Reds and Whites, would interfere in the Jewish
destinies — that of Ukrainian separatism.
In April 1917, when the Ukrainian Rada [upper house of Parliament] assembled for the
first time, Jewry did not yet believe in the victory of Ukrainian Nationalism, and that was
manifested in the character of their voting during municipal summer elections. Jews did not have
any reason to vote for Ukrainian separatists. But already in June, when something resembling
real independent Ukrainian governance was taking shape — under which apparently the Jews
would have to live from now on — the Jewish representatives entered the Lesser [lower] Rada,
and a Vice-Secretariat on Jewish nationality (“Jewish Ministry”) was established.
The latter worked on the long-cherished project of Jewish national autonomy, according
to which every nationality and now the Jewish one creates its own national union, which can
legislate according to the needs and interests of their nation and for that it receives financial
support from the treasury, and a representative of the union becomes a member of the cabinet.
Initially, the formative Ukrainian government was generally benevolent toward Jews, but by the
end of 1917 the mood changed, and the bill on autonomy was met in the Rada with laughter and
contempt. Nevertheless, in January 1918 it was passed, though with difficulties. For their part,
the Jews reluctantly accepted the Third Universal (November 9, 1917, the declaration of
Ukrainian independence from Russia) as now they feared anarchy, traditionally dangerous for
Jewish populations, and were afraid of a split within Russian Jewry. Still, Jewish philistines were
making fun of the Ukrainian language and shop-signs. They were afraid of Ukrainian
nationalism, and believed in the Russian state and Russian culture. Lenin wrote: “Jews, like
Great Russians, ignore the significance of the national question in Ukraine.”
However, everything pointed toward secession and the Jewish delegates in the Rada did
not dare to vote against the Fourth Universal (January 11, 1918, declaring complete secession of
Ukraine). Immediately thereafter, the Bolsheviks began an offensive against Ukraine. The first
“Ukrainian” Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party of Bolsheviks was formed in
Moscow and later moved to Kharkov; it was headed by Georgiy Pyatakov and among its
members were Semyon Schwartz and Serafima Gopner. When by the end of January 1918 they
moved to Kiev, Grigory Chudnovsky took the post of the Commissar of Kiev, Kreitzberg
became a commissar of finances, D. Raikhstein, press commissar, Shapiro — commissar of the
army. There was no shortage of Jewish names among the top Bolsheviks in such centers as
Odessa and Ekaterinoslav. That was sufficient to fuel talks about Bolshevik Jews and Jewish
Bolsheviks among the troops loyal to the Rada. Verbal cursing about traitorous Jews became
almost commonplace; in the very midst of street fighting for Kiev, the Zionist faction produced
an official inquiry on the matter of “anti-Jewish excesses.” The question turned into a verbal
skirmish between Ukrainian delegates and representatives of national minorities.
Thus enmity split apart the Jews and the Ukrainian separatists. The Ukrainian
government and the leaders of Ukrainian parties were evacuated to Zhitomir, but the Jewish
representatives did not follow them, they remained under the Bolsheviks. And in addition, the
Bolsheviks in Kiev were supported by a sizable group of Jewish workers, who returned from
England after the February, Kerensky revolution and who now wholly siding with the Soviet
regime took up the posts of commissars and officials, and created a special Jewish squad of Red
Guards.
Yet soon after the conclusion of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk [in which the Soviets ceded
Ukraine to the Central Powers] as the government of independent Ukraine returned to Kiev
under the aegis of Austrian and German bayonets in the beginning of February of 1918, the
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