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“Rus! Have you rotted, fallen and died?
Well… here’s to your eternal memory.
You shuffle, your crutches scraping along,
Your lips smeared with soot from icons,
Over your vast expanses the raven caws,
You have guarded your grave dream.
Old woman — blind and stupid…”
V. Bloom in Moscow Evening could brazenly demand the removal of history’s garbage
from city squares: to remove Minin-Pozharsky monument from Red Square, to remove the
monument to Russia’s thousand-year anniversary in Novgorod and a statue of St. Vladimir on
the hill in Kiev. “Those tons of metal are needed for raw material.” (The ethnic coloring of the
new names has already been noted.)
Swept to glory by the political changes and distinguished by personal shamelessness,
David Zaslavsky demanded the destruction of the studios of Igor Graybar used to restore ancient
Russian art, finding that “reverend artist fathers were trying again to fuse the church and art.”
Russia’s self-mortification reflected in the Russian language with the depth, beauty and
richness of meaning were replaced by an iron stamp of Soviet conformity. We have not forgotten
how it looked at the height of the decade: Russian patriotism was abolished forever. But the
feelings of the people will not be forgotten. Not how it felt to see the Church of the Redeemer
blown up by the engineer Dzhevalkin and that the main mover behind this was Kaganovich who
wanted to destroy St. Basil’s cathedral as well. Russian Orthodoxy was publicly harassed by
warrior atheists led by Gubelman-Yaroslavsky. It is truthfully noted: “That Jewish communists
took part in the destruction of churches was particularly offensive. No matter how bad the
participation of sons of Russian peasants in the persecution of the church, the part played by each
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non-Russian was even worse.” This went against the Russian saying: “if you managed to snatch
a room in the house, don’t throw God out”.
In the words of A. Voronel, “The Twenties were perceived by the Jews as a positive
opportunity while for the Russian people, the decade was a tragedy.”
True, the Western leftist intellectuals regarded Soviet reality even higher; their
admiration was not based on nationality but upon ideas of socialism. Who remembers the
lightning crack of the firing squad executing 48 food workers for having caused the Great
Famine (i.e., rather than Stalin): the wreckers in the meat, fish, conserves and produce trade?
Among these unfortunates were not less than ten Jews. What would it take to end the world’s
enchantment with Soviet power? Dora Shturman attentively followed the efforts of B. Brutskus
to raise a protest among Western intellectuals. He found some who would protest – Germans and
rightists. Albert Einstein hotheadedly signed a protest, but then withdrew his signature without
embarrassment because the “Soviet Union has achieved a great accomplishment” and “Western
Europe will soon envy you.” The recent execution by firing squad was an isolated incident. Also,
“from this, one cannot exclude the possibility that they were guilty.” Romain Rolland maintained
a noble silence. Arnold Zweig barely stood up to the communist rampage. At least he didn’t
withdraw his signature, but said this settling of accounts was an “ancient Russian method.” And,
if true, what then should be asked of the academic Ioffe in Russia who was prompting Einstein to
remove his signature?
No, the West never envied us and in those “isolated incidents” millions of innocents died.
We’ll never discover why this brutality was forgotten by Western opinion. It’s not very readily
remembered today.
Today a myth is being built about the past to the effect that under Soviet power Jews
were always second class citizens. Or one sometimes hears that there was not the persecution in
the Twenties that was to come later. It’s very rare to hear an admission that not only did they
take part, but there was a certain enthusiasm among Jews as they carried out the business of the
barbaric young government. The mixture of ignorance and arrogance which Hannah calls a
typical characteristic of the Jewish parvenu filled the government, social and cultural elite. The
brazenness and ardor with which all Bolshevik policies were carried out, whether confiscation of
church property or persecution of bourgeois intellectuals, gave Bolshevik power in the Twenties
a certain Jewish stamp.
In the Nineties another Jewish public intellectual, writing of the Twenties said: “In
university halls Jews often set the tone without noticing that their banquet was happening against
the backdrop of the demise of the main nationality in the country. During the Twenties Jews
were proud of fellow Jews who had brilliant careers in the revolution, but did not think much
about how that career was connected to the real suffering of the Russian people. Most striking
today is the unanimity with which my fellow Jews deny any guilt in the history of 20th century
Russia.”
How healing it would be for both nations if such lonely voices were not drowned out.
Because it’s true. In the Twenties, Jews in many ways served the Bolshevik Moloch not thinking
of the broken land and not foreseeing the eventual consequences for themselves. Many leading
Soviet Jews lost all sense of moderation during that time, all sense of when it was time to stop.
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