division b: history of the jewish people / חטיבה ב: תולדות עם ישראל || יהודי...

World Union of Jewish Studies / האיגוד העולמי למדעי היהדות

/ יהודי רוסיה בין האדומים ללבנים RUSSIAN JEWS BETWEEN THE REDS AND THE WHITESAuthor(s): OLEG BUDNITSKII and אולג בודניצקיSource: Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies / דברי הקונגרס העולמי למדעיחטיבה ב: תולדות עם ישראל / Division B: History of the Jewish People ,היהדות, כרך יב*pp. 189*-198 תשנ"ז / 1997Published by: World Union of Jewish Studies / האיגוד העולמי למדעי היהדותStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23535861 .

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RUSSIAN JEWS BETWEEN THE REDS AND THE WHITES

BY

OLEG BUDNITSKII

The revolution of 1917 granted Russian Jewry the long-awaited equality of

rights and unprecedented possibilities for participation in the political life of the

country. But very soon the revolution, which developed into the Civil War,

brought about a tragedy comparable to that of the Chmielnicki period and

surpassed only by the Holocaust. In my opinion, this paradoxical and tragic time in Russian Jewish life needs additional research. Areas of particular interest are the life of the Jews in the territories under White control, and the

relationship between Jewish leaders of anti-Bolshevik views and the leadership of the only real force able to oppose the Bolsheviks — the White army.

The main events of the Civil War in Russia unfolded in 1918-1920, with the

seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, first in the capitals, Petrograd and Moscow

in October and November of 1917, and then when they established their

dictatorship throughout the country. As early as November 1917, resistance to

Bolsheviks began forming in the south of Russia, in Siberia, in the Urals, and in

several other regions. The formation of the Volunteer Army took place in

Novosherkassk, the capital of the Don Cossacks, and in Rostov, a large

industrial trade and cultural center, "the Russian Chicago ,י, as it was called back

then. In Rostov, and in a nearby Taganrog, there were large and influential

Jewish communities. The local Jewish population actively participated in the

drama of unfolding events.

The White forces were initially headed by General Lavr Kornilov, and after

his death in the spring of 1918 by General Anton Denikin; under Denikin the

Whites attained their most prominent successes, and by the fall of 1919 they controlled the south of Russia, the Ukraine, part of central Russia and were

advancing towards Moscow. But the period of military successes ended with the

defeat of Denikin,s forces by the Red Army, and Denikin retired in March 1920,

whereupon General Petr Wrangel became his successor. The White movement

[ 189♦ ]



OLEG BUDNITSKII

in the South of Russia was done with by November 1920, when the last of the

White regiments was evacuated from the Crimea.1

In the period of the Civil War of 1918-1920, Russian Jewry suffered the

horror of mass pogroms. Historians vary in their opinions regarding the

number of victims of these pogroms, the bloodiest of which occurred in the

Ukraine in 1919-1920. No records were kept, of course. The data cited in the

literature vary from 50-60 to 200 thousand killed and died from wounds.2 These

numbers should be augmented by the tens of thousands who were raped and

robbed.

Meanwhile, the reasons, circumstances and consequences of these events

have not been studied sufficiently. The tragedy of Russian Jewry in 1918-1920

turned out to be "in the shadow" of the Holocaust. At the same time, some

authors justifiably see a connection between the pogroms of the Russian

revolution and Civil War epoch, and the Holocaust. Abraham Greenbaum

writes about the pogroms of the Civil War period: "In some ways, especially since killings were sometimes carried out as a kind of'national duty'without the

usual robbery — they bear comparison with the Holocaust some twenty years later..."3

However, the number of works devoted to these events is surprisingly modest, the majority of them dating back to the 1920s and 1930s and constituting a

collection of documents rather than research works. The chronological and

geographical localization of the subjects of research is also noteworthy: as a

rule, 1919-1920 in the Ukraine. Such localization is easily explained — the

About the Civil War in greater detail see Peter Kenez, Civil War in South Russia, 1918

Berkeley 1971; Idem. Civil War in South Russia, 1919-1920, Berkeley 1977; Ivan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War, London A Boston 1987. In my article I study the events in the South of

Russia. On the Jewish question in the North and East of the country see Zosa Szaikowsky, Kolchak, Jews and the American Intervention in Northern Russia and Siberia, 1918-1920, New York 1977.

S. Baron considered the number of victims to "easily" exceed 50 thousand — Salo Baron, The

Russian Jew Under the Tsars and Soviets, 2nd ed., New York 1976, p. 184; Nora Levin speaks of 50-60 thousand victims — Nora Levin, The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917, New York — London 1988, Vol, 1, p. 49; S.H. Ettinger — 75 thousand — H.H. Ben-Sasson (éd.), A

History of the Jewish People, Cambridge, Mass. 1976, p. 954; N. Gergel, ,The Pogroms in the

Ukraine in 1918-21,' YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science 6 (1951), p. 251 and S. Gusev

Orenburgsky in Kniga o evreiskih pogromah na Ukraine v 1919 godu (The Book About the

Jewish Pogroms in the Ukraine in 1919)(Petrograd, n.d.), p. 14, agree upon the number as no

less than 100 thousand. Finally, the 200 thousand figure is given in Yu. Larin, Evrei I

antisemitism v SSSR (Jews and Anti-Semitism in the USSR), Moscow/Leningrad 1929, p. 55. Cited in Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, New York 1995, p. 112.

Abraham Greebaum, *Bibliographical essay' in John D. Klier and Shlomo Lambroza, eds.,

Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History, Cambridge 1992, p. 380.

[ 190*]




largest number of pogroms occurred in 1919, and the majority of the Jews of the

Russian empire resided in the Ukraine. It was quite natural that authors of the first works on the "Jewish question5'

during the years of the Civil War and, in particular, authors of works that

touched upon the problem of the "relationship" of the anti-Bolshevik forces

with the Jewish population, concentrated predominantly on the history of the

pogroms. The main task of the historians, who were almost exclusively Jewish, was to bring the truth about the pogroms to the attention of the world public.4

Among the pogromists, an "honorary" place is occupied by the White forces

or, as they were often referred to, the Volunteers, after the name of their first

armed formation — the Volunteer Army. Elias Tcherikower was not far from

the truth when he wrote that "in relation to the total number of pogroms in the

Ukraine in those years the pogroms by the Volunteer Army comprise only one

fifth (according to other estimates — 179fr). But this total number refers to the

1918-1921 period, while the pogroms by the Volunteer Army lasted only several

months. In these months the volunteers broke all records. Their pogroms were

more intensive than others, their blows — sharper, and the number of pogroms

— greater."5

In literature the Jews are, as a rule, viewed only as the victims of pogroms, and

leaders of the Whites — only as inspirers, or, in the best case, as passive witnesses of the pogroms rendered by their troops. But reality was much more

complex. The Jews were not at all simply the victims; many of them were active

participants of the political process not only in the Red ranks, which is a rather

well-known fact, but on the other side of the front line as well. Specific circumstances of the events can be understood on the basis of research of new

archival materials. The fate of Russian Jewry during the Civil War leads to more general

reflections: what should have been the "proper" mode of behavior of Jews in the

country, which was being torn apart by its internal contradictions, and in which

E.G. Elias Heifetz, The Slaughter of the Jews in the Ukraine in 1919, New York 1921; S.I.

Gusev-Orenburgsky, Kniga o evreiskih pogromah na Ukraine v 1919 godu, Petrograd, n.d.;

N.I. Shtif, Pogromy na Ukraine (period Dobrovolcheskoi armii), Berlin 1923; I.B.

Schechtman, Pogromy Dobroyolscheskoi armii na Ukraine (k istorii antisemitisma na

Ukraine v 1919-1920 gg), Berlin 1932, Of later works, there is Yehuda Slutzky 'Be'ayat

ha-ahrayut li'pera,ot Ukraina*, Heavar, XVII: pp. 27-43, in which the author takes on a

problem of responsibility of the Civil War participants for the pogroms and points out that the

Red troops were not at all innocent in this respect. See in greater detail the above-cited review

by A. Greenbaum, pp. 380-382.

I.M. Tcherikower, 'Beloie dvizheniie I evrei (The White movement and the Jews)' in Joseph

B. Schechtman, "Pogromy Dobrovol'cheskoi armii...", p. 26.

[191•]



OLEG BUDNITSKII

the Jews were the unwanted and "unloved" minority, and does such a "proper" mode exist at all?

I must point out that my report is primarily concerned with South-Russian

Jewry, which lived in a territory under the Whites for a good deal of time. Here

are some observations on the subject.

The faction of Jews that rejected Bolshevism took an active part in the

struggle from within the White Army and other anti-Bolshevik formations from

the very beginning of the Civil War in Russia. The anti-Bolshevik Cossack

movement at the end of 1917 — beginning of 1918 was largely financed by local

Jewish businessmen. Thus on December 13, 1917, the leader of the "popular Socialists" on the Don, Abram Al'perin, who somehow managed to combine his

socialism with entrepreneurship, handed the Don Ataman, Aleksei Kaledin,

800,000 roubles for the formation of Cossack guerrilla regiments. In accordance

with his slogan for the November 1917 elections to the Constituent Assembly, which read "It is better to save Russia with Cossacks than to ruin it with

Bolsheviks ,י, Al'perin at one point even served as the head of the propaganda department for the Cossack guerrilla regiment of General Semiletov.6

Of course, this "Jewish-Cossack friendship" remained an episode, but a rather characteristic episode for the part of Jewry that chose the path of fighting Bolshevism, and in the search for a real force that could stand up against it made

rather exotic alliances. Later, during the reign of Ataman Petr Krasnov, any participation of the Jews in political life of the Don region was out of the

question. It is notable that even in September of 1919 some Jews could still be found among Cossack regiments.7

Several tens of Jewish officers, who got their ranks in 1917 after the

equalization of rights, participated in the famous "Ice March" of the Volunteer

Army in winter-spring of 1918. The White leadership held on to the legislation of the Provisional

government, so the Jews had enough opportunities to satisfy their national and

religious needs, to form the corresponding societies, etc.8 At the same time there was legislative protection of private property, and this was fine with a considerable part of South-Russian Jewry, which was mostly employed in

finance, trade and industry. The policy of the White leadership was not initially

Oleg Budnitskii, 'The Jews in Rostov-on-Don in 1918-1919', Jews and Jewish Topics in the

Soviet Union and Eastern Europe 3 (19) (1992), p. 19.

'Now only Cossacks have the right to vote, but non-Cossacks serve in Cossack military units

on equal terms. Actually there are Jews in Cossacks regiments as well' — V.I. Vernadskii, Dnevniki 1917-1921 (Diaries), Kiev 1994, p. 48. Entry of September 13/26, 1919.

Oleg Budnitskii, 'The Jews in Rostov...', pp. 21-23.

[ 192* ]




anti-Semitic, and at the first stage of the Civil War there was certainly

cooperation between anti-Bolshevik forces and a part of South-Russian Jewry. But the growth of mass anti-Semitism and widespread identification of

Bolsheviks with the Jews lead to a change in the policy of White leadership: the

Jewish officers were fired from the army.9 White generals didn't initiate

pogroms, but didn't know how to (and sometimes didn't want to) prevent them.

This had nothing to do with their personal loyalty or disloyalty towards the

Jews: the generals accounted for the attitude of their troops; as the study of

officers'personal correspondence and intelligence reports shows, anti-Semitism

was truly mass and zoological.10

Aside from the more or less "ideological" anti-Semitism of the officers, anti-Semitism of the soldier masses in free Russia evidently showed itself as

early as 1917.11 It was also present in regiments with "pro-Bolshevik" attitudes.

The rise of anti-Semitism in the army (while in the long run it was former

soldiers of the tzarist army that constituted the basis of military units of both the

Reds and the Whites) also had to do with its "nationalization". Likewise, the

process of the "Ukrainization" of the army (meaning the formation of national

Ukrainian regiments within the Russian army) was accompanied by the

soldiers, demand to prohibit the Jews from entering their units. By October the

events developed as far as the participation of the Ukrainian militia in a pogrom of Jewish shops by the peasants.12

At some point the White generals realized that pogroms could lead to the

decay of the army; but their attempts to stop them were unsuccessful; the

example of General Dragomirov shows that this had nothing to do with the

personal anti-Semitism of certain leaders — he clearly was an anti-Semite,

though he ordered the execution of several pogromists in Kiev,13 and still the

generals turned out to be unable to cope with the element.

Not only did pogroms accelerate the degradation of the army, they exhausted

the support of Western democracies in the Whites. Without their support the

White movement could not exist. In the Hoover Institution Archives there are

letters from the Russian ambassador to Paris, Vassily Maklakov, who virtually

A.I. Denikin, *Ocherki russkoi smuty' (Sketches of Russian strife), voprosy istorii 10(1994),

p. 104.

See Peter Kenez, 'The Ideology of The White Movement', Soviet Studies 32 (1980), pp. 58-63.

See M. Frenkin, Russkaia armiia Irevolutsiia (Russian Army and the Revolution), Munich

1978, pp. 118, 212, 243-246, 250-251.

V.P. Buldakov, 'Imperstvo I rossiiskaia revolutsionnost' (Imperialism and Russian

revolutionarism), Otechestvennaia Istoriia 2 (1997), p. 26.

A.I. Denikin. Op. cit. p. 107.

1193* נ



OLEG BUDNITSKII

bombarded the White leadership with demands for measures to end the

pogroms or at least to make certain gestures with regard to the Jews. In a letter

to the leader of the White Movement, General Anton Denikin on December 3,

1919, Maklakov insisted that the publication of anti-Semitic brochures under

the auspices of Denikin's propaganda department — OSVAG — be stopped, and even went so far as to recommend issuing materials explaining the evil of

pogroms. In a letter to Denikin,s minister of finance Michael Bernatsky (December 2,

1919) Maklakov suggested appointing Jews to some executive positions, using the Poles as an example: "given all their Judophobia there are fairly many Jews

among Polish officials of all levels". Maklakov justly considered that "the

expulsion of Jews from the army is also a measure that shows how the

government is surrendering to anti-Semitism.14'י

Even if Denikin had been prepared to make "gestures" towards the Jews, he

didn't have time to. His troops were defeated by the Reds.

The White pogroms forced many Jews to support the reds; on the other hand,

cooperation with the Reds was absolutely unacceptable for a considerable part of Russian Jewry because it meant the destruction of the very basis of its

existence, and in the long run — denationalization, or, according to Bolshevik

terminology — internationalization.

The Jews were, of course, safer under the Reds. A contemporary has left an

interesting note: "A mass of filth stuck to the Volunteer Army as well as to the

Bolsheviks, and all in all one is not better than the other; only it is easier for cultured people to live under the Volunteer Army. Yet not for all of them — it is

easier for the Jews to live with Bolshevism."15

But the basis of the Red Army was formed by the same anti-Semitic mass of

soldiers. In the event of the slightest relief of disciplinary control, its anti

Semitism took not only verbal forms, but violent ones as well. As early as

November of 1917, contemporaries noticed that "in the mass of Smolny

monastery (where the Bolshevik headquarters were located — O.B.) the word

'zhid' (a kike) is heard everywhere".16 The attitude of "the privates of

revolution" towards Jews was precisely formulated by former cavalry sergeant

major, Fyodor Podtelkov, who happened to be the leader of the Reds on the

Don. When the question "What about the Jews?" was asked from the crowd in

Novocherkassk (the capital of the Don Cossacks) — he explained: "Under the

14 'The Russian Ambassador in Paris on the Whites and the Jews, 1919-1920', Introduced by

Oleg Budnitskii, Jews in Eastern Europe 3 (28) (1995), pp. 56-58.

15 V.I. Vernadskii, Op. cit. p. 207. Entry of December 28, 1919 — January 11, 1920.

16 Ibid., p. 29, entry of November 3, 1917.

[ 194* ]




Soviet regime it is obligatory to consider zhid (a kike) a human being."17 Nevertheless, anti-Semitic outbursts in the Red Army occurred rather often,

sometimes taking semi-comic form, but often a tragic one. Here is a comic

example, which has been recorded by a contemporary. This episode is very characteristic of the fighters for the brighter future. It is an account of the

seizure of a Cossack village by a Bolshevik regiment headed by one of the locals — Constantine Pulatkin.

"Having entered a village at the head of an undefeatable armada of a worker

and-peasant army, this military chief (23 years of age) first of all sent one of the

local women, whom he had previously courted, but by whom he was rejected, a

love letter of the following contents: 'Dear Lelia! I am offering you my hand and

heart. In case of rejection — execution! ' The woman gave an affirmative answer

(naturally), but set the condition of a church wedding. Cost'ka agreed to the

terms, and added that 'he himself doesn't want any dog customs and doesn't

tolerate them.' The circumstances of the wedding are something Homeric:

Cost'ka arrived at the church in the carriage of the headmaster of a school he

had been kicked out of. The carriage was driven by a team of three white horses

and was covered by carpets. Right by Cost'ka there stood a gramophone, which

he constantly wound, and which played: 'Glorified, glorified by our Russian

Tzar!' After the wedding a huge amount of drinking went on, and ended in

scandal. The groom pronounced a toast for the Revolution, and finished it with

a passionate exclamation 'Beat kikes (Bei zhidov)!' and an immediate

application of this principle by hitting a Jewish commissar, who was sitting

nearby. Shooting started, two people were heavily wounded, and the newly

fledged Madame Pulatkina was all scratched. No wonder the lady now speaks about her husband with regret: -Oh, why didn't the Whites catch Cost'ka? He

would have been hanged by now, and I would have been a widow, — now it is so

inconvenient: married to a Bolshevik and can't divorce him, damned

him/..../"18 There were far more tragic consequences when the command of the First

Cavalry Army practically lost control of its troops in the time of its defeat in the

Soviet-Polish war of 1920. During the panic of retreat the cavalryman nevertheless had time enough to inflict a series of pogroms upon shtetls, leading to a number of victims among the civilians. However, as opposed to the Whites,

17 Oleg Budnitskii, 'The Jews in Rostov....', p. 18.

18 Vladimir Amfiteatrov-Kadashev, 'Stranitsy is dnevnika (Pages from the Diary)', Minuvshee

20 (1996), p. 593-594.

[ 195* ]



OLEG BUDNITSKII

the Reds severely chastised the pogromists; evidently, no less than 200 Red

cavalrymen were shot.19

The Crimea campaign of general Petr Wrangel became an epilogue of the

White movement. By that time the White leaders realized that pogroms led to

demoralization of the army. The necessity of cooperation with the Western

democracies also became clear, but it was incompatible with anti-Semitic

policies. Wrangel not only didn't allow any pogroms, but tried to put an end to

anti-Semitic propaganda. Within the small Crimean "circle" it became evident that the primary sources

of anti-Semitic propaganda were the writings and sermons of some of the

Russian intelligentsia and Orthodox clergy. The above-mentioned Russian

ambassador to Paris, Maklakov, visited "Wrangel" Crimea in September, 1920, and described his impressions to his colleague in Washington D.C, Boris

Bakhmetev. Maklakov met with the well-known Russian philosopher, Sergei

Bulgakov, who entered the priesthood in 1918. Maklakov wrote about this

meeting: "As for anti-Semitism, here 1 encountered perhaps the most dangerous type

of anti-Semitism, the suspicion or even conviction that basically the whole

world is controlled by an organized Jewish kahal, established somewhere in

America in the form of a collegium, and that Bolshevism was intentionally launched against Russia by them. So far this is not yet the conviction of

Bulgakov himself, but he has considerable suspicions that it is true. He

insistently and in a very detailed manner interrogated me about the degree to which the information at my disposal might refute this idea. He also questioned me about my connections with Masons, about what I had managed to see and

hear among them, about the raison d'etre of the existence of Masonry, etc.

In a word, I see that for Bulgakov, if not now then in the future, and for the

less cultured bishops, already at the present time, the dominating role of Jews

among the Bolshevik leaders is not accidental and attributable to historical

reasons, but is a manifestation of that tendency to conquer the world which is

attributed [to the Jews]. Bulgakov is definitely an opponent of pogroms. In this

regard, he admits that Vostokov's sermons,20 although not pogromist — this he

V.L. Genis, 'Pervaia Konnaia Armiia: za kulisamy slavy' (The First Cavalry Army: the

Seamy Side), Voprosy Istorii, 12 (1994), pp. 69-74.

Vladimir Bostokov — archpriest; after the October Revolution he promoted pogromists ideas

in Denikin's army, for which he was reprimanded by both clerical and military authorities. He

continued his propaganda in the Crimea. According to Bostokov,s memoirs, on Sept. 22 he

was summoned by Wrangel and told to halt such "religious-patriotic propaganda" on pain of

exile from the Crimea. The manuscript of his memoirs is in the Bakhmetev Archive of

Columbia University in New York.

[ 196* ]




denies — may arouse un-Christian and very dangerous sentiments among the

masses. He is sufficiently cultured to admit this; but, on the other hand,

Bulgakov could support a much more dangerous, I would say, extremist

tendency of the government to view "self-defense" against the Jews quite

positively. I would not be surprised if Bulgakov would approve, if not of a "Pale

of Settlement", at least of a ban on Jews5 entering government service and, in

general, legal restrictions on Jews. Thus, you see what kind of tendencies have

again arisen among representatives of the intelligentsia, since Bulgakov is surely a member of intelligentsia."21

From Maklakov's point of view Wrangel and Alexander Krivoshein, head of

Wrangel's government, recognized the danger of anti-Semitism quite well. Two

Jews were even offered positions in Wrangel's government: Boris Kaminka —

as minister of finance and Daniil Pasmanik — as minister of propaganda; both

rejected the offer. But Wrangel's experiment was short-lived and in November,

1920, the White movement of Russia ceased to exist.

Thus, Russian Jews were "pushed" into the Red camp by the course of events;

however, this meant the elimination of possibilities to pursue the national way of life and traditional occupations.

The most clear-sighted Jews realized that the problem was not a matter of

choice between Red and Whites. This refers not only to activists of the Jewish

national movement, but also to sober-minded people who were not involved in

any national or political organizations. A Russian scientist who was one of the

leaders of the Russian Liberals, Vladimir Vernadsky, and who rented an

apartment in Rostov in 1919 from a local businessman, Solomon Mints, father

of a future Soviet academician (physicist), recorded conversations with him and

his wife "about the Jewish question and anti-Semitism". "There is a feeling of

tragedy," Vernadsky wrote in his diary. "Again there is a search for Palestine,

revival of Hebrew. Only Zionists came out undefeated. Bolsheviks tried to

disseminate their organizations everywhere, persecuted Hebrew and introduced

Yiddish instead....". "Mints dreams about settling in Palestine, about all the

Russian Jews getting Palestinian citizenship under the protectorate of England. He tries to depict Jewish nationalism as a real issue, while pointing out that the

Jews cannot be assimilated and that equality of rights does not eliminate

anti-Semitism, which is developing both in America and England, etc."22 But at

the time these were nothing but dreams.

21 'The Russian Ambassador in Paris...', pp. 63-64

22 V.I. Vernadskii. Op. cit., pp. 156, 196. Entries for 15/28, September and 12/25 December,

1919.

[ 197* ]



OLEG BUDNITSKII

During the Russian Civil War Jews didn't have their "own" side; both were "worse" in the long run. The tragedy of the situation was that those who remained neutral suffered much more than those who joined either of the sides.

Attempts to find a way out of this dead end weren't successful. It seems they were looking for something that did not exist.

[ 198* ]



division b: history of the jewish people / חטיבה ב: תולדות עם ישראל || יהודי...

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