Trotsky and the Jews PDF
Preview Trotsky and the Jews
CONTINUED FROM FRONT FLAP $6.00 aims at filling this gap. Trotsky considered himself an all-out internationalist and shunned the J cwish problem as much as he could. But the inexorable course of events finally caught up with him; Hitler's Trotsky rise to power in particular drove him, at the end of life, to change his stance some what, and even to beat a certain ideologi AND THE JEWS cal retreat. Trotsky's life and career are here re viewed against his Jewish background, by Joseph N edava and his persistent fight against pogroms and other anti-Semitic manifestations in Russia is examined in the light of his own writings. As he was unwilling to admit to being the epitome of Jewish participation in the Russian revolutionary LEON TROTSKY, Lenin's copartner in the movement, he often experienced inner Bolshevik revolution of 191 7, was one of conflicts, clearly indicating his ambivalence the titans of our times. Despite Stalin's at crucial moments of his career. The painstaking efforts to eradicate Trotsky's extent to which anti-Semitism was involved memory from the annals of Russian and in his struggle for power with Stalin is international communism (his name is discussed, as well as Trotsky's attitude still anathema in the Soviet Union), his toward the Biro-Bidzhan Project and to stature in world history remains un ward Zionism. impaired. Moreover, in recent years there Trotsky's unique personality reflected has been a marked revival of Trotskyism the rankling Jewish neurosis in tsarist throughout the world, and its followers Russia in an agonized age. The Jewish have been gaining ground in the ranks of people reached the watershed of its ex the New Left. istence during the period that Trotsky Trotsky was a prolific writer, and much stood at the pinnacle of his power. His has also been written about his life and fall could be taken as proof to Zionism's ideas by others, friend and foe. Yet one victory over communism in their historic vital aspect, bearing upon his entire confrontation. personality and career, which may greatly elucidate his revolutionary zeal, as well as his ultimate downfall, has only been The Jewish Publication Society of America touched upon, namely, the Jewish aspect. 222 North Fifteenth Street The present study, based on docu Philadelphia, Pa. 19102 ments and on as yet unpublished material, Jacket design by Sidney Feinberg CONTINUED ON BACK FLAP Trotsky AND THE JEWS Joseph Nedava The Jewish Publication Society of America Philadelphia 5732/1972 Copyright© 1971 by Joseph Nedava First edition All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-188583 Manufactured in the United States of America Designed by Sidney Feinberg Contents Introduction 3 1. Russian Jewish Environment: Incubator of Revolution 18 2. The Jewish Background 28 3. The Pogrom Obsession 48 4. The Implications of the Beilis Case 70 5. The Fight against the Bund 84 6. Attitude to Religion and to the Evsektsia 100 7. Jewish Units in the Red Army 110 8. A Vicarious Jewish Complex 116 9. Extent of Jewish Participation in the October Revolution 133 10. Trotsky's Career through Jewish Eyes 160 11. Anti-Semitic Overtones in the Struggle for Power 168 12. The Moscow Trials 183 13. Zionism: "A Tragic Mirage" 192 14. Biro-Bidzhan: "A Bureaucratic Farce" 211 v I vi Contents 15. In the Role of a Jewish Cassandra 221 16. The Crucible of a Historic Confrontation 227 Notes 233 Bibliography 279 Index 291 Trotsky A No TH E J E w s Introduction The subject of this book, Trotsky and the Jews, is dealt with against the background of Russia in a period of vast political and social change. Because of Trotsky's unique personality and the nature of his impact on his generation, this work must cover much more ground than would at first appear necessary. It has wider ramifications than the life and career of a single person and his attitude to a certain problem. Trotsky was one of the titans of our times; whatever he said and did affected multitudes of people be yond national borders, and there is every reason to believe that his ideas will continue to reverberate for generations to come. Even more significantly, Trotsky should be considered a Jewish case history. He epitomized the predicament of the Diaspora Jew, the product of an environment which had been spiritually unhealthy for centuries. In many respects he was the quintessence of both the sublime and the disruptive in exilic Jewry. Being extremely im petuous and fanatically idealistic, he brought the Jewish tragedy into close focus; and more than anyone else he typified the sympto matic unease of Jewry in the modern age of turbulent change. Trotsky considered himself an all-out internationalist, but he was never successful in his attempt to cast his Jewishness over board. Much to his regret, the Judaism he spurned proved to be 3 4 TROTSKY AND THE JEWS with him an incurable "disease." He was identified as a Jew for better and for worse. Those who viewed his career favorably delved into his Jewish past to uncover his special traits and yearnings; his opponents-and they were legion-ascribed to him all the "shortcomings" of his race. His Jewish background has to be ex amined in order to determine the extent to which he was immune to Jewish problems. Being a product of the Pale of Settlement, he could never out grow his powerful hatred of tsarist autocracy and all it stood for. His detestation of pogroms was, as it were, organically inculcated in him; it was constantly on his mind, grating on his sensitive nervous system and perennially spurring him to revolutionary ac tivity. The notorious Beilis case, too, contributed to his revolution ary ardor. The equality and dignity of man became his main sacrosanct tenets, largely because he felt that the Jew in tsarist Russia was the most oppressed and humiliated citizen. His ac ceptance of the principles of the Marxist revolution were to a noticeable extent a disguise-even though he never openly ad mitted this-for a revolt against the squalor and wretchedness under which Russian Jews lived in the ghetto. Even though he was uprooted from his ancestral milieu, Trot sky's attitude to religion will have to be examined, for in Jewish thought, religion far transcends the ordinary connotation of ritual and ceremonial observance. It envelops the totality of Jewish ex istence, tradition, and morals. This will enable us to grasp Trotsky's notion about assimilation, and his attitude to a territorial solution to the Jewish problem in general and the Zionist solution in particular. Then again, when attempting to evaluate Trotsky's role in both the October Revolution and the Civil War, we are in fact dealing with a wider issue: To what extent does Trotsky's share in these epoch-making events reflect the participation of Russian Jews in them as Jews? Only from such an angle can one venture to ascer tain the extent of the truth in the oft-repeated allegation that bol shevism was a Jewish phenomenon and that but for the Jews, the October Revolution would not have come about.
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