Lenin’s Jewish Question PDF
Preview Lenin’s Jewish Question
Lenin’s Jewish Question This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 18:01:04 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions This page intentionally left blank This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 18:01:04 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Lenin’s Jewish Question YOHANAN PETROVSKY-SHTERN New Haven and London This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 18:01:04 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory ofAmasa Stone Mather ofthe Class of,Yale College. Copyright © by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced,in whole or in part, including illustrations,in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections andofthe U.S.Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press),without written permission from the publishers. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational,business,or promotional use.For information,please e-mail [email protected] (U.S.office) or [email protected] (U.K.office). Set in Minion type by Integrated Publishing Solutions. Printed in the United States ofAmerica. Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Petrovskii-Shtern,Iokhanan. Lenin’s Jewish question / Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN----(cloth :alk.paper) . Lenin,Vladimir Il’ich,–—Relations with Jews. . Lenin,Vladimir Il’ich,–—Family. . Ul’ianov family. . Lenin,Vladimir Il’ich,–—Public opinion. . Jews— Identity—Case studies. . Jewish question. . Jews—Soviet Union—Social conditions. . Jewish communists—Soviet Union—History. . Soviet Union—Politics and government. I. Title. DK.LP .'—dc This paper meets the requirements ofANSI/NISO Z.– (Permanence ofPaper). This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 18:01:04 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Contents Preface How and Why This Book Was Written vii ONE From Nowhere to Zhitomir two The Imperial Moshko three Lenin,Jews,and Power four Glue for the Vertebrae five How Lenin Became Blank Conclusion Acknowledgments List ofAbbreviations This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 18:06:41 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions vi Contents Notes Index Photographs follow page This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 18:06:41 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Preface: How and Why This Book Was Written When Jonathan Brent,my guardian angel from Yale University Press, suggested that I write a book on the Jewish origins of Vladimir Lenin,my answer was a grateful but firm no.By that time I had already seen a number ofrecently declassified doc- uments about Lenin’s Jewish ancestors in East European de- positories and was aware of the heated debates on this issue among Russian historians and archivists.What I learned about Moshko Blank,Lenin’s maternal great-grandfather,and Mosh- ko’s son Alexander Blank,the father of Mariia Aleksandrovna Ulianova (née Blank), did little to change my understanding of Lenin as the founder of the first communist state.Despite Lenin’s genealogy, there was hardly anything Jewish about Lenin’s Marxist upbringing or Lenin’s party leadership.Lenin, I reckoned, was a revolutionary idealist of consistent inter- nationalist convictions,perfect revolutionary pragmatism,per- sistent class consciousness, insatiable thirst for power, and graphic dictatorial proclivities. Jews were too cumbersome and particular for Lenin’s universalistic thinking, which had no place,apparently,for his purported Jewish heritage or Jew- ish concerns. This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 18:07:12 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions viii Preface I had reason to doubt the existence of a “Jewish Lenin.” As a college student in the Soviet Union,I was obligated to take about five hundred hours of coursework on the theory and practice of communism. A mere list of courses would spark envy among my leftist-minded colleagues in California. I learned to apply Marxism, think Marxism, write Marxism, and live Marxism. I was quite successful with the first two pursuits and rather clumsy with the second two.Much later, as a skeptic seeking more nuanced methodologies than the wooden Soviet dogmas,I took courses at Brandeis University in modern and East European Jewish history.To my sheer dis- may I found out that communism and internationalism quite often did not get along and that the class struggle could ac- count neither for the rise nor for the demise of such a key phenomenon of the twentieth century as, for example, Sta- linism.More importantly,my new studies provided me with a comparative and critical view on the Russian revolution, which I no longer considered the triumph of class theory put into practice in one single country.Now I could avoid trivial answers to historical problems such as the overrepresentation of Jews among Russian revolutionaries—all those easy-to- digest,myth-making,and substance-free answers about inher- ent Jewish cosmopolitanism that are becoming increasingly popular. My reluctance to undertake the proposed project stemmed from a conviction:discussing Lenin’s Jewish relatives neglect- ing who Lenin was,how he treated the Jews,and what the Jew- ish question meant to him was tantamount to discussing a Jewish Lenin.And to call Lenin Jewish was to explain the Rus- sian revolution as a largely Jewish enterprise.I resisted telling a story about Lenin’s alleged Jewishness because for many who suffer from a national inferiority complex it would provide This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 18:07:12 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Preface ix just another proofofthe extraordinary role ofJews in the Rus- sian revolution: its causes,character,and results.Antisemites readily argue that the Russian revolution was Jewish through and through,and in this manner they condemn it as contra- band that filthy non-Russian aliens smuggled into pristine Mother Russia.Philosemites do the same,emphasizing instead the true internationalist character ofRussian communism and focusing on what they see as the inborn cosmopolitanism of the Russian Jews.Why should I join either side? Through my research into that period I realized that Jews performed a sec- ondary role—and the role they performed was not Jewish, whatever it signified at that time,or at least had nothing to do with their ethnic origin.Even if Lenin’s remote relative was a shtetl Jew, I found it inconceivable to tell a highly marginal story about a person who, simply put, did not belong in my version ofRussian-Jewish history. And yet the idea puzzled me. However unimportant Lenin’s genealogical Jewishness was for the socialist revolu- tion,its perception by Russians has been a convoluted,highly charged,and significant subject.Because of this significance, attempts to make sense of Lenin’s Jewishness went through many phases, including scornful neglect, bans on archival quests, the heated exchange of ideas, sensational discoveries, and a crushing government-orchestrated silence. Starting in the s,people proving or denying Lenin’s Jewishness pro- duced hundreds of pages worth of memoirs, journalistic es- says, and volumes of scholarly and quasi-scholarly writings. Hardly any memoir or book was ignored.Debates shifted from the kitchens of the USSR to the dining halls of New York in- volving Russian dissidents,far-rightists and Soviet authorities, socialist émigrés with a vested interest in the subject matter, and indiscreet historians. In , the Russian-language web This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 18:07:12 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions x Preface generated between nine hundred thousand and a million re- sponses to a search on two words combined, “Lenin” and “Jew.”The discussion of Lenin’s Jewish roots triggered bitter accusations among many online connoisseurs of Russian his- tory and culture,followed by fierce rebuffs from their no less educated and numerous opponents. Even if Lenin’s Jewish roots changed little about my un- derstanding of Lenin, the attitudes toward a “Jewish Lenin” complicated my vision ofthe Russian and Soviet treatment of Jews—as well as the self-identification of revolutionaries of Jewish descent fully assimilated into the socialist milieu.Lenin’s great-grandfather hated his Jewish identity, and his son— Lenin’s grandfather—flatly rejected it, while Lenin’s mother passed over it in silence.Lenin in some cases considered him- selfa Russian and in others disassociated himselffrom any na- tional identity. His fellow party members of Jewish descent eagerly sacrificed their questionable Jewishness for the sake of a revolutionary internationalism that redeemed them from the ethnic conflicts in Russian society. The century-long perception of Lenin’s purported Jew- ishness is a history in and of itself. When archival research proved a Jewish relation, Stalin forbade Lenin’s kin to men- tion Lenin’s Jewish ancestors. In the s, under Brezhnev’s regime,people who dared research Lenin’s uncomfortable ge- nealogy were laid off, and the documents they found were purged.Russian right-wing activists and writers considered the Jewish origins of many left-wing leaders scandalous,particu- larly after the October revolution, yet until late in the twentieth century they knew nothing about Lenin’s Jewish roots.When documents on Lenin’s origins finally saw the light of day,post-communist journalists evoked Lenin’s Jewishness to condemn the Russian communist experiment as a destruc- This content downloaded from 128.184.220.23 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 18:07:12 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
The list of books you might like
