Book contents
- Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution
- Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- A Note on Translation
- Terms and Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 1917: Antisemitism in the Moment of Revolution
- 2 ‘Red Pogroms’: Spring 1918
- 3 The Soviet Response to Antisemitism, 1918
- 4 Antisemitism and Revolutionary Politics: the Red Army in Ukraine, 1919
- 5 The Soviet Response to Antisemitism in Ukraine, February–May 1919
- 6 Jewish Communists and the Soviet Response to Antisemitism, May–December 1919
- 7 Reinscribing Antisemitism?
- Epilogue: In the Shadow of Pogroms
- Conclusions: Anti-Racist Praxis in the Russian Revolution
- Bibliography
- Index
Conclusions: Anti-Racist Praxis in the Russian Revolution
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2019
- Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution
- Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- A Note on Translation
- Terms and Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 1917: Antisemitism in the Moment of Revolution
- 2 ‘Red Pogroms’: Spring 1918
- 3 The Soviet Response to Antisemitism, 1918
- 4 Antisemitism and Revolutionary Politics: the Red Army in Ukraine, 1919
- 5 The Soviet Response to Antisemitism in Ukraine, February–May 1919
- 6 Jewish Communists and the Soviet Response to Antisemitism, May–December 1919
- 7 Reinscribing Antisemitism?
- Epilogue: In the Shadow of Pogroms
- Conclusions: Anti-Racist Praxis in the Russian Revolution
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Soviet response to antisemitism during the Russian Revolution was actualized, and often sustained, by group of non-Bolshevik Jewish socialists. Bolshevism unquestionably had an inbuilt opposition to antisemitism stretching back to the late-imperial period, but in the Civil War years, the move from ‘standpoint’ to ‘actuality’ relied, to a significant extent, on the agency of this grouping of Jewish radicals. It was a remarkably small assemblage, consisting, at times, of a mere handful of individuals. The Moscow Jewish Commissariat led by Zvi Fridliand and other Poalei Zion activists boasted, at its peak in early 1918, ten staff. Its department for combatting antisemitism was even smaller, its work resting on the shoulders of just six individuals.1 When a layer of Bundists and Fareynikte activists entered the Evsektsiia in 1919 and established the Committee for the Struggle Against Antisemitism, they too relied on a similarly sized pool of resources.2 Yet the importance of these institutions extended well beyond their small activist base: they helped to instil, in practice, a Soviet response to antisemitism where often there was none.
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- Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution , pp. 216 - 219Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019