Jews have played a crucial role in the history of our country more than once: in the revolutionary movement, economy and press before the 1917 revolution; in the apparatus of power after the revolution (in the party, the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD, the leadership of the main people's commissariats). Their role is colossal in modern life: in the party, in the apparatus of propaganda and culture, in shaping the attitude of the West towards the USSR, in managing public opinion. And no doubt their influence will be no less in the foreseeable future. (20 years after this text was written, the events of the late 1980s - 1990s, it seems to me, fully confirmed this idea. For more details see chapter 20.)
It would seem that independent thought in our country should constantly return to this amazing and important phenomenon. For many reasons, this, however, did not happen - and not only now, it was so in the past. Among the few exceptions, Dostoevsky, who generally noticed much that was still hidden from others, devoted several deep articles to the "Jewish question" more than a hundred years ago. He began like this:
“Oh, do not think that I am really planning to raise the 'Jewish question'. I wrote this title as a joke. I cannot raise such a magnitude question as the position of the Jew in Russia and the position of Russia, which has three million Jews among its sons. This question is not in my size."
Of course, these words are not an expression of the author's coquetry; Obviously, Dostoevsky felt that modernity had not yet provided him with the necessary facts or points of view to get closer to understanding the true roots of the issue he raised (there are such hints in his articles). The past century has provided us with a host of new facts on this topic. I am afraid, however, that the situation since Dostoevsky's time has not become more favorable, because, in addition to facts, time has brought with it a multitude of myths, taboos, and outright lies - and all this barricaded the very approaches to the "Jewish question". So in this work, too, I do not set myself the goal of "raising the Jewish question", especially since it is "not in my size." But I would like to try to at least prepare the ground for its discussion in the light of all our vast experience of the XX century, at least help clear the way to understanding thatwhat does it mean for Russians (ie, within the framework of the "Russian question").
First of all, we are blocked by the statement that this issue should not be discussed at all. “It is not humane to operate with such an abstraction as the“Jewish question”or“Jewry”: this ignores the human individuality, some people are recognized as responsible for the actions of others. From here it is only a step to being sent to camps or gas chambers on the basis of class or race”- such objections are often heard. However, the "discussion" of any social or historical phenomenon is impossible without the introduction of some general categories: states, nations, estates. This is a very important component of social or historical analysis and in other cases does not raise any objections. Why can we talk about the influence that the Huguenots who emigrated from France had on the development of capitalism in Germany,but is it immoral to raise the question of a similar Jewish influence? It is possible to draw attention to the role played by the multinational character of Russia in the Russian revolution, but "not intelligently" to be interested in what, in particular, was the role of the Jews? It is hardly possible to answer such questions, unless it is accepted that different standards should be applied to Jews and other peoples. We just need to keep in mind that we are operating with some abstraction, and not to absolutize it.and not to absolutize it.and not to absolutize it.
At first glance, another objection looks more convincing - the assertion that there is no question at all, that the concept of “Jew” or “Jewish people” is an empty abstraction that does not correspond to any reality. So, the modern (XX century) French philosopher Raymond Aron asks: what is common between Yemeni and American Jews, even if both live in Israel? Much earlier, Stalin asked the same question: what is common between the Caucasian and American Jews? But the answer turns out to be well known to many Jewish writers who advocate Jewish nationalism. Here is the opinion on this topic of the most prominent leader of Jewish nationalism in the 19th century, Gretz, who wrote the (first complete) 11-volume History of the Jewish People. “By the middle of the 19th century,” he writes in the last volume of this History, “some Jewish nationalists began to complain,that under the influence of contacts with European culture, as a result of giving them equal rights, the Jews began to lose their supranational cohesion. But in 1840, in Syria, in Damascus, a case arose on charges of several Jews in the ritual murder of a Catholic monk. And immediately it was discovered:
“What a wonderful interconnection indissolubly unites the members of the Jewish world, how strong the bonds are invisibly, unconsciously pulling them together, how the very first threat to Jewry makes the hearts of all Jews on the globe beat in a patriotic outburst: of any party sentiment, a free-thinker-reformer, just like an unbending one an orthodox, statesman, apparently, departed from Jewry, as well as a pedagogue immersed in Kabbalah and Talmud, in gay France just as in thoughtful Asia.
At the head of the movement for the release of the Jews arrested in Damascus were: the French politician Adolphe Cremieux and the Baron Nathaniel Rothschild living in England and Sir Moses Montefiore. They went to Turkey, secured the release of the detained Jews and even forced them to remove the tomb of the murdered monk from the church of the Capuchin monastery. It would seem, indeed, what do Baron Rothschild and Sir Montefiore have in common with the Syrian Jews? But some kind of "indissoluble connection" exists. And it has not existed since the last century. Here is evidence dating back to antiquity (it belongs to the famous historian Mommsen):
Promotional video:
“How numerous even in Rome the Jewish population was even before Caesar, and how steadfastly the Jews were already at that time in the tribal relation, is indicated to us by the remark of one of the modern writers, that it is returning to Rome he will have to be booed by the metropolitan rabble.
This is how Jewry passes through history, right up to the present day, as a single living organism that immediately responds to painful irritation of any part of it. Any question that is acute for Jewry is immediately picked up by the press of the whole world - as was the case, for example, with the "Dreyfus case", "the Beilis case" or the "medical case". From the beginning of this, that is, the 20th century, the negotiations of the Russian government on loans in England, France, America encountered the resistance of Jewish banking houses, which made it a condition to change the position of Jews in Russia. That is, the interests of Russian Jews were, for example, more important for the English Rothschilds than their own financial interests! The case came to an organized international boycott, and banks that tried to break it were subjected to pressure and punishment. President Taft in 1911annulled the Russian-American trade agreement of 1832 under pressure from Jewish circles in America, outraged by the situation of Jews in Russia and, in particular, by the fact that, according to Russian laws, the entry of Jews there was restricted. A symmetrical situation, when a trade agreement was not concluded due to the fact that Jews were not allowed to leave the USSR, developed before our eyes (the Jackson-Vanik law).
And until recently, one could read in newspapers or hear on the radio about demonstrations and petitions of, say, Belgian Jews in defense of, in their opinion, oppressed Soviet Jews. After all, this is amazing: if they met - a Soviet Jew and his European defender, they most likely could not even explain themselves. What connects them? Not the language, not the territory or love for the native landscape, not the state, not the culture, now, as a rule, not even a religion. Apparently, the Jews themselves often only feel this power that binds them, but cannot give it a rational explanation. For example, in an article published in a contemporary magazine published in Russian in Israel, the author, an American Jew, writes:
“For most American Jews, who now form the upper middle class in America, what sets them apart as Jews is a kind of sense of closeness (…). Perhaps the most accurate way would be to say that they "feel something like that" … This "something like that" is the basis of their feelings of Jewishness. Such a small "something …" (…). And this turns out to be a very specific thing - to be singled out, to belong to this group. So specific that people do not want to give the feeling of this belonging and separation, do not want to "exchange" it for anything else."
And Freud, referring to the modern "rebel", said: "If they asked him what is Jewish in you, when you left everything that you had in common with your compatriots, he would answer: there is still a lot, probably the most important thing."
These statements, to which I drew attention a long time ago, are confirmed by others, later. For example, a publicist living in Germany, a representative of the "third wave" of emigration, S. Margolina writes:
“The Jew is not a fantastic invention. His self-awareness begins with a sense of "being different." It is rooted in the tradition of being chosen, which, having lost its religious immediacy, is realized in the worldly form of a sense of superiority and narcissism."
Here another objection is often put forward: if to some extent there is a self-consciousness of the Jews of the whole world as a whole, then its reason lies not in the Jews, but in the situation in which they find themselves - this is a common property of scattered and persecuted peoples. Note that this objection still recognizes the existence of the phenomenon that we are discussing, offering only its explanation. But the explanation does not seem convincing either. It is a reflection of the general concept, according to which the activity of the organism, man, society is directed not by internal stimuli, but by the influence of the environment. This concept is borrowed from biology (Darwinism, behaviorism), but even there it seems to cease to be popular. In the case of interest to us, the question, one might say, is available for experimental verification, since, besides the Jews, there were so many peoples who were losing their state!- but the fate of all of them was completely different from that of the Jews. The state of the Vandals was destroyed by Byzantium, and no one else heard anything about the vandals, and the Jewish state was destroyed by Assyria, Babylon, and Rome, but in the end they were destroyed, and the Jews still exist! The Russian revolution threw out a large number of emigrants abroad, mostly heated by patriotic feelings, striving with all their might to maintain contact with Russia, and already the grandchildren of the emigrants barely speak Russian and have a sentimental interest in Russia at best; and emigration did not have any influence on the political life of the world or those countries where it lived. America is a striking example. Almost all of its inhabitants in one generation or another are emigrants, but, with one single exception,their national interests have very little influence on US policy. There are many Germans there, but this did not stop America from fighting against Germany in the last two wars. But the interests of the Jewish part of the US population simply dominate politics: both trade deals with the USSR and the problem of supplying oil from the Middle East are sacrificed to them. We will give other examples below.
Many have paid attention to this striking phenomenon. For example, M. O. Gershenzon wrote:
"The history of the Jews (…) is too strange in its striking dissimilarity with the history of other peoples …"
He attracts this image:
"Compared to most plants attached to a place, a plant wandering in the sea is abnormal. … It (Jewishness - I. Sh.) is like those plants wandering in the sea, whose roots do not grow into the bottom."
Finally, we must admit that the life of mankind is not governed by trivial logic, that it has general rules, but there are exceptions to them, and that the fate of the Jews is one example of this. Such recognition will be invaluable in that it warns against belief in primitive, trivial solutions: for example, the fact that the Jewish question, which has been a mystery to mankind for 30 centuries, will be solved as a result of assimilation or the issuance of special laws regulating the position of the Jews.
The unwillingness to part with simple, familiar views is quite understandable. So I don't want to give up the "reasonable", "logical" point of view: Jews, de - people like others; only extreme Jewish nationalists and extreme haters of Jews represent them (converging in their extreme) either as messengers from heaven or as a devil; of course, they are people with a difficult history, surprisingly united, but put others in the same conditions - and the result would be similar. Rejecting this point of view, you find yourself, as it seems, in the realm of some fantasies, mysticism (and it’s a shame even to recognize for others some special, unique features). The author himself knows how difficult it is to part with such a view, how long you sacrifice both logic and facts for this, until you realize quite clearly that you are fighting with the evidence. Not only Jews are not the same people,like everyone else, but between them and other peoples there are no intermediate steps, there is some kind of disruption of continuity. And when other nations find themselves in a situation similar to that in which the Jews are, this only emphasizes their difference. There is no denying the existence of this force, which Gretz called the "miraculous relationship" that unites the Jews of the world: too often and too powerfully it affects the life of mankind. The fact that neither we, nor, probably, the Jews themselves, understand by what factors this force acts, does not call into question its existence: the physicist observing some phenomenon will not deny it just because there is no can explain it. Further, we will proceed from this point of view, that is, the existence of a certain social force acting as a whole,which can be called "Jewish influence in the world" or "Jewry". We will not try to analyze the internal stimuli that move this force and direct it in one direction or another. Let us not even ask ourselves whether all Jews or only a few are subject to this force; those who obey it form "Jewry". We will be interested in what this force reacts to, how its point of application changes. Only in this sense will we talk about its "goals". Only in this sense will we talk about its "goals". Only in this sense will we talk about its "goals".
The existence of this force actually constitutes the "Jewish question". Throughout the work, we will try to point out its manifestations in a variety of historical situations - from hoary antiquity to the present day. But what, strictly speaking, is the “question”? - why is the presence of this force (if we assume that our arguments proving that it exists are convincing) - why is this fact important, perceived as a question addressed to us on behalf of history? The reason, apparently, is that this power most often manifests itself when some traditional ways of life collapse - and is a factor contributing to their radical and merciless destruction. The whole history demonstrates, as it were, the coexistence of two difficult to combine, dissimilar entities. Coexistence, resulting in conflicts in which one or the other side suffers. Massacre,produced by the Khmelnitsky Cossacks in the Jewish town of Nemiroff, as if resurrected in the massacre of Arabs in the Palestinian village of Deir Yasin, in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon. Examples run through the whole history, we will meet them in many and in this work. In conflict situations of this magnitude, the search for the "culprit" is hardly productive. Awareness of the situation itself is more important. It is the exclusivity, the unusualness of the history of Jewry that explains the fact that it so constantly attracted human thought to itself, was perceived as a Mystery. Awareness of the situation itself is more important. It is the exclusivity, the unusualness of the history of Jewry that explains the fact that it so constantly attracted human thought to itself, was perceived as a Mystery. Awareness of the situation itself is more important. It is the exclusivity, the unusualness of the history of Jewry that explains the fact that it so constantly attracted human thought to itself, was perceived as a Mystery.
As we have already said, the power of interest to us manifests itself on a very large segment of History. Therefore, in order to notice some of its features, it is necessary to consider it throughout this entire interval. Here we will give a very brief description of it, the most concise description of it for the historical period when it can be observed. This is a preparatory work for those who in the future will try to comprehend more deeply its impact on the fate of our people or all of mankind, as it were, a historical background against which this problem, it seems to me, should be considered.
We are confronted here with an area to which an enormous literature is devoted. In this work, we will rely only on a small part of these sources. Here, not only the obvious reason plays a role - the inability of the author to cover the entire literature (often the inability to get sources that seem interesting), but (which is more important) also the fact that this literature for the most part is exclusively tendentious and causes little trust. Those objections to the discussion of the "Jewish question", which were given at the beginning of the paragraph, are not just ingrained stereotypes of thinking - they are almost dogmas of a certain worldview, and disobedience to them causes irrational rage. The strength of the feelings burning here is shown by a range of arguments that go far beyond the scope of intellectual discussion. Suffice it to remindthat now in a number of Western countries even a public expression of doubt about the figure of 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis is punishable by imprisonment. Under this article, a number of persons were punished: some served their time, others are hiding, and still others are dismissed without hope of finding a job and without the right to retire. Yes, and I myself, during the period of just flourishing freedom and liberalism in our country, only tried to touch on the printed "issue", immediately met with a public demand that the KGB should take up my works (then it was still called that). And this is on the part of a publicist proclaiming devotion to democracy! Then I first discovered that one does not contradict the other. And this engenders caution in many, self-censorship - that very internal editor whom everyone remembers from the times of the communist system.killed by the Nazis, punishable by imprisonment. Under this article, a number of people were punished: some served their time, others are hiding, and others are dismissed without hope of finding a job and without the right to retire. Yes, and I myself, during the period of just flourishing freedom and liberalism in our country, only tried to touch on the printed "issue", immediately met with a public demand that the KGB should take up my works (then it was still called that). And this is on the part of a publicist proclaiming devotion to democracy! Then I first discovered that one does not contradict the other. And this engenders caution in many, self-censorship - that very internal editor whom everyone remembers from the times of the communist system.killed by the Nazis, punishable by imprisonment. Under this article, a number of persons were punished: some served their time, others are hiding, and still others are dismissed without hope of finding a job and without the right to retire. Yes, and I myself, during the period of just flourishing freedom and liberalism in our country, only tried to touch on the printed "issue", immediately met with a public demand that the KGB should take up my works (then it was still called that). And this is on the part of a publicist proclaiming devotion to democracy! Then I first discovered that one does not contradict the other. And this engenders caution in many, self-censorship - that very internal editor whom everyone remembers from the times of the communist system.still others are dismissed without hope of finding a job and without the right to retire. Yes, and I myself, during the period of just flourishing freedom and liberalism in our country, only tried to touch on the printed "issue", immediately met with a public demand that the KGB should take up my works (then it was still called that). And this is on the part of a publicist proclaiming devotion to democracy! Then I first discovered that one does not contradict the other. And this engenders caution in many, self-censorship - that very internal editor whom everyone remembers from the times of the communist system.still others are dismissed without hope of finding a job and without the right to retire. Yes, and I myself, during the period of just flourishing freedom and liberalism in our country, only tried to touch on the printed "issue", immediately met with a public demand that the KGB should take up my works (then it was still called that). And this is on the part of a publicist proclaiming devotion to democracy! Then I first discovered that one does not contradict the other. And this engenders caution in many, self-censorship - that very internal editor whom everyone remembers from the times of the communist system.so that the KGB would take over my works (then it was still called that way). And this is on the part of a publicist proclaiming devotion to democracy! Then I first discovered that one does not contradict the other. And this engenders caution in many, self-censorship - that very internal editor whom everyone remembers from the times of the communist system.so that the KGB would take over my works (then it was still called that way). And this is on the part of a publicist proclaiming devotion to democracy! Then I first discovered that one does not contradict the other. And this engenders caution in many, self-censorship - that very internal editor whom everyone remembers from the times of the communist system.
Naturally, such a biased and one-sided coverage of an important issue caused, as a reaction, the appearance of many works of the opposite direction, just as tendentious. In particular, over the past decade in our country. And they are full of thoughts or communicated facts that, precisely because of the extreme polemical style of the work, inspire doubt. Here I will refer to the last, apparently, work of V. V. Kozhinov, published during his lifetime. It was published in the "Holy Rus" magazine published in Minsk and is devoted to the analysis of the book "War according to the laws of meanness", which was also recently published in Minsk. As stated in Kozhinov's article, the book is mainly devoted to the "Jewish question", but it lumps together a question, as he says, "extremely significant and extremely acute", and many preconceived opinions, unverified rumors and myths.formed around him. Among them, Kozhinov includes the view inspired by the book that "all the evil in the world comes only from Jews alone," and also that "all Jews of all times are the worst enemies of Russia and the whole world." He refers to the same area a lot of unverified and implausible "facts" contained in the book, for example, "Stalin's Testament", and in general the idea of Stalin as a principled and consistent fighter against Jewish influence ("Zionism"), and in particular a long list of political figures, not attractive to the authors, and therefore en masse enrolled in Jews, indicating their "true" surnames, taken from nowhere, for example: Khrushchev, Suslov, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Chernomyrdin, even Goering and Goebbels. I have given the reference to this book as just one example. How, then, to extract certain facts from literature,how to navigate the human relationships that make up this "question" as a whole? We should have limited ourselves to sources that are trustworthy, but "trustworthy" from whose side? From what point of view?
And yet it seems to me that there are a number of signs that make it possible to select sources (or certain parts of them) that can be trusted, at least to some extent. I will list these symptoms. Throughout the work, I will use just such sources.
Firstly, these are those that can be called "primary sources". For example, the Old Testament. His translations, with the exception of some details, apparently do not raise doubts, so that by him one can reasonably reliably judge the spirit of Judaism. The Talmud and various commentaries to it (for example, "Shulchan Aruch") can be attributed to the same group of sources. The question of which translations to use here is more complicated, we will return to it in our place.
Another group of sources is the work of Jewish authors. For example, the books of the very scrupulous Jewish historian Gershon Sholem, or the statements of such influential Jewish thinkers as Ahad-Haam or M. Buber, the book of the founder of Zionism Herzl, the memoirs of one of the leaders of this movement H. Weizmann, the chairman of the World Jewish Congress Nachum Goldman and, of course, the classic "History of the Jews" by Gretz.
The third group includes works by Jewish authors who act as Jews, but who are opponents of the prevailing trend in some Jewish circles. An example is the book "Russia and the Jews", published in 1923 by six Jews who were in exile. They in no way renounce their Jewishness. But the whole book is permeated by the conviction that Jews living in Russia should first of all think of themselves as citizens of Russia. And this point of view leads them to completely new conclusions on such issues as the participation of Jews in the preparation of the revolution, in the establishment of the Bolshevik power in the Civil War, etc. - up to the unexpected assessment of Jewish victims in the Jewish pogroms during the Civil War in the mouth of Jewish authors … Another example is S. Margolin, whom we have already quoted. She writes, for example:
"The question of the role and place of Jews in Soviet history is one of the most important, although at the same time one of the most taboo questions of our time."
Another book of this type is Jewish History - Jewish Religion. The Severity of Three Millennia”by Israel Shahak (published in English in 1994). The author is a Jewish patriot and patriot of the State of Israel. He was born in Poland in 1933, received a Jewish religious education, moved to Israel in 1945, served there in the army. Precisely on the basis of his patriotic Jewish position, the author considers the medieval rabbinical ideology, which, in his opinion, now dominates in Israel, to be disastrous. He urges:
"… to begin an honest assessment of the Jewish past, to realize that Jewish chauvinism and a sense of being chosen exist, and openly reconsider the attitude of Judaism towards non-Jews."
To the fourth group of sources, I will classify statements contained in historical writings, which in other widely known issues have proven themselves objectively. Or the statements of authors whose reputation is generally recognized - such as the sociologists M. Weber and W. Sombart.
The fifth group is, in my opinion, statements with a clearly verifiable reference. As an example, I will cite the book by D. Reed "The Controversy About Zion." The book is fairly clearly divided into two parts. One of them sets out the author's point of view, according to which over the course of several millennia a small tribe (or caste) of Levites has systematically established power over the world. It is led by a secret government located in Palestine, then in Persia, then in Spain, then in Poland. His weapon was, in particular, the secret order of the Illuminati, which made the French Revolution. This line continues, according to the author, until about the 1950s, when the book was written. I do not undertake to support or deny such a picture. But it is noticeable that when the author talks about the end of the XIX century. or about the 20th century, the nature of the presentation changes dramatically. He gives many references to books and newspapers that can be used without necessarily taking the picture sketched above. The author was, apparently, a major international journalist, kept in his archives clippings from newspapers on the issue that interested him. Some of the books that he refers to, I got, they fully correspond to their presentation, which is given in the book. (For example, using the bibliography of this book, I got acquainted with the amazing history of the persecution of Christianity in Mexico in the 1920s. The writer G. Green wrote about this in several striking books.) If this book contains a text taken in quotation marks and accompanied by a link (for example, The New York Times, October 11, 1956), it is difficult to imagine that the author simply invented it. The author's general concept is just poorly supported by subsequent events: he claimsfor example, that the Jewish domination of the world is carried out by the subordination of the West to the Soviet Union! But a lot of specific facts, with precise references, are very useful. The same can be said about the book by the contemporary American author D. Duke "The Jewish Question through the Eyes of an American." His judgments about Russian affairs are often in doubt. For example, already in the preface, he reports that "in the first government of Communist Russia there were only 13 ethnic Russians and over 300 Jews out of a total of 384 commissars." What government and what commissioners is the author talking about? The Council of People's Commissars was incomparably smaller in number, while there were commissars in every army, regiment, company. There were thousands of them. Other sources suggest that the 384 Commissioner figure goes back to the journalist Wilton, who was the Times correspondent in Russia during the revolution. Maybe,that Wilton had in mind a certain list of names, knowing which we could judge how convincing he gives a picture. But without such a list, this statement turns into a typical example of a statement that can neither be confirmed nor refuted, since its very meaning is incomprehensible. Worse, on a purely American issue, Duke writes of "hundreds of thousands of American soldiers" who died in Vietnam. The standard figure for American casualties in Vietnam, which is usually quoted, is 50,000. If the author has reason to doubt this figure, it would be very important (for the Americans themselves) that they were given, which is not in the book. But, on the other hand, the book contains a large number of quotes from specific books that I was able to get hold of and verify that the quotes are accurate. Therefore, I consider it possible to quote from this book (provided with an accurate reference), which I myself was not able to verify. Another source of this type is personal impressions. They can be found in the book by D. Reed. There are especially many of them in the book of Shulgin, a witness to many dramatic events in our history - and at the same time an acute observer. His book on Russian-Jewish relations reveals a common flaw in his generation: he does not verify the facts he carefully cites. For example, the book contains a list of the pseudonyms of some revolutionary leaders. Already in 1929, when Shulgin was writing his book, there were many reference books according to which he could establish that the real name of Zinoviev was Radomyslsky, and not Apfelbaum, Uritsky was not a pseudonym. And Martynov's real surname is Picker, not Zibar. However, a more accurate check confirms his main assertion that a huge number of Bolshevik leaders of Jewish origin had Russian pseudonyms. But Shulgin's personal impressions and observations from this are no less interesting.
Finally, the sixth group of sources can be called those that simply do not need "trust", these are inferences, the credibility of which everyone can judge for himself.
Thus, it is still possible to collect a sufficient number of sources on which it is possible to rely.
In this work, each quote will not be accompanied by a link, so as not to clutter up the text. But at the end of each paragraph there is a literature in which those interested can find the facts given in this paragraph, as well as a lot of interesting things on the same topic.
Author: Igor Rostislavovich Shafarevich. From the book “A 3000 Years Old Mystery. The Secret History of Jewry"
