the Motherland and the Revolution). Another possible explanation was the pronounced tendency of the political “base” to associate any hostile force with Jewishness.
At the same time, the rank-and-file would quickly forget the nationality of those speakers whose slogans were supportive of their own goals. Thus a battalion stationed in Mogilev were willing to “benevolently forgive” a female Bolshevik agitator who called for a quick end to the war, but nearly beat to death S. Ia. Lur'e, who, as a representative of the Soviet, claimed that any peace, even a separate one, could only be achieved through a long period of negotiations.82 The Ukrainian peasantry could also engage in such “internationalism” if it served their interests. Thus in Odessa, the Social Revolutionary S. S. Zak was wildly popular following the February Revolution and was considered an expert on the “agrarian question.” In fact, he became so popular, that it was said that peasants would come to the city and ask, “Where's the Yid who's giving out land?”83
“How fast are these changes in the psychological state of the masses!” wrote V. I. Vernadskii, a member of the Kadet Central Committee as well as Deputy Minister of Education for the Provisional Government. “Jews now command the military. Who could have dreamed of that even twelve or eighteen months ago?”84 A week earlier, he had written that some of the socialist Deputy Ministers reported, “among the crowds of Smolny monastery the word zhid is heard at every step.”85
The Cossacks, who had come to the defense of the Winter Palace, at first claimed that Lenin and “his whole gang were a bunch of Yids.” However, realizing the weak position of the defenders of the Provisional Government, they soon changed their minds and departed. As it turned out, according to a certain Cossack officer (Podkhorunzhii), the Provisional Government was only supported by “women and Yids” and “half the government are Yids too.” “But the Russian people stayed with Lenin” said the same officer, explaining his betrayal.86
Kerensky's decline in popularity led to a rumor that he was actually Jewish. Upon leaving the Winter Palace on the eve of the Bolshevik coup, he happened to catch a glimpse of the following piece of graffiti: “Down with the Jew Kerensky, long live Trotsky!”87
Contemporaries often remarked upon the “Jewishness” of this or that political actor during the Revolutionary period. This was especially true when the person in question belonged to the opposing camp. The Kadet V. D. Nabokov, a member of the All-Russian Commission for the Elections to the Constituent Assembly, was arrested towards the end of November 1917 for refusing to recognize the authority of the Soviet of People's Commissars. Sentenced to five days in Smolny, Nabokov was apparently indifferent to the Jewish heritage of his colleagues L. M. Branson, M. V. Vishniak, and V. M. Gessen, the last of whom had come to Smolny voluntarily in support of his fellow Kadets. However, Nabokov could not help but note the “repulsive, shabbily dressed figure” of M. S. Uritsky, who had “brazen, Jewish facial features.” Uritsky was the commissar of Tavricheskii Palace; Nabokov would have to deal with him later after his release from prison.88
The only newspaper of a more “traditional” antisemitic orientation that continued to publish after the February Revolution was Groza (Thunder-storm).89 After the Bolshevik coup, it claimed, “The Bolsheviks have seized power. The Jew Kerensky, lackey to the British and the world's bankers, having brazenly assumed the title of commander-in-chief of the armed forces and having appointed himself Prime Minister of the Orthodox Russian Tsardom, will be swept out of the Winter Palace, where he had desecrated the remains of the Peace-Maker Alexander III with his presence. On October 25, the Bolsheviks united all the regiments who refused to submit to a government composed of Jew bankers, treasonous generals, traitorous land-owners, and thieving merchants.”90
A week later, Groza evaluated the Bolsheviks' actions in much the same terms. “A remarkable order has been established by the Bolsheviks over the past eight days. There have been no robberies, nor any instances of violence!” “The Bolsheviks have an enemy in the Jewish [zhidovskii] kahals, the traitors from among the land-owners, generals, merchants, and government workers…. In Petrograd the Jewish Rescue Committee under the leadership of the Yid Gots transmitted a secret order from Kerensky on October 28 to Yids in military academies to resist turning in their arms, promising to return to the capital the next day. The Latvians and Armenians listened to the Jews, but many Russians refused.”91
The newspaper was closed by the Bolsheviks following the publication of this edition, their support for the new regime notwithstanding. The Bolsheviks were hardly in need of such “defenders.”
Ilia Ehrenburg wrote M. A. Voloshin from Moscow in November of 1917, soon after the Bolsheviks seized power:
The worst began after their triumph. It is strangely desolate. Moscow has been tortured, crippled, and left empty. The Bolsheviks are on a rampage. I find myself thinking more and more about going abroad; as soon as the opportunity appears, I will leave. I am doing this to save Russia for myself, to leave open the possibility of someday living here. These hideous abominations are truly “crayfish caviar.”92 I would really like to work, but this is impossible here. Yesterday I was standing in line, waiting to vote for the Constituent Assembly. People were saying, “Whoever's against the Yids, vote for number 5! (meaning the Bolsheviks),” “whoever's for world-wide revolution, vote for number 5!” The patriarch rode by, sprinkling holy water; everyone removed their hats. A group of soldiers passing by started to belt out the Internationale in his direction. Where am I? Or is this truly hell?93
S. Ia. Lur'e was shocked by the combination of Bolshevik propaganda and antisemitism prevalent in the campaign period leading up to the elections for the Constituent Assembly in Petrograd. In the Okhta area of the city where he lived, Bolshevik agitators assured voters that Kerensky was, in fact, a Jew.94
In a diary entry dated November 16, 1917, the publicist D. V. Filosofov recorded a story recounted to him by I. I. Manukhin, who had been serving as a doctor in the Peter and Paul Fortress, where the ministers of the Provisional Government were imprisoned:
Today in the fortress there was a curious incident. A group of Red Guards came to the Commandant's office quarters. One of them was drinking water, having grown tired of talking. He had been at Andreev's coffee house, “beating up Yids.”
—Are you a Bolshevik?
—Yes!
—Then why are you beating up Yids?
—I don't know, they told us to go to the coffee house, there were Yids there. What do I have to do with it? I don't know…. etc.95
Similar incidents could be found outside of the capitals. As the masses that the Bolsheviks depended on grew more radicalized, their antisemitic tendencies were noticed by the Jewish bourgeoisie as well as by socialist politicians of Jewish heritage, especially as they repeatedly spoke out against the Bolsheviks.
The first “shot” was fired in a meeting of the Rostov-on-Don Soviet on October 14, 1917, which was dedicated to preparations for the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. First Lokerman, and then Shraiber attempted to convince those gathered that the Congress would lead to the end of democracy, and criticized the tactics of the Bolsheviks. They were interrupted by whistles and cries of “Down with the Jewish [zhidovskikh] deputies! Get the Yid off the stage!”96 At the next meeting of the Soviet, where it was clear that a majority had sided with the Bolsheviks, Gdalii Freid, “taking note of the Bolshevik majority of the Soviet, expressed the desire that the comrade Bolsheviks would take measures to prevent the shouting of pogromistic sentiments such as were heard at the last meeting.”97
The “comrade Bolsheviks” promised to do so. But how could the Bolshevik leadership possibly
