attitude to the situation for long.
At the peak of the Civil War, the Evsektsiias took to attacking Jewish community organizations. The dismantling of Jewish organizations and the suppression of their activity were completely in keeping with the Lenin's pre-revolutionary views. “Jewish national culture,” wrote Lenin in 1913, “is a slogan of rabbis and the bourgeoisie, the slogan of our enemies.”55
The decree concerning the liquidation of autonomous Jewish cultural organizations was prepared by Agurskii, and approved by Stalin (then serving as Commissar of Nationalities) on April 11, 1919:
The Central Commissariat on the Jewish National Affairs, having investigated the activities of the Central Bureau of Jewish Communities, has concluded:
1. That the Jewish Communities and their Central Bureau surround themselves with those who are clearly enemies of the interests of the Jewish working class, and of the October Revolution.
2. That said Communities and Bureau are engaged in harmful political activity, directed at obscuring the class consciousness of the Jewish working masses.
3. That the Communities, having taken upon themselves various governmental functions such as cultural, educational, and social services, are giving the Jewish working youth a distorted education of an antiproletarian nature. Thus the Central Commissariat of Jewish Affairs decrees that the Central Bureau of Jewish Communities, and all Jewish Communities with their corresponding departments located on the territory of the RSFSR be closed forever.
All monies and inventories shall be handed over to the local Jewish Commissariats.
The given directive takes effect from the moment of its publication in any of the official organs of the Soviet government.56
S. M. Dubnov, having read the “idiotic” decree that was to close Tsevaad (the Central Bureau of Jewish Communities) and autonomous Jewish communities, remarked in his diary, “These interlopers have decided to repeal an autonomous nationality that has existed for 25 centuries. Pitiful pygmies.”57 The “interlopers,” however, were insistent and consistent in achieving their goal.
Copies of the directive were sent out with an accompanying letter by Dimanshtein, which stated:
In keeping with the 2nd All-Russian Conference of the Jewish Sections of the RKP [Russian Communist Party] we have enclosed a directive concerning the liquidation of Jewish cultural organizations. The Moscow and Central Vaad of Jewish communities have already been liquidated, and we are now moving on with the liquidation of other bourgeois organizations: Zionist organizations such as Tarbut, Hehalutz and others.
In accordance with the directive, we suggest you begin the liquidation process in your own city, county, or region.
In order to best carry out this task throughout all of Russia, the liquidation must be carried out immediately and without reservation.58
In his commentary to the directive, Dimanshtein wrote that if Jewish communities had earlier been beholden to the Jewish bourgeoisie, then after the revolution they “demonstrated bourgeois tendencies with the minor addition of the Jewish socialist parties.” Power was lodged firmly in the hands of “the Zionist bourgeoisie.” They “feel the support of the imperialist Allied powers, and consider themselves victors, and the soon-to-be masters of Palestine, and already say so openly.” From the words and tone of Dimanshtein's writing, it was not hard to guess who the next victims of the Evsektsiias and Evkom were to be.
“We are convinced,” wrote Dimanshtein,
that the Golden Calf of the Entente powers will be unable to defeat the idea of Soviet power, that, to the contrary, our Moses (Lenin) will turn the calf to ashes (perhaps by simple requisition). Then Turkey will be liberated from the “mandate” of England and the Jewish occupation.
The Jewish worker in has achieved consciousness and recognizes himself and his class enemies, even if they are in Jewish garb. He struggles against them, and casts them out.
With the closing of these organizations we grow closer and closer to the triumph of communism.59
In the summer of 1919, the leadership of the Zionist Organization in Russia attempted to ascertain their legal status in the eyes of the Soviet government. At this time, Dimanshtein informed the Presidium of the Cheka that “according to the directive of the most recent conference of the Jewish Communist Sections and Commissariats, which was later confirmed by the Central Committee of the RKP (b), bourgeois Zionist organizations are to be liquidated.” The Bolshevik leadership was faced with a problem: on the one hand, the Zionist movement was recognized throughout the world; on the other, Zionist ideology was incompatible with the ideals of Communism. They found a solution worthy of Solomon: Zionists could be attacked “without any declaration of war,” through secret arrests and administrative pressures. On June 27, 1919 in the Secret Section of the Cheka a “Jewish panel” was formed. On July 21 the Central Executive Committee officially approved the following directive:
In as much as the Zionist party has not been declared counterrevolutionary and for as long as the educational and cultural activity of Zionist organizations does not contradict the decisions of Soviet power, the presidium of the VtsIK [All-Russian Central Executive Committee] orders all Soviet institutions to not interfere in the aforementioned activities described above.
The directive was signed by A. S. Enukidze, Secretary of the VtsIK.60
Less than a week after the VtsIK directive, the Central Bureau of the Evsektsiia sent out a secret memo composed on June 29, 1919 and signed by Dimanshtein and secretary of the Central Bureau Anshtein, which requested information on Zionist organizations and evidence of their counterrevolutionary activities:
In order to carry out the liquidation of Zionist organizations with all of its adherent institutions, we are in need of the immediate procurement of specific, well-vetted materials, transcripts, booklets, posters, etc., which characterize the counterrevolutionary activities of Zionist organizations in the provinces, such as:
Praising the Entente powers or calls for their victory
Speeches against the Soviet State
Accusations of antisemitism directed towards the Soviet State
Malicious criticism
Ways in which Zionist organizations associate with similar
organizations abroad and in the countries of the Entente.
Financial records, sources of income, expenditures [of Zionist
organizations], and how active, [and] influential [they are],
and the degree of [their] opposition to the task at hand.
We request that you immediately, without losing a single day, start sending said materials, or portions thereof.61
Soon the Cheka entered the fray. On September 1, 1919, Chekists searched the grounds of the Central Committee of the Zionist Organization in Petrograd as well as the editorial offices of The Chronicle of Jewish Life. Several members were arrested, including Iu. Brutskus, Sh. Gepshtein, A. Zeideman, A. Rappoport, R. Rubinshtein, and N. Shakhnovich. Their treasury was also seized. A number of the arrests took place in Moscow. The newspaper was closed, those arrested were held from anywhere from several days to six weeks, and the Central Committee's offices were sealed for five months. Curiously enough, one of those arrested,
