Yevsektsiya
Yevsektsiya (alternative spelling:
Yevsektsia),
Russian:
ЕвСекция, the
abbreviation of the phrase "Еврейская секция" (Yevreyskaya sektsiya) was the
Jewish section of the
Soviet Communist party created to challenge and eventually destroy the rival
Bund and
Zionist parties, suppress
Judaism and "
bourgeois nationalism" and replace traditional Jewish culture with "
proletarian culture", as well as to impose the ideas of
Dictatorship of the proletariat onto the Jewish worker class. An important aim of the Yevsektsiya was to mobilize the
world Jewry in favor of the Soviet regime. The first conference of Yevsektsiya took place in October
1918. For most of its existence, the Yevsektsya was headed by
Semyon Dimanstein (Семен "иманштейн).
Persons of Jewish origin were over-represented in the Russian revolutionary leadership. However, most of them were hostile to traditional Jewish culture and Jewish political parties, and were eager to prove their loyalty to the Communist Party's
atheism and
proletarian internationalism, and committed to stamp out any sign of "Jewish cultural particularism". Yevsektsiya members were sometimes derogatorily called
Yevseki (
pl.).
In
1919, Zionist parties' headquarters in
Moscow and
Petrograd were taken over, their membership arrested and their newspapers shut down. In April
1920, the All-Russian Zionist Congress was broken up by the Yevsektsiya activists and the
Cheka. Seventy-five delegates were arrested on the spot, thousands of members were sent to prison for "counter-revolutionary... collusion in the interests of the Anglo-French bourgeoisie... to restore the
Palestine state."
Lenin wrote in his
Critical Remarks on the National Question (1913): "Whoever directly or indirectly puts forward the slogan of a Jewish "national culture" is (whatever his good intentions may be) an enemy of the proletariat, a supporter of the
old and of the
caste position of the Jews, an accomplice of the
rabbis and the bourgeosie".
Suppression of Hebrew
The
Bolsheviks considered
Hebrew a "reactionary language" since it was associated with both Judaism and Zionism, and was officially banned by the
Narkompros (Commissariat of Education) in
1919. Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to appear and were seized from the libraries. Teachers and students who attempted to study Hebrew language were pilloried and sentenced for "counter revolutionary" activities. The famous
Habima Theater had to obtain official permission to exist from Lenin, but was branded a "zionist nest" and in early 1920s was forced to leave Russia for long world tour. It settled for good in the
British Mandate of Palestine in
1926.
In
1930, as concerns about the Soviet suppression of the Hebrew culture escalated, a group of Western intellectuals not considered hostile to the Soviet regime hoped to influence its anti-Hebrew policies. The protest letter was authored by writer
Jacob Klatzkin, among the signatories were
Albert Einstein,
Selma Lagerlöf,
Thomas Mann,
Franz Werfel,
Stefan Zweig,
Arnold Zweig,
Artur Schnabel,
Max Liebermann and
Edouard Herriot. It stated:
"We, European intellectuals, friends and supporters of every means which could lead away from capitalist economic chaos and its catastrophes of bloody wars, desire by our signatures to make the Russian Government take note that, concerning the Hebrew language and its persecution, we can neither approve the stand of the "Jewish Section" nor understand why the Government should consider itself bound insolubly to this section of the communist party. ... The Jewish people cannot and will never renounce the revival of its great cultural legacy—one of the greatest—which has been given to Human Spirit imperishable values, and, further, continues to give them in the form of modern Hebrew poetry and philosophy."
Yiddish
The Soviets made some efforts to encourage "Soviet proletarian culture" in
Yiddish language as a countermeasure against traditional Jewish "bourgeois" or "
shtetl" culture. A Yiddish newspaper,
Der Emeth ("The Truth") was published from
1920 to
1938. For some time in the
1920s Yiddish was designated one of the four official languages in
Belarus. During 1920s-1930s, many educational institutions in the former
Pale of Settlement taught in Yiddish. In all Soviet schools the
history subjects were replaced by the
Marxist history of
class struggle, and the pre-revolutionary history was ostracized.
When
Stalin initiated anti-Semitic campaign in
1948, Yiddish fell out of favor. (See
Solomon Mikhoels,
Rootless cosmopolitan,
Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee)
Minority national cultures were not completely abolished in the Soviet Union. By Soviet definition, national cultures were to be "socialist by content and national by form", to be used to promote the official aims and values of the state.
The Yevsektsia was disbanded in
1929, after the creation of the
Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Many of its members perished in the
Great Purge, along with their Gentile counterparts.
#
Protest against the suppression of Hebrew in the Soviet Union 1930-1931 at zionistarchives.org.il
*
History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union*
Communist Party of the Soviet Union*
Bolshevik*
History of anti-Semitism*
Birobidzhan*
Komzet*
Revolution and Emancipation,
The Yevsektsii at
Beyond the Pale exhibition
