Jews, Communists and Jewish Communists, in Poland, Europe and Beyond

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By Stanislaw Krajewski

Abstract:This paper studies the problem of Jews, communism and Jewish communists, primarily with a Jewish audience in mind.. Despite there having been Jewish communists, who like other communists may have been victimizers, there was no such phenomenon as Jewish communism. The Jews who remained in Eastern Europe were often victims rather than victimizers. The number of Jewish communists was important, but not as large as antisemites asserted. The problem lies in the quasi-religious zeal of communists who were Jews. The message is that communism does pose a moral problem to Jews

Ten Theses

1. Marxism, radical leftist ideologies, and “real socialism” constitute not only a fragment of world history, and of Polish or Hungarian histories, but also a chapter in Jewish history.
2. Antisemites have grossly exaggerated the Jewish involvement in communism, distorted the facts, and interpreted them according to mythical conspiracy theories. Jews were also victims of communism.
3. Jewish communists rarely cared about Jewish concerns and often virtually stopped being Jewish.
4. Some of those who had abandoned Jewishness later came back. The number of Jewish communists, and their role, was so important that other Jews must not ignore it.
5. The deepest problem is posed by the quasi-religious character of the communist involvement of some Jews.
6. There is no distinctive Jewish radicalism. There is no “Jewish Communism.” Jews became communists because of general social trends.
7. It was not Judaism or Jewish traditions but the social situation that led Jews to communist involvement.
8. Participation in evil can begin with noble and selfless intentions.
9. Moral responsibility can be indirect. Re-emerging Jewish communities in Eastern Europe should face the legacy of Jewish participation in communism. However, accepting a Jewish share of moral responsibility does not make non-Jews less responsible.
10. Objective research is needed to clarify the extent and the nature of the Jewish participation in communism. The tragic consequences of the antisemitic myth of “Jewish Communism” should impose no taboo. .

Introductory remarks
The phrase “Jews and communism” brings to mind to two sets of immediate associations.

The first image, common in the West, is that of the persecutions of Jews in communist countries: the destruction of religious traditions; the doctors’ plot, and more generally Stalin’s antisemitism that almost led to large scale murder of Jews; the fate of refuseniksand discrimination against Jews in the Soviet Union; official antisemitism in Poland in 1967-68.

The second set of associations, popular in East Central Europe and beyond, is expressed as the image of “Jewish Communism”: Jews as the founders of the leftist movements and as communist leaders in the states that were governed by communist parties; persecuting Christian religions, pre-eminent in the bloody communist dictatorships. Now, the first image is true but it does not represent the total picture of the relationship of Jews with communism. The second image is false but it does point to certain facts, specifically to the large number of Jews among active communists. As Andre W.M. Gerrits put it, the power of the association of Jews with communism comes from the fact that “it was based on elements of fiction and reality.” [1] The myth of “Jewish Communism” is only a myth. What is real is the existence and importance of Jewish Communists. The distinction made by Gerrits had been made earlier by Jaff Schatz in the most important book-length study of the topic, [2] and also by myself. [3] This reality has been subjected to surprisingly little research. The neglected topic--which I propose to consider now--is then not so much “Jews and communism,” or “Jews under communism,” and certainly not “Jewish Communism,” but rather “Jewish communists.” In addition to seeing this topic as a subject for scholarly research I propose its less objective variant: “Jewish communists as a Jewish concern.”

My remarks can serve only as an introduction to a problem that in my opinion deserves study by scholars and reflection by Jews, even those who have never met a communist. [4] It should be also mentioned that my interest is not devoid of personal motivation. In the 1970s I read a remarkable book of conversations between two great writers, Czeslaw Milosz and Aleksander Wat, Pamiętnik mówiony [Spoken Diary], in Polish. Wat recalled that a certain communist leader functioned as a “Tzaddik” to his followers. That leader, Adolf Warski, one of founders of the Communist Party, later member of Polish parliament, murdered in Russia during Stalinist terror, happened to be my great-grandfather.

Comments on the theses

1. Marxism, radical leftist ideologies, and “real socialism” constitute not only a fragment of world history, and of Polish or Hungarian histories, but also a chapter in Jewish history.

Communism constitutes a relatively important fragment of recent Polish or Hungarian history, as well as of the Russian or, say, Chinese histories; clearly it will always remain a chapter in European history, and indeed in the history of our civilization. I propose to consider communism as a chapter of Jewish history, too.

Speaking about communism I mean, first, Marxism and a broader field of left wing radicalism, and, second, the “real socialism” in the countries governed by communist parties. It is the second element, the participation in communist rule, and the resulting responsibility for its activities, that makes the issue of the role of Jewish communists in the framework of the Jewish history highly emotional. If the phenomenon of Jewish communists is seen as part of the comprehensive Jewish history, it follows that in our century, in Eastern Europe, Jews were not only among the oppressed, but were also among the oppressors. Because we Jews were the victims of the most horrible persecutions, the very idea that some of us were among the victimizers sounds dramatic and is hard to accept. Yet it is clearly a fact.

Of course, this thesis about Jews being also among the oppressors can be accepted only if we admit that communists did oppress and persecute. I suppose that very few people deny this. It is, however, true that the early communists, the revolutionaries from the period of illegal activities, were motivated by the rejection of social injustice. They wanted to create a just society and eventually produced a system of organized terror.

Let me mention just some examples – and these are facts, not myths – showing that communism, and more generally left wing radicalism, was relatively widespread among Jews, especially in Eastern Europe

Most Jews who left closed traditional communities tended to support radical political ideologies. If they did not choose Zionism they supported the revolutionary left and sometimes both at the same time. The secular Yiddish culture was predominantly leftist. What is even more relevant, Jews were important in communist movements. Jews were very prominent among revolutionary leaders, both before and after the seizure of power. Occasionally, other leaders praised Jews for this; Engels and Lenin for example.

Reproaching Jews for their radicalism has been common among conservatives. To give less well known examples: in the 1920s, some Swedish experts on Russia had no doubt about the role of Jews. Alfred Jensen (neither pro-Jewish, nor antisemitic) wrote in 1921: “approximately 75 percent of the leading Bolsheviks are of Jewish origin.” [5] The Russian Tsar Nicholas II said that “nine-tenths of the troublemakers are Jews.” [6] I have no idea how close to or far from the truth this is. Antisemitic usage of such statements has made it very difficult to know whether they refer to facts.

Of course, there is a deep difference between those who became revolutionaries in order to fight injustice and those who supported communist oppression, another form of injustice. Yet usually idealistic radicals became functionaries of the system when the opportunity came, or supporters of the new rule, if they lived elsewhere. For instance, both Jewish activists in Eastern Europe and in Israeli kibbutzim were eagerly pro-Soviet in the period of terror in the later years of Stalin’s life.

In Poland, immediately after World War II, most Jewish organizations were pro-communist; they saw communists as the force that could bring security and stabilization. To be a Jew was sometimes an advantage for those ready to make careers in the emerging communist system. (Though it could be a burden; I know examples of the returning individual Jews who were offered career opportunities, and examples of those who were denied them--in both cases Jewishness seemed essential.)

I wish to avoid a misunderstanding. I am not saying that Jewishness was ever sufficient for a career. Not Jews, but loyal persons were needed, preferably those with no family ties. Jews were often perfect candidates; isolated, with no families, not connected to pre-war power elites, dreaming about normal lives and protection by state authorities. Some Jews in post-war Poland tried to punish those guilty of murder of their families. This is mentioned in some literary works by Jewish survivors, such as in the remarkable recent book by a Polish Jewish survivor Wilhelm Dichter; [7] his mother in Lvov asked a Soviet Jewish officer to send a Polish neighbor who had reported her family to the

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• [11] Gerrits, op. cit., p. 46.
• [12] Quote after one of the most important contributions to the study of our topic, the book by Krystyna Kersten Polacy, Żydzi, komunizm, Anatomia półprawd 1939-1968[Poles, Jews, Communism, An Anatomy of Half-Truths] in Polish, Warsaw: Niezależna Oficyna Wydawnicza, 1992, p.81.
• [13] Midstream, January 1997, p. 40.
• [14] Kersten, op. cit., p. 78.
• [15] Schatz, The Generation, p. 252.
• [16] In the introduction to the monumental volume Żydzi w Polsce Odrodzonej [Jews in Reborn Poland, in Polish], Warsaw 1928.
• [17] This point has been argued by, among others, my father (Warski's grandson): Wladyslaw Krajewski, “Fakty i mity. O roli Żydów w okresie stalinowskim.” in: Więź 5 (1997), 109-122. English translation: “Facts and Myths: on the Role of the Jews during the Stalinist Period” in: Więź Special Issue: Under One Heaven, Warsaw 1998, 93-110.
• [18] Kersten, op.cit. p. 79
• [19] Kersten, op.cit. p. 83-84.
• [20] “Aparat bezpieczeństwa” in: Instytucje Państwa Totalitarnego, research report of the Institute of Political Studies PAN, 1994, p. 61.
• [21] Quoted after a manuscript by Dariusz Stola “The Anti-Zionist Campaign in Poland 1967-1968,” note 10, p. 79.
• [22] Stefan Kisielewski Dzienniki 1968-1980, Iskry, Warsaw 1996.
• [23] Aleksander Smolar “Tabu i niewinność” [Taboo and Innocence] in Polish, Aneks41/42 (1986), 89-133, p. 110.
• [24] This aspect has been stressed by Jan Tomasz Gross in Upiorna dekada [The Horrible Decade], in Polish,Universitas, Kraków 1998.
• [25] This was described by Henryk Grynberg in the novel Zwycięstwo [Victory] in Polish.
• [26] Cf. the chapter about the cooperation of Jews with state security in Gross, op. cit.
• [27] Schatz, op. cit. p. 138.
• [28] Schatz, op. cit. p. 249.
• [29] Quote after I. Shafarevich, Le phénomene socialiste, Paris 1977, p.267.
• [30] Jaff Schatz, “The Riddle of Jewish Radicalism”, manuscript, p. 1.
• [31] Fromm, Marx's Concept of Man, cited in: Melvin Lasky Utopia and revolution, London 1977, p. 66.
• [32] Lasky, op. cit. p. 67.
• [33] Abraham Kaplan, The New World of Philosophy, New York: Vintage, 1961, p. 188.
• [34] Kaplan, op. cit. p. 173.
• [35] Lasky, op. cit. p. 78.
• [36] In his the book The Generation and the article“The Riddle of Jewish Radicalism.”
• [37] Denis Prager and Joseph Telushkin, Why the Jews? The Reasons for Antisemitism, New York:Simon and Schuster, 1983, p. 60.
• [38] Sefer Kalushin. Quoted after: Jack Kugelmass and Jonathan Boyarin From a Ruined Garden, New York: Schocken, 1983, pp. 118-119.
• [39] Schatz, op. cit. p.2.
• [40] Theodor Fritsch, Handbuch der Judenfrage, p.236; quoted after Gerrits op.cit. p. 35.