Yevsektsiya

Mission

The Yevsektsiya sought to draw Jewish workers into the revolutionary organisations; chairman Semyon Dimanstein, at the first conference in October 1918, pointed out that, "when the October revolution came, the Jewish workers had remained totally passive ... and a large part of them were even against the revolution. The revolution did not reach the Jewish street. Everything remained as before".

History

The Yevsektsiya remained fairly isolated from both the Jewish intelligentsia and working class. The sections were staffed mostly by Jewish ex-members of the Bund, which eventually joined the Soviet Communist Party as the Kombund in 1921, and the United Jewish Socialist Workers Party.

Former elements of the Bund and Faraynigte were historically hostile to Zionism. As they later joined Yevsektsiya, they deemed Russian Zionist organisations to be counter-revolutionary, and critiqued them. Delegates to a Zionist congress in March 1919 complained about administrative harassment of their activities - not from government agencies, but from Jewish communists. At the Yevsektsiya's second conference in July 1919, it demanded that the Zionist organizations be dissolved. After an appeal from the Zionists, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issued a decree in that the Zionist organisation was not counter-revolutionary and its activities should not be disrupted. At its third conference in July 1921, the Yevsektsiya demanded the "total liquidation" of Zionism.

According to Richard Pipes, "in time, every Jewish cultural and social organization came under assault". The section in Rostov-on-Don persecuted local Jewish leaders, Zionist and religious, especially the sixth Chabad Rebbe Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn.

The Yevsektsiya attempted to use its influence to cut off state funds to Habima Theatre, branding it counter-revolutionary.

Dissolution

The Yevsektsia were disbanded as no longer needed in 1929. Many leading members were murdered during the Great Purge of the late 1930s, including Chairman Dimanstein. Executed in 1938, he was posthumously rehabilitated in 1955, two years after the death of Joseph Stalin.

Notes

References

References

1. [[Richard Pipes. Pipes, Richard]], Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, New York: Vintage Books, Random House Inc., 1995, {{ISBN. 0-394-50242-6, page 363
2. According to [[Walter Kolarz]], the Yevsektsiya inside the [[League of Militant Godless]], "had a total of 40,000 Jewish members in 1929, the year when the [[USSR anti-religious campaign (1928–1941). anti-religious campaign]] was at its peak. These 'Jewish sections' were much despised by the bulk of Russia's Jewry. Their members were regarded with as much contempt as the Jewish renegades who turned persecutors of the own brethren in the Middle Ages." Walter Kolarz (1966), ''Religion in the Soviet Union'', St Martins Press. New York City. p. 374.
3. Gilboa, Jehoshua A. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=8RaS7tCRt20C A Language Silenced: The Suppression of Hebrew Literature and Culture in the Soviet Union]''. Rutherford [N.J.]: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1982. p. 282
4. (2012). "Israel and the European Left". Continuum.
5. Nora Levin. (1991-01-01). "Jews in the Soviet Union Since 1917: Paradox of Survival". NYU Press.
6. https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Rostov-on-Don "With the establishment of Soviet authority, the local Yevsektsiia in the 1920s promoted the closure of Jewish institutions; it also persecuted Zionist and religious leaders, above all, Yosef Yitsḥak Shneerson."
7. Leon, A., "The Jewish Question" 1970, Pathfinder Press, New York, p. 1 - 26
8. Trotsky, L., "The Russian Revolution," 1959, Doubleday, New York