If the cliche is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, then the role anti-semitism played within the White Cause during the Russian Civil War can be understood in its most naked form with famous White Propaganda posters, such as the one showing Leon Trotsky as a Devilish, hook-nosed ogre, with a large and golden pentagram swinging across his chest, while he is hoarding a pile of skulls, guarded by his Chinese troops. The message is clear from this poster: Bolshevism is an alien force being imposed on Russia by Jews and “Orientals”, and it will bring death and destruction for the greed of these outsiders. In this way, the poster is a perfect representation of the White Cause, not because of what it says it is against but because it fails to define what it is for. Such a large coalition of forces that ultimately shared little aside from their desire to prevent the Bolshevization of Russia had so many divergent goals that it seems sometimes all they had was reactionary fear mongering to inspire their forces. But the question must be for historians whether or not anti semitism was a bug or a feature of the White Army. And for political scientists tracing the rise of fascism, the question is to what extent White Cause politics served as a predecessor for National Socialism in the Third Reich, with their shared obsession over a Judeo-Bolshevism conspiracy. This paper will explore the relationship the White Cause had to anti-semitism, and will analyze how a strong and centuries old bigotry against Russian Jews inevitably incorporated itself into an anti-communist, conservative movement.
Anti-semitism has been historically rampant in Russia, with pogroms reaching an unbearable frequency within the half century preceding the revolution. Pogroms (the mass slaughter of an ethnic group within a particular area) exploded after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, with paranoid mobs murdering Jews and the Tsarist authorities often pinning the root causes on Jewish “exploitation of the Christian population” (Budnitskii, Portice 17). In addition to violence by an anti-semitic culture, there were strict quotas capping the number of Jews allowed into Universities, and eventually deportation laws forced more than 20,000 Jews to leave Moscow between 1891 and 1892 alone. Indeed, between Alexander II’s assassination and the outbreak of the first World War, 1.98 million Jews chose to emigrate from the Russian Empire, the vast majority of whom went to the United States (17–18). Anti-semitism did not leave the army untouched either. As Peter Kenez writes, “Anti-Semitism was widespread in all segments of Russian society and the officer corps was far from immune” (62). It was this officer corps that was to form the armies that would form the White counterrevolution against Bolshevism.
One such officer was General Anton Denikin, who was arguably the closest of any White general to unseating Bolshevik power. For this reason, his and his army’s attitude towards Jews is worth exploring. Denikin organized what was called a “volunteer army,” despite using conscription, and this eventual 300,000 strong force controlled much of southern Russia (Cossack territory) throughout 1918–1920 (Hodgson 181). John Hodgson, a British journalist and White Cause sympathizer, traveled with Denikin and eventually published his experiences in the book With Denikin’s Armies. In it he describes the intense anti-semitism of the troops, predicting that “pogroms were to be expected after a final victory of the anti-Bolsheviks” (63). Denikin’s troops evidently considered any atrocity committed by the Red Army as one being committed by Jews as a whole; they accused nearly anyone who sympathized with the Reds of being Jewish. Hodgson further describes how Denikin was reluctant to put pressure against the “crimes of revenge against the Jews” because anti-semitism was so widespread that this would make Denikin look weak at best, or in the service of the Jews at worst (64–65). Denikin in his own memoirs commented on this:
It cannot be denied that in the Army there was a certain tendency to oppress the Jews, but it was not at all a part of any system, was not inspired from above, but sprang up in the lower strata and in virtue of complex causes, which spread far outside of the life, customs, and mutual relations of the military community (Denikin 249).
“A certain tendency to oppress the Jews” is a mild way of phrasing the reality on the ground. Denikin’s volunteer army was known to have participated in countless pogroms, especially in Ukraine where anti-semitism appears to have been particularly rampant (Budnitskii and Portice 253). To Denikin’s credit, he did send a telegram to his forces in Kiev stating “I demand that the most decisive measures be undertaken in putting an end to this phenomenon (the pogroms), and that those found guilty be punished severely,” although this order was never taken seriously (263). Perhaps Denikin sent this due to Winston Churchill’s warning that “my task in winning support in Parliament for the Russian Nationalist cause will be infinitely harder if well-authenticated complaints continue to be received from Jews in the zone of the Volunteer Armies” (Gilbert 32). Given that this letter was sent in 1919, the year Denikin began to take interest in preventing these atrocities, it is not unreasonable to assume that Denikin was acting strategically here, with concern for what anti-Jewish violence did to the White Cause internationally.
It should be stressed that the White Army did not consider itself political, but this does not mean that it was not a political movement. The White Army was generally hostile to both revolutions of 1917, even if it was ready to reluctantly accept the February changes (Kenez 37). The Whites perhaps can best be described as “conservative and anti-intellectual,” the opposite of the Bolsheviks completely in this regard (Kenez 60). Simply being opposed to Bolshevism was not enough, however, to carry popular support, and the White movement had to scrape together an alternative program to “peace, bread, and land.” Consequently, in their propaganda “the Whites found that anti-semitic slogans were much more effective in mobilizing the semi-literate and illiterate masses” (Budnitskii and Portice 174). To effectively communicate a counter-propaganda, the White Army established many outlets but most notable was the Osvag, founded on September 23, 1918, headquartered in the city of Rostov-on-Don (174–175). Osvag employed only a few hundred propagandists in its headquarters, but worked with several thousand different journalists, writers, artists, and even playwrights to spread popular, anti-Red sentiment (176). While the propaganda office did not have a “formal ban” on hiring Jews, the head of Osvag, KN Sokolov wrote that with a few exceptions “there were no Jews working for us” (177). Sokolov credits this with what he called the “nearly universal anti-semitic attitudes of the masses, especially in the military,” and this attitude is evident in the propaganda itself.
Osvag propaganda had many dimensions, but one recurring theme was that of Jewish control over the Bolsheviks. Pamphlets often decried the notion of dying for “Leiba Bronshtein,” which was a way to highlight the Jewish background of Leon Trotsky, by using his birth-name (Budnitskii and Portice 182). Yet not all propaganda engaged in even this small amount of subtlety, with popular folk songs spreading that contained lyrics such as “And we’ll kill all the Yids / No matter what” (182). Osvag propagandists also highlighted the theme of Jewish attacks on the Russian Orthodox Church, with one leaflet claiming that Red Army troops were closing Churches but not synagogues, because “the revolution is being carried out by Jews” (183). It was not wrong, however, to state that the Bolsheviks were oppressing the Churches, as official Politburo meetings discussed creating “agitation” within the religious community to confiscate Church valuables, such as gold (Kamenev). Of course, most of the propaganda had no bearing on reality aside from there being some Jews in leadership positions within the Bolshevik party which was exploited by propagandists heavily. Leon Trotsky was depicted in connection with the “blood libel” myth (184), which is a middle ages old accusation that “Jews murder Christians, particularly young boys and girls, for ritual purposes” (Weinberg 275). This can be seen in the famous propaganda poster titled “Sacrifice to the International,” where Trotsky is depicted as killing a girl at an alter of Karl Marx, surrounded by other Bolsheviks. Budnitskii writes further about the renewed popularity of the long debunked Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which was re-published in 1918 and gained widespread popularity in White territories (Budnitskii and Portice 187–189). Reading groups with prominent writers met to discuss the book, and soon pamphlets and other books began appearing across the Don territory that can best be characterized as obvious imitations of Elders of Zion. This included the spring of 1919 pamphlet titled “Accursed Fools, Slaves, and Stooges of the Yids” which White propagandists tried to disperse to Red soldiers. In it, a Jewish conspiracy aimed at world domination was said to have been organized in 1897, under the organization of Theodor Herzl. Allegedly, Bolshevism in Russia was merely step one in a larger scheme, which laid the blame of nearly everything desperate in Russia on the blame of the Jews, including a fake vaccine against the Spanish flu. Amidst all of these outrageous claims and conspiracy theories, it should be questioned to what extent the officer corps believed this and to what extent it was a mere mobilization device, as already referred to above.
Although General Denikin seems to have not been a particularly rabid anti-semite, many generals and colonels were and they took the propaganda completely at face value. For instance, Colonel V.M. Pronin, an influential man in the White Cause and personal friend of General Kornilov, wrote to General V.E. Vyazmitinov in 1919 to talk about the slogans of the Volunteer Army, and in this letter he casually remarks that Bolshevism is “led by Jews” (Budnitskii 177–178). His letter ends with a plea to review the employees of Osvag, implying that the organization is being corrupted by the small number of Jewish employees. Osvag also had weekly reports, which would make frequent worry that treated anti-semitic conspiracy theories as serious concern. One comical example comes from a May 18–25, 1919, report which referenced Lenin as having a strong Jewish accent suddenly. The report seems to give credence to the notion that “this is not the Lenin of 1905, but a Yid-double” (191). Talking about the officers themselves, Peter Kenez writes
The officers’ previous anti-Semitism, their association of Jews with non-Russian and ‘modern’ values, the Jews’ participation in the revolutionary movement made them the obvious target. Therefore anti-semitism was not an accidental and minor element in the ideology of the officers, but an essential centerpiece. The officers were men of the 19th century and as such did not think of gas chambers, but anti-semitism was as strong and as crucial an explanatory force in their minds as it was for the Nazis (79).
The genuineness of anti-semitism within the leadership of the White Army can be seen by actions as well. General Shkuro organized massacres of Jews, and later became an officer of Nazi Germany. Pyotr Nikolayevich Krasnov was a White officer and historian who made intellectual arguments for the legitimacy of the Elders of Zion. He would also work for the Nazi Government later in life. General Mamontov issued statements to his troops that said things such as “Arm yourself and rise against the common enemy of our Russian land, against the Jewish Bolshevik Communists … The evil force which lives in the hearts of Jew-Communists will be eliminated” (Kenez 79–80). These Generals saw Jews as a sickness on Russia, and they used increasingly racial language about extermination. It apparent then from studying the ideology of certain parts of the White Cause that Hitler and the Nazi Party were plagiarizing when they wrote about the evils of Judeo-Bolshevism.
It is worth exploring why, if anti-semitism was such a powerful tool, the White Cause still failed to win the battle of ideas against the Bolsheviks. For the Bolsheviks, propaganda came much easier. Afterall, “the Bolsheviks were journalists long before they were state leaders, and they never forgot the impact of a well-aimed message”. The Bolshevik understanding of propaganda rested on three pillars; the party, which directed the content of the messaging, the writers and artists, who crafted the message in an effective manner, and the audience of the propaganda, who interpreted it and spread it (Geldern). Consequentially to their understanding of propaganda, the Bolsheviks tolerated little dissent and shutdown opposition newspapers and White propaganda outlets much more effectively in areas of Russia that they controlled. Finally, although it is hard to measure this, when looking at the outcome of the Civil War in Russia it seems that a proactive message of a post-Tsarist future was more effective than White propaganda, which was politically confused and often openly reactionary, as discussed previously.
White propaganda was multidimensional, but the most disturbing aspect to it was the intense layers of anti-semitism. This varied from handing out lists of prominent Jewish Bolsheviks, to singing songs about “killing all the Yids.” In this propaganda, historians can now see early traces of fascism as a movement that rose in most European countries following the first World War. They can also see what the White forces believed themselves to be fighting against, and what they saw themselves as fighting for. Most importantly, however, scholars can get a clear vision of how terrifying and hopeless it was to be a Russian Jew during this time period.
Citations
Budnit︠s︡kiĭ O. V, and Timothy J Portice. Russian Jews between the Reds and the Whites, 1917–1920. 1st ed., 1st ed., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. Accessed 5 June 2019.
Denikin, Anton Ivanovich. The Russian Turmoil: Memoirs: Military, Social, and Political. Hyperion Press, 1973.
Hodgson, John Ernest. With Denikin’s Armies: Being a Description of the Cossack Counter-Revolution in South Russia, 1918–1920. L. Williams, Temple Bar Publishing Company, 1932.
Geldern, Jame von. “Organs of the Press.” Seventeen Moments in Soviet History, Michigan State University , 29 Dec. 2015, soviethistory.msu.edu/1917–2/organs-of-the-press/.
Gilbert, Martin. Churchill and the Jews : A Lifelong Friendship. 1st U.S. ed., Henry Holt, 2007.
Kamenev, L. B., Protocol of the Meeting of the Politburo. March 20, 1922
Kenez, Peter. “The Ideology of the White Movement.” Soviet Studies, vol. 32, no. 1, 1980, pp. 58–83. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/150391.
Kenez, Peter. A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to Its Legacy. Third ed., Cambridge University Press, 2017.
WEINBERG, ROBERT. “The Blood Libel in Eastern Europe.” Jewish History, vol. 26, no. 3/4, 2012, pp. 275–285. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23352438.
