Debating Jewish Involvement in the Bolshevik Revolution

A correspondent who goes by the moniker “Gennadiy Gessen” emailed me three years ago with a litany of questions. He sought to challenge me on a number of issues. What follows is our exchange, which is rather lengthy.

GG: I read with interest your article on Putin. While you make some halfway sound points when you discuss objective morality and the transvaluation of values in the West, your reverence for Putin as the imagined vanguard against the “New World Order” seems to me to be incoherent, and flatly ignorant of many of Putin’s own positions. Your worldview is a strangely Manichaean fantasy permeated with an attitude towards Putin which approximates an unholy mix between idolatry and fascist servility. You would be wise to consider how this worldview squares with the facts.

I will attempt to mention just a few of the inconsistencies.

First, consider that a great deal of your conspiracy theory rests on the assumption that the Russian Revolution was somehow a Jewish creation—an assertion denied by every historian of the Russian Revolution from the anti-Putin (e.g. Orlando Figes) to the pro-Putin (e.g. Solzhenitsyn). Even if it were true that the first Soviet government was 85% Jewish, the point is moot unless you present primary evidence to support any relationship between their Jewish heritage/religion and their actions. The point is no more relevant that the fact that Stalin was a Georgian or that Lavrentiy Beria was a Mingrelian. It is also no more relevant than the fact that two of Putin’s closest friends and political confidants are Jewish oligarchs—Arkady Rotenberg and Roman Abramovich. Putin’s relationship with Abramovich—described by Chris Hutchins, a noted biographer of Putin, as akin to that of a “father and son”—should be all the more of interest to you since Abramovich is also a Zionist with Israeli citizenship. If Zionism and Jewish money are a part of the “New World Order”, as you imagine it, you have a bit of explaining to do, my friend.

Second, consider the close political relationship between Putin and Netanyahu, and the increasingly close relationship between Russia and Israel. Much of Russian foreign policy towards Israel is a reversal of Soviet policy, which was, as is documented everywhere from the mainstream to Solzhenitsyn’s Two Hundred Years Together, vociferously anti-Zionist. This in itself is an inconsistency you will have to explain at some point in time, if Soviet Russia was controlled by Jews. Moreover, some disagreements over Syria aside, Putin has been an important regional ally of Israel in many respects. Putin himself has described Israel as a “special state [to Russia]” ( https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/09/18/israel-is-a-russian-speaking-country-putin-says-a67337 ), tied to Russia by “family and friendship” (ibid.), and enjoys the support of most Russian citizens living in Israel (http://9tv.co.il/news/2018/03/19/255435.html). The Kremlin has also supported Israel as an “unconditional ally against [international terrorism]” (https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Putin-to-Netanyahu-Were-unconditional-allies-in-the-war-against-terror-456193), and supported Israel in Operation Protective Edge, meeting and expressing his support for the operation with none other than Yisrael Meir Lau, and Yitzhak Yosef, son of the infamous racist rabbi Ovadia Yosef: https://fjc-fsu.org/president-putin-support-israel/ . You have more explaining to do, my friend.

Third, you should acknowledge that Putin’s renunciation of his country’s Soviet past is not wholesale. Putin is deeply proud of the Red Army’s fight against Nazi tyranny—still memorialized in Russia as among the proudest moments in Russian history. Taking your conspiracy theories about World War II into account, this should strike you as quite a bit more than a strange coincidence, my friend. Here is a photograph of Putin and Netanyahu together in Moscow on Victory Day, celebrating the victory of the Red Army over Nazi Germany: . Here he is meeting with Jewish veterans of the Red Army in Israel: .

Putin is many things—a supporter of autocrats, the only man since Saddam Hussein to have annexed another country’s territory, a closet billionaire who lives at the expense of a largely poor populace, a jailer of opposition leaders, journalists, and political dissidents, and the oligarch-propped leader of an oil-dependent country with some of the highest poverty rates and lowest life expectancies in the developed world—but he is, unfortunately for you, not quite the man you thought he was. So yes, I’d say you have some explaining to do, my friend. Maybe you can start with me?

JEA: With all due respect, your interpretation rests on assumptions that do not withstand serious historical scrutiny, and it is not feasible for me to address every problematic assertion you have raised. I will therefore limit myself to several central points.

No credible historian would dispute that Jewish revolutionaries played disproportionately prominent roles in the Bolshevik Revolution. A substantial body of scholarship explores these dynamics in depth. For example, see Erich E. Haberer’s Jews and Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Russia (Cambridge University Press, 1998); Jonathan Frankel’s Crisis, Revolution, and Russian Jews (Cambridge University Press, 2008); Yuri Slezkine’s The Jewish Century (Princeton University Press, 2006); and Jerry Z. Muller’s Capitalism and the Jews (Princeton University Press, 2010). The literature on this topic is extensive and multifaceted.

It is therefore misleading to invoke Solzhenitsyn as support for the claim that revolutionary movements lacked participation from Jewish revolutionary activists. Have you read Solzhenitsyn’s Two Hundred Years Together in its entirety, including the later chapters that analyze the tensions between certain segments of the Russian population and various political movements? If so, then I find your interpretation difficult to reconcile with the conclusions drawn in those sections. Further exchange may be unproductive if your position is already fixed and not open to engagement with the documentary record.

Some historians have refrained from acknowledging arguments about the significant Jewish involvement in the Russian Revolution because they perceive such claims as potentially jeopardizing their academic and sometimes lucrative careers. For instance, Richard J. Evans has, on occasion, acknowledged that David Irving undertook extensive archival research. However, during the libel trial in which Evans served as an expert witness on behalf of Deborah Lipstadt, he ultimately concluded that Irving’s entire body of work was completely trash. It is also a matter of record that Evans received substantial compensation for his expert testimony in that case.

Moreover, scholars who attempt to offer historically grounded yet controversial interpretations of events in Russia or even Nazi Germany may face considerable professional consequences, particularly in relation to dominant narratives surrounding the Holocaust. The experience of Stanford historian Norman Davies illustrates how challenging prevailing academic orthodoxies can result in institutional pushback. Davies was subsequently accused of anti-Semitism by Jewish historian Lucy Dawidowicz, and not long after these allegations emerged, he departed from Stanford.

GG: If my claims about Putin (his connection to Jewish oligarchs, the strong relationship between Israel and Russia, and Putin’s memorialization of the Red Army) are “historically risible”, I would be grateful if you could tell me why, my friend. The unavoidable impression is that the “Putin vs. NWO” dualism you have propagated needs revision. If you tell someone that their statements are “risible”, it’s customary to proceed by telling them why you’re laughing!

In response to what you do say, however, no historian or scholar has claimed that the Russian Revolution was a “largely Jewish movement”. There were Jews who participated in the Revolution; many of them quite prominently. Many of the wonderful books you mention discuss such Jews eloquently, and with great care and rigour. But I’m afraid that does not make it a “largely Jewish movement”. Simply listing books with “Jews” and “Russia” in their titles is not evidence of any scholarly basis for the allegation. You do actually need to cite responsibly. In particular, you need to cite any passage which describes the Russian Revolution as a “largely Jewish movement”. You would be hard-pressed to find one, and I’d be very impressed indeed if you managed to do so.

I have read Two Hundred Years Together. In Russian. Can you say the same? You seem to be unfamiliar with it. Two Hundred Years Together was critically panned, not just because of its antisemitism, but because of its unscrupulous scholarship, with claims which are frequently not buttressed by any primary data. The most famous of those claims is the one that the first Soviet government was 85% Jewish (which Putin, as you noted, repeats). He never cited any data to support this claim. You can open your copy of Two Hundred Years Together, and true to my word, you will find no in-text citation, footnote, or bibliographic mention of the source which gives him this impression. The reason he does not, simply stated, is that the claim is false. Solzhenitsyn, though a man of great literary talent and moral integrity, knew it too. A book which makes such errors is not likely to be received warmly by other academics, and true to expectation, it was not. The Norman Davies case is a little different, my friend. Davies was not “kicked out of academia”; he was denied tenure, by a very close vote of 11-10, if memory serves. This is not unusual in academia dealing with any subject; I regret it is unfortunately just the way of the world.

You should read Two Hundred Years Together carefully again, if you did in fact read it in the first place. Its extensive shortcomings and biases aside, Two Hundred Years Together emphatically denies that the Russian Revolution was a largely Jewish movement, and is quite careful to caution readers not to draw these conclusions, frequently condemning them as conspiracies popular in far-right Russian circles. He devoted much of his writing in his last days (and his last book too) to excoriating these beliefs and similar conspiracies. But in Two Hundred Years Together alone, at the end of Chapter 9, for example, he has quite strong words against people like yourself that have used his book to draw the conclusions you do. I quote,

“[some] have yielded to the temptation of simplistic explanation: Russia is fundamentally sound, and the whole revolution, from beginning to end, is a dark plot hatched by Jews, an episode of the Judeo-Masonic plot. Explain everything by one and the same cause: the Jews!…The superstitious belief in the historical force of conspiracies…leaves completely aside the main cause of failures suffered by individuals as well as states: human weaknesses…No, it cannot be said IN ANY CASE that it was the Jews who organized the revolutions of 1905 or 1917…”

It sounds an awful lot like he’s talking to you, my friend. So no, not even Solzhenitsyn made the claim that the revolution was a largely Jewish movement. I have cited all the claims I have made. It wasn’t very difficult, because they’re all true. You, conversely, have not dealt with anything I have said about Putin, and have cited nothing to support your own conclusions. So is it really my fantasy? I would like to add that my thesis was on the relationship between Jewish members of the NKD and the Bund. So I’m well aware (and deeply cognizant, on a personal as well as an academic level) of Jewish participation, of all kinds, in the Russian Revolution and in early Soviet governments. But the claim that the Revolution was a “largely Jewish movement” is not a claim made in mainstream historiography; it is the claim of conspiracy theorists like those even Solzhenitsyn condemned in his last years, like people like David Duke have made frequently, and so forth. If you can find a mainstream scholar who has said it is, it would be of great personal interest to me. So feel free to reply if you can find any, or if you are prepared to deal with anything of what was said about Putin in my first message.

JEA: In my previous response, I made no reference to Putin, nor did I suggest that your claim concerning him was risible. As should be clear from the context, I was addressing your assertion about the Bolshevik Revolution. I did not find it necessary to comment on Putin, because if we cannot reach a basic level of agreement regarding the historical character of the Bolshevik Revolution, then further discussion about Putin would be unproductive.

From my perspective, Mr. Gennadiy, the issue appears to fall into one of three possibilities: either there is a degree of intellectual dishonesty, a limited familiarity with the relevant scholarly literature, or an unwillingness to engage with it. Had there been a genuine interest in the scholarly record, you would reasonably have examined the works I cited in my earlier response and considered the conclusions drawn by those historians regarding the Bolshevik Revolution. I referenced no fewer than four academic studies addressing the Jewish involvement in the revolutionary movement, yet your immediate reply was that such evidence “does not make it a ‘largely Jewish movement.’”

To illustrate, consider Muller’s observation: “Jews were highly visible in the revolutions in Russia and Germany; in Hungary they seemed omnipresent… Of the government’s forty-nine commissars, thirty-one were of Jewish origin.” Muller’s account represents only one example of the kind of data that merits serious engagement rather than summary dismissal.

Muller further substantiates his argument by documenting the identities of numerous revolutionary figures, including Béla Kun, Tibor Szamuely, Otto Korvin (Klein), Georg Lukács, and Mátyás Rákosi (Roth). He also notes that Sándor Garbai, a Gentile, was selected to serve in a prominent position because the predominantly Jewish leadership required “someone who could sign the death sentences on Saturday.” A similar pattern emerges in other regions. In Czechoslovakia, the general secretary of the Communist Party was Rudolf Slánský; in Poland, Jakub Berman oversaw the secret police, and Jacek Różański—trained by the NKVD—“became head of the investigative department of the Ministry of Public Security.” These examples illustrate the broader trend Muller describes and are part of the scholarly record that merits careful consideration.

Jewish historian Yuri Slezkine observes in The Jewish Century that a group of Russian Jewish intellectuals published a collection of essays in 1923 titled Russia and the Jews, in which they contended that Jews had committed a “bitter sin” through their involvement in the Revolution. One contributor, I. M. Berkerman, remarked that “it goes without saying that not all Jews are Bolsheviks and not all Bolsheviks are Jews, but what is equally obvious is the disproportionate and immeasurably fervent Jewish participation in the torment of half-dead Russia by the Bolsheviks.” Berkerman’s reflection exemplifies the internal critiques voiced within segments of the Jewish intellectual community at the time.

The works I cited address these issues in substantial detail. Your apparent unwillingness to consult them suggests a lack of interest in serious scholarly engagement, which is precisely why this exchange remains unproductive. The historical record on this topic is wide-ranging and, at times, surprising. Even Winston Churchill—an ardent and unapologetic Zionist—devoted an entire 1920 article titled “Zionism vs. Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People” to examining these dynamics. I would strongly recommend reading the article in its entirety.

Second, as I noted in my initial response, some historians refrain from discussing the connection between Jews and Bolshevism because such claims may jeopardize their professional or financial standing. Paul Johnson provides a telling example. In his History of the Jews, he cites numerous documents indicating that Jewish participation in the Bolshevik Revolution was remarkably prominent; yet Johnson ultimately resolves this tension by describing these actors as “non-Jewish Jews.”

I mentioned Davies again because he was denied tenure, a decision that followed accusations of anti-Semitism made by Lucy Dawidowicz. The charge was, by many accounts, disproportionate, yet it proved professionally consequential. A comparable pattern can be seen in the case of Norman Finkelstein, whose academic career was also derailed following allegations of anti-Semitism and his critiques of established narratives.

The final point I wish to address concerns Solzhenitsyn. In your initial response, you wrote: “Much of Russian foreign policy toward Israel is a reversal of Soviet policy, which was, as is documented everywhere—from the mainstream to Solzhenitsyn’s Two Hundred Years Together—vociferously anti-Zionist.” Yet you now assert that Two Hundred Years Together “was critically panned, not just because of its antisemitism, but because of its unscrupulous scholarship, with claims that are frequently unsupported by primary data. The most famous of these is the assertion that the first Soviet government was 85% Jewish (a claim Putin, as you noted, repeats). He never cited any data to support this claim.”

This raises an obvious question: in your view, is Solzhenitsyn an anti-Semite or not? And if you believe he is close to being one, how is it that he can simultaneously be classified as anti-Zionist in the same sense and to the same degree? The two claims, as you have presented them, appear logically inconsistent. Your position, therefore, lacks coherence.

Did you consult Richard Pipes’s remarks on Solzhenitsyn? And why did you omit any reference, in your initial response, to Solzhenitsyn’s extensive treatment of the historical tensions between Jews and Russians? I have indeed read Two Hundred Years Together—the English translation available online—and I also know individuals who have read the original Russian and confirm that the English version is sufficiently accurate for analytical purposes.

It is important to remember that Solzhenitsyn was repeatedly confronted with the “Jewish question” in the media, and he often had to frame or temper his comments in ways conditioned by the political and cultural climate of the time. I have no interest in criticizing him unfairly. However, it is worth noting that many commentators label him an anti-Semite not because he may have erred in specific details—historians, after all, make mistakes with some frequency—but because Two Hundred Years Together dared to engage openly with one of the most sensitive and contested historical questions of the twentieth century.

Even if one wishes to argue that Jewish participation in the Bolshevik Revolution did not reach the oft-cited figure of 85 percent, the broader scholarly literature still indicates that Jewish involvement in the revolutionary movement was substantial and, in many respects, decisive. If you attempt to minimize this point, consider the remarks of Winston Churchill, who wrote: “There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creating of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistic Jews. It is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews.” Churchill, of course, was unaware that Lenin himself had Jewish ancestry.

Moreover, if you continue to contest this interpretation, I would recommend consulting the essay “Stalin’s Jews” by Sever Plocker, a Jewish journalist affiliated with the Brookings Institution. His analysis provides additional evidence regarding the prominence of Jewish figures in the Soviet apparatus during the early decades of the regime.https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3342999,00.html.

GG: I do wonder, my friend: what would have been your diversionary tactic had I not mentioned Solzhenitsyn? It seems this one mention was enough for you to wholly disregard the content of the first message, and get you off on something else you are prepared to deal with. But I will play your game nonetheless.

You have avoided providing any cited evidence for the claim that the Russian Revolution was largely Jewish. I quoted you Solzhenitsyn emphatically denying this; you have not addressed this. You do actually need primary data, my friend; without it the claim is unverifiable (Churchill saying so, which he does without evidence, is not primary data). Instead, you continue to request that I read books about the participation of Jews in the Revolution, a fact of which I, and all scholars of the Revolution, are aware. But come now: let us discuss some of these scholars, not with suspicions that the other has not read them (I think we each have our suspicions, and it is no good to continue to make such imputations of ignorance), but on the basis of what they actually say.

Muller says that the Jews were “highly visible” in the Hungarian socialist parties. Does it follow that the Russian Revolution was largely Jewish? No one doubts that Jews were highly visible in socialist movements across the continent. Jews were (and are) highly educated relative to the people they live among; thus they are disproportionately prominent in virtually every political and intellectual movement in Western history. The question at the heart of the matter is whether the Russian Revolution was “largely Jewish”; or merely had Jewish participants. You have not cited evidence from these books to support the claim that the Revolution was largely Jewish. Slezkine’s wonderful book, too, discusses in great detail the reception of the Russian Revolution among Jews, but denies that the Revolution was largely Jewish.

I have already read these books, my friend. It is your place now to cite these books, if they do in fact claim that the Revolution was largely Jewish. I have read them, and they do not. You need explicit, primary evidence supporting the claim that the Revolution was largely Jewish. You are stuck here because you will not find scholarly support for what is widely considered to be a claim of “Jewish Bolshevism”; a discredited belief known to most as an antisemitic canard and a conspiracy theory. This is a canard that you propagate, without recourse to primary data.

Here is the primary data I am familiar with, my friend. These figures are widely available, and cited in much of the literature you ignore. In 1922, the Bolshevik party took a census of its own ethnic composition. At this time, Jewish participation in Soviet affairs was at its highest; this was years before the Soviets turned anti-Jewish and Stalin got rid of most remaining Soviet Jews in the Great Purge. The census found 19,564 Jewish Bolsheviks; 5.21% of the total. It also found that of the 417 members of the highest Soviet political bodies (the Party’s Central Committee, the Presidium of the Executive, and the People’s Commissars), 6% were Jews. The total proportion of Jews in Russia at that time was approximately 2.5 million, out of a total population of around 145 million (so 1.7%). So, my friend, disproportionately represented and prominent? Of course. But largely Jewish? No. Now it is your turn. You need primary data supporting the view that the Revolution was “largely Jewish”. You have a right to your own opinion; you do not have a right to your own facts.

Let us proceed to the matter of the connection between Jewishness and Jewish participation in the Revolution. Paul Johnson is largely correct on the matter of them being “non-Jewish Jews”. Jewish Bolsheviks were not Jewish by faith, were largely atheistic, and held views in diametric opposition to those of most Jews in the Empire. Unless you can delineate a relationship between their Jewishness and the fact that they were also Bolsheviks, the point is moot. Why is it important, for example, that Lenin had some Jewish ethnic background? How is that relevant; any more relevant than the fact that Stalin was of Georgian ethnic background? If they are mass murderers, it doesn’t matter what their ethnic background is. They’re just mass murderers. The ynet article you cite makes the same point, my friend. You go on to misread my argument about Solzhenitsyn. Here, once again, is what I originally wrote:

“Much of Russian foreign policy towards Israel is a reversal of Soviet policy, which was, as is documented everywhere from the mainstream to Solzhenitsyn’s Two Hundred Years Together, vociferously anti-Zionist.”

Yes, as Solzhenitsyn documented, Soviet policy for most of the century was anti-Zionist and pro-Arab. I had originally asked you what you make of this fact, given your belief that Bolshevism was a largely Jewish creation. You have not answered, just as you have not answered anything else I originally asked. Current Russian policy is largely a reversal of Soviet policy; it is generally supportive of Israel, and Israel has a strong alliance with Putin’s Russia; some disagreements about Syria notwithstanding. Solzhenitsyn was not an anti-Zionist, but he made statements in Two Hundred Years Together which were irresponsible and latently antisemitic. I cited as an example his claim of the first Soviet government being 85% Jewish; a claim which, as everyone now knows, he made up, with no reference to primary data.

When you allege a terrible group of people to be 85% Jewish with no evidence, it reeks of prejudice. Just imagine if someone in academe purported the lie that 85% of mass shooters are black. Some mass shooters have been black. Just as much as with Jewishness, the point is irrelevant. But if someone said so, they would very rightly be suspected of prejudice against blacks. So things like this are not just “historians’ mistakes”. They are egregious, prejudicial errors, which have resulted very directly in the negative reception that Solzhenitsyn’s work has been accorded in academia.

So I do happen to agree with Pipes on that matter. As for “why [I] didn’t mention the long discussion that Solzhenitsyn had on the conflict between Jews and Russians in [my] first response”, the answer is exceedingly simple. Solzhenitsyn does not describe a “conflict” between Russians and Jews. Russian Jews were Russians as much as Stalin was. This misconstrues Two Hundred Years Together, for all its shortcomings. Solzhenitsyn describes the participation of Russian Jews in the Revolution, and suggests that they be held accountable alongside with the much more numerous non-Jewish Russians who participated in it. This is a very reasonable demand. But he categorically denies that the Revolution was a Jewish creation, and he does so in the passage I cited, and you blithely ignored. To his credit, Solzhenitsyn describes your view as a “superstitious belief” and a “conspiracy”. And that, my friend, it most certainly is. And until you can cite primary data which says that the Revolution was “largely Jewish”, that it will stubbornly remain.

JEA: I must say that your characterization of my initial message — specifically the claim about Putin — is ridiculous. I was explicit in addressing the Bolshevik Revolution, not contemporary Russian politics. Moreover, I did provide cited evidence: I referred to Slezkine’s The Jewish Century and quoted I. M. Berkerman’s observation that “not all Jews are Bolsheviks and not all Bolsheviks are Jews, but what is equally obvious is the disproportionate and immeasurably fervent Jewish participation in the torment of half-dead Russia by the Bolsheviks.” I also invoked Winston Churchill’s contemporaneous assessment.

To dismiss these citations as unverifiable or to label them a “conspiracy theory” misrepresents both the evidence I have supplied and the nature of the scholarly literature. If by “largely Jewish” you mean a precise percentage, I accept that figures differ; if you mean to indicate a disproportionately prominent Jewish presence among revolutionary leaders, then that formulation more accurately reflects the sources I have cited.

I find it difficult to believe that you have consulted the sources I have cited; if you have, then your refusal to acknowledge their central arguments raises serious questions about your intellectual integrity. Slezkine, for example, explicitly notes that Jews “were particularly well represented at the top, among theoreticians, journalists, and leaders.” Albert S. Lindemann of the University of California makes comparable observations in Esau’s Tears: Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Slezkine also quotes historian Mikhail Beizer, who remarked that “Jewish names were constantly popping up in newspapers. Jews spoke relatively more often than others at rallies, conferences, and meetings of all kinds.” It is also crucial to remember that the Jewish population of the Russian Empire never exceeded roughly 4 percent, which makes their prominent representation within revolutionary leadership circles all the more historically significant.

Since you continue to invoke Solzhenitsyn, it is worth recalling what The Guardian wrote in 2003:

“In his latest book Solzhenitsyn, 84, deals with one of the last taboos of the communist revolution: that Jews were as much perpetrators of the repression as its victims. Two Hundred Years Together – a reference to the 1772 partial annexation of Poland and Russia which greatly increased the Russian Jewish population – contains three chapters discussing the Jewish role in the revolutionary genocide and secret police purges of Soviet Russia. But Jewish leaders and some historians have reacted furiously to the book, and questioned Solzhenitsyn’s motives in writing it, accusing him of factual inaccuracies and of fanning the flames of anti-Semitism in Russia. Solzhenitsyn argues that some Jewish satire of the revolutionary period ‘consciously or unconsciously descends on the Russians’ as being behind the genocide. But he states that all the nation’s ethnic groups must share the blame, and that people shy away from speaking the truth about the Jewish experience.In one remark which infuriated Russian Jews, he wrote: ‘If I would care to generalise, and to say that the life of the Jews in the camps was especially hard, I could, and would not face reproach for an unjust national generalisation. But in the camps where I was kept, it was different. The Jews whose experience I saw – their life was softer than that of others… The Jewish subject for a long time was considered prohibited. Zhabotinsky [a Jewish writer] once said that the best service our Russian friends give to us is never to speak aloud about us.’”

Do you believe that this aligns with the position you have been advancing? If it does not, then why selectively highlight certain aspects of Solzhenitsyn’s work while omitting others? This selective engagement does not reflect the standards of serious scholarly inquiry. When Solzhenitsyn makes observations that appear favorable to Israel, you cite him approvingly; yet when he addresses more contentious aspects of the Jewish participation in the Russian Revolution, he is suddenly dismissed as prejudiced. It is difficult to see how these two positions can be maintained simultaneously while still claiming to participate in a rigorous historical discussion.

My final point is this: since you have presented yourself as a scholar, perhaps you could provide some information about your own published work. I would be willing to examine your publications. You already know who I am, but it is difficult to sustain a serious exchange with someone who remains effectively anonymous. If you are willing to identify yourself, we can continue the conversation on a more transparent and substantive basis.

GG: You will have made yourself clear when you respond to the questions I originally asked you. You have invited interested readers to e-mail you with their questions, and I am an interested reader. I’m afraid it’s rather disingenuous to do so while refusing to answer the questions that were originally asked of you. I e-mailed you with regards to Putin; not with regards to Jewish participation in the Russian Revolution.

I take “the Revolution was largely Jewish” to mean that a majority (or even plurality, if you prefer a liberal definition) of the revolutionaries were Jewish. I cited primary data (i.e. Soviet statistics!) showing that this is not the case. You have not provided evidence to the contrary. You cite Churchill’s well-known statement to that effect, but not the primary data which led him to this conclusion (as it happens, there was none; it just so happens that Churchill, a deeply contradictory figure, happened to have certain prejudices; against Jews as much as Indians, the Irish, and others).

You cite Berkerman and Slezkine’s work about disproportionate Jewish participation in the Russian Revolution, and this disproportionate participation is something neither I nor most scholars have denied. But this does not make the Revolution largely Jewish. If you have a definition of “largely” which differs from the common one, I would encourage you to make your private definition clear, my friend.

Slezkine’s Jewish Century seems to be a particular favourite of yours. It is indeed a wonderful book; and I find his thesis about the Jewish role in European history and on modern history to be an Apollonian influence (Slezkine’s terminology) to be particularly compelling. But read carefully the very quotes you have aped. They say that Jews “were particularly well represented at the top” and spoke “relatively [emphasis added] more often than others at rallies, conferences, and meetings of all kinds”. What does this mean, friend?

It means they were disproportionately represented. I have already granted this point. But this does not make the Revolution “largely Jewish”. Jews participate disproportionately in all intellectual and political movements to which they are allowed to participate; not because of any religious perspective (indeed, participants are almost always secular), but because they are well-educated relative to the general population. This has been the case in the West since the Church’s prohibition of Jewish land ownership relegated them to what Slezkine calls “Apollonian” labour. If you actually read Slezkine’s work instead of exploiting it to bolster your conspiracies, you will find that their disproportionate participation in the Revolution is well-explained in light of this thesis. But this does not make the Revolution “largely Jewish.”

I pointed out evidence showing that the representation of Jews in the Bolshevik Party and leadership was disproprtionate relative to their small population, but never even close to a majority or plurality. I have also pointed out to you how even those scholars (i.e. Solzhenitsyn) charged with antisemitism deny that the Revolution was a Jewish creation, and referred to that view as a “conspiracy”. This is the second consecutive e-mail in which you have blithely ignored this point, my friend.

You go on to cite the Guardian on Solzhenitsyn, which summarizes cogently the basis for charges of antisemitism in Solzhenitsyn’s work. I take them to be valid, my respect for Solzhenitsyn notwithstanding. Solzhenitsyn was not an anti-Zionist, however, and much of Two Hundred Years Together condemns Soviet anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism. There is nothing “unscholarly” about noting a divergence of opinion in someone’s work. Solzhenitsyn’s work has very mixed merit, with his literary works being outstanding and celebrated, while his histories are generally not taken seriously (no academic press has published them in English precisely because they are sloppy with the primary data).

Agreeing with aspects of a scholar’s work while disagreeing with others is not “unscholarly”; it is the launching point for all scholarly discussion. I invite you to participate in it. I have not professed to be a scholar. Like many urban Russians, I have much more education than I need (haha), and I completed a doctorate in Ukraine on the relationship of Jewish members of the NKVD to the Bund, before entering medical school and becoming a doctor. I lived in Israel for a while before moving to the States, and I maintain a serious interest in Russian history and particularly in the history of Russian Jews. Is there anything else you’d like to know about me? The point is hardly relevant, though I’d be happy to answer. You are not a scholar.

You have never been published in an academic press, and unless your writing (characterized by weirdly placed faux-philosophical adverbs and adjectives) and general scholarship seriously improves, it’s unlikely you ever will be. So I’d say that makes me slightly more of a scholar than you are, my friend. But if you believe that there are scholars who agree with you on the Revolution being ‘largely Jewish’ (there aren’t really), then I would invite you to e-mail them. Here’s Slezkine’s e-mail: slezkine@berkeley.edu. Why don’t you ask him what he makes of your work?

I will repeat, for your convenience, some of the questions you have ignored. I don’t expect you to answer them, but just to see your record of dodged points:

1) What do you make of Putin’s close political relationship to Jewish oligarchs (and to the wealthiest man in Israel)?

2) What do you make of the strong and improving relationship between Israel and Putin’s Russia, and of Putin’s statements on Israel?

3) What do make of Putin’s memorialization of the Red Army and its victory against Nazism?

4) What is the relevance of Lenin’s Jewish ancestry? What is the relevance of the Jewish ancestry of other Jewish Bolsheviks? Why is Yagoda’s Jewish background any more relevant than Stalins’ Georgian background, for example? Mass murderers come in all colours and ethnicities.

5) What do you make of the primary statistical data I presented? Does it support your view of the Bolsheviks being largely Jewish?

6) What do you make of Solzhenitsyn’s condemnation of your statement as “superstititious” and as a conspiracy?

These are all the points you have refused to address. Arguing with you is a bit like trying to whack a groundhog. Every time I ask you a question, you pop up somewhere else. Time to come back up to the surface, my friend.

JEA: I believe we are simply going in circles at this point. Your insistence that you have cited “primary data (i.e., Soviet statistics!)” was frankly amusing. Did you provide the actual archival sources? Have these sources been independently verified? And if so, by whom? By you? By recognized specialists? These are basic scholarly standards, and your refusal to address them only reinforces my concerns.

Moreover, you did not engage carefully with what I wrote about Putin. I noted repeatedly that if we cannot even establish common ground regarding the Bolshevik Revolution, then a discussion about Putin becomes entirely unproductive. After all, you have already labeled me a “conspiracy theorist,” so one wonders why you would insist on hearing the views of someone you have already dismissed in that way.

Your approach to the “anti-Semitism” charge is similarly evasive. Slezkine states on the very first page of The Jewish Century that “The Modern Age is the Jewish Age, and the twentieth century, in particular, is the Jewish Century… Modernization is about everyone becoming Jewish.” You readily praise Slezkine for making such sweeping assertions. Indeed, you describe his work as “a wonderful book.”

But if someone takes Slezkine’s thesis and extends it to the context of the Bolshevik Revolution, that person is immediately branded an anti-Semite. In this regard, you might consider consulting Norman Finkelstein’s Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), which examines precisely how accusations of anti-Semitism are sometimes deployed to curtail legitimate historical inquiry.

Churchill was hardly the only observer to make such remarks concerning the revolutionary movement. Virtually every major statesman in Europe at the time expressed deep anxiety over its rapid expansion. Are we really to believe that Jewish activists “just happened” to be disproportionately represented in a series of radical political movements across Europe—and that this phenomenon had no underlying ideological or sociological dimension? Have you actually read Albert S. Lindemann’s Esau’s Tears: Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews? His analysis of the growing frustration among German intellectuals, particularly regarding historians such as Heinrich Graetz, is highly relevant to this discussion. Lindemann shows that their criticisms did not arise in a vacuum but were rooted in broader cultural, political, and ideological conflicts of the period.

I am not disregarding any of the points you have raised; rather, it appears that our exchange has become circular. Your position becomes internally inconsistent when you suggest, on the one hand, that Solzhenitsyn was an anti-Semite simply because he wrote things that you—or certain Jewish historians such as Richard Pipes—find objectionable, and then, on the other hand, invoke Solzhenitsyn in order to claim that I am advancing “conspiracy theories.” When The Guardian highlights aspects of Solzhenitsyn’s work that have become part of the standard scholarly discussion, you deflect by asserting that “there is nothing un-scholarly about noting a divergence of opinion in someone’s work.” Yet if someone else—for example, Jonas E. Alexis—attempts to draw similar distinctions or to highlight contradictions in a scholar’s claims, you condemn him for “blithely” ignoring your point. The inconsistency is striking.

“Agreeing with certain aspects of a scholar’s work while dissenting from others is not ‘unscholarly’; it is, in fact, the foundation of scholarly engagement. I invite you to participate in that process.”

Very well—let me adopt this premise for the sake of discussion. For the moment, I will grant your contention that Solzhenitsyn expressed favorable views concerning Israel. Even if that were the case, I would respectfully register my disagreement with him. My position aligns with a substantial body of historical scholarship demonstrating that the modern State of Israel emerged through processes of land dispossession, terrorism, and, in numerous documented cases, policies that meet the criteria of genocide in Palestine.

If you regard this as yet another “conspiracy” theory, I would encourage you to consult the extensive scholarly literature that examines these issues in rigorous historical detail. For example, see Ilan Pappé’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oxford: One World, 2006); The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013); and The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories (Oxford: One World, 2019). Additionally, Ami Pedahzur and Arie Perliger’s Jewish Terrorism in Israel (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011) offers a systematic analysis of extremist movements. Norman Finkelstein’s Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom (Oakland: University of California Press, 2018), The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (New York: Verso, 2000), and Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict (New York: Verso, 2003) further provide meticulously documented examinations of the historical and political dynamics at stake.

GG: We are going in circles because you are refusing to deal with the points that have been raised. I have added to the running tally below the points which you have still refused to answer.

You begin by stating that statistics make you laugh. Again, if something is “[insert nonsensical adverb here] risible”, you do need to say why you find the primary data risible or otherwise unreliable, my friend. I am not sure what sort of criteria you require to ascertain that primary data are reliable (it seems that primary data you like you will accept, and primary data you do not like you will not accept), but the 1922 Soviet census is government statistics from the archives of the very bodies you are so interested in. It is extensively cited in the academic literature, and a simple search on JSTOR will lead to over one thousand journal articles and books which have made use of these extensive Soviet archives made available. If you have better primary data, I have asked you to present it.

You have not presented any primary data to support your claim that the Revolution was ‘largely Jewish’ nor have you shared your private definition of ‘largely’. Until that happens, I’m afraid there is little point in arguing about the reliability of Russian sources with a man who doesn’t speak Russian. You proceed by itacilizing your third consecutive diversion of the initial questions raised.

Once again, the gist of your argument is that ‘we disagree on this, so we’ll probably disagree on that too, and I don’t think I have to say anything about it before we finish talking about the thing I wanted to talk about’. There is nothing I need to respond to this childishness apart from my continued documentation of the points you have ignored.

You go on to talk about an “anti-Semitic game”, and argue that if Slezkine’s thesis was extended to the Bolshevik Revolution, this would be called anti-Semitic. I invite you to actually read the book, and consider what Slezkine’s thesis is. Slezkine’s thesis is that the Jews are a largely “Mercurian people”; a people whose primary economic and social activity consists of the provision of intellectual, economic, and diplomatic services to the food-producing, “Apollonian” societies around them, and that the modern century is a “Jewish one” in the sense that the dominant source of human capital of all kinds in modern times are the Mercurian activities that used to be restricted to particular groups (like Jews), but are now universal.

It is a brilliant and unique thesis, and is extended to the Bolshevik Revolution as a means of explaining the disproportionate representation of Jews in that Revolution and in other political and intellectual movements. There is nothing antisemitic about this. Making up facts that demonize Jews (like the “fact” that the Bolshevik movement was a Jewish one, or that the Revolution was ‘largely Jewish’; for which you have still not provided any primary data; of whatever reliability!) is antisemitic, and would be recognized as antisemitism by Norman Finkelstein just the same. If you think that Finkelstein’s work on antisemitism is a vindication of people like you, I would advise you to read him more closely, my friend. Finkelstein is well-aware of real antisemitism when it exists.

You proceed to talk about Churchill’s non-uniqueness in this regard and ask if there was an ideological motive for the Jews’ disproportionate representation in revolutions and movements. Let us begin with Churchill. Of course, he was not unique. Many other people said the same thing. In each case, unless they present evidence, there is no reason to take their beliefs on faith.

Political leaders have prejudices, and their statements are reflections of those prejudices. As for ideological motives, of course any individual who participates in a revolution/intellectual movement has a motive for doing so. But these motives are individual. They are not Jewish. If you believe they are Jewish, point out those places in which they use their Judaism as a motivation for participation in Bolshevism. In the vast majority of cases, ethnically Jewish Bolsheviks had little connection to Judaism. Their motivations were their own, and as unique to themselves as the motivations of individual Georgians, Tatars, Russians, etc. who participated in the Revolution.

A Jew who participates in the Revolution does not have a Jewish motivation for doing so any more than a Georgian who participates in the Revolution has a Georgian motivation for doing so, unless of course they tell you they do, my friend. This is essentialist racism which needs no answer.

Lindemann’s Esau’s Tears: Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews, in the matter of opposition to Heinrich Graetz, talks about the intellectual conflict between German idealism and philosophy preferred by Jewish writers. I am not sure what the relevance is, but if you have a point, please make it.

I have told you why I believe Solzhenitsyn’s work is tainted by antisemitism. I have not appealed to the authority of Richard Pipes; though I said I agreed with him on the matter. I made the case for why inventing demonising figures about a particular group’s participation in a crime is prejudicial, and you have not responded to it. If someone told you that 85% of mass shooters are black, it would be a deeply prejudicial statement about blacks. If you disagree, tell me why. You move on with this comment: “If a person—say, Jonas E. Alexis—attempts to [note the divergence of opinion in a scholar’s work], then you would condemn him for “blithely” ignoring your comment. Brilliant!”

If you would like to note a divergence of opinion in a scholar’s work, then please do so. This has nothing to do with you ignoring the comments. You do that anyway. A running list of ignored points is included below. You go on to dodge the argument by introducing a new one; this time about Israel. If you disagree with Solzhenitsyn, that is perfectly in order. Tell me why you do, my friend. None of these books says anything about genocide; some make the argument for ethnic cleansing. You are welcome to do so too.

Perhaps it was a waste of time speaking with a conspiracy theorist. Some conspiracy theorists are more capable than others, and it’s becoming clear to me which camp you fall into. But it’s not my label, my friend. There are few people in the academic world who would not describe you as a conspiracy theorist.

I can only imagine what comfort it must be for you—if I had to guess, a creepy, unmarried middle-aged man, living out in Korea somewhere with no family, having been rejected by the establishment all his life; no published papers—to believe that everyone else is wrong about you, and that someday you will be vindicated when the establishment fades and Christ comes down to take you off the cross, but spare me your dreams, my friend. Just e-mail Slezkine, or Finkelstein, or any of the other people whose work you exploit and misconstrue, and ask them for their opinions of your piece.

You are an unsalaried, unproductive tenth-rate writer for a site whose own editor has openly admitted to making up false headlines. Why would you believe that you are anything else, my friend?

Here is an updated list of all the points you have ignored:

1) What do you make of Putin’s close political relationship to Jewish oligarchs (and to the wealthiest man in Israel)?

2) What do you make of the strong and improving relationship between Israel and Putin’s Russia, and of Putin’s statements on Israel?

3) What do make of Putin’s memorialization of the Red Army and its victory against Nazism?

4) What is the relevance of Lenin’s Jewish ancestry? What is the relevance of the Jewish ancestry of other Jewish Bolsheviks? Why is Yagoda’s Jewish background any more relevant than Stalins’ Georgian background, for example? Mass murderers come in all colours and ethnicities.

5) Do you have any primary data to suggest that the Bolsheviks were largely Jewish? What is your private definition of ‘largely Jewish’?

6) What do you make of Solzhenitsyn’s condemnation of your statement as “superstititious” and as a conspiracy?

7) Why was the Soviet government anti-Zionist if it was the result of a Jewish movement?

JEA: You are becoming increasingly unreasonable, and it appears that you are not reading my statements with any degree of care. I stated quite plainly that I am not interested in entering an endless debate about Putin when we cannot even reach basic agreement on the historical fact that the Bolshevik Revolution involved a disproportionately Jewish leadership. If this simple point continues to elude you—and if you insist on diverting the discussion back to Putin—then there is little more I can do.

You also attribute to me the claim that “statistics make me laugh,” which is a statement I never made. Why construct such an obvious straw man? Was that necessary? What I actually wrote is unambiguous: “Your insistence that you cited ‘primary data (i.e. Soviet statistics!)’ made me laugh a bit.” To claim that this is equivalent to “statistics make me laugh” is simply absurd.

Your remarks about academic sourcing are equally ridiculous. You write: “Soviet census is government statistics from the archives of the very bodies you are so interested in. It is extensively cited in the academic literature, and a simple search on JSTOR will lead to over one thousand journal articles and books which have made use of these extensive Soviet archives.” Is this what you would consider proper scholarly citation? JSTOR is a database, not a “primary source.” This is not a criticism of JSTOR, but your formulation is just silly.

What is most striking is that you proceed to offer one ad hominem attack after another, such as: “I can only imagine what comfort it must be for you—if I had to guess, a creepy, unmarried middle-aged man, living out in Korea somewhere with no family, having been rejected by the establishment all his life.” That is not insulting, unhinged, or conspiratorial, yet you profess outrage when someone observes that Jewish participation in the Russian Revolution was disproportionate? Is that really your standard?

Your fixation with Putin now makes sense. At this point, it seems clear that further discussion is pointless. Our conversation is over.

GG: I wrote to you about Putin; you have not addressed the issues that were raised to you. This is obvious diversion. Nobody is going to “get around” the issue that the Bolshevik Revolution was ‘largely Jewish’ if you don’t tell them why it was. I have repeatedly asked you for primary data suggesting that it was. You have obstinately refused. You wrote to me that the primary source I provided was “risible”, without providing any primary sources of your own. JSTOR is not a primary source, but it gives over one thousand examples of where the 1922 Bolshevik census has been cited as a primary source.

The 1922 Bolshevik census is primary data; Soviet government archives which have been extensively cited in the academic literature. JSTOR is a directory of that literature. What do you find risible or unreliable about it, my friend? You haven’t told me. Analyze the data critically, and express your suspicions. You do not seem to be getting the point that telling someone that something is “[insert nonsensical adverb here] risible” is not an argument in itself; you do need to explain why it is that it makes you laugh. You also need to cite sources that don’t make you laugh. You have not yet done either.

I don’t feel insulted by claims that the Russian Revolution was ‘largely Jewish’. Much greater men than you have said it, so it isn’t something I haven’t heard before. But I asked you for evidence that it was. If you believe that the majority of revolutionaries were Jewish, tell me why it is that you believe that. You have not even attempted to do so. You, on the other hand, are evidently insulted.

Appendix:

As the old saying goes, there are none so blind as those who refuse to see. Even The Jerusalem Post did not hesitate to report in 2017:

“The role of Jews in the Russian Revolution, and by extension Communism writ large, has always been a sensitive subject because antisemitic voices often painted Soviet Communism as a Jewish plot, or ‘Jewish Bolshevism.’ When Alexander Solzhenitsyn began work on a book called 200 Years Together, he was criticized for what touching this taboo issue. His own comments to the press didn’t help the matter, claiming two-thirds of the Cheka (secret police) in Ukraine were Jewish.

“The large number of Jews in leading parts of the party was not lost on those non-Jews around them. V.M. Molotov, the powerful foreign minister of the Soviet Union under Stalin, made many remarks about Jews to Felix Chuev in a series of conversations between 1969 to 1986 that became the basis for the 1991 book Molotov Remembers. He recalled that as Lenin lay dying ‘at the time Jews occupied many leading positions, though they made up only a small percentage of the country’s population.’ Of Zinoviev, he recalled, “He didn’t even look like a Jew.

“‘Almost all the Mensheviks were Jews. Even among the Bolsheviks, among the leaders there were many Jews. Generally, Jews are the most oppositional nation. But they were inclined to support the Mensheviks.’ Molotov also claimed that many of the men around Stalin had Jewish wives. ‘There is an explanation. Oppositionist and revolutionary elements formed a higher percentage among Jews than among Russians. Insulted, injured and oppressed, they were more versatile. They penetrated everywhere, so to speak.’ He claimed that Jews were more ‘active’ than average Russians. ‘Biding their time, they sniff around, stir things up, but are always prepared…’ According to Leonard Schapiro, who authored The Role of the Jews in the Russian Revolutionary Movement in 1961, [Theodore] Herzl found that ‘50% of the membership of the revolutionary parties was Jewish.’ Herzl asked Witte why.”¹

1^ Seth J. Frantzman, “Was the Russian Revolution Jewish?,” Jerusalem Post, November 15, 2017.

https://www.unz.com/article/debating-jewish-involvement-in-the-bolshevik-revolution