Yevsektsiya: Encyclopedia - Yevsektsiya

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 Диманштейн).

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."

Yevsektsiya - Languages and culture

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".

Yevsektsiya - 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 Lagerlof, Thomas Mann, Franz Werfel, Stefan Zweig, Arnold Zweig, Arthur Schnable, 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." ^[1]

Yevsektsiya - 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.

Yevsektsiya - Dismantlement of Yevsektsiya

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.

Yevsektsiya - Footnotes

1. ^  Protest against the suppression of Hebrew in the Soviet Union 1930-1931 at zionistarchives.org.il

See also

• History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union
• Communist Party of the Soviet Union
• Bolshevik
• History of anti-Semitism
• Birobidzhan
• Komzet

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Yevsektsiya", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki