Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

The Russian Jew Under Tsars And Soviets, by Salo Wittmayer Baron. 1964

Boycotts: Jews Started Them in Poland Long Before Dmowski, But Nowadays Only Endeks Get Blamed For Them

In contrast with some of his other books, Baron takes a rather lachrymose-history viewpoint in this one. (If accurate, it adds to the refutation of the argument that the pro-Russian, and later pro-Communist, orientation of Polish Jews owed to a pro-Jewish Russian mindset.) Owing to its breadth, I can only touch on a few topics.

DMOWSKI WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE LITVAKS

Baron indirectly confirms Dmowski on the “so-called Litvaks (Litwaks)”. In 1816-1913, the high Jewish birthrate combined with migration from the northwest led to the Jewish population of Congress Poland rising from 7.8 to 14.97%–thus increasing 822% against the Poles’ 381%. (p. 64).

RUSSIAN-STAGED “POLISH” POGROMS

Interestingly, Baron cites indirect evidence for Russian planning and staging of the Christmas Day, 1881, Warsaw pogrom: “Here, too, some Russians were the chief instigators; one of the arrested, a former Russian colonel, was found in possession of a detailed list of Jewish shops singled out for pillage.” (pp. 44-45).

DMOWSKI WAS RIGHT ABOUT AGGRESSIVE JEWISH SEPARATISM

In 1897, 97% of Russia’s Jews spoke Yiddish. (p. 226). Jewish separatism and particularism was demanded, for instance, by the Bund, which was anti-clerical (p. 150). It called for Jews to be granted national-cultural autonomy (p. 144), and to be recognized as a full-fledged nationality, on par with, for instance, the Poles. (p. 143).

FLEXIBLE, OPPORTUNISTIC, AND SEEMINGLY-CONTRADICTORY POSITIONS TAKEN BY JEWS

Baron mentions the “contradictions” of anti-Semites, who variously attack the Jews for being nationalists (Zionists) as well as for being internationalists (Marxists), and variously as freethinkers as well as “too religious”. (p. 145). Ironically, these “contradictions” also played out within the Jewish community. For instance, the Bund first promoted Marxian internationalism before emphasizing Jewish national autonomy. (p. 142). The Poale Zion advocated that Jewish workers ally themselves with both the Zionist World Organization AND the Socialist International. (p. 149). Both socialists and Zionists promoted secularism. (p. 150). Religious Jews, tending to be apolitical (if not anti-political) and anti-Zionist, nevertheless formed a pro-Zionist movement among themselves. (p. 151).

TIT FOR TAT. IN HIS MUCH-MALIGNED 1912 BOYCOTT OF JEWS, ROMAN DMOWSKI WAS MERELY COPYING A PAGE OUT OF THE JEWISH PLAYBOOK

Long before Poles started boycotting Jews, the reverse had been taking place. Baron notes: “In 1810 the Jewish tailors of Lodz successfully fought off the incursion of non-Jewish competitors. Fifteen years later we find the first 2 Christian tailors in the city.” (p. 82). The self-perpetuation of Jewish monopolies also occurred passively: Jewish communities embraced Jewish tailors for socioreligious reasons, and Jewish factories employed Jewish workers. (p. 88).

Ironic to the much-condemned Dmowski-led Endek boycotts of Jews in the wake of the 1912 Duma election, Jews themselves had conducted earlier boycotts–against their own. Baron comments: “Jews actively participated in the elections to the First Duma (Parliament), voting wherever advisable for Jewish candidates and elsewhere throwing the weight of their ballots on the side of liberals and moderate labor leaders. The Jewish socialists, however, boycotted the election…Despite the boycott the Jews succeeded in electing twelve of their own coreligionists to the Duma…” (p. 59).

[Evidently, to some, if Jews boycott Jews, it is a nonissue but if Poles boycott Jews, then it is a horrible anti-Semitic act.]

INFLUENTIAL JEWS HELPED PERPETRATE FOREIGN RULE OVER PARTITIONED POLAND, IF ONLY INDIRECTLY

Influential foreign Jews such as the banker Gerson Bleichroeder, Bismarck’s trusted advisor, philanthropist Baron de Hirsch (p. 50), and many entrepreneurial local Jews (pp. 88-on), had a major impact on tsarist Russia. [This also meant that Jews understandably increasingly acquired a stake in the perpetuation of the status quo, and, by implication, the non-resurrection of subjugated Poland.]

THE THREAT OF JUDEOPOLONIA WAS REAL, NOT ANTI-SEMITIC IMAGINATION

Although Baron does not mention this, Polish fears of a literal Judeopolonia had a rational basis. For instance, Israel Zangwill and some other Zionists suggested that Jews colonize ANY territory (not necessarily Palestine) in order to make it into a new Jewish homeland. (p. 150). [Since foreign-ruled Poland already had a large fraction of the world’s Jews, and had a huge Jewish infrastructure already in place, why then not convert Poland into a new Jewish state under the auspices of the ruling powers?]

MOLOTOV-RIBBENTROP PACT: THE COMMUNISTS BECOME BUDDIES OF THE FASCISTS THEY HAD CONDEMNED SO MUCH

Fast forward to WWII. Jewish and non-Jewish Communists tried creatively to explain away the unexpected Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939-1941: “Yet the Jewish officials active in the `information services’ of the Soviet Union, domestically and internationally, strained all their ingenuity to explain this new turn as but a part of Marxian dialectics which, though transcending the reasoning capacities of average men, was fully comprehended by the superior minds of the Soviet regime and the Third International.” (p. 249). The substantive (not merely tactical) nature of the Nazi-Communist alliance is illustrated by the fact that the USSR sent to Nazi Germany no less than 500,000 tons of phosphates, 900,000 tons of oil products, 1,500,000 tons of grain, and even rubber and zinc purchased from German-enemy England. (p. 249).

Obviously, the Nazi-Soviet alliance was real. It was not some kind of temporary armistice or time-stalling trick of either side.